Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

From a rules standpoint, I am well and truly enamoured with this game.

Anybody who knows me, knows that I like to do many things in an abstract fashion. I do not like the tactical game play of D&D as I find it very confining and limited. The reason why I find tactical play so confining is because when I picture combat, I picture a movie in my head. D&D will never, ever, following that fast-paced, flowing visual that I get.

The holy grail of combat scenes, to me, was presented in Lord of the Rings. The fight near the end with the Fellowship vs. the Urak-Hai. I’ve never seen a more compelling and intricate fight scene. Why do I love it so?
There were multiple scenes/settings, involving a clearing, ruins that were climbed & a heavy forest
There were multiple scenes, including the Fellowship fighting, Frodo and his crew’s dilemma, Borimir’s death and Aragorn’s one on one fight with Lurtz
Aragorn vs. Lurtz is a stunning example of a brutal, anything to win fight. Lurtz use his shield as a weapon (throwing it at Aragorn). Aragorn lost his sword and had to draw a knife to use. It was a well choreographed fight.

You cannot run that scene in D&D. Or if you do, it conjures images of cheeto eating, pop drinking nerds who run the combat through it’s numbers. Tactical combat is sterile. You can move X squares, you can perform X attacks, you are frozen in time when it’s not your initiative, etc.

I’m not saying that I’ve hated D&D combat over the years, but it’s sterile and has never quite achieved the lofty highs which I, as a storyguide, desire. I prefer a lot of narration when I run a game and allowing characters to go the extra mile. I want combat to ebb and flow.

When Warhammer 2nd edition came out, I was eager to re-live my youth. The world of Warhammer is dirty and corrupt. Generally my favourite type of fantasy world. 2nd edition was a faithful re-creation of the original but one thing that I was disappointed with was that their combat system was a clone of D&D 3rd edition. There were Move actions and if you took a Move action you couldn’t take all your attacks. So the only way to take all your attacks in a round is to root yourself in place (which promotes static combat). I ran the 2nd edition game for about 2 years and it was alright.

Enter 3rd edition. Everything has changed.

Whereas 2nd edition was a rules heavy game (like D&D), 3rd edition is…a rules lite game. It’s a bold direction for a game heaped in mountains of rules.

This is not so say that it’s as lite as something like Fate. It’s got it’s rules and they are well structured (once you decipher them from the confounding and poorly designed rule books). But they’ve created a core dice system which allows a GM to easily add bonuses or negatives on the fly.

The trick to doing this is subtle. What they did was create some core dice which provide the bulk of your chances of success. Then they added Fortune dice to add compliments and Challenge and Misfortune dice to add difficulty to an action.

Why this works so well is that each Fortune dice has a mild affect on your total role. Adding a Fortune dice here or there won’t break the bank. So a GM or a rule can feel free to add them without fearing that you’re tipping things too heavily in the player’s favour.

The same works with Challenge & Misfortune dice. Challenge dice are bad for the players. When rolled, they will eat up successes and can cause all sort of problems. Misfortune dice on the other hand, are far less ‘evil’ for a player. They are more likely to not destroy successes so much as ruin something called boons (which are beneficial side effects that most actions can have). The GM can really tailor any challenge by adding either Challenge dice and/or Misfortune dice.

As a great example, take poor, average and superior equipment. Poor equipment can be represented easily as being the ‘same as normal equipment’ but you role a Misfortune dice along with your pool. Superior equipment adds a Fortune dice to the challenges.

It’s a really simple and elegant concept that allows the GM to tailor the game to his desires. Say they like to encourage outrageous actions? Add Fortune dice to players who want to swing on chandeliers and rescue the maiden. Say instead, they want an unforgiving brutal world. Add Misfortune dice to characters after days of trudging through swamps who suddenly find themselves in combat.

Like a true rules lite system, they do not give the rules to govern EVERY situation. The GM is left to use their judgment in 90% of the situations. This is both great and bad. For example, there is no penalty to Stealth while wearing Full Plate Armour. This is not because it’s meant to be that way, but it’s because they didn’t want to bog down every rule with how it is affected by everything else. You the GM must decide what the penalty is. Common sense must rule. Of course, despite it’s name, not everybody has common sense.

The setup for the game, however, is borderline brutal. It is not a pick-up game. Actions are governed through Action cards and the number of Action cards are great. This is good as it adds a lot of variety but it’s bad in that each player must sift through a stack of cards and decipher what they think will be good and bad. Now add Talent cards (more passive effects) which come in multiple flavours (Reputation, Focus and Tactics). Building a character is not an easy task.

This game is a paradigm shift. It’s rules lite so a lot of what is going on, while governed by Action cards in combat, will have to be judged by the GM during the game. Something that can be good and bad. Even a good GM can have bad rules calls.

They encourage a ‘say-yes’ attitude which I’ve seen in other games but which is better done here. D&D 4th edition suggested a ‘say-yes’ attitude which is all well and good but if most things are governed by the rules already…what is there to ‘say-yes’ too? The DM’s guide did have a nice section of how to govern some out of the box things, such as knocking over a giant statue to crush a giant. But…the question was, why bother? You’re already a fantasy superhero in D&D. Your powers are awesome so there is little reason to bother with anything out side the box.

In Warhammer, you’ve got a core mechanic that can blend with virtually any situation but you’ve got a lack of a tome of rules to go with it. So the ‘say-yes’ attitude is easy. A player wants to do something very difficult? Throw Challenge dice at them and if they succeed, great. If they want to do something tricky, throw Misfortune dice at them.

I’ve not meant this to be an attack on D&D and I generally make it no secret that I dislike 4th edition. Warhammer has the style and attitude that I like. I think it’ll work out really well…for those of us willing to fight through the terribly organized rules.

Oh, so getting back to my Lord of the Rings fight.

How does Warhammer handle this sort of battle?

Well check this out:

Map: Instead of a map with squares you’ve got a location card. It gives you the 411 on the location and what sort of perils you might face. Not really required but it gives you more insight as to what additional effects might transpire during the battle.

To make things interesting, you could incorporate multiple location cards to set up a full battlefield. So you could have your clearing, your ruins, your deep forest, etc. To run the LotR fight you would still have to give reason for the players to move or stay at one location. In the movie, the heroes of the Fellowship attempted to meet the onslaught of orcs, only to find that they were horribly outnumbered and the orcs were focused on the prize, which was the hobbits. Thus you have the orcs pour past the heroes and move to other locations. Additionally, while the hobbits are located in the deep forest location, you have it so nobody, friend or foe, knows their exact location without a proper search. Thus charging into the forest itself to try to save the day may not actually amount to anything.

Movement: Instead of squares, you’ve got distance ranks which are abstract. No need to know if you are 100 feet or metres from your target. Engaged, Close, Medium, Long and Extreme are your distance ranks.

Manoeuvres: In order to change distance ranks, pull a weapon, hold excess spell power or do other minor things in combat, you must perform a Manoeuvre. You get one free Manoeuvre during your turn but if you want to take more, you can take a point of Fatigue. You can suffer a fair bit of Fatigue but if you suffer too much, you’ll drop unconscious.

Combat: From there the action proceeds as normal. Action cards spice up combat as a means to encourage something other than, “I attack”. Once fighting beginnings, there is only a small amount of Manoeuvres that will be done. I haven’t gone through all of them, but ‘maneuvering’ your enemy isn’t a common effect. As such there is little reason to ‘give ground’ as Aragorn is forced to do, which forces him to climb the ruins in one scene, to retreat so that he can avoid being overwhelmed. Maybe in the future, more Action cards will be introduced which will allow such things.

I realize that there is so many details left unexplained. There are so many little things that showcase how the rules work with each other that make it the sum greater than pieces.

Now I just need to find time to play it…