Warhammer is Dead! Long Live Warhammer!

Hoary old Warhammer, one of the best rpgs ever. 

So I’ve decided to resurrect this blog from the dead to chronicle my campaign with my friends, which I run over google hangouts. I’m hoping to record and maybe even post these bad boys, once I can get the tech right. The group are my old friends from high school, who I’ve been gaming with intermittently for the last few years (we did not game together in high school much, funnily enough). Anyway, after initially running this using a B/X Lamentation homebrew ruleset, I decided to convert the game to the new, fourth edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (“WH” or “WFRP” or “Warhammer” from now on). We’ve had two sessions under each ruleset, Basic D&D and WFRP, and I like Warhammer for the game better so far (and I think my players agree). Before I start writing up play reports, here’s some points on the new Warhammer and why I like it (available here: http://cubicle7.co.uk/our-games/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay/). As a note, this is mostly in comparison to D&D and especially second edition WFRP, which I had run for about 3 months before abandoning.

So a quickie Warhammer 4th edition review:

Pros

• ·         The central mechanic of roll under your percentage attribute, with doubles being criticals, is super easy to explain and understand. I like that skills now simply add to an attribute like Weapon Skill or Fellowship without needing to remember halving or whatever.
• ·         Overall, the game is about as complicated as D&D 5e, which is more complicated than B/X D&D or Lamentations or something, but less complicated that third edition Wizards of the Coast D&D or Pathfinder or other, basically unplayable games. Plus Warhammer has all the gritty, low/dangerous magic, realistic combat, flavor features that D&D doesn’t do well.
• ·         The new skill list is trimmed down to good, low number of skills. Skills like Healing and Language (whatever) being “Advanced,” i.e. you can’t use without having some points in, makes intuitive sense.
• ·         I like that you can track how many XP you’ve put into the skill and what the skill bonus is the same way (Weapons Basic +10 is both +10 to your Weapon Skill attribute for checks, like 44 or whatever), and reflects you’ve bought ten skill points.
• ·         Talents are also streamlined. I’ve become OK with Talents by thinking about them in my mind as the “Special Abilities” for each career – limited in number per level and individually powerful. Because they’re tied to your career (Soldier or Spy or Tinker etc.), there’s not a lot of min/maxing or other bullshit.
• ·         Combat no longer whiffs. You hit in hand-to-hand even if you fail your Weapon skill check, as long as you failed less badly than your foe, though it will reduce your damage. Also, you built up momentum, called Advantage, adding +10% to future checks with each point, which are accumulated each time you charge or successfully hit someone. It’s a pretty nifty system, though you probably need to cap it (I cap it at +60). You lose all momentum if you miss or get hit yourself.
• ·         No damage rolls. Just keep looking at your to-hit check. This makes so much sense, and I love the way it plays in combat. The better the hit, the more likely it is to destroy your foe. And Deathblows are back baby, so you can do a free action follow up attack.
• ·         All the great Warhammer shit, like diseases and poisons and drugs and mutations and fiddly weapon shit. The characters never feel like superheroes, but instead vulnerable, real people (even if they can get super badass), who will die to 12 peasant bowmen.

Cons

• ·         For attributes (Warhammer’s version of ability scores), they split Dexterity and Agility and added Initiative. Three is too much, and while it makes real-world sense to separate manual dexterity from agility, I’m skeptical about needing all these in gameplay. Rather than new attributes, they probably could have split some stuff up between agility and intelligence or whatever. Not that big a deal though.
• ·         Like past editions of Warhammer, they fucking use key word Talents and Traits and Conditions instead of just explaining what each power fucking does. Like, list in the Career entry what “Marksman” or whatever does, you donkey-heads. Or what “Infected” means on the Beastman monster entry. Or what the Damaging weapon quality is. Why the fuck do game writers do this shit? Reduce my amount of page flipping, don’t increase it! I get that you gain some consistency and that you may want a longer explanation when a rules question pops up, but there’s no reason to not repeat what the effects of these “key terms” are when you mention it on Career entries, Damage charts, and monster entries. It sickens me to think that this will be repeated in adventurers and supplements. Holy fuck, abbreviate people, so I can just run shit at the gaming table. Not that hard.
• ·         Bleeding into the above complaint, and the next one, information design sucks. The publisher may have been rushing, which is nice that I got this game book (pdf anyway) in my grubby little hands, but they’ll need to publish a revised rulebook in a few years to better organize this game. So much cross referencing, important rules and steps hidden deep inside long paragraphs, no quick sheets or reference charts, just a fucking mess. The art’s spiffy though.
• ·         There are a lot of fiddly rules to be aware of. The core mechanic is simple, but then there’s Advantage (really should be called Momentum), creature Size rules, the effect of conditions, weapon qualities, etc. Fortunately, all these rules are hand-waivable if you don’t want to bother; easily replaced with GM-determined modifiers (ok, that sounds hard, -20 to your check; well, you’re outnumbered and prone so I’m giving the baddies +40) or whatever. But I think it’s intimidating at first, and the lack of quick sheets, flow charts, etc. really worsens the problem. In play, with some quick sheets or DM screen stuff, which I created, it’s really not a problem and is definitely equivalent to D&D 5e, but it doesn’t seem that way.
• ·         Like D&D 5e, I would not want to play it with more than 4-5 players. I know from GMing second edition WFRP with like 8+ folks that it’s just too much math and needs too much player attention. D&D B/X is sooo simple that it can swing like 9-10 players, but not Warhammer.

Anyway, for me the decisive factor is that it plays like a Game of Thrones book reads or how I like my fighting and adventures to go. It well supports realistic combat and social interaction/intrigue, and basically can replace all the D&D house rules I was using. It’s been going great so far, as future play reports will attest. I’ll also be posting some quick reference sheets, my custom character sheet, and some other play aids.