Beautiful layout, very nice full-color presentation, consistent artwork, iconography that reminds me of 3rd Edition (oookaaay), and an end to the book that feels rushed and jammed in there.
Only 36 pages of monsters? No meaty treasures and magic items section? I know, pages of magic items aren't in this game nor Zweihander, but the latter game has 243 pages of monsters in its bestiary. Warhammer's color monster illustrations are really nice, but I get this feeling the book ran out of pages and I am waiting for the expansion that fills the rest in.
Some have commented on the illustrations being changed for inclusiveness, and I think that is sort of a non-argument. Some of them are downright silly (with scrolls on top of hats), and Warhammer has always had that element of parody and Monty Python humor going on so you could see this is as commentary of the same D&D-style over-the-top fantasy tropes and be right at home. "Excuse me sir, why is there a scroll on top of your hat?" Not that the more inclusive notions should be played for laughs, because everyone should be able to play, but there is a right way to do this that I feel is a huge lost opportunity.
Change the World
What bothers me with the notion of inclusiveness is that they added those cultures into the existing world and didn't take a chance to expand the world's lore. What I would have given for this world to change, for a large Asian-themed trading company to take a part of the old world, for wealthy nations from African-like nations to arrive on the shores, a Hispanic-themed trading nation, and the melting pot to happen and we get all sorts of interesting things going on.
And don't make those perfect Mary Sue cultures, give them just as many problems with corruption and natural enemies that they are thematically interesting to play in all by themselves - I should not have to show up to The Empire to have fun. Let me play in these places and have the Warhammer experience. Create a new melting pot area, a new faction with serious troubles, where everyone is better together - but with deeper problems threatening what could be a better future. Make some of the Old World factions new bad guys who resist the new ways.
Change things. Advance history.
I know...heresy! Change nothing! But...this is a RPG. Take advantage of that. Craft a world that sings to those wanting to jump in. Give them interesting places to start, and let them enter the world.
Myself? Count me in with the heretics. I would love for this world to change, for new cultures to arrive and be fun to play in, and for the inclusiveness to feel like a natural progression of the world. This way, you can have a mix of all sorts of backgrounds in the existing classes, and you get that dramatic flourish of the world growing, coming together, and battling its demons together.
Let people play in this moment where the world changes.
Setup a conflict between the old ways and the new, and leave it for the players to resolve.
Even if this had to be an alternate timeline, I feel the entire game could have been taken in a new and exciting direction, possibly with reexamining some of the traditional Warhammer backgrounds (dark elves, dwarves, etc) and giving them nuance and internal conflicts that would make the game even more compelling while increasing the inclusive factor for everybody.
It Doesn't Feel all There
To me, the game looks cool, but it feels cut short and I feels misses a huge chance to take things in a new direction that would make for some compelling stories and fascinating RP in that universe. I feel it sticks to tradition and "what's safe" just a little too closely, and gets confused as it tries to paint the old world with a new set of paints when it could expand the canvas and create drama and history.
And then I feel the book abruptly stops and I want more. It falls off a cliff. Parts feel missing. I want the rest of this book. I want the other iconic races from the wargame. I want relics and artifacts. I want some of the fun from Mordheim and Advanced Heroquest. I want a big book of Chaos. It does not feel complete as it is, sadly.
Yes, I could do an updated world in other dark fantasy games, but for a new edition of a favorite universe, I would have loved to see things shaken up a little more and getting people talking. I would have loved the game world to expand a little to increase diversity in a way that mirrors history, but in a way is a very cool Warhammer take on a changing world.
More soon on this, but these are my initial feelings after giving the book a flip through.
Oh, and my book has an odd issue with the pages being warped some and sticking together as I flip them. Not ink-sticking, but just like the entire block of paper was cut strange and now wants to move as one huge brick of wood fiber. Odd. My book is cursed by Chaos.
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