Review of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

[Matrix Sorcica]

This was not a review. This was an atempt to get WHFRP players to switch over to d20.

I think mr. Dancy has lost his focus. In determinig whether WHFRP is a good game or not, what relevance does it have that Pramas used to work at WotC.

Please, get off the soapbox.

 

[RyanD]

while WFRP 2E does take a few concepts from D&D 3E - like half actions - the game it is derivative of first and foremost is WFRP 1E

There are a lot of choices that can be made on page one that have an almost inevitable effect on what gets produced in the next 256 pages. Bad designers tack on systems that don't integrate, or that break other parts of the system due to ignorance or stubborness. Good designers constantly work to reinforce the initial decision set they made as they work down each path the design takes them as they flesh out the game. Chris Pramas is a good designer, and I believe we can reverse-engineer a lot of his thought practice by looking at the end result of his labors.

I perceive that Chris' first decision was "replicate the fun game experience I had in college" (which is why that experience shows up in his designer notes, and is a choice I wholeheartedly support: I wish more designers moved "fun" into the initial parameters of design.) I think his second decision was "figure out what parts of the various incarnations of WFRP are unique, are representative of the Warhammer Fantasy brand, add value, and are fun, and keep them. I think his third decision was "apply the lessons learned by Wizards of the Coast on how to design a successful RPG, taking into account player & GM task load, play patterns, and stable, consistent mechanics.

My opinion is that the result of these decisions was a game that encapsulates a lot of D&D, (mechanically, if not in direct presentation), but also includes very non-D&D systems as big ticket features. The fact that it encapsulates so many D&D features is not necessarily a statement of D&D's fitness itself, as it is a recognition that D&D 3E was shaped by the same kinds of logical, organized design processes that appear to have shaped WFRP.

I have read and played various prior versions of WFRP. What I remember clearly from those experiences was that the prior games were very chaotic - many different systems, little consistency, several places where mechanics overlapped, or contradicted themselves, or were supposed to be delivered in future products that never got released. I'm certain that bits and pieces (sometimes large bits and pieces) of those earlier editions are resident in this version of WFRP. But I do not believe that those versions were the foundation on which the game was rebuilt from scratch. Their presence is important - heritage, familiarity, and suitability to task are all praiseworthly reasons for their inclusion. But to ignore the extensive, deep, and systemic similarities with D&D is, in my opinion, to ignore the truth of what the game actually represents.

Take for example the GW produced Inquisitor RPG. Designed in the UK, by people with no connection to WotC, its research, its market testing, or the feedback it experienced from D&D, it is a very, very different beast than WFRP, despite sharing much of the same "genetic code" in the form of the "Warhammer" ethos and the Games Workshop belief in what makes Warhammer (Fantasy and 40K) successful. In Inquisitor, we have a wholly separate branch of the "Warhammer Roleplay" tree and it looks very little like D&D. If we created a systems map featuring "old" WFRP games, Inquisitor, "new" WFRP products and D&D 3e, the "new" WFRP product is going to show an extremely close affinity to D&D 3e compared to the other potential data points.

Here's another test to consider. If I took the time to mark up my "new" WFRP book to convert all values to constants, set the DCs at 20, and changed the die roll from percentile to a d20, I could play WFRP with my D&D group with little more than an explanation of the ability scores, how to buy advances of the character templates when they get XP awards, how critical hits work and how to determine what spells they can cast. That briefing is maybe a half hour long at most. Can you imagine how much of a re-write I'd have to make to previous versons of WFRP to reach the same level of direct compatibility? Or how long and involved the "conversion" conversation would have to be if I did not do the conversion to the text directly?

We had a test back in the height of the first CCG boom, circa 1995-1996. The test was this: If I could teach your game to a 3rd party familiar with Magic using Magic terminology, and that person could play your game with a reasonably high degree of mechanical correctness based on that instruction, you had a Magic clone, regardless of how hard you had tried to hide behind a different nomenclature, different graphic design, and different branding. I'd say a similar test could be applied to RPGs: If I can explain your game to someone familiar with D&D using D&D terminology, and they can play the game with a reasonably high degree of mechanical accuracy, your game is a very close cousin to D&D. I submit to you that I can perform that test with "new" WFRP, and not with any previous version.

 

[The Shaman]

But while WFRP 2E does take a few concepts from D&D 3E - like half actions - the game it is derivative of first and foremost is WFRP 1E, which predates D&D 3E by two decades or so. It has far more in common with its first edition than with the modern incarnation of D&D. If you can find an old copy, I would suggest browsing through it and comparing the two - this would help understand why the idea that WFRP 2E is a "clever derivative of D&D 3rd Edition" rubs lots of old-time WFRP fans the wrong way (as the current RPGNet thread proves).

When I picked up D&D 3.0 and flipped through it, after not gaming at all for more than ten years, one of my first thoughts was, "Wow, this is a lot like Warhammer Roleplay."

 

[RyanD]

I wrote in my original review:

"It will not be a good game for people who want an ad hoc quickie one-shot adventure with a "bring your own PC" approach."

To the contrary, I think that WFRP is very good for one-shots. Character creation is much faster than in D&D3E

If you believe that the "ad hoc quickie one-shot adventure" will feature brand new PCs, I'll accept your premise. If you're telling me that you could sit down with a group of strangers and cook up a workable party of advanced PCs that an ad hoc GM could challenge in a fun and effective way faster than I could do that task with a group of strangers for D&D, I'll disagree.

My direct experience is that ad hoc games are the least likely to be run with absolute new PCs, other than when people "just want to try the game". When experienced players gather, they'll have binders of PCs ready to play, or will be able to map out a character quickly based on prior experience.

For D&D, I could tell the group "I'll play a 10th level elven fighter with a bow specialization". That's going to define a whole lot of stuff in this context to my fellow gamers and help them frame the choices they'll make to give the party a cohesive feel and a playable foundation of skills and abilities. What's the comparative statement you could make about an advanced WFRP character?

The standard assumption for WFRP adventures is that the PCs are always in over their head - just like in Call of Cthulhu - and can only succeed through luck and cleverness.

This may be true, and I won't argue as I've played very little WFRP. But I will argue that such a conclusion is not to be drawn from the book as written. Clearly, the PCs are expected to succeed in "Through the Drakwald" - little space is given to guiding GMs towards a CoC "everyone goes nuts at the end" resolution.

I wrote:

"A system for creating magic items, and more magic items (there are only 2 magic items presented in the core book, and neither of them are very interesting mechanically)"

Well, basically all magic items in WFRP are artifacts, and thus likely out of reach to create for all but the most powerful PC spellcasters.

I've been misunderstood. I meant a mechanical system for creating magic items, to be used by the GM - not necessarily an in-game system for characters to use to make their own magic items. WFRP tells me that heroes are "lucky" to have one magic item, and that "mighty heroes" may have as many as three. That tells me, as a reviewer, that magic, while uncommon, is not unheard of, and the PCs will get and use magic items on some kind of reasonable timeframe (as we expect them to aspire to be "lucky" if not "mighty" before all is said and done.)

I'm also basing this conclusion on the cover art (guy with flaming, obviously magical sword) - which should be representative of the game to be played, and my knowledge of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, which features lots of magic items.

However, based on the half-page info in the core book, I don't know when PCs are supposed to come into possession of magic items, how this is supposed to happen, how powerful those items should be, how to handle "upgrading" from lower power to higher power, how to resolve stacking vs. overlapping bonuses, paper doll issues, sale price, or how to equip higher level foes to match the power level of the PCs, etc. (Frankly, I suspect this is all in another sourcebook that I have not reviewed, so this may simply be a complaint that the core book doesn't explicitly say "All the magic items are in the Magic Book, go buy it now". I understand however that WFRP has a traditionally bad track record of delivering "the Magic Book" (although I think the Green Ronin version is already in print.))

The idea that there are "good guys" in the Warhammer World - except maybe for some lone, heroic individuals (possibly but not necessarily including the PCs) amuses me greatly.

"The Warhammer World is a rich one, a place of chaos and war, of intrique and politics, or desperation and heroism, of gods and daemons." -- WFRP, page 9

The extensive fiction throughout the book clearly implies that the PCs are to act in a heroic mode, and that there are many heroes in the Warhammer World (outnumbered, perhaps, underpowered, in some cases, but numerous enough to be the common mythology of the place, and the model on which the reader is expected to base conclusions about the setting.)

One wit once descriped the game thus:

"WFRP is when the players think they are playing D&D, only to gradually discover that they are playing Call of Cthulhu."

I like that description. Had it been the overt positioning for the work in question, I think that would have created a wonderfuly unique take on the "medeival fantasy roleplaying game".

I think that part of the disconnect may be that people are reading a lot of stuff into the book that isn't there, based on their previous experiences with Warhammer Fantasy, the novels, the miniatures game, and the older RP stuff. I'm not disagreeing with anyone who says that's where the setting is going, or that's how the game is to be played - I'm simply saying that you can't base those conclusions on the WFRP book itself.

 

[Maggan]

If you do say so yourself.....

He was right though.

/M

 

[Maggan]

A nitpick

A nitpick, advanced classes were present in WFRPv1, well before prestige classes were invented.

/M

 

[tarchon]

Other than the non-cyclic combat initiative system, the combat action system, the division of character abilities into skills & feats (talents), the use of a unified die rolling mechanic, the effort to make a unified target number convention (in this case, lower is almost always better), the increment to all system values in 5% degrees, Prestige Classes (Advanced Careers), and so on, right?

It's had all of those since WFRP1, except parts of the combat action system, which definitely has D20 influence. The die mechanic has only changed slightly in WFRP2, with the combat damage going from d6 to d10 - almost everything else has been percentile since the beginning. I would assume that d6 was some kind of wargame holdover.
Most old WFRP players I've talked to about it actually figured you got PrCs from WFRP advanced careers. Dagger75 summed it up better than I did. I mean, WFRP has had skills for 20 years, and D&D suddenly dropped "proficiencies" in favor of "skills" like 5 years ago was it? Unless the Games Workshop developers flew into the future in a time machine to steal a copy of 3E, it's not from 3E. They already had the target number convention, they already had the 5% and 10% increments, they already had the talents, they already had the non-cyclic intiative, they already had the advanced careers. Yeah, it's derivative - derivative from first ed. WFRP.

Re your comment on the magic system "saves" - that's completely misunderstanding it. When spells do allow resistance (many don't), it's always Will Power, because in WRFP you're not resisting the spell effect as in D&D. What you're resisting is the magic (i.e. chaos), opposing the caster's will. Whenever you resist (or use) magic or chaos, that's what you roll. This Will Power test is not modifed by any abilities of the caster or the level of the spell. It doesn't have automatic failure or automatic success. It's the same roll you make to cast spells, and totally like any other ability check. It's just not the same thing as a D&D save. None of those things you mentioned are any different from regular ability tests, whereas in D&D, you have a special class of tests called saving throws, with special rules, special modifiers, special advancement schemes, and the saves are never used to perform actions. This special statistic class does not exist in WFRP, because anything you would do with a D&D save is integrated into the regular resolution mechanic. That sounds a lot more streamlined to me.

 

[RyanD]

A nitpick, advanced classes were present in WFRPv1, well before prestige classes were invented.

Noted & comments revised!

Ryan

 

[Turjan]

In the setting description, it also seems to have completely sailed over the author's head that "the Empire" is a reflection of the Holy Roman Empire, not "Germany."

Well, as WFRP is a Renaissance setting, the proper state name to compare the "Empire" to would be "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation". This means, it's more or less nitpicking .

 

[RyanD]

Most old WFRP players I've talked to about it actually figured you got PrCs from WFRP advanced careers.

I believe the inspiration (you'd have to ask JoT directly) was the Samurai option from the Wizardry computer game.

Re your comment on the magic system "saves" - that's completely misunderstanding it.

If Character A does something to Character B, and Character B rolls a die to see if that effect fizzles, that's a save. I don't think that can be any more clear.