Review of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

[RyanD]

Well, as WFRP is a Renaissance setting

Why do you say that? The Renaissance represented a period of liberalizing beliefs, expanded acceptance of science vs. superstition, the growth of a middle class, a flourishing of humanist art & culture, and the restructuring of medevial fuedal governmental systems towards broader-based democratic principles.

What part of the Warhammer World does that reflect?

(Gunpowder and firearms do not make a setting "Renaissance", in my opinion.)

Ryan

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

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.

This I can agree with - I appreciate that a lot of serious thought went into designing D&D 3E, and it is indeed good to see to see other game designers give more thought to the actual process of (re)designing an RPG.

Emulating the process of designing something does not mean that the final product is derivative, however.

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.

Let me see if I can list all the changes from WFRP 1E to 2E, and see how much they resemble D&D 3E:

- All primary characteristics are now percentage values - Strength and Toughness used to be values from 1 to 10.

It could be argued that this follows a similar trend of "cleaning up" attribute values like that from AD&D2E to D&D3E (Str 18/98, anyone). Still, many gaming systems have used the same scale for all attributes (like Call of Cthulhu), and this is only a minor point.

- The distinction between Skills & Talents, as well as Skill Mastery.

Yes, this has similarities with the distinction of Skills and Feats with D&D. Still, there always was such a distinction between them mechanically in WFRP1E - it was just that this difference was not spelled out explicitly. Skill Mastery is new, but it is rather different from the way D&D 3E handles things.

- Changing the damage dice from 1d6 to 1d10

If this is derived from any other system, I'd say the Storyteller system, since the goal here was to use one single dice type for all mechanics - something which D&D has not implemented (though several d20 variants have).

- Distinctions between "full actions" and "half actions"

Here the influence of D&D is readily observable, and I will concede this point. Still, it is only one of many.

- Cleaned up "Basic Careers" and "Advanced Careers" for better game balance

This is more of an "internal housecleaning". And the "prestige classes" of D&D3E are a rather obvious derivative of the Advanced Classes of WFRP1E, so here it is actually the other way around than you suggest!

- An advance will give you a 5% bonus, rather than a 10% bonus.

While this is similar to the basic 5% chance that you get on a d20 when you improve or lower the odds by one step, I wouldn't make too much of it. Players have complained for a long time that mundane characters will rapidly gain all advances from interesting Advanced Careers while spellcasters take forever to get anywhere. This, combined with the cleaned up careers and the new Skill Mastery, merely means that characters take a longer time until they "max out" their abilities, and thus enhances long-time play.

- The new magic system

This is actually a huge step away from D&D3E - the old magic system was a rather conventional "resource management" system, while now we have a "risk management" system - the spellcaster always has to ask himself: "Am I willing to risk casting another spell, even though it might have negative consequences for me?" This is more similar to Call of Cthulhu, where casting spells almost always comes with a price.

- Reduced number of magic items

Another conscious design decision that represents a huge step away from D&D3E. It used to be that magic items were relatively common that PCs might eventually own several of them. Now they are as rare as in Call of Cthulhu - each one is a unique artifact.


This is all that I can think of at the moment.. And only in one instance is the derivation from D&D3E obvious - so I maintain that claiming that WFRP is "a clever derivative of D&D 3rd Edition" is wrong.

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.

I haven't played it myself, but from what I heard, Inquisitor isn't a "true" RPG but a miniature wargame with RPG elements. But I will leave others who actually know the game to comment on it.

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?

Hardly longer at all. The two editions are very similar to each other, apart from the changes I have outlined above.

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.

Actually, it could be easily done with WFRP1E as well. In fact, it might even be easier, since the old magic system is closer to D&D than the new one...

 

[RyanD]

I think what we may have reached is a point where a number of roads all join together in one place. From my perspective, we got to this point by following a clear set of directions. From yours, we got to the same point from a completely different set of instructions.

I am not a person who believes that 3e was "innovative" in its mechanics. 3e represented an effort to look at the way RPGs have developed over the past 25 years predating its design, and cherry pick the stuff that appeared to work the best, while re-writing those things to make them consistent, to reflect D&D's heritage, and to fill in a lot of gaps that the system had been ignoring for years. I suspect that lots of system partisans can point at their favorite game and say "see - D&D took this from my game!" because that's often true (especially when the feature was used in common by many different kinds of games and seemed to work well in many applications.)

If I started at WFRP(old), walked forward to 3E, then walked forward to WFRP(new), I would likely see a different continuum of development than if I started from a different vantage point. That is, my perception of the "road" would be shaped differently from just those data points than it is from my actual perception, which consists of dozens or hundreds of data points.

What I believe is that there was very little "direct" development done to D&D based on WFRP(old), although 3e may have some things in common with it due to osmosis. That is, the 3e designers did not sit down, dissect WFRP(old), figure out what they liked and didn't like about it, and then actively incoporate that work into the design of 3e.

I also believe that a process akin to that was used for WFRP(new) - I believe Chris Pramas knows what he likes, doesn't like, thinks works, thinks doesn't work, can be revised for simplicity, or discarded without major impact when it comes to D&D, and he used that knowledge to build WFRP from a blank sheet of paper to the product I'm holding in my hand right now.

I could be totally wrong. Chris may have the mental discipline to ignore the entire 3e experience, and all its related feedback & commentary, and he may have held in his head for twenty years how he'd do "Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay" if ever given a chance, and it is just coincidence that his pure vision of the WFRP and D&D 3e are substantially systemically similar and demonstrate a parallel design philosophy. It's 1:30am for us West Coasters, and Chris is almost certainly asleep. I suspect that by morning, he'll have made some comment of his own, and I can stop guessing and get the straight skinny right from the source.

 

[Turjan]

Well, it's been said that Runequest came out of Steve Perrin's house rules for D&D, so similiarites will certainly be there since prior editions of D&D are part of the roots of d20

I just wanted to point out that the influences of RPGs often go in both directions. Runequest might have been born from someone's D&D house rules, but Runequest contained many concepts that were decades ahead of D&D and are now found again in the d20 system. The d20 system was very good in picking up good elements from other games. Of course, this makes those games more similar to d20 than ever.

However, I don't say that Runequest or WFRP are the same as the d20 system. Both, Runequest and WFRP, have completely different power curves than D&D, which makes for quite a different gameplay, whether they have some mechanical similarities or not.

 

[delericho]

I must say, I found this review to be very disappointing. I had expected a review of the strengths and weaknesses of WFRP on its own merits, and not a comparison with D&D. Sad to say, despite the fact that I've played nothing but d20 for 2 years now, it is not the be-all and end-all of role-playing.

I also don't believe it is accurate to state that the game is a derivative of D&D. As other posters have said, many of the mechanics in the current edition existed in the old edition. Of the new mechanics, most of the changes have been made to allow the system to adopt the new core mechanic - which is not the d20 core mechanic, and the existence of a core mechanic was hardly an innovation of D&D 3e.

Also, just because you can easily see a conversion from one to the other doesn't mean that they're derivative of one another - the core of both systems are mathematical, so all a conversion is is an equation between two sets of numbers. Might as well claim Exalted is derivative of D&D, since the core mechanic can be converted with only a slightly harder set of equations. (Besides, converting the core mechanic isn't enough - you also need to convert the corners of the system, such as the magic system in WFRP or the charms in Exalted.)

(Now, it is true to say that the combat system does bear significant resemblance to D&D, and the division of skills and feats, sorry talents, seems to be a D&Dism. Against that, there's the fact that the magic system is entirely new, and has nothing to do with the D&D combat system.)

Regarding the question of character advancement: In order to move to a new career, a WFRP character must have completed his existing career. This limits the options of a character for min-maxing. A character wh min-maxes for combat ability will, almost of necessity, have picked up some other skills along the way. However, it is true that a min-maxed character will be more competent than a character who has dabbled in multiple different career paths. Then again, in D&D, a single-classed 15th level character will easily outclass a Fighter/Rogue/Bard/Wizard/Cleric with 3 levels in each class.

Criticising WFRP for not allowing as wide a range of characters with the core book as D&D does is almost laughable. The core rules for D&D are 1,000 pages long, as opposed to just over 250 for WFRP. Of course the game doesn't cover as much!

 

[ackron]

I also believe that a process akin to that was used for WFRP(new) - I believe Chris Pramas knows what he likes, doesn't like, thinks works, thinks doesn't work, can be revised for simplicity, or discarded without major impact when it comes to D&D, and he used that knowledge to build WFRP from a blank sheet of paper to the product I'm holding in my hand right now.

I could be totally wrong. Chris may have the mental discipline to ignore the entire 3e experience, and all its related feedback & commentary, and he may have held in his head for twenty years how he'd do "Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay" if ever given a chance, and it is just coincidence that his pure vision of the WFRP and D&D 3e are substantially systemically similar and demonstrate a parallel design philosophy.

I think the truth probably lies somewhere in between those two statements. Clearly, Chris Pramas learned alot about designing RPGs from the process of building 3rd Edition and applied it to WHFRP, but based on what I have seen of his work on this project, it also seems clear he did not simply "start from a blank piece of paper."

I think, as Jurgen already stated, that he took the process of RPG development that he had learned from D&D and used it to build WHFRP 2nd edition. Did he sit down and think "hmm, how can I turn this game into a derivative of D&D 3rd edition?" No, he sat down and thought "here is what I know about making a good RPG, now how can I apply this knowledge to make a derivative of WHFRP first edition, and make it a good game?"

Ultimately, of course, it is a matter of perspective. Certainly there are many similarities between all three games (WHFRP 1st edition, 2nd edition, and D&D 3rd edition). Do these similarities detract from the value of any of the products? No, of course not, in fact, the adaptability of D&D material to Warhammer probably adds value to it, rather than the reverse. But it is still probably unfair to the creative process that designed WHFRP 1st edition to call WHRFP 2nd edition a derivative of 3rd edition D&D. Most of what WHRFP works was already there in 1st edition, and did not have to be taken from D&D.

Of course, by the time I post this, the conversation will almost certainly have eclipsed my comments, but oh well.

 

[RyanD]

Criticising WFRP for not allowing as wide a range of characters with the core book as D&D does is almost laughable.

Note: We were discussing character power levels not character concepts. In my review, I stated that the excellent WFRP character system will lead to a population of very distinct and interesting characters, as opposed to D&D.

Ryan

 

[Turjan]

Why do you say that? The Renaissance represented a period of liberalizing beliefs, expanded acceptance of science vs. superstition, the growth of a middle class, a flourishing of humanist art & culture, and the restructuring of medevial fuedal governmental systems towards broader-based democratic principles.

What part of the Warhammer World does that reflect?

(Gunpowder and firearms do not make a setting "Renaissance", in my opinion.)

Ryan

Gunpowder and firearms are two elements in this. Mercenary armies are a different element. The renaissance was the age of the witch hunts. Superstition was met by the first attempts at building a modern legal system, it was institutionalized. This means, witch hunts were much more effective now, torture was applied more systematically, and this lead to more burning witches (witch hunts are a phenomenon of the modern era, not of the middle ages). The renaissance was also the time of flourishing absolutism, which took away the rights of all other citizens. The renaissance was the time when the religious wars in central Europe culminated, during which a large part of the population was killed.

Yes, there were also the histories of the Netherlands or Switzerland, which seem to reflect your idealized image. For the majority of the people in central Europe, the renaissance saw a sharp decline in their standard of living with lots of death and misery. It fits the WFRP world quite well.

 

[MonsterMash]

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."

My experience was similar except I was looking at D&D 3.0 thinking - all these good ideas borrowed from RuneQuest2

 

[Imruphel]

(snip) This is more of an "internal housecleaning". And the "prestige classes" of D&D3E are a rather obvious derivative of the Advanced Classes of WFRP1E, so here it is actually the other way around than you suggest! (snip)

Don't forget that D&D1E (and possibly OD&D) had its "prestige classes" first: bards and hierophant druids.