Magic World: Fantasy Roleplaying in Worlds of Epic Adventure

by Chaosium Inc., Lynn Willis, Ben Monroe (Editor)

FANTASY ROLEPLAYING IN WORLDS OF EPIC ADVENTURE Enter a world of fantastic adventure, where your destiny is limited only by your imagination. Where powerful sorcerers manipulate the very essence of reality, and where warriors decide the fate of kingdoms with blade and spear. A world of magic, myth, and menace... A MAGIC WORLD ! Magic World is a self-contained fantasy roleplaying game using the classic Basic Roleplaying system. The game allows you to play characters in a world of fantasy, adventure, and excitement. The rules of Magic World are simple to grasp, while having enough options and complexity to suit any gaming style. Characters grow in experience organically, without relying on artificial constructs such as classes, levels, etc. Any sort of fantasy character you can imagine, you can play. Magic World

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this system enough that I'm probably going to give it a try, but there were some things I wasn't that fond of. The sorcery magic system is pretty cool and somewhat different from stuff like D&D, with a focus more on passive effects and altering the world rather than just making things explode. The selection of monsters was nice, and it was cool to see things like the Jabberwock (though I know Pathfinder has also statted it up). The small sample campaign world is cool, and I hope the promised book devoted to it shows up sooner rather than later. And, in general, I like the BRP system, with a focus on characters growing organically and being a collection of skills rather than a somewhat rigid class. However, there were also some big issues with the way things were presented. The book as a whole is riddled with editing errors, probably caused by the way it seems to be cobbled together from a bunch of older books rather than written anew. Words are repeated and there are far too many references to mechanics and ideas not present in this version of the rules. Worse, a lot of things aren't explained very well. I guess I can forgive the skills chapter for being short, since non-combat skills are largely up to the GM to adjudicate, but the combat chapter is an awfully written mess. The chapter for GM advice was also disappointing, as it gives a few pages of basic advice and then launches into a long list of magic items. Also, the concept of Allegiances as explained here never really clicked for me. Overall, I like the system and I can always use other BRP books to supplement missing or poorly explained rules, but this book could have benefited from being a bit longer and having more time spent on editing it. This is more 3.5 than 3 stars, but it could easily have been 4 if the book was put together better.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simple yet fun RPG rule book. Building off of RuneQuest, Magic World is rules light and fun heavy. Me love. Not to nerd out, but BRP (Basic Role Playing) is a way, way better system than Dungeons&Dragons, especially D&D 5e. So, my friends and I are switching to Chaosium, which we have used over the years with Call of Cthuhlu and Stormbringer.

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though it takes its name from one of the booklets in the old Worlds of Wonder boxed set of introductory RPGs, Magic World is in fact an attempt to keep the Elric!/Stormbringer 5th Edition system alive by other means. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...