Why We Are Back

It has been a while since I've posted, but I always loved the excellent Barebones Fantasy game, the original game this blog covered. So, this blog sat quiet, and I only had a little to say. I enjoyed the game, played occasionally, and did not update this site.

So, I put 5E to the side for a while. What replaced it was Runequest. I wanted something more of the same old fantasy world, that generic pastel-bubblegum-planar sort of every fantasy that gets boring after the 20th time. Runequest made me put Pathfinder's Golarion into my storage boxes, and the world is just that good. The world feels honest; it has a history so deep they published a pair of coffee-table books on it, and the borders and kingdoms are in flux. There are cultures here to lose yourself in. This is the sort of campaign world D&D dreams it could have.

Then, I started to move other games on the shelf that shared the same d100 mechanics. Basic Roleplaying and Call of Cthulhu were easy to put alongside since they are all Chaosium games and equally as good.

Then I wondered what would happen if I put all my d100 games on the same shelf. Barebones Fantasy, its sister games of Covert Ops, and the outstanding Frontier Space were easy choices.

Runequest's "sister games" of Mythras, Open Quest, and Simple Quest were also easy to put alongside these greats.

Rolemaster is very d100, one of the OG games of the 1980s. Its MERP-like sister game, HARP, was also an easy choice. Another MERP sister game is Against the Darkmaster.

I found a dozen amazing d100 games on that shelf and decided to make a space where I could talk about them. All of them are sort of "d100 dungeon games." Even Frontier Space and Covert Ops, if you remember the original inspiration games of Star Frontiers and Top Secret, were also very "dungeon-like" in their modules, so in a way, they fit in well.

There are really three different lineages of the d100 system here, the TSR one, the Rolemaster one, and the Runequest one. In a way, the games are all different, but in another, they are very similar. The Rolemaster branch is the only roll-high d100 system here, while the others are roll-under. Some are d10-only, while others mix in the standard polyhedral dice.

And I know I am missing M-Space, HARP-SF, and Space Master. Those could be here as well.

So my Barebones Fantasy blog now has some incredible neighbors and games to share this space with, all of which are d100 games. BBF will still get love, but rekindling all my great d100 games will help make this place more random and exciting but with one common theme.