This is a sort-of review of why I've come to enjoy Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay so much, despite it being a bit over complicated and some other flaws. For the past few years, like my adult gaming life circa 2010 to present, I've gravitated towards rules-light and simple rpgs, trusting in the theories behind Old School play where mechanical complication is just boring and frustrating, and neglects the unique feature of tabletop rpgs that a group of friends can simply talk about what's going to happen-it's not a competitive board game because there's a gamemaster/DM. But nevertheless I've gravitated towards the complexity of WFRP 4th edition, which is considerably more rules-complex than say Basic/Expert 1980s D&D.
And so noted in the previous post about running a rules-complicated game, one may think: why bother running a rules-complicated? Well, the truth is the gameplay at the table that emerges feels different between one game versus another, even with similar settings and types of adventures (murder-hoboing, investigating, etc.). I've now run WFRP 4th edition for almost 2 years, and so can compare it to similarly length run games like my 2010-2012 osr B/X D&D game (used Adventurer Conqueror King rulebook), a 2013-2014 B/X game (hombrew rules) and my 2014-2016 D&D 5e game.
Core Mechanic - Pretty Simple In Play
Players only have to know one rule about reading their dice: under their skill is success, over is failure, criticals on the doubles. This is actually simpler in play than even Basic D&D, where they may have a d6 roll or 2d6 roll in addition to their d20 combat roll, spells autosucceed while are limited in number, etc. In contrast, everything in wfrp is pretty much this simple roll. It leads to what I like to think of as a 'nat 20' effect: excitement and joy when the dice roll something that always mean an exciting critical success/fumble. This is reinforced by WFRP's awesome critical charts: I love that these rolls for magic or combat lead to crazy shit like demons appearing or an arm's bicep being lopped off. Super fun in play. I was recreating the feel of this gonzo randomness in my basic D&D with homebrew/cribbed from blogs charts, but the WFRP charts are as great as these, so why not just play this game?
I also like the first digit representing a bonus, like Strength Bonus, which lends itself to extra effects like how much damage you do. Actually very simple and elegant in play as well, because you always know these and they are intuitive to players in a way that +3 for 16 or 18 STR is not.
Character Creation
This is just random enough and the characters emerge as pretty robust and interesting, even if they're nominally just a 'human thief' in D&D terms. In WFRP, you can roll randomly for all your stats and your starting Career, which are more granular/individualized than the 4 to 9 main classes of D&D. Everything from Scout, Runner, Ambassador, Villager to Wizard and Warrior Priest. Mechanically, this edition makes skills only add to the basic statline, so no need to remember if someone has a Lore (Botany) skill to make a Intelligence test to know abotu a plant or the like. Instead, just roll it; and your players will figure out real quick if she has a bonus, because what player doesn't like a bonus. There's also no fiddling with dividing untrained skills in half and the like, it's a simple increased percentage. Humans roll some random traits like Strong Back or Perfect Pitch, which give some mechanical effects but also round out the character in a way that's inspiring, maybe my knight with great pitch is always humming a tune. In contrast with basic D&D or even 5e D&D, the Wfrp character creation randomness and more specific careers provides a lot more 'personality' for starting random characters. This is reinforced by the much more historically-grounded (I'm a historian by training) careers too, stevedores and servants have logical contacts and roles in any adventure location/setting anyway, leading to immediately imagining charming little backstories. For some people, they can come up with an awesome unique character with a voice and some likely friends and reasons for adventuring with the super bare-bones "Dwarf Fighter," but for many people, we need a little more to hang our hats on. WFRP provides that. It also allows some versatility; I can pick duellist or protagonist with noble blood trait for my player who wants to be the Marquis from Rob Roy.
Another thing I like is that the lack of levels in WFRP keeps the world a more level playing field. Your starting Villager may just be a villager, but he has more survivability and impact in combat (or in gossiping) in the way a level 0 or level 1 d&d character does not. I know from the times I've played WFRP (or 40k rpgs) versus played my theoretically-beloved Basic D&D that I identify more with my slightly more complicated, more skills-listed, more random traits-having WFRP/d100 characters than I did with my D&D characters. This is despite totally buying all the "emergent play" and importance of building "character" *ahem* story through smartly played PCs.
So, it doesn't bother me that the character creation process takes longer than in D&D (and frankly, it's not that much longer if you know what the Talents do). After all, the player characters are "the main thing," so it won't hurt to spend a few minutes making them. If you need quick characters, make about 6-7 pre-generated characters and use those. Or use this really awesome instant generator by Paco.
No Damage Rolls
I absolutely love that there is no second damage roll in this edition of Warhammer! The fact that the better you hit, the more damage you do is so intuitive. It helps narrate combat and I never have the problem with new players I have in D&D where they're like confused about why they roll again after rolling to see if they hit; it's all in the same roll. Sadly, there is a bit of math: 1) determine success levels of you and opponents, 2) subtract lower, 3) add net SLs to damage, 4) add any weapon effects to damage, 5) subtract enemy's Toughness plus Armor for the location on the body, 6) finally, subtract this last number from Wounds. I'm an adult, so I can do this after a few practices, but this is a bit daunting for new players or those who don't like to pay attention to the math. Fortunately, I can hand wave that by simply asking players to tell me their SLs, but there is a bit of a slow pause sometimes while I quickly do the mental math (people nowadays notice 1-2 seconds this takes to do). It's still worth the change, but over time, I would want to tell my players how to calculate their damage and damage resistance or use macros or something.
The Winds of Magic
I also love the way magic works in wfrp. First, that it's a skill makes it feels like every wizard book you've read, from Name of the Wind to Harry Potter. Wizards are smarter or less smarter, strong willed enough, and if they have both in a good combination, they can cast great magics, whether from their memorized repertoire or directly by reading the spell directly from a spellbook. Specifically, this works by casting spells itself being an Intelligence-based Language skill- your Potter-esque need to pronounce and articulate your magic words properly, combined with the scale of effects being based on your Willpower. This always present ability to cast spells, with rolling criticals causing great cascades of magic is just so much more evocative than the d&D game but never really in fiction picking of a spell that always works. The D&D spell system may be satisfying to an accountant like Gygax, but I'm increasingly dissatisfied these days with it in my imagination games. I also like in Warhammer how each wizard feels different, say between Death Wizards and Grey Wizards and Fire Wizards. There are some universal spelsl like Fly or Fear, but they also have 3-5 different powerful spells from their own school. My complaint with the spell lists in WFRP is the same as with 5e d&d: too much combat, need more whimsical, weird, and plot-spells. I've sought to ease this problem by introducing the wackier and more useful-outside-of-combat spells from WFRP's 2nd edition supplements.
Gritty Combat, Realistic without Whiff
Biggest problem with 5th edition D&D is the superheroes feel of the combat, and sometimes how boring it is with its emphasis on high probability to hit and high hit points (how fast can you whiddle those down through naming powerz you have on your sheet!). In OSR games, sometimes there is a hit point problem at middle and higher levels, but also the characters don't feel like have much heft or weight to them. A level 1 PC or 1 HD orc feels like a paper-thin creature always on the verge of death, while a 4-5 level character is an unstopple juggernaut, even though both are 6 foot tall creatures of solid bone and flesh. WFRP has a nice balance: the PCs, even when powerful, have a human-scale number of wounds and a bad series of rolls can quickly kill them, but the way the numbers work, they (and experienced foes) usually can be confident they will wade through 4-5 regular ass soldiers with ease-though much more slowly than in D&D. This makes combat not something to pretty much always be avoided, as in OSR games, nor always engaged in as in D&D. Instead, combat is fun, because it is both something PCs can have become competent in while remaining risky with unexpected happenings.
Another feature I like, is that the Size rules for bigger creatures, from Ogres to Dragons, really make those creatures extremely different and challenging. An Ogre has 30ish Wounds with higher Toughness compared to a humans (even a good warrior's) 11-15 wounds, plus the size rules give some hard hitting bonuses to hit in melee even when the Ogre's skill at swinging a sword is much lower than a master swordsman. This leads to PCs fearing larger foes, knowing a lucky roll can easily kill them while they are unlikely to kill the foe in one shot, without just making them unstoppable. Instead, they have to do things like in movies: think about using lots of arrows while trapping a foe, using poisons, etc. Much better than D&D's simple hit points, that make Ogres really just feel like 3rd level Fighters or whatever (same hp, same to hit, etc.) without the nice interplay of feeling like a clumsy but hard-hitting dude.
The Complicated Rules are Basically Just House Rules, A Story
Ok, so there are alot of "conditions" and "talents" and "traits" in the new WFRP, which are things I hate in general and specifically hated in D&D third edition and other bloated rpg games. This means shit like Unconscious or Amputated or Broken are defined terms that you have to look up when you want to know whats going on. I do dislike this, but after playing using the rules for awhile, I've come to find out that they really don't need to make the game play any slower or more complicated than even super simple basic D&D. To do this, though, you do have to treat these Talents, traits, and conditions more as "rulings" than "rules." Let me explain.
So if I'm playing basic D&D with no rules for "Ablaze" or "Fatigue" like you have in WFRP, if a player decides to have his character throw a molotov cocktail, I don't know what the mechanic effect is. I know there should be one: swords do 1d6-1d8 hit points of damage, burning protester/freedom fighter oil should do something to a creature's flesh if there's a direct hit, so something should happen and I should adjudicate somehow. Buried within some basic d&d rules there's stuff like 'burning oil does 1d6 damage,' so I could try finding that half-remembered rule too. What do I normally do in D&D, though? I make up a damage, like 1d4, and then make up another rule for the fire, like it goes out with a successful saving throw or something. I reward the character for a good idea, make something up, just like I would with whether a person is convincing or the kobolds think the halfling is charming, and move on. In WFRP, in contrast, there's definitely a rule that I'm vaguely aware exists. But it's not on my player's character sheet, because it's not her usual sword attack or one of her listed skills (Create Fiery Oil Bomb), just like the impromptu 'burning oil' idea in D&D. So in reality, the dilemma is pretty much the same as in D&D: if its not readily accessible (WFRP), it's as good as nonexistent (basic D&D). Apply this analogy to all sorts of mechanical effects based on player ideas that come up all the time in rpgs. What to do?
Well, let's handle it the right way as a game master, fast and loose and not making other human beings sit around while you read quietly to yourself; a rule is rarely that important**. So in D&D, you come up with a spot ruling, do the same in WFRP. The fiery oil does +4 damage, depending on how well you hit with your "Ranged Thrown" attack skill, but it lasts 3 rounds or something. The onyl difference is that later on, rather than say to your players that you'll keep ruling it that way, you tell them, "Hey, this is what the molotov does, but I'll look it up later and we'll follow the rulebook the next time." In this way, rather than accumulate house rules like you do in d&d, you're simply learning/remembering the house rules in the rulebook. And guess what, you can look up the rule in WFRP, and be like, "That's dumb, I liked the way I did it last night better." And this works for almost all the conditions and traits and talents I've encountered in WFRP, and it makes a better game experience. Like I've done it with the Carouser talent for one character, and molotov cocktails, and "Broken" (failed morale test) and Fatigue (though this one was really close since it's a simple-10 to all tests). And it works out great, you don't need to stress about remembering all the rules. Don't treat the game book like a bible, where every rule is written in stone and sancrosact; let the rules be your servant, not your master.
(Turns out, there's even a bolded term for my PC's molotov (it's on the weapons chart as a incendiary!) and it inflicts "Ablaze" conditions, with a page reference. My spot rule was influenced by my players arguing abotu the likely real world effects of getting fire inside a helmet, so it ended up working out well, and next time I used the gentler rulebook ablaze rules, but I told my players this).
** One exception is Critical Hits and Magical Catastrophes (really, magical critical hits). These are gory, highly effect what happens in play, and spectacular. It's worth it to stop play for everyone at the table to wait with bated breath to find out that the warrior's eye just exploded all over the ground. But do bookmark those pages.
The Bottom Line: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb
So this is why I don't mind the "complicated" rules of Warhammer and love the way it feels at the table. The basic core mechanic is in some ways more simple than D&D, since even spells are a based on # success levels (10s digits) on a 1d100 roll. Then the combat is just crunchy and satisfying enough, where I realyl feel like my player characters go through medieval combat. I hear the crunch of the metal in my mind's eye, to mix metaphors. And the complicated rules can really just be learned/memorized as you play, once you've played through needing to use them. I've had a lot of fun with this 'complicated system' and you can too.
WFRP House Rules
I figure I'll also use this space to note some house rules I've added to play warhammer.
XP rewards: 50 XP for a full session, plus 1 xp per shilling (so GC = 20 xp) recovered adventuring. This gives a bit more 'purpose' for my players, and results in an appropriately Warhammery murderhobo vibe. I don't want my warhammer characters to be indifferent to money, ever, for Sigmar's sake!
Advantage: too overpowered as written, reduced to max +6 Advantage, and gained only on successful hits (not successful parries) with melee or ranged weapons. I really need to reduce this to max +4 frankly.
Magic: spells are too difficult rules as written, so 1/2 CN required (round up). This means instead of 10 successes to cast some of the bigger spells, the PC needs 5. I started this house rule with 1/3 CN, but it really needs to only be 1/2. Effectively, casting number is a penalty to the difficulty of the casting roll, with the ability to channel more successes before the decision Language test.
Arms: I recently added an expanded weapons list found in the Ratter zine #2 (bec de corbin, arming swords, etc.). These are just cool flavor, and I'm a bit of a gear-head when it comes to medieval arms and armor, so don't mind the extra fiddliness.
Fortune and Resolve/Resilience: characters have max 4 Fate/Fortune, and Resolve/Resilience is now used passively - those with it immediately spend it to avoid any effects they receive without having to declare it. It was too many options to keep track of and slowed things down. I actually think it's pretty dumb they added Resolve/Resilience; Fate/Fortune was elegant and worked.
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