1e was created during a time of infancy in the hobby. There were harlots and bawds as careers. There was torture, blood and gore. Since 2e, it's been more "behind the scenes" and just a wink-wink nod-nod. How do you feel about it? Is that ol' 1E feel missing?
jh
Holy Hell, yeah! I grew up with 1st ed. And it has a very special place in my heart because of it's brutal grittiness. But unfortunately every year all games seem to get more and more politically correct. So I just go back and play the old school games once in a while. And then we find rule problems and go back to the newer refined games. If only they could marry the slick refined rules that don't need to be errata'ed or upgraded with edgy, dark, nasty games, I'd be happy.
Definitely
Things that bother me a bit:
- lowest of the low careers replaced with one "commoner" career (you know, a harlot will for sure have different skills, than a farmer, same as beggar)
- critical wounds doesn't feel like critical, more like small disturbance, and none of them are permanent, no flying body parts, no blood splatter, no lost limbs, nothing. They just give minor disadvantages, and tell you, when you die, but again, if you die, you just die, no imparements you can live with, no head flying few feets in random direction (unless GM take his time and describe it).
- where the hell did diseases and mutations go? I always thought that they were integral part of the Warhammer world (all this dirt, rot, misery, and corruption), and now... I don't understand the decission to leave them out of core box. It's like leaving out big part of what Warhammer is (at least for me). Even worse, there are no signs, that we will get any of them in the next few months..
- miscasts, and magic... you know what my player did, when he got his first miscast? He LAUGHED!! Chaos Star effects on Spell Cards seems weak too. Magic doesn't feel like a dangerous art anymore. Even power vent doesn't help, as there is no actual need, and nothing really worth the risk to gather so much power, and keep it right now.
Torture skill is gone too, but it is replaced with "Interrogation" specialisation under "Intimidate" skill. This along with "Detect lies" under "Intuition" skill, and some "First aid", or "Medicine" skills ("Anatomy" specialisation?) can make a good torturer.
Political corectness is BAD.
Llanwyre said:
I think Sparrow's right; this isn't really about PC or not PC. PC is about making sure that terms that were used to oppress historically disempowered groups are taken out of use so that we don't replicate the power differential in unnecessary ways with our language. It gets confusing when those disempowered groups reclaim those words on their own, but that's not what we're on about here. Nobody's asking for an accurate reflection of current racial strife, of handicaps, of the oppression of LGBT people, or anything else like that to be explicitly included in the Warhammer world.
I wouldn't mind seeing some more grit, but I think as Western cultures, we take delight in violence/sex, but want to dodge the responsibilities of that delight. We represent violence and sex constantly in our art and advertising, but we don't REALLY want to see it up close. Thus, violence becomes a beautiful dance (see "bullet time,") and a character in a film who gets shot in the head gets a quick wide-angle camera shot of his bleeding body, then we move on to the hero chasing the shooter down the alley. We're not interested in staying and looking at the consequences of our collective bloodthirst. Choices like "interrogator" seem to follow the same pattern; we'll suggest the violence, but we'll allow you not to think too much about it if you don't want to. Personally, I'd rather see things like "torturer" spelled out so that people have to make a real decision about whether or not to allow that level of violence at their gaming tables.
Of course, all this is really a moot point. The 1E stuff still exists, and the outlines for working with some of its nastier categories are still in the game. If you want the grit, just go back to earlier materials, see what it looks like, and add it in.
Well, I think that is what PC -used- to be about. PC now is a bloated censorship that is used by people to get what they want and impose their own ideas on others through threat of legal action or the like. It causes more tension than it solves in the current climate.
Anyway, regarding the grittiness or lack thereof; I prefer the current edition. Though I enjoy the Warhammer world over some of the more generic fantasy worlds, I would prefer that the amount of adult-rated content be left up to the individual groups, and not spelled out in the rulebooks or fluff material within those books.
Part of this is because I have a 9-year-old who will be turning 10 soon, which I figure is a fine age for starting nerdly activities. Couldn't really say the same if I had career cards called "Harlot".
Darrett said:
Part of this is because I have a 9-year-old who will be turning 10 soon, which I figure is a fine age for starting nerdly activities. Couldn't really say the same if I had career cards called "Harlot".
I never find children a compelling reason for censoring anything but children's products.
You could always just remove "harlot" cards from the deck, after all, or play D&D until your child was old enough to handle Warhammer. The responsibility of censoring should be on the parent, not on the product.
PS. I don't disagree with you that PC has been poorly implemented by many people who misunderstand what it means! It's a shame, really, because the backlash does so much harm.
We all recall the Book of Vile Darkness and the scenario that went with it for D&D 3.5..that book kept the doors open without making racial slurs. It's a fascinating thing about our society today: murdering people and taking their stuff is ok, but it's unacceptable to expose children to most other things. BOTH are unacceptable if you want to expose your children to NORMAL first so that they can distinguish from abnormal yadda yadda yadda.
Case in point of what I learned yesterday: I've got 3 kids of my own and played LAST NIGHT ON EARTH with them because we're snowed in here. My 4 year old started talking about chopping zombie heads off..so that was the end of that game.
I guess my point is that FANTASY RPG'S (and zombie games) offer little in the way of teaching children right from wrong so maybe that's the issue. If these games aren't for little kids, why are parents trying to justify that they are?
I learned D&D when I was 9. We murdered people and took their stuff. If that doesn't turn us into little serial killers and want to commit suicide when our characters die, then why is the rest of the R-rated stuff too much to bear?
Is this hobby and it's companies mature enough to avoid modern day topics (like modern day racial slurs) and still give an R-Rated feel for the main audience? Or, is it forever now relegated to wink/wink, nod/nod?
jh
Llanwyre said:
Darrett said:
Part of this is because I have a 9-year-old who will be turning 10 soon, which I figure is a fine age for starting nerdly activities. Couldn't really say the same if I had career cards called "Harlot".
I never find children a compelling reason for censoring anything but children's products.
You could always just remove "harlot" cards from the deck, after all, or play D&D until your child was old enough to handle Warhammer. The responsibility of censoring should be on the parent, not on the product.
PS. I don't disagree with you that PC has been poorly implemented by many people who misunderstand what it means! It's a shame, really, because the backlash does so much harm.
I think the responsbility of censoring is on the parent; they're the ones deciding what goes into the game world they design. However, a game shouldn't lend itself toward one side or the other; provide the basic material, and let groups decide how to go. If they release a supplement, then that's fine, it's an optional component. But releasing anything of that type in a core ruleset automatically requires that the game itself have a rating system applied to it such as video games or movies, which is not a good idea.
If you want you game to be a certain way, you have the freedom to add in those elements, but it shouldn't be part of a base game. See similar systems that released mature-rated content; you could buy into it, or ignore it entirely and still play the game with a wide range of ages.
As for playing D&D, I actually find it to require an older age range on it because of the nature of the magic system.
Darrett said:
But releasing anything of that type in a core ruleset automatically requires that the game itself have a rating system applied to it such as video games or movies, which is not a good idea.
If you want you game to be a certain way, you have the freedom to add in those elements, but it shouldn't be part of a base game. See similar systems that released mature-rated content; you could buy into it, or ignore it entirely and still play the game with a wide range of ages.
I think the ONLY consideration about whether or not something R-rated falls into the core system should be whether or not the designers feel that that element is core to the game. If an R-rated element helps them describe the aesthetic of the world they want to describe, it should go in. What should NOT happen is a designer having to say something like this:
"You know, Todd, I think it's a great idea and definitely gets the vision for our universe across to the reader, but some dude out in Iowa may have a 5-year-old who opens the core rulebook, so let's put that in a supplement instead."
The dude in Iowa can put the core rulebook on a higher shelf, modify the game if he wants to play it with his child, or find an entirely new game. The game's aesthetic shouldn't be modified to suit his parenting style.
Some art should just be allowed to be 'family unfriendly' because the underlying premise is to get adults to think about things that children aren't ready to handle. Some RPGs are designed in that way, too, and I'd argue that with its complex representations of political, social, physical, and moral corruption, Warhammer is one of those.
Of course, that's not to say that FFG thinks the same way that I do; in fact, they've gone more in your direction than in mine.