So... what about WFRP?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Sacrificed and THEN hanged? You guys are harsh

No, the cultists sacrificed innocent people (and hanged them), then we hanged the cultists.

1. Caution is essential; if you commit to a battle you can't handle, and you're not fast enough to get away, you can easily die.
2. Characters can through play wind up with missing fingers, missing noses, hacked off hands or legs, missing eyes, etc. But don't worry! They make prosthetics for most things. Think "Pirate" and you'll do just fine.
3. Magic is scarce. A single magic weapon might be the focus of a whole campaign or campaign arc. Spells themselves are chaotic affairs; if you make a really bad (one in ten thousand, I believe) roll, you could be carted off to Hell by a summoned Chaos Demon while casting a light spell. More likely, the spell you cast will curdle all milk around you, or make your tongue glow blue, or make you smell like rotting meat for 10 minutes, or something similar, whether it works or not. Spells are the raw stuff of chaos, and they can literally change the course of a battle, but you must be cautious if working magic.

Points 1 and 3 I can certainly agree with. We've come very close to losing limbs, and have inflicted the same on opponents.

Even comparatively wimpy opponents have managed to inflict damage on our dwarven warrior. He was a ... I forget which class ... and wanted to become a pit fighter, so we found a pit and watched the battle. He only got hit once (he has a shield, and a great Weapon Skill) but took nine damage from the one hit after taking into account toughness.

(Ironically, every hit he got on the bad guy was against his head, and he got hit in the legs. We joked he kept jump attacking.)

 

[Dragon-Slayer]

As many have said, it is fun and fast paced. And dark, grim and gritty. Your characters are often struggling for survival after running for their lives after being accused of being heretical cultists by actual heretical cultists. Chaos forces are after you, the Empire thinks you might be in league with Chaos. Skaven are gnawing their way into your house, orcs and goblins are breaking down the front door.

There is no point in struggling other than to stave off the madness and destruction for a little while. For a GM the game is amazing and gives you limitless ways to punish players. Players who like having to run for it and slog through muck and mire and have to polish their own weapons and armor will love the game. After a few sessions of playing, newbies realize that they are the ones beating themselves up outside the bar and that the world really is crazy and out to get them.

 

[scourger]

I ran WFRP for a few weeks about a year ago. I traded for the core book, bestiary, GM pack (which had a screen) and players' pack (that had character sheets, I think). I bought Karak Azgal. I still have Karak Azgal. It is a great adventure sourcebook. I really recommend Karak Azgal.

We had fun with the game but left it after a while. There are a lot of die rolls in combat: attack, parry and then critical hits after a while. I house-ruled all the mooks to start subject to critical hits to make it a bit more epic. I do love the use of d10s only--that's a nice change of pace.

If I were to revist Karak Azgal, I would do it using either Savage Worlds for ease or d20 for system familiarity. I will probably do the same if I get 40KRP (if the adventures look good enough)--40KRP is due out at the end of January so you might wait for it instead of WFRP.

Here are my answers to your specific questions:

1) The rules are interesting and readily understood. The system is lighter than d20 but heavier than Savage Worlds (for instance).

2) CharGen works pretty well. Some classes are a little more powerful than others in combat, but the random rolling keeps the players from cherry-picking; which is good in my opinion. They are quickly free to change classes readily, though, so it's not a straightjacket.

3) The default setting is dark. It is easy to modify to taste. See above.

 

[Shining Dragon]

1) What's the system like? Is it really that rules-light?

I think so. Not as rules-lite as some systems but its not difficult once you understand it.

2) How unbalanced is the CharGen system? My perusal looks like it'd be fairly unbalanced (since you randomly determine starting class, correct?).

They are balanced if you approach the game as not being combat-oriented. Combat can be deadly, limbs lost, insanity gained, death permanent, healing magic not common. So if you keep throwing the characters into combat then the combat-oriented careers will obviously have an advantage. As I understand it the best adventures feature intrigue, investigation and some combat.

3) It's fairly dark, right?

Insanity. Nasty diseases. Deadly combat. Why yes, it is a fairly dark fantasy game.

So, what're the recommendations of your collective, esteemed minds?

Old World Bestiary is a must, especially if you don't have the previous edition (and don't plan to obtain that and perform a little conversion).

Anything else depends on your taste. I like Children of the Horned Rat myself for a very Warhammeresque campaign book. The campaign may feature predominantly Skaven, but the Skaven are a fairly Warhammer-specific creation.

If Chaos (from Chaos Cultists to Chaos Champions and Demons) is to your taste then Tome of Corruption is your book.

 

[Wik]

Alright. I'm definately gonna have to check this game out. I was talking to my brother about it, and he's all for dark horror (though he's never played "fantastic horror" before, and is a bit nervous about it).

Personally, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to kill me some PCs, guilt-free.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Let's not undersell magic eh?

There are whole academies where magic is studied and battle mages are part of the army.

It's not THAT rare.

For the elves and dwarves, that's even more true than the Empire.

Compared to most D&D games, where the cleric is healing left and right and the wizard is blaster-casting like crazy, WFRP's magic isn't anywheres near as prevalent.

The academies are centrally located around the Empire's capital, at least according to the background fluff I've read, and most common folk are more likely to burn a caster than not, particularly the further away you get from the captial. Dwarves have their own brand of magic, and what Elf PC casters get is the same as the Human PC casters get.

 

[Wik]

So, I didn't buy two books today. I was going to, but I got an Xbox 360 for christmas, and I had to spend at least part of my "Spree money" on Halo 3 (obviously!) But I did spend a little bit at my FLGS - although this particular branch had fewer WFRP books than the other one.

So, I bought the Savage Worlds Pocket Player's Guide (for seven dollars!) as well as the main WFRP book.

So far, I really like it, though I wish the game store had the bestiary. I've been playing around with the system, taking PCs and levelling them up a few times to get an idea for how the careers work. I made up a neat Initiate who functions as a zealous preacher/templar, and an Outlaw that I decided to focus on Archery.

There's a few little quibbles with the system that still confuse me (for example, it says to take a new career, you have to have all advances, and it defines advances as improvements to primary or secondary characteristics; it doesn't say you need all talents and skills to progress. Yet, in another chapter, it implies that you need all talents from your career before you can progress to the next. Which is true?)

All that being said, though - it seems like a neat enough system. I like how the more powerful your magic is, the more likely it'll screw up. That's a neat little mechanic. And the hit locations system is neat - just switch your die roll, and that's your hit location... a good way to speed things up just a little bit. The combat dodge/parry system seems a bit off - I could see two people, each with one attack and a high Weapon Skill, trying to attack each other, but parrying one another's blows, until one guy finally gets lucky. Seems like fights could take a while that way - but I guess that's okay. Just different from D&D, is all.

I don't know if I'm a fan of the attributes, though - My humans have attribute ranges of 20-40, with an average of 31. Easy. I can deal with that. But there's really not a whole that seperates my INT 25 character from an INT 35 character - beyond a 10% difference in skill points. And the difference between a STR 29 character and a STR 30 character is kinda big, which bugs me just a little bit.

Ah, well. I'm sure many of the perceived bugs will work out in actual play.

 

[Shining Dragon]

As I understand it, you need all (stat advances, Skills, Talents) to take the exit career (unless the exit career is a basic/starting career).

If you want to switch to another basic/starting career, you don't (just spend the 100xp).

Also you don't need to (re)buy Skills and Talents that your character already has (although you can if you want to for "specialisation") in your character's new career.

 

[Dragon-Slayer]

Probably the best place for all of your questions is actually here: The Black Industries messageboard.

If you have any problems there, just pm malal (that's me).

To move on to another career you must have completed yours and paid either 100 xp (if it is in your career exits) or 200 xp (if it isn't). You also need to acquire the trappings for your next career (after your initial move from your very first) before you can move on. Before moving careers, unless you pay the 200xp, you must also meet your requirements in your statistics. I allow players to choose their starting career because the game setting is really brutal and I am not merciful as a GM.

 

[Ulrick]

D&D is like the popular rock music you here on the radio in the United States.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is Rammstein.


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I keep trying to get my players to play WFRP again. The first campaign was a blast but it lasted only a few sessions because the group lacked a good reason for their characters to stick together.

Because they quickly realized that combat is DANGEROUS in WFRP, they decided to stay in town and start a drug ring. The Ratcatcher in the group started up a "meatpie" business after getting the other members to help him steal the meatgrinder from the local butcher. Somehow they managed to get ownership of a medieval equivalent of a pawn shop. This is where they ran all of their nefarious operations.

I got tired of this after a session or two, so I had an undead plague (like Dawn of the Dead) hit the city.

Lots of fun, but the players don't really want to play in such a gritty game again.