Dismaland

On my more general blog I recently wrote about my experience of 'getting' D&D having some experience of the scale (and extremes) of American geography. Ed Dove offered a very interesting reply/addendum on G+, which is that to get D&D's take on fantasy you really also have to check out that other icon on American geography, this time entirely synthetic - Disneyland. I'd quote from it, but I'd end up reproducing Ed's comment more of less in its entirety, so I'll simply link to it here.

Suffice to say, I think he's got a point, but what does this have to do with Warhammer? Well, Ed's observation has been made at a particularly opportune time, as Banksy opens Dismaland in Weston-Super-Mare. And Dismaland is to Disneyland, what WFRP is to D&D*; a reflection of the classic tropes distorted by black humour and political cynicism.

[Photograph by Yui Mok/PA, via the Guardian. Not trying to steal the picture, just using it for illustration, please visit the Guardian article to ensure that the proper licensees get their due web-hits.]

*Not all D&D is 'Disneyland American Fantasy'. As the OSR proves, the basic D&D engine is incredibly versatile and capable of handling all manner of genres.

Website: MadAlfred's WFRP Page

MadAlfred is Alfred Nunez Jr., a well-known figure in the WFRP community. One of those writers whose work spans both professional and fan publications, a glance at MadAlfred's webpage would tell you that this man breathes Warhammer, and despite his 4500 Citadel Miniatures, WFRP1e is his oxygen.

He's a representative example of the fact that there is significant overlap between WFRP's writers and WFRP's fans, players, and GMs. This isn't the case with all RPGs, especially with licensed properties being published in big, glossy book, which can often be the product of work-for-hire writers. And there is nothing wrong with that - professional writers gotta eat, and professional writers are professional - but it is a phenomenon that gives the 'dead' game of WFRP (and now the 'dead' setting of the Warhammer World!) some of the vitality found in the OSR, in which the distinction between players and producers is non-existent, in which real-life play, rather than play-testing, is producing some amazing gaming material. WFRP fan-culture chugs along slowly but surely. Actually, given the abandonment of both system and setting, 'fan' is the wrong word, it diminishes the contribution of WFRP players and GMs, reducing them to consumers... of what? Perhaps player-culture would be more appropriate.

MadAlfred's site is jam-packed with articles, maps and gazetteers, and perhaps most importantly a number of large and small-scale adventures. 

Too much change/Not enough change

Right. It is about time that I weighed on the big debate about changes in Warhammer. I've had plenty of time to consider the rules and setting material.

WFRP2e didn't go far enough! I'm not talking about the system, which included improvements over that of 1e, while remaining close enough to the original for the two games to be speaking dialects of a common language. No, I'm talking about changes to the setting.

WFRP2e's Old World is an immediately post-war setting. And not just any war, but an apocalyptic war that depopulated vast areas and shattered political and social structures. And this is a world in which there are dark things in the forest, inhuman powers to turn to in desperation, etc. 

I know that some of the adventures add a few post-war details, but the feel of the thing is not one in which WFRP2e feels like it ought be played as Twighlight: 2522? Why isn't the whole of the eastern Empire up for grabs for armed men and women with the will to take it? Why doesn't the setting feel like Mad Max crossed with post-Black Death Europe? Why, for all the death and destruction, for all the population=0 in the gazetteers, does the WFRP2e Old World feel more structured and stable than that of WFRP1e? 

For one, it is simply much more detailed. Exhaustively detailed. I own nearly every book for WFRP 1e and 2e, and the 2e setting details are not just exhaustive, they are exhausting! They are some really well produced books, but they are so full of detail that it literally tires me out. Perhaps this is because I read these book as a GM, constantly thinking about the way in which I can incorporate these details into actual play.

But what of this detailed setting itself. Well, remember that the reason the setting of the RPG was changed was to keep it in line with the wargame. A wargame of Emperors riding Griffons and in which every other Graf is nigh-on a superhero, rather than ordinarly weak men, corruptible politicians in a dirty, confusing world. But that's not all of it. Classic D&D has rulership and personal combat/magical ability pretty tightly woven together, and yet built into Classic D&D is also the idea of the lawless, unstructured frontier ripe for adventure - in fact, this implied setting justifies the link between personal ability and rulership. No, being tied to the wargame seemed to demand a setting in which the lines between 'factions' were solid, and the factions themselves were solid - how else could these political entities survive in a world of endless war? Just like the structure of a television show, while it is acceptable to have disruptive events, by episode end the status quo must be restored.

Oh, Age of Sigmar? As Zhou Enlai supposedly said of the French Revolution, 'It's too soon to say'. I'll get back to you in a decade.

What the what?!

When did this happen?

One Less Dimension

This blog has been silent for a while as I have been in the US. When I arrived home I had a little present waiting for me - a huge box of Warhammer (fantasy and 40K) books sent to me by +Daniel Sell. I will have to work out a way to compensate him... More on that later. 

Games Workshop used to bill their big boxed games as 3-D Roleplay. Not just Advanced Heroquest, Advanced Space Crusade and Space Hulk, but also such games as Space Marine (the second incarnation of the Epic rules). In a way, I'd like to rehabilitate the term 3-D Roleplay, to stress the kind of characterful, narrative, scenario-driven (and GM 'refereed') games that is the opposite end of the miniature gaming hobby to that occupied by Mathhammer competitive play. 3-D Roleplay could be seen as, at least, closely related to the values espoused in the Oldhammer Contract.

Thing is, I'm a busy man, with kids, something like a career, &c. Miniatures? As the lady says, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" Yes, I can eke a few hours with the daylight bulb here, a few there, and I will slowly but surely put together and paint the Assassinorum miniatures, but with all the games that I want to play...

And I'd rather play than paint or model. The game is the thing.

A while back I got Commands & Colours: Ancients. I think it is a fantastic game. I immediately wished that there was a fantasy version, a Warhammer version even. And yes, there is Battlelore, which to my mind is less elegant, both mechanically and aesthetically. But C&C planted in my mind the idea that I would be very happy with a 'de-miniaturized' Warhammer wargame. If not quite 2-D, then at the very least a little more... flat.

And this has been sitting in my cupboard. A game that filled Sundays (and dinner tables) of my later school days. 

And then +Daniel Sell sends me this:

I had toyed with the ambition (the fantasy) of using Hordes of the Things (or Warhammerised DBA) to run a campaign of Mighty Empires. And I still might. But Warmaster could also be a suitable companion. Eminently suitable, as they share the same underlying fiction.

But for someone who 'aint't got time for that', how could this fantasy even come close to being realized. Paper miniatures. Paper armies. Thankfully, someone else has done the work for me.

The League of Ordinary Gamers have some lovely paper armies, which are also collected at Warmuster, along with other resources including the Warmaster Living Rule Book and a set of Mighty Empire house rules to bring it in line with Warmaster assumptions.

If we hadn't just 'Freecycled' our clunky old printer, and having been forbidden from buying a new one until our house move is complete... But paper miniatures? Yes, I can see these being a large part of my future gaming. 2-D+ Roleplay.

Unboxing: Assassinorum

So we open the surprisingly heavy box and we find:

The weight of the box is in these really heavy duty card game boards.

These look really sturdy, and I'd imagine they will stand up to quite a lot of play. Despite the fact that they don't have 'jigsaw' lugs to join the boards together, their weight and size will help prevent the boards slipping hither and thither.

And a solid set of counters.

But the meat of things is, of course, the 23 miniatures. In value for money terms, this works out at just over £3 per miniature, which seems pretty good when compared [what I imagine to be] Games Workshop's pricing, and isn't too bad when considered miniatures more generally. But imagination is deceptive, especially when you are trapped in the past. 5 Chaos Cultists? £6. 10 Chaos Space Marines? £23.50. And so on. And, of course, in the Assassinorum box you don't get to choose which 23 miniatures you get for your cash. So what do you get?

Well, you get three sprues of Chaos Cultists:

A Chaos Space Marine Sprue:

A Chaos Sorcerer Lord/Terminator Lord Sprue:

And, of course, four individual Assassin Sprues (each standing on their own bit of scenery):

These are standard contemporary GW sprues, which means lots of bits and bobs, assembly required. To my mind GW have missed a trick here. If they had produced push-together miniatures, people could buy this game for casual gamers, and even dedicated hobbyists could be playing the same day that they buy the game. As soon as a game needs glue, clippers, &c., you've got a game that simply will not sell to casual gamers, and if it does, it will sit, unassembled and unplayed in a cupboard. I know that in recent years GW have sold push-together Chaos Space Marines, and so it shouldn't have been too difficult to find that compromise between accessibility (getting the game up and running on the day of purchase) and miniature quality (the taste of the plastic crack that keeps 'em coming back). Ah, but I'm not in charge of GW's strategy department - if I was their stores would at least sell FFG Warhammer licensed products.

But then I can (only just, admittedly) remember when all these shelves were Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, and when White Dwarf were a general roleplaying magazine. But tell that to the kids these days...

We'll have to wait until I get back from my work trip to the States to get these little men put together and on the table.

Website: Winds of Chaos

Winds of Chaos is a 'dead' site, in so much that it doesn't seem to have been updated since 2011, and that was only an 'I ain't dead' post, the first since 2009. Nevertheless, the site is still up, and contains a wealth of resources useful for any WFRP player, and perhaps useful to any Warhammer Fantasy Battle player keen to put a put of 'narrative' and bring a bit of setting depth to their campaigns. You know, to make the miniature game the wargame/role-playing game hybrid that was the suggested by WFB1e (and, some time later, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader).

Probably the most useful content on the site is that produced by Dave Graffam - maker of fantastic paper model kits - under the tab 'Encroachment', including a 26 page expanded character creation booklet for WFRP2e. This is perhaps more than you might want, but it tells you something of the quality and depth of the resources. I also think that the WFRP Treasure Generator is a wonderful piece of work, useful in nearly any FRPG that requires a quick system of finding out 'what has it got in its pocketses'. In fact, the WFRP2e folder on my PC contains a sub-folder which I have called 'Dave Graffam's Excellent Resources', and I'm not sure I have any other folder whose title contains a superlative. So that says something.

The comprehensive set of maps of the Old World, by Andreas Blicher (based on work by Alfred Nunez Jr., with Dave Graffam providing some graphic design on the 'parchment' versions), are also a must-have for any WFRP GM.