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Ryan Shellito
United States
New York
New York
I live in Manhatten, The City of Pizza!
Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!
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“A grim world of perilous adventure” -from the back of the book
And indeed it is. I remember seeing the hard cover version book on the shelf of the FLGS in the mid 80's. I had been playing D&D and Palladium Fantasy Roleplay for a couple of years, but this book seemed to promise something else. It's lurid, violent cover seemed to promise a world the gritty, dark, and harsh. A world where a nasty brutish death lurked around every corner. It promised something different than the high fantasy games I'd been playing. So of course I had to have it. Unfortunately I was young, and money was something I did not have much of. It would have to wait until 1988 or 89, when the soft cover came out and the price dropped $10. I remember reading the introduction fiction on the way home and was throughly convinced this was the coolest game I had ever seen. It took me several years to get anyone to actually play. It was worth the wait
The book
The book is a a 364 page page perfect bound beast. The interior is in black and white and printed a slicker paper than most RPG books from the era. It's organized in a fairly typical character generation/rules/world and setting/bestiary format. The text is laid out in a clean two or three column format (most of the book is two column. The skills section is thee. Not sure why, but it does not hurt the lay out) and is clean and easy to read. The art fits well with the setting. Despite the 80's metal album look of the cover (nothing wrong with that mind you...) most of the art fits the setting of the game. No more Mohawks or facial piercings...
The book has held up very well to abuse over the years. It's been hauled around in backpacks full of school books for weeks on end and frequently tossed about the game table. Every soft cover copy I've ever seen was intact. The hard cover I found in college has subsequently exploded into a pile of pages, and it seems a common occurrence for the hard covers.
The World
Given the name of the game, it is no surprise that this game is set in the Warhammer world. Then again... the Warhammer world has changed quite a bit over the years. If you were only familiar with the current world, this one would seem the bizarro version. There are only three Chaos Gods (Khorne, Nurgle, and Malal-The renegade Chaos God) and there are three Law Gods (Alluminas, Arianka, and Solkan). While running a game in about 2002 one of my players was completely baffled by the idea that Karl Franz was a decrepit old man nearing the end of his life, and not a mighty warrior that fought from atop his griffin in the heart of battles.
If the world better? Worse? Well, it's just different. It's a world emerging from the middle ages into the early Renaissance. Black power weapons exist, but really are not much better than bow and crossbows. The merchant class is rising, the noble defending their power, and the peasants still toil. There are servants of the Chaos Gods chewing at the foundations of the world, and the Player Characters are usually people who've decided it is better to seek fame and fortune and risk possible death, than toil in the mud forever.
The Rules
Character generation is an almost entirely random process. The player chooses a race first. This determines how each stat is generated. Not all races are created equal. Elves start with a better stat line than anyone else. In over a decade of playing, I've only ever had a single halfling PC. In theory these imbalances are evened out by the number of Fate Points people receive (more on these later) but in reality it is not much of an equalizer. The player than chooses a class (Warrior, Ranger, Rogue, and Academic) which determines the character's starting equipment and which career chart the player rolls on. Ah, Careers. This is the heart of character generation. From Agitator to Gambler, from Hypnotist to Watchman, this determines your starting skills, a few more pieces of equipment, your future statistic advancements, and your future careers. There are no levels in character advancement. When you have bought all the advances in your current career (through experience expenditures) you spend experience to move into a new career. It sounds clunky, and I'll admit it is a little, but it creates a nice history for the character as they advance.
Skill test and combat test are made on percentile dice, attempting to role under whichever stat is involved (or the stat x10 if it is a single digit stat like Strength or Toughness). There are no grade of success, it is pass fail. Combat, not surprisingly given the games heritage, can get rather involved. It is best played out with miniatures and maps. Atypical attack goes like this. Roll percentile dice. If it is under your Weapon Skill sat you hit. Revers your the digits in you roll to determine a hit location. (I have always rather liked this bit). Roll 1D6 and ad your Strength to it. This is your damage total. Subtract any armor in the struck location and the targets toughness, and that is how many wounds the target looses. If the character is driven below 0 wounds a critical hit is rolled. These range from a minor annoyance to bloody, gory death. It can be a bit absurd sometimes (I remember an incident where the critical result indicated the bare handed wizard with the low strength ripped off someones arm... A little GM interpretation is necessary) but is generally a lot of fun.
Fate points are what separates our heroes from the rest of the world. Fate points have but one use, to save the player characters from bloody death. Any time a critical hit would kill a PC the player may expend one fate point to avoid death. The character is then unconscious and left for dead, or similarly fated.
Magic is a bit odd. The character expends spell points to cast a spell, and the attempts to roll under there remaining spell points on 2D6. If they make it the spell goes off, if they don't nothing happens. Unfortunately the the magic system seems to be there to hold us over until “Realms of Sorcery” comes out. Realms of Sorcery came out in 2001, and doubt that version was much like what was originally envisioned. Still magic is “good enough” especially given that Wizards are quite rare.
The beastiary is fun, if only for the look at a number of Warhammer critters that haven't made the cut over the years (Jabberwock, Zoat, Fimir, Mardagg: a greater Daemon of Khorne)
My take:
The game is a lot of fun. It's a little clunky, a little chunky, and a lot of good fun. Many of my fondest gaming memories come from playing through the very Excellent “The Enemy Within” campaign in the 90's.
That said, the very excellent 2nd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is an improvement. It cleans up and streamline the clunkier bit. It completely revises magic for the better. While you could not go wrong with the 1st edition, my advice would be to track down the second edition and run “The Enemy Within” campaign with that. It wouldn't take much work to convert between the editions and it would provide at least a year of gaming.
In summary: good, gritty, low fantasy fun!
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
Yes, this really is what I looked like when I uploaded that avatar. Not that it's quite current anymore.
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I concur right up until you say 2E is better.
2E isn't smoother, makes it harder to kill, easier to maim, and more dangerous to cast magic.
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Simon Crowe
United Kingdom
Sheffield
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aramis wrote: I concur right up until you say 2E is better.
2E isn't smoother, makes it harder to kill, easier to maim, and more dangerous to cast magic.
Easier to maim? Magic is more dangerous? I take those as positives.
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Rich P
United Kingdom
Sheffield
United Kingdom
I didn't know what to do with my UberBadge, so I left it as a GeekBadge.
Back home after a world tour. How quickly a year goes...
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Badger242 wrote: In theory these imbalances are evened out by the number of Fat Points people receive...
Presumably Halflings receive more of these than other races. 
Good review, apart from the bit at the end where you recommend an inferior product. 
I don't agree that the Career system is clunky. To me, it feels more realistic than arbitrary levelling up, but it depends how the players integrate it into their game. I like that players can refer to their characters by a career, rather than just a class and level; it adds much more flavour to the game.
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Ryan Shellito
United States
New York
New York
I live in Manhatten, The City of Pizza!
Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!
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Doah! Knew I should not have written that on so little sleep. Fixed the spelling now.
I felt that making magic more dangerous fit the setting nicely. As for combat, I can't say I saw much of a difference in the lethality of the system. Your millage may vary though, of course.
Maybe clunky wasn't quite the right description. I really like the career system. Looking at a character's career history provides a nice little character history. I've never been a fan of the character leveling model. Still, the career system is a little odd. It is certainly unique to WHFRP (I can't think of another system that does this... I could be wrong). In play I always took lengths to find out where the player wanted to go with there character in order to make sure a suitable NPC mentor around at an appropriate time (or at least the players know of one they can visit). But I've had a number of players over the years really have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea of the career system. It is perhaps not so much clunky as it is just notably different.
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Simon Crowe
United Kingdom
Sheffield
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'Clunky' seems a fairly apt description. I do like the career system, mostly as it adds a lot of character, but it often requires a bit of fudging. It never feels fully explained what it means to be a particular career.
A simple leveling system is more elegant, and a more freeform advance system often feels more realistic. The best thing about the career system is that it gives WFRP a unique feel.
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Jim Patching
United Kingdom
Cardiff
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Nice review and I concur that the second edition is an improvement over the 1st.
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I live in Manhatten, The City of Pizza!
