Harn campaign with ODD or AD&D rules

[Deleted]

Anyone run a Harn campaign with ODD or AD&D rules? How did it go?

[ravenheart87]

I recall Robert Conley mentioning using AD&D with Harn on the Bat in the Attic blog, but I might be wrong.

[tkdco2]

I've thought of adapting Cities of Harn into my homebrew, but I never got too far with that campaign. An old friend used the Harn map for his AD&D game, but I don't know what else he used.

[aramis]

I've seen as many people post about doing Hârn with D&D (tho' usually not OE) as with Hârnmaster. And that's perfectly on-label for the one flavor of Hârnmaster...

My players haven't been willing to play Harnmaster, and only a couple were even willing to make it all the way through character gen. Similarly, several other old games have that issue... Rolemaster, Spacemaster, Original Deadlands...

The setting materials are as good as those for Rolemaster (Shadow World), or The Atlantean Trilogy, but due to the system differences, Shadow World and Hârn are harder for rules users to convert on the fly.

If you're more on the FKR approach, it should be doable, provided you can synthesize the tropes and explicate them to your players.

[robertsconley]

Aug 28, 2023 14:08:14 GMT -6 @doublejig2 said:

Anyone run a Harn campaign with ODD or AD&D rules? How did it go?

Aug 31, 2023 4:52:27 GMT -6 ravenheart87 said:

I recall Robert Conley mentioning using AD&D with Harn on the Bat in the Attic blog, but I might be wrong.

Sorry for the belated reply. While I never used Harn with AD&D 1e, I used Harn stuff within my Majestic Wilderlands using AD&D 1e. For example repurposing Aleath (rotated 180 degrees) as the town of Tell Qa on Map Six Viridstan.

In general it worked out fine. However the main reason it worked out is because I viewed level as a mark of experience not as a something distinctive that set player character apart from the ordinary inhabitants of the setting. At first this is was a side effect of using Judges Guild products where every NPC had a class and level but stuck with it because it just made things work out better with the stuff I was doing with my campaign.

For me
-level 1 to 2 are apprentice levels, folks who are trained but still learning.
-level 3 to 5 are journeymen levels, folks who are considered professionals.
-level 6 to 8 are master levels folks, folks who are considered top professional and often in leadership positions.
-level 9 to 11 are grandmaster levels, folks who are at the pinnacle of their profession.
-level 12 to 15 are nobel/olympian level of skill, folks who are considered to be the best throughout the "known" world.
-level 16+ are once in a generation geniuses or athletes who are the best of the best.


Later when I wrote the Majestic Wilderlands and return to the use of D&D in the form of OD&D, I added a skill system to handle things that I found players wanted to do as their characters that didn't involve spellcasting or combat. Plus players wanted to get better at those things. This made adapting Harn stuff even easier, given the large number of non-adventuring types in their various articles.

I have a free version of my Majestic Fantasy rules with the skill system here.
www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Majestic%20Fantasy%20Basic%20RPG%20Rev%2010.pdf

In my Basic Rules for my Majestic Fantasy RPG, I have an NPC section formatted like the monster section, as adventures in my campaign are often about the PCs dealing with NPC conflicts. It has entries like the PDF

www.batintheattic.com/downloads/Bandits%20&%20Brigands%20Ver%2001.pdf

A little late but I hope this helps.

[smc67]

Again, a very late reply.

I played Harn using AD&D (1E), C&S 2E, Harnmaster and, a couple of years ago, the 'FATE of Harn' rules.

They all worked in their own way but produced different "flavours."

Harn is certainly magic-lite and monster-lite compared to AD&D, but many of my AD&D campaigns were anyway (I usually only had a couple of players and it was a way of keeping the odds right). There were enough interesting adventures produced for Harn that had fantastical elements - including a Moria-like set of abandoned Dwarven caverns. But of course you could just add stuff as well.

As many people know the maps and building/cavern plans are one of Harn's greatest features. These made it great for thief/assassin/spy missions, but also for hex-crawls.

On the downside, you have to do a bit of conversion for AD&D. But if you are experienced enough to be able to whip up that merchant or knight on the fly it is manageable.

There are now a heap of free resources online for the Harn world, including some nice and rather creepy mystery scenarios (serial killer kind of stuff) that I really enjoyed running. Some are short and others represent a rather long campaign.

Overall, while I love it, I wouldn't recommend it though for anyone expecting the typical D&D level of fantasy, or indeed D&D levels of combat. But for thinking, sneaking, solving, intriguing type of campaigns it is a great resource.

SMC