TheSword
Legend
Thanks Guy, kind words. Just so people know I’ve updated the process to $15 as it’s an introduction to WFRP. I should say all the rules will be available through foundry so no need for anyone to buy any books.
A few things I really like about WFRP
- Thread starter TheSword
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MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
Do you run any one shots? I can't commit to a campaign, but I'd love to join a one‑shot or drop‑in on a session if you ever allow that.This is an old thread but if anyone wants to see an example of why I love WFRP so much check my game out. Particularly if people want me to teach them the game.
Title: Ubersreik Days and Nights - Paid Game
Who: <@TheSword>
How Many: 4-6 players
What: Ubersreik is in turmoil, disorder reigns and wicked cults and strange occurrences abound. Explore the duchy and survive to set decide the city's fate. The campaign follows a series of official adventures selected from the 4th Edition Starter Set, Ubersreik Adventures 1, 2 & 3, Rough Nights and Hard Days and a few earlier edition adventures updated for 4e with some added connective tissue. It is expected that each adventure will take 2-3 sessions including a few downtime between each adventure. Adventures will take the party all over the duchy based on the party mix.
When: Every Tuesday from 8-11 PM BST
How: Played via Foundry link. Audio on Discord. Sign up through StartPlaying.com
Join Ubersreik Days and Nights - Foundry VTT - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay | StartPlaying Games
Welcome to the Grim and Perilous world of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Where everything is perilously grim. The Peasants are covered in muck and the nobles don't know the price of a gallon of milk. The scene pans in to the city of Ubersreik nestled in the bosom of the Grey Mountains. Graf...startplaying.games
TheSword
Legend
To be honest. That might be a good way of starting things off. The whole idea of running Ubersreik adventures would be that it was serial. Adventures taking 2-3 sessions. It would be difficult to tie it down to a single session but I reckon 2 is definitely possible. Would that work for you? I’ll have a look today and update the listing. I have some other players who are interested in doing a couple of sessions.
Going to spin this off into its own thread.
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TheSword
Legend
Here is the link to the new discussion thread.
Here is the link for the Discord in case folks want to see how the campaign progresses or get a sense of things first.
discord.gg
Join the Ubersreik Days and Nights Discord Server!
The Server for the Ubersreik Days and Nights Campaign. A collection of adventures and strange occurances taking place in and around the City and Duchy of Ubersreik. | 5 members
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?
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?
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I take issue with this, but will give my thoughts on this below. First, to answer the question at the end of your post.
I think that the three collections of Ubersreik Adventures, along with Rough Nights and Hard Days can be made into a satisfying campaign with less rail-roading than The Enemy Within. They also are are available fully prepped for Foundry if that is a thing you care about. There are a number of other converted old adventures and new adventures available as PDFs on DTRPG that I don't have a lot of experience with but can add even more variety. Check out One Shots of the Reikland, Night of Blood (a classic one shot), Its Your Funeral, Emperor's Wrath, and the adventures in The Enemy Within Companion Guides.
The Rat Catcher's Guild's fanzine The Ratter generally has multiple fan-made adventures per issue. You can download them at the Rat Catcher's Guild Discord server, or at the Jay Hafner's external repository here: THE RATTER – A WFRP FANZINE
I've been running The Enemy Withing for over a year and it hasn't been an issue. I'm only discussing 4e in this post. I last played 1e in the '80s and never played nor even read 2e or 3e.
Per the core rules, you CAN move to a career in another class, it just costs an extra 100 XP. Also, if you you completed a level in your career, you can take the next level of another career in the same class for the same xp cost as going to the next level in your current career. The rules recommend an in-world justification.
Also, their is an implied acceptance of DM fiat regarding this that is seen throughout the adventures. You'll find example throughout the published adventures where at certain points in adventures you are given the option to change to a career in a different class if there are good in-world/story reasons for it without the XP penalty. For example, a section of an adventure where you are working with an outlaw camp, will give you an opportunity to change to the outlaw career for only 100xp even if outside your class and even if you have not completed your current career. There is another adventure with a one-off offer to allow a PC to take level 4 of the Judicial Champion career for 0 xp.
I think that this is another example of where an intended rule or rule-variant was cut out in the final editing. Andy Law, one of the main rule designers has talked about some of the issue with the final editing that has led to incongruities like this. But it can also be chalked up to the Golden Rule. I wish they would have just spelled it out as a variant in the call-out book in the character-advancement section.
I tend to stick with RAW except where there are very strong in-story reasons to allow changing to careers in a different class or skipping career levels for less or no XP. Also, because I'm running a long multi-year (IRL) campaign, I am on the low end in terms of the amount of XP I award per session. I tend to try to find ways for players to get what they want out of their characters, while still keeping mechanical balance and in-story versimultude.
As for the trappings you are expected to have for your career, these can be as challenging or hand-wavy as the story requires. I tend to be a bit hand-wavy on how characters get their training to use their XP but I like to create scenes and scenarios into the story in terms of how they get their trappings, networks, etc. This is something that, in my experience, works very well with a campaign like The Enemy Within, which leans heavily into the social and political aspects of the game.
I personally like the career advancement rules and downtime rules. I think they give a lot of flexability in terms of character build while putting on restrictions that are mostly based on the in-game setting. The system supports the setting. Yet, it also allows for opportunites where exceptional in-world opportunites can help you shortcut career changes and talent acquisition. My personal WFRP GM philosopy is that WFRP is not overly concerned with game balance. I try to keep a cadence where things stay deadly and difficult longer with a slow-burn approach to granting XP, with the occasional milestone jumps and opportunities for shortcuts.
I might have to look into that. Right now I'm focusing more on Savage Worlds, but it's good that there are options.
I'm mostly coming at this from how things work in 1e, and while the rules are a bit fuzzy on the topic they certainly do imply that you need the trappings of a career to actually take that career. The section on "adventuring careers" is mostly made up of an example rather than hard rules, but it does say "She seeks out someone who can begin her training as a Scout, and looks out for the Trappings she will require. [...] As soon as she has bought or found her trappings, and started to advertise her services, she can be considered a true Scout." A bit later it says "Each time she will seek out her new trappings, look for work in her new role, and start filling the additional advances the job confers."
So basically, in order to take a career in 1e, you need to "walk the walk". You can't just say you're an Assassin for those sweet +3 attacks, you need to actually get a garrotte, grappling hook + rope, hand weapon, mail shirt, net, shield, and 4 throwing knives, and then start actually work as an assassin – likely by finding an assassin's guild and forging some kind of relationship with them.
2e is pretty much the same, except it makes trappings an explicit requirement to enter a new career. 4e seems more flexible on the topic, though.
To some degree, this is assumed to be happening during downtime (as long as you have the money to spend on the trappings), and at least in 1e there seems to be some allowance for on-the-job acquisition of some stuff. But it does require that there is downtime, which lends itself more to an episodic campaign rather than a continuous one.
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
Yeah, 4e seems to be more flexible and different DMs handle it differently. Trappings are listed for each level of each career, but there are not clear general rules for how you get them. Some groups just treat it as, okay you have these now. Other want to weave that into the story. My group is somewhere in between. When the wizard in my party progressed from being an apprentice to being a wizards, I had separate one-on-one mini session with that player getting his magical license. If someone is going to be a bandit chief, I would have worked in the attracting of fellow bandits over the course of the first two levels of the outlaw career and have a role play moment for when they agree to band together. For a grave-robber, however, I'd either make them buy the trappings or hand wave it. Their isn't a lot of role playing potential for acquiring a bedroll or horse and cart.
The only written rules concerning trappings in the core book are the suggestion that players could have the option of customizing their trappings. In short, trappings in 4e are just things you are expected to have to be recognized and taken seriously as someone in that career. The only mechanical effect of not having them is that the GM may make certain social roles in certain circumstances more difficult.
Ultimately what your trappings are and how you get them are up to you and the GM. Well, also other players as certain trappings could affect the group and the adventure decisions if you take them overly literal. A high level wizard is expected to have a laboratory, which may be inconvenient for a wide ranging group of roving adventurers if the GM demands that Wizard regularly returns to and does work in it.
In 4e trapping are far less rigid and determinative than the amount of coin a PC is expected to spend to keep up appearances and social rank.
Laurefindel
Legend
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.
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.
SavageCole
Punk Rock Warlord
I absolutely adore WFRP mechanics, and love the well-balanced review above. Some of the crunch becomes automatic and second-nature with a bit of repetition, e.g. success levels, etc. You nailed it when you said the biggest drawback/challenge of the system is in the complexity of many subsystems spread across many books that need to be considered and applied in niche moments. If you're not playing WFRP regularly as your main squeeze, it's easy to forget/make mistakes with these.
The only other bit of the system that I have not totally fallen in love with is the swingy Advantage system. I know people rave about how Group Advantage has really improved this, but Advantage applied can often create moments that just feel contrived or not good.
With that said, WFRP might be my favorite game, largely due to the setting and tone, but certainly due to mechanics like success level, soak, unpredictable magic, and conditions. Disclosure: I have enjoyed 1e, 2e, 3e (which surprised me), and now 4e renditions of WFRP. So, I'm clearly biased.
The only other bit of the system that I have not totally fallen in love with is the swingy Advantage system. I know people rave about how Group Advantage has really improved this, but Advantage applied can often create moments that just feel contrived or not good.
With that said, WFRP might be my favorite game, largely due to the setting and tone, but certainly due to mechanics like success level, soak, unpredictable magic, and conditions. Disclosure: I have enjoyed 1e, 2e, 3e (which surprised me), and now 4e renditions of WFRP. So, I'm clearly biased.
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