Warhammer Fantasy/40K RPG Megathread

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Gringnr said:
They're scattered all over. I have quite a bit I've collected and organized. I can plop it on a filesharing service and provide a link. I had to collect a lot of it via Wayback Machine. AFAIK, it's all free and legal to share. I know of a few cases where the rights may have been purchased for use in Zweihander, so I may need to omit those, as I'm no longer sure of the legality/morality of sharing them. Maybe I'll ask. But other than those few, I see no reason why sharing the others would violate any rules or laws. It's all been upped to the internet for free, by the authors. Gimme a few days, if you don't mind, it's a lot of stuff, and I'm pretty busy.

Some of it is nice-looking PDFs, some is text files only. But there is a lot of stuff. A lot of the adventures are shorter, but some are full-length.

There is a lot more fan stuff out there, professions and sourcebooks and whatnot, but I only collected the adventures.

There's also a guy who curates a large collection of fan-made stuff (wfrp.de), but he only allows access if you have written a new adventure, or can link him to one he hasn't seen. He is also surly and uncommunicative. I have tried to gain access to his trove, but have not even managed to get a response. Hell, for all I know, he is no longer active or even alive. In any event, he gatekeeps his trove well. I haven't seen it online anywhere, anyway, so he must...
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Just realized that I've forgotten all about this... gimme 48 hours to cram it sideways into my schedule... sorry, y'all.
 
Gringnr said:
Just realized that I've forgotten all about this... gimme 48 hours to cram it sideways into my schedule... sorry, y'all.
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That’s no excuse. How dare you make people you don’t know wait for entertainment resources you are providing to them for free?
 
I must say I'd most preferably take all 4 editions, Theatre of Tragedy, Zweihander and the Dark Eye, and forged them in one due to my tastes.



Skill advancements from 4e, lot of basic attributes from 1 edition, 1e and 4e setting divided from Wargames, magic of 2 edition, and more.
 
Wicked Woodpecker of West said:
I must say I'd most preferably take all 4 editions, Theatre of Tragedy, Zweihander and the Dark Eye, and forged them in one due to my tastes.



Skill advancements from 4e, lot of basic attributes from 1 edition, 1e and 4e setting divided from Wargames, magic of 2 edition, and more.
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Welcome!

Not familiar with Theatre of Tragedy; will look it up.

And I thought the WFRP4 fluff was firmly cribbed from the war game.

In any case, I too have a “hybrid” in mind. But I gotta reread WFRP1 because I only read bits of it, and never played.
 
And I thought the WFRP4 fluff was firmly cribbed from the war game.
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It seems to go for hybride in terms of countries and events - but in terms of how they make world feel is 1st edition with extra pratchettian vibe.
So it's possible Brettonia will be both Arthurian and decadent pre-Rev France, and Kislev will be both 1st edition redneck poor country and badass Ice Tzarina lading winged hussars.


Not familiar with Theatre of Tragedy; will look it up.
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Basically home-made version of 1.5.Made by Polish but in English.

Damn I need to recant this - I fudged memory roll. ToT is unfortunately in Polish. :sad:
 
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Does anyone have any thoughts on the quality of 4e adventures made available in the "Ubersreik Adventures" collection?
 
Gringnr said:
Just realized that I've forgotten all about this... gimme 48 hours to cram it sideways into my schedule... sorry, y'all.
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I was organizing these tonight, shouldn't be too much longer.
 
The Butcher said:
And I thought the WFRP4 fluff was firmly cribbed from the war game.
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Not really. They have Graeme Davis from 1st edition back doing the bulk of the printed supplements. He is doing the revised version of The Enemy Within, and he wrote Rough Nights & Hard Days, which is a revision of the classic 1E adventure Rough Night at the Three Feathers, with three new adventures continuing on from it.

His approach seem to be to bend the setting of later editions back in the direction of 1E. For example, 2E made the emperor into a griffon-riding hero. In 4E, nobody has seen him in public in 6 months and he is rumored to be ill or worse.
 
Hey everyone, first time poster. Just wanted to get some advice/thoughts about my WFRP 1e campaign that I've just started up. To make a long story short, we began with a short scenario in which the four PCs were hired by a local farmer to clean out a cave of giant spiders that had been poisoning his livestock. They entered the cave, killed three spiders that were each dog-sized without much trouble, but then faced off against mother spider, a 10-foot-wide beast. One of the PCs is down to 0 W as a result of the fight (but did not receive any criticals).

Now as per the WFRP 1e rules, a PC with 0 W is considered heavily wounded, and cannot begin to recover wounds naturally until tended to by a character with Heal Wounds or Surgery. Only one of the PCs has Heal Wounds (and none have Surgery), and he failed his INT roll five days in a row (though the rules don't specify this, I allow a new check each day). Now of course, at a certain point, he'll make his roll and the character will begin to heal, but I like the idea of throwing the PCs a new scenario, in which they go to visit a witch who lives in the dark grove on the outskirts of the village. This old hag is feared but also valued by the locals of the village, who go to her for prayers for fertility of their crops, to deliver babies (both human and livestock), and to occasionally heal injuries.

I'm thinking of having the witch be a fairly sinister figure who has at least some genuine traffic with dark and chaotic forces. Maybe the witch gives the PC a healing potion to drink, but unlike the relatively benign potion described in the rulebook, this one has a mild chaos taint (or some other component of evil that doesn't even need to be specified). The witch demands big bucks for the potion, but the PC also risks gaining some insanity points.

Any thoughts on how to handle this? Any alternative suggestions or ideas are very welcome.
 
Welcome to The Pub Cowpanzamie Cowpanzamie !

First, let me congradulate you on your excellent taste in gaming - WFRP was my first RPG, and remains one of my favourites to this day. :smile:

As to your main question, I guess the way I'd approach it is by figuring out what the Witch wants, independent of the PCs. Instead of just (surprise, this potion is tainted by Chaos!), what does she expect to gain? This could be...
  • Revenge on someone (or anyone) from the village.
  • Some special ingredient for another spell/ritual she wants to complete.
  • A husband for her daughter/wife for her son
  • Someone to accomplish a task she's either incapable of/too dangerous for her
  • To show up an old rival
Either way, what the PCs coming to her for aid represent to her is an opportunity - a situation she can exploit. And that can provide innumerable plot hooks. I don't think I'd personally make it too harsh, the game is punishing enough without the players getting completely screwed over just by trying to get healed, but I'd look at it as a good situation to make their lives more complicated.

So, she could just outright blackmail the players as part of the price, or also here are some possible side-effects of the healing potion -
  • The player is an unknown sleeper agent, set to projectile vomit acid when the come into contact with a person of the Witch's choosing
  • The Witch can afterwards, see through the character's eyes at will
  • At night, the Witch can henceforth enter/manipulate the character's dreams, maybe to subliminally suggest things to them, maybe to plague them with specific nightmares urging them to do a specific thing/go a specific place
  • The healing is temporary, and the wounds will return/maybe even worse, until the PCs accomplish what the Witch demands
  • The potion not only heals, but is also a love philtre, causing the PC to also fall madly in love with the Witche's daughter/son
  • On a full moon, the character henceforth transforms into a rodent/large bird, that brings things aquired by the group back to the Witch
  • Maybe the witch secretly switches souls with the character - only the player playing that PC knows it, and if the others find out they'll have to find a way to switch the bodies back or leave their friend's spirit trapped in the body of an old crone...
etc, etc. I dunno, this is all just me spitballing off the cuff.
 
It's a very unbalanced system, not worth playing. Rushed to market without adequate playtesting.
 
vicberg said:
It's a very unbalanced system, not worth playing. Rushed to market without adequate playtesting.
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Unbalanced how exactly?
If it’s that Elves and Dwarves are better, that’s Warhammer, working as intended.
If it’s that Pit Fighters and Protagonists are 10x better in combat then Ratcatchers and Agitators, that’s Warhammer, working as intended.
WFRP has always been about Setting Balance as opposed to Mechanical Balance.

However, if the math is totally fucked in some way, or rules aren’t not doing what it is supposed to do, or emergent complexity has made some combinations practically game breaking (like D&D3), some examples would be cool.
 
No Magic is unbalanced and lucky roll can clear the fields. As a GM you never want that.
Characters can focus, especially at 2nd level on specific skills and unbalance the the game. There's no limits.
I had a group of experienced gamers (30+ years each) easily max the system without trying. Hard to remove fate/fortune/resolve/resilience without throwing tons of bad guys or seriously high level baddies at relatively low level chars. They read the rules.
Too much math and slow combat turns. SL plus armor qualities plus weapon qualities plus reach plus odd or even roll plus possible critical plus armor HP at hit location plus damage done = wounds. All for one roll. Way too much math
 
I ran 6 groups through 4e and The Enemy Within. I've done this a bit. I know the 4e system and I know it's not balanced if you get even a minimal min/maxer. That strikes me as an unbalanced system
 
vicberg said:
No Magic is unbalanced and lucky roll can clear the fields. As a GM you never want that.
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I'd say that this might also be Warhammer working as intended, though opinions might differ on this one...:thumbsup:.

Either way, welcome to the Pub:grin:!

Characters can focus, especially at 2nd level on specific skills and unbalance the the game. There's no limits.
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That's not unbalancing the game. If they're focusing in one area, they're not using XP to improve in others.

I had a group of experienced gamers (30+ years each) easily max the system without trying. Hard to remove fate/fortune/resolve/resilience without throwing tons of bad guys or seriously high level baddies at relatively low level chars. They read the rules.
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Why would you need to remove fate/fortune?

Too much math and slow combat turns. SL plus armor qualities plus weapon qualities plus reach plus odd or even roll plus possible critical plus armor HP at hit location plus damage done = wounds. All for one roll. Way too much math
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OK, that sounds bad, but I don't recall any of it from when I played WH4. I wonder what our GM had been doing:shade:.
 
Bourbonjack said:
Where could someone find these fan made adventures?
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Séadna said:
No need to say sorry, nice of you to do it all :thumbsup:
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CRKrueger said:
That’s no excuse. How dare you make people you don’t know wait for entertainment resources you are providing to them for free?
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I bet you thought you'd never see the day. Well, here it is. There are a bunch of WFRP fan-made scenarios here. Length, quality, and format vary. I have included stuff for editions 1,2 and 4. It is organized, though there is some duplication, as some sources had the same stuff as others. Some of this is still up and available online, some had to be tracked down via Wayback machine or by poring through old threads on out of the way forums. I hope it's worth the download. I have heard particularly good things about the Roysten Crow adventures, and about the epic length A Private War.To the best of my knowledge, all of this stuff is free and legal to share, and is not piracy. I have checked and re-checked. Feel free to correct me if you find something that shouldn't be here. Enjoy!

www.mediafire.com

WFRP fan stuff (copy)

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.
www.mediafire.com

...sorry this took so damn long, y'all.
 
Just reading through the YA novellas (City of Lifestone, Lair of the Skaven,..)
Would it be possible to create the young novice type of characters from the novels with Soulbound? Or is the power level too great, and are starting SB characters already lvl 999 OP?
 
Godfather Punk said:
Just reading through the YA novellas (City of Lifestone, Lair of the Skaven,..)
Would it be possible to create the young novice type of characters from the novels with Soulbound? Or is the power level too great, and are starting SB characters already lvl 999 OP?
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There are 'Grim and Perilous' rules that you could use to make characters that are not superheroes from the word go.

For the thread in general, a few things stood out to me, just for clarity:

There are two components to a test: Difficulty and Complexity. Difficulty is the number (or higher) you need on each die for it to count as a success. Complexity is the number of successes you need to complete the test. That's the big deal between focus and training. Focus can help with difficulty, but only Training can help with Complexity (and raising your attributes, but, of course, that's expensive).

Stormcast Eternals are different from Soulbound. They can't die (they just get reforged, losing more of their memories and humanity), their weapons and armour are unbreakable, and they have access to some great stuff. But they can't use Soulfire and don't contribute to the total. So that's a big downside.

The game is not zero to hero. It is badass hero to BADASS HERO. Even starting characters can do amazing things; advanced characters can do even more. Everything is well-balanced, there's a chart to build spells and every spell plays by those rules. Same sort of thing with monsters and weapons. There are certainly effective combos in the game, but it's very hard to build an ineffective character or someone that outshines everyone else.

And, just for fairness, I did work on the Gamemaster's Screen, Starter Kit, and Shadows in the Mist, and Blackened Earth. Plus did playtesting and proofing on the core. But independent of all that, I think it's a great system for the type of game it wants to be.
 
A very interesting video dissecting the "Grimdark" genre

 
There's a Paul Cockburn interview up on Awesome Lies.

Some bits that stood out for me.

Bryan Ansell's vision for WFRP was bad. (This fits with my view he was excellent in the development of WFB, but he's probably the main reason that GW lost interest in RPGs entirely).

There was something I’d characterise as a misunderstanding in how Bryan’s view of a separate RPG would work. BA is all about miniatures – Citadel took over GW, not the other way around. What that existing draft did was throw more roleplaying layers over WFB; it wasn’t a game in its own right. At the same time, WFRP was going to be in stores for Christmas come hell or high water, so…

(...)

Once it came out, it soon became apparent to Bryan that WFRP would not drive sales of miniatures anything like WFB did. Paper products didn’t interest him all that much, unless they drove miniature sales. He would say repeatedly how we would never make money from paper products. Note how 40k was never anything other than a battle game, and became much more successful in that environment.
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WFRP came out remarkably well considering it was a rush job.

There was a lot of product being worked on at the Design Studio by the likes of Rick Priestley, Jervis Johnson, Richard Halliwell, etc, and one of those products was a part-formed WFRP. I joined in, what, April ’86? The idea was that we’d have WFRP on the presses by September…
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Paul Cockburn really doesn't like the skill system.

Skills were a bloody nightmare. On the one hand, we were following the brief and the careers system, adding in the development aspect. How, then, did that sit alongside skills, except where those were inherently part of a career? I personally don’t find the solutions all that elegant.
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Black Leaf said:
WFRP came out remarkably well considering it was a rush job.
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In some ways, being a rush job worked in its favor. Based on things Graeme Davis has said, management's reaction to the finished product was very cool, but there wasn't time to do anything else other than send it out the door. I think we would have ended up with something far more conventional if they had more time.

I don't think any RPG design would have suited Ansell. An RPG is never going to be as good a tool for selling minis as WFB. WotC learned the same thing back when they trying to sell minis alongside D&D 3E.
 
Baulderstone said:
In some ways, being a rush job worked in its favor. Based on things Graeme Davis has said, management's reaction to the finished product was very cool, but there wasn't time to do anything else other than send it out the door. I think we would have ended up with something far more conventional if they had more time.

I don't think any RPG design would have suited Ansell. An RPG is never going to be as good a tool for selling minis as WFB. WotC learned the same thing back when they trying to sell minis alongside D&D 3E.
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There were also pitched battles with Ansell about the WD editorial staff refusing to stuff it with WFB content.

I think Ansell gets something of a hard time (in particular the wargame side would never have been as good without him) but it's undeniable he was a minis wargamer to the point that the RPG side of the business was something he was actively hostile to.
 
ok resurrecting this thread, because it says its the Warhammer Megathread, which is a pretty cool thread title...

I am preparing to run WFRP 4E, and the first thing that strikes me is the number of 'Fudge Pts' that it has - Fate/ Fortune /Resilence/Resolve Pts. That's pretty clunky

I think you only need Fortune and Resolve Pts, the other two are just terms for the maximim values of both of these (which can be 'burnt/decreased' for a more potent effect)

I am even considering giving the PCs a handful of the same coloured tokens, and tell them to check what they can use it for (eg: they might have 6 tokens, but if they have Fate 4 and Resolve 2 then that they can use 4 tokens in accessing Fortune, and 2 on accessing Resolve. Something like that .

I'm not sure if I am articulating this very well, but the main gist is I don't want my players fumbling around with four different types of game currency, when they can just have a handful of the same physical tokens
 
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Mankcam said:
ok resurrecting this thread, because it says its the Warhammer Megathread, which is a pretty cool thread title...

I am preparing to run WFRP 4E, and the first thing that strikes me is the number of 'Fudge Pts' that it has - Fate/ Fortune /Resilence/Resolve Pts. That's pretty clunky

I think you only need Fortune and Resolve Pts, the other two are just terms for the maximim values of both of these (which can be 'burnt/decreased' for a more potent effect)

I am even considering giving the PCs a handful of the same coloured tokens, and tell them to check what they can use it for (eg: they might have 6 tokens, but if they have Fate 4 and Resolve 2 then that they can use 4 tokens in accessing Fortune, and 2 on accessing Resolve. Something like that .

I'm not sure if I am articulating this very well, but the main gist is I don't want my players fumbling around with four different types of game currrency, when they can just have a handful of the same physical tokens
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It really is only two sorts of currency - Fate and Resilience spends are just permanent spends of Fortune and Resolve, i.e. they decrease the overall Fortune and Resolve scores for more significant things. It won’t break anything if you don’t use the terms, but I’d still differentiate between things that permanently burn Fortune/Resolve vs those things that are temporary spends.
 
Mankcam said:
ok resurrecting this thread, because it says its the Warhammer Megathread, which is a pretty cool thread title...

I am preparing to run WFRP 4E, and the first thing that strikes me is the number of 'Fudge Pts' that it has - Fate/ Fortune /Resilence/Resolve Pts. That's pretty clunky

I think you only need Fortune and Resolve Pts, the other two are just terms for the maximim values of both of these (which can be 'burnt/decreased' for a more potent effect)

I am even considering giving the PCs a handful of the same coloured tokens, and tell them to check what they can use it for (eg: they might have 6 tokens, but if they have Fate 4 and Resolve 2 then that they can use 4 tokens in accessing Fortune, and 2 on accessing Resolve. Something like that .

I'm not sure if I am articulating this very well, but the main gist is I don't want my players fumbling around with four different types of game currency, when they can just have a handful of the same physical tokens
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My game is currently on a hiatus as of last week, but I want to to do something about those point pools before I restart. It's not just that there are four different pools. It's that they all have so many possible uses. I'll be sure to share it here when I think of something.
 
Yeah having four separate tokens is completely crazy, I have no idea what the game designers were thinking

The other rules seem solid. I quite like the SL rule for determining success, that won't slow things down at all for me.

I am likely to keep forgetting which characters have Advantage, and think tokens may be useful for this.

Which is why the 'Fudge' mechanics need to be trimmed down to two token pools, and if possible, consolidated into one token pool.

Other than that, the core Characteristic stat block remains chunky, but at least its more or less consistent with previous editions of WFRP.

I'm looking forward to embarking on WFRP after all these years of missed opportunities for me, but these proliferant Fudge tokens are quite a mess
 
Mankcam said:
Yeah having four separate tokens is completely crazy, I have no idea what the game designers were thinking
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Andy Law has said that this was one of those decisions that came from above, like the way the correct SL rules were made optional. The biggest issue is that players simply forget that they can use points for things. I try to remind players when they have an opportunity to use a point, but you know how it is, When you are GMing, you have enough things to remember without needing to give reminders to players.
Mankcam said:
The other rules seem solid. I quite like the SL rule for determining success, that won't slow things down at all for me.
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Yes, I've found that the core mechanic gives good results.
Mankcam said:
I am likely to keep forgetting which characters have Advantage, and think tokens may be useful for this.
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The Starter Set came with tokens for advantage. It's definitely the best way to track it for combat.
 
The Butcher said:
Not a fan of the WFRP4 ruleset, but the supplements... God DAMN I want all of them.
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The Old World setting is absolutely very rich and the WFRP line is almost a must-have to have in one's rpg collection. An easy port for Mythras, you just need to work out how you want to convert Magic, but the npc stat blocks are usuable on-the-fly, due to WFRP sharing percentile dice for character abilities with BRP games.

Not a bad solution if you want to go after the WFRP supplements, because they are really great to have :smile:
 
I don't see a lack of balance as a flaw in the rules. I quite like it actually. There are other game I can explore if I want 'balance'...
 
Mankcam said:
The Old World setting is absolutely very rich and the WFRP line is almost a must-have to have in one's rpg collection. An easy port for Mythras, you just need to work out how you want to convert Magic, but the npc stat blocks are usuable on-the-fly, due to WFRP sharing percentile dice for character abilities with BRP games.

Not a bad solution if you want to go after the WFRP supplements, because they are really great to have :smile:
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I am wary of how this will be received at the Pub, but this is one game I have no intention of converting to Mythras.
Fenris-77 said:
I don't see a lack of balance as a flaw in the rules. I quite like it actually. There are other game I can explore if I want 'balance'...
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I cut my teeth on Rifts. I could TPK a party with Dragon Hatchling and Glitter Boy in a single salvo of missiles before I was a grown man. I laugh at civilized men and their so-called "balance" -- Crombieda cares not about such things. Crombieda lives on the tallest mountain in icy Michigan, from whence he sends C&D letters to strike fear in the hearts of the weak.
 
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The Butcher said:
I am wary of how this will be received at the Pub, but this is one game I have no intention of converting to Mythras.
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Well personally I wouldn't convert WFRP to Mythras, as it's kinda close anyway. Percentile dice, hit locations, criticals/fumbles, etc it's about as close as it gets so it's not worth the effort for conversion. However considering you said you don't dig the WFRP ruleset, but liked the supplements, then conversion is an easy option if one wants to do so.

But yeah, I love BRP/Mythras, but for myself The Old World and the WFRP mechanics just go together
 
Mankcam said:
Well personally I wouldn't convert WFRP to Mythras, as it's kinda close anyway. Percentile dice, hit locations, criticals/fumbles, etc it's about as close as it gets so it's not worth the effort for conversion. However considering you said you don't dig the WFRP ruleset, but liked the supplements, then conversion is an easy option if one wants to do so.

But yeah, I love BRP/Mythras, but for myself The Old World and the WFRP mechanics just go together
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I don’t dig WFRP4. Or 3. But 2 is great! 1 and Zweihander I have yet to try.
 
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