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.