Granted, they aren't high-litterature. But they do a good job, I believe, of showing a certain aspect of the atmosphere intresect of the setting. -Every- WFRP campaign I've been in, after all, has had some humor in it, to offset the rather grim tone of the game in general. And I don't think any evil race was ever portrayed as greatly, from two perspectives, as the skavens are in "Skavenslayer".
Review of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
- Thread starter RyanD
- Start date
Spell said: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.)
Sounds like my kind of campaign. As a general rule, I like big monsters--like dragons--to inspire fear and wonder, rather than, "Hmmm what magical [McGuffin] do I have to combat this?" Orcs and goblins shouldn't be too terrifying; just a challenge.
I think someone mention in the other thread that humans are fairly easy to kill, but monsters are not; that sounds *right* to me.
Breakdaddy
First Post
Akrasia said:
You mean *this* Drachenfells?
http://cgi.ebay.com/DRACHENFELS-WAR...230255970QQcategoryZ91153QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Spell
First Post
that's alright. as i said in meta, i would have understood it more if it would have come in the first few pages of the thread.BelenUmeria said:
well, not, but they way you phrased a reply, it did seem that way. and not just to me, if johnny replied to you in the way that he did.BelenUmeria said:
alright. but there are various factors here.BelenUmeria said:
the review did give a good grade to the core book, BUT in its original form (i still have to re read it after the changes) was misleading. it has put some people on warhammer's path (ssampier, at the very least), and that is good for warhammer's community and its publisher.
on the other hand, the review was misleading. it did had a number of mistakes (and big ones, too) like the statement that warhammer is just another fantasy world with an added chaos element. or that the majority of it was derivative from another game system.
now, that might be a compliment or not, depending on how you look at the word "derivative". if someone implies, as ryan did, that D&D left more space for character development, though, i have a problem, because a reader that knows jacks about warhammer, might say: "mmh... one game is derivative, another is the real thing. one gives you some options, the other gives you all of them".
that made the grade quite irrelevant.
one more thing: ryan made a number of remarks (both in the core book review, and in the bestiary one) that showed that if he ever had any command on warhammer knowledge, he had lost it before writing the review.
accusing the monster book to lack a treasure table, for example, misses the point of warhammer completely.
even if you ignore any negative repercussion that this might have on a reader ("the guy says the monster book is crap... it must be, then! no treasure table!"), and concede that someone might still buy the book to check the game out, i still feel that ryan did a poor job.
it would be like somebody approaching D&D because i told him to expects gory horror and low fantasy... the big majority of D&D campaigns and books out there are simply not that way.
sure, the person might like the game just the same... but i would have tricked him into buying it, and that tends to piss some people off, especially if they don't like what they bought.
i can bet all my beer money that the people, like me, who were offended by ryan's review, were not offended by the fact that warhammer was "tainted" by being compared to D&D. as a matter of fact, one of the best reviews of the core book on rpg.net (the one that compares the first edition with the second) does hints at the fact that some rules are inspired by the d20 system and D&D. but the author goes out of his way to examine what is in the rulebook, what is not there, how the game works, what's different between the two editions, and so on. that is a good review. you can agree with the author or not, but it's not like he makes some claims without substantial proof of what he says. he might have gotten his facts wrong, but still, he made a big effort in the process, and i think everybody appreciated the review, even if they didn't agree.
moreover, from my personal point of view, while i do have some problems with the new D&D and the d20 system as a DM (to be blunt, i can't stand being a DM for both games... but i can, and would play as a player with no problem), i am fond of the old D&D more than i can say. in Italy, where i come from OD&D was THE role playing games for ages, because there was no other game translated, and everybody that was into roleplaying was playing it. a tiny tiny minority, in my city, did play other games, too, but, for the most part, if you were playing RPG, you were playing D&D. then it came AD&D, by 1989. then you got the italian call of cthulhu. then cyberpunk 2020.
for me OD&D, AD&D, CoC, and cyberpunk 2020 are like sons. the amount of great time i had thanks to them, the friends that i have met, the things that they gave me, are difficult to quantify.
so, if somebody comes to me and says that i am having an elitist approach and that i'm trying to slap D&D down, that would be like telling me that i hate my mother or something. i would not know where he comes from.
you could say that you don't know where we come from, too. but, before thinking that we have a secret agenda that pushes us to write long hate posts on what are basically d20 fan boards, you could ask if your assumptions are wrong.
i agree with you on the hostility towards Ryan. having said that, it's not the first time he causes huge fights because he used some words meaning another thing, so i'm not surprised that some people can be mad at him. this is not my fault, nor my business, so i'll let ryan and those people and the mods, to sort things out as they see fits.BelenUmeria said:
on the other hand, really, i couldn't see any hostility towards D&D. if you have seen otherwise, and you can't stand it, do name names. say: "i can't understand why so and so has a chip on his shoulder" and don't make general comments that might be taken as directed to anybody who is not agreeing with you.
but the thing is: IF someone says: "i just picked up the game, i never heard of warhammer before, and i think X" he would have probably cause less contempt than someone saying "i've played the game times and again, and i play X".BelenUmeria said:
in addition, ryan is not your wife. he has a name and a past in the industry, and he should know what weight that brings. it's not all prestige. you can't just say things undiplomatically and expect everybody to smile and say: "oh, good old man!"
people do take offence at what you say, if you are ryan, or monte, or gary, or whoever. if you are joe gamer, chances are that they will just think "what a pile of garbage" and never care to reply to what they think is nonsense.
the thing is: if you check and read the book yourself (that or the first edition book) you will see by yourself why and how ryan is wrong. as somebody else's pointed out, those that have no experience with warhammer do tend to agree with ryan, or, at least, not to understand why people who did play the game are so willing to say that he is wrong.BelenUmeria said:
Breakdaddy
First Post
Akrasia said:Yeah, that's the one.I'm tempted to bid, but I'm not sure about paying for postage all th way from Australia ...
How about from Great Britain then (You're in Ireland ATM, right?)?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Warhammer-Novel...232554541QQcategoryZ91153QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Akrasia
Procrastinator
Breakdaddy said:How about from Great Britain then (You're in Ireland ATM, right?)?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Warhammer-Novel...232554541QQcategoryZ91153QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Thanks!
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