Street Fight

I ran Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay tonight, largely by the seat of my pants, and it went pretty well. We're nearing the final stretch of Terror In Talabheim scenario. I'm deviating massively from the adventure as written at this point and loving it.

Really, though, I just wanted to show off the awesome homemade street scenery we were able to use for the big fight against Clan Skryre's elite Stormvermin troops (along with a Warpfire Thrower team), thanks to the artistic efforts of one Kent Bonifield. Too bad Rick's character lost a leg, but hey, it's not a WFRP adventure until somebody gets horribly maimed. Right?

Changer of the Ways

This blog has always been somewhat stream-of-consciousness in nature. It's largely become a receptacle of little ideas that never really get used much in my own gaming time. I constantly spout half-baked campaign concepts or fiddle around with books I've acquired, but I haven't talked much about what I'm actually playing right now. So here goes.

First off, after a long love affair with the game, I've finally somehow managed to get my group to give Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay a shot. I'm using the 2nd edition of the game, since I own literally everything that was published for it. There are a couple of people in my weekly group who I think were a bit skeptical about my insistence on random character generation, but we're now two sessions into the Terror In Talabheim adventure scenario, and the players seem to be having a good time rooting out a Skaven plot to poison the inhabitants of the nigh-impregnable fortress that is the Taalbaston. As much as I talk about wanting to run this campaign or that, I often find myself freaked out and frustrated once I'm actually behind the screen, but happily, I've avoided any such crises of confidence thus far. Maybe my love for WFRP overcomes the usual jitters, or maybe it's because the current plan is to run just this one scenario, relieving some of the pressure?

Then we've got my online forum-based Dragon Warriors campaign. I recently discussed some of the difficulties I've run into, both with the play-by-post format and with a rather poor choice of adventures I had made. We've finally slogged our way through The King Under the Forest, but the nature of the adventure combined with the fact that the characters started it just as the holidays were upon us has pretty much killed the campaign's momentum... and a good deal of my enthusiasm along with it. At the moment, I've put the game on hiatus until I'm finished with WFRP. When I start it back up, I will need to recruit more players (since one of my regulars dropped out), so if you're interested in playing a Dragon Warriors play-by-post campaign, keep an eye on this blog.

Lastly, I continue to participate in my good friend Bret's forum-based OSRIC campaign, set in his homebrewed (and wonderfully detailed) "Realms of Lakoria" sandbox setting. The AD&D rules have been a lot of fun to work with, and I have been having a great time playing a grumpy ranger character in that ruleset. For whatever reason, OSRIC really seems to get people into a fun, not-too-serious, old-school mode of play that's much different from the style I'm used to. It took a little while to get used to, and I sometimes think our party has been going about things in a more gonzo way than our DM anticipated, but it really is a blast.

And as a last random note, I just got a bunch of Creature Crucible D&D supplements in the mail yesterday. I picked them up on eBay with the inkling of ripping them off for use with Labyrinth Lord. We'll see how that works out.

So, yeah, a happy gaming time for me. Hope yours has been good as well!

You Blew It Up

I generally don't want to be associated with what has become known as the "old school renaissance" movement. Now, I don't harbor it any ill will. In fact, I enjoy reading many of the blogs of its proponents, and I do have an affection for old editions of D&D, but that's about the extent of it: affection. I definitely don't feel that any old edition of Dungeons & Dragons is the "true" one, or even that D&D is my favorite RPG. I like a lot of things about it, but I dislike just as many. That goes for pretty much any version of the game.

Nevertheless, with the announcement of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's 3rd edition, I'm starting to understand how D&D grognards felt when 4th edition was announced.

WFRP3 is drastically different from the previous two incarnations of the game, both in presentation and in mechanics. I can certainly understand why, from a business standpoint, Fantasy Flight Games would seek to make an RPG that includes lots of funky dice and cardboard doodads that come in a big, attractive-looking box which costs $100. If you want to look at it in a positive light, FFG is just playing to their strengths as a company best known for its high production value boardgames. If you want to look at it in a more negative light, they're trying to make as much profit as they can while simultaneously making the game difficult to pirate (something Wizards of the Coast have had trouble accomplishing).

Either way, I don't begrudge Fantasy Flight Games' desire to use a sound business model for their new game. As somebody who liked WFRP 2nd edition a whole lot, bought everything released for the game, but never got a chance to play it, the announcement of a 3rd edition was a little unsettling for me. I have to admit that as I read more and more about the mechanics, my gut reaction is to squeal "but that's not WFRP!" I mean, I know that as the current holders of the license, Fantasy Flight can define WFRP as whatever they want it to be, but there's something deep in my core that is bummed out when I read that the Halfling and Ratcatcher are not in the starting boxed set, or that you can be a High Elf, or that the feel has been brought even closer in line to that of the wargame. Yes, it all makes sense, but it's not what I want, dammit.

So unless somebody buys me the 3rd edition box as a present and I somehow end up loving it, I think I just became a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay grognard. Somebody give me my name badge.