runequester;n348109 said:
Is there a decent overview of these games compared to each other? Looking at the books I got in the mail, they look very similar and I believe were derived from each other?
They are related: Järn was made first, and HT derived from it and intended as a light fantasy introduction game. They are almost fully compatible: weapons damage is 1d6 higher in HT (to get faster fights), Järn also has the Soul health stats for social conflicts, and the skill lists for player characters differ to reflect the iron age setting in Järn and the fantasy adventuring in HT. Other than that, you can take stats from one game and use in the other, especially for NPCs.
Fights run differently: Järn use cards to select a hidden stance which is then revealed, which works wonderful in duels, but not so well in fighting a hoard of goblins or a giant monster. HT uses a normal round with initiative and actions, which is not so nice in duels but work great against monsters.
Magic is also different: in Järn, you summon and negotiate with spirits to have them do you a favour, while HT is a normal mana point based spell system.
Järn also has a system for social conflicts, like the
ting, negotiations, arguments, debates and so on.
runequester;n348109 said:
Are there obvious advantages to starting with one over the other and how easy is it to transfer material between them or to learn one when you start with the other?
Myself and my group are well versed in BRP based systems, if that helps.
I think you play them as they are. One is not the introduction to the other, but rather they are two related but different games.
With Järn, I was originally aiming for a system which I could use to play Snösaga/Snowsaga from Drakar&Demoner Trudvang/Trudvang Chronicles without throwing a fit. Eventually, that grew to a clan-based iron-age player created setting. The players not only make characters, but also their clan and its surrounding, creating a relation map which the gamemaster then use to find conflicts to build adventure around. It is much more about culture gaming, living the clan life, creating intrigues and participating in the creation of the shared story.
HT has a different aim: it's supposed to be a light fantasy game for beginners and the beginners' parents, so it doesn't demand the players to create the world and has much more conventional adventures.
I think that Järn is the more demanding of the two and requires more mature players, but as it was first, it is also rough at the corners and not as refined.
Or to put it this way: in Järn, you build a clan together, be it Norse, Saxons, Mongols or Franks, and then you build a Njal's Saga or Nibelungenlied around that. In HT, you play a Samurai, a Troll witch, a Cossack and an Elf thief and then you have an adventure. Style-wise, they are not quite compatible, even if it is very easy to use stats in one game for the other.