A few things I really like about WFRP

[MNblockhead]

I don’t know to what extent this is true, but I always felt that Warhammer had a more European feel, both in the themes and geography of its setting, and in the way it was meant to be played.

My experience with European players is almost exclusively from France, but it was clear that their play style included a lot more of these mundane aspects of life, roleplaying each interaction in depth, taking pleasure in fleshing out the life of their characters as people more than adventurers. Our games in comparison were incredibly fast-paced and action-oriented, « like a Hollywood movie » they would say. They were astonished to see that we had combat in almost every game session, and sometimes even two fights in a single night! For them, painstakingly acquiring trappings and roleplaying their progression in their profession(s) was the crux of their Warhammer experience.

Perhaps this is different with the newer generation of French roleplayers and I don’t know the last two editions of WFRP, but I do think that Warhammer was(is?) at its best in a slower pace game or longer campaigns.

The world map for Warhammer Fantasy is basically a squashed real-world map with highly generalized and heavy on stereotyping cultures and kingdoms inspired by real-world cultures, though very anachronistically. Then mix in an 80s punk on the brink of destruction vibe, a grim world view, a bit of lovecraftian horror, and a large dollop of dated, campy pulp culture references and low punny humor and you get the old world. The areas that get the most detail are the Reikland, mostly based on medieval/renaissance Germany and east Europe. Brettonia is French Arthurian romance. Araby is Arabic Knights and mash up of Arab cultures through a Western lens. Tilea and Estonia are Spanish / Italian inspired, but more city states than empires.

Whenever I try to explain the Warhammer world, it is hard not to roll my eyes, but somehow this eclectic and often lazy world‑building has stewed into a tasty setting.

I find I enjoy the setting more zoomed in and am not all that invested in the overall cosmology, which has changed quite a bit over the years. The lore still has echos of when it originally was part of the same universe of Warhammer 40,000. But for decades now, Games Workshop has kept the lore of WH Fantasy and 40,000 strictly separate, despite using many of the same races and gods (at least the Chaos gods) the same.

I've played with people from France, Germany and other countries online and haven't notice much of a difference in play styles, but these were in games run by GMs from the UK or America and the GM sets the focus of the adventures. Also, they have been games played in English, so those joining such games may not be the best representatives of "typical" French or German players.

 

[TheSword]

I played some WFRP 1e with some old and new friends yesterday, and after the game we were discussing the game's virtues and flaws, as well as various classic campaigns, and I realized a thing: WFRP is singularly unsuited for mega-campaigns like The Enemy Within.

The reason is the advancement system. While there are differences between 1e, 2e, and 4e (let's ignore 3e for the moment), they are all based on the same principle: you start out in a fairly low-class career (rat catcher, beggar, pit fighter, scout, scribe, craftsman's apprentice), acquire XP to advance various stats and skills, and once you've done enough of that you can move on to a new career which opens up new advancement opportunities. But these new careers aren't just words on a character sheet. If you want to move up from being a mere trader to a merchant, you need to actually be a merchant: you need to buy a town house and a warehouse for your business, you need to hire some scribes and either a train of mules and drivers or invest in part of a merchant ship, and you need to invest in 2500 GC worth of trade goods (at least in 1e). If you want to advance from Outlaw to Outlaw Chief, you need to actually recruit a small band of other outlaws.

That's pretty cool as a concept, but it's not really compatible with "We need to save the world"-style campaigns where it can be hard to find the time to recruit a band of outlaws or getting a job as a judicial champion. That's the kind of stuff that needs either plenty of downtime or, better, roleplaying out the acquisition of a new career.

My understanding is that with 4e, C7 have released a number of adventure anthologies and maybe other shorter adventures (in addition to the remake of Enemy Within). Does anyone have experience with these, and would these match the actual system better?

We're part way through book 5 of Enemy Within - Empire in Ruins - and we're still loving it. Its taken 3 1/2 years as we play for 2 hours once a fortnight but I'm amazed how quickly the time has gone. Also amazed that I have the same players and same characters still though I must admit it got close a few times when the Fate points ran low.

I get what you mean about fitting The Enemy Within into the standard downtime/advancement paradigm. However one big thing I learnt from running the campaign for the third time in 25 years is that you don't need to play out every minute of this multi-in-game-year spanning campaign. It is totally possible to treat the half dozen+ parts in each book as individual adventures in most cases and stick a week or two of downtime in there where your party are getting on with their own careers. It is totally flexible in that regard. Apart from a couple of key points much can be done in any order and at any time. There are only a couple of clocks at specific points in the campaign.

@MNblockhead is absolutely right though, the three Ubersreik Adventures and Rough Nights and Hard Days go together really well as a dozen+ smallish adventures that could share a location. I'm posting some details of my campaign that is doing just that... [Shameless plug incoming] Trying out WFRP 4e - Ubersreik Days and Nights [+]

I also do plan on writing a review for each adventure we play in one thread as I complete each one. But that will take some time.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I popped into this thread because of a comment in another thread about WFRP. I had never even bothered to look at it because my perception has always been that it is a crunchy tome packed full of rules, and I have gone in the opposite direction lately (Shadowdark, Dragonbane...).

But I will say that there are some elements of your description that really appeal to me, especially this one:

One of the first big differences is the removal of resource management as the main method of challenging the PCs. Not a per-day, or per-encounter ability in sight. Spells can be freely cast without slots though they do carry an element of risk to counter this. Health of characters is represented by a small number wounds recoverable with non-magical means, and injuries which take longer to heal. This leads to is a game that isn’t slaved to the ‘adventuring day’. The DM isn’t waging a war of attrition on the players - trying to whittle down their abilities to get some jeopardy in the fight. There’s no such thing as nova. Every encounter stands on its own merit and there’s no need for the filler encounters we often see in D&D adventures. That’s quite liberating as both a DM and a player. If you want a campaign spread over days or an intrigue with only a few combats, you are sorted.

This one is HUGE. I've been posting about this forever. I really hate "x times/rest" resources. Games are about decisions, and "will I need this resource in a later encounter more than I need it now?" is mostly unknowable. So the decision making is based on guessing. (Side note: our ability to identify the "end of adventuring day" "boss fight" is really information that we use to make that decision.)

An example of good design I often cite is the Barbarian's Reckless Attacks ability. They can use it whenever they want, and they have to make a tactical decision of whether it would be wise to do so for this turn.

That said, I'm not opposed to having resources to spend, but I have a fairly strict definition of how they should be used. Which brings me to:

Sitting over all these choices is the advantage system with the choice of running an individual or group system. We run with the group choice (because get on well ) which generates a pool of points that can be spent by any player to boost a roll, perform a combat trick or even gain an extra action.

My principle is that advantages you gain before the roll should be based on risk/reward, not a resource. Resources should be spent after the roll, to change the outcome. This grew out of my observation that many players never spend Inspiration in D&D because they keep saving it for something more important, and eventually they forget they have it. We hope, before we roll the dice, that we will succeed, and we don't want to waste a resource on a roll that would succeed anyway. Or waste it on a roll that's so bad that even with the bonus we fail anyway.

Not everybody plays this way. I know some players happily add dice to a pool, and never really think about it the way I'm describing. But some (many?) do. So, yeah, my preferred game design involves:

• Taking risks to improve your odds
• Spending resources to alter bad luck

 

[TheSword]

I popped into this thread because of a comment in another thread about WFRP. I had never even bothered to look at it because my perception has always been that it is a crunchy tome packed full of rules, and I have gone in the opposite direction lately (Shadowdark, Dragonbane...).

But I will say that there are some elements of your description that really appeal to me, especially this one:


This one is HUGE. I've been posting about this forever. I really hate "x times/rest" resources. Games are about decisions, and "will I need this resource in a later encounter more than I need it now?" is mostly unknowable. So the decision making is based on guessing. (Side note: our ability to identify the "end of adventuring day" "boss fight" is really information that we use to make that decision.)

An example of good design I often cite is the Barbarian's Reckless Attacks ability. They can use it whenever they want, and they have to make a tactical decision of whether it would be wise to do so for this turn.

Yeah it’s one of my favourite things about the system. It’s so liberating when it comes to adventure design and scenario building.

That said, I'm not opposed to having resources to spend, but I have a fairly strict definition of how they should be used. Which brings me to:


My principle is that advantages you gain before the roll should be based on risk/reward, not a resource. Resources should be spent after the roll, to change the outcome. This grew out of my observation that many players never spend Inspiration in D&D because they keep saving it for something more important, and eventually they forget they have it. We hope, before we roll the dice, that we will succeed, and we don't want to waste a resource on a roll that would succeed anyway. Or waste it on a roll that's so bad that even with the bonus we fail anyway.

Not everybody plays this way. I know some players happily add dice to a pool, and never really think about it the way I'm describing. But some (many?) do. So, yeah, my preferred game design involves:

• Taking risks to improve your odds
• Spending resources to alter bad luck

So it’s probably best to consider Advantage in WFRP 4e as ‘momentum’, or the ebb and flow of battle. One of the big criticisms of 1st and 2nd edition is that combats could easily become bogged down as the combination of percentile attacks, parrying, armour and toughness meant that combat could be a case of flailing ineffectually against each other. Advantage was a way of success leading to future success. I don’t know what the technical name for the opposite of a doom cycle is but Advantage would be an example of it.

I think Fortune fits the description of what you’re describing. A meta currency that lets you make a reroll after the fact. Before the roll you can get optional modifiers to hit based on how you approach the combat… outnumbering your foe, charging, staying still before shooting, taking aim, getting closer etc etc. there are many of them. Unfortunately remembering these rules is a big part of why I call WFRP 4e a crunchy system. It’s the trade off… Allow players to tactically make choices to improve or mitigate their odds? You’re gonna have to have some clear ideas of what is possible and what impact it will have.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yeah it’s one of my favourite things about the system. It’s so liberating when it comes to adventure design and scenario building.

So it’s probably best to consider Advantage in WFRP 4e as ‘momentum’, or the ebb and flow of battle. One of the big criticisms of 1st and 2nd edition is that combats could easily become bogged down as the combination of percentile attacks, parrying, armour and toughness meant that combat could be a case of flailing ineffectually against each other. Advantage was a way of success leading to future success. I don’t know what the technical name for the opposite of a doom cycle is but Advantage would be an example of it.

I think Fortune fits the description of what you’re describing. A meta currency that lets you make a reroll after the fact. Before the roll you can get optional modifiers to hit based on how you approach the combat… outnumbering your foe, charging, staying still before shooting, taking aim, getting closer etc etc. there are many of them. Unfortunately remembering these rules is a big part of why I call WFRP 4e a crunchy system. It’s the trade off… Allow players to tactically make choices to improve or mitigate their odds? You’re gonna have to have some clear ideas of what is possible and what impact it will have.

I doubt I'm going to start playing WFRP, but your post did get me curious enough that I might at least read it.

 

[Staffan]

I don’t know what the technical name for the opposite of a doom cycle is but Advantage would be an example of it.

Virtuous cycle if it's positive, or snowballing can be either positive or negative (it's often used somewhat negatively about games where initial success leads to more resources which leads to more success, which can be bad in long-term games because at some point it becomes obvious what will happen but it's going to take a lot of time to get there).

 

[TheSword]

Virtuous cycle if it's positive, or snowballing can be either positive or negative (it's often used somewhat negatively about games where initial success leads to more resources which leads to more success, which can be bad in long-term games because at some point it becomes obvious what will happen but it's going to take a lot of time to get there).

That makes sense. In WFRP 4e the virtuous circle speeds things up.

The reality of combat is that nothing is a given or inevitable because of the random elements of the game. There is a chance that goblin can split your head open like a ripe melon and therefore you can never take anything for granted!

 

[MNblockhead]

The reality of combat is that nothing is a given or inevitable because of the random elements of the game. There is a chance that goblin can split your head open like a ripe melon and therefore you can never take anything for granted!

This is an incredibly important distinction for WFRP that differs from many TTRPGs. It took me a while to get out of the mindset of worrying about "balanced" encounters.