Making checks in the original Warhammer RPG from 1983

 

Warhammer roleplay predates the first edition of WFRP, as the original Warhammer game contained full rules for playing roleplaying games as well as the tabletop battle rules it is more famous for. In this blog post we'll look at how checks or tests of your characteristics for non-combat purposes worked in that game from 1983.

(Note: This is the third post in my series on Warhammer: The Mass Combat Fantasy Role-playing Game. You can read the first one here, which will be updated with links to all successive posts on the same topic: https://gloriousportents.blogspot.com/2026/10/warhammer-roleplaying-in-1983.html )

In typical modern role-playing games, when something is on the line and a characters abilities can make a difference, you make a test or check - a roll against a number calculated from the characters attributes and skills.

Now, WMCFRP certainly isn't modern, and probably isn't typical either. But checks still play a big role in how this game plays out, as we see both in the main rules and in examples from the Citadel Compendium.

Checks in the main rules

The Game Master is supposed to call for checks to resolve various stuff such as social interaction, using the Personal Characteristics of a character, which are Social status, Age, Sex, Intelligence, Cool, Willpower and Leadership. The GM is supposed to "use these as a guide to play". A single example is given, a player character trying to bluff a guardsman. The GM lays out a rough chance of success, 75% in the example, then modify this according to personal characteristics - the one suggested for a bluff being Cool - but exactly how the modification works is left to the GM, the rules simply say he should lower the chance for a low Cool score or increase it for a high one. And since all personal characteristics seem to be eligible for this kind of test, the GM is free to base his modifications on Social Status, Age or Sex as much as the four more "gamified attributes Intelligence, Cool, Willpower and Leadership.

Once a probability is set, the player rolls percentile dice and attempts to get lower than or equal to the number set.

That seems extremely bare-bones for a roleplaying game, and it is - but we do have a bit more to go on. However, first, note that the game never suggests that Fighting characteristics are used in the same way. The fighting characteristics are Number-of-Attacks, Number-of-Wounds, Initiative, Weaponskill, Bowskill, Strength, Toughness and Move. Luckily, the game specifically allows the GM to make his own rules, so using Strength to test for opening a stuck door or Move to resolve a chase seem reasonable, even if it is not mentioned exactly.

In general, this very first edition of Warhammer does expect you to do a lot of heavy lifting yourself both in the combat rules and the roleplaying rules. Which is perhaps not what a modern gamer is used to, but it is certainly a viable way to play, as long as the GM is honest and fairly transparent.

More specific checks in the main rules

The main rules do of course include a lot of rolls that have specific rules. Anything related to combat is fairly well catered for (at least in the 3rd reprint, which I'm looking at), including knocking out opponents, called shots to do lethal damage in one blow even to large creatures, blocking, etc. These work in various ways, but usually by looking up your characteristic in a table, and getting a target number to roll equal to or higher than on a D6.

Various psychology rules, such as fear, terror and stupidity, are also covered in the main rules. Interrestingly enough, these usually just involve rolling on a table. Sometimes a high personal (or combat) characteristic can give a bonus (or straight up immunity), but the test is not based on the characteristic. This is most likely designed for speed of play when playing out mass combat, where you don't have to remember various troops personal characteristics. I like that philosophy for a roleplaying game as well. A player character casts a spell to cause fear? Great that I don't have to look up every enemy types bravery score (whatever that might be), but just have a general rule to apply!

Examples of checks from the main rules and the Citadel Compendium

That a GM is supposed to make his own more specific systems and rulings becomes extremely clear when you read the Citadel Compendium, in which the designers share various rules they've come up with to handle some different things. They also go into a bit more detail about what Intelligence, Cool, Willpower and Leadership are actually meant to represent, which is quite vague in the main rules.

Intelligence never gets a definition, in the main rules or the compendium. Presumably the designers thought its meaning self-evident. Humans have D10 Int, Elves 2d6+2 and Dwarves 2d4+4. A score of 1 means you are subject to the Stupidity rules (a random chance of basically forgetting where you are and what you are doing, possibly even attacking friends in a fight). A score of 5 or more means you have the mental capacity to be a wizard. The Compendium further suggests that you subtract your Intelligence score from the chance of someone rolling to bluff or persuade you, and that a high or low intelligence score can influence XP gain. The only example given anywhere of an intelligence test is in the Compendium when finding a Science-Fiction Artifact. In such a case, the player rolls percentile dice against a target number equal to 10 times their intelligence score (so 60% for intelligence 6), to understand how the artifact works and being able to use it.

Cool determines a characters temperament and ability to keep himself under control in stressful situations. Humans and Elves have 2d6, Dwarves have 2d6-2. Having Cool 2 or less means a character is subject to the frenzy rules. A Cool score of 11+ means total immunity to frenzy. A Cool score of 12 (or presumably more?) means you are immune to fear, terror and mind control. Cool is tested in several places - including the only example in the main rulebook that we mentioned before. The compendium suggests an alternative rule to that exmaple, and says that the base chance of bluffing or persuading is 8 times Cool, then modified by the characteristics of your target - in the case of persuasion for instance, you subtract your targets Int, Cool and Willpower. It should be noted that this gives a much lower chance of success than the main rulebook suggests - down from 75% to less than 56% for an average character. It is interesting that Cool is both the "bravery" characteristic but also the most important social characteristic judging by the examples.

Will Power reflects a characters personal determination and self possession. Humans have d10, elves 2d6 and dwarves 2d6+4. In the main rules, willpower is used to determine how many spells a wizard can cast, as well as for characters trying to find work: Add Cool and Will power together and use that as the % chance to find work. Finally, you get a save against magic if your Will Power is 10+. If you are a dwarf, a WP of 10+ means you cannot be a wizard - but if you are a dwarf with a WP of 16+ you are immune to magic (including causing your own magic items to fail) and cause fear in wizards. The Compendium goes on to use Will Power as a partial opposition to cool for social tests.

Leadership represents the ability to lead and organize other people. It is clearly on a different scale than the others, with all races starting with D6/2 rounded down - for a value from 0 to 3. Characters with high social status add bonuses, 2 at most. There are no examples of Leadership being tested, even in the compendium you simply use a high leadership score to get a bonus against fear, terror and morale when leading troops, and a high score may mean you can persuade troops to ignore their feelings of hatred towards an enemy. There is also an interesting rule that if you do not accept a challenge to personal combat, your Ld is reduced to 1 vs the troops you are currently leading.

My thoughts

This aspect of Warhammer as a roleplaying game clearly isn't entirely thought out, and if you look at the first edition of WFRP released 3 years later, you will see that they were still in the habit of calculating test probabilities in many different ways. That's not really a big problem, a GM will just have to experiment and find their own way of doing things.

The big weakness of these rules as I see them is that the various attributes aren't well defined, and may seem to overlap. In particular, Cool clearly being the social characteristic isn't intuitive for me when Leadership exists, and while Cool does make sense for bravery - Will Power would also have made sense for me. But from the examples, especially when you include the various articles and answers Citadel Compendium, it is very clear that the designers consider Cool to be the right option for any social interplay not related to leading and organizing others, and Cool for remaining calm in the face of emotions.

If I were to run this game, I would look at the main rules for how to run tests: Set a difficulty, then modify it by score. Setting a base probability of 75% for a "normal" test is in line with probabilities that I find interresting in games. And with scores varying so wildly, multiplying to get a percentile doesn't seem like a good idea - the Cool times 8 rule suggested by the Compendium gives starting characters a range from 16% to 128% chance of success.

Instead, I'd rule that a Very Easy test is 80% base, Easy is 70%, Normal is 60%, Hard is 50% and Very hard is 40%. Then I would simply add whichever of Intelligence, Cool or Will Power seems correct based on my interpretation of what each stat is for (Intelligence for understanding things, Cool for staying calm or being social, Will Power to deal with magic). If the test is opposed (such as persuasion), the opposing relevant attribute is subtracted from the chance.

This means that a normal test would range from 60% for a character with the minimum value (dwarf Cool), to 72% for the maximum (dwarf willpower), which seems adequate to me.

I would avoid testing leadership in this way in most cases, but if I had to I would triple its score for this purpose. It is on a 0 to 5 scale, while the other attributes are more in line, collectively mapping to a 0-16 scale. Multiplying the 0 to 5 by 3 gives a similar effect on tests.

Strength and Initiative are the two physical characteristics I could see being sensible for tests - Strength for physical power, Initiative for agility and reaction times. 

Strength is on a 1-6 scale, but only Balrogs and Dragons have a 6 - so multiplying by 3 for tests for tests like Leadership seems fine. Though admittedly, its not very exiting to test this, as all player characters are hard-coded to have a value of either 2 or 3. Perhaps Strength Grade is better left as a "are you strong enough" threshold, where you have to have a certain Strength Grade to test at all, then testing Will Power to see if you can grit your teeth together enough to push beyond your normal limits.

Initiative is all over the place, generally a 1-10 scale in the game - but Elves have a theoretical maximum of 24 as player characters. Very theoretical - they roll d4+3 to start, then can improve it up to 6 times using XP - so 12 seems a more likely threshold. For most characters it seems it will fall on a 1-7 scale, so I'd multiply this by 2 for tests using the above system.

Conclusions

While playable with a lot of interpretation and adaption, the system for ad-hoc checks and tests in Warhammer MCRPG is not very good, mostly because of the poorly defined nature of the personal characteristics, and the lack of a common scale between them.