My first thought is if Warhammer FRP, old-school D&D, and Call of Cthulhu produced a mutated spawn of Chaos this would be it. I had a feeling flipping through this book it almost defines a new genre, like how rock and roll came from blues, while staying true to the original source.
And they took special care here, as this game seems heavily playtested and poured over by those who love the genre. I can't speak to many balance issues at this point, but from the attention to detail and effort I just have this feeling care was taken by those who know the influences and those who want something that isn't broken.
And the book is over 600 pages huge. And it feels complete. A monster section 243 pages long. A full sample adventure. Hundreds of professions. Only 36 skills and 72 talents? Amazing. They kept control of the beast of complexity and splurged in the places where splurging is needed. A horn of plenty in choices, but a finely curated meal in places where complexity would mean too much choice and the death of the game.
And I see you, familiar but lovable OGR system reference document monsters of standard fantasy poking your head in and around here and there. The game mixes the best of Warhammer with the standard OGR tropes and standards? This is like getting everything for Christmas I swear, but I don't swear because this is Christmas so I just say, "Thank you, Santa."
A Story...
Back when my brother and I got heavily into tabletop miniatures, we were devout Advanced Heroquest players. We had two of the Heroquest board-games just for the extra minis. Our characters and stories were woven around a strange mix of D&D figures, Heroquest minis, Warhammer army figures bought as "new monsters" for our games, and all sorts of other random things even down to those plastic farm animals you buy in the buckets at toy stores.
The genesis of our heroic journey was in a strange world filled with everything, but still with the flavor and tone of the world rooted in a Warhammer-y grim and perilous reality. The adventures were crazy and mixed up, but the look was based on Warhammer with a mix of all of the greats from other games and worlds.
Open a door to a room and have a "eye tyrant" type beholder-like monster from D&D show up? Fine! Let's fight, roll initiative and let's hope it has some good treasure hidden in there if we survive. If this world is locked in the dark flows of chaos, that means anything can go, and warped, twisted versions of creatures from other imaginations and realities are fair game.
Our world was very much a bastardized Warhammer Plus and we loved the heck out of it. We never really had much lore, only playing in a place where two competing factions of a wizard named "King Midas" and a dastardly giant of a man "The Black Knight" waged an eternal war over the future of the realm. Both of them were corrupt and greedy to the core, with Midas playing lip service to the races and forces of good as much as the Black Knight pulled in dark elves and the races of evil to his side.
It was a simple setup and sort of an iconic battle of good and evil, where both good and evil were both evil but they at least tried to make an effort to put up a good appearance while they were stuffing their coffers under the table.
Fantasy Heartbreaker?
I see that term a lot in discussions about this game. As if being a game derivative of another is a bad thing. Every version of D&D starting at AD&D has been a fantasy heartbreaker then. Some versions of D&D also broke our hearts, in a manner of speaking, when they dropped support or expanded the game into players begging for a new edition to clean it all up. Again. D&D itself could also be described as a Tolkien, Leiber, and Lovecraftian fantasy heartbraker for that matter.
When does it just not matter what labels you use? I don't really like the term, and I have seen games come along, such as Cepheus Engine, and lay down an OGL interpretation of a rules set a lot better, cleaner, and not changed for the sake of sales and/or change. Versions of a beloved rule set that will now be around forever, just like Basic Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl Classics, or even Labyrinth Lord.
The only heartbreak I feel is not getting on the boat earlier with these games. Not that somehow they are lesser, because a lot of them are love letters to the way we used to play that is long gone and preserving that part of our history is an important part of the legacy and story of our hobby. Yes, in love letters there is heartbreak, but often that heartbreak can motivate us to find the next thing to love and to rebuild a better life and purpose.
So yeah, my heart was broken when they stopped supporting Gamma World. But these days, I have two games to replace what I lost - Mutant Crawl Classics and Mutant Future. Are they what I lost? No. Can I port that old stuff in easy? Yes. Does it matter they aren't Gamma World?
In some ways, they are better than what they replaced. Be careful of idolizing the past too much, because you can get stuck in it easily. Would I love a Zweihander version of Gamma World - like THIS Oh I would be on that like a Barl Nep to radioactive slime. And then I would have three games. I think I can find a way to deal with that heartbreak just fine, thank you, and in some ways, I appreciate the motivation to craft newer and better games.
And This Game is It
And now, the game and world we came up with in our heads has a set of rules inspired by the rules we used, with the "make your own world" and "use anything you want" feel to it all. And it is long. The art is serious and consistent. The books binding is incredibly professional - certainly to the level a collector's book would be printed and bound. Seriously, make a giant version with gold leaf pages, color plates, and metal parts on the cover that looks like a bible (and printed by a bible company) and I would buy that at three times the price. The book is drop-dead beautiful, especially if you get hit by it - it is that heavy.
It will take me months to read through and pour through this. It is like getting gifted a part of your past, one you forgot and put long away, and realizing what you once had was a part of the dreams and games of many others like you who you never knew.
Do I like this more than Warhammer 4th? That depends. Warhammer 4th is still missing a good deal of the content I already have in my collection of WH3 books, and I want to see more before I judge that game and give a final opinion. WH4 is pretty and laid out well, but it feels incomplete. This game is much more complete and the depth is there to dive into.
And this is without taking the Main Gauche supplement into consideration.
The bible comparison feels right. This game is such a love-letter to the genre it feels like a religion and not a game. But a game it is. I have a long, but wonderfully dark and exciting, road ahead of me reading this.
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