As the Warhammer Fantasy Sale sweeps through Roll20 and DriveThruRPG, we had the incredible chance to chat with one of the producers behind Warhammer Fantasy, Dave Allen. Whether you are a newcomer eager to explore or a seasoned adventurer, we cannot wait to invite you behind the curtain for an exclusive glimpse into the world of Warhammer Fantasy.
The Warhammer Fantasy Sale is on NOW until February 23rd, 2026.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) takes you back to the Old World. Get the gang together, create your (anti)heroes, and set off to make your way through the vile corruption, scheming plotters and terrifying creatures intent on destruction. Prepare yourself for the struggle of the gutter, to fight for your survival, and to face corruption on all sides. Prepare yourself for danger, as lethal threats are everywhere, and you can’t face them alone. And, most of all, prepare yourself for the grim and perilous adventure of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay!
Save 40% on all editions on DriveThruRPG or save 40% on the Corebook, Starter Set, or the perfect map on Roll20 to start playing now!
Looking to give it a try before you buy? Cubicle 7 has four different adventures you can try for free!
Please introduce yourself!
I am Dave Allen and I produce WFRP for Cubicle 7 alongside Calum Collins and Simon Wileman (and everyone else who contributes!).
Tell us a little bit about you and your history with RPGs.
I’m from Berkshire in the south-east of England, though I’ve been living in Northern Ireland most of my life due to family ties. I think I first played Dungeons and Dragons on a cub-scout trip when I was about 10, just when I was getting a bit old for Transformers, and becoming intrigued by some plastic skeletons a friend of mine had purchased. This led to perusing miniatures at the local department store and old copies of White Dwarf in the school library, and things developed from there.
What drew you to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay?
When I first came across the Warhammer Fantasy Rulebook, I actually found it quite repellent. I thought the artwork was off-putting, couldn’t understand the fascination with playing an artisan or a rat catcher, and was confused that there wasn’t more content about ghosts, goblins, and ghouls. Forgive me – I was young. These same factors later became things I deeply appreciated.
What inspires you when developing books for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay?
The people I work with and the existing range of related supplements, novels, army books, citadel miniatures, and the 40 years of art, writing and games development that lies behind the game. I do try to absorb other stuff to be involved when the opportunity presents itself, and it’s nice to learn about things that inspired earlier contributors too, but by now the corpus of material that makes up Warhammer Fantasy is a hefty body of work in itself.
What book of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay are you the most proud of and why?
The Horned Rat, as it was a challenge to produce an entirely new chapter of an incredible RPG Campaign, and the reception to it was great!
The artwork of Warhammer Fantasy is incredible. Is there a specific art piece that really resonates with you and really showcases the game’s feel?
I’m currently rather wowed by the cover for a forthcoming book on Marienburg, which I am afraid I cannot show off right now, and an unusual take on a Chaos Spawn, which I also have to keep secret. The most exciting stuff is always the stuff yet to come! As for the past, well once I got over my previously mentioned aversion to early art, I was really taken by Ian Miller’s cover of Death on the Reik (though this is a bit like suggesting an appreciation of the Beatles makes you a music fan – being a popular go-to answer for this question).
I will say I really love this scene from Mutiny and the Beast in Ubersreik Adventures III, by Alessandro Boer, who has contributed some fantastic stuff over the last few years of WFRP (and my wretched apologies to any of our other regular artists who might read this for leaving you out this time).
What mechanic do you really enjoy from WFRP and why?
Overcasting options for spells, particularly High Magic optional effects.
But on the other end of the scale, working out a nice table for Deft Steps Light Fingers about what a pickpocket victim might actually be carrying (up to and including contagious diseases) was fun.
Also, I feel my Tavern Generator is yet to be properly appreciated. Come on, people must actually need that one about a dozen times in Death on the Reik – at least!
Warhammer is rich in lore. Is there a particular piece of lore knowledge that you loved working on?
The Horned Rat Companion allowed us to detail the Council of Thirteen to a more accurate and detailed degree than any single source had previously, and being a skaven fan I loved that. The Salzenmund book, which turned what had previously been a brief sketch into an Empire city that competes in depth with more established places such as Nuln, Middenheim, or Mousillon, was great to produce. Some lore that had been left hanging since 1987 has been incorporated into a book about a Black Ark that we hope to release very soon.
It’s a hard question to answer though. Sometimes a project, take Lustria as an example, involves a lot of research and consolidation of existing material, which is rewarding and easy to approve but leaves less room for original contributions, whereas detailing the high elf city of Tor Korali, whilst it also benefitted from the writers’ research, left more room to do something that hadn’t really been done for Warhammer before. That’s great, but also nerve-wracking because it’s someone else’s intellectual property, and I’m fortunate in that members of the team are so good at interpreting the direction of travel that our proposed content meets approvals.
I’d like to have a review of the gods and religion, the nice ones are too nice and the nasty ones deserve no followers, so more thought there would be good, at some juncture.
What makes for an incredible adventure in WFRP whether it’s online or in-person?
I might be risking some repetition here, but the background to the Warhammer Fantasy setting is the star of the show, and I think the best adventures are those that allow exploration of that world and the characters who inhabit it.
What advice do you have for new players who are just starting in WFRP? Where can they start?
Get the Starter Set, which is designed with people like you in mind.
Do you have any tips for Game Masters running their first campaign online?
I feel that a lot of established players and GMs place high emphasis on verisimilitude and sand-box playstyle. Whilst this is a worthy goal, I think it can cause issues for newcomers, as the skills needed to manage such things take time to develop. I feel that my best advice is therefore to dive in and have fun without sweating over detail, don’t be shy about pointing your players in the direction of an adventure, but do be careful to ask them if they have any ideas about what you did well or not so well.
I sometimes think that the advice I would have benefited from most as a new GM is so obvious I feel embarrassed to recount it. Things like “if you have prepared a village to the east that has an adventure to it, and your players go west, just change the location of the village” and things like that.
With the new edition coming, will those who invested in the Fourth Edition still be able to utilize it alongside the new edition?
Very little is going to be made obsolete, though we are still tinkering and gathering feedback, so it’s not possible to be emphatic about every particular aspect. The intention is that it will be generally backwards compatible, a Skill called Sleight of Hand will still be used to pick pockets, a Talent called Dual Wielder will still be useful if you want to strike enemies with a sword in each hand, a Willpower score of 35 is pretty respectable for a starting human character, a leather jerkin provides 1 AP to your arms and body, and so on. Most of the changes are aimed at adding clarity, embodying the setting within characters, and addressing frequently asked questions, rather than about reinventing the system.
However, there are a few areas of more significant change, so I can’t say everything works as before, but I’m sincere in saying the vast majority of mechanisms use the same terminology and do the same job they did before.