The birds are singing, flowers are beginning to pop out of the soil, and I have decided to spend my well-earned vacation from work and limited time on this planet engaged in one of my most favorite of hobbies: sitting on the OSR Discord and bullshitting. On this occasion, the subject of running a tabletop game based on the certifiable Bad Time (Laudatory), Fear and Hunger. Being something of a Mechanics Wonk I immediately began to speculate about how my current game family of choice, BRP, would work for such a game. Most of what makes F&H have such a strong identity is down to tone and setting and are a matter of the Referee rather than anything spawning from a system. Most of the notable mechanics of the game, like tricking an asshole prison guard into stepping on a bear trap, emerge perfectly well out of any old tabletop game. However, BRP has a gritty and lethal blow-by-blow combat system of parries and limb strikes that contributes to the tone of horror and danger. One thing BRP is decidedly not great at, however, is the progression of gear. F&F does have some character progression, but one of the most effective means of surviving is finding superior weapons and armor within the Dungeon. You don’t level up, you find a better sword more able to confront the Horrors. In BRP, you can have magical items with powers or bonuses, sure. But if you are constrained by a d100 roll under system and can start with a relatively high value in a weapon skill, 60% and up, only so many bonuses to hit can be layered on before you start roaming into the stormy waters of skill values over 100. Your bonuses must remain low, with one’s own skills being the dominant means of progression. How would one change that?

This idea is not born purely from my inner crystaline mind palace, but instead owes much to Weird Writer, Niosis, Prototross, Havoc, and Sahh all goading me like a juggling bear. From this discussion came an idea, one I thought was kind of stupid at first, but which I am growing to like as I see the possibilities.

What if your equipment formed the basis of your skill?

Instead of having a 50% chance to hit due to a Sword Skill, what if you instead had a 50% Sword? Deemphasize character skill. It can remain a factor, but a small one at best, a 3d6% base chance perhaps, leveled by traditional BRP slow percentage point gain or as Ktrey suggests, the completion of feats in-game. A lowly and unbalanced hanger banged out by a blacksmith not particularly skilled at swords might have a base rating of only 2% while an ancient elven blade of wicked elegance might be a 50% rating weapon, faster and sharper than any mere peasant weapon. This opens wide the field for a whole range of equipment and turns the progression of BRP from a slow and steady accumulation of skill to a much more traditional dungeon crawl loot churn, where progression is based primarily on wealth and the discovery of treasure. For the Runescape or Elder Scrolls fans out there, it could take the form of a material tier list. There’s even some precedent, as BRP already has tiered damage reduction in armor based on the armor style, and Mythras has a quite extensive system for materials.

Iron	+20
Steel	+30
Mithril	+40
Elven	+50
Runite	+60

But why stop there? If you wanted to, every weapon could be unique, deviated out from these base values by 1d8% and complete with their own quirks and stories. A world of named weapons, a la Beowulf. The Wasp is a storied weapon passed down by duelists over generations. It strikes quick and true with every slash (70%), but is too light and nimble to cause fight ending wounds (low damage). Meanwhile, Ram’s Horn is a warhammer that strikes like a truck but is slow and clumsy (35%). If you’re a certified freak seven days a week, such as myself, you could even give weapons separate attack and defense values, like the separate attack and defense skills from Runequest of Eld. This is starting to sound familiar.

Or, don’t. Keep it simple, and maintain only a simple and quick system of material tiers. Keep the rest of BRP intact, or strip out the skills entirely. Lockpicking can be determined entirely by the quality of one’s pick set, or Knowledge by the breadth of a library. If you like the specific mechanics of play that come from BRP but wish for more of a loot-emphasized game, or if leveling your skills by 1 or 2 percentage points at a time over weeks of play sounds unappealing and you would rather have the periodic large jumps in competence that a level system usually offers, this might be the tweak for you. I think the idea has some potential, and I intend to noodle around with it a bit over my vacation to see what comes out of the idea.