Shadow of the Demon Lord vs Warhammer 2nd ed | Tabletop Roleplaying Open (2024)

Lots of buzz about Shadow of the Demon Lord, and I'm liking what I see in the PDF.

So, is this a love letter to Warhammer Fantasy or in other words, why should I give it my time vs Warhammer 2nd ed?

It's got a more streamlined and elegant system overall, one that ought to be a cinch to teach to newcomers and utterly painless to run. The path system, while clearly inspired by the career system of WFRP, makes a bit more sense in terms of a group of adventurers who are learning their skills in response to their experiences in the field. It's also a bit more technologically advanced, more gothic steampunk than late-medieval/renaissance, though that's a dial you can turn to taste (I'd actually turn it up from the default level, but YMMV). I also imagine that by focusing more on things like corruption and insanity as core concepts, it manages to integrate them better, whereas in WFRP those are just a few of many moving parts, albeit ones that people like to emphasize.

In short, I'd say SotDL provides many of the things that people like about WFRP in a deliberate and focused manner, without having to worry about setting canon or legacy system elements. On the other hand, if it's the WF setting you love and not juts the mechanics or tone, then SotDL probably won't be able to replace it.

I think Tales of the Demon Lord looks to be a good campaign that shows off some of the best aspects of the game, though the quality and focus of the independent scenarios varies quite a bit.

SotDL is close to WFRP2e but it moves away from a historical analogue setting to something that is more suited to an adventuring lifestyle (not D&D, but something in that direction). As such, the race, careers and magic equivalents are all broader, deeper and cover a wider range of options.

Even mechanics for insanity and corruption are more playable to suit that adventuring playstyle than WFRP2e.

As mentioned above, the rule system is more elegant overall too (which is not to say that WFRP2e isn't elegant).

On saying that, most WFRP2e adventures could be played using SotDL pretty much as is.

Kingle said:

Bit of a tangential question, but sort of similar to the OP. Does the system have enough influences from WFRP that it can be plugged in to the setting and still evoke the same feel?

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Sort of, but I reckon you'd need to do a bit of work. You'd need to mess with the races - e.g. SotDL has clockworks, orcs and goblins as PCs - to remove some. However, there are humans, halflings and dwarves so you could drop the others and you'd only be missing the elves.

Professions fit pretty well to WFRP, but the meat of the 'career' system has a different flavour in places, although many could be kept in without jarring against the WFRP setting. Rest would probably be okay, and not much more would need adapting. Both settings emphasise demons and cultists as baddies, and both have beastmen for example, so there are strong similarities.

Personally I think using the SotDL system for the WFRP setting would work fine except you'd be leaving a lot of cool SotDL stuff on the shelf. On the other hand, SotDL doesn't have the depth of setting that WFRP has established, the sense of a grounded reality. It might come over time but it's not there yet.

Sosthenes said:

A premise of "you're going to save the world in 10 sessions" ain't exactly screaming Warhammer to me...

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It is more a "You need to save the world in 10 sessions otherwise everything is doomed. And quite a few characters will die along the way. Or go mad. Or become corrupted. And you may well fail anyway" type premise.

bottg said:

It is more a "You need to save the world in 10 sessions otherwise everything is doomed. And quite a few characters will die along the way. Or go mad. Or become corrupted. And you may well fail anyway" type premise.

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Well, many of the Warhammer modules involve the players saving the world, but usually by accident. If the players do fail, I'm sure the world be not be doomed.

bottg said:

It is more a "You need to save the world in 10 sessions otherwise everything is doomed. And quite a few characters will die along the way. Or go mad. Or become corrupted. And you may well fail anyway" type premise.

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It's still a level of importance/responsibility I rarely see in WFRP. Never mind that it's almost never their level of competency.

Mileages do vary, of course. I bet that given the involvement of chaos, fighting that and thus saving the world was important for some WFRP players, wherease for me it always seemed to suggest the otherwise. With D&D you start with humble beginnings and move to the top, maybe even immortality. In WFRP you start with humble beginnings and then you call it a win if you don't die of a horrible disease contracted from your SBVD.

Sosthenes said:

A premise of "you're going to save the world in 10 sessions" ain't exactly screaming Warhammer to me...

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The endgame and likelihood of success etc in SotDL are almost identical to all the major published WFRP campaigns. The timeframes is just able to be accelerated and capped due to the use of levels.