Thinking about Warhammer?

[arcanaman]

I wasjust wondering if anyone here as ever played a warhammer setting I have never played one before but am intrested in looking it up what are some of the major differences between warhammer and dnd?

 

[pawsplay]

I've heard it summarized as, "The PCs think they are in D&D, but the world is actually Call of Cthulhu." It's a great little setting, full of Moorcockian metaphysics, gonzo Heavy Metal/Jabberwocky aesthetics, and big, big weapons. Scarring and limb loss is common, insanity is a hazard of heroism, and it's just loads of fun to play.

 

[frankthedm]

Big differences:

WFRP characters are dirt poor most of the time.

D&D is about having HP gradually worn down hit after hit, while WFRP is about avoiding being hit or hopefully soaking all the damage of a blow. You activly defend by parrying atacks and possibly dodging. You have a chance of being whittled down, but taking hit after hit also means a good chance of triggering one of the games open ended damage rolls.

Armor in WFRP absorbs damage making armor really desirable. It lets you soak wounds: 1 {leather], 3{Chain over Leather] or 5 {Plate over chain over leather]

Characters do not skyrocket in power or durability.
*You start with 10-12 wounds, you'll end with 16-20.
*Damage does not increase very much at all. Start at 1d10+3 , end up at 1d10+6 or 7
*Before armor you soak two to three wounds per hit at start, later on you might be soaking 5, maybe 6 if you are lucky.

Player characers are special because they have fate and luck on their side{fate points], not because their stats are much better than an NPC. The players use up fate points to survive otherwise fatal situations, wind up instead worse for wear, but mostly intact. Those "fate points" also bestow "fortune points" which are used for rerolls and extra chances to parry /dodge.

Missile fire is dangerous. Modern/Sci-fi "Run for cover you fool!" dangerous.

Magic is chancy to use and the civilized world loaths it. Any spell has at least a 10% chance of an unintended concequence. As a caster you can use it over and over, but you might not want to.

The WFRP encumbrance system needs work.

 

[ValhallaGH]

The Warhammer settings are nasty.

40,000: Science fiction universe of eternal war and oppression. All humanity is (basically) united into one Empire, a theotractic dictatorship with some serious differences in technology levels across the realm. There are a number of deadly alien races (Tau, Necrons, Eldar, Orks) whose mere existence helps add stability to the Empire while threatening to wipe out our species (or at least all of our existing cultures). Additionally, there are the forces of Chaos, determined to consume and warp all that is to their evil purposes. Chaos is both overt and covert in its approach, using corruption and invasion as it can. If Chaos were unified and organized then it would win, but it wouldn't be Chaos anymore.
Hope exists but it's a very grim universe.

Fantasy: It's already a lost cause, but most people are too stubborn or ignorant to realize it. Chaos is still the big bad, and it operates the same way, but in the Fantasy setting it's winning, big time. Chaos has a permanent foothold at the northern end of the main continent, allowing it to continually invade the rest of the world, thus distracting the heroes and armies that might be able to cleanse the spreading corruption of Chaos infiltrators.
Dwarves and elves are real, but fading. Neither one is particularly friendly, either to each other or to humans, and tense relations are exacerbated by very long memories, especially for slights.
Humans are no longer united, and their several nations waste much time and resources fighting each other rather than fending off the growing incursions of Chaos (both invasion from the north and locally risen cults and monstrocities in their own lands). The helpful gods are waning, but the stubborn peoples of the Empire, Bretonnia, and the smaller lands are still fighting on.
It's grim, deadly, and probably a lost cause. There just aren't enough heroes to keep Chaos from getting stronger, and even heroes get killed in the struggles. It's just a matter of time until Chaos claims all the world, unless something miraculous happens.


Both settings are grim, gritty, and rely upon dangers of the body, sanity and soul to keep them interesting.
It's my opinion that the Fantasy guys have gone too far in the direction of making things bad, as there is not currently any real hope of doing more than slowing down the advance of Chaos.
I feel that the 40K guys have done a much better job of maintaining a dynamic balance in the setting that keeps it dangerous (on personal and galactic scales) while still allowing for the hope of eventual victory.

 

[pawsplay]

It's my opinion that the Fantasy guys have gone too far in the direction of making things bad, as there is not currently any real hope of doing more than slowing down the advance of Chaos.

Classic swords-and-sorcery. In Conan, civilization led to weakness, but barbarism invited predation and supernatural danger. In Vance's The Dying Earth, Earth is unquestionably dying out, and the characters are the last of humanity meandering around on Earth before the magicians and sprites leave for other places of existence. Corum's people are becoming extinct. Elric's people are evil, but the encroachment of humanity represents something of a downfall as well, with humans little more than animals compared to the heartless, but erudite, Melniboneans.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Classic swords-and-sorcery.

Objection.
Conan is probably the paragon of sword-and-sorcery fiction (as is most of Robert Howard's library). Conan's world is far from hopeless (as is the world of every one of Howard's heroes except Bran Mak Morn). Quite the opposite, really, since a human with will, courage, and a body hardened by privation can overcome any of the dangers that world can produce. Howard's stories are so filled with hope that it nearly suffocates the Lovecraft-ian elements of his fiction, given that the unknowable horrors from beyond the world can actually be beaten back when you're Conan.

Sword and Sorcery doesn't have to be hopeless. In fact, most of the good stuff is very hopeful, with brave heroes overcoming desperate odds to make the world a better place.
End Objection.

Some settings (Dying Earth is a prime example) don't have any hope left, just a desperate struggle to last as long as you can. I'm simply saying that Warhammer Fantasy is one of those settings. I appreciate you agreeing with me.

 

[pawsplay]

Objection.
Conan is probably the paragon of sword-and-sorcery fiction (as is most of Robert Howard's library). Conan's world is far from hopeless (as is the world of every one of Howard's heroes except Bran Mac Born).

Really? The Atlantean age is long gone, civilization has pushed back the borders on the "barbarians" and degenerate cults flourish. There is literally no good place for an honest, brave man... Conan survives only through his sheer power. He is the hero exactly for that reason, not because he is going to make the world a better place or retire comfortably or whatever. Conan is a hero because he is unbent and unshackled in a world that eventually destroys everyone and everything.

Robert Howard died by suicide.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Really?

Truly. Among other things, Howard saw the age of Conan as being a part of the world's true history; at a minimum he always wrote it like it was.

Yes, the world of Conan is a pile of crap, and things will get worse if no one stands up and faces the evils that walk the Earth. Times of trouble are needed to create great heroes, and that's what Howard's heroes were, great. Conan was the greatest of them all, and he lived in the worst of Howard's worlds; even so, he could beat back the darkness, inspire a nation to change its ways, and turn his nation into a beacon of hope and prosperity that led the world back from the abyss. Conan led his kingdom so well that the forces of darkness took to sending nearly-invulnerable assassins to his bed chambers (Pheonix on the Sword) to kill him and tear apart his kingdom, and Conan still won.
I'd call that some hopeful fiction.

I suspect that Howard had a fundamentally Nordic belief, that the world is inevitably screwed and all we can do is face fate as best we can. Much of his work has that tinge of "it won't matter in a thousand years" thinking that permeates the tales of Ragnarok. There is both courage and cowardice in that line of thought, and I don't cozen that. I'll take the straight courage of forging my own fate, and accepting the responsibility for it.

Robert Howard died by suicide.

Yes, he did. Which makes the underlying threads of hope in his fiction all the more tragic for the fact that he didn't see them, or didn't agree with them. (Unless you buy the corrupting Cthulhu theory about his suicide.) But I really think we shouldn't discuss suicide, and the thoughts of those who have committed it. It's not tasteful and could quickly become disrespectful.

 

[pawsplay]

Conan was the greatest of them all, and he lived in the worst of Howard's worlds; even so, he could beat back the darkness, inspire a nation to change its ways, and turn his nation into a beacon of hope and prosperity that led the world back from the abyss.

I recall him conquering a kingdom, then getting soft and losing everything. At the end of the stories in which he conquers a great evil, he is inevitibly alone and penniless by the end. Witness People of the Black Circle in which he saves a people from servitude, slays a sorcerer, and inspires another sorcerer to abandon his evil ways and run away with a woman. Conan himself gets screwed over by his bandit confederates, and exiled by his love interest.

I suspect that Howard had a fundamentally Nordic belief, that the world is inevitably screwed and all we can do is face fate as best we can.

That's pretty much what I see, and I see that same theme permeating Warhammer. Warhammer is essentially a world in the midst of Ragnorak.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Warhammer is essentially a world in the midst of Ragnorak.

That is a point I will not dispute.