Before we start, I want to state that I have been gaming for 41 years. In that time, I played some of the Chaosium BRP based games, including Call of Cthulhu and Elric, but I avoided several others because of poor experiences with bad players and even worse GMs. I wasn’t avoiding Chaosium or even the BRP system. It was Rivers of London that opened my eyes to how the system could work in a way that truly worked for me. After reading the Rivers of London, I immediately bought the existing Big Gold Book version of the Basic Roleplaying core to learn more about the system I had not read in several years, and shortly after, this new version appeared. I set aside the Big Gold Book and took this one up, hoping to make games like how Rivers of London works. I am disappointed to find that it is impossible to do so. The tl;dr. The book is not completely bad, but it is heavily marred by multiple problems, mainly because of an antiquated system trying to dress itself up as something more modern. The old rules are nearly two decades old and have only minor edits for clarity and inclusion. They created new mechanics to make the game better, and those new mechanics look great, but neither the revised pieces text nor the new mechanics have changed the game in any significant fashion. That it is an entirely new edition of BRP is a misnomer at best, an outright fabrication at worst. The addition of the ORC License is nice, but it doesn’t affect the book’s quality or mechanics. The editing issues show a game rushed out the door for reasons unknown. The game is significantly crunchier than my own tastes like, but others may find that aspect to their liking. They wrote the book for the old BGB fans. However, I cannot recommend this book to anyone else. Let’s look at my breakdown.

The Good - The game has made some changes to the wording from the BGB to clarify some confusing aspects of the game, become more inclusive sounding, and tries to streamline some mechanics. Being inclusive is important, and removing old text that is no longer needed is always the right cut to make. The art in the book is consistent, well themed, distinct, placed well, and adds to the overall aesthetic. The Index is impressive and useful, a pleasant change from other games. The book is pleasant to look at in most places. Some issues with the font, font size, and the tables mar the reading experience, however. The new optional mechanics added to the game are excellent and I highly encourage you to use them if you plan to use this book.

The Weird - People have said this version of the game is an entirely new edition. That would not be an accurate statement. This book has clarifications to rules that have not changed in over a decade and the addition of four new mechanics that were not in it before does not make it a new edition, given all four new mechanics are purely optional. Even the designers have clarified that what many of the more vocal fans want in this book would not work with the system as written and would require extensive changes–or as I read this–an entirely new edition of the game. Besides the new optional mechanics added to the existing unchanged mechanics of more than a decade of time, the only truly significant change is the addition of the ORC license. But that is not a reason to either promote or ding the book overall.

The Bad - There’s a LOT of rules in this book. To be honest, I don’t see the Basic in Basic Roleplaying behind all the crunch and none of the optional rules in here make the game any easier to play. The sheer volume of optional rules in nearly every chapter makes the game more complicated and crunchier, and that is not doing it any favors. There are 62 optional “spot” combat rules. That’s not a small number but shows a significant amount of bloat has accumulated over the decade and a half of BRP’s lifespan. Basic here feels more of a misnomer than an apt description. The absolute base mechanic, a percentage roll, is the only basic aspect of this game. A page long three column list of skills is inelegant. The lack of any simplified mechanics and the lack of any optional rules to simplify the mechanics will be a huge turnoff to people who prefer less crunch. This game does little for narrative focused players. The immense complexity of this version of the game might appall Rivers of London fans who enjoy the much easier to grasp mechanics and easier to use rules. The layout of the book is counterintuitive in places, and the designers often placed the tables in truly intrusive locations. I found they put a chapter of purely optional rules (the one about powers) in before the chapter on how to play the game. That’s a poor placement. I’d rather know how to play before reading mechanics for powers. The character creation summary tables begin with steps 1 and 2, but then jump to 8, 9, and 10 before going back to step 3. This lack of easy organization may lead to significant confusion. The earliest versions of the book had a vast number of errors and several people have had issues with the book’s choice of font and font size. They do not size the tables appropriately and they are difficult to read. At the time of this review, most of these issues are still ongoing. Most damning, however, is the main text of the book is the same as it has been for more than a decade and a half and still includes arbitrary and entirely random mechanics that feel entirely out of place in a modern roleplaying game. Including multiple random tables for combat that can easily kill a character from a bad roll is a poor mechanic and should have never remained. Needing tables such as the Resistance Table to explain a mechanic is telling about just how old these tired mechanics are. The designers themselves even clarified that other BRP books are their own variant and that rules from them, while popular, will not be in this book because they would literally break this game’s mechanics as written. As much as I love and strongly prefer Rivers of London’s mechanics, I am frustrated and disappointed by being unable to emulate them with this book, and instead I am encouraged by the appendices at the back of BRP to use this book’s almost two decades old, antiquated mechanics rather than the better, easier, and more modern mechanics Rivers of London presented. Many others have said the same about Call of Cthulhu’s mechanics, but I am not familiar enough with CoC to say if that’s the case. There are so many missed opportunities in this book to make the game more modern, easier to play, easier to understand. It boggles my mind that Chaosium has insisted that the book only needed some touchups to be better. They are wrong. This game needs to be remade from the ground up.

My Rating - Beginning with 5 stars and working my way down, I removed one star for the sheer complexity of the game and massive levels of crunch and the massive bloat of optional rules that only increase that. The mechanics are old, dry, and newcomers will probably have issues without a lot of guidance. Another full star lost for the fact the game uses mechanics and tables that, frankly, do not belong in a modern game. The sheer age of these mechanics shows, and I can’t see myself using this book in its current state. BRP continues keeping decade plus mechanics that belong in the dustbin of history. Purely random character creation as the default, Resistance Table, and Fumble Tables that can arbitrarily kill a character with a bad roll, I’m looking right at you as the biggest offenders. We can find a far better and more modern expression of these rules in Rivers of London, and I am surprised at how resistant Chaosium is at updating this core to something that would work better for both newcomers and modern players. Considering the fact this book is supposed to launch a new era of BRP community created games using the ORC license, these issues should not exist. I can honestly only steer folks away from this. I removed another full star for not having any simplified mechanics nor the ability to simplify any of the existing ones. The massive number of optional rules in the book only adds to the game’s complexity. I removed half a star because the layout seems off-putting, the tables’ intrusive locations, the book’s poor font choices, poor font sizes, and badly sized tables. I removed another half a star for failing to even include existing BGB errata in this book and the poor editing from trying to rush the book out so fast. My final rating for this book is therefore 2 out of 5. This book may be perfect for people who already loved BRP’s Big Gold Book, but I found a substantial part of the mechanics too old, too complicated and the company too resistant to change them to something better for modern players and newcomers. Instead, they insist you build from this book of ancient and bloated mechanics alone, but proceed and play with the better mechanics separately and well away from anything they create with this. Sadly, my verdict is to stay away from this one. Await something better.

Great Concept, Poor Execution

For all that this says that it is a 5th Edition product, its really not a very good one as far as the mechanics are concerned. The mechanics were originally written for Pathfinder, but they were poorly ported to 5th, and it shows. The book makes several references to mechanics that simply don't exist in 5th. There are multiple references to Pathfinder class features, damage types, conditions, and mechanics that only exist in Pathfinder. It's as if the author simply assumed that they existed in 5th without actually double checking them first. The book also doesn't use a consistent formula for DCs and none of them ever use the 5th Edition DC formula for saving throw DCs. For instance, one of the racial features of the First Folk is Primal Healing, which grants and extra 2 hit points per die rolled from magical healing and doubles natural healing. There is no natural healing in 5E. It's possible the mechanic refers to rolling hit dice in a short rest, but that would be extremely high powered, and I don't think that was the intent. The inability to heal damage from cold iron naturally is tricky because the lack of natural healing in 5th, and I'm at a loss as to the right fix. Sadly, the mechanical issues just continue to compound from there. I really wanted this book to be a good one, and one of my players really wanted to play one. Considering how good I found In the Company of Dragons, I felt that maybe I could put in some quick fixes to the errors. However, as I started on this project, the list of issues began to get very large. After three handwritten pages, it was clear that this was turning into a virtual rewrite of the book. It would take too long and too much space in this review to show off every single error in it. If you want this to work for your 5th Edition game, you will have a lot of work ahead of you to make this race and the racial paragon class work for you. You will need to make decisions about the ability adjustements given that 5th doesn't use the Pathfinder formula. You are likely better off building subraces around the alternate racial traits. It appears the author was using the Advanced Race Guide for creating alternate options rather than using subraces. I'm not sure that subsitution mechanics are the right fit over subraces, but that decision is up to you. You will need to find substitute options for the mechanics that simply don't exist, either by picking a different class feature, adapating the Pathfinder one referenced, or possibly eliminting it altogether. For example, Wild Empathy, a druid ability in Pathfinder and 3.5 simply doesn't exist in 5th. It could be replaced with the gnome ability to speak to small animals keeping the spirit of the ability. Considering 5th generally doesn't use bonuses to skill checks, and the Nature skill can be used for many of the functions of Wild Empathy, providing Proficiency or Expertise to Nature is also a potentially good fit. DCs for race or class features of the Paragon class are a simple fix: start at 8 rather than 10, add in Proficiency bonus as normal, and eliminate any class level references. Remove any references to Ex, Su, and Sp since they simply don't exist. Damage type errors are usually easily corrected (Lightning for Electrial for example), but there is no non-lethal damage option to use. Conditions can be tricky in places. For example, 5th doesn't have a Shaken condition, but Frightened is the closest match. I would personally remove any bonus feats from the paragon class, given that feats in 5th are significantly more powerful than their Pathfinder equivalent. There is no damage resistance in 5th, but there are several references to using it. As you can see, there are a lot of issues with the mechanics, and that only covers the first half of the book. The concepts of the race and paragon class are sound. If the mechanical issues didn't exist, I'd happily give it four stars. However, the gross mechanical errors that litter the book, and the work it would require to fix them, remove at least two. I don't feel right giving this just one star. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this book to anyone who isn't willing to spend the hours needed making the corrections required to make this a fully functional 5th Edition race and Paragon Class.