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Return to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition
September 18, 2012 by dracs
When it comes to roleplaying in the world of Warhammer Fantasy a lot of people I know have said that the 2nd edition is one of their favourites. Well now, thanks to Drive Thru RPG, you can find out just how this old system lives up to today.
Published by Fantasy Flight Games, this set of rules is now available from Drive Thru RPG in a variety of formats, whether you want to download it or own a physical hardback or paper back copy.
With character creation rules, an introductory adventure and even a short story from renowned Black Library author Dan Abnett, this is a must for any fan of Warhammer Fantasy.
Have any of you used these 2nd Edition rules before? What is your opinion of them?
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My favourite Role-Playing game after Werewolf the Apocalypse. Had one of the best campaigns in this system where I played an Empire soldier who fled from the army during a battle with beastmen.
Leopold (t’was his name!) then accidentally met his fate when one of his mutated comrades came back to kill him many sessions later. However, when his body was being taken to his home town by his friends he was resurrected by Sigmar and become an Initiate of the Faith, bowing his knee before the God of the Empire.
We left the story a few years ago now when we had completed the defense of a small woodland town against beastmen. It ended with Leopold and the current Sigmarite priest of the town marshaling the forces of order against the enemy and beating them back.
I will forever remember that Role-Playing group 🙂
Leopold Sturnhammer (Ex-Soldier and Priest of Sigmar)
Urgrim Beerchucker (Ironbreaker & Bar Owner)
Storri Beerchucker (Cousin of Urgrim and mighty ranger)
Urdafine Undomil (High Elven Ranger turned Wizard)
Was so much fun and I still have all the main books, source books and even some pdf’s of later adventures. I have a campaign all written out too!
Can you tell I liked this one?
BoW Ben
Ben, next time you are over in the office you are hereby tasked with running a game. The short one hath spoken.
BoW Sam
Yeah, I can’t knock 3rd edition because FFG really know how to put together a slick boxed set, but in the same way that D&D4e was (IMHO) good but different, so too was the new edition of Warhammer.. and it was just a little bit too different for my tastes. Not to mention blooming expensive!
So for me, 2nd edition was the best of the three editions that have existed so far and it’s one I still play today. There’s a staggering number of careers across all of the books that were published and you only have to read through the list of mutations in the Tome of Corruption to know that this is a really dark, gritty fantasy game where everything is out to get you.
This is a great chance to pick up digital versions of the sourcebooks I missed out on the first time around!
Yes… You’ve got to regret the lack of any supplement about elves, and a proper one about dwarves (save for Karak Azgal)… I could have used a sourcebook for Arabia, Tilea and Estalia too. Much of the material for everywhere was simply included in campaigns, alas.
I never cared for the official scenarios and their playstyle.
There are fan made Warhammer armybooks for Tilea, Araby and Estalia. While not as informative as actual Warhammer Roleplay sourcebooks, I’ve found them to be a good source of information and ispiration.
They can be founded here:
http://battlereporter.freeforums.org/warhammer-army-books-fan-made-unofficial-f88.html
That being said, Warhammer as a setting has always played and twisted on common stereotypes of historical nations and fantasy architypes. So, I wouldn’t find it difficult to find inspiration on actual historical and fantasy liturature.
I’m still using this edition !
I’ve got an ongoing campaign that avoids every D&D cliché and exploits all of the Warhammer themes : medieval darkness and the true horror and lethality of a world without mercy nor antibiotics, elves as a dying race, dwarves as honor-obsessed, the Empire as an incarnation of fascism, the illusion of control over humanity’s inner demons (chaos), the legacy of the Ancients…
My players are sometimes a bit depressed… But they keep coming back, so I must be doing something right !
I think the 2nd edition stuff has been available as PDFs from DriveThruRPG since the coming of the 3rd edition. The DriveThru’s printing service is great news if they’ll extend the service to cover all the 2nd edition books. Many of the sourcebooks have been out of print for years and second hand market keeps asking premium price. But even the core rulebook is a start.
For me Warhammer Roleplay 2nd edition has always been a bit of a facelift to the original 1st edition and departure from its D&D roots. The books looked sweet and most of the the sourcebooks were extremely good. But the original 1st edition core book actual contained enough material for three of the 2nd edition core books. Stuff got spread around with little addition. This is also a problem with the 3rd edition.
Speaking of 3rd edition. While I do like the dice mechanics and the good presentation of the 3rd edition, the chits and the supplement spamming has gotten to a point where our group pretty much returned to playing 1st edition.
As an slightly off topic question: Has anyone got any experience of the DriveThruRPG’s print-on-demand books quality? I’ve only bought PDFs from them.
Honestly the engine that powers this game is essentially the same as the one that powers Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch etc. so though FFG went a different direction in 3rd the engine that Green Ronin for Black Library created lives on in those games.
@ netdiver from my experience (3 or 4 purchases) Drive Thru’s print on demand stuff is pretty solid quality wise.
@lordofexcess: Thanks!
Ah the edition i play. The skaven book is scandalous in its price. May have a nosey over there
http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay/forum/
We do have a group for WFRP (Made it a while back and it’s still pretty sparse unfortunately!) but if people want to go and make use of it then head over 🙂
BoW Ben
*Blows the dust off of his 2e books*
So very glad to hear it! I really and truly did not like Dicehammer (3e), but very much do like 2e, most especially character generation.
I’ve loved 2nd Edition since I picked up the main book. I now own all 27 books published for it, plus 2 books (1st ED Rules and Dwarfs Stone and Steel) and The Enemy Within from 1st Edition. I won’t even touch Dicehammer (3rd Edition), and oddly enough I am not a fan of Warhammer Fantasy Battles or 40k. 2nd Edition is just different enough from WFB to give it that unique sense.
I began running a Play-by-Forum campaign in 1st Edition in ’03, and that’s been running off and on, and I was able to get a tabletop group together for another campaign in ’09, both campaigns of which are, at present on hold. The former because I’m revamping my web site, I need to convert the old phpBB database to the newer format, and then I intend to get that back up and running sometime after the first of the year, and hopefully before Spring. The second campaign is going to be rolled into the overall game I’m running with my Legend of Goe Orthrond folks. Between now and then, my teen sons and I are building the bridge between the two campaigns, and then we’ll be using a combination of Play-by-Forum and Roll 20, since most of those participating in the campaign are spread all over the States and the world.
For any who might be interested, you can see everything I’ve got up, now, for Warhammer at http://www.wolvesau.net/wh . It’s a work in progress, and I’ll be starting on getting more characters up soon. For my games, I use the optional rules by Liber Fanatica, and all of the Careers from the Compendium, plus my Buia-Druadan, which I just finished putting up this afternoon. I also use an optional system for dealing with combat, which you can see here -> http://www.wolvesau.net/wh/characters/athaeis/skilltalentlisting.php#combatactions , and are welcome to adopt to your own games if you find it feasible. It’s a bit more difficult to use, but once you and your players are used to it, the flow of combat makes a LOT more sense and actually turns out to be far-less clunky.
Well, I’m new to this community, and I’m glad to be here, and I look forward to participating more.
Sounds interesting. May have a gander