Chaosium used the percentile skill-based system as the basis for most of their games, including Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, and Elfquest.

[2] It was Greg Stafford's idea to simplify the rules (eliminating such mechanics as Strike Ranks and Hit Locations) and issue them in a 16-page booklet called Basic Role-Playing.

Since the first BRP release, designers including Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Steve Henderson, have contributed to the system.

[5] In 2004, Chaosium began publishing the Basic Roleplaying monographs, a series of paperback booklets.

Additional monographs allowing for new mechanics, thereby extending the system to other genres, were released in the following years.

Jason Durall and Sam Johnson gathered up previous works and updated them to a new edition.

[8] A new edition, entitled Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine, appeared in 2023, initially as a PDF and later as a hardbound book.

It uses a core set of seven characteristics: Size, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Power, and Appearance or Charisma.

Each incarnation of the BRP rules changed or added to the core ideas and mechanics, so that games are not identical.

In most BRP games there is no difference between the player character race systems and that of monsters or other opponents.

RuneQuest is long established, does an adequate job of teaching role-playing, and there are now even more games to choose from.