Warhammer Fantasy Reborn

My favourite fantasy setting would be that of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I remember discovering it when a friend ran a game of it at his house in my college days.

Instead of the usual fighters, clerics, wizards and thieves, we were an odd collection of a burgher (merchant), a commoner, an apprentice wizard and me, a trapper. Instead of a trusty broadsword, I had a trap and a knife. I loved it!

In the Warhammer Fantasy setting, the heroes aren’t (at least at first) powerful or mighty.

They’re common folk, drawn into dangerous events and, as though fated by the gods, develop into heroes over many adventures.

D&D seems to be moving in this direction with 5e’s Backgrounds, but Warhammer did it first and does it best.

Players randomly draw their careers and develop their characters based off of them, not as a side-thought that adds a couple skills.

Just like in medieval times, what you were born into determined most of who you were (at least initially).

For a game setting that I loved so much, the game system left a lot to be desired. Horribly cumbersome (IMHO), I wasn’t a fan of it, so didn’t buy in for first or second edition. I did play with friends who had the game, but wasn’t interested in GMing such a complex system.

Warhammer 3e

When the most recent edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition (WFRP 3e) by Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) came out, I jumped in with both feet. I bought nearly everything that came out for it.

My favourite part of WFRP 3e was that it used custom dice that could be used to enhance the story. Instead of the binary result of succeed/fail, you had dice that told you how much you succeeded and whether there were also some good or bad side effects with one roll of the dice. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed those dice. I even bought two extra sets.

The other major part of the game system involved the use of cards. As with all FFG products, beautiful cards, but oh, so many cards. Cards for this, cards for that. There was discussion how gaming spaces had to be large to play this game as each player had so many cards to lay out in front of themselves. The cards were really a double-edged strength of the game. There were too many, but some of them were awesome.

I liked the game system overall, but all those cards were troublesome. For example, pretty much for every action you wanted to do in the game, you had a separate card. For basic actions, you had about nine different cards. Some people created custom sheets compiling them, but you can get the sense there was a problem there.

I tried creating my own custom cards, compiling some, altering the game system to alleviate the need for others. I tried cutting down the cards. I went through about eight different fully developed versions of the game, as time went by, incorporating more and more elements of other games. The one constant was the dice. I loved those dice.

Ultimately though, WFRP 3e was discontinued last year. A little before that happened though, my experimentation with using the dice with other games hit a wall. I was finding that the different types of dice, because they were using different numbers of sides, were properly balanced against each other. This was ultimately fixed I believe in FFG’s new Star Wars RPGs that adopted the best parts of WFRP 3e, including properly balanced dice.

Warhammer World

Although the dice let me down ultimately, the setting is one that I cannot forget. It’s a very fully developed fantasy setting, with its own distinct elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. It has a history that melds the atmosphere of ours with a dark, gritty fantasy. Magic is not something you just play with. There are consequences. The gods are not just something in the background, they’re active and the newest god was the founder of the Empire – a man become god.

Having tried D&D 5e, I liked how they had finally made D&D into something really playable, fast and fun, but it’s still bland and boring to me. I just never got into the Forgotten Realms and I like something grittier for my games. But, I love fantasy, so in playing I rekindled my longing to play Warhammer again.

I didn’t want to return to the now-defunct system, nor my eight past iterations of the game (I prefer moving forward, rarely returning to play old designs, except to steal bits and pieces that I liked). I decided to plunge back into design work and create something new using the Warhammer Fantasy setting.

Using WFRP 3e as a starting point (for careers, characteristics and skills listings), I adopted the Apocalypse Engine’s moves for actions (incorporating advantage/disadvantage), used Savage World’s tactical options for combat, Drives from Lady Blackbird and blended in Gumshoe’s point spend system for skills. For damage, armour, defense and NPCs, I created entirely new systems (which I’m still tinkering with) integrating the WFRP wound cards (some of the cards were quite good).

I still miss using those fancy special dice, but the result is something that works well and reflects the grim, dark world of Warhammer. I call it Warhammer World and once again I can return to the world of Warhammer. I can’t wait!