Maybe it was the art... Like those crazy moon and sun symbols. Or the wacky Mona Lisa marching into war. Or the Halfling jamming a hot dog in his mouth on page 221... Or maybe it was the fact that the game had only 4 character classes: Warrior, Ranger, Rouge, Academic... Or maybe it was the career options for the characters: Gambler, Muleskinner, Pit Fighter, Rat Catcher... Or maybe it was the Tolkien-esque map of faux/fantasy Europe... Or the fact that the game was percentile based... Or that it used something called Insanity Points...
Whatever it was, Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play was quick to become my favorite system for so many different reasons. It was exactly what I was looking for in a game - and it seemed the next perfect step in gaming maturity. I mean it was so much like Dungeons & Dragons and, yet it had some Call of Cthulhu flavoring. It was H. P. Tolkien with a bad attitude!
Warhammer was the singular game that made me realize that it was possible to create other sword-n-sorcery systems with bravado and beauty. It made me realize that someone out there was taking these types of games seriously. The quality of the WFRP book, with its huge red and yellow title boldly emblazoned on the front cover, made me realize that there were some companies out there wallowing through the muck that flooded the adventure game marketplace when the role-playing game floodgates were thrown open. There were still some folks trying to fight the good fight. I wouldn't have such a feeling again for several years, when I discovered the indie rpg scene and its host of designers who took these same types of games seriously.
And that my friends, (all 9 of you and then some!), is how my gaming life began. It is the basis for everything that led me to creating my own little game system.
Thus concludes this tale of 7 parts...
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