Due to a bout of insane insomnia, I started reading and posting at the wizards.com forums for D&D (mainly just the GM forum). Anyways, it got me wondering what would happen to any given player there if he were chained down to a chair and forced to play a scenario of WFRP3 (or wfrp2). Would his head explode when exposed to a game that is not Descent-like? What do your players like or dislike about WFRP3 _adventures_? (not talking rule-set here)

A corrupt, greedy, superstitious, brutal, bleak and unenlightened society and everything is saturated with black British humour. What's not to like? ;-)

I can't take shiny heroes with straight bleached teeth and chrome armour in Disney-clean fantasy settings. It nauseates me.

D&D, Descent, Heroquest is like Spiderman. Good solid Actionmovie.

Warhammer is like Watchmen. Sooner or later the "Heros" will fail. Their bodies will fail, their moral will fail or simply the can't take it anymore. No victory is lasting and will safe the world forever.

I think that in some ways it is hard to divorce the rule-set (or mechanics) from what makes WFRP "adventures" so great. You could use any fantasy roleplay system to run adventures that are merely set in the Old World. The greedy, corrupt nobles; bleak environs; and overwhelming oppossition will work in almost any system.

What makes WFRP so great for me is that the mechanics facilitate adventures you cannot have in other systems. Fighting against the effects of insanity, corruption, or disease are mechanically possible in WFRP. This means your players can have adventures where they confront mind-shattering horrors or chaos-feuled magic that can wrack them with mutation.

This isn't the only thing that makes WFRP adventures great, but it is one of the things.

For me, It's the realism of the fantasy,….

What I used to like from wfrpg and wfrpg adventures was that (1) they were in a Dark Fantasy setting and (2) that PCs were not heroes but adventurers.

In this regard the 3rd edition did a great job for (1) by implementing rules such as corruption and disease, but completely spoiled (2) by changing the system into one were PCs were heroes and not adventurers, may be not shinny heroes, but heroes nontheless.

When WHFRP first came out it wasn't terribly dissimilar to the current version of D&D at the time, as far as tone. The paradigm shift happened with the release of The Enemy Within which was designed as a fantasy Call of Cthulhu scenario. It was that campaign which informed many people's notion of Warhammer. The second thing is the focus on characters as regular folks thrown into fantastic scenarios either through fate or choice. The career system was and is unique and wonderful. Also, the fact that it was created during Thatcher era England gave it a grim feel infused with black humor. Read English comics from the 80s and you'll see that theme. Same with 40k.

Count Zero said:

Quite true! I mean, the old 1st edition Doomstones campaign was a far cry from the grim and perilous world we've come to know. Nevertheless, Warhammer HAS become synonymous with black "Brit" humor, bleak and grim settings, and Lovecraftian horror…and I believe that's what most players and GM's expect. The only campaign to have been released thus far (The Gathering Storm) felt more like Doomstones or D&D than "old-school" Warhammer…though the individual adventures that have been released (Horror at Hugedal, Red Rain, Mirror of Desire, etc) have hit closer to the mark when it comes to that old fashioned Warhammery theme.

From what I'v read about the new Enemy Within, it should be much more like the original campaign than The Gathering Storm could ever hope to be. One of the primary writers on the project (who worked on the original campaign I believe), who's name escapes me, was quoted as saying that the PCs might just end up "inside the mind of a Chaos god" by the end of the campaign!!! So there's that!

Well, the outlier that was the doomstones campaign is because apprently it was originally written as a D&D adventure. It wasn't picked up and so it was sold to GW without many significant changes.

However, I do believe that the WFRP system was meant to be fairly generic fantasy when first written. However, as I understand it, the Empire Within was being written before WFRP was even presented to the public, and truthfully, Warhammer wasn't much of a setting at the time (there was very little information about the background pre-WFRP and 3rd edition Warhammer. 1st edition Warhammer had at least initially been entirely generic fantasy combat rules, and as far as I am aware the Warhammer background in 2nd edition was very limited).

I love the Warhammer setting: bleak and ominous. The best one can hope for is benign indifference.

I love the WFRP 3rd ed. mechanics, especially the dice mechanics. I think it facilitates some great roleplaying.

Eradico:

How is THE DYING OF THE LIGHT playing out for you and how do you think the other players are liking it? I guess it's supposed to finally start getting dangerous

I think here's what I equate them to:

WFRP: = Fun and all integrated into the roll

or

My d20 experiences nowadays: Pathfinder Chart (normal or Ammunition breakage chance) Magic Ammunition and Breakage: When a magic arrow, crossbow bolt, or sling bullet misses its target, there is a chance it breaks or is otherwise rendered useless. A magic arrow, bolt, or bullet that successfully hits a target is automatically destroyed after it delivers its damage. Use the following chart to determine whether the arrow breaks:

Master Chart (start here) Roll d4 Effect
1 Roll on Chart 1
2 Roll on Chart 2
3 Roll on Chart 3
4 Roll on Chart 4

Chart 1 Roll d4

1 Roll on Chart 2

2 Roll on Chart 3

3. Roll on Chart 4

4 Re-roll on master chart

Chart 2

1 Roll on Chart 3 .

2 Roll on Chart 4

3 Roll on Master Chart

4 Roll a percentile

01-50 Ammunition is rendered 100% useless

51-100 Ammunition is not rendered 100% useless

Chart 3

1 AH HA! Roll on Chart 4

2 Ammunition may be undamaged, re-roll on Master Chart

3 Roll on chart 1

4 The ammunition, if found, seems to have been fired either in anger or not, and may or may not have hit its target; if it hit its target, it is rendered useless; if it didn’t hit the chart, re-roll on chart chart 2

Chart 4

1 Roll on Chart 2

2 Roll on Chart 1

3 The ammo is rendered useless

4 The ammunition is not rendered useless, but is suspiciously intact.

Step 2, reroll for your next arrow…

Emirikol said:

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What? Encountering Book Ninjas, losing my dockhand to swamp zombies, Fimir beasts dang near burning us while razing the whole town, traveling with a witch hunter right after intriguing with a daemon, the weird-ass Chernobyl forest where I tamed my now-dead Pumpkin steed (poor Concorde!), and spending time with a chaos-tainted acting troupe (my dwarf rat-catcher has always dreamt of the stage), all the while carrying a daemon tooth that guides us to the "egg" that will save Marienburg (and earn us each a paltry 50 silver pieces)?

I'm loving it!!

Emirikol said:

Fearing the man of one book is as wise in roleplaying as it is in most other walks of life. Most roleplayers I know play multiple games and look to different games to scratch different gaming itches. So I doubt many D&D players would break stride when switching to WFRP. I ran a six month sandbox game of 3rd edition last year to a group that included a pair that otherwise played pathfinder exclusively. I found they got into WFRP grove pretty quickly and enjoyed it enough to last out 30 sessions or so.

Other than the bits WFRP isnt different enough from most games to put many people off. Compared to D&D it is definately less gamist in approach and the rules rely on GM fiat rather than an enormous book pf predetermined modifiers. However if wisely hasn't gone too far down the narrative or simulationist route either (in my view one of the big flaws in the GNS game theory is that most players are capable of engaging with a game in multiple levels and when a game concentrates too much effort in one area the game becomes a shallower experience).

That said there are some players who, whilst they will switch to different games, will then insist on playing the new game exactly like they would the old one. Any difference in the new game will be viewed as evidence that the new game is rubbish. With people switching from D&D to WFRP this seems to occur mostly with healing. The change in mechanics doesn't seem to upset them but the fact that they can't get magical healing is a shock. I have had one character march into a temple of Sigmar and demand healing and when the priest told him to get out he started accusing the priest of working with the forces of chaos. This was from a player who played WFB and claimed he knew the setting. It was also said to a warrior priest with twin tailed comet branded into his forehead so you can imagine how well it went down.

For whatever reason D&D seems to attract a larger number of "I only play XXXX" type players than most other games. I guess it is because it is possible to find D&D players everywhere whilst fans of less popular systems have to go with the flow somewhat. However players of self defined Indie games can be just as blinkered in their approach to gaming. Both groups are probably best avoided.

What do I enjoy about the setting? Heroism isn't rewarded with great wealth and power it is rewarded with mistrust and an early death. This makes it more like actual heroism. the setting tends to be more grounded and story based than most fantasy settings. Actions tend to have consequences. The published adventures tend to be fairly challenging to run compared to a D&D dungeon crawl. FFG's adventures such as Edge of Night, Mirror of Desire, Eye for an Eye, have been a good blend of structure and sand box. The adventures benefit from the GM putting some effort in and, as a result, my Edge of NIght wont be the same as yours. The fact that FFG have the confidence to write an advenutre with 20 named NPC and just assume the GM will come up with a way of handling it is very good to see. I guess it probably is off putting to people who haven't been doing this for 20+ years but some of the adventures (such as TGS) have been more beginner friendly.

Thats why I advertise my games as "Pathfinder and WFRP3 group needs new player." We never play pathfinder, but it always gets more bites that way. Then I indicate, we're currently "testing" players with WFRP3…then they get sucked in, and that's all she wrote for the sanity of those players.

I don't usually ad' for D&D players. Pathfinder (or better, Cthulhu), in the title brings in a higher quality of maturity than the typical unkempt, stinky, rules-autistic nerd of 1974 (or 1981 in my case).

Warhammer first appeared to me like a dream in an issue of Dragon that I picked up. It showed 64 careers (or something whatever it was in 1e) and it completely changed my D&D game because I realized that there was more out there than just killing kobolds and taking their stuff.

jh