Let's talk about the setting. (This is a new thread off-shoot of the HOLY GRAIL thread)

What do you like and dislike about the world setting and the Warhammerisms compared to other game worlds?

The WORLD is what brought me to the RPG. My first games in Warhammer were using the D&D rules (that are on my gallery site). I considered the WFRP2e system too simplistic compared to 3.5E D&D

The world has some advantages over other worlds:

* It has a LOT of background capability (comic books, wargaming, WAR, 3 editions of the game, fan-zines, boardgames, cardgames, tons of artwork, miniatures, and copycat stuff in other systems like D&D and Pathfinder)

* it's not a sissy-world (I could name a few that are, but I don't want to offend anyone who sleeps with them while sucking their thumb

* It runs the gamut without excuses: Yes, there can be any or none of these in your games: gyrocopters, GUNZ, high magic, low magic, bad people, good people, tanks, orkys, cannibals, vampires, halflings, baby-stealing-elves, unicorns, dragons, ELRIC-themes, LOTR-themes, skaven, superheroes, etc.

* I ran D&D in the World of Greyhawk for a number of years. I like that the Old World doesn't feel that **** generic!

Here are some things that I'm quite tired of regarding the presentation of the setting:

* reliance on cults as a theme for the adventures. IMO, it's as bad as D&D using their "religions" as a reason for any given adventure. It's a disease adventure? Oh, it must be Nurgle (gulp..guilty here.). I understand that chaos plays a heavy theme (at least during the storm of chaos), but I'd like to see there be more diversity to the settings core elements other than chaos. You can't tell me that the only thing that makes the empire unique is chaos and cults.

* generic elves are BOOOOOOORRRRRING! Sorry, but I get the feeling with 2E and 3E that elves are about the most generic, boring-ass race out there. Sure, there's a "paragraph" somewhere that says that there are two races, but really there hasn't been any good diference presented. It's the same-old D&D/LOTR copyright infringement presentation. Dwarfs border on the same thing..especially after Karak Azgaraz. 30 years of RPG dwarfs and they've never been updated to be any different from the next dwarf culture down the road at the next Karak...

* LACK of depth for each of the Empire regions ( for the PLAYERS especially). GM's and players cry out for details on Lustria and other areas when there just hasn't been enough depth placed in the regions of the Empire to keep our interest there. There is an opportunity to do something great here... 2e made a token effort with some region-specific skills but this was just a drop in the bucket.

jh

..

Emirikol said:

There's a real risk, though, that you end up creating caricatures and stereotypes. Sigmar's Heirs started giving the people of the different provinces typical natures and demeanours, which is fine up to a point, but I vaguely remember getting more irritated by it as I kept reading the book. I'd certainly avoid developing rules-based regional characteristics as that potentially limits variation.

Cheers

Sparrow

I like the world in general, the gritty, dirty and quite down to earth feel I get from it. I like that the PCs arn't super heroes that can take on a dragon and walk out alive. I get inspired to do adventures in different themes with themed adventure groups, like a group with a Priest of Sigmar, Zelot, and some other holy, faithfull characters going around preaching and so on. I like the world a lot.

The thing that irritates me most is the whole Wood Elf race as a player race. As I see it they live in their forest, and stay there. They don't make a fuss if they are left alone, as I see it they should just be left out as a playable race.
And another player race that bothers me is Reiklanders, why just reiklanders? Sure, it's easy enough to just rename them to Humans (we did in our group) but is sends a message to the readers that every human should be from Reikland. Why?
Same with the dwarves, why only Karak-Azgaraz?

I can agree that the adventures are to focused on hunting down various chaos cults. Why does everything come down to a cults activities? Seems a little narrow minded, but I guess that it's easy to make adventures focused on fighting chaos.

The Warhammer Fantasy Setting is bar none the best I can think of as a back for an RPG. It's got a little of everything and alot of source material to back it up.

As for Wood Elves as a playable race, I feel that the reason for this was described well enough so we've left it alone in our group... and infact the Wood Elf player is really liking the dynamic of being gawked at and beheld with mistrust. I personally think that options should be made available for players to play members of every race in Warhammer, but more so in an optional rules expansion set.

I personally like the way that the Humans are portrayed, although I agree that they should be more broad in their description, but that can be left to the players and narrator to work out. The vast amount of real world visual's that can be found to match much of the Warhammer Setting also make it a delight to Narrate, much easier to get the players into the "mood" shall we say. I think that any creative team of Narrator and Players can get along just fine creating endless stories that have only the faintest hint of chaos in them, so the cultist problem is out the window for my group, as Chaos is only interesting (in a PC sense) to the Wizard player. However; in the long run this all comes down to interpretation like so many other things.

Great Thread though, I'll be back for more!

There many things I like and dislike about the setting.

Pro's

- I like the gritty medieval realism, inherent danger, superstition, bleak & gloomy feel and the architecture of the empire and the other human lands.

- I like that magic is dangerous and feared/disliked by most.

- I like the various themes included like witchhunters, pirates and political intrigue.

- I like the idea of skaven even though they are sometimes portrayed a bit too silly for my taste. But I think they are an original idea in its own way (walking human sized rats are not, but the skaven's social structure fits quite well into this theme)

Con's

- Like other, I tire of the constant involvement of chaos (the same in 40k) I have simply boykotted it.

- I don't like the sillyness that is so ingrained in the world. I like to have fun when I play, I enjoy jokes but I don't like when an entire race is just connected with sillyness (greenskins). I know I can always choose to portray them different but the sillyness is a big part of this world.

- on that note I tire of the archetypal demi-human races (dwarfs, elves, halflings) and the overused antagonists (Orcs, Chaos, Dark elves and dark dwarfs)

My adventures tend to revolve around humanocentric intrigue and mischief.

Truthfully if I have to play in a plagiarism of our own world I'd rather play in the Hyborian Age anytime.

That said, I do so enjoy this system.

-L

Emirikol said:

I can undersign EVERYTHING you said, except the elves. IMO the elves are not standard at all. Golarion elves are standard, Greyhawk elves are substandard and FR elves are vomit elves. But Warhammer elves are THE most iconic elves. They are powerful and they have everything I ever liked about this race. Wood Elves are NOT friendly. They often kill Bretonians on sight which I find funny, logical and anti-Tolkien. The same is for other EDO races. So if one can accept EDO races in his game at all (which should not be taken for granted) then warhammer EDOs are the best.

BTW: another advantage the Warhammer elves have is their graphical presentation, which is by far the best in any rpg on this planet.

Now to the most 2 annoying bugs the warhammer setting has:

-chaos centric (as you stated, this becomes really boring after some years of play. it seems that the designers are not willing to introduce new enemies)

-stuck to the empire. After even 20 years of its existence Warhammer playing ground seems still to be only the Empire and some cultures around. This is very limiting and as the chaos centricity (does such a term exist?) this becomes the major problem for those who want to play a different theme. The solution of our group to this deficiancy is to quit Warhammer and use other more variable settings.

superklaus said:

This reminds me of Hollywood movies: There's the USA, and then there's some odd bits and pieces around.

Lucas Adorn said:

Have you noticed how the alien spacecrafts always fall in the USA? There must be some kind of alien attractor on that country.

Maybe aliens just love Hollywood.

:]

That being said, I think the Warhammer setting does provide us with a lot of great alternatives to the Empire. We have seen little more than hooks to this other parts but they are great hooks that could build to great settings. I'm of the opinion you start a great description with the first sentence, and we do have great first sentences in Warhammer.

Bretonnia, Tilea, Estalia, the Border Princes, all have complexity in their descriptions, and all have their particularities (even Tilea and Estalia, that are so similar). Norsca brings a lot of ideas. We also have some small bits about the nomads from the east and Chaos Wastes.

My personal favorite ir Kislev, though. I just love icy climates with hard people and city states.

As for Chaos... I love it as a basis for the world of Warhammer. I love the phisics of the world, how Chaos is an "alien" energy that doesn't belong, but at the same time it's from a paralel universe of infinite posibilities that has a natural connection to the "universe of form" that was broken by the Old Ones technology. I love the depth of that and how it has huge space for different interpretations. It dictates a never defined way to treat the Gods, for instance.

But I do agree with you that Chaos shouldn't be used so clearly as "the main enemy" in adventures. I rather prefer it as a constant, silent threat, one that is deeply present in each person of the Old World as an inconscient (that often comes to consciouness) fear.

I tend to use this as backbone description. And I do prefer to center my own adventures in human intrigue, or human problems. I think Warhammer does provides us a lot of stereotypes, and I simply love braking them in my sessions... The theme "humans can be worse than the worse demon" is a constant, as I also provide the contrary.

I think Chaos should be just that, a phisical instability, a battle that the world's energies (as for what makes matter itself, what "glues" the world together and what arranges the possibilities for life, feelings, dreams, thoughts) are fighting. Is a battle of the world itself. And it does has forms in the society. Cults do exist, beasts, everything. And then I take this fantasy setting and navigate through it's social structure... through how it is to live a day after another day... Things like that.

Cheers!

I love the setting... But that's because I ignore parts of the official setting. I actually quite like that FFG have been pretty vague when it comes to describing the setting as it leaves room for griffon-riding heroes and South American space-toads invading Bretonia etc if you want (and clearly lots of people do) but it doesn't force it down your throat if you prefer a more gritty, 'realistic' feel to the game.

I love chaos as both an external and internal enemy, and though I agree that there's a bit too much emphasis on cults in the officially released material, the alternative I suspect would be more 'invading' opponents (whether they be orcs, skeletons, chaos dwarves or whatever).

In my opinion, chaos is the best opponent, but best when it's not the only opponent. I would like the players to feel that while they should be concentrating on the threat from chaos, they get more trouble from the social and political problems in the Empire in practice.

Although I would like to see some expansion into other lands, I'm only really interested in the human ones (and also the Dwarf and Halfling ones). Kislev, Bretonia, the Border Princes etc. However, if a Bretonia expansion brings more King Arthur and the Knights of the Warhammer Table, then I'd rather just stick to the Empire. In my opinion, the Empire is what makes the setting. (The chaos-corrupted Empire, that is.) Nothing else is needed, and could actually be detrimental to the setting.

The problem is that either expanding beyond the Empire, or exploring the Empire itself in a lot more depth means that you'll have to address the ambiguity I mentioned to start with. I'm interested in the political-religious-legal disputes between the religious institutions in the main cities. Many aren't. Many like Grail Knights and magic maidens. I don't. At the moment, neither of is offended by the setting being pushed in either direction.

Just do it

at the moment i have a small dwarf clan sitting on one of the minor trade roads, 'confiscating' goods. They say that they're after a stolen rune axe, but basically its 'cos their clan lord is just a bad egg. The local baron is far too ineffectual and scared of upsetting the dwarves to do anything about it, except write letters, whilst one of the local merchants is making a killing re-selling stolen goods, happily watching his competitors go slowly belly up. Meanwhile the PC's, unbeknowing, find themselves on top of the local stage clutching their heads (too much ale last night*), when a band of goblin riders decide to stage a hold up. Cue chase, cue arrows and falling off stage, cue rescue, cue robbery with menaces, shaved heads and no trousers (who said dwarves have no sense of humour?). Not a chaos cult in sight.

Who's the goodies? Who's the baddies? Where's all the money going? Who stole the rune axe? Where are my trousers? Motivation, thats the key.

*I have made a new party card called "drunken bums", giving advantages when falling but an awful thirst and bad breath. This can temporarily replace a previous party card until the alcohol has worn off, but is also good for parties who haven't decided exactly what flavour they are.

reg said:

This is just great!

Good idea. No "condition card" for every pc, but a "party condition" card.