Seriously considering Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (2nd edition)

[coyote6]

Yeah, it's a neat game.

I ran a one-shot, and my group's reaction was mixed. It was fun, but I think the starting PCs felt a little too incompetent for my tastes. if I ran it regularly, I'd probably give the PCs a few more advancements to start.

(Actually, I'd probably use the world & everything, and run it in GURPS. )

 

[Repentant Lurker]

A superb game, grim and gritty all the way. Being caught dead to rights by a watchman with a loaded crossbow really means something. I highly recommend giving it a try ( of course I could be biased as we have a truly excellent GM in Psimancer )

 

[WayneLigon]

I've played it a little bit; nothing beats it for ease of character creation and 'leveling', though your low chance to do pretty much everything in some careers can get really, really frustrating in a very short time.

 

[pawsplay]

First edition rocked hard, and 2e looks like a general refinement.

Nitpics: I like Fmir, and I will miss the Jabberwock.

 

[Gothmog]

My group and I love WHFRP2- its replaced D&D for our fantasy gaming needs. I've been running a campaign using WHFRP2 for almost 2 years now. The system is simple and intuitive (meaning almost no referring to rulebooks during the game), provides plenty of options for character development, and is a breeze to prep for. My group were pretty die-hard D&Ders, but after trying WHFRP2, we've been playing it and haven't looked back. Some strengths of the system:

1. Character creation is FAST and easy, while still being detailed. Characters have very different skills sets and abilities, and they start more competent than a beginning D&D character.

2. Characters don't "level" as quick, and don't become demigods after gaining a lot of experience. A heavily armored warrior facing 5 or 6 weak adversaries is still in a LOT of danger of being hit, and if one or two of them get lucky shots (usually involving Ulric's Fury- expoding 10s on damage dice), that character can go down.

3. Combat is lethal, brutal, and short. Wading into a horde of enemies is suicide, as is charging a battery of archers across open ground. WHFRP2 encourages smart fighting- teaming up, using cover, ambushes, etc- "heroic" characters are often dead characters.

4. Morality in WHFRP2 isn't black and white- its various shades of grey. Even the most well-intentioned character has his flaws, sins, and vices. Even Chaos, the ultimate adversary, can be viewed in positive terms or having positive results in some situations.

5. Insanity! Character can and will gain mental derangements as a consequence of their adventures, experiencing horrific things, and suffering critical hits. The various insanities are rarely crippling to the character, and are darkly humorous- this is one aspect my group has particularly enjoyed.

6. The magic system is very well done and balanced. Not balanced so much in a spell points kind of way, but in that it requires the wizard to assess whether magic is a good idea or not at a point in time. Magic is NOT a good solution to all problems- overusing magic can result in severe spell mishaps (called Tzeentch's Curse), mutation, and madness. In fact, the wizard in my group has developed a phobia of loud noises, and only uses spells that are quiet or cause minimal noise (meaning he almost never uses lightning anymore!).

7. The WHFRP world is awesome in its depth of detail. In addition, its familiar to most players since the cultures are loosely based on cultures of Medieval/Renniasance Europe. The tone of the world appeals a lot to us too- its kinda like CoC, Black Adder mixed with Terry Pratchett but with darker humor, and a good mystery in its tone (meaning WHFRP2 lends itself very well to investigative types of adventures).

8. The system is intuitive and simple. Its a percentile based system, and the GM is encouraged to keep things flowing and not bog things down in charts and rule-checking. When I started running WHFRP2, I checked the books maybe 4 or 5 times a session. Now, if I check something once, its unusual. That lets me focus on the game and the story, and the players love it. I've also noticed my players don't try to "build" out their characters from creation like they did in D&D. Instead they tend to grow more by their experiences, and feel more like real people.

9. Monsters and beasts ARE scary- charging to attack them directly will often result in a messy death or gruesome injuries. Even a bear or other large carnivore can be terrifying. A mob of orcs on the rampage is a scary thing too- they are bigger, stronger, and tougher than humans, and toe to toe, nothing other than a dwarf or chaos warrior can usually match their tenacity and power.

10. Its very well supported too. Black Industries releases one book every month or two, and most of the books have been very good IMO. Must haves include the main rulebook, Sigmar's Heirs (Empire sourcebook), the Bestiary, Tome of Corruption (book of chaos), Realms of Sorcery (magic), and Children of the Horned Rat (Skaven). Even the weakest books they have released- Karak Azgal and the Armory- still have a ton of useful information, and we find WHFRP2 books give us more bang for our buck than any WotC book has. Also, the Black Industries website has over 40 FREE full-length adventures that are very well done for download, written by the developers and fans, with one or two more added per month!


Possible weaknesses of WHFRP2:

Well, for us there aren't any really. But if you like a heroic game or lots of dungeon crawling or combat, WHFRP2 isn't the game for you. Its dark, gritty, and deadly. Character professions are roughly balanced in their advances and abilities, but NOT in their combat prowess- and thats a refreshing change to me. Also, if you're looking for a CR system in WHFRP2, there isn't really one- its expected if characters run into something they can't handle, the RUN! Finally, there aren't many magic items in the game, and getting rich off adventuring isn't likely- more likely you go insane or die. While these are all strengths for me and my group, if you want the same themes and play out of WHFRP2 that you do out of D&D, you will be disappointed.

 

[pawsplay]

I've always found apt the description that characters in WFRP think they're D&D characters, but they're actually playing Call of Cthulhu. I.e. buy a sword, go off in search of adventure, end up a drooling, one-armed alcoholic. Sometimes you find magic items, but from time to time, encountering one is probably the worst thing that will ever happen to your character.

Magic isn't a tool, and it's certainly not artillery. It's a method of problem solving for the desperate.

 

[Piratecat]

Another thumbs up. I love WHFRP - it deserved that gold Ennie.

 

[Imperialus]

1. Character creation is FAST and easy, while still being detailed. Characters have very different skills sets and abilities, and they start more competent than a beginning D&D character.

This really depends on how you create characters. If you cherry pick your class then you can be quite powerful, rolling up a bonepicker or serf though... not so great.

 

[Professor Phobos]

This really depends on how you create characters. If you cherry pick your class then you can be quite powerful, rolling up a bonepicker or serf though... not so great.

In the old version, sure, but Bone Pickers and Serfs all have useful skills and abilities in 2nd. Maybe not in combat, but WFRP is one of those games where combat isn't expected to be a regular occurrence, but more of a terrifying failure of avoiding combat.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Coincidentally enough I was just recommending Warhammer on a different board earlier today.

For me, the setting is one of the strongest features of the game. By which I mean that many of the standard tropes are there - from tolkein species to magic to adventuring heroes to loosely pseudo-medieval history - but it's all been twisted in unexpectedly nasty ways.

Yes, the characters can, and will, fight against great evil but that evil will often win, they may well be gruesomely dismembered in the process and the "good" they are fighting for is actually a myriad of shades of grey. Yes, they can become deadly warriors, but they may have to drag themselves up from being a vermin exterminator armed with a stick and a tiny foul tempered dog to get there. Yes, there are monsters and the like, but there is also a festering corruption within human society. Yes, they can become powerful magicians, but only if they can avoid being lynched or hideously mutated along the way, not to mention the very real danger of losing their sanity and souls playing with corrupt and dangerous forces. It's also, perhaps unsurprisingly, a game which tends to feature quite a bit of gallows humour.

Another strong point is the career system. There are hundreds of careers, from rat catcher through scribe, beggar, pit fighter, witch hunter and courtier through to noble lord, all integrated into the game world. Astonishingly it manages to combine that with an ease of character generation which should be a model for RPGs. A beginner can have a complete character ready in fifteen minutes.

One point I would add in warning is that if this is your player's first move outside DnD, you may need to warn them that just becaust it looks like DnD and shares many of the same concepts doesn't mean that it plays in quite the same way. Some things can be very different and a group which isn't prepared for that may not enjoy the experience at all. There's a post from years back on these boards where someone recounted a miserable first experience playing Warhammer in the following terms:

"I played a halfling, wanting to be a rogue. Randomly, I was a beggar. I had not one skill that was useful to an adventurer...
My wife also played a character. She had a Dwarf, wanting to be a healer. She rolled a healer type profession, and had a 50% chance of getting each of three healing skills or spells, or something. She got none. Her only 'ability' of any note as a healer was that she owned three leeches."

Now when I read that I actually burst out laughing but it put someone off the game for life . If you've played WFRP before it probably sounds like a situation with a huge amount of potential for entertaining scrapes as two misfits struggle to achieve their dreams - for some reason the notion of the two of them running a scam pretending to be qualified physicians keeps springing to mind. If you sat down expecting to find a dungeon and start lopping the heads off monsters and without warning found yourself running the above characters you might not find it so amusing.

That's an extreme example by the way. The 2e has balanced the starting careers (a little) more and you get two rolls to choose from, or you could just pick careers if the GM allows. Starting characters are normally as competent as DnD starting characters now, maybe a little more, at least at something. But there is no denying that it's a grittier game. A more likely problem is a combination of a GM and players both approaching a situation as they are used to doing in DnD and everyone getting killed in their first combat as a result. The sort of thing I'm thinking of is a GM throwing in what was intended as a kind of warm up combat encounter but which actually includes too many opponents for a combat system this lethal. And then players making a frontal assault, not having realised that the situation is different, and quickly finding themselves on the wrong end of those entertainingly hideous critical hit tables.

I should point out here, that the fate point system does give both players and GM a bit more leeway in adapting. A fate point is a mechanic a little like the "obscure death" rule in the original Dragonlance modules. When the character falls under a hail of orc arrows he might not die. Instead he could wake up to find himself tied up in an orc camp, with the orc's trying to light a cooking fire to start roasting him...

Overall I'd thoroughly recommend it. The system is intuitive and easy to pick up. There's little or no rummaging through the books trying to find some mechanic. The world is richly detailed. The tone is highly entertaining.

By the way, if you can pick up the Enemy Within Campaign I can almost guarantee that you will love it. It's widely and correctly regarded as the one of the greatest sets of adventures ever released for any rpg. It is out of print and was for first edition anyway, but the books come up on ebay regularly. Converting from first edition would take practically zero effort. (It would be more effort to convert them for DnD but it might work if you limited the magic available and were very, very miserly with experience rewards - has anyone tried this?).