Warhammer Fantasy/40K RPG Megathread

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Stevethulhu said:
Part 1 is The Enemy Within, a booklet in it's own right, complete with cover map, pullout full of NPC writeups, a breakdown of the political situation in the Empire, obligatory 80s calendar and rules for mutants. Shadows over Bogenhafen is a separate booklet with a ton of different, but equally useful, stuff. Maps, city breakdown and so on.
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I operate the Bundle of Holding and assembled the two WFRP 1E offers now in progress. The version of Shadows Over Bogenhafen presented in the WFRP 1E offer is the 1995 Hogshead Publishing edition that combines the original 1985 Enemy Within prelude, published by Games Workshop, with the 1987 Shadows text also published by GW. The Bundle lineup presents the entire campaign as described in The Enemy Within Campaign RPGgeek entry.
 
Allen Varney said:
I operate the Bundle of Holding and assembled the two WFRP 1E offers now in progress. The version of Shadows Over Bogenhafen presented in the WFRP 1E offer is the 1995 Hogshead Publishing edition that combines the original 1985 Enemy Within prelude, published by Games Workshop, with the 1987 Shadows text also published by GW. The Bundle lineup presents the entire campaign as described in The Enemy Within Campaign RPGgeek entry.
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That's why the confusion. I've got the GW prints. Having been a fan since I first ran into WHFRPG in about 1986 or so. I didn't even know Hogshead had combined the two original books into one. That makes SoB significantly more chunky.
 
I'm running WHFRP1e currently. I keep running into rules that I prefer from 2e (Chris Pramas did a fantastic job of smoothing out the rougher bits of the system), but the whole thing has been a hoot. Unfortunately, we are heading into the Career Crunch now - both our assassin and our spy have maxed out their careers and are looking to change up their lifestyles a bit, and our level 2 Wizard was about to need to advance to level 3 but we don't have to worry about that anymore as he's been reduced to a pair of smoking boots. Our cleric of Morr switched to Witch Hunter; one of our bawds is now a Mercenary Captain (driving Karl-Heinz Wasmeier's war wagon from the end of Power Behind the Throne); the other bawd is about to become a Templar.

I *REALLY* like the career system in WH4e for longer campaigns compared to all the others - the unlimited advancement system works, and still rewards you for advancing in your career (and for changing careers if you really want to be well-rounded). However, 4e and Zweihander both have the "critical hits" rule that I hate. One of the most brilliant pieces of design in WH is how Critical Hits only happen when you are reduced to zero wounds. It's a reminder that "hit points" aren't "meat points", that once real blows start to land, things go badly QUICKLY. But 4e and (I believe - it's been a while since I read it) Zweihander both allow for critical hits from good attack rolls, completely bypassing Wounds.

This campaign has been running for over 2 years now, and I expect we'll get to the end (the conclusion of The Empire in Flames) at the end of 2021 or early 2022. And I don't know if I'll run WH again after that, and what edition it will be.
 
Also, a year late which is centuries in memeland, but I pulled this out last session
30-50-feral-hogs.jpg
 
The Butcher said:
What say you (or anyone else) about the Doomstones campaign? Is it any good?
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It is not good in my opinion. Someone somewhere put it quite well I think, by saying that it is an early D&D adventure clad in Warhammer clothing. And I honsetly believe that it might be the case. It has some interesting bits, and I have physically owned only 2 books from the saga. I ran it once, and the players didn't complain about much, but they didn't have anything to praise about it either...
 
Moracai said:
It is not good in my opinion. Someone somewhere put it quite well I think, by saying that it is an early D&D adventure clad in Warhammer clothing. And I honsetly believe that it might be the case. It has some interesting bits, and I have physically owned only 2 books from the saga. I ran it once, and the players didn't complain about much, but they didn't have anything to praise about it either...
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I think I read somewhere that it was written and a DnD campaign, then the license was lost. So it got converted to Warhammer.
 
Yes. Its that setting using the Zweihander system. Its said to be another large tome with the same consistent art style as the Zweihander corebook.
 
Doomstones isn't good, but I have had a lot of fun playing and running it. The tone does differ from WFRP more broadly but there are some great set pieces and ideas (including the titular Doomstones) and most GMs and groups will get a lot out of it will a little effort. The final book that was released some years later than the first 4 does help restore some of the WFRP tone as well.
 
I liked the d12 system they used in Colonial Gothic.
 
The d12 system will be continuing as far as I am aware. The idea is to expand the customer base for the two properties.
 
Endless Flight said:
I liked the d12 system they used in Colonial Gothic.
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Me too, FWIW:smile:. I just thought the setting might not be to my group's liking, so I didn't even pitch it.

Skywalker said:
The d12 system will be continuing as far as I am aware. The idea is to expand the customer base for the two properties.
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Nothing wrong with that, either. Though when this is the case and I am not a fan of either system, it leaves me wondering "which one has more setting material":wink:.
 
If you were going to use WFRP 2e, what's the core set of books and house rules you'd need to make it functional? I know you need the core book and the tome of careers (not sure what it's called).

For those of you that use Zwiehander, what house rules have you used to get around the complexity?
 
For WFRP2e you only need the core rulebook. The Career Compendium is good but not essential IMO and the same goes for the Tomes of Salvation and Corruption and Realms of Sorcery.

As a GM, I consider the Old World Bestiary and Heirs of Sigmar to be more essential than those books.

As a player, despite it not having the best reputation, we got a lot of value out of the Old World Armory. It was good to have lots of options around gear, armour and weapons.
 
For Zweihander, we didn’t use any house rules. If you want something less complex use WFRP 2e (or 1e). Zweihander is not as complex as it may seem but it does feel like WFRP in hardcore mode. It’s well designed to do this and it’s presence is part of the experience it is providing.
 
Gringnr said:
Zweihänder is pretty modular, so it's not so much a question of houseruling as it is deciding what to leave out.
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I think you'd need a pretty deep understanding of the system first to figure out how to leave stuff out and have the system work, though? For example combat has like 20 conditions. Do I just not *have* the conditions? Make them some kind of generic *condition*? Similarly with Corruption? I could leave it out totally but it's a big part of the system.
 
Conditions and Corruption aren’t complex in play. If no combatant is able to inflict a Condition, you don’t need to know that Condition. As such, you will likely only be using a handful at any point in time and most of those will be the responsibility of the player whose PC can inflict it.

As for Corruption, the PCs simply gain Corruption during a session and at the end of a session the GM rolls a single d10. If the number is lower than the Corruption, the PC gets 1 Chaos, or higher the PC gets 1 Order. When you hit 10 of either an effect happens.

Most of the rules are around those effects, but as with Conditions you only need to learn those that are in play and the player will take most of this responsibility.
 
PencilBoy99 said:
I think you'd need a pretty deep understanding of the system first to figure out how to leave stuff out and have the system work, though? For example combat has like 20 conditions. Do I just not *have* the conditions? Make them some kind of generic *condition*? Similarly with Corruption? I could leave it out totally but it's a big part of the system.
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Cheat sheets for Actions and Weapon Qualities greatly aided my players, and, by extension, me.

I'm not bright enough for very crunchy games, but Zweihänder to me seems very intuitive and not too rules heavy. YMMV.
 
Gringnr said:
Cheat sheets for Actions and Weapon Qualities greatly aided my players, and, by extension, me.

I'm not bright enough for very crunchy games, but Zweihänder to me seems very intuitive and not too rules heavy. YMMV.
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Cool. Can you share your sheets?
 
I've given up tracking corruption completely. The rules, as simple as they seem when I read them, just wouldn't stick in my head during game play. Now, corruption only comes into play when something big happens. Getting hit by wytchfire or eating a meal that was laced with wytchstone and was intended for the broodmother. We now have an ogre in the party with extra long arms that keeps getting mistaken for a troll :smile:
 
Something happened recently that I wont go into here, but suffice to say that makes me no longer want to support Zweihander or its creator in any way.

I do have some books to sell, including Kickstarter exclusives. I was going to list them on eBay but before I do that I'd like to see if anyone here's interested.
My Collection:
Zweihander Core Book first printing Kickstarter exclusive cover
Zweihander Revised core book
Zweihander player's guide
Zweihander Main Gauche Supplement

Do DM me if you're interested.

I'm also quite curious about one thing. Zweihander is many things but it's definitely NOT a WFRP First Edition Retroclone. Do you think there's space in the market for such a game?
 
Raleel said:
https://discord.gg/nm4WqRc there has been a fan effort to do a Mythras version of Warhammer, and we set up a special channel for it. Dan True on the TDM boards has been looking at porting the magic system. careers have been discussed in the channel at length
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I'm more a forum guy than a discord guy (I'm old). Is there a link you could paste here for discussions about the Mythras/WFRP stuff?
 
This thread got me thinking, has there been any fan effort to make an OGL version of the WFRP2E rules engine? (Or for that matter the WFRP1E rules). I mean other than Zweihander which grew into it's own thing I'd say. And if so could you point me in the right direction to locate it.
 
Torque2100 said:
I'm also quite curious about one thing. Zweihander is many things but it's definitely NOT a WFRP First Edition Retroclone. Do you think there's space in the market for such a game?
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I'm a huge fan of the system, especially combat, but only reason I'd say that it might not do well as a clone is how intimately tied to the setting most people's nostalgia is (and that recreating all those professions woud be a fair bit of work)
 
TristramEvans said:
I'm a huge fan of the system, especially combat, but only reason I'd say that it might not do well as a clone is how intiately tied to the setting most people's nostalgia is (and that recreating all those professions woud be a fair bit of work)
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I'd agree with that. There's a space for "Warhammer but different" like Zweihander or Warlock but I'm not sure there's a market for a full retroclone when the original material is so easily available.
 
Yeah, you can still grab a copy of the 1e core rulebook for under 50 on the secondary market pretty easily

Helps that it was in print for over a decade
 
All of what you said is true, I guess I mean a Retro-Clone with some rules updates/fixes/balancing (I know I know that's heresy when it comes to WFRP1E) But I've also always been of the mindset that pretty much every great rpg I've liked should have a generic Retro-Clone version out and available for fans to build with.
 
Gwarh said:
All of what you said is true, I guess I mean a Retro-Clone with some rules updates/fixes/balancing (I know I know that's heresy when it comes to WFRP1E) But I've also always been of the mindset that pretty much every great rpg I've liked should have a generic Retro-Clone version out and available for fans to build with.
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