Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Warhammer Burning a Hole In My Pocket

Warning: Rated high for geek content. And poor financial management.

Ok - I cracked. After I bought Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay v2.0 in the shops I went to Nottingham and bought Part 1 of the Enemy Within campaign. I liked it. I have to run it. Usually with campaigns I have so little time I do a really detailed first part to the campaign and by the time ten to twenty weeks later the PCs have completed it I never have enough time to give Part 2 any justice due to terms, papers or an addiction to Sims 2/Knights of the Old Republic and so forth.

My "Crimson Ascendant" Greyhawk campaign was an example of this - Part 1 was tightly plotted up until the end of it, where it descended into a shambles. Part 2 was horrible and in the end I folded it after a session where I had a fight with a player (though everyone agrees he was asking for it, and he later apologised in what was that most humble apology I've ever seen). What really sunk it was when I realised I was rerunning portions an old, retired and frankly crap core Living Greyhawk module to buy me more time to prep a tightly plotted story.

The Enemy Within on the other hand is tightly plotted all the way through. And bits of it are by Carl Sargent, the patron saint of post-Ashes Greyhawk and dark gritty fantasy. It was voted best published campaign ever by the French, the first part reads like a Cthulu scenario. It was reprinted oodles of times. In short it looks like a lot of fun.

So in the space of two weeks I've found someone selling parts 2 and 3 along with a few other books. I bought them for about £12 a book, but bought about 8 books off him. Then I bought the sourcebook over Ebay for £20. Then about 5 mins I found the ever-so-rare, not really reprinted Part 5, The Empire in Flames for £25 and bought it right away. Naturally every stall at Gen Con UK this year will have it on sale for £15. :)

Annoyingly Part 5 was, when being reprinted, due for a complete rewrite as the original does not accord with established Warhammer canon (the Emperor dies and is replaced with a new one, but this ending is dropped as he wasn't inline with Games Workshop's epic hero who contributes to miniature sales) and it doesn't really wrap up the Enemy Within storylines at all. Unfortunately the reprint company folded and the author/CEO had lost all the data in a computer crash. But the original still sounds like a really good standalone adventure for ridiculously powerful PCs. Plus it was written by Carl Sargent so it can't be that terrible!

With me spending a ridiculous amount (£150) on WFRP stuff in the past 3 weeks (though to be honest that's only £50 per week of my self-made spending allowance and there's not a lot else I plan on spending my spare cash on at the moment). Usually I have problems dreaming up what to spend cash on.

Anyroads I need to find some victims to inflict this epic on. And I suppose I should buy Part 4 at some point, but it doesn't sound that impressive anyroads.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

btw... just to rub it all in, I am sitting next to a box full of the origional WHFRP supplements... I'm looking at teh origional Empire in flames box set, and the Enemy within book... Not to mention the chaos books (can't quite see the title on the spine and can't remember it off the top of my head)

Anonymous said...

Did you just say you 'have problems dreaming up what to spend cash on'?????????????


Please let me help, I have a natural talent for this.



... oh and 'Egor' if those fecking books that are cluttering up the study don't find a new home ASAP that's surely grounds for a divorce...

Stuart said...

I'll take 'em! Heh heh heh... everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.