Hello folks,

The sad news about Robin Crossby has piqued my interest in Harn again, and I'm interested to know how the presentation of Harn differs between the products put out by Columbia Games, which so far as I am aware haven't tweaked the setting elements since the early days, and the products put out by Kelestia Games, Crossby's people. Currently, I only possess Columbia products (from the time of the 2nd edition) and I'm wondering whether I am missing out on something I'd be potentially interested in.

Note that I'm not much interested in the differences between Columbia's HarnMaster and Kelestia's HarnMaster Gold systems: I'm aware that Crossby felt that Columbia's HarnMaster represented a dumbing-down of the system, but I feel that it's perfectly adequate for my purposes and I have little need for a more complex version of it. What I am looking for is information on how the setting differs: Columbia's notice on their website about Robin's death suggests that Robin wanted to adopt a new direction for the setting, whilst Columbia were satisfied with it as it was. Can anyone explain to me Robin's new direction, what it changes, whether it advances the timeline from the Columbia products (not a brilliant idea, to my mind - part of the charm of the Columbia products is that they present a starting point but give the GM free reign to develop it from that point on), etc.?

I never did see much Kelestia stuff but no, I don't believe any of it advanced the timeline beyond 720.  I think both Columbia and Kelestia realized that that feature of their supplements was popular with the fanbase.

For that matter, I don't think the setting stuff that Kelestia released is all that different, really, from the Columbia stuff - maybe a different tone, slightly different emphasis, but it's not like they're incompatible.

The main difference between the two companies is their rules systems, of course.  HMGold is a lot more detail-heavy than is HMCore or HM3.

Long story short - you're probably not really missing out on anything dramatically different from the Columbia Games version, but the Kelestia stuff is quite good and probably worth getting if you have an extra few bucks (and assuming it still is available given Robin's sad passing).

Further, you may want to check out the HarnForum at //www.lythia.com; there's a sub-forum there for Kelestia stuff.

Their vision of Hârn is (or was:() very similar, if not the same. The main difference is that whereas Columbia publishes supplements about Hârn itself, Keléstia publishes material about territories outside Hârn, such as Kelemby. Of course this is not a hard rule, for example Columbia published a supplement about Shorkyne, but that's the tendency.

Quote from: Warthur;229373What I am looking for is information on how the setting differs: Columbia's notice on their website about Robin's death suggests that Robin wanted to adopt a new direction for the setting, whilst Columbia were satisfied with it as it was. Can anyone explain to me Robin's new direction, what it changes, whether it advances the timeline from the Columbia products (not a brilliant idea, to my mind - part of the charm of the Columbia products is that they present a starting point but give the GM free reign to develop it from that point on), etc.?

If Robin intended to make changes and adopt a new direction for Hârn, I was not aware of that. I don't think he intended to advance the timeline, among harniacs that would have been considered blasphemy!

Hmmm, thanks for all the responses. I suspect Kelestia's products probably wouldn't be my thing - I like my Harn focused on Harn itself, simply because it's by far the most developed gaming environment in the setting.