My gaming group pulled out some old books, and we found Warhammer Fantasay RP. The book was published in 1995, and the owner thought it was second edition. Wikipedia tells us it's first edition.
Does anyone know of any online character generators or related player info online for this particular edition of the game? What is the official name of this edition, and what should I be searching for online to find material for this edition, but not others?
Thanks.
All editions are known as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The first edition, hereafter 1E, is often seen using a separator is logos for "Role•Play". Online resources will often make the distinction for you with numerical notations.
While I'm unsure of online 1E character generators, 1E was released in 1986 and rereleased by Hogshead at the very cusp of online resources like the WWW, they may be tough to find, and when found, horribly written by today's web standards.
Consider joining the Strike-to-Stun forums for 1E if seeking a deeper availability of resources.
Also, MadAlfred's WFRP Pages contains some of the richest resources for 1E still online (including two 1E conversions of Druidic and Elemental magic for 2E.)
WFRP 2E, or second edition, was released, in 2005. It is almost fully compatible with 1E with the following distinctions:
Gone is the 1E assumed compatibility with Warhammer Fantasy Battle. All stats are computed on a percentile system. However, the compatibility between 1E and 2E is an easily managed task.
Other mechanical changes address odd "munchkin" builds of dwarf PCs, e.g., the aforementioned "Naked Dwarf" problem.
The central feature of WFRP 1E, the Career System, largely remains intact in 2E, except in Magical (Arcane) and Clerical (Divine) career paths...
Gone are is the tiered levels of arcane and divine magic careers. These careers are aligned mechanically with all other careers in the system.
The new magic system use the unified target number mechanic, ties well with the skill and talent system throughout, provides for dramatic grim failure, and reagents.
1E is set during a rising tide of Chaos incursions and plots by Ruinous Powers. Ostensibly, 2E is set following the Storm of Chaos, a Warhammer world event that was played out around the world by Warhammer Fantasy Battle players, that also dovetails with the conclusion of original The Enemy Within campaign.
Finally, Liber Fanatica has rich, downloadable conversion and support information for 1E-to-2E conversion. LF's Volume 1, The Character Compendium was compiled by play-testers of 2E and contains details on converting your 1E PCs to 2E.
These conversion tools would be very helpful if you wanted to say chargen using the 1E ruleset on hand and purchase 2E material at a later date.
Almost all 2E material is now available for purchase at DriveThru RPG as PDF (and some titles as Print-on-Demand).
Hope this helps... 1E resources are out there, but show their age (if not in web design alone; remember 1E was released in 1986 and Al Gore didn't invent the internet until at least 1992--at least that's when he co-sponsored public access to ARPANET in the US Congress).
Taken from https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/19393/2064I've never encountered a character generator that wasn't hit by a "Cease & Desist" letter from GW. All of the ones I've seen have been removed from the net.
IDing 1E materialsIn general, all you need to look at is the publisher. If it was Games Workshop, Citadel, Hogshead Productions, or Warpstone Magazine (to issue 22), it's for 1E.
If the publisher is Black Industries or Fantasy Flight Games, it's not for 1E.
WFRP 2E setting materials can be converted with only minor difficulties, but character and monster conversions may result in some odd issues.
WFRP 3E materials are mechanically totally incompatible
WFRP 1E comprises 3+ printings.
As long as you don't have the hardcover, the rules content is identical across the rest.
The setting is roughly contemporaneous to WFB 2E's setting, but gets advanced by later HHP releases.
The line ended when Hogshead returned the rights to Games Workshop.
There are two GW rules addenda books, plus some additional mechanics buried in the adventures. The WFRP Companion and the Character Pack are the two. While the Character pack included character sheets, it was much sought for the additional character generation materials. (No, you can't have mine!)
There was additional material in the WFB Realms of Chaos books, but it's only useful if you want to include major chaos nastiness. And at the prices they go for, they're frightfully hard to legally obtain. (No, you can't have mine!)
HHP added several more rules addenda books: Apockrypha Now (which mostly replaces the WFRP Companion), Apochrypha 2 Chart of Darkness, the GM Screen (expanded crits and fumbles), Dwarves: Stone and Steel (Dwarven racial book - the elven one was vaporware), and Realms of Sorcery.
I've never encountered a character generator that wasn't hit by a "Cease & Desist" letter from GW. All of the ones I've seen have been removed from the net.
In general, all you need to look at is the publisher. If it was Games Workshop, Citadel, Hogshead Productions, or Warpstone Magazine (to issue 22), it's for 1E.
If the publisher is Black Industries or Fantasy Flight Games, it's not for 1E.
WFRP 2E setting materials can be converted with only minor difficulties, but character and monster conversions may result in some odd issues.
WFRP 3E materials are mechanically totally incompatible
Warhammer Fantasy RP First Edition is called Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or, retroactively, Warhammer Fantasy RP First Edition. As such, including First Edition is likely to be your best bet. The Hogshead edition is merely a reprint by a separate company.
It's worth knowing that second edition was a change on the level of D&D 3.0 to D&D 3.5, a lot of game mechanical fixes and minor changes, but material for one can easily be adapted to the other, as such most advice for WFRP 2e should be usable for 1e.
One particular issue to watch out for in 1e is the 'Naked Dwarf' issue. With a bit of system knowledge it's fairly easy to make a dwarf which is so hard to hit he doesn't need armor anymore. This is one of the issues that was addressed in 2e.
As 2e was generally an all-around improvement and 95% compatible, there's unfortunately not a lot of material for 1e out there anymore. The biggest site I know of that caters to 1e also caters to 2e and is Strike to Stun. It's a fan-site and not as active as any official resource, but it should have some resources that could be useful.
In general, only 3e specific resources should be avoided, as 3e is entirely incompatible with 2e and before, while 1e and 2e need a small amount of conversion at worst when going from one to the other.
