Mystique RPG

Welcome to Mystique, a multi-genre,  tabletop roleplaying game based on Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying (BRP): Universal Game Engine. While BRP stands as an excellent, robust RPG, Mystique aims to trim things down to be a bit simpler. The inspiration for these rules come from the original BRP booklet in circulation in the early 1980s, as well as the Stormbringer 1st Edition RPG which debuted in 1981. You can think of Mystique as an ‘1981 style’ game since it beckons back to those simpler times.

These rules are a work in progress. This 1st draft (which we’ll call the Beta 1 version) is being released for community feedback. Please note that the final version of the ORC is not yet released, but once it is, that license will govern this product.

You’ll see a lot of references to ‘Page XX’; these will be updated after the rules text is finalized and we move to use a professional layout tool (LaTeX is my tool of choice). See the Plans for the Future section in the back of this book to see what we plan to add and improve in future editions.

Visit this Itch.io link to give us feedback! We can’t wait to hear from you.

Design Goals

As we evolve this product over future Beta editions, some overarching design goals guide our decisions about how these rules work and what to include (or not include). Our goals:

• A small, minimalist ruleset (currently 29 pages, with a goal to be less than 50 pages once done).
• Compatible with current BRP character stat blocks.
• Focus on 'essential' rules (essential being rules that come up on average at least once every four games).
• Simpler combat resolution, taking inspiration from Stormbringer 1st Edition.
• Focus on rules for historical, pulp, and sci fi settings (so we don’t plan to include Superhero or Spellcasting rules in the core rules, though Psionics will eventually be added).
• Interoperable with the BRP core rule book, treating that as sort of a Dungeon Master’s Guide from which to pull additional optional rules in as needed.
• Packaged as a slim, basic system and eventually a text SRD from which you can build your own games (the idea being that for many settings it is easier to start small and add missing rules rather than to try and trim down rules from the full BRP system).

Changes