The UGE Review: Basic Roleplaying 2023

The 2008 edition of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying (BRP), a solid book with a bright yellow cover and distinctive cover design, is often referred to as the "Big Golden Book" or BGB. In terms of impact, it's one of the most significant RPG releases in the history of the hobby.


Often referred to as a systems tool-kit, it could also be thought of as a compendium, a collection of games. The BGB effectively contains RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, and the outline of a system for sci-fi and supers, all based on a direct and highly playable system and a collection of spot rules that easily scales in complexity and detail. If the BGB has a weakness, the number of options can be overwhelming and there are a lot of choices to navigate from the idea of a game to play at a table. But as someone who had spent years with RuneQuest 3, applied as a generic base for fantasy, it was a seamless transition from the BGB to a successful campaign set in Middle-earth.


BRP in 2023 comes in a revised edition subtitled "Universal Game Engine" and so the UGE is the new BGB, though it shares the same iconic cover illustration. The virtues of BRP are are still fully present. The system is consistent and flexible. In practice, one of the most astounding things about a book the size of BRP is that it mostly stays behind you on the shelf. Once the characters are generated and the GM has prepared the scenario, everything you need to play is in the sheets and notes before you. Then you can close the book and put it aside. Since most checks are percentile, roll under against a given value, it's easy to glance down and assess the chances of success without a stack of modifiers; and since it's skill-based, there isn't a reference-sheet of special abilities and cases-by-case instances to consider. The rules fit together logically, and so it's easy to house-rule and adapt from a few basic principles.


Overall, any edition version of BRP feels grounded and believable. Hit points are tied to Strength and Constitution, so they don't keep escalating and soar above the level of stress and damage a person could conceivably take. Skill gains are incremental and tied to actions the character takes. The aim is not accurate simulation but verisimilitude, the sense that the fiction is credible and runs true to plausibility and expectation.


The revisions for UGE are well-chosen and necessary. Character generation is slightly streamlined and the options are better explained. The skill descriptions have less detail of the various levels of success (critical, special, etc.), which were not often referenced at the table. The bestiary section displays characteristic scores in a horizontal table, which saves space and is easier to read. The illustration style is more coherent and the images are generally interesting and evocative, although they tilt somewhat to historical settings.


The gains in layout make it all the more unfortunate that the tables are presented in a squintingly small typeface, which is hard to read even with sharp eyesight (or glasses on) and bright lighting. No one, for instance, is going to be able to roll and then quickly look up a result on the Major Wounds Table in the middle of play. The need for readable tables alone is a good reason to keep one's old copy of the BGB at hand during a session.


Apart from that, I have a few minor gripes: scope for changes in BRP that the UGE could have included. Given the "universal" tag, it would be nice to have at least one version of a fantasy or pre-modern character sheet that didn't list modern skills. Noting will knock you out of the moment than your elf character player sorting though a list of skills that include Psychotherapy and Heavy Machinery. And, given that the system is meant to be scaleable to different power levels, why is there no option for giving magicians more power to deal damage in combat? A single magic spell level which yields 1d6 damage costs a sharp 3 power points, which means that on average a magician is spending almost a power point per point of damage dealt.


Of course, the UGE gives you the tools to dial up and down the complexity of your game and transfer concepts seamlessly between settings – with a little work – but that's why it's so powerful as a base system. UGE is an "old school" system in that it doesn't present a pre-packaged and thematically pre-scripted world for you to start in, but a familiar, grounded, and conceptually coherent system from which you can build your own worlds and adventures.

Rise of the meta-GM

If you find yourself flicking through one RPG system, like Imperium Maledictum, and thinking to yourself that it could be played with XD20 or Basic Roleplaying (BRP), then you might be a meta-GM.

Meta-gaming, from the player's point of view, is when a player uses their personal, real-life knowledge of the game rules or setting to guide their in-game character's actions. Sometimes this is useful, or at least tolerable, and sometimes this can disrupt or short-circuit a scenario. 

Meta-gamesmastering, the domain of the meta-GM, by extension, is when the GM or referee uses their personal, real-life knowledge of the patterns of RPG mechanics and game design to guide their in-game practice, improvising, interpreting, anticipating, or modifying the procedures of the game system in use at the table.

The phrase came to me because I'm in the situation of GMing for friends and players new to gaming and perforce using their preferred system—Dungeons & Dragons 5e. D&D has its faults, but for new players it's a smooth and engaging introduction to fantasy RPGs. All the same, D&D's exception-based structure and parade of feats and special cases has the tinkerer looking at how others adapt the core rules, which led me to the Dungeon Craft channel and this hugely informative take on the core mechanics of the D20 system: You Don't Need Apps to Play D&D. 

This really means that you don't need the D&D app, loaded with sourcebooks and rules links (or even, in fact, the rule book) to make a determination at the table about success or failure, especially within a statistically "balanced" system. The Professor DM has often referenced XD20 and, in particular, the insight that there are only 20 numbers on a d20—so however complex the decision tree around chances of success or failure, the end product is only ever a roll of a d20 with 20 possible outcomes, and for any given roll a few points either side of the target are rarely significant. 

Which, in meta-gaming terms, leads us to a table like this (with apologies to Dungeon Craft):

Roll a D20 —Did the character succeed?
20 — Yes! A 20 always succeeds and the roll is taken as a critical success
15+ —Yes — a high roll succeeds
10+ —Yes, perhaps. The character usually succeeds, if proceeding with skill OR an advantage (situational bonus, weaker enemy)
6+ — Maybe, but only with skill AND situational advantage, otherwise, mostly no; the GM decides.
2+ — No (there's always a change of failure from 1-5)
1 — Fail! The worst possible roll is always a failure or a fumble

You might notice, as a meta-GM, that this table itself only has six rows, which, with a glance at And Play, can be further abstracted thus:

Roll a D6 —Did the character succeed?

6 — Yes! A 6 always succeeds and this is often the best possible result
5+ —Yes — a high roll succeeds (unless the task is desperate or foolhardy)
4+ —Yes, probably. The character usually succeeds, all things being equal, unless the task is notably difficult or the character is challenged or unprepared)
3+ — Maybe, but only with skill OR situational advantage; the GM decides
2+ — No, unless the task is easy and the character is fully prepared; the GM decides
1 — Fail! The worst possible roll is always a failure or a fumble (always a chance of failure)

So, if the GM (or DM) is playing as a referee, mediating between the rules and the players but working within the general structure of the system, which includes adapting the given procedures for situations that aren't specifically anticipated, such as calling for an ability check when no specific rule applies, then the meta-GM is applying their knowledge of the rules and the general processes and trends to emulate the experience without strict reference or fidelity to the rulebook.

This might be the trick to FKR style play: you're still running a game, not proceeding by GM fiat, but the meta-GM has tools that generate the same experience with fewer intervening processes.

This isn't necessarily the best or easiest way to play. With a balanced, grounded system like BRP and engaged players, running encounters within the frame of the published rules can make for great sessions. Adjust the meta/in-system balance to your taste (and keep the d6 handy).

But, as I suggested earlier, if you wanted to pick up the concept of a game but not the overhead of the system itself, then the path of the meta-GM beckons. The premise of Imperium Maledictum, playing the agents of a powerful yet flawed patron against the grim background of intrigue and violence of the Warhammer 40K setting, is intriguing. Perhaps it would also work well as a gritty medieval fantasy, restaged in the mazy courts and alleyways of a city on the borderlands? Can the meta-GM then run everything with a handful of gothic-looking d6s?

In X-Treme Dungeon Mastery 2E, the Hickmans liken their XD20 system to the custom car engine that the GM has to attach to the transmission to turn the wheels of the game. That’s the meta-GM role: assembling the engine and welding it to the chassis to make the custom vehicle for their game, their adventures. The particular parts you choose—d6, d20, d100—classes, skills, abilities, counters, and stage-dressing, are all up to you.

A faster BRP

There's no doubt here that Basic Roleplaying is an excellent system that's surprisingly easy for beginners, adaptable, and can support extended play. But even if you were to leap in with the Basic Roleplaying SRD as your compact rules, many of the systems grouped under the OSR label, and early versions of D&D itself, have one significant advantage for new players: it's quicker to roll up a new character and get started.

Now, with a group of interested adults 30–60 minutes rolling characteristics, assigning and calculating skills, deriving HP and MP and the rest, creates a substantial, interesting character sheet that will serve well for a long time. But it would be fun, sometimes, to just create a character and go in half the time or less.

To that end, here are some notes towards faster BRP characters. The skills and professions offered heavily favor fantasy and historical worlds.

Faster characters for Basic Roleplaying

Characteristics

Generate the BRP characteristics—STR, DEX, CON, SIZ, INT, POW, APP—according to the SRD. Calculate Hit Points (HP), Magic Points (MP), and Damage bonus (Db), as well as characteristic rolls, using the same procedures.

Adventuring Skills

The standard BRP skill list is comprehensive but long, and skills are drawn from many incompatible eras. These skills are adjusted for fantasy adventuring.

These skills are common to all characters at the starting percentages given. 

• Jump 45%
• Climb 55%
• Perception 35%: replaces Listen, Spot, Sense, Insight, etc. May also be used to track targets with a suitable profession indicated.
• Stealth 25%: Used for all covert movement and covers hiding also. Hiding (without moving) is generally easier (+20% bonus).
• Swim 30% or DEX x 5 if Lucky or approved by GM as suitable to background.
• Throw 45%
• Brawl 45%: fighting with hands and feet, or commonplace and improvised weapons (knives, sticks, etc.).
• First Aid 45%

Professional Skills

Select a broad profession, and figure the related skills accordingly. 

Warrior

Any martial profession, from soldiers to wandering mercenaries to mounted knights.

• Ride (DEX x 5%): may substitute another mode of transport or Strategy (INT x 5%).
• Warrior (Average STR, INT, DEX) x 5% in 3 weapons (maximum 75%).

Expert

Any profession relying on specialist knowledge and training, from scholars to diplomats, merchants, spies, and performers.

• Literacy INT x 5%
• Expertise (Field) INT x 5%: field may be any area of specialist training: medicine, exploration, trade,  engineering, performance, spy-craft, alchemy, and so on.

Magician

Any profession using magical or spiritual powers. such as wizards, sorcerers, witches, mystics, and so on.

• Literacy INT x 5%
• Spells: define four spells at INT x 3% chance to cast

Rogue

Shadier pursuits, often developing expertise on the opposite side of the law. Rogues may be thieves, burglars, outlaws, or merely drifters who live by their wits.

• Sleight DEX x 5%: replaces the Fine Manipulation skill, and tends towards pick-pocketing, snaffling and concealing small items, and so on.
• Tinker DEX x 5%: crafting and improvising with materials at hand, but also tampering with devices such as locks and traps, forcing chests and windows, and so forth.

Hybrid

With approval, combine two professional skills from two professions. The Magician profession spells are too demanding to master with another profession.

Background Skills

As a finishing touch, distribute INTx5 across all skills, including weapons, which have the same base skill rating as the SRD. Can be used to acquire or improve spells with GM approval.

No skill for a starting character can total more than 75%.

Identity

Record Name, Profession, Background, other personal details.

Back to Basics

Add suitable equipment, and you're now ready to play using any flavor of the Basic Roleplaying rules, although the lightest version can be found in the SRD.

Looking at BRP Worlds of Wonder "Magic World"

Recently, the Tinkerage has been looking at the original "Magic World" supplement from the Basic Roleplaying Worlds of Wonder (WoW) set (Steve Perrin and Gordon Monson). This is not to be confused with the later Magic World (2012) by Willis, et al., although both titles share the same BRP roots. But the earlier Magic World is well worth considering, especially as an excellent, light version of the BRP ruleset for fantasy gaming.

Magic World extends on and requires the core WoW Basic Roleplaying booklet, but the system is a minor masterpiece for quick, ready-to-play rules. These days, it's hard to find in print, and the gamer inclined to research this online will have to dig into the wayback machine archives.

Magic World has about the quickest character generation I've come across in the BRP line, almost as fast as Basic D&D. A player can choose to simply roll the characteristics and then start play with the default BRP skills and scores. Or, they can select from one of four professions: warrior, rogue, sage, and sorcerer. Each profession provides some prior experience and skills, which are usually a sum, or multiple of the average, of several characteristics (for example, warriors pick up three weapons at the average of STR, CON, and DEX x 5%). Although these may seem like class descriptions, there are no restrictions on eventual cross-training, and each profession suggests a variety of possible backgrounds. Even the sage is a viable scholar-adventurer, who may be anything from a healer, to a merchant, to an elf-friend. One can imagine rolling-up a Magic World adventurer in relatively short order, selecting a few professional skills, and filling in the default skills as the game goes on. A character will be relying on good initial rolls for good skills, but that's where a little player skill, a willingness to play a character rather than an optimized build, comes in.

Compared to a modern system the line between skill and skill description is sometime blurry and requires some interpretation. The "Cut Purse" skill, for example (DEX x 5% for rogues), includes "skill to Pick Pockets, Cut Purses, Remove Brooches, etc.," which could all be rejiggered as "Thievery" or "Sleight" on the character sheet.

The magic system is compact but robust, with each spell having its own percentile chance to cast (like one of the magic systems in the BGB). Unlike the BGB, Magic World spells are relatively effective (dealing1d6 damage per magic point/level, for instance), so starting sorcerers don't feel under-powered.

Finally, the combat system, although simple, includes scope for critical hits and fumbles.

Recently, reading through Roan Studios' The Bay of Spirits setting book, which is beautifully illustrated but lightly stated out only for D&D, the thought occurred that the ideal would be a compact, robust ruleset that would make it easy to generate characters and play in (almost) any fantasy setting. WoW Magic World seems to fit the bill, and it's interesting to speculate what might have been if this version of Magic World, revised and clarified, had been the basis for Chaosium's later releases.

Crossing the streams

The Tinkerage is all for adapting and combining the best of different systems, hence BRP Middle-earth and other rules hacks, but here are some recent wild ideas for combining systems and settings.

Magic World & Dragon Warrior's World of Legend

Magic World, although it has some faults, is an excellent BRP-based system customized for gritty, medieval fantasy. Dragon Warriors, the classic British fantasy RPG, has a gritty medieval background with plenty of intriguing details, an authentic sense of the Gothic, and is rich in faerie and folktale lore. The adventures, providing for scenarios and campaigns, are excellent.

Dave Morris, who authored Dragon Warriors with Oliver Johnson, remarks that the essence of the game doesn't lie in the mechanics but in the world itself. So, Magic World's tested, accessible rules could be a perfect match for the world of Legend.

The only rule I would change directly would be limiting the skills of new characters to something near 75%, perhaps by limiting skill point allocations to around +50 at most during character creation. As written, it's possible for a new Magic World character to have at least one skill of 80% or more, and this doesn't fit with Dragon Warrior's characters at Rank 1 being capable but far from over-powered to meet the supernatural foes that inhabit Legend.

BRP & Advanced Fighting Fantasy and Allansia

Thinking along the lines above suggests a step further. BRP is the quintessential rules toolbox system. Advanced Fighting Fantasy, featuring the perilous lands of Allansia in the world of Titan, is the essential eclectic "dungeon and wilderness" fantasy adventure system and setting combined.

Advanced Fighting Fantasy is a great introductory system with a wide array of options, and like BRP it's a skill based system. So it's possible to see a way to quickly create or convert Fighting Fantasy style characters that will use BRP rules and mechanics:

• Generate the basic characteristics, damage bonus, Magic Points, Hit Points, and so on as usual.
• Assign skills and skill percentiles using the AFF rules and skill list as guidelines. In AFF there are only four skill "categories", so these could be based directly on one attribute. For example:
• Combat: STR
• Movement: CON (representing general fitness)
• Stealth: DEX (with the exception of Awareness skill, which should be INT)
• Knowledge (includes Magic): INT
• Characters in AFF start with either 1 or 2-point special skills. For a 1-point AFF skill, add 30% in BRP, and for a 2-point skill add 50% to the category modifier above. Allocate three 2-point skills and six 1-point skills on this basis.
• With a little tweaking, the GM can also assign AFF magic styles as Sorcery (a single skill, fixed list of spells) or Wizardry (a skill for each spell, but no limit to the spells that can be discovered or learned).

These ideas are completely untested — cross the streams and who knows what might happen?

Notes for BRP Encounters

Encounter profiles, or "stat blocks", can be a major stumbling block in scenario design for the busy GM. You're trying to ready an adventure. You have a location, you've sketched out the situation, considered the options and flow of events, and then you have to set up the details of the encounters.

RuneQuest is a fine game, but for any version of RuneQuest this would mean stopping to fill rows of characteristics, skills, and AP and HP for every hit location.

Even for BRP (without hit locations) or Magic World, if you go by the book you complete something like this:

Hill Bandit

STR 12
CON 10
SIZ 13
INT 10
POW 9
DEX 14
APP 10

Move: 8
Hit Points: 12
Damage Bonus: +1d4

Attacks: Hand Axe 35%, 1d6+1+1d4, Recurved bow 35%, 1d8+2

Skills: Hide 50%, Move Quietly 50%, Ride 75%

Armor: 1d6-1 points leather

Notice the space it takes on the page, and the need to note every detail for a bandit who might be taken down by one or two hits. Of course, you could rely on a bestiary or a published scenario, but you're still scanning and copying out details when the encounter starts.

Now, in an old issue of White Dwarf, you might come across a Stormbringer encounter profile somewhat like this:

Hill Bandit

STR 12  CON 10  SIZ 13  INT 10  POW 9 DEX 14  APP 10  HP 12

Attacks: Hand Axe 35%, 1d6+1+1d4, Recurved bow 35%, 1d8+2

Skills: Hide 50%, Move Quietly 50%, Ride 75%

Armor: 1d6-1 points leather

Which is certainly much more efficient and easier to create. We can work with this to create an encounter notation that takes a fraction of the time a full stat block requires.

The Encounter Note

Here's the format for a compressed BRP note-style encounter line:

Encounter: description

HP x, DEX x, STATS x, Mov x

Attack % (damage), Armour (x)

Skill x%

Notes

Which for the bandit above might look like:

Hill Bandit: Tough, sneaky ambusher

HP 12, DEX 14

Hand axe 35% (1d6+1d4), Bow (1d8+2), Leather (2)

Sneak & Hide 50%

Key

Encounter = basic title: description = how this encounter will be played and described

HP x = Hit Points come first; they matter most (and they also show roughly how tough this encounter is)

DEX x = DEX, because the next thing you need to know is the DEX-rank for actions in a round

STATS x = any other characteristics (STR, CON, SIZ, INT, POW, APP) that are significant in this encounter or exceptional for the character; if they're average or not likely to be used, leave out and make them up on the fly

Mov x = movement, but only if faster or slower than standard

Attack % (damage) = combat skill and (damage + damage bonus), Armour (x) = armour type (points)

Skill x% = any significant skills (don't worry about the right name; you know what they're for)

Notes = any other plays/notes that are relevant

The idea in this format is to keep the most important information foremost and minimize clutter and unnecessary detail.

On Magic World

Chaosium has now reclaimed the rights to RuneQuest and Glorantha, and we're given to understand that these combined will become their banner fantasy RPG product, while a new BRP Essentials becomes the root system for a loose constellation of BRP inspired games. This leaves the Basic Roleplaying book (BRP) as a sort of attic collection of rules, and Magic World, previously the core rulebook for the nascent BRP fantasy line, is left out in the cold.

We have plenty of time for RuneQuest as a rules set, but Glorantha is not our fantasy lozenge floating on an infinite sea. Its massive timeline, overlapping pantheons, entangled myths, and cultural melange are fascinating but too hard to buy in to, like a club whose rules are too obscure to encourage joining, especially when we're looking for a world of our own to create (which is probably a slipstream version of Middle-Earth and the world of Firetop Mountain, illustrated by Russ Nicholson). Consequently, it might be time to take a closer look at Magic World before it slips out of view.

In many ways, Magic World exhibits the strengths and weaknesses of the recent BRP era at Chaosium. Its rules are a compilation of some of the best of the BRP percentile, skill-based system: smooth and easy to pick up, especially if you're familiar with any other iteration. Character generation in particular is probably one of the easiest tasks in the BRP family: roll Characteristics, calculate secondary scores (HP, MP, damage bonus, skill category modifiers) and then add set percentiles (60% at most) to a specified number of skills. Combat, once you decode the wonky presentation, is also quick and intuitive (there are no location hit points to slow you down, and only one kind of special or critical). Overall, it's a highly playable system and probably an excellent place to get into your own version of Middle-Earth or Allansia.

On the other hand, the rules are clearly recycled from earlier systems: the Chaosium Stormbringer RPG in particular and RuneQuest III. This leaves us reading some eerily familiar passages, and tumbling over rules that don't apply, such as references to fatigue in the bestiary. Of course, there are errata, but the point is that the errata are too long. And the wider point is that the presentation suffers from this copy-and-paste approach. The BRP combat sequence, for example, has a fair few steps but they all flow fairly cleanly: declare intent, set initiative, roll, compare attack and parry/dodge, assign results. But the "Combat" chapter is unnecessarily long, and the effect is somewhat scattershot. Skimming headings, you see "Actions in a Round", then "Resolving Combat", then "Order of Actions", then "Actions", then "Resolution" and yet the next section resumes "Hand-to-Hand Combat" with "Game Procedures" – how many times are we told about actions and resolution? Compare this to the tight presentation in the BRP Quickstart, and you realize that the whole chapter should have been thoroughly adapted and revised, especially for new players.

The reused artwork, a mishmash of styles and settings, similarly does not always capture the intended feel of the game, and although the sorcery magic system is serviceable, since it's based on the spells from Stormbringer, which were themselves added on to a system mainly designed around summoning and binding Moorcockian demons, the spell selection is not particularly inspiring. To play a sorcerer, your choices revolve mainly around spells that enhance or diminish effects (such as damage, armor, or characteristics) or a number of nasty offensive magics, reflecting the chaos influence of Stormbringer magic. That's not especially a problem if you want a low-magic campaign (there are no fireballs or lightning bolts here) or to grab your spell ideas from other sources, but the book is called Magic World after all, but offers only a few interesting or engaging spells.

The sample setting, the Southern Reaches, is more like Roman Britain than medieval Europe, a former frontier where first supernatural powers ruled before retreating, and where an empire has now replaced the roaming tribes of humans and orcs. It's effectively a colonial province, and designed with plenty of built-in conflict, with the return of the shadowy, shape-shifting fay and tensions between the two ruling houses presenting the most potential for adventure. The Southern Reaches are therefore an excellent sample setting, but they sit only lightly on top of the main rules. The rules for Allegiance between Light, Shadow, and Balance, for instance, would work nicely in heroic fantasy but it's not clear how they apply in the Southern Reaches, or to the fay. It might have been better to explore how the Magic World rules could be used to run a variety of different fantasy settings with varying themes and tones, as per the excellent guidelines in the "Settings" chapter of the BRP rulebook.

Given time and more design and editing, Magic World could have been an excellent product, but it now sits uncomfortably between being the "Fantasy BRP" and a minor game due to be eclipsed by RuneQuest and Glorantha. Depending on the quality and design of the new BRP Essentials, it could remain a fine go-to game for fantasy adventure, but its chance to capture the high ground among fantasy RPGs has passed. Not a fumble by any means, but a hit, parried.

What are the BRP Essentials?

The Tinkerage has great respect for Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying, or BRP, a system that feels rules light even though it's packaged in a rules-and-options heavy compendium known as the BGB, or "Big Golden Book".

Now Chaosium has announced that BRP will become BRP Essentials, the core 32-page rulebook for a BRP family of games. But what are the essentials of a BRP system? Are they BRP itself, Runequest, in its current or past incarnations, or even one of the OGL offshoots, such as Mongoose Runequest (MRQ), Legend, or OpenQuest?

Here's a purely speculative take:

Characteristics: STR, CON, SIZ, DEX, INT, POW, CHA (or APP)... EDU perhaps? They go back a long time, the roughly 1–20 scale connects us to the early RPGs. SIZ modifies HP, but do we ever roll against it? Could they sit directly on a percentile scale and still work? I like characteristics to modify skill scores. I like a characteristic roll when no skill applies.

Skills: Percentile skills are the core of BRP. Move them around, rename them. The only thing that puzzles me is why Resilience is a skill in certain versions: you can train to get tougher and fitter, that's how CON and STR go up, but how can you learn to be tougher, especially as you age?
Adding up skills and skill category modifiers is the longest part of character creation, so can this be easier? The MRQ system of base skills defined by adding characteristics is tempting, and cuts out skill category modifiers.

Rolls and resolution: BRP uses a 5% critical and a 20% special. Other version derived from MRQ use a 10% critical. This is a big difference. Which is more essential? Well, players love to roll specials, and specials that happen about 20% of the time when they succeed feel about right. But 10% is easy to calculate.

Combat, Initiative, Hit Locations: Action points, Strike ranks, DEX ranks, combat actions. Options make combat more tactical, but draw out the encounter. Over time, I'm found that most excitement in combat comes from setting, strategy, and fast resolution. I favor the simple system of DEX-based initiative. And no hit locations. They slow down the action, impose odd results, and make designing and running encounters a chore for the GM.
Are there good reasons for different critical types by weapon (slash, bash, impale)? Surely, but in practice we usually just roll double the damage dice and move on.

Experience: The elegant system of rolling against a skill once it has been used for steady, incremental gains through experience is surely one of the essentials of BRP.

BRP for Middle-earth

Over the last few years, I've had great success running a Middle-earth campaign in Basic Roleplaying (BRP) using the compiled rules from the BRP "Big Gold Book" (BGB).

Why BRP? Because it's a very flexible rules-medium system which runs smoothly at the table and makes sense even to beginners, and once the rules are understood in principle there's little need to frequently reference the rule book. The relatively realistic rules fit with the tone of Middle-earth, the details and the sense of hardship, but there are still opportunities for heroism. Combat is swift and decisive. And most of what a player and the GM need to know is located on the character sheet.

But because BRP is such a broad collection of options, here are the particular options I use for adventures in Middle-earth.

I'm also sharing my BRP-ME character record sheets, as character sheets in BRP contain a lot of rules information, as well as my thinking on this adaptation.

Character creation

• For skill point allocation, use the BRP heroic option (325 points), so that character can be highly capable in at least a few areas. However, no skill should begin at higher than 75%, as 80% is the point were success begins to feel almost automatic. 
• Use the personal point pool (INTx10) for custom and cultural skills. 
• The extra skill points from personality type option (Step 6) are not used.
• I also use skill category modifiers to add a connection from ability to skill for characters, but prefer the simpler bonuses (based on INT or DEX, see p. 31). In future, I plan on basing Communication on APP/2, Physical on CON/2, and Combat on STR/2).
• For typical Middle-earth races, such as elves, dwarves, or hobbits, I use the stats in the creatures section of the BGB or the old Runequest 3 Creature Book, making adjustments on the fly as necessary. As a rule, the tall Edain get a bonus for SIZ.

Skills

• Obviously, many of the BGB skills, from Psychotherapy to Science to Demolitions, are not suitable for Middle-earth, so strip these out.
• Not caring for the clunky skill name Fine Manipulation, I use Devise to represent tampering with locks, traps, and other small mechanism (in any case, mechanical locks will be very rare in Middle-earth).
• All characters have a knowledge of their own culture equal to their Own Language skill.
• I use the skill Bearing rather than Etiquette. Bearing represents how well characters carries themselves in social situations, whether the rules of etiquette are known to them or not: think of the first meeting with the Riders of Rohan, or Frodo greeting the elves in the woods, or even Bilbo welcoming unexpected dwarves into his parlour.
• I allow martial characters to train in the Martial Arts skill, representing their combat discipline, be it the Dunadan longsword or elvish blade. This is a very powerful skill, which should advance at no more than 1% a step, to a maximum of DEX+STR. It reflects the fearsomeness we see in characters like Boromir or Aragorn, who can slay many foes with a single strike.

In general, characters make the most use of their weapons skills, as well as Spot and Stealth and Track. First Aid is often in use. Insight is a popular skill with my players, for getting a read on NPCs.

Combat options

• To speed combat, use Hit Points with Major Wounds (not location hit points).
• My players, however, are particularly fond of aimed shots with missile weapons. I assign these a difficult rating, but adjudicate a Major Wound like effect if the shot hits a particular target (such as the knee joint of a troll).

Fatigue

The RuneQuest 3 fatigue points option being too cumbersome to track, I use a simple fatigue check, to represent the weariness that often afflicts characters in Middle-earth. Fatigue is based on a Stamina roll. The first failure inflicts a -10% weariness penalty. The second failure makes all rolls difficult due to fatigue. The final failed roll brings exhaustion. This Stamina roll is adjusted by whatever amount current encumbrance exceeds STR (if Enc is not more than STR, there is no penalty).

Magic

Magic can accomplish grand and marvellous things in Middle-earth, but it is also rare and often subtle. And it is not clear that the mortal races, such as common men and hobbits, can inherently use magic of any sort. Hence, the magic options in the BGB are not well-suited to Middle-earth. The simplest option is to restrict magic to figures other than adventuring PCs. However, if you think it necessary to introduce limited magic:

• Elves use spells similar to RuneQuest spirit magic, with effects that could be taken for extraordinary skill or grace (such as bladesharp or sure-shot or silence). A simple Luck roll is used to activate a spell. The spells add bonuses (5% /+1 per magic point) to actions.
• Wizardry, if used at all, should be skill-based and centred on certain skills or areas of study, such as Smoke and Fire, Silence and Disguise, Beasts and Birds, and so on.
• All spells that dominate the will of others are sorceries, and inherently corrupting.

Finally, the BRP Central site downloads page has a wealth of options and rules for BRP styled Middle-earth, based loosely on the Decipher Lord of the Rings RPG and many other sources.