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Has anyone tried running one of these before? I recently got a copy of Karak Azgal after someone over on RPG.net mentioned it as the big WFRP dungeoncrawl, but I'm not totally happy with it. I was thinking of designing one to run for a bunch of buddies of mine who've never had a full on dungeoncrawl before.

The basic idea would be that a bunch of orcs took advantage of the Storm of Chaos to sack and capture a castle and the surrounding village. The owner didn't manage to flee in time because tax revenues had just come in, and he was trying to bring them with him. His heir needs the money to hire soldiers to clean out the orcs, and promises the PCs a small fraction of it (several hundred GC total) if they can recover it with a bonus for any orcs they can kill along the way. There are too many orcs for the PCs to kill them all, so they've got to use their brains to get in and get out with several hundred pounds of gold. The noble has arranged to meet them (with his personal guard) nearby at the most plausible escape route, a deep and swift-flowing river that the orcs probably won't be able to swim across.

The levels of the dungeon would be the outer farmlands and forest surrounding the village, the village itself, the castle-grounds (inside the wall), and the keep where the money is hidden.

The premise is a good one. Any WFRP scenario where success is contingent on the wholesale slaughter of the enemy runs headfirst into the inherent lethality of the system, so you're wise to emphasise the objective being theft achieved via stealth, with combat as a last resort.  

On which note, I'm guessing that characters will be well into advanced career progressions. Orcs are are tough opponents, quite capable of destroying a group of neophyte adventurers in a single encounter, and even experienced characters will feel the absence of easy healing as they gradually succumb to attrition. Be sure that they're aware of the advantages of ambush tactics, ranged strikes and weight of numbers. Combats in WFRP can be swift and relatively safe when everyone is aware of a few basic strategies.

The Enemy Within had 3 dungeon crawls - the chaos castle on the Reik, the underground complex in the Something Rotten in Kislev and the old dwarven hold, now orc home, in Empire in Flames. I found them the weakest element in all 3 adventures - the chaos castle was ok because the adventure had got the characters motivated to investigate it at the end and there were options for different routes of entry. Plus the setting - big, gothic castle inhabited by chaos warped nobility had lots of imaginative little rooms that still seemed appropriate within the setting.

The other two were a lot more forced and did little to really drive the adventure forward - they seemed more a product of lazy thinking although in neither case were they strict dungeoncrawls but more breaking and entering similar to what you described. Still quite dull though.

I think the idea has a lot of merit though if there's a clear objective, especially if the players could go crazy in planning their approach using some of the tongue in cheek elements of WFRP - dwarven hangliders spring to mind or copying wholesale from Where Eagles Dare with the players having some magical disguise to pass as orcs or as agents of chaos.  

Some other ideas - taking a leaf from Death on the Reik, the real goal of the noble is securing a lump of warpstone his father had hidden. This drew the orcs and now the skaven. The twist is neither skaven nor PC's alone can secure their objectives and need to work together.

Or the noble thinks all of his serfs have been killed or fled (and has pronounced them outlaw for fleeing) and has sold their landholdings to prospective new tenants/serfs (something similar to what actually happened in middle ages, particularly German expansion into eastern europe). In the course of the adventure, the players come across a band of serfs who survived the orcs invasions and are fighting back. However if the players succeed the humans will still be outlaws and the noble is unwilling to listen to reason as he has already sold their tenancy off.

Is there a way PC's can trick, scare, outsmart or otherwise cause orcs to flee? Maybe that could substitute, at times, for out and out violence?

What's to stop them from sneaking off with all the cash? Or rather, what happens if they do?

I set up an encounter once, where the PC's had to get rid of 500 orcs, who had invaded a small part of the woodlands tended to by an Treant, and some fey creatures. They promise the PC's the location of a hidden treasure if they just got rid of the orcs.

The PC's spent several days just on recon. They discovered that the Orcs were floating wood down the river to use to construct a fort. They also discovered that the river was deep, and powerful, and sat higher in most parts than the section that the Orcs were building on. So instead of taking them on head on they used Summon Natures Ally to summon Beaver's to build a damn, along with their other magics and abilities. It took a few days of constant work, but soon they had a hell of a damn built.

The Orc's of course start wondering what the hell is happening to all of the water and send a force out to see what's up. The PC's purposefully allow three Orc's to escape, thinking that the PC's are just the spearhead for a larger force. So the ORc's mount up everything they got, and come at them. The PC's let them come in hard and fast and unleash the river on them.

After the game was over, the question was asked-how do we handle handing out XP here? Do they just get some XP for being clever, or do they get the XP for all of those Orcs? In the end it was a hilarious game, one that lives in infamy.

Quote from: Serious Paul;279423I set up an encounter once, where the PC's had to get rid of 500 orcs, who had invaded a small part of the woodlands tended to by an Treant, and some fey creatures. They promise the PC's the location of a hidden treasure if they just got rid of the orcs.

The PC's spent several days just on recon. They discovered that the Orcs were floating wood down the river to use to construct a fort. They also discovered that the river was deep, and powerful, and sat higher in most parts than the section that the Orcs were building on. So instead of taking them on head on they used Summon Natures Ally to summon Beaver's to build a damn, along with their other magics and abilities. It took a few days of constant work, but soon they had a hell of a damn built.

The Orc's of course start wondering what the hell is happening to all of the water and send a force out to see what's up. The PC's purposefully allow three Orc's to escape, thinking that the PC's are just the spearhead for a larger force. So the ORc's mount up everything they got, and come at them. The PC's let them come in hard and fast and unleash the river on them.

After the game was over, the question was asked-how do we handle handing out XP here? Do they just get some XP for being clever, or do they get the XP for all of those Orcs? In the end it was a hilarious game, one that lives in infamy.

Cool plan on the PCs part. How did you end up awarding XP?

Quote from: Serious Paul;279421Is there a way PC's can trick, scare, outsmart or otherwise cause orcs to flee? Maybe that could substitute, at times, for out and out violence?

That's one possible route I'm thinking. Orcs in WFRP have an animosity rule where they'll fight, backstab and squabble at the slightest opportunity, even in preference to smashing puny humans (Other orcs put up a better fight and are more important to them than some weak pink monkey). Clever PCs will probably be able to exploit that.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;279422What's to stop them from sneaking off with all the cash? Or rather, what happens if they do?

Nothing more than having to flee from the orcs carrying scads of cash which will weigh them down. The orcs will have wolves with them in the castle, which should make hunting down the PCs easy if they try to flee across the fields into the woods. The noble will have a landing about a half-mile to the south of the castle with a boat they will be able to load up and flee across the river in, which should prevent the heavily-armoured orcs from pursuing them easily.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;279426Cool plan on the PCs part. How did you end up awarding XP?

In the end I gave them an XP award for the Orc, not all 500 mind you-because a few managed not to drown, but I gave them a fair award for defeating them, and an award for the creativity they displayed in pulling it off.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;279430That's one possible route I'm thinking. Orcs in WFRP have an animosity rule where they'll fight, backstab and squabble at the slightest opportunity, even in preference to smashing puny humans (Other orcs put up a better fight and are more important to them than some weak pink monkey). Clever PCs will probably be able to exploit that.

Sounds fun!

I don't see why a WFRP dungeon has to have less fighting than a D&D dungeon. Yes, it has to have perhaps less of a range of monsters, because in WFRP the "monster power level" spikes very quickly, so you won't get a dungeon with two or three dragons like you might in D&D (in fact, you probably won't ever get a dungeon with a dragon at all unless you really want your PCs to die).  But you can fill the dungeon with "same-level" or "lower-level" monsters (beastmen, greenskins, other humans, minor undead, halflings, the French, chaos cultists, etc etc.) and fight it out galore. If your PCs are really so wussed that they'll have a bigger chance of dying in WFRP than in a 1st-level game of AD&D, you're obviously doing something wrong.
Shit, one of the most "invincible" tanks I ever saw in an RPG was in my WFRP campaign, a dwarf with plate mail obviously, so he was pretty close to physically invulnerable, but besides that his WS was up to something like 87%.  Add a master-quality weapon to the mix, and that sort of character can put a high-level D&D character to shame.

RPGPundit

I don't see why a WFRP dungeon has to have less fighting than a D&D dungeon. Yes, it has to have perhaps less of a range of monsters, because in WFRP the "monster power level" spikes very quickly, so you won't get a dungeon with two or three dragons like you might in D&D (in fact, you probably won't ever get a dungeon with a dragon at all unless you really want your PCs to die).  But you can fill the dungeon with "same-level" or "lower-level" monsters (beastmen, greenskins, other humans, minor undead, halflings, the French, chaos cultists, etc etc.) and fight it out galore. If your PCs are really so wussed that they'll have a bigger chance of dying in WFRP than in a 1st-level game of AD&D, you're obviously doing something wrong.
Shit, one of the most "invincible" tanks I ever saw in an RPG was in my WFRP campaign, a dwarf with plate mail obviously, so he was pretty close to physically invulnerable, but besides that his WS was up to something like 87%.  Add a master-quality weapon to the mix, and that sort of character can put a high-level D&D character to shame.

So please, let's cut this Swine bullshit about "WFRP is not for combat!"

RPGPundit

I have to agree with the Pundit on this one.  There is nothing preventing WFRP from being played as an old school mega-dungeon romp.  You just have to tailor the game your playing to fit in with that theme if you want it to have extended success.  If you make WFRP characters like you'd make a similar D&D group you'd be fine.  Ditch your rat catchers and bring in pit fighters, shield blockers, body guards, Soldiers, mages, clerrics etc... you'll be fine.

Toughness 3 or 4 plus 5 levels of armour makes most characters damn tough specially if they have the dodge skill.  Also if you have a healer in the group (even a good mundane healer with poultices) the downtime to repair injuries after combat are quite short actually.  Throw in some strategic use of Fortune points for some healing and skill use as well and it's pretty easy to keep a group cruising through a dungeon.

Where the random factor still lies though is in damage rolls on the part of the GM.  Couple results of Sigmar's Wrath can still wreck havoc, but that's part of the fun.

double post - weird board errors still

Quote from: RPGPundit;279550I don't see why a WFRP dungeon has to have less fighting than a D&D dungeon. Yes, it has to have perhaps less of a range of monsters, because in WFRP the "monster power level" spikes very quickly, so you won't get a dungeon with two or three dragons like you might in D&D (in fact, you probably won't ever get a dungeon with a dragon at all unless you really want your PCs to die).  But you can fill the dungeon with "same-level" or "lower-level" monsters (beastmen, greenskins, other humans, minor undead, halflings, the French, chaos cultists, etc etc.) and fight it out galore. If your PCs are really so wussed that they'll have a bigger chance of dying in WFRP than in a 1st-level game of AD&D, you're obviously doing something wrong.
Shit, one of the most "invincible" tanks I ever saw in an RPG was in my WFRP campaign, a dwarf with plate mail obviously, so he was pretty close to physically invulnerable, but besides that his WS was up to something like 87%.  Add a master-quality weapon to the mix, and that sort of character can put a high-level D&D character to shame.

So please, let's cut this Swine bullshit about "WFRP is not for combat!"

No one is saying that.

Quote from: kryyst;279557Where the random factor still lies though is in damage rolls on the part of the GM.  Couple results of Sigmar's Wrath can still wreck havoc, but that's part of the fun.

It's called Ulric's Fury, and yes, it means that even the most experienced and best armoured characters can be one-shotted, especially by large monsters who express some of their size advantage as multiple attacks.

Quote from: Drew;279572No one is saying that.

It certainly seemed so, what with people saying stuff like "Is there a way PC's can trick, scare, outsmart or otherwise cause orcs to flee? Maybe that could substitute, at times, for out and out violence?" or "What's to stop them from sneaking off with all the cash?"

The implication seems to be that in WFRP the characters are so much more vulnerable that you can't just have a standard dungeon, you have to have something where it allows the PCs to do all kinds of "sneak" tactics because everyone knows that in WFRP its WRONG WRONG WRONG to ever actually fight someone, because if you do then its not like some Swine claims to remember The Enemy Within was like!

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;279612It certainly seemed so, what with people saying stuff like "Is there a way PC's can trick, scare, outsmart or otherwise cause orcs to flee? Maybe that could substitute, at times, for out and out violence?" or "What's to stop them from sneaking off with all the cash?"

The implication seems to be that in WFRP the characters are so much more vulnerable that you can't just have a standard dungeon, you have to have something where it allows the PCs to do all kinds of "sneak" tactics because everyone knows that in WFRP its WRONG WRONG WRONG to ever actually fight someone, because if you do then its not like some Swine claims to remember The Enemy Within was like!

If you play WFRP consistently in the style of D&D then your characters will die, no question. In order to get to levels where the game can be played like D&D you'll need to adopt a far more cautious approach. There is nothing "swinish" about this, it's a simple recognition of the lethality of the system in relation to character development.  

That WFRP can accomodate epic-- or perhaps more accurately sub-epic -- characters is indisputable. Traditional dungeon bashes are quite possible within it's framework. But pretending that it plays just like D&D is disingenuous. It's dirtier, tricksier and more deadly by far. It explicity rewards people for fighting like honourless dogs, and I love it for that.

Quote from: Drew;279620If you play WFRP consistently in the style of D&D then your characters will die, no question. In order to get to levels where the game can be played like D&D you'll need to adopt a far more cautious approach. There is nothing "swinish" about this, it's a simple recognition of the lethality of the system in relation to character development.  

I'm still not convinced this is the case, I guess it depends on the definition of 'played like D&D' means.  D&D characters at level 1 are usually far more fragile then WFRP characters starting out are.  If you take an average character with 10 hit points a successful hit always does damage to them where as in WFRP successful hit's often don't do damage and WFRP characters even have means (dodge/parry) to avoid getting hit.   Though a typical 1st level character is less likely to get hit overall because of AC.  But a crit from an ORC in D20 can be as lethal as Ulric's Fury in WFRP.  Also adding in that WFRP characters have fate points as well.  

Where the difference really diverges between the two systems is that most D&D games take it easy on starting characters and by the time they get a couple levels under their belt their chance of a quick death greatly diminishes where as with WFRP it never does.

But this still goes back to what 'played like D&D' means.  Just looking at our group we play our characters smart in any system we don't run head first into anything, we look for advantages and opportunities etc....  This typically though has a bigger benefit in WFRP over D&D because of what each systems assign bonuses to.  So the reward and encouragement to play smart in WFRP is greater then D&D, which often rewards ball forward methods instead.

QuoteThat WFRP can accomodate epic-- or perhaps more accurately sub-epic -- characters is indisputable. Traditional dungeon bashes are quite possible within it's framework. But pretending that it plays just like D&D is disingenuous. It's dirtier, tricksier and more deadly by far. It explicity rewards people for fighting like honourless dogs, and I love it for that.

I agree with this but would add WFRP imo is by far a better system for Epic play the characters are epic by skills and talent and the paths they tread.  They aren't just combat monsters who soak damage like sponges and have 100,000gp in magic items.   D&D characters go beyond epic and are pretty much fantasy superheroes by the time they hit higher levels.  But I guess it comes down to what you view as Epic.  I think of Epic fantasy in terms of Gemmell's books, Conan, Beowulf etc... The characters weren't so much godlike in terms of what they could do, they were just legendary in what they did and that kind of frame works far better in the WFRP power scale then it does in stock D&D.

Quote from: kryyst;279637I'm still not convinced this is the case, I guess it depends on the definition of 'played like D&D' means.  D&D characters at level 1 are usually far more fragile then WFRP characters starting out are.  If you take an average character with 10 hit points a successful hit always does damage to them where as in WFRP successful hit's often don't do damage and WFRP characters even have means (dodge/parry) to avoid getting hit.   Though a typical 1st level character is less likely to get hit overall because of AC.  But a crit from an ORC in D20 can be as lethal as Ulric's Fury in WFRP.  Also adding in that WFRP characters have fate points as well.  

Where the difference really diverges between the two systems is that most D&D games take it easy on starting characters and by the time they get a couple levels under their belt their chance of a quick death greatly diminishes where as with WFRP it never does.

Whilst I agree with your specifics, I'll clarify that my comparison is based on the spectrum of D&D play -- from 1st to 10th to 30th+ level, depending on your edition. Like you say, the immediate risk of mortality rapidly diminishes, to the extent that any comparison that relies on 1st level as the bench mark for how the game generally plays is a huge distortion. WFRP is deadlier overall for far longer periods of play time, which is why I say that playing it consistently like D&D will result in a massacre.

QuoteI agree with this but would add WFRP imo is by far a better system for Epic play the characters are epic by skills and talent and the paths they tread.  They aren't just combat monsters who soak damage like sponges and have 100,000gp in magic items.   D&D characters go beyond epic and are pretty much fantasy superheroes by the time they hit higher levels.  But I guess it comes down to what you view as Epic.  I think of Epic fantasy in terms of Gemmell's books, Conan, Beowulf etc... The characters weren't so much godlike in terms of what they could do, they were just legendary in what they did and that kind of frame works far better in the WFRP power scale then it does in stock D&D.

That's very much an issue of taste. Personally speaking I enjoy playing epic of all stripes.  :)

Quote from: RPGPundit;279612It certainly seemed so, what with people saying stuff like "Is there a way PC's can trick, scare, outsmart or otherwise cause orcs to flee? Maybe that could substitute, at times, for out and out violence?" or "What's to stop them from sneaking off with all the cash?"

The implication seems to be that in WFRP the characters are so much more vulnerable that you can't just have a standard dungeon, you have to have something where it allows the PCs to do all kinds of "sneak" tactics because everyone knows that in WFRP its WRONG WRONG WRONG to ever actually fight someone, because if you do then its not like some Swine claims to remember The Enemy Within was like!

RPGPundit

I don't know where you're coming from on this - Which isn't all that uncommon - But I made that comment about sneaking off with the loot because it's Something that a fair number of PC's will do!

So please, Pundit, turn off the paranoia for once in your life.

Castle Drachenfels FTW!

Quote from: RPGPundit;279550I don't see why a WFRP dungeon has to have less fighting than a D&D dungeon.

Most people who choose WFRP over D&D do so because they love fantasy, but they're bored of just running through a series of fights every session. So while technically there's nothing to prevent monster-packed hackfest dungeons in WFRP, it runs counter to the spirit of the game and doesn't play to the game's strengths.

Quote from: Drew;279646Whilst I agree with your specifics, I'll clarify that my comparison is based on the spectrum of D&D play -- from 1st to 10th to 30th+ level, depending on your edition. Like you say, the immediate risk of mortality rapidly diminishes, to the extent that any comparison that relies on 1st level as the bench mark for how the game generally plays is a huge distortion. WFRP is deadlier overall for far longer periods of play time, which is why I say that playing it consistently like D&D will result in a massacre.

That's very much an issue of taste. Personally speaking I enjoy playing epic of all stripes.  :)

I concur on that scale.

Quote from: RPGPundit;279612It certainly seemed so, what with people saying stuff like "Is there a way PC's can trick, scare, outsmart or otherwise cause orcs to flee? Maybe that could substitute, at times, for out and out violence?" or "What's to stop them from sneaking off with all the cash?"

In low-level D&D games, at least in older editions, this is actually considered smart play.  You avoid combat whenever possible, not only because rolling dice is liable to get you killed, but because the real XP wasn't gained by killing monsters, it was by taking their stuff.

Seriously, I've never participated in a dungeon game that was just endless combat, even when I was young and stupid (as opposed to just stupid like I am now)...I can't for the life of me understand where that stereotype came from.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;279659Most people who choose WFRP over D&D do so because they love fantasy, but they're bored of just running through a series of fights every session. So while technically there's nothing to prevent monster-packed hackfest dungeons in WFRP, it runs counter to the spirit of the game and doesn't play to the game's strengths.

I disagree about that being why people play WFRP. Its certainly not why I play and love it.  WFRP is just a more "european" feeling RPG, with a grittier feel to it, but it is no way against the spirit of WFRP for the group to be a gang of ultraviolent toughs.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;279612The implication seems to be that in WFRP the characters are so much more vulnerable that you can't just have a standard dungeon, you have to have something where it allows the PCs to do all kinds of "sneak" tactics because everyone knows that in WFRP its WRONG WRONG WRONG to ever actually fight someone, because if you do then its not like some Swine claims to remember The Enemy Within was like!

Or how about this, some people find other things to be fun as well? I mean some groups are heavy into traps and puzzle solving, others like more social interaction. What's wrong with that?

Quote from: RPGPundit;279685I disagree about that being why people play WFRP. Its certainly not why I play and love it.  WFRP is just a more "european" feeling RPG, with a grittier feel to it, but it is no way against the spirit of WFRP for the group to be a gang of ultraviolent toughs.

1. The XP system is based on plot objectives and roleplay rather than kills or loot.
2. In a randomly generated party, you're quite likely to have at least one character with no combat skills whatsoever, unlike in D&D.
3. As others have mentioned, the lethality of the combat system forces players to be more cautious than in D&D, especially at mid-to-high levels.
4. The published adventures for WFRP include fewer combat encounters, on average, than D&D adventures, and combat is rarely mandatory.
5. Published WFRP adventures don't provide "balanced" encounters. In fact, some encounters are meant to be run away from.

I did run a game last year where the PCs were ultra-violent thugs, but they only got away with it because the game was set in Mousillon, where there's no law enforcement and where the average NPC is a malnourished weakling. If you're running the setting "as-written", your gang of ultra-violent thugs will be swinging from the gallows before too long.

Perhaps you, personally, enjoy a more combat-heavy WFRP game, but I suspect you're not representative of the fanbase. Why don't you register on the FFG official WFRP forum and make a poll?

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;2796891. The XP system is based on plot objectives and roleplay rather than kills or loot.

Um, sort of. Most of the XP awards are based on "plot objectives" that involve fighting things and killing menaces.
Its one degree of separation from "you killed the orc so you get 10xp", but in essence there's little difference in the exection.

Quote2. In a randomly generated party, you're quite likely to have at least one character with no combat skills whatsoever, unlike in D&D.

I think this is relative too. A 1st level wizard doesn't have very much "combat skill" in D&D; and a starting-level ratcatcher in WFRP can still fight; yes, he won't fight as well as a starting-level soldier-career, but he'll probably still be about as useful on that front as a 1st level D&D thief, and a starting-level apprentice wizard in WFRP will probably be MORE useful than a 1st level D&D wizard.

Quote3. As others have mentioned, the lethality of the combat system forces players to be more cautious than in D&D, especially at mid-to-high levels.

The main difference is that while both D&D characters and WFRP characters can become absolute combat monsters at high-level play, it is easier for a high-level WFRP character to end up being felled from a very lucky roll by an opponent, whereas a high-level D&D character will only be felled by prolonged ongoing wearing-down of his hit points.
This difference essentially makes the game grittier, which I like; it means that combat in WFRP always feels like low- to mid-level D&D in the sense of personal menace to a PC, without meaning that WFRP characters can't also reach a level where they're horrifyingly devastating in combat.
What it doesn't mean is "WFRP characters will DIE in combat all the time so you can't do combat in WFRP".

Quote4. The published adventures for WFRP include fewer combat encounters, on average, than D&D adventures, and combat is rarely mandatory.

Really? Because in the WFRP 2e adventure books that I've seen (and I've seen and RUN a lot of them) combat is pretty much something that happens in nearly every session, and usually the conclusions of these adventures have combat scenes that utterly blow away D&D adventures in terms of how impressively they've been crafted (I'm thinking of the conclusions of the Paths of the Damned adventures here in particular).
And the only way combat isn't "mandatory" in these adventures would be if by "not mandatory" you meant "the PCs decide it would be more artistic if their characters simply died" or "the PCs run away and let the horrifying evils conquer the Empire"; neither of which I find very desirable or realistic, though some of the Enemy-within Swine seem to think that this should be the prescribed way of playing the game.

Quote5. Published WFRP adventures don't provide "balanced" encounters. In fact, some encounters are meant to be run away from.

This is true, and another thing I LOVE about WFRP.  In old school D&D, this was a common feature too.
You also don't necessarily have to "Run away" as a solution either; you can try some kind of clever trick, which is often a feature of the WFRP adventures, that usually also require fighting the opponents at the same time as you try to implement said trick.

QuotePerhaps you, personally, enjoy a more combat-heavy WFRP game, but I suspect you're not representative of the fanbase. Why don't you register on the FFG official WFRP forum and make a poll?

I think that the online presence, consisting heavily of guys who read but never ran, or ran but now misremember The Enemy Within, along with D&D-haters that want WFRP to be an artistic game about playing in a filthy world full of skin diseases where you never fight anything, is what is not representative of the real fanbase of WFRP.

Don't get me wrong, the careers system and other details of WFRP mean that things like investigation and social interactions as well as getting deeply involved in the emulation of the particular pseudo-renaissance-europe setting are wonderful features that provide a lot of interesting stuff to do in WFRP aside from and as well as engaging in combat. I think that these are important parts of the WFRP game.  But I think that when you get to the basics of the WFRP game, its about playing a group of people living on the edge of a society on the edge that are in it for the money, but eventually have to get up to being the guys who Kick Chaos' Ass. Ergo, combat!
Its heavy, hardcore, grim and gritty, ultraviolent Sword & Sorcery play. And suggesting that people who play the game or the GMs who run it should try to discourage combat is essentially a pretention of a bunch of asses who utterly fail to get the essence of what is cool about the game.  The covers of both the 1e and 2e main books make a pretty good first impression of what the game is SUPPOSED to be like, and if you haven't looked lately, they do not feature a bunch of struggling piemakers dying of cholera while writing bad poetry, bub.

RPGPundit

Lethality of combat is not a problem in my book.

The idea that a group of characters, when matched with a group of similarly-strong opponents, should usually escape without any casualties is a bit slanted, I think.

I think the idea came from that the objective of D&D, at least from 2e up, was to kill monsters, because this was the only quantifiable means of advancement.  Monsters were the only source of experience, and thus combat became the focus of the game, thus combat had to be less deadly because you're going to be doing it so much.

I perused the WFRP 2nd edition book... a dungeon campaign would most certainly work with these rules.  Usually the goal of entering a dungeon is NOT to exterminate all life therein, but some other reason.  Put the focus (the rewards) on this reason, and players will be inclined not to take needless risk.  Combat should have its rewards, but also drawbacks.  Seriously, who spends their time crawling into holes fighting for recreation?

Quote from: RPGPundit;279774Um, sort of. Most of the XP awards are based on "plot objectives" that involve fighting things and killing menaces.
Its one degree of separation from "you killed the orc so you get 10xp", but in essence there's little difference in the exection.

Not true. Have you even looked at the XP awards in any WFRP adventures besides PotD? I'd have to re-read the PotD books, but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of non-combat related XP awards in there.

Quote from: RPGPundit;279774I think this is relative too. A 1st level wizard doesn't have very much "combat skill" in D&D; and a starting-level ratcatcher in WFRP can still fight; yes, he won't fight as well as a starting-level soldier-career, but he'll probably still be about as useful on that front as a 1st level D&D thief, and a starting-level apprentice wizard in WFRP will probably be MORE useful than a 1st level D&D wizard.

Ratcatchers actually have basic (ranged) combat skills, unlike say, Scribes, Peasants, Valets etc. Yes, we all know that 1st level D&D wizards suck. My point is that every D&D class has some kind of combat-related ability, because combat is how you gain XP in D&D.

Quote from: RPGPundit;279774Really? Because in the WFRP 2e adventure books that I've seen (and I've seen and RUN a lot of them) combat is pretty much something that happens in nearly every session, and usually the conclusions of these adventures have combat scenes that utterly blow away D&D adventures in terms of how impressively they've been crafted (I'm thinking of the conclusions of the Paths of the Damned adventures here in particular).
And the only way combat isn't "mandatory" in these adventures would be if by "not mandatory" you meant "the PCs decide it would be more artistic if their characters simply died" or "the PCs run away and let the horrifying evils conquer the Empire"; neither of which I find very desirable or realistic, though some of the Enemy-within Swine seem to think that this should be the prescribed way of playing the game.

That's the main difference, yes. In WFRP, combat encounters are often given a great deal of care to evoke atmosphere and set up interesting tactical situations, rather than being presented as steps in the level treadmill. It seems like D&D4e is taking this approach too, but I haven't played it yet so I couldn't say for sure.

Quote from: RPGPundit;279774You also don't necessarily have to "Run away" as a solution either; you can try some kind of clever trick, which is often a feature of the WFRP adventures, that usually also require fighting the opponents at the same time as you try to implement said trick.

Or fast-talk your way past Important People who can open up alternate solutions to the problem.

Quote from: RPGPundit;279774I think that the online presence, consisting heavily of guys who read but never ran, or ran but now misremember The Enemy Within, along with D&D-haters that want WFRP to be an artistic game about playing in a filthy world full of skin diseases where you never fight anything, is what is not representative of the real fanbase of WFRP.

You're misrepresenting. You came into this thread asking why combat couldn't be run in WFRP with the same frequency as D&D, and I'm telling you that writers who've attempted making WFRP more like D&D have been booed off the stage.

Quote from: RPGPundit;279774And suggesting that people who play the game or the GMs who run it should try to discourage combat is essentially a pretention of a bunch of asses who utterly fail to get the essence of what is cool about the game.  The covers of both the 1e and 2e main books make a pretty good first impression of what the game is SUPPOSED to be like, and if you haven't looked lately, they do not feature a bunch of struggling piemakers dying of cholera while writing bad poetry, bub.

Again, you're exaggerating. Every WFRP fan likes combat, just not a series of boring combats strung together, one after another, without a good dose of investigation, social interaction and roleplay in-between. And that goes for WFRP dungeons, too. The best WFRP dungeons are either short and brutal, or else they're designed to have lots of social interaction and other non-combat challenges in addition to combat (DotR). Listen, I've played through the long meat-grinder dungeons in WFRP (LotLL, EiF), and they're boring. Simply put, WFRP combat isn't all that interesting mechanically compared to D&D, and there's no tangible reward for slogging through all those dice-rolls (i.e. XP).

Quote from: wiseman207;279776I think the idea came from that the objective of D&D, at least from 2e up, was to kill monsters, because this was the only quantifiable means of advancement.  Monsters were the only source of experience, and thus combat became the focus of the game, thus combat had to be less deadly because you're going to be doing it so much.

No, monsters were NEVER the only way to gain XP in D&D from the beginning.  Treasure was always the biggest source of XP until 2e, which actually introduced official formulae for non-combat XP.  Monster-killing XP was, through all editions, pitiful in comparison to other methods.

Making treasure the biggest source of XP in the original game actually made it more about wits and planning than killing monsters: figuring out how to get the pot of gold without fighting the 30 orcs guarding it.  You'll only get 150XP for the orcs, but thousands for the gold.  Even when our ages were in the single digits, my group was able to figure out what was worth more.

Same for the non-combat XP in 2e.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;279807Again, you're exaggerating. Every WFRP fan likes combat, just not a series of boring combats strung together, one after another, without a good dose of investigation, social interaction and roleplay in-between. And that goes for WFRP dungeons, too. The best WFRP dungeons are either short and brutal, or else they're designed to have lots of social interaction and other non-combat challenges in addition to combat (DotR). Listen, I've played through the long meat-grinder dungeons in WFRP (LotLL, EiF), and they're boring. Simply put, WFRP combat isn't all that interesting mechanically compared to D&D, and there's no tangible reward for slogging through all those dice-rolls (i.e. XP).

A megadungeon can almost certainly contain any elements of fantasy roleplaying you want, just like any other campaign setting.  If the labyrinthine halls are massive enough, you could have anything down there!  Drama, suspense, mystery and tactics.  A dungeon becomes merely a unique locale for these things to take place.

This notion transcends the gaming system.  A boring dungeon will be boring regardless of what system its played in.  The original question was, to me, "can Warhammer support a megadungeon" and it absolutely can.

As an aside, I don't see how WFRP is any more/less dull than D&D.  Maybe newer D&D editions have some semblance of tactics, but you're really just using a grid to count out things you would normally do without them in 5' increments.  The tactics come from the macro-level decisions the players make, not the execution on the chessboard.  "Do we fight, or run?  Hang back and use missiles, or have the fighters close in?  Should the wizards cast their spells?  Is there any way we can use the pit trap as a diversion?"  etc.  It's the imagination aspects that make combat interesting.

Beyond that, you're really just rolling dice and pushing figures around.

Quote from: wiseman207;279813This notion transcends the gaming system.  A boring dungeon will be boring regardless of what system its played in.  The original question was, to me, "can Warhammer support a megadungeon" and it absolutely can.

Agreed. I was answering Pundit's follow-up question ("why can't WFRP dungeons support the same amount of combat as D&D dungeons?") As to Pseudo's original question, I'd suggest that Karak Azghal (although it's generally been poorly-received by the community) has potential as a mega-dungeon if you put some work into developing the non-combat elements.

Quote from: wiseman207;279813As an aside, I don't see how WFRP is any more/less dull than D&D.  Maybe newer D&D editions have some semblance of tactics, but you're really just using a grid to count out things you would normally do without them in 5' increments.

It's only evident once you get under the hood, so to speak. WFRP has a slightly higher whiff-factor, more damage-soak rolls (Dodge/Parry), and the to-hit/armour systems are separated. This results in a lot more die-rolling to achieve the same results, and slower combats overall.

In addition, D&D (especially at mid-to-high levels) offers a lot of unique PC abilities to spice up combat, even if the encounter itself isn't particularly well designed. WFRP characters are basically doing the same things in combat at every power level, just with better percentages, so the enjoyability of combat relies far more heavily on encounters being well-designed.

Then there's the issue of non-combat PCs. In WFRP, non-combat characters are often better off standing on the sidelines during combat and waiting for a non-combat encounter to do their thing. In D&D, even the poncy Bard can buff his party with songs during combat, meanwhile the druid commands his animal companion, etc.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;279819Then there's the issue of non-combat PCs. In WFRP, non-combat characters are often better off standing on the sidelines during combat and waiting for a non-combat encounter to do their thing. In D&D, even the poncy Bard can buff his party with songs during combat, meanwhile the druid commands his animal companion, etc.

This is true, in a way.  There are no classes in D&D that are downright terrible in combat, I suppose.  Well, there *could* be, but not without a bit of effort.  A wizard with no combat skills maybe, or a rogue with crappy defenses and one hitpoint, or heaven forbid someone roll a normal man/commoner!

Given what I presume to be the established context of an "adventure" in this sense, combat with monsters is an inevitability.  I would then say that realizing this fact makes having even a marginal amount of combat ability a prerequisite (or at least, a desirable characteristic) of being an adventurer.  D&D has had this built-in from the get-go.  It appears that in Warhammer this isn't always the case, and if given this context for a WFRP game I'd make sure that if my character can't win a fight, he could at least do some damage on the way out.

That's the system for you.  Conversely, most D&D editions had characters with skillsets that were nearly useless outside of combat situations, at least on the surface.  (I never doubt the resourcefulness of players in this regard.)  Sure, the wizard could memorize some "social" spells, the thief's got his guild and the cleric his church, but a fighter in a pacifist world will be relegated to climbing things and opening mayo jars, heh.

As for WFRP being stagnant on the tactics front... within the frame of the rules this appears to be true as well.  The rules don't *directly* support as diverse an array of tactics that D&D does, especially once magic gets thrown in.  You can put a happy face on almost any game system though... someone might prefer, for example, that combat has a more unified feel throughout.  I believe this was a major selling point of the new D&D edition as well.

Quote from: wiseman207;279835Given what I presume to be the established context of an "adventure" in this sense, combat with monsters is an inevitability.  I would then say that realizing this fact makes having even a marginal amount of combat ability a prerequisite (or at least, a desirable characteristic) of being an adventurer.  D&D has had this built-in from the get-go.  It appears that in Warhammer this isn't always the case, and if given this context for a WFRP game I'd make sure that if my character can't win a fight, he could at least do some damage on the way out.

Going back to the example of the best WFRP mega-dungeon ever (Castle Wittgenstein from Death on the Reik), the castle was set up so that a party could technically "win" the dungeon without fighting very much, if at all.

***SPOILER***

The writers achieved this by having the courtyard inhabited by dozens of cloaked, mutant peasants, so sneaky PCs would disguise themselves as beggars to move from room to room. Furthermore, several of the towers and rooms in the castle were occupied by potentially friendly NPCs who'd been mutated along with the evil Wittgensteins, and these NPCs could offer aid or advice if the PCs opted to parley. Other NPCs would pose as allies, but unless the PCs caught on to their ploy, the traitors would later backstab them. Finally, the whole castle was rigged to collapse due to a Skaven plot, so even if the PCs didn't manage to kill the Big Bad, they could still emerge triumphant (assuming they escaped the rubble alive). In fact, I can't recall a single combat encounter in the Castle Wittgenstein mega-dungeon that was mandatory. Of course, most groups would end up in a fighting retreat to the inner bailey with guards pressing them back, at some point, but it wasn't a foregone conclusion.

Quote from: Drew;279620Traditional dungeon bashes are quite possible within it's framework. But pretending that it plays just like D&D is disingenuous. It's dirtier, tricksier and more deadly by far. It explicity rewards people for fighting like honourless dogs, and I love it for that.

But I've always played D&D as a sneaky, dirty, grim game of survival. It's hard to imagine 1st level D&D characters surviving a dungeon like the moathouse of T1 playing a superheroic, kick-in-the-door-and-slay kind of game.

D&D may have become first wussified by plot protection (2E), and then cranked up to a high-power hackfest (3E), but it wasn't always so.

Awright peasants you people show some respect to the game that finally made some of the dark aspects of Tolkien's world come to life. Ok so maybe the background and history was a real rip off but WFRP was the easiest game to bring Noobs into RPGs. I have played/ran WFRP for oodles of years. Like twenty years or something. It has been my bastard stepchild for soo long. All combat and character advancement in all games are held up to the WFRP standard. So far not many come close.

I love WFRP for these things:

1) Combat is deadly. Your average peasant can, with a little luck, stick a knife into the ultimate warrior's ass and kill him. GEE don't we all die the same.

2) A first level WFRP character could beat a <6 level D&D (dunno about 4th) any day. And advancement ROCKS!!

3) Combat is easy; roll to hit and hit location on one roll GENIUS!!

Things I Don't Like:

1) Magic.... Not enough spells, especially non-combat ones.

2) Deadly... Sometimes especially in the Mega Dungeons its hard to keep players alive. So goes the FATE POINT.

OK so how do you run a mega dungeon in WHFRP.

1) Your players should already know how dangerous and deadly WFRP can be. This they know they have to think a bunch more in the game than just smashing through every obstacle. Of-coarse the same things should apply to all games but players and GM's alike can MUNCHKIN enough to make RP thought almost unnecessary. (IE Storyteller or 4th ed.)

2) Get a healing type person in your group or access to some alchemy is a must. You need to heal some damage up, natural healing lethal damage is a non-option.

3) Having strategic resting points for spell points and non lethal damage to be healed.

And my all time favorite way to keep PCs alive:

When the going gets tough the tough get stupid!

The toughest opponents that look to be too much for a party start to make some grievous mistakes.

Guess thats really all normal stuff for an experienced GM so I don't know if that is really any help. One other thing: You could just kill them. WFRP character gen is super fast and easy. :)

Chuck

QuoteGiven what I presume to be the established context of an "adventure" in this sense, combat with monsters is an inevitability.  I would then say that realizing this fact makes having even a marginal amount of combat ability a prerequisite (or at least, a desirable characteristic) of being an adventurer.  D&D has had this built-in from the get-go.  It appears that in Warhammer this isn't always the case, and if given this context for a WFRP game I'd make sure that if my character can't win a fight, he could at least do some damage on the way out.

That's the system for you.  Conversely, most D&D editions had characters with skillsets that were nearly useless outside of combat situations, at least on the surface.  (I never doubt the resourcefulness of players in this regard.)  Sure, the wizard could memorize some "social" spells, the thief's got his guild and the cleric his church, but a fighter in a pacifist world will be relegated to climbing things and opening mayo jars, heh.

As for WFRP being stagnant on the tactics front... within the frame of the rules this appears to be true as well.  The rules don't *directly* support as diverse an array of tactics that D&D does, especially once magic gets thrown in.  You can put a happy face on almost any game system though... someone might prefer, for example, that combat has a more unified feel throughout.  I believe this was a major selling point of the new D&D edition as well.

OK whats a NON combat character in WFRP? If you have a 25 WP and 2 S you can get in the fight and be effective! Don't kid yourself until 4th ed a starting D&D character had very little hope of survival in the old 3d6 stat and one hit die hp world of first level. OK a wizard has two spells and then gets to wonk baddies with a stick, real fuckin combat effective.

Stagnant could only referr to lack of rules. For me this is a relief because now we are not burdened with the unending 5' step and punch BS of D&D 3+. The rules a very simple for on the fly modification. We are talking about a RPG not a miniature game. "*directly*" must inferr direction which in turn can only mean control. If you want to be controlled check out 4th ed D&D for overly controlled and complex (diverse) tactics.

Look its like this. If player A has a brilliant scheme to attack a monster WHFRP already tells you that if you are winning, IE a superior position, award a +10% to the attack roll. So why can't you plan a diversion and attack using your environment and get that bonus or more for more clever play. The rules are vague to encourage more thought. I don't want to be spoon-fed tactics by power cards like in D&D 4th.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;279807Simply put, WFRP combat isn't all that interesting mechanically compared to D&D, and there's no tangible reward for slogging through all those dice-rolls (i.e. XP).

B/X and 1E D&D - the versions of the D&D that were contemporary with WFRP 1E - have even less mechanically interesting combat. Roll to hit. Roll damage. That's it.

When I recently showed WFRP to my group of old-school D&D players, they commented on how WFRP combat looks much more complex, and has many more options, than B/X or 1E D&D.

Quote from: Haffrung;279891B/X and 1E D&D - the versions of the D&D that were contemporary with WFRP 1E - have even less mechanically interesting combat. Roll to hit. Roll damage. That's it.

When I recently showed WFRP to my group of old-school D&D players, they commented on how WFRP combat looks much more complex, and has many more options, than B/X or 1E D&D.

The old D&D combat was perhaps less interesting than WFRP v2 with its actions, yes, but it was more interesting than WFRP v1 combat after you factored in spells and magic items (which are less common overall, in both editions of WFRP).

Also, combat in the early D&D editions was faster than either edition of WFRP. You can't really resolve more than one big fight per session with WFRP v2 if you want anything else to happen.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;279807Not true. Have you even looked at the XP awards in any WFRP adventures besides PotD? I'd have to re-read the PotD books, but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of non-combat related XP awards in there.

The awards are things like "defeat the zombie incursion 200xp" (obvious combat), "prevent the death of X 100xp" (usually requires combat to achieve), "discover the source of the plague 100xp" (investigation that inevitably culminates in combat), "defeat the cult of the Blood God 200xp" (combat), "Prevent the ritual of Fucking Up Everything Beyond Recognition 300xp and a fate point" (preventing x usually requires combat).  There is more sophistication to it than the typical D&D "kill an orc and gain 10xp" method, because if your players do things SMART, if they successfully investigate, if they prioritize right, then they can often prevent the dark ritual with less risk to their lives, because the combat required will be against unprepared opponent, whereas if they fuck it up, they'll end up having to face the Terrible Tentacled Thing the cultists summoned, in which case they'll also gain XP, but will likely lose half the party because that fucker is heavy. But at the end of the day, however you look at it, the game is about kicking the shit out of chaos, and doing so requires going postal on some sons of bitches.

QuoteRatcatchers actually have basic (ranged) combat skills, unlike say, Scribes, Peasants, Valets etc. Yes, we all know that 1st level D&D wizards suck. My point is that every D&D class has some kind of combat-related ability, because combat is how you gain XP in D&D.

Yup, and its pretty much how you gain XP in WFRP too. And I've never seen a successful long-term WFRP character that didn't end up engaging in combat and didn't eventually boost his combat abilities (excepting the occasional wizard, who gets some kickass combat spells instead).

QuoteThat's the main difference, yes. In WFRP, combat encounters are often given a great deal of care to evoke atmosphere and set up interesting tactical situations, rather than being presented as steps in the level treadmill. It seems like D&D4e is taking this approach too, but I haven't played it yet so I couldn't say for sure.

I will give some serious credit to the people who wrote the published WFRP adventures because they are really kickass, but frankly, most of them also have a lot of peripheral combat encounters, many of them have random encounter tables and everything!  I know this doesn't fit with your imagined concept of reality, but the truth is right there on the pages. Shit, WFRP 1e even had random treasure tables!

Let's face it, your fantasyland version of WFRP has nothing to do with either WFRP in its roots, nor with 2e as it exists today. Shit, it doesn't even have anything to do with Enemy Within, which also had a pretty fucking decent amount of head-bashing going on. It has to do with a twisted distorted illusion of what you imagine/remember TEW to have been like, coupled with conditioning from years of listening to Swine fuckwits on internet fora pretentiouslly jabbering on about how WFRP is "meant" to be played, never mind that no where in the actual source is there fuck all to back up their claims about that. Its wishful thinking on the part of the anti-D&D swine who want to imagine that WFRP is a "sophisticated pacifist storytelling game".

QuoteOr fast-talk your way past Important People who can open up alternate solutions to the problem.

In most WFRP adventures I've seen, the "Important People" are as likely to be the guys running the evil chaos cult as anyone. And in most of those adventures, even the Important People who aren't are usually utterly fucking impotent to help you in any way, conveniently meaning your party of relative nobodies are the ones who have to step up and kick ass. That's how it is in TEW, in all three of the PoTD adventures, and in Terror in Talabheim. So please, tell me exactly which published source adventures you're thinking of when you make these claims?

QuoteYou're misrepresenting. You came into this thread asking why combat couldn't be run in WFRP with the same frequency as D&D, and I'm telling you that writers who've attempted making WFRP more like D&D have been booed off the stage.

Is that right? By who exactly? By the Forge-Swine who wouldn't stoop to play WFRP if the alternative was being anally violated by a horse; but who are all too happy to try to make up lies about the game if it'll serve their anti-D&D anti-Regular-Roleplaying agendas? By those fuckers?
Because last I checked, Paths of the Damned was really fucking successful. For that matter, so was TEW, which was pretty much standard ultraviolent fantasy fare; brilliantly written, but IN NO WAY supporting the idea that PCs aren't supposed to be kicking ass.

QuoteAgain, you're exaggerating. Every WFRP fan likes combat, just not a series of boring combats strung together, one after another, without a good dose of investigation, social interaction and roleplay in-between.

If that's how you're playing D&D, then you're playing D&D wrong.

QuoteAnd that goes for WFRP dungeons, too. The best WFRP dungeons are either short and brutal, or else they're designed to have lots of social interaction and other non-combat challenges in addition to combat (DotR). Listen, I've played through the long meat-grinder dungeons in WFRP (LotLL, EiF), and they're boring. Simply put, WFRP combat isn't all that interesting mechanically compared to D&D, and there's no tangible reward for slogging through all those dice-rolls (i.e. XP).

Ok, so now you're even editing out huge chunks of TEW from your argument, because they don't fit your "constructed reality".  Are you freshly out of the new job pool from the Veterans of the Bush White House? If not, you missed a hell of an opportunity.

Let's review what's left of your argument, again: You've sliced out at least 40% of TEW, and basically all of the new adventures. I'm guessing the Doomstones campaign is like krytponite to you. The 1e Main Book doesn't support your position, neither does the 2e mainbook. And the less said about Karak Azgal or Tome Of Corruption the better.

So, essentially, the source material for your argument amounts to "those parts of The Enemy Within that I approved of because they were combat-lite" (but apparently you'd have preferred the resolution to the campaign involve the PCs singing Kumbayah until the Chaos Cultists agreed not to be mean anymore), and "shit I've heard assholes say on the internet".

Yeah, you're on solid footing there, bub.

RPGPundit

Yep, we're back to 'hundreds of die-hard fans who'll defend it to the death' and 'six potatoes'.

Well, to be honest, one of the reason I picked a goal that didn't involve killing all the orcs was because these are going to be relatively new players (one or two short-lived RPG campaigns under their belt), and they'll be playing relatively new characters, so I wanted to give them a lot of strategic flexibility - they could distract the orcs and lead some of them away, link up with dispossessed peasant-cum-bandits raiding the village, sneak or even tunnel in, or of course, charge in and start trying to kick orc ass, etc.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;279951Well, to be honest, one of the reason I picked a goal that didn't involve killing all the orcs was because these are going to be relatively new players (one or two short-lived RPG campaigns under their belt), and they'll be playing relatively new characters, so I wanted to give them a lot of strategic flexibility - they could distract the orcs and lead some of them away, link up with dispossessed peasant-cum-bandits raiding the village, sneak or even tunnel in, or of course, charge in and start trying to kick orc ass, etc.

It's good that you think of these things, but not always necessary, I think.

Never underestimate the resourcefulness of players... one of my favorite things to say as a DM.  Also never underestimate their stupidity.  They're just as likely to ignore everything you thought of and plow ahead into their own demise.  They're just as likely to ignore everything you thought and come up with some hair brained scheme that blows the lid off the encounter and they win handily.  As a DM, you're job is to put the characters into interesting situations (like an orc birthday party) and then adjudicate how badly they get kil- I mean, how the results of their actions play out.  Help your players out by giving them lots of detail.  If they need help to win, they'll find it, I assure you.

Of course, what you said might have been exactly what I just typed in a different way.  Ok.  Be all that as it may (or not)...

Hmmm... look, I think what the argument has devolved to, in a way, is the argument of how combat-heavy and survivable your dungeon game should be, and how closely the rules of WFRP mesh with these preferences.  Personally, I'm more in the extreme camp of "characters *will* die, live with it" than "a character dying will ruin the game forever".  D&D (the official system of megadungeons) was this way, and WFRP probably will be too.  In a game where characters spend their whole careers in the dungeon, I guarantee you the group composition will be a bit different between the initial character generation and when the group finally hits the second floor.  It's just so improbable that a group dragged through encounter after hostile encounter in a dark stinky dungeon will always emerge unscathed.

If you're running a classic megadungeon (meaning, one big enough to hold an entire campaign... never ending), you'll be throwing the kitchen sink at them before long.  They'll be fighting monsters, riding by the skin of their teeth the whole way, dodging traps and making unlikely allies.  All of these ideas are supported (to one degree or another) by Warhammer.  You can run a megadungon in it.

Of course, in this sort of hostile environment, you wouldn't expect the casualty rate to be 0%.  (I said it again, didn't I?)  From what reading the book and this thread has made me understand, this is most certainly the case.  There will come a time where your players will bite off more than they can chew, they will get into a losing battle and they will not get lucky.  Characters will die.  All that fun you had will "go to waste".  Such is the life (death) of an adventurer.

You can always roll another character, and the DM can always map another floor of the dungeon.  The fun doesn't have to end.  The halls will always beckon the adventurous. Players and characters will come and go all the while.  I think that's why megadungeons are awesome.  I don't claim to be an expert on Warhammer, but I do love big ol' dungeons... I'm working on one of my own, in fact.  I can assure you almost any game system can support the idea of a campaign dungeon!  I imagine now a crazy near-future teenage-samurai game where players must scale the 100-story complex of an evil corporation before the president unleashes his master plan to resurrect a dark wizard.  Hmmm... now I'm in the mood for a Big Eyes Small Mouth megadungeon.

Quote from: Haffrung;279847But I've always played D&D as a sneaky, dirty, grim game of survival. It's hard to imagine 1st level D&D characters surviving a dungeon like the moathouse of T1 playing a superheroic, kick-in-the-door-and-slay kind of game.

Yes, but too often 1st level play is held up as being representative of D&D as a whole. It's not. Fourth level characters would slaughter the moathouse, despite still being low level in terms of the overall game. There's simply no parallel that can be drawn between 20th level D&D and WFRP. The power curve of the latter is shorter and as a consequence the game overall is deadlier, and that's it.

Also, comparing WFRP 2E with low level AD&D 1E - which has been out of print for roughly 20 years - doesn't really say much beyond things being somewhat different in ye olde days. And even if we did use early D&D as a metric, by 10th level your character has pretty much outshone his third+ career WFRP 2E equivalent in every way.

QuoteD&D may have become first wussified by plot protection (2E), and then cranked up to a high-power hackfest (3E), but it wasn't always so.

See above. :)

We played a campaign of about 10 sessions or so that were a collection of small dungeon hacks. The GM had a strategy guide for Icewind Dale and used the maps from that book for our delvings. There were only 2 PCs, i was an Outlaw, and the other PC was a Smuggler. We survived the campaign. Then again, we had easy access to guns and bombs - the bombs certainly made the encounter with 20 skeletons a little bit easier!

Quote from: RPGPundit;279925RANT

I'll just back away slowly from this argument and let you continue playing your hackfest version of WFRP in peace. It's about doing whatever makes you happy, after all.

Quote from: One Horse Town;279966We played a campaign of about 10 sessions or so that were a collection of small dungeon hacks. The GM had a strategy guide for Icewind Dale and used the maps from that book for our delvings. There were only 2 PCs, i was an Outlaw, and the other PC was a Smuggler. We survived the campaign. Then again, we had easy access to guns and bombs - the bombs certainly made the encounter with 20 skeletons a little bit easier!

Now that truly sounds like the very essence of a fun gaming experience!

RPGPundit

Quote from: Drew;279964Also, comparing WFRP 2E with low level AD&D 1E - which has been out of print for roughly 20 years - doesn't really say much beyond things being somewhat different in ye olde days.

I didn't know we were talking specifically about WFRP 2E. Or that WFRP 2E is fundamentally different from WFRP 1E in power level. And since the matter at hand is dungeon crawls, it's perfectly valid to bring up the era of D&D when dungeon crawls were most popular.

WFRP 1E and D&D 1E were contemporous. And they weren't intended to provide fundamentally different play experiences, just a different tone. If some of the fanbase of WFRP (especially the online fansites) have turned to a different style of play, that doesn't mean WFRP wasn't or can't be used to run a game with dungeons and lots of combat.

Quote from: Drew;279964And even if we did use early D&D as a metric, by 10th level your character has pretty much outshone his third+ career WFRP 2E equivalent in every way.

In early D&D, 4th level was mid-level (modules for 4-6th level were marketed as 'mid-level' adventures), and 10th level was very high level. It took maybe a couple years of weekly play to reach 10th, what with all the dying at low levels and starting again. Most campaigns played by the book never reached that level.

How many sessions would it typically take in WFRP to make it to a second career? 12-15?

Twelve to 15 sessions into a 1E D&D campaign, the PCs are probably 4th level.  I don't think the power levels of a group of 4th level D&D characters and a group of WFRP characters in their second careers are all that different.

I was bored and went back reading through this whole thread and though there are a couple opinions to the extreme.  The mid ground for WFRP is that it is a game that supports both ends of the spectrum.  It has an excellent career/skill basis to which you can run intrigue style games where combat is the finality of a conflict and not the main assumption.  It can also support combat heavy dungeon romp games just as well.  The key to the later being that people wanting to play that way are going to be making characters and encounters that facilitate that style of play.  So a group of rat catchers in an Orc infested dungeon, probably not a good idea.  But a group of warriors and some magic support will fair fairly well.

The one thing that I've always noted in discussions about WFRP with fans on the net or in person is that everyone generally has a decent respect for the system and the setting, WFRP fans generally get it.  That's not to say they don't have different opinions, as this thread has shown.  But overall no one here is really disputing what can be done with the game this whole debate is closer to the point of what should be done with the game and that's just silly.

WFRP doesn't scale the same as D20 but that's not to say that you can't play high ended epic level games in WFRP.  An end level WFRP character isn't going to be as world sweeping as an end level D20 character if you compare them directly.  However within the scope of WFRP and end level character is insanely powerful.

End level WFRP characters can face demons and dragons and all manner of badassness and fair well.  That's no different then what's expected of end level D20 characters.  The big change, and in my opinion what makes WFRP superior, is that end level characters still need to be respectful of starting level encounter types.  The Conan's of WFRP could still mechanically fall victim to a stray arrow or that thief in the alley way.

I long ago have lost interest in D&D mechanically it just doesn't do what I want it to do.  Encounters have to scale to match the characters to put up any kind of challenge.  It's not that low level encouters -could- pose a risk for higher level characters is more a case of them mechanically not being able to.  Which means that most D&D games play like video games, this to me has never been more evident then in 4e.  But I'll explain exactly what I mean by that.  In most video games you start out in the level 1 area and you clear out those monster types and move onto the level 2 areas.  Once you hit level 2 areas you usually have a whole new set of monsters to fight or some level one area monsters that have been upgraded.  WFRP doesn't suffer from that.  An orc's still an orc and can still pose a problem.  I also don't mean ubber orcs or anything like that just orcs they can still hit you and hurt you.  WFRP gives you the freedom to make a consistent world with a level power structure.   You don't have the newb area of the world - the high powered area of the world.  It's all the same.  Which means it's lends itself better to creating more grounded stories and goes along way to removing itself from the arms race that D&D falls into.

Pick almost any D&D thread and you'll see some discussion about ways to effectively gimp it or play within some sweet spot where the characters aren't over powering yet not useless either, typically people will say it's the level 5 - 12 range of play where D&D is best.  WFRP by contrast is always in the sweet spot.

Quote from: kryyst;280086I was bored and went back reading through this whole thread and though there are a couple opinions to the extreme.  The mid ground for WFRP is that it is a game that supports both ends of the spectrum.  It has an excellent career/skill basis to which you can run intrigue style games where combat is the finality of a conflict and not the main assumption.  It can also support combat heavy dungeon romp games just as well.  The key to the later being that people wanting to play that way are going to be making characters and encounters that facilitate that style of play.  So a group of rat catchers in an Orc infested dungeon, probably not a good idea.  But a group of warriors and some magic support will fair fairly well.

The one thing that I've always noted in discussions about WFRP with fans on the net or in person is that everyone generally has a decent respect for the system and the setting, WFRP fans generally get it.  That's not to say they don't have different opinions, as this thread has shown.  But overall no one here is really disputing what can be done with the game this whole debate is closer to the point of what should be done with the game and that's just silly.

WFRP doesn't scale the same as D20 but that's not to say that you can't play high ended epic level games in WFRP.  An end level WFRP character isn't going to be as world sweeping as an end level D20 character if you compare them directly.  However within the scope of WFRP and end level character is insanely powerful.

End level WFRP characters can face demons and dragons and all manner of badassness and fair well.  That's no different then what's expected of end level D20 characters.  The big change, and in my opinion what makes WFRP superior, is that end level characters still need to be respectful of starting level encounter types.  The Conan's of WFRP could still mechanically fall victim to a stray arrow or that thief in the alley way.

I long ago have lost interest in D&D mechanically it just doesn't do what I want it to do.  Encounters have to scale to match the characters to put up any kind of challenge.  It's not that low level encouters -could- pose a risk for higher level characters is more a case of them mechanically not being able to.  Which means that most D&D games play like video games, this to me has never been more evident then in 4e.  But I'll explain exactly what I mean by that.  In most video games you start out in the level 1 area and you clear out those monster types and move onto the level 2 areas.  Once you hit level 2 areas you usually have a whole new set of monsters to fight or some level one area monsters that have been upgraded.  WFRP doesn't suffer from that.  An orc's still an orc and can still pose a problem.  I also don't mean ubber orcs or anything like that just orcs they can still hit you and hurt you.  WFRP gives you the freedom to make a consistent world with a level power structure.   You don't have the newb area of the world - the high powered area of the world.  It's all the same.  Which means it's lends itself better to creating more grounded stories and goes along way to removing itself from the arms race that D&D falls into.

Pick almost any D&D thread and you'll see some discussion about ways to effectively gimp it or play within some sweet spot where the characters aren't over powering yet not useless either, typically people will say it's the level 5 - 12 range of play where D&D is best.  WFRP by contrast is always in the sweet spot.

Well, in D&D "levels" were tiers of a measurable increase in power.  Yes, it does scale up rather quickly compared to some other game.

To take your example to the extreme, when gaining levels does not really contribute to your effective power level (read: the ability to overcome challenges) then what's the point of having them?  If orcs will always be dangerous regardless of your level, it just means that gaining levels doesn't contribute much to your survivability.  That's fine.  A lot of people (myself included) think D&D plays best at the extreme low levels... level 4 and under.  That gritty feeling of death around every corner really works for the game.  I suppose my point is that if you want that gamut of power, you could have it.  Just stop play at low levels, slow down the rate of growth, or both.  I hardly see how someone can fault a game for supporting (character power-wise) as much and more than some other.

As for the "unrealistic" and "video game" aspects of D&D... sorting the world by challenge level has its advantages, in some ways.  It allows the players to manage their own risk/reward structure.  "Do we venture down to the second floor (where the treasures are twice as good), or are we not strong enough?"  For a dungeon, this idea works great.  It's a bit more contrived for your run of the mill wilderness campaign though, but only a bit, and only if the DM railroads the players around.  After all, a group of peasants won't set up a farm near a demon's pit... if low-level adventurers can't win, some pitchforks certainly won't.  It only makes sense that relative civilization (low challenge) would be FAR away from monster town (high danger).  This sort of game works best when the players aren't led by the nose, and left to discover which is which on their own.

You can't blame video games either.  Video games were created to emulate D&D, not the other way around (until just recently anyway).  THAT's the reason D&D's levels feel video-gamey... it's the very system the games were modeled after!  The problem is that a video game is a bit different than a roleplaying game, but players who were galvanized on the former come over expecting the same experience.  It's part of the reason the hobby's full of powergamers who couldn't care less about having collective fun instead of tweaking their character sheet and shopping for kits/presitge classes for hours.  They don't see the difference.  Of course, they're not solely to blame... but that's a topic for another day.

Quote from: wiseman207;280118To take your example to the extreme, when gaining levels does not really contribute to your effective power level (read: the ability to overcome challenges) then what's the point of having them?  If orcs will always be dangerous regardless of your level, it just means that gaining levels doesn't contribute much to your survivability.  That's fine.  A lot of people (myself included) think D&D plays best at the extreme low levels... level 4 and under.  That gritty feeling of death around every corner really works for the game.  I suppose my point is that if you want that gamut of power, you could have it.  Just stop play at low levels, slow down the rate of growth, or both.  I hardly see how someone can fault a game for supporting (character power-wise) as much and more than some other..

I always find it amusing when people defend D&D and say 'but oh it can do XYZ' if you just ignore this rule and that rule and make an exception here and....

Further to the point having orcs always being dangerous is a completely separate argument from your characters improving.  WFRP characters improve and can tackle orcs with more gusto as well as tougher opponents.  But with the general nature of the mechanics it always means that stock orcs can still be a threat.  That's very different from D&D's approach of leveling out of the danger from one level area and moving on to the next.

Quote from: kryyst;280132I always find it amusing when people defend D&D and say 'but oh it can do XYZ' if you just ignore this rule and that rule and make an exception here and....

Further to the point having orcs always being dangerous is a completely separate argument from your characters improving.  WFRP characters improve and can tackle orcs with more gusto as well as tougher opponents.  But with the general nature of the mechanics it always means that stock orcs can still be a threat.  That's very different from D&D's approach of leveling out of the danger from one level area and moving on to the next.

They might be separate, but they are related.  Personally, I don't see the problem with it.  In fact, one could argue that WFRP is odd in the fact that an orc can kill a high-level character.

Quote from: kryyst;280132I always find it amusing when people defend D&D and say 'but oh it can do XYZ' if you just ignore this rule and that rule and make an exception here and....

So it's funny that people customize their game? My car is less a car because I tint the windows? Or add after market seats? So why is my game less fun, or less of a game if I decide I don't want to dick with encumbrance rules, which no one in my group cares about?

Do you see where I'm coming from here? You might be right, when splitting hairs, but really do we want our hobby to be defined by petty semantics?

QuoteFurther to the point having orcs always being dangerous is a completely separate argument from your characters improving.

I agree that it can be.

Quote from: Haffrung;280066I didn't know we were talking specifically about WFRP 2E. Or that WFRP 2E is fundamentally different from WFRP 1E in power level. And since the matter at hand is dungeon crawls, it's perfectly valid to bring up the era of D&D when dungeon crawls were most popular.

WFRP 1E and D&D 1E were contemporous. And they weren't intended to provide fundamentally different play experiences, just a different tone. If some of the fanbase of WFRP (especially the online fansites) have turned to a different style of play, that doesn't mean WFRP wasn't or can't be used to run a game with dungeons and lots of combat.



In early D&D, 4th level was mid-level (modules for 4-6th level were marketed as 'mid-level' adventures), and 10th level was very high level. It took maybe a couple years of weekly play to reach 10th, what with all the dying at low levels and starting again. Most campaigns played by the book never reached that level.

How many sessions would it typically take in WFRP to make it to a second career? 12-15?

Twelve to 15 sessions into a 1E D&D campaign, the PCs are probably 4th level.  I don't think the power levels of a group of 4th level D&D characters and a group of WFRP characters in their second careers are all that different.

Fair enough. You don't see much of a difference, and that's ok.

My experience of combat in WFRP (both editions, across multiple careers) and D&D (all editions, across the level ranges) has a significant impact on which I'd like to play or run a campaign for on any given day. I've found that each system provokes markedly different attitudes toward PC suvivability, which in WFRP manifests in a more cautious, situationally aware approach. Whilst I acknowledge it's possible to have a WFRP-like experience with D&D at certain levels - sans fate points, persistently low PC health, easily available magical healing, lingering disabling injuries, being one-shotted as a clear and present threat throughout one's career and going insane just from getting hit too often, - as far as I'm concerned the two games present differences that go far beyond the percentile-roll-under/d20-roll-higher resoloution divide. When I'm  deciding which to play my choice is meaningful, both in terms of combat resoloution and overall lethality.

I've wondered whether the WHFRP could host dungeon bashes like D&D X-edition or even Warhammer Quest. In my opinion: it can. The second edition rules has a plethora of bonuses and penalties which can be applied to a combat encounter ( if memory serves right, it ranges from +30 to -30). A group of dungeon-crawlers can in theory increase their chances of survival by manipulating the circumstances of each fight. The system grants bonuses for flanking, cover, surprise attacks, ect, ect. While DnD character's are stronger due to traits and feats, Warhammer characters are forced to be smarter fighters. This may make a dungeoncrawl way more interesting and tactical than a hit-and-miss DnD crawl.
Now that I think about it, it would be pretty damn cool to do a WHFRP Dungeoncrawl in the sewers under Middenheim, during the Storm of Chaos, where sewerjack (PCs) face clans of Skaven, random cultists, and even a daemon at the end. The game would requiere some special considerations: what happens if the PC completes a career smack in the middle of a 4 session long dungeon? But I don't think it's nothing that could potentially break the system.

Ok, Magic users don't really fit into this Mega-Dungeon idea. I'm afraid that playing a magic user maybe pointless because of the danger of mutations. Magic Users in the typical Dungeons and Dragons party serve as range attack specialists. They provide cover fire from behind the lines. A Warhammer magic-user can't be use a magic missile machine gun. It's too risky. The taint of chaos is likelier to kill a wizard than the most badass of orcs. Why would someone play a wizard or cleric? They aren't particularly good in conventional warfare and magic (or clerical powers) in the rulebook aren't necessarily great when it comes to dungeon crawling.
Given the paradigm the typical imperial citizen, a wizard that displays any sort of mutation must be put to the flame. Remember: don't suffer a witch to live.

Quote from: vomitbrown;280437Ok, Magic users don't really fit into this Mega-Dungeon idea. I'm afraid that playing a magic user maybe pointless because of the danger of mutations. Magic Users in the typical Dungeons and Dragons party serve as range attack specialists. They provide cover fire from behind the lines. A Warhammer magic-user can't be use a magic missile machine gun. It's too risky. The taint of chaos is likelier to kill a wizard than the most badass of orcs. Why would someone play a wizard or cleric? They aren't particularly good in conventional warfare and magic (or clerical powers) in the rulebook aren't necessarily great when it comes to dungeon crawling.
Given the paradigm the typical imperial citizen, a wizard that displays any sort of mutation must be put to the flame. Remember: don't suffer a witch to live.

So you haven't read the rules perhaps?  Wizards can be extremely powerful, though they run the risk/reward slope.   So true you can't be a magic missile machine without some serious risk.  But in D&D a wizard can only cast a limited number of spells in a day so they need to pick and choose.  WFRP wizards can cast unlimited spells so they don't have to ponder their resources just the risk.  They also have the ability to cast and attack in the same round which can be very devastating.

Further to the point if this is a dungeon crawl the wizard has even more freedom to cast spells since he doesn't have to worry so much about the prying eyes of the public.

Quote from: kryyst;280780So you haven't read the rules perhaps?  Wizards can be extremely powerful, though they run the risk/reward slope.   So true you can't be a magic missile machine without some serious risk.  But in D&D a wizard can only cast a limited number of spells in a day so they need to pick and choose.  WFRP wizards can cast unlimited spells so they don't have to ponder their resources just the risk.  They also have the ability to cast and attack in the same round which can be very devastating.

Further to the point if this is a dungeon crawl the wizard has even more freedom to cast spells since he doesn't have to worry so much about the prying eyes of the public.

Ok, so WHFR Wizards may have more freedom than their DnD counterparts. Then what happens when they roll their first doubles. Even better, at higher levels they may roll triples or quadruples. What will happen to the adventuring party when they see their wizard becoming a mutant or inadvertedly casting a daemon of the Warp into existence.

1set set of doubles, followed by like a 99% roll followed by another bad roll and yeah you could be all mutant like.  Typically though starting casters do things like spoil milk, make babies cry and cause animals to freak out.  As for what the group does, depends largely on the group.

I could ask the same what's the D&D group do to the cleric who doesn't want to cast healing spells because they are so busy buffing themselves to outshine the fighter.  It's always a question of what if's.  

But at the end of the day no reason why mages + dungeons + wfrp wouldn't work.  If anything they are more effective because they don't have to worry about recharging or rationing their spells.  Of course I'm comparing to 3e since 4e the spell rationing now is quite different and your mage is now nothing better beyond a magic missile machine gun.

v2 Wizards are extremely effective in a dungeoncrawl, especially if they're from a college that offers healing magic. None of the minor manifestations are relevant when you're hidden away from the eyes of the suspicious public. Even the moderate manifestations are more of a nuisance than a real hazard. We actually had to houserule the magic system when playing LotLL, because our Light Wizard was removing any sense of danger from the adventure.

Quote from: Haffrung;280066Twelve to 15 sessions into a 1E D&D campaign, the PCs are probably 4th level.  I don't think the power levels of a group of 4th level D&D characters and a group of WFRP characters in their second careers are all that different.

Well, I'm running 8-hour sessions once a month at the moment, but in my 1e Temple of Elemental Evil game, the characters recently cleared the Moathouse.  In the final confrontation with Lareth, only one PC died.  (Elmo died as well, struck down by Lareth, and in fairness it absolutely would have been a TPK without him.)  They played smart and protected their two held party members, and the fight went long enough for those two to get back into the game.

They were Level 2 going into that fight, and after all the treasure XP, I expect the 5 surviving PCs and the surviving NPC will easily advance to 3rd - and maybe partway to 4th - if they find Lareth's hidden fire opals.

All told, the 5 surviving PCs will get either 2,751 or 4,751 xp after that fight.  (Depending on how I calculate, that is.  The 1e DMG is extremely unclear on whether henchman xp is halved before or after deducting it from the available xp pool.  Opinion seems split on the matter, too.  If I divide by 12 instead of 11, it changes to 2,522 or 4,355.)

This was only our second 8-hour session.

In other words, AD&D isn't looking like advancement is all that slow to me, right now. :)

-O