Basic Roleplaying

Basic Roleplaying is every bit of a playable game without the "game design work" some claim this game needs. The most "game design work" you will need to do is deciding what optional rules modules to include. The vast majority of the work will be like any other generic game, in picking a setting and establishing the game lore.

If you want a 3d6 system that covers any time or genre, play GURPS.

If you want a d100 system, play this.

I admit, I am a huge fan of GURPS for these sorts of games, but the Chaosium d100 system is a strong second, and gives me that instant Cthulhu vibe. GURPS also has the advantage of having done a ton of research with its source books, so for historical gaming there is no equal to the 3d6 generic gaming champion.

One place I see this game doing very well in is the Pulp and Noir settings that are Cthulhu-adjacent. Why not use Call of Cthulhu? Well, with this game, there is no pressure to add any of those monsters into the game, as they are not in the book. This game would be excellent for a Gangbusters recreation, World War II spy thrillers, and 1950s detective stories.

Another area this system would do well in is the modern era, serving as a role-playing engine for spy and espionage games from the 1960s to today. BRP could easily for any James Bond or Mission Impossible adventure imaginable from any era of the franchises, and cover the ground that other games in the genre covered, including Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes and the Top Secret game. Since both Top Secret and the 007 RPG were d100-based games, BRP would feel right at home and replace those systems easily.

Another area this game would do very well in is with 1980s and 1990s action movies, Vietnam war stories, adventure TV shows, and commando style movie and TV games and books. Rambo, Commando, The A-Team, Baywatch, Platoon, Airwolf, Blue Thunder, Chips, Full Metal Jacket, Able Team, Mack Bolan, and many other films, movies, books, and other adventure stories are easy to run using BRP, and they retain that d100 feel that fits these games so well.

And d100 characters can be made quickly, by hand, and far easier than GURPS. The toughest part of character creation is picking skills, and that is just allocating a pool of points to different profession skill picks. BRP gets you playing instantly, without needing to mess with advantages, disadvantages, skills based on difficulty, and character designers.

If you are selling a quick idea to a group to play "Something: The Roleplaying Game" and your players are new to BRP and GURPS, like they are coming from 5E, I would choose BRP in a heartbeat. There is a reason Call of Cthulhu is the #2 role-playing game in the world (by a huge margin), and it is because of the ease of which players can pick up d100 mechanics.

BRP is a pure, pencil-and-paper, universal role-playing game with no software required to play.

It is a winner.