Varsovian:
This sounds pretty cool :) See, I have nothing against grit and darkness, but I feel that a fantasy world should somehow be interesting and have something inspiring to see and experience. Interesting people, interesting places, interesting phenomena... Not just villages with pigs, towns with smelly sewers and general feeling of oppression and hopelessness...
BTW. What would you call the general mood of the game? My experience with WH40K was that everything and everyone in that universe was corrupted and hopeless (and testosterone-infused). Is WFRP a bit more bright, maybe..?
The outside world is dangerous. Normal people cluster around their pigs and sewers, but the dense woods are ever encroaching, swelling with Beastmen. And, if the rumors and the crazed are to be believed, men like rats lurk in the sewers. There's adventure to be had, and wonderous places and things to behold, but they often don't want you to be there.
I wouldn't say WFRP is more
bright, per se, but it's definitely more nuanced. Take, for instance, the case of the Emperor.
In Warhammer Fantasy, Sigmar was the First Emperor, a warrior-king who united the tribes of man. But he also drove those tribes who wouldn't join him into the inhospitable north, where the seeds of resentment and the need for survival drove them into the arms of the Chaos Gods.
Sigmar is also venerated as a god, but his divine status is in question. The Cult of Ulric claims, since Sigmar was a worshiper of Ulric, that Ulric is the chief god of the Empire. Instead of, as it would be in 40k, them dividing into two eternally warring factions, the power of each cult waxes and wanes with the favor of the living Emperor. (The "current" Emperor, Karl Franz, is a devoted Sigmarite.) The Cult of Sigmar also has had its fire and brimstone Inquisitions, but they are viewed with some suspicion and disfavor by both the political elite and the common folk.
So Sigmar can be a great inspirational figure, a symbol of the unity and power of Man, but he can also be a symbol of oppression and a tool of politics. His priests can turn their skill at arms and rhetoric towards the preservation of mankind's community, or they can be witch-hunters who will flay a peasant for some perceived heresy. He's not the hamhanded, omnipresent symbol of a lurching cadaver of empire that will collapse without him, but rather like another deity in a polytheistic world, albeit an important one, whose interpretation by mortal men is flawed. If, indeed, he is a god at all.
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I get your point, but still - I always come up with a concept before playing... I've had some experience with random characters in Call of Cthulhu and I have never liked it. Is there any suggestion in the game for an alternative method of character creation?
You can absolutely just pick careers, and the character generation system can definitely work its way to some kind of point-buy...
But I would really, really recommend at least trying to roll up a character. I'm normally right there with you, I like to have narrative control over my characters. But Warhammer offers an interesting opportunity to kind of... rewind the typical character concept.
In D&D, for instance, a Level 1 Fighter starts as a fairly competent warrior. Most of the starting Warhammer careers are a step back from that. You are a servant, or a farmer, or a charcoal-burner... maybe you
aspire to be a warrior, but you get to live through and play through those transformative level 0 moments.
I, for instance, rolled up Servant. And I hated it. I hated the idea of playing a Servant, but I went along with it. And I brought that resentment with me to my character, Douglas Dougal, who wanted to be more than a Servant. (Hired by one of the other PCs, no less, who'd rolled up the rather badass Squire career.) That burning aspiration inspired me to play one of the most interesting characters of my roleplaying career.
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That sounds good! I like intrigue and horror :)
Good! I think thinking of Warhammer as an action-slanted horror game set in a really rich fantasy world is a good place to start.
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Heh. I really don't know what a fail-forward mechanic is, so I guess I won't be missing it ;)
You should try it, it's pretty great.