Road Trip From Hell - A Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The Enemy Within Review

 

Cubicle 7

WFRP: The Enemy Within

Designed by: Phil Gallagher, Graeme Davis, and Jim Bambra

Published by Cubicle 7

Released in 1987 for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st edition, The Enemy Within would kick off one of the most highly regarded published campaigns. Even Game Masters who don't get much from pre-written adventures are drawn to it and with good reason. The Enemy Within took what made WFRP so compelling, emphasized it, and threw out everything that didn't work. It also gives GMs a guide to writing adventures for traditional action driven RPGs. Even as a self contained book, The Enemy Within stands out as an atmospheric narrative that balances humor and horror as the players explore a world seething with corruption, poised on the brink of total destruction.

Lay of the Land

Admittedly, the 57 page book feels like a primer for the rest of the campaign. The actual adventure portion takes up only a third of the book, not counting the pages of handouts. Future reprints of The Enemy Within would be rolled in with the second adventure Shadows Over Bogenhafen. I also suspect that was to offset the fact that the campaign itself was quickly refereed to as the The Enemy Within.

While it seems jarring to dedicate so much of an adventure book to background material, it's part of what makes The Enemy Within so exceptional. The book gives exhaustive advice on how to sustain a long running campaign and more specifically this pre-written one. This advice has stood the test of time and doesn't repeat too much from the core rulebook. In fact, I'd put it slightly above the rulebook's approach, as by The Enemy Within, the writers had a much clearer grasp of what WFRP was supposed to be. Dungeons & Dragons trappings have been thrown aside for political corruption, religious conflicts, and carriage crashes.