Warhammer SHOULD be hopeful

An answer to the recent "Can WFRP be hopeful" post on the Ill Met By Morrslieb blog.

Note: This text contains very minor spoilers for Death on the Reik, Drachenfels, Beasts in Velvet, Daemonslayer and possibly other stuff published several decades ago.

Note also: This is an opinion piece through and through, but I won't fill it with phrases like "in my opinion" and the like. I still respect your right to disagree with me even if I don't state it on every single line.

A few days ago, a post went up on the excellent Ill Met By Morrslieb blog called "Can WFRP be hopeful?". That essay considers the difference in tone between Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) first edition and that of later editions, observing that the tone itself has gotten grimmer and more hopeless, despite the main characters of the setting (namely Karl Franz) becoming a lot more heroic. The author ends with a statement that they prefer their Warhammer setting to have a bit of hope.

I welcome this sentiment, as it is something I've been thinking about with increasing frequency since I started playing WFRP almost 30 years ago. When I first started running WFRP, I had only the rulebook - and soon after the first few books of The Enemy Within campaign - to go by, as well as a little background in Heroquest and Advanced Heroquest. And soon after, some novels. And while the Warhammer (fantasy) World was obviously a dangerous place with a certain gritty realism and the great overhanging threat of Chaos - it never struck me as anything but hopeful.

Part of this was the humour. While WFRP could and should have its scary scary moments, it clearly did not take itself seriously all the time. The humour wasn't (always) dark or gallows humour either, it was lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek.

Another part was the way the setting had little pieces of hope placed all around. To me, the most important example is from Death on the Reik where you could find the following poem in one of the dreariest places the setting had to offer at the time:

And all those who venerate Chaos shall tremble and despair!

For when the Dwarfs return to Zaiyon and a twin-tailed comet fills the sky,

Though the Chaos gates be open - the mutant hordes shall die!

Amid a host of warring brothers, a standard is unfurled,

Rallying man and dwarf behind it, in the battle for the end of the world.

While I've heard it mocked for being over the top (and ripped straight from The Omen, but that kind of thing is Warhammer in a nutshell). But still, hearing that presented with conviction by one of my players  reading the handout has left me remembering it by heart to this day, some 25 or so years later. And if it was just the poem, that would have been one thing - but the adventure specifies that reading it aloud triggers what is basically direct communication with Sigmar. Short, to be sure, but still there.

Other examples of hope being present around the setting would be the miracle that allows Drachenfels to finally be defeated, Felix using the Hammer of Fate, the miracle of innocent blood that cured Wolf von Mecklenberg, the fact that Genevieve can still be good and live a good life with her lover despite being a vampire, and so on. (Ulrika, take notice!) The early setting was full of this kind of thing. Chaos could, and would, be defeated if good men and women would stand up to it. 

To me, that is what Warhammer fantasy was all about. The world is gritty and horrible, yes, but the problem isn't that Chaos is insurmountable. It isn't. If the free peoples of the world would see the danger and unite, it could perhaps even be conquered once and for all. The tragedy is that they probably won't, and that the world instead will hang on by a thread, saved time and time again by unlikely unsung heroes.

The essay on Ill met by Morrslieb says: "(...), I also assume that its ultimately fated to be consumed by Chaos. However my conception is that that eventual fate can be indefinitely postponed(...)". I like that, but I would go further: Chaos is not fated to win. It is a possibility. But it is not given. And I think that is important if we want the roleplaying game set in that setting to work for heroic roleplaying. And when I say "heroic" here, I don't mean over-the-top "Karl Franz on a griffon" heroic, I mean men and women sacrificing themselves for every little victory necessary for the greater good. That is why playing a rat catcher or labourer is fun (if you're not a masochist): Even if you die, you stood up for something, and helped along the ultimate victory of good. Maybe.

The End Times? Not destined to happen in my Warhammer world, just a possibility. Games workshop have retconned enough things (hello, Storm of Chaos) that it is almost "canon" that this worlds development and fate isn't set in stone.

In later editions of WFRP, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and other Warhammer fantasy products, the companies publishing Warhammer fantasy seemed to try to have the setting emulate Warhammer 40k, the much better selling sci-fi variant, which is much darker and much more hopeless. I think in the process the Warhammer World lost a lot of the hope, humour and humanity that made it interesting in the first place. I strongly believe that was a mistake.

With the advent of The Old World Roleplaying Game, and Cubicle 7 choosing to focus on the world as grim and glorious instead of grim and perilous - I hope and think we have a chance to take a different route with Warhammer fantasy. A slim chance, at least in official material, but still a chance.

In my games, of either WFRP or TOWR, the future will not be set in stone. In TOWR, even the events of the Great War Against Chaos might not happen the way the "official" lore says it will - or maybe not at all. Magnus the Pious might be a puppet, the real heroes an unlikely group of 4 to 6 rat catchers and their small but vicious dogs. Or perhaps another group of adventurers manage to free Arianka from her coffin during the Siege of Praag, stopping the invasion in its tracks and giving the world a whole new set of problems.

Your games don't have to be that level of world-changingly heroic. But they should have the potential to be. There should be that hope, that if you endure and persevere, if you're just a little bit lucky... The world can change in meaningful and permanent ways. And as Game Masters, we should be prepared to show that in our games.

A future set in stone just isn't interesting. And a world without hope isn't worth trying to save. Maybe that is why many people dislike the abstract money system of The Old World RPG: I've seen people annoyed that it makes it hard to give out meaningful monetary rewards. I don't see the need, and that may be because I tend to assume fighting evil is its own motivation - and that usually works, because there is hope that it might succeed. But if you tend to portray the world without hope, it doesn't work.

Warhammer should be a hopeful setting. It used to be. It was more fun that way, and I dare say more realistic. And it can be again. Players should still be playing ordinary people, struggling uphill against a nearly insurmountable enemy - but if they endure, their actions should matter. Truly matter. 

The Chaos gates will be closed. Eventually. If good men and women do not choose to do nothing. If they offer their blood, sweat and tears on the beaches, in fields, in streets and on the hills. If they cling to that dream, and face evil wherever it dares show its face.

PS: Whatever else, I think the Warhammer world I envision here and the stories that could be told in it is what the real world needs right now. I won't go into details this time, but another thing Warhammer used to be was political. Its probably too much to hope for that a hopeful AND political Warhammer could return - and I guess I should be careful what I wish for in any case. For now, lets bring back hope.