Bunnies and Burrows

[calithena]

One of the few old-school non-TSR RPGs. It's a pretty cool system IMO, has some tweaks that are still exploitable for the modern homebrewer. Also, I've always been an occasional fan of small animal RPGs, though our game of choice for this meta-genre was the Andrew Eatough (1st edition)/Scott Carter (2nd edition) "Frogs and Bogs".

[doc]

I always wanted to play B&B, yet somehow whenever I saw it in the games store I couldn't bring myself to purchase it (this was quite some years ago). Now I really regret it. Old copies are rarely posted for sale for more than a couple of hours before they are snapped up. Well, you never know. I found a pristine copy of FGU's Flash Gordon RPG after searching for it for nearly 20 years, so maybe I'll come across B&B someday as well.

Doc

[calithena]

Just for the record, I have an FGU 2nd edition for sale, $60 including shipping, for anyone who wants to check it out. PM me for details.

[makofan]

Oh man this takes me back. We tried a campaign once in first edition, where brumbar wanted to stretch the limits of what the game could do, so we made some natural extrapolations and got some silly results. We ended the game when he managed to get a flying rabbit with a luger elected the mayor of a small local village of humans.

[Finarvyn]

makofan said:

We ended the game when he managed to get a flying rabbit with a luger elected the mayor of a small local village of humans.

Um ... I always thought that the point of B&B was to play realistic rabbits. They have to eat constantly in order to keep up their energy, they don't have opposible thumbs so they can't use tools, and so on. This sounds rather more cartoonish than my concept of the game.

[makofan]

Well

IIRC, the luger was on a string around his neck and he used his paw to pull the trigger. We probably had a bit too much pot at the time ...

[serendipity]

I've played (or rather, I've BM'd) the original B&B. We kept true to how bunnies really are, though we did use the backpacks or bags around the neck. Our bunnies were Watership Downish, learning by necessity and sometimes later forgetting things they learned. They were driven by bunny needs, often seeking new spots for satellite warrens or investigating sources of conflict or hunting solutions to diseases afflicting the burrow.

I highly recommend B&B for an afternoon's entertainment, preferably preceded by the Watership Down animation. We used quite a bit of WD terminology to add to the flavor of the game. Instead of just bookkeeping the energy points (tracked with M&Ms in our games), bunnies went out to silflay. Bunnies didn't travel west or north, they hopped towards where Frith slept or towards where the cold wind lay. And when a bunny died, the other bunnies circled it with a solemn, "My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today."

--Sere

[makofan]

I read Watership Down when I was eight, and I was hooked. I used to re-read it every year, until sometime into my twenties. It's just my friend Brumbar is so perverse he can't play any game system straight!

[Finarvyn]

I have this eventual plan to read Watership Down but somehow always get distracted to other books. (My sister gave me a nice hardback copy and everything...)

[jjarvis]

only ever saw the gurps version myself. Anyone knwo about the differences between the two (beyond obvious rule system differences)?

[driver]

Dec 2, 2007 20:06:14 GMT -6 makofan said:

Oh man this takes me back. We tried a campaign once in first edition, where brumbar wanted to stretch the limits of what the game could do, so we made some natural extrapolations and got some silly results. We ended the game when he managed to get a flying rabbit with a luger elected the mayor of a small local village of humans.

Marry me.

[Finarvyn]

May 2, 2008 15:23:32 GMT -6 jjarvis said:

only ever saw the gurps version myself. Anyone knwo about the differences between the two (beyond obvious rule system differences)?

Like most GURPS adaptations, the essentials of the setting were maintained. I have both the GURPS and 2E FGU version and the main essence is the same. (I've seen 1E and the only real difference in the two FGU versions is font and format.)

I think that B&B would be fun in revival, but only with some sort of system clean-up. While the game isn't amazing, it's clever enough and has enough of a near "urban legend" status (seems like everyone knows someone who played but hardly anyone has actually played) that it might catch on again.....

Just a thought. Maybe it wouldn't.

[kesher]

Here's your chance to own it.

This is my close to pristine 1st ed. copy, with reference sheets, all proceeds of which are going to benefit the Gygax Family Memorial Fund in the TARGA-sponsored pledge-an-auction.

You can read about it here, too.

[bluskreem]

Uggh! I can't believe I missed the auction! I've been looking for a copy of B&B for a wedding gift (my fiance is a bit of a Watership Down nut.) Oh well my quest continues.

edit: I tried to look up "Frogs and Bogs" but I had no luck, any chance you could give us some details?

[Deleted]

Bunnies and Borrows is presently available in PDF from the Fantasy Games Unlimited. That is where I got it. Has anyone had any experience in running this game with children? Or is it just better for crazy adults?

[Finarvyn]

Do you have a link for this?

My sister ran a game of B&B with my children when they were in grade school. They loved the game but kept trying to personify the bunnies. Too many cartoons, I suppose, with Bugs Bunny doing wacky stuff instead of "realistic" rabbits. She wanted a game of realistic rabbits.

[Deleted]

www.fantasygamesunlimited.net/category/Misc-11/rec/10

[wolf90]

This falls into the Have It/Never Tried It category. Looks fun though. Maybe some day...

[scrape]

This was my favorite RPG. John McCamish ran a game off and on from about 1979 to 1984 for my friend Bart and me. We had all read "Watership Down" and played without irony.

Concerning the use of a pistol in makofan's post above, there are rules allowing rabbits to manipulate objects. At very high level, mavericks could do some impressive things. As the campaign was winding down, we had a maverick capable of difficult feats of dexterity. There was a cabin housing a trapper who had done real harm to our warren off and on for years. Two of our best rabbits (my fighter named Wildroot and Bart's maverick named Laurel) broke into the cabin hoping to incentivize the trapper into quitting the area. We watched him leave, and nibbled at the doorframe until we could wriggle in. Once inside, everything was too complicated for us to decipher. Then, to our horror, the trapper unexpectedly returned. Desperate and frightened, Laurel managed to fire a pistol on a table at the trapper. Dice blessed Laurel's efforts, and the trapper was slain in a single, frantic shot.

John McCamish did not approve of this outcome on reflection and scolded us for even trying such an improbable thing. Bart and I felt triumphant!

As for the game, the one thing I fear about the rewrite that's about to come out from Frog God Games is the substitution of a skills acquisition system over the amazingly elegant experience system of the original. If I get a game going again, I will go back to the original to manage experience. It was a masterpiece.

If you get to the NTRPG Con, sign up to play with the game's designer, the affable, brilliant, and talented Dr. Dennis Sustare!