Sell me on Warhammer fantasy rpg?

[Tales and Chronicles]

Hi,

Im trying to move on from D&D for various reason and am in the market for a new TTRPG. Im wondering if WFRPG 4e (Cubicle 7 ?) could be the one. Love the flavor and the lore, but Ive always been intimidated by the new mechanics.

Id like to l know does the game play; is it super crunchy or tactical? Does it requires convoluted maths to resolve action? Etc
My players are pretty casual and 5e and things like Fantasy Age are the maximum they can handle.

Anyway, I'd like to hear your opinion!

 

[Retreater]

WFRPG 4e has great art, lore, and setting. Cubicle has produced fantastic adventure content (especially The Enemy Within campaign.) The Foundry VTT module is very well designed.

We fell off it, hard. I find it much more complex than 5e. Here are a few examples:

• It has a basic percentage mechanic to resolve actions, except that the "basic" percentage is rarely used, and you're supposed to modify nearly every roll. Even if you're rolling an average test, you're expected to add something like +20% to your skill to see if you succeed.
• Every time you succeed at a roll, you get metacurrency, which can be spent to augment other rolls.
• You have hit locations, different armor and wound thresholds on every location. And then you have lingering injuries in each of those hit locations to keep up with for potentially weeks of play.
• When you roll opposed checks, you subtract what you rolled from your percentage skill to see how many "degrees of success" you get, which become bonus damage or other effects.
• Want to level up? You're spending XP to buy new skills and abilities, which all cost different amounts depending on different tier values to your class (career).
• It's super deadly. Your character can die if you fall 10 feet.
• You will have a wide power level distribution in your party. You can have a fully armored knight in the same party as a beggar in a loin cloth with no discernable value to add to the group. (Not fun if you're the beggar.)

My recommendation, use the lore and inspiration from the setting and adventure content. Use an OSR system like Shadowdark to run the game.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

WFRPG 4e has great art, lore, and setting. Cubicle has produced fantastic adventure content (especially The Enemy Within campaign.) The Foundry VTT module is very well designed.

We fell off it, hard. I find it much more complex than 5e. Here are a few examples:

• It has a basic percentage mechanic to resolve actions, except that the "basic" percentage is rarely used, and you're supposed to modify nearly every roll. Even if you're rolling an average test, you're expected to add something like +20% to your skill to see if you succeed.
• Every time you succeed at a roll, you get metacurrency, which can be spent to augment other rolls.
• You have hit locations, different armor and wound thresholds on every location. And then you have lingering injuries in each of those hit locations to keep up with for potentially weeks of play.
• When you roll opposed checks, you subtract what you rolled from your percentage skill to see how many "degrees of success" you get, which become bonus damage or other effects.
• Want to level up? You're spending XP to buy new skills and abilities, which all cost different amounts depending on different tier values to your class (career).
• It's super deadly. Your character can die if you fall 10 feet.
• You will have a wide power level distribution in your party. You can have a fully armored knight in the same party as a beggar in a loin cloth with no discernable value to add to the group. (Not fun if you're the beggar.)

My recommendation, use the lore and inspiration from the setting and adventure content. Use an OSR system like Shadowdark to run the game.

Wow, thank you for the answer. I'll strike it from the list!

The two contenders for my next system are ShadowDark or Dragronbane, for now.

I'm trying to get the same ''feel'' as when playing BG 1-2 back in the days, so something gritty but with a dose of videogame-yness.

 

[Reynard]

I'm trying to get the same ''feel'' as when playing BG 1-2 back in the days, so something gritty but with a dose of videogame-yness.

I mean, just play AD&D?

 

[Retreater]

Wow, thank you for the answer. I'll strike it from the list!

Others might have differing experiences. The Starter Set is a good introduction if you're still curious about it.

The two contenders for my next system are ShadowDark or Dragronbane, for now.

I'm going with Dragonbane. It feels like it can handle the style of play and world of Warhammer Fantasy very well. I'm contemplating running The Enemy Within using it.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I mean, just play AD&D?

AD&D had many convoluted rules that were streamlined, modified (or removed) due the videogame limitations. I could probably go over the 2e D&D rules books and remove a bunch of things, but I'm looking for a more ''move-in ready'' system, for now.

Once I get very desperate I'll probably resort to create a Frankenstein patchwork system (then lose motivation, give up and play nothing for a while...)

 

[Tutara]

Warhammer is a great setting, and a really good system in 4e.

Don't be put off because it isn't another D20 system! It is idiosyncratic - like all RPGs - but once you get your head around it, it makes a lot of sense and is easy to work with.

It's also important to look at it yourself, as there are a few misconceptions about it that seem to find their way out into the world.

I really like it, though I am no expert, just a GM running a campaign in it for over a year. Things I like:

• It is not as crunchy as people think! You only use two d10s, and the resolution mechanic is universal. Once you can roll d100 and compare it to your score, you're set. We all found it much simpler than 5e.
• Success levels mean that situations can have a spectrum of outcomes, rather than just pass/fail.
• Has a good, low power feel to the system. Grubby, low fantasy with an emphasis on social and exploration. Don't fall into the trap of thinking this is a dungeon crawler where the only measure is combat might or armour. Think of it like Call of Cthulhu - people from a wide set of backgrounds each with different approaches all of which are valid. Our fightiest character recently branched out into something more social because they felt they were focused too much on hitting stuff and not every solution is 'hit it'.
• Combat is nasty, brutish but above all short. Blows carry weight and consequences, but turns are quick to resolve and good planning and tactics can swing a fight in your favour. An attack is a single roll per combatant.
• Magic is powerful, but also potentially disastrous if you over-rely on it, preventing it from being the defacto solution to every situation and giving it the feel of something strange and other, rather than the equivalent of a handy-dandy labour saving device.
• It is less deadly than people think (but still dangerous!), and you have a number of essentially 'extra lives' to combat a run of bad rolls.
• On the subject of metacurrency, you aren't getting metacurrency every succesful roll - that's incorrect. There are variant rules that let you tweak how it is acquired, as the system is robust enough to allow that. That said, if you don't like metacurrency at all, it does have quite a lot of gameplay relevance.
• Levelling up is probably the most mathy bit, but it's not too bad and the granularity of it gives you plenty of control as to how your character progresses. It's very tweakable, like a lot of the system.

 

[Aldarc]

I do not want to dissuade you from Fantasy Age or Dragonbane as I find them both great games.

However, if you are interested in Warhammer Fantasy RP 4e, then I believe that you should also potentially look at Zweihänder. Some have described it as a more streamlined version of Warhammer Fantasy 2e. The second/revised edition of Zweihänder had a Kickstarter this year. I don't personally have experience playing the game, but if I was interested in WFRP, then I would also consider this game.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

AD&D had many convoluted rules that were streamlined, modified (or removed) due the videogame limitations. I could probably go over the 2e D&D rules books and remove a bunch of things, but I'm looking for a more ''move-in ready'' system, for now.

Once I get very desperate I'll probably resort to create a Frankenstein patchwork system (then lose motivation, give up and play nothing for a while...)

You might want to look into OSRIC, or other retroclones, that streamline the rules.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

You might want to look into OSRIC, or other retroclones, that streamline the rules.

Uh, thank you, I believed OSRIC was yet another B/X clone. You learn something new everyday.

I was born in 1990, so the many pre-3e editions and their versions and their revisions tend to get confusing for me.