Has anyone played the HARP system? (High Adventure Role Playing by Iron Crown Enterprises). If so, what are your thoughts about it? And do you know it well enough to answer a few questions?
So I've acquired a copy of the HARP game ("High Adventure Role Playing" by Iron Crown Enterprises). I'm reading through it and I must say, I like it a lot. Sure, there are a few things that they did that I would have done differently... but it's mostly minor stuff. The underlying concepts of HARP are exactly what I want in a role playing game. It's heavily based around a good, robust skill system. It does use classes, but they are secondary... it's the skill system that really carries the game. And that is, first and foremost, what I'm looking for... a really good SKILL system.
It also has an interesting magic system. It's point based and it's scalable. That's exactly what I wanted to build. A point based system and one where the spell effects get more impressive as you get better at casting that spell and as you put more power into it. So, really, the underlying concepts are exactly what I want. I have a few minor quibbles here and there, but not much. I can tweak it and put a few house rules in place. I'm confident that this could be my new system. I'm looking forward to learning this new game system. I'd like to take it for a test drive and see how it runs.
Why am I doing this? I won't bore you with the long answer. The short answer is that I'm frustrated with a number of "logical flaws" in 5th edition D&D and I'm looking around for a new system. Thought about creating my own, but then stumbled upon HARP and discovered that it's almost exactly what I wanted to build. Pretty darn close. I'm pretty much stuck with 5th edition for the duration of my current campaign, but I think I'm going to use HARP for my next campaign.
Other than here, I haven't heard of HARP, but this sounds like something I'll have to check out. Let me know how things go for you.