Review of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

[Spell]

I have always saw that people could see things differently from me. It is the people who're acting offended that I rail against.

so, they can see things differently from you, but if they do they are somewhat misguided... very interesting...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Of course Jonny is polite, he's british, for Sigmar's sake!

You haven't been to Britain recently, have you?

I mean, it's the USA where people can be sued for looking at other people in a slightly funny way, not the UK. Compare sessions of Congress to sessions of the British Lower House some time. It should be... illuminating.

 

[Numion]

the diference is that you don't have them all around the place. you might have hints of them, but my experience with D&D is that you tend to encounter a beholder, a dragon, a powerful undead, demons, and similar monsters once every two or three sessions...
not so in warhammer. while the monsters are still there, they are exactly that: monstrousities! (as opposed to fairly mundane opponents with weird to horrible looks).

It depends on the campaign. Most of peoples view of the world comes from the Enemy Within campaign, which is mostly situated within civilized lands. Not much monsters there. The other campaign, Bloodstones, is pretty similar to D&D adventures. All in the Old World. It features firebreathing minotaurs, tentacled monsters, wyverns, orc lichs, etc .. And let's not even go to Castle Drachenfels .. :\

Most people, me included, prefer the more civilized adventures, with low-XP characters and hidden chaos cults. But it's just plain wrong to claim that the other, pretty darn fantastic, side of Old World and WFRP didn't exist.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

It depends on the campaign. Most of peoples view of the world comes from the Enemy Within campaign, which is mostly situated within civilized lands. Not much monsters there. The other campaign, Bloodstones, is pretty similar to D&D adventures. All in the Old World. It features firebreathing minotaurs, tentacled monsters, wyverns, orc lichs, etc ..

The "Doomstones" campaign. And as far as I know, they were originally indended as D&D adventures, and rewritten for WFRP...

 

[Spell]

Most people, me included, prefer the more civilized adventures, with low-XP characters and hidden chaos cults. But it's just plain wrong to claim that the other, pretty darn fantastic, side of Old World and WFRP didn't exist.

i see your point, BUT, if the majority of the warhammer games tend to gravitate towards low magic adventures in a civilised setting (be it the Empire, Bretonnia, or what has you), wouldn't it accurate to say that the "flashy" (*) element in warhammer is tuned down a lot?

(* i didn't negate the fantastic side of warhammer, because, well, even mundane opponents like orcs, or goblin are fantastic... they come from (sometimes twisted or amended) real world mythology, after all! my point was that the "flashy" element was not present. with flashy i mean larger than life, awe inspiring (as opposed to horror filling), glossy, neat, quasi-human despite the looks... what i mean is:

D&D: a dragon!!! let's toast it, save the village and have the treasure!!! c'mon babe, daddy needs that new +2 sword!

Warhammer: a dragon!!! RUN!!!!!! (well, for that matter, with some nasty GMs i've talked with ,it would be: "a goblin!!! AAAAAAAARRRGH!!! RUN!!! )

of course it does vary from campaign to campaign, but if you compare the general tone of, say, dungeon adventures, or D&D fan sites, to that of the average warhammer adventure or fansite, you can still trace some kind of general conclusion.)

 

[Spell]

The "Doomstones" campaign. And as far as I know, they were originally indended as D&D adventures, and rewritten for WFRP...

i heard that, too. apparently, the common knowledge is that they added more investigative parts and reduced the dungeon crawling bits to make them more palatable to warhammer fans.
but that, of course, might be just a myth!


besides, this discussion has nothing to do with the reviews anymore... shall we all migrate to the one about warhammer and newbies?

 

[Numion]

The "Doomstones" campaign.

Of course .. I've GMed them, how could I forget. DUH

And as far as I know, they were originally indended as D&D adventures, and rewritten for WFRP...

... which just goes to show that the milieus of the two games are not necessarily as distant as people make them out to be. Old World is unique, but it got its share of standard fantasy tripe, maybe not that much in the Empire.

If you think about just the cities in WFRP, Middenheim has a festival with formation flying of Wizards, druids freezing a pond for skating, etc .. it's no Waterdeep, but still pretty fantastic.

 

[MonsterMash]

Well, from Black Industry's own forums, there was a thread confirming that the Core rulebook for WFRP2 went to reprint after one month, and the expectation was for it to take 6 months. That would be from the horse's mouth.

As I recall, the White Dwarf comment was a prediction, not sales announcement.

Oh, and here is Chris Pramas' post from his blog on the subject of sales of his baby.

Anecdotal evidence - Playin' Games in Museum St London has a list of last months best selling items and since its release WHFRP has been in there, usually with the 3.5 PHB and World of Darkness latest, most other stuff might be in there for the month of release and that would be it.

 

[Belen]

D&D: a dragon!!! let's toast it, save the village and have the treasure!!! c'mon babe, daddy needs that new +2 sword!

Nice to see you being condescending.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, from Black Industry's own forums, there was a thread confirming that the Core rulebook for WFRP2 went to reprint after one month, and the expectation was for it to take 6 months. That would be from the horse's mouth.

As I recall, the White Dwarf comment was a prediction, not sales announcement.

Oh, and here is Chris Pramas' post from his blog on the subject of sales of his baby.

Actually, the White Dwarf comment, in the form of an editorial, was the reasoning why GW got out of the RPG industry in the first place.