This is the world of the bunny rabbits.
Bunnies And Burrows (written by Dr. Dennis Sustaire and inspired by the novel Watership Down) is the fantasy game in which you play an intelligent rabbit. This game has been through two main versions over the years:
- First/Second Edition: Published in 1976, it uses a percentile system
- GURPS Bunnies and Burrows: Published in 1992, it uses GURPS as the system.
Bunnies and Burrows has long been recognized as a very inventive game. It was the very first roleplaying system to allow non humanoid characters, the first game to have a Martial Arts combat system (called Bun Fu), and the first game to attempt a skill system. Everything has been built with common sense and realism in mind. A lot of research went into the books and all illnesses, problems, and anatomical difficulties outlined are accurate. When it was released, it was considered "light years" more advanced than Dungeons & Dragons.
However, nobody took the game seriously because it's about bunnies. With no weapons, mythical creatures, or unrealistic magics, players were at a loss for what you could do inside the game. Many were mystified that you could make an epic adventure with rabbits and dismissed the idea as "too silly".
However, Bunnies and Burrows carries on as a cult classic due to its inventiveness, unique gameplay, and the fact it's all about bunnies. The game can be bought and downloaded here
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Tropes found in this work:
Empath
Empathic Healer with a few extra abilities
- Healing Factor: Transfers their good health to others in order to heal them
- Healing Hands: Well, paws, but you get the idea.
- Liquid Assets: May be able to transfer damage taken from healing to enemies as an attack.
- Luck Stat: 10% less chance of going into shock when frightened or injured
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: They can hold their breath twice as long as other classes
- White Mage: Can be played as one one these, especially if they can reverse-heal as an attack.
Fighter
Exactly What It Says on the Tin. They fight with Bun Fu.
- Barbarian Hero: Sometimes comes out as one of these, if they aren't a monk.
- Critical Hit: All attacks fighters make deal 1 extra damage.
- Expy: Hello, Bigwig.
- Foo Fu: Or, rather Bun Fu in this case. Or Little Bunny Foo Fu.
Herbalist
The Medic. Only uses plants and keen senses instead of medicines and tools.
Runner
Basically a Ranger or a Ninja.
- Action Initiative: Runners always go first unless in a state of shock, surprised, or confronted by a faster runner.
- Back Stab: These bunnies get surprise attacks!
- Defend Command: Runners can strike and dodge in the same turn.
- Gratuitous Ninja: Bun Fu fighting rabbit attacks in the night!
Scout
A rogue minus the thieving, they gather information and disarm traps.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Bunny edition.
- Luck Stat: They have a bonus to finding hidden things.
- Randomly Drops may manifest due to the luck stat.
- Omniglot
- The Engineer: Flexible bonus to building and inventing items, for example, traps.
- Trap Master: Both making and destroying traps is their thing!
Seer
Exactly What It Says on the Tin. They have visions and get mild psychic powers.
- Emotion Bomb: Their primary attack, it instills a paralyzing fear.
- Expy: Hello, Fiver.
- Omniscient Hero: For high stat characters.
- Not So Omniscient After All: For low stat characters or failed rolls.
- Telepathy: Higher stat seers communicate telepathically.
Storyteller
The good old bard!
- Chick Magnet: 20% bonus to attracting and keeping a mate.
- Emotion Bomb: Uses stories to enthrall subjects.
- Lethal Joke Character: A little bit of skill makes them into a puppet master or worse.
- Mind Control: Persuasion is the class natural ability.
Maverick
The party Rogue, focusing mainly on social skills.
- Bag of Holding: They can carry double the amount a normal rabbit can.
- Classy Cat-Burglar: They have a bonus to climb.
- The Gambler: In social settings, anyway.
- Loveable Rogue or possibly Gentleman Thief
- Master of Disguise
- Use Item: They're good at using and figuring items out.
- An Adventurer Is You: Typically stories revolve around adventuring, though variations exist.
- Alliteration & Adventurers: Bunnies & Burrows is a name patterned after that of Dungeons & Dragons.
- Chunky Salsa Rule: Commonly employed against larger enemies like cars.
- Critical Failure: Commonly results in bunnies being eaten, horribly mangled, poisoned, drowned...
- Cute Bruiser: Bunny combat!
- Everybody Hates Mathematics: Bunnies are actually unable to count above four. Any number larger than four is just "Lots" or even "Lots and Lots" for really large numbers.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief:
- Fighter (fighter, runner)
- Mage (Seer, Herbalist, Empath)
- Thief (Maverick, Storyteller, Scout)
- Genius Bruiser: Characters need to be smart in combat or they're dead.
- Humans Are Cthulhu: The standard ability scores (for rabbits) are 10; humans have scores of 20-40!
- Low Fantasy: It's a fantasy game, but there is no "real magic" and all rules of physics and the real world (ex: owls eat rabbits) apply.
- Mundane Made Awesome: While other games cover worlds of magic and wonder, sword-swinging barbarians and cyberpunk net-jackers, here it's the exotic world of country meadows. Far more exciting and brutal than it sounds - nature, red in tooth and claw and all that.
- Players are Geniuses: Never doubt the creativity of the players, especially when they're playing a bunny.
- Rabbit Magician: There are two Character Classes built around this: the Empath, which use White Magic and Healing Hands; and the Seer, which develop Psychic Powers, Telepathy, and Emotion Bombs.
- The Roleplayer: This game has a heavy focus on storytelling, not combat.
- Total Party Kill: Happens with alarming regularity if you try to use "conventional" tabletop methods like Attack! Attack! Attack!.
- The Six Stats Expanded upon by adding Speed and Smell.
Things Averted
The following things are averted in Bunnies and Burrows, mostly because they tend to invoke Total Party Kill unless noted otherwise.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: When you're a small, effectively helpless rabbit, mindlessly attacking everything you come across is a good way to get yourself killed.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Rabbit Leeroys don't have a very long life expectancy.
- Munchkin: It's hard to munchkin out a rabbit, especially without "real magic".
- The Real Man: You're playing a rabbit in a world full of owls, dogs, humans and cars. You aren't going to kick anyone's ass anytime soon.
