Home » Ancient Posts » Bifrost: Anyone Own or Have Played this old UK Fantasy RPG?    
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Catacomb librarian

that's excellent news. Please let me know of any further information you are able to collect from this guy.

Randall

A received an email from a gentleman in the UK who believes he still has all four volumes of Bifrost in a box in his closet. I'm trying to persuade him to write a bit about each volume and the game as a whole as a guest post here. Even a list of what each volume covers would be more than I know.

imredave

I used to own a copy of Bifrost volume 1, which I picked up while being a tourist in London many years ago. Unfortunately volume 1 was not enough to play the game.

Catacomb librarian

Thanks Randall, i'll write about Bifrost in the future on my blog,as i said before. I promise, don't worry 🙂

I think that many games were better than D&D..i am generally against the cult of D&D and the fixation on it.

bye for now

Randall

I just noticed that Catacomb Librarian posted scans of the White Dwarf review I mentioned above yesterday in this post: The enthralling mystery of Bifrost. If you'd like to read the review that got me interested in Bifrost 30+ years ago, hop on over there.

Randall

@Catacomb Librarian: You are the first person I've ever found who actually owned any part of Bifrost. I will be very interested in reading your posts on it. For others interested, Catacomb Librarian's blog can be found here: Mesmerized by sirens. It talks about a lot of older RPGs that most people have forgotten or, more likely, never heard of.

I'd be particularly interested in hearing about the magic system, but also why you think the game is better than D&D in general.

Catacomb librarian

"I'm sure that it was just another early example of what came to be called a "fantasy heartbreaker"

I can assure this is not the case.
Bifrost is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.
It took me a lot of time and it was a real pain in the neck but after some years i was able to get copies of the first and the third volume, i read them some time ago and i was struck, particularly by the Magic system. Bifrost is beautiful,but it is really not for everyone. If you have a look at "Heroic worlds" it says that it is somewhat complicated and that may be true.

Bifrost was better than D&D, and in my humble opinion is one of those gems which absolutely must be rediscovered again.Unfortunately, as i said, i only read Bifrost but i never managed to play it, but i will surely try in the future.
You are right, the only existing review is the one in WD, the other one you saw maybe was contained in a fanzine, because it was never reviewed in Dragon nor in Space gamer, only in WD.
I am fond of obscure fantasy rpg's, on my blog i already wrote about Castle Perilous, Phantasy Conclave, Melanda, Sword's path:glory, and you can be sure i'll devote time and energy to ensure the proliferation of Bifrost.Do expect some posts in the future about it.
Since i know that it is extremely difficult to obtain it, i was thinking of using my blog to make it available in the future to everyone..i'll see what i can do.