Pyramid Review: Hârnmaster: Barbarians

Pyramid Review

Hârnmaster: Barbarians

Published by Columbia Games

96 Pages on 3 ring-binder format cardstock, $29.98

Hârn, for those not in the know, is a generic fantasy setting. In fact, it might be called the generic fantasy setting since it was one of the first to be published and succeed purely on the strength of the background and without being tied to any particular game system. Hârn is a large island, divided up into several kingdoms, with a feel that can best be described as "low fantasy." Magic exists but is rare and frightening to most people. The day to day workings of the world, in terms of how many peasants are out in the fields to support the proud knight on his horse, and how the King is collecting the taxes to support his armies of bureaucrats, are worked out with a dedication to detail enough to satisfy the most anal-retentive realist GM. Another selling factor is that Columbia has decided not to advance "official" Harnic history beyond the "current" date, so new releases will expand on but not invalidate older ones.

Now, despite the fact that you can use Hârn with any game system (a particularly fine adaptation to GURPS, written not-at-all-coincidentally by me can be found in the archives.) it does have its own games system: Hârnmaster. A couple of years back we saw a new edition of this game, and on the coattails of that release Columbia has been rewriting and re-releasing the core books of the system and re-arranging a lot of . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: May 12, 2000

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