"Role playing setting for Vikings?" Topic

Wondering if someone ever made a role playing setting book for the Viking era. Both historical and mythical.

I really liked the GURPS book on Greece, as it included both historical and mythological Greece. So you could play in the world of Herodotus or Thukydides, or even Alexander, if you wanted, and you also understood more of how they themselves regarded their world.

The viking era seems similar, albeit more primitive.

I have the GURPS Viking book. Silly in parts, but insightful in other parts. If I still played RPGs, I would use it.

I've got the old RunequestVikings supplement boxed set somewhere, produced if I remember correctly, by Avalon Hill. Worth getting if you can find it.

Doug

There's several Viking lands in the Pathfinder Inner Sea area.

Ah.

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Avalanche Press did a Viking Age D20 supplement and some Viking adventures to go along with it. I think its long out of print though.

We ran a decent Viking game using D20 Conan and the old D&D Vikings Campaign book as a reference. The gm kept out all mythical stuff.

There was a D&D Gazeteer – the Northern Reaches – which was a great setting for Vikings.

I think there was one for Role Master as well. You might also look at the Harn world by Columbia games.

Matthew

You might want to look for the Chivalry and Sorcery supplement Swords & Sorcerers: Vikings, Steppes Nomads, Gaels and Picts (Chivalry & Sorcery). Out of print but available used from Amazon. It's been many years since I looked at it but I believe it provided a good in depth background.

And in general you should read of the Icelandic Sagas to get the right feeling. Njal's Saga and Egil Skallagrimson's Saga are two good ones to start with and I believe are available in Penguin translations.

Chris

As already pointed out, there are quite a few to choose from already. One of my personal favorites in the "totally non-historical but fun to play" category is Atlas Games' Rune, which is based on the mostly-forgotten console game (or was it PC?) of the same name. Very tongue-in-cheek take on mythic Viking stuff in general, and an unusual rotating game master system so everyone gets a shot at designing encounters as well as playing an ongoing character.

The old RuneQuest Vikings box is the best RPG treatment of vikings I've seen. (Speaking as a descendant of vikings here.)

(I have no idea how good the newer RuneQuest II book Pedrobear linked above is.)

Seconding Rune-

atlas-games.com/rune

The PC game was recently re-released on Steam-

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Full disclosure, I worked on both, so I'm admittedly biased.

Rune the RPG was written by Robin Laws who has written some amazing RPG games in his day.

Take a look at Harn's Ivinia:

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rpggeek.com/rpgitem/44797/ivinia

Many of the viking-inspired fantasy mentioned here hardly qualifies as "the Viking era. Both historical and mythical." as the OP says.

Take Ivinia for instance – great supplement, wonderfully detailed, rich mythology – but it's as much about vikings as the World of Greyhawk is about mediaeval Europe.
The gods, myths, geography, customs, society, and, not least, names, are nowhere near historical. Inspired by, certainly, but more inspired by other fantasy. (I do like Njehu, the divine whale who serves Sarajin, the Ljarl of the gods.)

The D&D Gazeteer mentioned at least had some place names more or less right, as they ripped them off modern Scandinavian maps. I still think they should have avoided "Stadspark" (City Park), though.

"Stadspark" (City Park)

That is funny. Thanks for pointing that out.

Our GM is quite the history buff. I believe he only used Gazeteer to help write up character stats. Who knows though. We did not finish the campaign and could have been headed for Stadspark for all I know.

Gosh Henrix, I wouldn't have guessed Ivinia wasn't totally historical given it is titled Ivinia, and not Scandinavia…

I like the old Runequest 3E Viking box from Avalon Hill (but, IIRC, written by the Chaosium guys). I picked it up wanting to play a barbarian with horns on his helmet and came away with a whole lot of respect for the men up north.

Sooo, why were you recommending it as a historical setting, Rassilon? ;-)

He didn't.

I had forgotten the D&D Gazeteer: The Northern Reaches. The Gazeteer series was excellent. This book had nice coastal maps IIRC and three different Viking lands…Ostland, Vestland and the Soderfjord Jarldoms. It also had a variant magical Rune system that added something to the games. Lots of flavor.

Vikings & Vakyries is a free RPG: link

Or you could get a copy of Swords & Wizardry and then the supplement Northlands Saga….http://www.talesofthefroggod.com/northland.html

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to emphasize in my OP, yes, I'm looking for the historical vikings and their legends and lore. Altho there are clearly many interesting fantasy worlds / lands inspired by them, that's not my present direction, thanks.

If anyone has the Runequest or GURPS or Avalanche Press and wants to sell it for $$, let me know! I'm posting for them on Bartertown.

Oh, and SJ GAmes still publishes Vikings, but as an $8 USD ebook.

I never suggested it as purely historical, the original post mentioned mythical, and this is a fantasy board, so…

on that note, I forgot I had Rolemaster's historically (and mythos) based Viking supplement:

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Here is a copy on eBay from Noble Knight games for 30 bucks (Buy it now):

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Quickly browsing through my copy, ACHOO! (rather dusty),
it contains viking history and cultural references (historical figures, family life), a viking 'timeline', 'real world' maps and even mythos based maps, information on various kingdoms/regions (Ireland to Iceland to laplanders, to the Rus and to the Byzantine Empire; there are star charts, trading practices, mythical beasts from lore and so forth…

On the whole, plenty of good information for a campaign.

The fellas that did Qin do a game called Yggdrasill

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I've not played it, but if it's half as good as Qin, it should be a load of fun

Battle Troll has some interesting mythical passages from sagas included. Fun to read for Nordic inspiration. (Free download.)

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yep, reading a couple of Sagas right now, they are gory but fun. It does make you thankful for the relatively peaceful and lawful times in which we live!

Well, I couldn't resist the entire copy of Runequest II: Vikings, by Peter Nash…it was $1 USD for the 2010 publication. Was surprisingly low considering it is in print at $30. USD

I put in a bid for the GURPS vikings 1st ed. at $2.50 USD, also, but we'll see if that sells low or not.

Thanks for the opinions and info!

The Runequest II: Vikings book is quite good in many areas. It's only flop is the religion section, which gives neither a useful overview nor guidence for the later Viking era, when Christianity began to take root in the lands of the Viking raiders: Denmark, Norway and Sweden, along with their extended settlements into the Isles.

But if you are only interested in the pre-Christianization era, there should be enough explanation to guide the GM and player's actions in the pagan era, except that the rune magic section could've used a little more fluff.

Overall, a great bargain at $1 USD, even with printing and binding costs it was only about $14 USD total, I think.

The closest I can think of is, Chivalry and Sorcery.. 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions, though I did hear a newer version was due for release this year.