Mythras Core Rules

by Pete Nash, Lawrence Whitaker

Mythras is the acclaimed d100 roleplaying system from The Design Mechanism. Mythras is a percentile system. In Mythras your characters are defined by their culture, career, community, background, comrades, skills, magic and cults. Progression is through skill advancement - not levels or similarly abstract concepts. As your characters adventure and quest, their capabilities improve and their relationships deepen and strengthen. Players and Games Masters have complete flexibility over what can be achieved, and the way characters develop is entirely dependent on choices players make, depending on their characters' aspirations and motivations. Games Masters receive a huge amount of support through the Mythras rules. All the concepts and game mechanics are explained clearly with options and considerations explored and presented for ease of use. You need only this rulebook for many years of exciting and imaginative play.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Games, Fantasy, Gaming

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 2, 2016

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a lovely game book that is basically Runequest 6.1. If I understand the situation, the company that published this, Design Mechanism, had some issues with Chaosium and the license for the game, so they didn't call Mythras Runequest 6.0 (which is sort of what it is). The book presents a full fantasy RPG using Runequest rules, but is setting-agnostic: there is no mention of Glorantha, which is an integral part of Runequest in the iterations I have seen (Chaosium's 2nd edition, and the Avalon Hill Runequest 3rd Deluxe Edition boxed set, which I owned back in the 80s).

Anyhow, I am at the point in my life where I can skim-read rule books, and this one is great. Were I to design a campaign from scratch, I'd use something like this (I prefer the d100 system to any other). Because I play on a VTT now, having the online component is a huge part of what we do, so unless I switch to Foundry from Roll20, I won't be able to use this game much.

There are supplements to this game, but I don't have any. Really, really well done though, guys. Great work.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid BRP/RuneQuest-derived system, recommended for those who want a bit more combat crunch than typical for that ecosystem. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...

[Vulco1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great rpg. Obsessed

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this game. I do like d100 systems in general, because having to roll under a number on a d100 makes it pretty obvious what your chance of success or failure is. And, unlike Call of Cthulhu, characters here are expected to be fairly powerful, with rules for handling skills beyond 100%. Plus, there's a nice variety of magic systems, skills, and other character options. The monsters chapter is kinda short and mostly contain archetypical creatures (plus a couple of weird ones from Greek myths and legends, likely because the world used for examples throughout the book has a strong Ancient Greece flavor), but there are options for playing many of the creatures, including things like minotaurs and panthermen in addition to the classic elves, dwarves, and halflings. I also like the idea of special effects in the combat system. When a character rolls well enough when attacking or defending, they can apply one or more special effects to their action, ranging from things like disarming to grappling to dealing more damage. It's a nice system, though I do worry it'd slow down combat a bit. Which is my big concern, really: this system seems significantly more complex than the other d100 games I've read. Character creation is rather involved, and combat is tactical but also likely to take a while to resolve. This is admittedly balanced by making characters realistically frail rather than big bags of hit points, and as hit location systems go, this game does well by having a few hit locations rather than a uselessly high number. I did also find myself a little disappointed with some of the magic stuff. I love sorcery in Magic World and BRP because the spells are weird and feel, well, magical, but the sorcery magic here feels generic and bland. Animism is also a neat idea, but it feels like it could easily dominate both setting and gameplay, much as hacking often does in cyberpunk games. I do like folk magic, which presents a number of simple spells that lend themselves to creative uses, and mysticism seems cool even if a bit underdeveloped. Overall, I'm glad that this system exists, as it does seem like a great outgrowth of the previous version of RuneQuest, but I think that for my d100 games at least I think I'd rather stick to simpler ones.

[Malum · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exhaustive toolbox for fantasy gaming (and other genres, with the appropriate expansion books). This is one of those games that you read and think to yourself "they thought of everything". For example, animals and similar creatures don't get an intelligence stat but an instinct stat, which better models those types of creatures. While this might seem like a little thing, I was always confused by Dungeons and Dragons (at least the 2nd edition) putting animals like dolphins at a higher intelligence than a normal human. Yes, dolphins are very intelligent animals, but they are still animals and being able to figure out how to balance a ball on your nose for a treat isn't comparable to learning arithmetic. But I digress...

While all of the little optional subsystems do increase the complexity, the actual rules system itself is dead simple (just a roll under percentage system). Other, more complex bits and bobs you can add on when you are comfortable doing so or disregard entirely. There is even a starter book (Mythras Imperative) that distills the most important rules down to about 32 pages and can get you playing almost immediately.

The book is well organized and the art is adequate (but nothing mind blowing).
But, that aside, this is a very compelling product that any fan of fantasy or d100 gaming should certainly check out.