This wasn’t the first RPG I had in my collection, but it was the first
one that I saved up for and paid for with my own money. There were a number of reasons why I chose
this one, all of which made it more interesting at the time than D&D had
been. The first of which was the front
cover, which was (and still is) awesome,
a dwarf not just striking a pose, but putting
his axe through the orcs neck... the human laughing in the face of imminent
mashage (it’s a word...), and the mage, sensibly out the way and with some
fiery back up.
Excellent image, it wasn’t a book where heroes got the win every
time...
It was A Grim World of Perilous Adventure...
New stats, careers to work with, all the equipment you could shake a
stick at (and you weren’t limited to a 10’ pole in this, you could buy pole by
the yard...), new weapons, armour
that actually had an effect on damage, this was surely the way forwards.
It certainly was the way forwards, having got used to D&D, the
darkness of the world of Warhammer was a hell of a shock, much like those
initial forays into the keep on the borderlands, so this was something new. The
idea that you had a career rather than a class, and that the career evolved
into other careers when you were done with the first, this was something that
had been written by someone who had seen something of the outside world and
come back with the truth of it to share with all.
Then there was the size of the book, here was something that had
everything you ever needed to make campaigns last forever, beasts ranging from
the small things that any adventurer could handle, to the massive demons that
should only ever have been found in Moria.
Spells weren’t these immense things that made wizards untouchable at the
higher levels, they were gritty, the first level stuff was useful, but the
wizard in question had better have a backup plan for when the magic points ran
out.
Let’s not forget the adventure in the back of the book, first level
characters, fresh in their careers, coming up against cultists with the very
real possibility of catching Nurgles Rot...
Nurgles Rot for gods sake!
D&D gave you kobolds to slap down as bold adventurers, a Soldier, A
Servant, a Hypnotist, and a Raconteur got through, but we were very badly
broken up when we did, and healing in warhammer isn’t as simple as getting out
the potions and hoping for the best.
It was the first game that we’d played where there was a sense that the
world could have been a real one, nothing was massive and shiny and over the
top, everything was street level, and for a bunch of kids from 80’s Yorkshire,
street level we understood. Of course,
with this particular book you didn’t need to buy anything else, so the
excellent campaigns we never got around to, only picking them up years later
when we weren’t really playing it any more.
To this day, it remains one of my favourite books, because it’s an
example of how you pitch things for beginners, you don’t give them a little and
expect them to make it up as they go along, you give them everything they need
and then let them build their own world to play in.
We Did...
