Review: The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set
Something a bit different, as well as something we hope to do more often in the future. I'm looking at the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition Starter Set, the latest shiny entry in Cubicle 7's welcome resurrection of the venerable game line.
I reviewed the new edition of WFRP over at Geek & Sundry. The very short conclusion is that I like it very much. Part of that is simply because I didn't like the 3rd edition, and in fact don't really care much for Fantasy Flight's RPGs. I find them overly fiddly, as FFG's penchant for cramming as many tokens and doodads into both the physical and rules manifestations of their games too much. All power to those who are into them, they're just not my bag.
But mostly it's because it's a really good version of the game. You can read the review, but C7 streamlined WFRP exactly where it needed to be while keeping the core of the game exactly as remembered. That's just fine; a nostalgia product which manages to push on in interesting ways is usually a keeper. I also desperately miss the Old World, even as I've come to consider Age of Sigmar both very good and my (and Peter's) main wargame these days.
With that done, what's the Starter Set like? Right off the bat, it's recognizably a Cubicle 7 product. By that I mean that the production values are off the charts. The box is sturdy as hell and the booklets inside are crammed with art. Even the bottom of the box's interior is a map, while the interior of the lid pulls double duty as a GM's screen.
This is the kind of thing which C7 does well, maybe better than anyone their size in the industry. The One Ring is probably my favorite RPG of the decade and a not insignificant part of that is just how great the books feel. I remember getting the Lone Wolf Adventures boxed set and immediately being taken by the aesthetics and physical quality; the WFRP Starter Set gives me the same vibes.
Inside, it's pretty standard fare, just with those C7 production flourishes. The sample PCs are printed on sturdy trifold sheets. The simple, attractive maps are on gloss card stock. There are cheatsheets galore, which is worth the price of admission on its own.
The core of the set is in two books: a guide to Ubersreik, which doubles as one of the places you visit in the Vermintide video game series and an adventure booklet, which has both a lengthy adventure and some surprisingly meaty post-adventure seeds.
The guide to Ubersreik is the more clever. For one, tying the game immediately to the popular Vermintide game (there's even a flyer for it inside the box) is the kind of smart move Games Workshop has tended to make a hash of in the past. No idea if that was GW's or C7's call, but that little thing makes the Old World immediately feel modern.
But mostly, I just wasn't expecting a full campaign setting in here, albeit one limited in size and scope. There's a full description of the city and environs, plus local cults, baddies, and political movers. All in full color, this is the thing which provides a pull for folks who might skip over a starter set (and, for the record, I'm one of those people).
The adventure is pretty standard fare: you end up in a riot, then drafted into the local guard as community service after you're blamed for starting it, whereupon dark events start up. It hits all the beats of a good WFRP adventure, with the clear intent of letting the players gradually pick up on how the rules work.
That may sound like I'm damning it with faint praise, but I'm not: it does exactly what it should and even a bit more. Mercifully, the narrative isn't tied to the sample characters, meaning your group can roll their own with no problem, and the riot scenario offers a reasonably novel means of linking everyone together. It's good and I'd certainly run it with a new group.
The seeds are better. So often, intro adventures end with three paragraphs of what to do next. Here there are wildly different scenarios involving everything from goblins to halfling crime syndicates, with enough meat to get a good bearing on how to flesh them out without fully writing them. This is really welcome, particularly as the new version of The Enemy Within looks to still be a ways off.
Even granting that I'm a bit of a squish for certain worlds (Middle-earth, Glorantha, The Old World, Planescape, The Imperium of Man), I came away pretty impressed. As I wrote above, I'm generally not a starter set guy: I like published adventures as a pressed for time middle-aged doctoral student with a child and a mortgage, but too often starter set adventures are super-limited and predictable. The WFRP Starter Set feels like a cut above to me, with some value even for the cynics.
I reviewed the new edition of WFRP over at Geek & Sundry. The very short conclusion is that I like it very much. Part of that is simply because I didn't like the 3rd edition, and in fact don't really care much for Fantasy Flight's RPGs. I find them overly fiddly, as FFG's penchant for cramming as many tokens and doodads into both the physical and rules manifestations of their games too much. All power to those who are into them, they're just not my bag.
But mostly it's because it's a really good version of the game. You can read the review, but C7 streamlined WFRP exactly where it needed to be while keeping the core of the game exactly as remembered. That's just fine; a nostalgia product which manages to push on in interesting ways is usually a keeper. I also desperately miss the Old World, even as I've come to consider Age of Sigmar both very good and my (and Peter's) main wargame these days.
With that done, what's the Starter Set like? Right off the bat, it's recognizably a Cubicle 7 product. By that I mean that the production values are off the charts. The box is sturdy as hell and the booklets inside are crammed with art. Even the bottom of the box's interior is a map, while the interior of the lid pulls double duty as a GM's screen.
This is the kind of thing which C7 does well, maybe better than anyone their size in the industry. The One Ring is probably my favorite RPG of the decade and a not insignificant part of that is just how great the books feel. I remember getting the Lone Wolf Adventures boxed set and immediately being taken by the aesthetics and physical quality; the WFRP Starter Set gives me the same vibes.
Inside, it's pretty standard fare, just with those C7 production flourishes. The sample PCs are printed on sturdy trifold sheets. The simple, attractive maps are on gloss card stock. There are cheatsheets galore, which is worth the price of admission on its own.
The core of the set is in two books: a guide to Ubersreik, which doubles as one of the places you visit in the Vermintide video game series and an adventure booklet, which has both a lengthy adventure and some surprisingly meaty post-adventure seeds.
The guide to Ubersreik is the more clever. For one, tying the game immediately to the popular Vermintide game (there's even a flyer for it inside the box) is the kind of smart move Games Workshop has tended to make a hash of in the past. No idea if that was GW's or C7's call, but that little thing makes the Old World immediately feel modern.
But mostly, I just wasn't expecting a full campaign setting in here, albeit one limited in size and scope. There's a full description of the city and environs, plus local cults, baddies, and political movers. All in full color, this is the thing which provides a pull for folks who might skip over a starter set (and, for the record, I'm one of those people).
The adventure is pretty standard fare: you end up in a riot, then drafted into the local guard as community service after you're blamed for starting it, whereupon dark events start up. It hits all the beats of a good WFRP adventure, with the clear intent of letting the players gradually pick up on how the rules work.
That may sound like I'm damning it with faint praise, but I'm not: it does exactly what it should and even a bit more. Mercifully, the narrative isn't tied to the sample characters, meaning your group can roll their own with no problem, and the riot scenario offers a reasonably novel means of linking everyone together. It's good and I'd certainly run it with a new group.
The seeds are better. So often, intro adventures end with three paragraphs of what to do next. Here there are wildly different scenarios involving everything from goblins to halfling crime syndicates, with enough meat to get a good bearing on how to flesh them out without fully writing them. This is really welcome, particularly as the new version of The Enemy Within looks to still be a ways off.
Even granting that I'm a bit of a squish for certain worlds (Middle-earth, Glorantha, The Old World, Planescape, The Imperium of Man), I came away pretty impressed. As I wrote above, I'm generally not a starter set guy: I like published adventures as a pressed for time middle-aged doctoral student with a child and a mortgage, but too often starter set adventures are super-limited and predictable. The WFRP Starter Set feels like a cut above to me, with some value even for the cynics.
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