Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game - Starter guide

What is Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game?

The Old World is what Warhammer looked like before the End Times: a fantasy mirror of Renaissance Europe, with an Empire of squabbling princes, Dwarf holds in the mountains, Bretonnian knights on the borders and, under all of it, cults and Chaos gnawing at the foundations. In this roleplaying game you are not a general on that map. You are a rat catcher, a river warden, a disgraced knight or a hedge wizard who has seen something you were never meant to see. And now it has seen you.

That is the premise in one line, and it sets the tone. The game is grim, fast and unforgiving, but it is also about ordinary people who refuse to lie down. Every victory costs something, and every scar stays.

Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game was designed by Dominic McDowall and Pádraig Murphy and published by Cubicle 7 under licence from Games Workshop. It appeared digitally in June 2025, with the printed books following in early 2026. It is a companion to the Warhammer: the Old World tabletop wargame, set roughly 250 years before the more familiar Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, in the years before the Great War Against Chaos, when the Empire had no single ruler and the dark powers seemed, for once, to be sleeping. They are not.

How does the system work?

The core is a d10 dice pool. Your character has Characteristics that will look familiar to anyone who has played the wargame: Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness and so on. When you attempt something, you roll a number of ten-sided dice equal to the Characteristic, and every die that rolls equal to or under your Skill rating is a success. One success is usually enough to pass; more successes mean you did it better. There are fewer than twenty Skills, so the list stays manageable.

Instead of bonuses and penalties, the game uses Grim and Glorious tests. A Glorious test lets you reroll your failed dice; a Grim test forces you to reroll your successes. It works like advantage and disadvantage in D&D, but with a very Warhammer flavour, and a Knight's first charge or a Ranger's hunt in the wild can be Glorious by right of career.

Combat has no hit points. Attacks are opposed rolls, and whoever loses is Staggered. Staggered does nothing on its own, but if it happens again you must give ground, fall prone or take a Wound, and a Wound means rolling on a table where the results run from a bloodied face to lost limbs and death. Miss an attack, and you are the one on the back foot. It makes every fight a decision about how far you are willing to push.

The third pillar is the campaign structure. Every group starts with a Grim Portent: the moment the characters stumble on something that cannot afford to be seen. It doubles as a session zero, because by the end of it the characters know each other and share an enemy. From there the Gamemaster's Guide weaves Dark Threads through the town of Talagaad, a web of factions, contacts and conspiracies that the players pull on for months. Your Career gives you Assets, such as a farm, a shop or a small vicious terrier, and your Contacts tie you to the town. Both are strengths, and both are things the enemy can take from you.

What do you need to start?

Two books: the Player's Guide, with character creation, the rules, magic and the gods, and the Gamemaster's Guide, with Grim Portents, Dark Threads, Talagaad, Paths to Corruption and a large bestiary. Together they are a complete game. At Netherbook we carry the Collector's Edition, which puts both hardcovers in a foil-stamped slipcase with exclusive woodcut-style covers.

Beyond that you need a handful of ten-sided dice, more than you might think, since a pool of six or more is common. A Gamemaster and three to five players is the sweet spot. Pencils, paper and a table are the rest. Nothing else is required, though the publisher sells cards, dice and maps for those who like the extras.

Who is this game for?

This is for players who want their fantasy grounded and dangerous. If you love the idea of a rat catcher and a failed priest facing a cult that has already noticed them, and you accept that the rat catcher may not survive the second session, you are in the right place. Fans of the wargame get a way to live at street level in the world they already paint. Fans of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay get a faster ruleset in a younger, less documented era, with a promised conversion route between the two.

It is not for everyone. If you want heroes who shrug off wounds and grow into demigods, the Old World will frustrate you. If your group prefers episodic dungeon crawls with no ongoing web to tend, the Grim Portent and Dark Threads will feel like weight rather than support. And if you want a light, whimsical fantasy, look elsewhere on our shelves. The setting is bleak on purpose.

How does it compare to other systems?

Compared with Dungeons & Dragons, the biggest differences are the dice and the danger. D&D rolls one d20 against a target number and gives you hit points to spend; the Old World rolls a handful of d10s, counts successes and has no hit points at all. D&D characters become heroes; Old World characters stay people. D&D combat is a tactical game in its own right; here a fight is short, ugly and best avoided when you can.

Mörk Borg shares the grim tone and the lethality, but it is a rules-light game of doomed one-shots in a dying world. The Old World is built for the long campaign, with careers, downtime and a town that remembers you.

Dragonbane is the closest in ambition: a fast, classic-fantasy game where combat is quick and dangerous. Dragonbane is warmer and more adventurous, mirth and mayhem rather than mud and conspiracy. If you are choosing between them, ask your group whether they want to laugh in the dungeon or whisper in the alley.

Where do you start?

Read the first chapters of the Player's Guide, roll up characters together and let the Origins and Careers do the work: a Halfling entertainer and a Dwarf ex-soldier already suggest a story. Then let the Gamemaster run one of the Grim Portents from the Gamemaster's Guide. Do not skip it. It is the game's own session zero, and it answers the question every new group struggles with: why are we together, and why do we care?

Keep the first fights small. Let the players feel what Staggered means before anything large comes over the hill. And keep a list of every injury. In this game, the scars are the character sheet.

Recommended products at Netherbook

Start with the Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game - Collector's Edition, which contains both core books in a slipcase. It is a complete game and a shelf piece in one.

If the Old World is your kind of dark, Mörk Borg offers the same bleakness in a faster, stranger package, and Dragonbane gives you the same quick, dangerous combat with a lighter heart. You will find more in our Fantasy and Metal & Doom collections.