Create. Explore. Play.
Basic Roleplaying (BRP) is a system of core rules for tabletop roleplaying. Whether you’re a seasoned roleplaying veteran or new to the hobby, Basic Roleplaying has everything you need for years of entertainment.
What's Inside
Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine is the complete guide to BRP—the same system that powers Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Pendragon, Rivers of London, and countless others.
BRP’s Universal Game Engine is available royalty-free for personal and commercial use under the ORC license. Use these rules, and focus on creating your worlds, scenarios and even books to sell!
This book contains the core system rules, as well as character creation, advancement, monsters and antagonists, as well as GameMaster advice.
A Seamless Core Mechanic

In BRP, success and failure are always determined by the roll of a D100. Comparing that roll to the relevant Skill, Characteristic, Ability, or Power, you succeed if you roll under the target number.
This means every stat on your character sheet clearly indicates to you the likelihood of success.
Natural Character Growth

Characters in a BRP game evolve based on what they do in-game. If you fire a gun, that skill may increase.
If you want your character to learn magic, get better at driving cars, lassoing horses, or even repairing a spaceship, then your character will do so by using those skills!
Deadly & Tactical Combat

The core BRP rules present easy-to-learn and equally easy-to-teach combat mechanics that allow players to react to attacks—you don’t just have to wait for your turn in order to have an impact on combat!
Conflict in BRP can be deadly, and every roll (attacking, fighting back, dodging or otherwise) is integral. This makes for a thrilling, high-octane experience with a system that does not slowdown the overall flow of play.
Build The Game You Want

With mechanics for magic, psychic powers, mutations, superpowers, weapons, equipment, and vehicles applicable to any setting and genre, Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine is adaptable to any world of your choosing—either previously established, or created from scratch.
Fillable Character Sheets
Blank Character Sheets
Additional Handouts
What The Critics Say
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"I've learned so much from this book... a must buy for game designers."
— J-M, Iconic Productions Youtube, Behind the Screen: E110 - Basic Roleplaying System Review - What's In It?.
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"BRP is a system that stood the test of time... a system that gets sh*t done, and will remain, even when the current Kickstarter sweetheart is long forgotten."
— Vorpal Mace, [Review] Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine.
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PDF Settings
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Physical Product Name: [Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine - Hardcover]
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Product Footer
Footer Name:
- Publisher:
- Chaosium
- Year Released:
- 2023
- Ruleset:
- Basic Roleplaying
- Format:
- Full Color PDF
- Page Count:
- 264
- Author(s):
- Jason Durall, Steve Perrin
- Cover Artist:
- Loïc Muzy
- Interior Artists:
- Loïc Muzy, Grzegorz Bobrowski, Giorgio Baroni, Manuel Castanon, Charlie Creber, Antonia Doncheva, Shen Fei, Andrey Fetisov, Piotr Foksowicz, Matt Forsyth, Mark L. Gambler, Ossi Hiekkal, Chris Huth, Tomasz Jedruszek Michelle Lockamy, Phu Thieu Mac
- Interior Artists (2):
- Lionel Marty, Loïc Muzy, Simon Roy, Dimitar Stoyanov, John Sumrow, Cory Trego-Erdner
- Layout:
- Adam Szelążek
- Producer:
- Neil Robinson
- ISBN:
- 978-1-56882-470-3 (Hardcover)
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BRP has my heart; good bye 5e!
Fantastic, just fantastic. There are enough rules to cover expansive campaigns in a wide variety of styles and environments. It’s a dead-simple system for people who just want to play, but has enough complexity to suit players that thrive on that aspect. By making skills and advancement able to be captured on a single sheet, it’s exactly how TTRPGs should work. You get to focus on roleplay, creativity, and fun, rather than number crunching and searching through multiple tomes. Bravo Chaosium!
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Basic Roleplaying Universal Game Engine (2023)
I get the feeling there was pressure to keep this book at 280 pages. The print is very small and difficult to read for long stretches of time. The pages are also very crammed with text walls and the layout leaves something to be desired.
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Solid edition of BRP
Not a total new edition but a very well done update to the previous edition of BRP. Well laid out with table of contents and index, which are of course a must. My one gig lowering from 5 star is the font is smaller than I'd like. Though it is quite readable with the physical book since they use solid bolding and darker ink for the font. In pdf form you won't notice the smaller font at all as an aside. Another good Chaosium product in otherwords.
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BRP UGE
I am very pleased with this updated version of BRP. It is better laid out, than the previous version. there are a few things that have been left out, 1. It does not tell you what dice to roll for the optional Education attribute. 2. It does not have the optional strike rank rule. 3. It does not have the missile hit location table.
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Awesome except for the font.
This is the best iteration of BRP yet EXCEPT it dropped rules for separate attack and parry percentage. 100% BS! I'll never buy into that. Why 4 stars? The small font. I'm frickin old. 59 years frickin old. Give me a break as I use 3.5 reading glasses. I'll gladly pay $20 to $50 more for 12 to 14 point font. I buy the giant print bibles so please, help out an old gamer and make a book I can frockin read for Christ's sake. Beleive it or not your target audience is old gamers so accommodate us please. Young pups play Savage Worlds or D&D 5. So help.l an old grognard and give me a readable font please.
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Best of all rpg
I put this in a folder called deserted island. The reason for that is I'm my useless opinion this is the holy grail of game systems. It is very very easy to understand and use., can be used with any genre, and is a one stop shop you only need one book. I eagerly anticipate the hardcopy. I highly recommend it in every way.
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BRP
For me it's the best rpg game system
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Most Excellent Update
I have been a big fan of the BRP system since I first discovered it’s existence. It.definitely needed some nee polish and a small update to be more like 7th ed of cthulu n other newer releases. This is everything I could ask for in a nice looking package. The easy to use, understand, and explain D100 system is still here, and seems to have picked up some improvements here and there as well. I’m very pleased.
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Great improvement from BGB
The layout, design, organization, and explanations are much better than the now-dated Big Gold Book. Its strictly an improvement without dramatically rewriting or changing the system.