Zweihänder: Better for Me

I love the Warhammer world, the RPG is good, but the collector's market has ruined the game. I recently learned some of the books for WHFRP are out of print for good. I missed my chance. The Warhammer books are excellent, collector's items, and beautiful works of art. But that is their problem.

The game is good, but the books have this collector's mentality. Like Traveller, the library is vast and high-quality, but its usability suffers. Sometimes a game can be too big and too much, and I feel that collector's urge coming on. I know I should stop.

So I will.

This is where the more open-license, community-focused games will always win. Zweihänder wins this battle since the game is an open community, meant to be played instead of collected, and its adventures will always be in print for people to enjoy. This is not sour grapes. All these "collectors' games" will be out of print someday when the investment starts trailing off. Also, what good are they if the license changes? Sure, collectors will have games, but the average person won't. Will you find anyone to play with 10 to 20 years from now?

Community games?

They stay in print forever. I can still get a hardcover of Labyrinth Lord, 16 years after it first hit the store. I know the print copies of Zweihänder first edition have stopped being produced, but the revised edition is coming. I doubt this game will ever go out of print, and it (or games like it) will always be in POD.

Games with open licenses will always win out. Just give them time.

Zweihänder is a complete game. Even with the reloaded edition coming out, the game is complete without collecting a shelf full of books. I am not in the collector's market. The game is what it is, and it is more my creativity and the community's than a licensee's. Lots of creative people publish for this game. That is a good thing.

Another reason I like Zweihänder is the corruption system and the fact that it feels normal. This nicely sets up the horror aspect of the game. With Warhammer, I think the world is filled with 3,000-point armies of dark elves and chaos lords, and it is far too high in magic and fantastical to have a feeling of dread and horror. The corruption system in Zweihänder is less "wow tentacles" and more subtle, tied to character morals and actions.

For slow corruption and horror forced upon actions the characters do not want to take, but have to, Zweihänder does a better job telling those stories.

Spiritually, the game reminds me of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and I am drawn to the entire "terror upon the exploiters of the new land" horror genre. Having ships of explorers and colonists show up in "lands that never were" and trying to settle in nightmare-filled lands is an underserved horror genre.

This is a good genre and niche to be in, and gaming woefully underserves this era. Lamentations proves there is an audience, and when that game focuses more on colonial horror, it shines brightly. Tall ships coming to a new world nobody understands, and that may never be on a map, is a mixture of Call of Cthulhu and D&D, along with the feeling of original sin of being those who take, pillage, burn, and loot lands that should never be ventured to.

And I like creating my own world. Despite how rich and detailed Warhammer is, I would rather create my own things.