Adventures in Middle-earth vs Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Compare Adventures in Middle-earth and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Adventures in Middle-earth | Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Journey, Corruption, Licensed Setting, Low-Fantasy, Lore-Heavy, Social Intrigue, Character Building | Career-Based, Grimdark, Deadly, Investigation, Corruption, Licensed Setting |
| Core Mechanic | Uses the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition engine: roll a d20, add an ability modifier and proficiency, and compare the total to a difficulty number. Advantage and disadvantage, rolling two d20s and keeping the higher or lower, are the main swing on that roll. | Roll d100 under skill or characteristic. Success Levels measure degree of success by comparing the tens digits of the target and the roll. Advantage accumulates during combat, adding +10 per point to attack tests. |
| Dice | d20 | d100 |
| Complexity | High | Medium |
| Accessibility | Very Low | Low |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | OGL 1.0a; Middle-earth Enterprises license | No open license |
| Cost | $$$ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Cubicle 7 | Cubicle 7 |
| Year | 2016 | 2018 |
| Best For | Groups who already know 5th Edition D&D and want a low-magic, Tolkien-faithful campaign built around travel, reputation among the Free Peoples, and slow-burn corruption instead of spellcasting and dungeon loot. It suits a long campaign that plays out the Journey and Fellowship Phase cycle across in-game years more than a single one-shot. | Groups who want dark, gritty fantasy where ordinary people face extraordinary dangers in a richly detailed setting. The career system creates unique character arcs from rat catcher to witch hunter. |
| Highlights | The Journey subsystem resolves overland travel through assigned companion roles and branching event tables, so a trek across Wilderland produces its own hazards and pacing rather than being skipped over. Shadow points replace alignment with a tracked corruption economy that climbs from the Miserable condition to permanent madness, giving each character a mechanical moral pressure tied to their class. Audiences resolve encounters with lords and elders through an eleven-culture attitude chart and an introduction check, so a hero's standing among the Free Peoples is a concrete mechanical fact rather than pure GM judgment. | The career system structures advancement around trades, moving a character through jobs that shape both skills and story. Success Levels measure how far a d100 test beats or misses its target, turning every roll into a degree of result. Advantage accumulates during a fight, rewarding momentum with stacking bonuses to attack tests. |
| Considerations | None of the six classes cast spells, so a group wanting a traditional wizard or cleric has to import one from another 5e game. Combat is essentially unmodified 5th Edition, so groups already tired of standard tactical D&D combat will find the same core fight rules here. Shadow adds a second per-character failure economy alongside hit points, with permanent points that never heal and must be tracked across an entire campaign. | The rules assume the Old World setting, so moving WFRP elsewhere means reworking its careers and tone. Comparing tens digits for Success Levels on every test adds a math step that can slow combat. Advancement is career-gated, so a character often must finish or leave a career before branching into new skills. |