Basic Role-Playing ( BRP ) is a role-playing game system which originated in the fantasy-oriented RuneQuest role-playing game rules.

Books with a quick and inexpensive printed format of tape binding and printed cardstock covers, the four monographs ( Players Book, Magic Book, Creatures Book, and Gamemaster Book ) were printed in order to assert Chaosium's copyrights in the run-up to the publishing and distribution of Deluxe Basic Roleplaying, a game system that is essentially RuneQuest 3rd Edition but with additions to allow play in other genres.

White Bear and Red Moon is notable for containing the first published material about Glorantha, later used as the primary setting for the role-playing games RuneQuest, Hero Wars and HeroQuest.

The game is similar to fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons, but draws more inspiration from games like RuneQuest.

Glorantha is the Fantasy world created by Greg Stafford and since used as the background for several role-playing games, including RuneQuest ( 1st ed.

Today, new official material is appearing for two game systems, the HeroQuest game system and RuneQuest II, originally produced by Mongoose Publishing but now available from The Design Mechanism.

The HeroQuest game system, written by Robin Laws in collaboration with Greg Stafford, is radically different from RuneQuest in that it emphasises narrativist aspects of role-playing ; in contrast, RuneQuest emphasised simulationist aspects.

A key element of RuneQuest flavor is a character's affiliation with a cult.

As interest in the game is driven to a large extent by a highly devoted, small number of enthusiasts, there have also been several non-commercially published rules as well as systems to adapt the Tékumel setting to other pre-existing, commercially available role playing rules including RuneQuest, GURPS and third edition Dungeons and Dragons.

Initially covering a wide variety of fantasy and science-fiction role-playing and board games, particularly the role playing games ( Advanced ) Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest and Traveller ( which were all published by other games companies ), the magazine underwent a major change in style and content in the late 1980s and is now dedicated exclusively to the miniature wargames produced by Games Workshop, mainly the core systems of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer 40, 000 and The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.

First edition was basically a translation of Steve Perrin's Basic Role-Playing ( which in turn is based on RuneQuest ) combined with the Magic World booklet.

Perrin is probably best known for creating the role-playing game RuneQuest for Chaosium.

Stafford is perhaps most famous as the creator of the fantasy world of Glorantha, but is also a prolific games designer-he was designer of Pendragon, he was co-designer of the RuneQuest, Ghostbusters, Prince Valiant and HeroQuest role-playing systems, founder of the role-playing game companies Chaosium and Issaries, designer of the White Bear and Red Moon, Nomad Gods, King Arthur ’ s Knights and Elric!

The fantasy game supplement Thieves World, based on the popular series of books by Robert Lynn Asprin, used both the system for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as well as the RuneQuest variation of the BRP for character statistics, representing the two most popular game systems of the time.

Sandy Petersen, now best known for his work on the Doom computer game, contacted them regarding writing a supplement for their popular fantasy game RuneQuest set in Lovecraft's Dreamlands.

RuneQuest was notable for its original gaming system ( designed around a percentile die and with an early implementation of skill rules ) and for its verisimilitude in adhering to an original fantasy world.

Written by Basic Role-Playing and RuneQuest author Steve Perrin, Superworld began as one third of the Worlds of Wonder product, which also included a generic fantasy setting, " Magic World ", and a generic science fiction setting, " Future World ", all using the same core Basic Role-Playing rules.

Early editions of the HeroQuest system were published by Issaries Inc., designed to be the RPG system of choice for Greg Stafford's fantasy world of Glorantha, effectively replacing the 1980s RuneQuest.

* Ducks, a fictional race of sentient creatures similar in appearance to actual ducks in the Glorantha setting for the fantasy role-playing games RuneQuest and Suikoden

The rules of RuneQuest, Chaosium's first role-playing game, were distilled down into a generic, genre-neutral format known as Basic Role-Playing ( BRP ).

Various later editions of RuneQuest, the narrative role-playing game HeroQuest ( the first edition of which was published as Hero Wars ), and the video game King of Dragon Pass were also set in Glorantha, as were several prominent fan efforts.

Glorantha has been, so far, the background for 2 board-games ( White Bear and Red Moon / Dragon Pass and Nomad Gods ), two role-playing games ( RuneQuest and HeroQuest ), one video game ( King of Dragon Pass ), one comic book series ( Path of the Damned ), five novels or collections of fiction ( King of Sartar by Greg Stafford, The Collected / Complete Griselda by Oliver Dickinson, Gloranthan Visions by various authors, The Widow's Tale and Eurhol's Vale & Other Tales by Penelope Love, and numerous pieces of myth and fiction created by the Glorantha community, featuring in magazines such as Tales of the Reaching Moon.

The first edition of the role-playing game RuneQuest was released in 1978.

In early 1984, on the occasion of the release of third edition RuneQuest, Avalon Hill included in all RuneQuest boxes a single advertising flyer ( see image, right ) announcing the launch of HEROES, its own role-playing magazine.

HEROES ran for ten issues from 1984 to 1986 and had the main purpose to promote all four of Avalon Hill's role-playing games: James Bond 007, Lords of Creation, Powers and Perils, and RuneQuest.

* Issaries, the fictional Lightbringer god of trade in the Glorantha setting of the role-playing game RuneQuest

BRP was a " cut-down " version of Chaosium's RuneQuest role-playing game ( RPG ) and formed the foundation for the Stormbringer RPG, and was also adopted for Call of Cthulhu, the first horror role-playing game.

At the same time the game of Dungeons & Dragons ( and the concept of tabletop role-playing games ) was becoming extremely popular — role-players wanted to use the setting of White Bear and Red Moon in their own games, so Chaosium published RuneQuest, which was written by " Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, and Friends ".

* RuneQuest ( tabletop role-playing game )

Elves of Glorantha ( setting for the role-playing games RuneQuest and HeroQuest ) share little with Tolkien's elves but their connection with forests and their preference of archery-they are mobile, humanoid plants.

The core rules were originally written by Steve Perrin as part of his game RuneQuest.

He took over the writing of Call of Cthulhu, and the game was released in 1981, using a simplified version of the Basic Role-Playing system used in RuneQuest.

In the mid-1980s, Chaosium entered into a complex arrangement with Avalon Hill to publish RuneQuest material while Chaosium maintained editorial control over Glorantha-based material for the game ( which Avalon Hill would publish ).

While this agreement reportedly kept the company in existence, it also left RuneQuest moribund, leading to products of questionable quality, long gaps with no products published at all, and, eventually, the death of the game altogether.

Several later editions were made ; RuneQuest II in 1979 introduced many sophisticated game aids, such as Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror, and highly polished game scenarios, such as Griffin Mountain.

This edition both loosened the connection between RuneQuest and Glorantha, introducing ' Fantasy Europe ' as the principal game world for Rune Quest, and much broadened the scope of Glorantha, which was treated as an alternative game world.

Call of Cthulhu uses the Basic Role-Playing system used by other Chaosium games ( first seen in RuneQuest ).

One of his first contributions to the world of RPGs was " The Perrin Conventions ", a set of house rules for Dungeons & Dragons, which led to his work on RuneQuest.

Chaosium later published other games in the setting, including the critically acclaimed RuneQuest.

In an attempt to leverage the power of a much bigger gaming company, RuneQuest III was published with Avalon Hill in 1984.

A draft of the RuneQuest IV rules, called RuneQuest: Slayers, was written but never published.

The license to RuneQuest was acquired in a complex agreement with Chaosium, and Avalon Hill published the 3rd Edition in 1984.