HarnMaster didn't come along until 1986, the year I got married and became more of an adult, which means I had less time for the hobby (although I am sure it seemed otherwise to my wife). The heady days of living in dorms and with gaming friends, playing almost every evening and weekend was now reduced to occasional weekday evenings and most Saturdays (still a lot of gaming, I know). It was about this time that I discovered the world of Harn, N. Robin Crossby's published game setting. In Harn, Mr. Crossby has designed the most detailed and "realistic" published setting I have seen. Game designers seek verisimilitude as a way to make the fictional seem plausible and for my money, nobody has done that better than Mr. Crossby.
HarnMaster (1st ed. by Columbia Games shown above) is the rules Mr. Crossby created to complement his world of Harn. (Harn is actually a large island that gives it's name to the setting.) HarnMaster is one of the second generation of roleplaying games in my estimation because it introduces new mechanics and yet relies on a lot of randomness, especially in character creation. Some might refer to these games as "old school". HarnMaster does not have character classes and is a skill-based system allowing the player freedom to customize their PC although still limited by the random fall of the dice. (HarnMaster is not a point-buy system.) Combat is gritty and deadly like many of the second gen. rules. Armor stops damage and wearing heavy armor makes you easier to hit. Weapons do blunt, edge or point damage and different armors have different values regarding these types of damage. There are no hit points and each wound is treated separately. Healing is slow and involves the risk of infection. At it's heart, HarnMaster is a pretty simple skill system and not that hard to learn, despite all the crunchiness of combat.
Magic, or Shek-Pvar, as it is termed in the game, is low-key and subtle in effect compared to white box. There are no flashy combat spells as such. Magic is divided into six convocations based on elements. HarnMaster encourages players to create their own unique spells using guidelines provided. Religious practitioners can perform magic-like miracles if their piety is great enough. Some creatures have magical abilities and the Harn undead are particularly creepy. The Harn orc, called gargun, are unique and are one of my favorite monster types from any system.
The setting, milieu or game world, as we often refer to it, can greatly affect the overall fun level of the game. Some settings or worlds are better at creating an environment for adventure than others and it's not always the most well developed settings that do this. More to the point, I would say a setting, or milieu needs to be well realized. Detail for the sake of detail doesn't always equal fun. Detail that helps suspend disbelief, that brings one into the setting as an active witness and participant making it all more believable is the trick. Harn does this better than any setting material I have experience with. So what's the downside to HarnMaster/Harn? It takes a great deal of time studying Harn to really get a feeling of mastery over the world material. It's all there and it all makes sense and there is a lot to it. HarnMaster/Harn is closely tied to the medieval mindset and to make sense of it requires the referee and players to immerse themselves in such a mindset in order to roleplay the PCs and NPCs of the world with consistency. The downside then is this, simply put, it takes work and commitment. The reward is an immersive roleplaying experience probably second to none. If HarnMaster had come along a few years earlier for me when it was possible for me to throw myself 24-7 into a roleplaying game things might have gone differently. As it turns out, HarnMaster has remained a game in the margins for me. One I have the greatest foundness for and one I jump at the opportunity to play whenever I can find willing players. Yet it seems to remain just out of reach, something beyond!
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