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my Within Campaign» Forums » GeneralSubject: What makes this campaign so great? rssNew Thread Printer Friendly Subscribe sub options Bookmark Thread RollsYour Tags: Add tagsPopular Tags: [View All]Chris Talbot(ctalbot)

flag msg tools badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbOkay, I'll admit it; I've never played Warhammer FRP, and before I started to see mention of it here on RPGG, I had never even heard of The Enemy Within Campaign.

I'm curious what makes this campaign so great and so well thought of. What makes it so great? Can someone provide a brief synopsis or give me an idea of what the gist of the campaign is?

Chris9 Thumb up0.50 tip Hide Posted Sun Feb 27, 2011 8:22 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteJames Read(certain death)flag msg tools badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbHi Chris,

It's nearly twenty years since we last played the Enemy Within (TEW), but my gro

up (still playing D&D 3.5) have fond memories and I don't believe it is rose tinted spectacles.

Firstly the Warhammer world was very strong. The mass of background material gives a real depth, plus the low fantasy, high realism made this something out of the ordinary. Having played a number of games since I'm sure this is not the unique feature it once was, but is certainly a credit to the games designers at thetime.

As for TEW itself it benefits, as all good campaigns do, from a strong over arching story, from the outset of Boganhafen you get a real impression of somethingbuilding. I've played the campaign as both GM and PC; the one giving out little

bits of information the later trying to piece it together for the final show down.

That said each separate adventure is genuinely good in its own right. The adventures are very well written, they offer really good character interaction with the NPCs - in the main there are no dungeons or dragons! What I'm trying to say is that these are not 'hack-and-slash' - find the hook, kill the bad guy, save the princess, get the treasure scenarios. The PCs must think about the evidence infront of them and piece it together.

This can be done with varying degrees of success by the PCs, during our visit to Middenheim the bad guy completely got away and wrecked major parts of the city- this added a whole side scenario to the campaign for us! I shall say no more o

n this so as not to spoil the adventure!

The depth of the NPCs is fascinating - there is a real ambiguity for some of the


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NPCs as to whose side they are on - this is especially true of Middenheim, which means there's no simple 'he's evil, he must be the bad guy'.

As the campaign progresses the PCs become involved in the politics of the land,again presenting really good roleplay opportunities.

Of course there is magic, chaos beasties and bad guys to defeat, but it is well

tempered by the character interaction, creating to my mind an excellent balanceof roleplaying and 'roll' playing.

Finally I just cannot reiterate how well written this stuff was. We don't play published stuff anymore, but at the time these adventures were way beyond anything else being churned out by other roleplaying houses.

I can thoroghly recommend TEW, but as with all ropleplaying games they are brought to life by the GM and PCs so make sure you pull together people who will be interested in interactive roleplaying, puzzle solving and potentially failure!

Enjoy

24 Thumb up1.00 tip HideLast edited Mon Feb 28, 2011 4:32 pm (Total Number of Edits: 1) Posted Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:27 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteMatthew Taylor(Mathew Taylor)flag msg tools badge Avatar mbmbmbI'll echo James comments above.

I'll add that this campaign is vast in its scope. A few years ago we managed to

play through the first three installments of the campaign.

It took us two years or so, because we were playing the sort of campaign that focussed on the little details - buying supplies, deciding who stood watch when etc. you don't have to draw things out like this... but its easy to do.

We started with characters who were (mostly) wide eyed and wet behind the ears.By the end we were hardened by our experiences, verging on the fanatcial... with a frightening "the ends justify the means" streak. One character retired - because "he'd seen more than he wanted to, lost too many friends"

Over the cause of the campaign we were adventurers, pirates, traders, investigators and crusaders. I am sure that other groups would have completely different experiences.

My point with these last 2 paragraphs is that the excellent story arc really shapes your characters. The events and scenarios are meaningful, they have an impact on your characters. The end result is that the enemy within creates atmosphere and drama in a way that many other campaigns don't.18 Thumb up1.00 tip Hide Posted Mon Feb 28, 2011 1:36 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteChris Talbot(ctalbot)flag msg tools

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Thanks for the comments, guys. It does sound like a good campaign, so I may have to look into it and WFRP more.

Chris3 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Mon Mar 7, 2011 2:03 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply Quote

William Hostman(aramis)flag msg toolsdesigner badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbI see three main reasons it's so well regarded:

1) Immersive.2) Supplement & adventure mode3) not tightly constraining of player action

It drops you in the old world, and gives you LOTS of additional details not in the core rulebooks. So, even if you never run it, it adds to your WFRP campaignsjust by reading it.

For examples, it adds trade rules for river trade (death on the Reik), the calendar and lunar cycles, and additional7 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Mon Mar 7, 2011 9:20 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteMartijn Vos(mcvos)flag msg tools

mbmbmbmbmbTEW is in many ways a brilliant campaign, but it's by no means perfect. There are many situations where players are expected to make certain leaps in order to stay on the plot, especially around Death On The Reik, and it may require some railroading at times. And then there's the absolutely magnificent Power Behind The Throne, that's basically a huge sandbox, so vast in scope, that it's practically un-GM-able. But if done right, by a good GM and cooperative players, it has no equal.

Another thing to keep in mind in that it's a campaign from the 1980s. Most campaigns at that time were just stupid railroaded excuses for some dungeon crawlingand hack-&-slashing. TEW was completely different.

For one: it's not about combat. Of course, some bits are about combat, especially the final confrontations, but for the most part, you're slowly uncovering some deep secrets and hidden conspiracies. There's some real, puzzling mysteries that are fundamental parts of the story. The story itself is mostly about various levels of a couple of big conspiracies, but their role in the story changes depending on pacing, scene, etc. Sometimes the conspirators are bumbling idiots whose main role is to amuse, mystify and drop some unsubtle hints to the players that something's going on, yet at other times they're masters of deception that hold the fate of the Empire in their hands. And somehow this works very well.

But when you play it, the main thing you notice are the strong atmosphere, the iconic scenes, the detail, the character, the characters. From lone inns in the w

oods, isolated castles full of freaks, greedy merchants delving into secrets man was not meant to know, dark ceremonies, hidden secrets, corrupt nobles, TEW has it all. It steals all the good bits from Lovecraft and Gormenghast and free mas


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onry/illuminati, and it presents a very compelling, dark, corrupt, renaissance world.

Whenever somebody says that the WFRP setting is so excellent, what they really mean is that The Enemy Within setting is so excellent, because this is really the campaign that defined the setting WFRP (most of which was subsequently retconned away because WFRP had to be more like WFB's lame high fantasy, but that's anot

her story).

Though really: stop after Power Behind The Throne; Something Rotten In Kislev is really a completely different story. A completely different kind of story. Also it will kill the entire party. As for Empire In Flames/Chaos/Whatever, there'snot really a good satisfying end to it all.10 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Mon Mar 7, 2011 10:01 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteSven(Tanakor)flag msg tools

badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbaramis wrote:3) not tightly constraining of player action

This especially. If you want to see, how not to railroad an adventure and stillkeep players focused and interested, then look at TeW.Depending on how tight he wants to run this, the GM can still add a layer railroading to keep things going in the right direction - but the adventure itself does not do this and such leaves the choice to the GM.

One thing I absolutly loved as a player, was how the PCs get a river-ship at one

part of the adventure and are free to do with it whatever they want. I am surequite a few groups opted to abandon it as soon as possible but we tried our hand at trading on the Rive Reik, fitted her out as a smuggling-vessel (Milenium Falcon-style ) and went to great lengths to acquire the skills that allowed us to operate it effectively. All this activity added very little to the goals of the campaign but it kept us busy for quite some time.6 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011 12:16 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteJim Patching(panzer-attack)flag msg tools badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbIf you've never played WFRP you should give it a go, it's great!

Having said that, I don't think The Enemy Within is the masterpiece that it's often cited to be. I should say I haven't played or read all of it (never read Power Behind the Throne which, it seems, is the best bit) but the bits I have reador played through, whilst good, weren't really jaw dropping. This might be heresy to long time WFRP players, but my group actually had more fun playing throughthe 2nd Edition Paths of the Damned Campaign than we did with Shadows Over Bogenhafen.

But then, as someone else said, the campaign probably was quite revolutionary when it first came out.3 Thumb up tip Hide


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Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011 12:39 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteMartijn Vos(mcvos)flag msg toolsmbmbmbmbmbTanakor wrote:

If you want to see, how not to railroad an adventure and still keep players focused and interested, then look at TeW.Depending on how tight he wants to run this, the GM can still add a layer railroading to keep things going in the right direction - but the adventure itself does not do this and such leaves the choice to the GM.

The adventure doesn't railroad you, but if the adventures choose not to follow the leads (or fail to recognise them, which is a very real risk with more casualgroups), then they will basically drop out of the adventure.

I suspect that more modern sandbox-style campaigns (I haven't read Earthdawn's Prelude To War nor the Savage Worlds Plot Point Campaigns, but they sound like th

is is what they are) will deal with this much better, but in TEW I guess it's also possible to get the group back on track again.

Note that one player in my group did accuse me of railroading upon their arrival in Bogenhafen, because he didn't get the big inheritance he expected.

On the whole, within each adventure (Bogenhafen, Death on the Reik, and Power Behind The Throne especially), the players get a complete free rein to do what they like. Events unfold, they run into people, sometimes somebody comes looking for them, but they're generally not forced into any particular direction. This does mean that, especially in Death On The Reik, that they can miss/skip some really cool parts, because they don't understand the clues that they find. (My groupwasn't terribly good at sharing information with each other, which really hurt t

heir experience.) It is usually possible to pick up the scent, but it's not always easy, and may require quite a bit of improv from the GM. Then again, this being such a free and sandboxy adventure, you're bound to have to improvise quite a lot anyway. (We had a great time when the group visited the University of Altdorf! Heavily inspired by the Unseen University. I think they were investigating the Red Crown a bit more than I expected.)

Quote:One thing I absolutly loved as a player, was how the PCs get a river-ship at one part of the adventure and are free to do with it whatever they want. I am surequite a few groups opted to abandon it as soon as possible but we tried our hand at trading on the Rive Reik, fitted her out as a smuggling-vessel (Milenium Falcon-style ) and went to great lengths to acquire the skills that allowed us to operate it effectively. All this activity added very little to the goals of the campaign but it kept us busy for quite some time.

Can be awesome, can also be a big distraction. For us, it led to a lot of bookkeeping. My advice is not to use the trading rules, but just improvise it a bit. Unless your players love that kind of bookkeeping. Don't force it on them.6 Thumb up tip HideLast edited Tue Mar 8, 2011 5:07 pm (Total Number of Edits: 2) Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011 4:58 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteMartijn Vos(mcvos)

flag msg toolsmbmbmbmbmbpanzer-attack wrote:


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But then, as someone else said, the campaign probably was quite revolutionary when it first came out.

The awesomeness of TEW is partly that: it was revolutionary for its time. Another big part is that it was the campaign that really brought the WFRP world alive. It had a huge impact on the development of WFRP and WFB (it was the first timethe Chaos Gods got some detail, and see if you can find the basic chaos daemonsin the basic rolebook; they're not there), although WFB later retconned a lot of cool TEW stuff away again. Many old fans still consider TEW the ultimate WFRP canon, overriding any basic book, no matter what edition.

And of course there was the atmosphere. Of course every later WFRP adventure tried to copy that, and I'd say some of them succeeded. Some WFRP3 adventures lookvery promising indeed.3 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011 5:04 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteWilliam Hostman(aramis)flag msg toolsdesigner badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmb

panzer-attack wrote:If you've never played WFRP you should give it a go, it's great!



Of the Warhammer published adventures, TEW was hands down the best. No offense,Jim, but it was, for its era, utterly awesome, and it's still very good. At least when run under WFRP 1E.

I'll concede, however, that it can fall flat. I've only gotten one of the several tries up to SRIK. I'll also note that the revisions by Hog's Head were not well received, and trying to play it under 2nd ed results in a very different feel, as 2E characters are much differently abled from 1E; better at their specialties, but FAR less broadly capable overall.5 Thumb up tip Hide

Last edited Tue Mar 8, 2011 6:09 pm (Total Number of Edits: 1) Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011 6:08 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply Quote


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Jim Patching(panzer-attack)flag msg tools badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbaramis wrote:

panzer-attack wrote:If you've never played WFRP you should give it a go, it's great!


But then, as someone else said, the campaign probably was quite revolutionary wh

en it first came out.


I'll concede, however, that it can fall flat. I've only gotten one of the several tries up to SRIK. I'll also note that the revisions by Hog's Head were not well received, and trying to play it under 2nd ed results in a very different feel, as 2E characters are much differently abled from 1E; better at their specialties, but FAR less broadly capable overall.

Did the Hogs Head edition change much from the original edition? The only TEW book I actually own is the Mistaken Identity/Shadows Over Bogenhafen Hogs Head bundle.1 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Wed Mar 9, 2011 12:45 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteWilliam Hostman(aramis)flag msg toolsdesigner badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbpanzer-attack wrote:aramis wrote:panzer-attack wrote:If you've never played WFRP you should give it a go, it's great!

Having said that, I don't think The Enemy Within is the masterpiece that it's often cited to be. I should say I haven't played or read all of it (never read Power Behind the Throne which, it seems, is the best bit) but the bits I have reador played through, whilst good, weren't really jaw dropping. This might be heresy to long time WFRP players, but my group actually had more fun playing throughthe 2nd Edition Paths of the Damned Campaign than we did with Shadows Over Bogen

hafen.

But then, as someone else said, the campaign probably was quite revolutionary wh


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en it first came out.



Did the Hogs Head edition change much from the original edition? The only TEW book I actually own is the Mistaken Identity/Shadows Over Bogenhafen Hogs Head bundle.

A number of small things. A buddy of mine worked through and found a dozen small changes. I bought the GW bundled set, so I never examined them in detail. But there was a lot of complaining when the HHP versions came out.

Also, as I said, but it's worth saying again: 2nd Ed WFRP is mechanically different enough to break the adventures due to the lack of capability of the PC's. Trying to run TEW under 2nd ed, you lack the wide range of capability that you had under 1e, since 2E assigns a x1/2 penalty for not being skilled, while 1e simply grants a +10 or +20 for having skill. This broke TEW badly, because TEW relies upon characters being broadly competent.

2 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Wed Mar 9, 2011 5:56 pm

QuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteSven(Tanakor)flag msg tools badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbaramis wrote:and trying to play it under 2nd ed results in a very different feel, as 2E characters are much differently abled from 1E;

Speaking of which...has anybody put some serious thought into running TEW under3rd Edition?I kind of feel like inflicting this campaign on my group (who never or only partially played TEW before) but I also would love to try the new edition.3 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:09 amQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteJens Melinder(gruntl)flag msg tools badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbThere's been a number of posts about converting TEW to WFRP3e on the FFG forums,

but I haven't seen any finished documents (which may be impossible to share inany case, given GW's stance on copyright issues).


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I haven't really played WFRP 2ed so I wouldn't know about how TEW works in that. But if, as aramis points out, the lack of success/broad competence in 2ed is aproblem I suspect that it may be better played in 3e, though of course a lot more conversion will be needed. The actor-centric ideas (and dice system) in 3e means that a character is a lot more likely to succeed any given task, but it willlikely be success with some drawbacks if not skilled. A conversion should also try and incorporate the novelties in 3e, such as using the progress track and inv

enting specialized actions for some of the NPCs.

1 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Thu Mar 10, 2011 9:10 amQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteJim Patching(panzer-attack)flag msg tools badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbaramis wrote:

panzer-attack wrote:aramis wrote:panzer-attack wrote:If you've never played WFRP you should give it a go, it's great!






A number of small things. A buddy of mine worked through and found a dozen small changes. I bought the GW bundled set, so I never examined them in detail. But there was a lot of complaining when the HHP versions came out.

Also, as I said, but it's worth saying again: 2nd Ed WFRP is mechanically differ

ent enough to break the adventures due to the lack of capability of the PC's. Trying to run TEW under 2nd ed, you lack the wide range of capability that you had under 1e, since 2E assigns a x1/2 penalty for not being skilled, while 1e simpl


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y grants a +10 or +20 for having skill. This broke TEW badly, because TEW relies upon characters being broadly competent.

When I ran Shadows Over Bogenhafen I used the 1st Ed rules. I thought it was a good scenario and I loved the feel of it all and the background info. The adventu

re itself just seemed to involve a load of floundering around for my group though. It wasn't bad enough that it ruined the game for us, we all had fun. I guessit's because The Enemy Within campaign has such a lofty reputation I was left afterwards with very much a "is that it?" feeling. If I'd run the scenarion knowing nothing of how well thought of it is I may well have appreciated it more.2 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Thu Mar 10, 2011 10:21 amQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteWilliam Hostman(aramis)flag msg toolsdesigner

badge Avatar mbmbmbmbmbpanzer-attack wrote:

When I ran Shadows Over Bogenhafen I used the 1st Ed rules. I thought it was a good scenario and I loved the feel of it all and the background info. The adventure itself just seemed to involve a load of floundering around for my group though. It wasn't bad enough that it ruined the game for us, we all had fun. I guessit's because The Enemy Within campaign has such a lofty reputation I was left afterwards with very much a "is that it?" feeling. If I'd run the scenarion knowin

g nothing of how well thought of it is I may well have appreciated it more.

Ah... In other words, you played only the introduction.

As I said before, I bought the shrinkwrapped bundle... I read on before ever running Shadows, and knew what was important as a GM for later. About 3/4 of Shadows is hooks to be picked up in later modules. It's arguably the second worst of the line. Further, it's supposed to start in media res, which is a grand slam railroad from hell, but that railroad at the start, done right, and fudging to getthem the letter, pulls them on into the rest. Mistaken Identity is both a lure,and a cattle-prod.5 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Thu Mar 10, 2011 10:35 amQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteMartijn Vos(mcvos)flag msg toolsmbmbmbmbmbaramis wrote:panzer-attack wrote:


A number of small things. A buddy of mine worked through and found a dozen small


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changes. I bought the GW bundled set, so I never examined them in detail. But there was a lot of complaining when the HHP versions came out.

I'd love to see a list. I know only the obvious ones: bundling TEW/Mistaken Identity with Shadows over Boegenhafen, en the extra bits between DotR and PbtT. And of course the infamous lost Empire In Flames/Chaos rewrite.

Quote:Also, as I said, but it's worth saying again: 2nd Ed WFRP is mechanically different enough to break the adventures due to the lack of capability of the PC's.

Note that Hogshead has nothing to do with the 2nd edition. He just republished the 1st edition and some new stuff.1 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Fri Mar 11, 2011 1:43 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply QuoteMartijn Vos(mcvos)flag msg tools

mbmbmbmbmbaramis wrote:About 3/4 of Shadows is hooks to be picked up in later modules. It's arguably the second worst of the line.

The second worst? Shadows over Bogenhafen is excellent. Yes, it's the start of the campaign and especially Mistaken Identity (which was originally separate) mostly sets up hooks and railroads you into the adventure, but Shadows itself is an excellent and diverse adventure, easier to GM than PbtT, and lacking some of the plot holes of DotR. It's less grand than the other two, but it's excellent inits own right.

The two worst parts of the campaign are Something Rotten in Kislev, which has no

thing to do with the rest of the campaign and is likely to wipe out your party,although it could be a cool high-level campaign in its own right; and Empire inFlames, which is way to linear and fails to wrap up most of the plots.4 Thumb up tip Hide Posted Fri Mar 11, 2011 1:50 pmQuickReply QuickQuote Reply Quotestephen(emmersonpoole)flag msg tools AvatarmbmbmbmbmbI really enjoyed the enemy within campaign as far as death on the reik as that was as far as we went before the group broke up to go to college/university. It was great fun and one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

However reading it now its does make me wonder about how good it is as a great work of fiction. It has not dated well, I have never really liked the WHFRP horror/comedy thing, i prefer the horror and grime of WHFRP so I tended to play downthe more outrageous parts of the campaign when I ran it all those years ago.

I would say the success of the Enemy Within is not thats its a great campaign as written but that its open enough that it works great with most groups if you pick and choose the bits to emphasize and use some judicial editing you will findan adventure. You have to tailor it to your style of play, but when you do you will have great gaming experience because the setting is so rich and flavoursome.

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