Introducing Murdham
Murdham is a role-playing game of perilous adventures in a fantasy world, combining the atmosphere of old school British role-playing games with light and streamlined rules.
I grew up with a healthy diet of tabletop wargames and role-playing games. I spent far too many lazy afternoons reading complex rule references and evocative setting source books, time I might have instead used to become a rich and successful football player, or an astronaut, or a garbage collector, or whatever else kids wanted to grow up to be back then.
Among my most beloved settings, Warhammer always held a special place. Probably it was its weird British charm, with all the black humour and pop-culture references. Naturally, I was also a big fan of the role-playing games set in this world, imaginatively named “Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay”. Back then, time was abundant and spending hours studying and playing intricate rulebooks was not an issue. Nowadays, however, burning through a whole afternoon rolling up characters or resolving a fight isn’t an option any more, and I much prefer more focused and optimised gaming experiences.
Luckily, there are plenty of indie role-playing games constantly popping out left and right, offering a gamut of different experiences offering alternatives to the more traditional big names in the market. Among these, I greatly admire the work of a certain Chris McDowall, author of Into the Odd. His games are a perfect sublimation of simplicity and mechanical elegance. I started thinking it would be neat to hack his game system to play games set in a Warhammer-ish setting, a thought probably shared by many other like-minded souls.
Lo and behold, after many a month hacking away at the keyboard, Murdham was born. As it usually happens, it started as a small hack and ended up being a solid game with legs to stand on its own, and I decided to publish its rules online for free.
Please go ahead and try out the game! You might enjoy it if:
You would like to play a role-playing game with all the typical tropes of a grim and perilous setting with a slim and nimble ruleset and without the baggage which comes with playing in a well-established setting.
You enjoy simple games with a bit of meat on the bones. Murdham has a few elements making it fairly crunchier than its original inspiration: a skill system, magic rules, detailed combat rules…