The Enemy Within campaign

I am about to begin my reviews of the WFRP 4th Edition version of the venerable Enemy Within campaign. I did ponder on whether my thoughts were really worth setting down – given that there are some very thoughtful and thorough reviews of these products already – but I decided that I would. The Enemy Within adventures are some of the very first WFRP adventures I ever read and an enormous influence on my understanding of what WFRP is – and indeed what a good WFRP adventure should be – so the 4th Edition versions are of great interest to me. And of course my own analysis and opinions will inevitably differ from other reviewers, even when I tend to broadly agree with them.

History: My experience of the original campaign

The WFRP 1st Edition version of The Enemy Within was absolutely central to my experience of the RPG, which I encountered when I was perhaps 12 or 13, on the shelves of the Nottingham Games Workshop store. At the time the extant version of the campaign was: Warhammer Adventure (collecting the first three books: The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bogenhafen and Death on the Reik); Warhammer City of Chaos (collecting Power Behind the Throne and Warhammer City) and Empire in Flames (which I think was still in its original version). Notably absent was Something Rotten in Kislev, which I learned about from the intro to Empire in Flames but never ever saw for sale; presumably it had sold out and never been reprinted. (I finally got to read this a couple of years ago and will eventually review it on this blog).

I GM’d Mistaken Identity (the very first part of the campaign) and – if memory serves – ran a single session of Shadows Over Bogenhafen before one of the other GMs in my gaming group (we had three!) convinced us to switch to something else (either Call of Cthulhu or Dark Sun, I think). This was basically how our group operated. (Completing an entire adventure was an incredibly rare event.) I have a vague memory that I later GM’d one or two session of Death on the Reik for long-suffering family members, but that was it.

So I never actually got to play most of the campaign. But I read and re-read the adventures, dreaming of running them, lapping up the details of the Schaffenfest and the Ordo Septenarius, the Wittgenstein Castle, the phenomenally complicated intrigue in Middenheim¹, and the epic quest of Empire in Flames. Eventually my opportunity to play RPGs was crowded out by schoolwork and tabletop wargaming, and was completely extinguished by the time I moved away to university.

I found my old books seven or eight years ago and lovingly re-read them, discovering that the original Enemy Within campaign was still incredible – but with age and experience I was able to identify some of the problems with the original campaign which I’d overlooked in my teenage years.

And then came the news that Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was to have a 4th Edition. Not only that, but the cornerstone of the new edition was to be a reworking of the beloved Enemy Within campaign, updated to the new edition and – most excitingly to grognards like me – with its disappointing final chapters replaced or at least substantially improved. It was to be written by Graeme Davis, one of the original writers for the 1st edition campaign (and indeed the 1st edition rulebook).

The new campaign in all its glory! Copyright Cubicle 7

Why was this necessary?

The Enemy Within campaign is regularly mentioned as one of the Great RPG Campaigns of All Time (alongside things like Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu, and the Giants/Drow series of adventures for AD&D). However most commentators seem to agree that what they regard as being awesome are the first three or four adventures (depending on how you count them²), up to and including Power Behind the Throne, and that the remainder of the campaign left a great deal to be desired.

The Good

In brief overview, the first three or four parts of The Enemy Within (depending on how you carve up the adventures – see Addendum 2 below) wowed a lot of people. It presented an interesting fantasy world with a high degree of verisimilitude. Its presentation of the Empire was impressive – particularly for the time – in that it was not a classic fantasy Tolkien rip-off (even though Warhammer is enormously indebted to Tolkien) but was influenced rather more by 17th Century Holy Roman Empire, including religious schisms and a pronounced class system. It was relatively grounded (the supernatural was definitely present, but it wasn’t round every corner) and it felt ‘real’.

The campaign generally did not feature hack-and-slash adventures, often opting for a more investigative style. It featured some wonderfully British humour (both in terms of amusing situations and dreadful puns). And the adventures managed to combine an intriguing plot with a reasonable degree of player freedom.

Most importantly, the theme of the campaign was fascinating. The adventures were only loosely connected, but they all featured the PCs uncovering and opposing corruption hidden in the Empire. As the introductory blurb of the first part says (paraphrased), the eyes of the Empire’s protectors are turned outwards, to the threat of Chaos from the Northern Chaos Wastes, the Enemy Without. They are blind to the insidious corruption of the cults working with the Empire to bring it down: the Enemy Within².

The Bad

Almost all of what I said in the previous section does not apply to parts 5 and 6 of the campaign (Something Rotten in Kislev and Empire in Flames). These were far more high magic; the supernatural was around every corner. Combat was plentiful, investigation was rare or non-existent. Player freedom was enormously truncated and the plot felt on rails. The basic theme of “PCs investigate Chaos corruption in the Empire” was pretty much completely abandoned in Something Rotten in Kislev (which was apparently not even written to be part of the campaign at all but was incorporated for marketing reasons).

It should also be noted that there were flaws in the first four parts as well. There is one astonishing “cut scene” in Shadows Over Bogenhafen (I’m not sure a non-interactive scene is ever justified in an RPG). Death on the Reik features a lot of supernatural elements. Power Behind the Throne has a rather clunky transition from being a very freeform social adventure to the denouement. But probably most problematic is the fact that the structure of the whole campaign was extremely loose. The Purple Hand cult feature as a major strand in parts 1 and 3, but are almost entirely absent in the other adventures and never really get a resolution. Moreover hooks from one adventure to another are frequently pretty flimsy.

The Promise

With the above in mind, a new version of the campaign – under the guidance of one of the minds behind the original campaign – seemed very promising. The original plan for the campaign had ‘The Horned Rat’ - a Skaven-themed adventure – following Power Behind the Throne (indeed this is referenced in a prophecy in Shadows Over Bogenhafen). The plan for the new version to include this instead of the distinctly out-of-place Something Rotten in Kislev was very exciting. And the promise that Empire in Flames could be reworked to be more in keeping with the earlier tone of the campaign, and properly wrap up the plot threads, also sounded very sensible.

One interesting promised inclusion was ‘grognard boxes’, providing alternative takes on elements from the campaign. These were designed for GMs running the campaign for players who’d played the original version, changing elements in order to keep those players on their toes.

Grognard, complete with impressive moustache. Copyright Cubicle 7

Furthermore, Cubicle 7 promised to produce companion volumes for each adventure, filled with extra content to flesh out the campaign, including 4th Edition versions of some classic 1st Edition short adventures. We shall see how they work.

So why am I reviewing the Fourth Edition version?

One question you might as is why I’m reviewing the 4th Edition version rather than the original 1st Edition version. The simple answer is that its because that’s what I’m interested in doing. I’ve read the original version umpteen times and the prospect of going through it again to construct a review is much less exciting than the prospect of reading through a new version (with wonderful new artwork) and analysing what it has improved (or failed to improve). Furthermore my initial read-through of Enemy in Shadows suggests that it is really very similar to Mistaken Idenity + Shadows Over Bogenhafen – and I suspect the same will be true for Death on the Reik and Power Behind the Throne, so it’s not like there is much to be gained from doing separate reviews of the originals and the remakes.

Having said that I am intending to review Something Rotten in Kislev separately, because it is (as far as I understand) in no way reproduced in the new campaign (and because it is utterly fascinating). Once I read Empire in Ruins and determine how far it differs from Empire in Flames, I will make a decision on whether to review the original separately to its replacement.

So that’s the plan!

I should also note that I’m not intending for my blog to become just The Enemy Within for the next few months. Reviews of Enemy Within adventures will be peppered in amongst other reviews.

If you are interested in actually owning the original (1st Edition) Enemy Within campaign, it’s all available on DriveThruRPG here. (This is an affiliate link so I receive a small payment for purchases made using it.)

Addendum 1: The unofficial Enemy Within Companion

I cannot discuss The Enemy Within campaign without pointing anyone interested in this to Gideon’s incredible Enemy Within Companion. This is a highly impressive unofficial companion to the original 1st Edition campaign, highlighting problematic areas and potential solutions, and providing resources such as timelines to make running the campaign a smoother experience. I highly recommend reading it; if you’re running the 4th Edition version, Gideon has some notes on this too.

Addendum 2: A Brief Overview of the Enemy Within campaign

Theo Axner posted a very helpful high-level synopsis of the 4e version of the campaign (with notes on how it has changed from 1st edition) on his blog. It’s full of major spoilers, but it should be very useful to GMs looking to modify the early parts of the campaign since it shows which elements are actually going to be important down the line.

Addendum 3: A note on numbering and naming

In the original 1st Edition printing, the first part of the campaign was called The Enemy Within. It was principally a sourcebook for the Empire, substantially expanding on its presentation in the WFRP rulebook. It also included a short adventure, Mistaken Identity, which formed the first part of The Enemy Within campaign. Later reprintings combined The Enemy Within (sourcebook) with Shadows Over Bogenhafen and the 4th Edition version continues this.

For my purposes I’m considering the original campaign as numbering six adventures, as follows (with abbreviations for each adventure because it is a pain to type these out every time):

1. The Enemy Within / Mistaken Identity (MI)
2. Shadows Over Bogenhafen (SOB)
3. Death on the Reik (DotR)
4. Power Behind the Throne (PBT)
5. Something Rotten in Kislev (SRiK)
6. Empire in Flames (EiF)

Addendum 4: Review format

Finally, I should draw attention to the fact that – as with the majority of my reviews – these are not based on actual play. Sadly I am not part of a WFRP group at the moment (and haven’t been for many years). These are based on thorough read-throughs of the books (in pdf format) and analysis of them.

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1. It’s a good job my campaign never got to Power Behind the Throne – my teenage GMing skills were definitely not up to the challenge of running that one! ↩︎
2. The first edition of The Enemy Within has a rather complicated publication history and I would point anyone interested in it to Gideon’s Enemy Within Companion which explains it very comprehensively. ↩︎
3. Title drop ↩︎