Has anyone used AD&D to run Harn?

If so, how did you incorporate Harn's religious and magic into the rules?

Thank you

When I played AD&D using HârnWorld I (regarding Religion) selected an Alignment that was appropriate with each church (not that hard). Then I simply selected (I think up to 8 or so) spells for each spell level that was appropriate with the alignment (according to me) and the church). Some churches didn't got more on some spell levels and some more on other. There where some clerical spells that I simply discarded (not in line with HârnWorld). Religion is the easy part.

The arcane part is trickier. I discarded the HârnWorld convocations and instead introduced the schools instead (Alteration, Illusion, etc.). So a chantry mainly teaches one type of magic instead. At least half of a magic-users starting spells must be of his own kind, but once in play he can learn any spell through scrolls. I can become member of the other chantries the same way as you do in Hârn and so can research and learn (though the masters and chantry) any spell.

If you recognize these ideas, then yeah. I am not the only one that have used this or some similar way of doing this and yes I do said 'oh $#@!' when I bought DnD3.5 and recognize some of the magic-user ideas in that.

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"Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur" - Tacitus
Fenhorn's Hârnpage

Interesting Fenhorn, and thanks for sharing

Why did you get rid of the convocations?

Magic is easy. P'varism is *not* the exclusive form of magic on Harn. It is simply the primary school. There may be uncountably many other magical traditions, but they simply aren't as popular.

NPCs will have whatever magical abilities appropriate to their background and necessary for your plots. A handful will have also studied this odd sort of magic (let's call it "Vancian"), just like the PCs. The PCs simply happen to have chosen to study this out-of-favor school.

Why isn't Vancian magic studied more? Mostly, it's useless. If you study for years you can make an enormous ball of fire explode roughly where you want it. The only use for that is doing property damage - so obviously the spell was devised by a social reprobate. It certainly doesn't get the practitioner any closer to understanding the fundamental truths of the universe. The Vancian mage is like that guy that hangs out around the chemistry lab so he can snarf some sodium to throw in the pond. Figure that the PC mages won't be invited to a lot of Guild picnics.

I apply the same thinking to *all* magic. NPCs generally just don't have any. PC clerics and druids are specially endowed by their deity with spells. They are granted these abilities so they can serve their deity in a special way - i.e. adventuring. NPC clerics are endowed by their deity with more mundane gifts.

This solves the obvious dilemma, "If clerics can cast 'Cure Disease', 'Cure Wounds', and such, why does anyone die before age 100?". The truth is, only a tiny handful can cast these spells, and they weren't granted them just so they could sit by the king and keep his gout in control.

So the PCs are explicitly special. So you don't have to worry about the social consequences of mages that can cast fireball during naval battles, or speak with dead when reading a will, or raise dead when the king gets assassinated.

I suspect most people here have played Harn with AD&D. Not sure how many will admit it though. I certainly did. And yup I did the same "trick" as Fenhorn on one campaign. On another I just ruled that all magic wasn't real... so you could be a cleric or a shek-pvar but you had no more magic ability than the next peasant, it was all down to skills, trickery and/or belief, and social status.

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··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

I ran AD&D with Harn a long time ago and it worked fine, but it was AD&D with a Harn backdrop.

This was the original AD&D, not "AD&D 2E" or "D&D 3E" or something else. Classic oldschool AD&D. Cleric is a Cleric, except that an Evil Cleric sometimes cast "reverse" spells (Cause Wounds, Cause Disease, etc). Mage was a Mage. The Guild of Arcane Lore was basically "the Mages Guild". Religion is a snap simple, just assign each of the major dieties to one of the 9 classic D&D alignments. Every alignment gets one, and the spare goes to Neutral.

Most of the adventure was in the Hefiosa and Rayeshas. We were young. We had fun. We rarely turned to anything other than the basic Harn regional module.

I experimented with HM1 rules, but never could get any traction with the players. We converted the main PCs to HM1 rules and it just wasn't as fun. The Fighter was loaded up like the Michelin Man. We had him fight his twin, and they fatigued themselves to a standstill while basically doing nothing. The magic player didn't want a system that allowed him all the flexibility of HM1's initial DIY magic system, he wanted a quick lookup of a short list of spells to cast so he could get on with the game. I still have 2 copies, one in VG condition with all the pieces intact, of the original HM1 rules in my garage.

These days we use Rolemaster (4ed), and I'm going to convert one of my campaigns to using HARP. I initially started that campaign with HARP, but struggled with the conversion of Harp->Harn. Using RM for Harn was, by comparison, simplistic (more complicated/detailed "big brother" system happens to be more flexible).

The bit about "the PCs are special" is an important point. I make a point with my games that the vast majority of the NPCs are "laymen" (its an actual character class in RM). You might visit a Peoni shrine, and find a Peoni priest, but the priest's "class" is almost certainly going to be "layman". He might be a very experienced 10th level Layman, and if you're really lucky he might actually be able to cast a piddly minor spell but don't count on it. If you ask his "blessing", you get exactly that. If you ask him to "cast a spell" or "perform a miracle", you'll get a lecture instead. I have the priests advance in status (circle) on the basis of their Religion and Magic Ritual skills, which are used for me much in the same way as Ritual skill in HM (split in two, Religion covers the church/doctrine/lore and Ritual covers the performance of outward ordinances/catechisms).

Magic is uncommon, perhaps even rare. Spellcasting priests are oddities on the road to canonization, not your average encounters. A Shek-P'var, asked by a non-Pvarist to cast a spell, will probably quip about "tricks".

PCs are special.

The reason for this was that I still wanted to have six groups of magic (six chantries) and if I would have sorted out the existing spells into the Hârnic convocations (Lyahvi, Peleahn, Jmorvi, Fyvria, Odivshe, and Savorya, plus Neutral of course), a lot of spells would have been accessed by Lyahvians (illusions...) and very little to Odivshe. Many, Many spells would have become Neutral.

I still wanted to have different chantries so instead of dividing the spells into elements (and get a very unbalanced spellsystem) I divided the spells into the types. The idea for this was just that one class (the illusionionist) already was specialist. I know that the spells available this way still wasn't totally balanced or even, but it was better.

If I would have done it according to convocations, then for example an Odivshe mage wouldn't really be an odivshe mage because he doesn't really can cast any Odivshe spells because there are not so many to learn. The flavour of being an Odivshe mage is lost. This even though I have all (or most) of the spellbooks that has been released (to the early version at least (v1 I think).

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"Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur" - Tacitus
Fenhorn's Hârnpage

Very interesting ideas here.

I was considering going through each convocation spell individually and just tweaking them to fit the system - which, may well be Runequest now. Regardless of which system I use though, that's what I am thinking of doing. Do you think this a good idea, tweak what's already in Harn Magic to fit the chosen system?

You could drop the elemental scheme and instead pick up with D&D mage specialites like from 2e? (3e?)

Illusionist
Evocationist
Conjuration
etc

That would fit the D&D magic scheme better while still providing multiple magic styles.

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Member of the CoE (Council of Elitists)

You could do, but I expect it is a lot of work. The Shek=P'var are really isolated in HarnWorld - by which I mean they rest of the environment dosn't depend on the mages being pvaric or even there at all. I personally would probably just ignore all references to the Pvaric magic system and use which ever one was used by the game system of my choice. I don't know how many people remember DragonQuest, but I loved its magic system and used it on Harn. In fact even when I first switched to HM I used HQ's magic system (suitably converted) in HM. I really think this is one area where you can mix and match.

BTW, I've used RuneQuest on Harn - but not for long. I like the system but didn't really think it matched the milieu. I ended up nicking bits I liked, like trolls and the idea of bronze weapons for some tribes, and transfered them to HM. RQs religion and magic are very fundamental to the game and the world (at least in the version I knew) and I think changing them would possibly impact on the rest of RQ in adverse ways.

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··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

I think you are right about using RQ2.

And I think ad&d's magic spells may be a bit too flashy for my Harn setting.

I guess I could go with GURPS but that involves spending more cash on the player's and gm's guides and possible one of the magic book supplements.

Back to the drawing board then, unless I go through every single ad&d spell and start picking and choosing.

EDIT: There's the other way, start small, as in Chronica Feudalis, and go with the minimal magic system that product has.

There are a lot of ways to make a soft start. If I were starting with a new game in HarnWorld for the first time, I would consider asking the PCs to not have any clerics/mages to start with - just concentrate on the (to me) core areas of skills and combat. NPCs can follow any system (or none) you fancy - powerful magic use if rare on Harn so PCs may not even encounter it. As experience of gaming on Harn grows, then you can work on converting a spell system in the background. So once you are ready for adding PC magic use, your system will be ready.

If you have the relevant HarnMaster books it is fairly easy to convert the spells straight out of them and use them as spells in the game system of choice. For example Caster's Skill Index can be read as Level; when rolling a d20 a roll of 20 could be a Critical Success and a roll of 1 a Critical Failure, or whatever.

If you wanted to go with AD&D you don't have to decide on / modify every spell in the manuals. For starter characters you only really need to do level 1 spells, and then you can concentrate on those spells that fit with the sort of magic use the PCs have (for example if you have no Druids then you don't need to look at those).

I've never used GURPS - but I know there are a lot of people on this forum who will tell you it is the perfect match for HarnWorld.

I am assuming there is a very good reasons why you are not looking at HarnMaster, but I will say the obvious anyway: HarnMaster's magic system fits really well with HarnWorld

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··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

The reason I'm not going with Harnmaster is because a lot of the stuff out for it, Barbarians, and Religion, have conflicting stats. Something about them not being updated.

Ironically the magic book is fine.

Personally I think it would take lass effort to correct the half dozen mistakes in HM, than it will be to convert a magic system between games. But it is your choice

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··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

You are right but I really would have no clue where to begin. At all. I'm very new to Harn, it really is a task beyond me.

If there's an unofficial errata listing that would be great.

There are errata sheets official and unofficial. But if you want my honest opinion you do not need them. You can play happily on Harn for years without needing the Barbarians module for example. The sorts of 'error' are extremely minor and don't impact play at all. In fact they are not so much errors as inconsistencies. I doubt you'll even find them in real terms. Yes, there are people here who have been playing 20-30 years, who read and compare one publication to another, actively looking for differences, and they find them. But I doubt any game has been brought to a stand still because of one of them. At most it just requires a on-the-spot decission ("We'll go with the skill level in Religeon"). I'd say, if you are concerned about making the most of Harn's religeons and the Shek-Pvar, give HM a try. At the last analysis, if (in the unlikely event) you do have a problem, there are plenty of people here who will help you resolve it.

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··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

What would possess anyone to use any other rules set once they use HM(in any of its incarnations) The magic and religious spell rules make awesome sense, its extremely difficult to min/max characters, and super easy to adapt the rules to ones specific campaign. End Rant.

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"Pride and defiant hate, spite and harsh oblivion. Let the great jeweled knot of the Cosmos unravel in the dust."-The Pentadict of Lorgar

Maybe I'll dig out my old Harn material then

Thank you for your advice

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Bloody Bohemian Earspoon Inn

Bah, I say, bah! While I love the world of Harn, I have never understood the love of the game rules. They work, they are consistent, and they are better than some other systems, but I would never use them as my first choice. If nothing else, they are tied too tightly to the world, and to one style of play. If you want a system where magic is non-existent or rare, combat is discouraged and very deadly, and gods might exist, but never make an effort to prove it, then HM is a good fit. Try to do anything else, and IMHO, it starts falling apart. I love Harn for the maps, and history, and detailed settlements. I love that canon and fanon can easily handle a campaign with no magic or heroes, and a campaign with heroic swordsmen and a mage or three. The world can handle a diversity of campaign types much easier than the rule set.

IMPH, magic exists, using it in public is socially, but not legally prohibited, and the gods have been known to manifest on occasion. These things are rare, and they don't happen as often as the general public (a cowardly, superstitious lot) thinks they do. Fighting gargun, barbarians, Orbaalese pirates, and the land-grabbing lord next door happens very regularly. Lots of people die, but a rare few become very good at it, and they don't break a sweat when confronted by a couple bandits on a trail. Harn can accept this type of play with no change to speak of. Harnmaster might handle the combat, but it doesn't handle it well. IMHO, Harnmaster just doesn't like heroic play, and makes it too hard to do.

All that said, I don't think I've done any fantasy gaming in the last 7 years, and no real roleplaying in 15+. At this point, I consider myself a storyteller / world builder, and most of that is done within my version of Harn. Unfortunately, I complete projects even slower than Columbia Games. Maybe someday I'll finish my corner of Melderyn and it's history, past and future.

...and why would anyone possibly want anything else?

Actually, I do believe you can play heroic RPG with HM, just don't start the PCs as per the character rules. Start them as veterans and give them advantages that 'by the book' don't get and you can have your Genin or Conan. There is also nothing in the rules to stop every second NPC from casting a spell, or from a priest perform Moses style feats. If you want 'high fantasy' magic then you might have to write the spell / ritual descriptions for yourself, but it can be done. Extensibility us built in to the basic system

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··<SableFox>··
AKA Jonathan M Davidson

Not only can Harn (the setting) handle this kind of play. I would argue that most of the early Harn products assume that this is the standard description of the island. Everything you've described is pure baseline Harn. It was only over the course of the 1990s that Harn began to drift towards a more explicitly "mundane" baseline norm.



Now it seems to me that that implies a rather more unusual game (how many times do you have to die to become very good at it?). I suspect it could be said of more players than characters...

Cheers,
De Coucy

I think HM can be heroic as well. I modify max ML for combat stats (I think a few others use this as well) to SBX5+50. So an SB of 18 is very rare.

I do however make all melee skills (ST+AG+DX)/3, and sunsigns only increase max ML (and starting ML) by 2x.

I'm also generous on starting attributes - 2D6+6, place them in whatever category you wish as you roll them.

But Combat type will often have a 15 or so average in ST, DX, END, AG, WP.

So an ML of 130 with a double specialization in the weapon (per HMG) is possible for most PC's, a few can get even higher, though getting within 10 of your max even is quite an accompishment.

But even with a 120 ML, you can be quite the "hero". I use Bill Gant's aiming and angry strikes mod - plus if your EML on offense or defense is over 100, you can subract your EML over 95 from your opponents roll.

Add this to a heavy wepaon with a point or two extra of E or P from the wepaoncrafting rules, and you have a pretty impressive hero!

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Depends what one means by Heroic...

Gory...One Sided...Flurries of samurai like activity..

All these HM can replicate.

Quickness?

Forget it. If anyone has armour on, the cottage roof will be thatched and the Thatcher joining the fight before foes are truly downed

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Well, in Rethem you have to have at least one Morgathian priest in the party. Adventuring guild rules, and all that... Stinking Bukrai....