Understanding the Old World setting - when did it go south for you?

[Freddy]

Yes, exactly; and there's also a more satisfying 'limited palette' of monsters in the WFRP version of the Old World: principally chaos creatures like mutants, beastmen and Skaven. Yes, the WFRP bestiary and some scenarios featured goblins and hobgoblins or whatever, but the emphasis was on cultists, sinister things half-glimpsed in woods and scurrying entities in the sewers.

I do not think that a limited palette of monsters adds to the dark fantasy tone- it is more about the overall tone and ratio of comic relief stuff like Orks. The world can be rich in monsters while Peasant Joe still not believing in them or living far away from them: if you think about it, medieval peasants also believed in monsters populating the faraway lands, they looked at the world like only their surroundings are normal (minus the witches, fairies ofc), but far beyond the seas it full of weird stuff.

Chaos quickly lost its edge as all the demons became categorised and even ended up with banners and musicians...

And giant rats and rabid dogs march in falanxes

[Elbows]

I agree with the limited palette discussion, particularly in a small geographic area.  I've never been a big fan of Lizardmen, but I was fine with them...being in Lustria.  Much like you'd get in some video games, I don't want to see fur-clad Chaos Berserkers or warriors running around in Araby, etc, nor do I like the concept of Lizardmen wandering around the Dark Lands or whatever.

It begins to smack of the later 40K campaign books which always made me chuckle because - unlike the Imperial Armour books - they'd try to cram 8-9 factions into a single planet.  "The Orks attacked the Imperial Guard, but little did they know it awakened a Tyranid force hiding in the sewers...but that was being hunted by Dark Eldar, fleeing from an Eldar Ranger fleet...called there by the ancient tomb of a Necron Lord who was awakening...but the Eldar threat caused Space Marines to show up!"

 

I understand the commercial "need" to try to appeal to as many customers as possible, but it's harder to take seriously.

[Rick]

Maybe Hobgoblin. There's a difference between writing "Here be Dragons" on a map of a faraway land because you don't know what's there, because your third cousin, twice removed, overheard a bloke in a pub saying there were dragons in them faraway parts, and actually writing "Here be Dragons" because one of the big flying ba$#&£ds strafed and barbecued half your mates.
WFRP had a full bestiary, just like most fantasy rpg's, but it was the intelligent way it used those monsters and the way things might not be quite what they seemed that evoked a sense of paranoia, of sinister conspiracy. It was, and is, an excellent system if done right - done wrong it's still a good hack'n'slash dungeon bash for battle players who want a change of pace! 

[Freddy]

It begins to smack of the later 40K campaign books which always made me chuckle because - unlike the Imperial Armour books - they'd try to cram 8-9 factions into a single planet.  "The Orks attacked the Imperial Guard, but little did they know it awakened a Tyranid force hiding in the sewers...but that was being hunted by Dark Eldar, fleeing from an Eldar Ranger fleet...called there by the ancient tomb of a Necron Lord who was awakening...but the Eldar threat caused Space Marines to show up!"

I can not agree more, more than 3 factions in a given conflict always feel forced. (Unless the writer is called J. R. R. Tolkien, but usually it is not )

[Muddypaw]

I still re-read the Orfeo trilogy and all the Jack Yeovil books every few years. The Orfeo books, Zaragoz especially, are a great window into how chaos corrupts from within, unsettling and a little bit ‘off’. The Yeovil books are a great, gothic romps with a razor edge. Faves are Drachenfels and Beasts in Velvet. Fantastic stuff and my high point for Warhammer lore. Having said that, I can find something to love in every edition. Even AoS has its charms and has carved out its own weird lore almost from scratch. I’ve become quite fond of it!

[jon_1066]

I agree with the limited palette discussion, particularly in a small geographic area.  I've never been a big fan of Lizardmen, but I was fine with them...being in Lustria.  Much like you'd get in some video games, I don't want to see fur-clad Chaos Berserkers or warriors running around in Araby,

…

The irony there is that the historical fur clad warriors of imagination (ie vikings) were the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor that ruled over the equivalent of Araby!

[HerbertTarkel]

Eww. Is that a euphemism? That's disgustin' that is. 

 

It’s a gas, gas, gas

[Rick]

I still re-read the Orfeo trilogy and all the Jack Yeovil books every few years. The Orfeo books, Zaragoz especially, are a great window into how chaos corrupts from within, unsettling and a little bit ‘off’. The Yeovil books are a great, gothic romps with a razor edge. Faves are Drachenfels and Beasts in Velvet. Fantastic stuff and my high point for Warhammer lore. Having said that, I can find something to love in every edition. Even AoS has its charms and has carved out its own weird lore almost from scratch. I’ve become quite fond of it!

Sadly I do not own all the Jack Yeovil books that Kim Newman wrote for Warhammer, but I do have some of his Diogenes series and all of the Anno Dracula books as well as, at least, some of the Warhammer books - Beasts in Velvet is superb, as are the Genevieve Diuedonné books.
Those early books by accomplished writers (rather than the modern ones which I find to be little better than poor fanfiction on the whole) are great Warhammer books and stand up as pretty good fantasy literature, not something often said about game tie-ins. 

[HerbertTarkel]

Yeah the early writers were stellar. Gav Thorpe … can’t write!

I went to university with David Annandale, who has done some of the Horus Heresy books! Even in university he was publishing for “Fangoria” magazine. He did his MA on the Marquis de Sade… in French. Very brilliant person, with more than a hint of darkness. It was kind of 50/50; super successful horror writer, or … something … worse 

[Elbows]

The irony there is that the historical fur clad warriors of imagination (ie vikings) were the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor that ruled over the equivalent of Araby!

Nothing ironic...they took off their coats!  I know vikings/Rus had plenty of interaction with the mediterranean/middle east...but be polite and remove your furs! 

[HerbertTarkel]

Nothing ironic...they took off their coats!  I know vikings/Rus had plenty of interaction with the mediterranean/middle east...but be polite and remove your furs! 

It’s warm there - of course one would take off their fur.

[Belligerentparrot]

Those early books by accomplished writers (rather than the modern ones which I find to be little better than poor fanfiction on the whole) are great Warhammer books and stand up as pretty good fantasy literature, not something often said about game tie-ins. 

My memory is those early books also didn't spell everything out, they were very much written from the WFRP parochial perspective rather than the wide-scope WFB perspective on the world. They left lots of the world up to your own imagination, rather than filling in everything right up to the edges. That's part of why they were so well written - the focus was on telling a story, not describing a world.

For me, the main thing that has kept me interested in GW's products is ignoring Black Library novels. The setting is great (esp. 40k hive worlds) when it isn't overly explained. 

[Rick]

Ah yes. But the books I was discussing were written before Black Library began, before WFRP even - only with hindsight could they be described as being from a 'WFRP perspective', not from the time they were written; these were books written for the Warhammer world, undivided into the WFB lore and the WFRP lore. The 'Black Library' books have all (or mostly) been written a long time after the division between the different 'lore' or backgrounds - about the only series to bridge the gap was the excellent 'Gotrek and Felix' novels - which still used the 'WFRP perspective' - the series was started as one of the first books published and is still being released, although I did lose a bit of interest after Bill King stopped writing them - the new guy is nowhere near as good, he just doesn't have the same flair, imagination and dedication as King showed.

[jon_1066]

Nothing ironic...they took off their coats!  I know vikings/Rus had plenty of interaction with the mediterranean/middle east...but be polite and remove your furs! 

Also they probably weren't dressed in furs to begin with, that being a later invention along with horned helmets.

[Byrthnoth]

I started with 4th edition so that probably affects my viewpoint, but my sense is that 1-3rd editions gradually introduced the core elements of the setting and added place names and some key characters, but even in 3rd it was mostly open space to set your own stories. 4th edition onward had the individual army books with the chronology and history sections, which gradually got more elaborate as the various writers added their own spin as the army books were redone every edition or two. At some point it felt like there wasn't as much space to do your own thing and tell your own stories.

The bigger problem is that around 7th or 8th there was a shift from the background/fluff/lore being essentially a static setting to an overarching narrative and a plot that was advancing -- I personally don't like this because it reduces the whole world down to what a few characters are doing, and also that overarching narrative was usually not very well written. This culminated in the end times and has been the standard approach since in Age of Sigmar and 40k.