New version of WFRP

Count Zero · Post by **Count Zero** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:26 pm

Yet another great RPG fades into obscurity. If you don't think they're capitalizing on 4E concepts you clearly need to look again. Dumded down RPGs is not what the market needs.

If this had been titled Warhammer Quest I would have been ecstatic. The odd thing to me is that the 40k line of rpgs are very much rpgs in the traditional sense...why the shift?

MacLeod · Post by **MacLeod** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 9:55 pm

Benoist wrote:
Warhammer 2 is cool enough. I'm sure many Warhammer FRP gamers are still going to play it for quite a while...

*throws a look at Pathfinder in the aftermath of 4e*

Call it a hunch, if you want...

You know, if another company made a revised version of WFRP 2nd with all the fixes that I'd like (which preserve a lot of the original 'feel')... I would buy that bad mammy jammy real fast like.
Obviously that isn't going to happen in any official capacity... Gah! I wish this 3rd edition was a part of a different line.
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Sir Ironside · Post by **Sir Ironside** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:42 am

dutch206 wrote:
I am done with FFG. While I was waiting for TLG to come out with the "Fourth Crusade" books, I decided to find a replacement system for D&D. I landed on Warhammer and bought about a hundred bucks worth of 'new' second edition books. Now those 'new' books have all the value of a doorstop.

I don't have another new edition in me. Seriously. I am done with FFG. I am really feeling like I did during the threetard/fouron days at WoTC.

I'm confused, do you treat your rpg books as an investment?

I'm also a little confused that when a edition or a game goes Oop suddenly it is a dead system. I get the desire to view games in print and supported, but still confused about the former. There are no edition ninja's that come in and take all your old books away. You can still play the game! I'm pretty sure most people have enough books to continue playing what they love. Otherwise there wouldn't be all us old Grognards that still have our AD&D books and still play the game till this day. And there hasn't been a book produced for AD&D since the late '80's.

All I'm saying is keep enjoying what you enjoy and to be damned to anyone who tells you your having bad/wrong/fun.

As far as the new 3e Warhammer goes... I've never played Warhammer, I haven't even looked at any of the books. I have no allegiance to FFG so I can look at this with fresh eyes. The two most important things that popped out at me, that where completely negative was...
There are way to many little fiddly bits. They've made it impossible to just copy character sheets and having to buy special dice is a big turn-off. Cards, dice, cardboard character sheets... on and on...The way they have this set up they assume everyone sits a table and games. I seriously haven't sat at a table in years when I game. I like to kick back in a comfortable chair or couch, have my dice and character on hand, for when I need them, chow down on pizza and have a relaxing enjoyable night.
All power to them though. I can see the attempt to rid rpg's of pencil or pen on character sheet and to discard having to look up rules all the time. But, it is hard for me to have so many little contributions, "to make me role-play better!" when in reality it wouldn't and I'd probably be hostile to the attempt.

*shrugs*

But that is just me.
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tylermo · Post by **tylermo** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:04 pm

Count Zero?? Is that you? I guess you're seeing C&C behind Savage World's back as well, huh? Wait till Shane Hensley hears of this. haha!

Traveller · Post by **Traveller** » Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:28 am

Sir Ironside wrote:
I'm confused, do you treat your rpg books as an investment?.

I'm not him, but the investment question I want to touch on since I am a member of The Acaeum, a site dedicated to collection and in a lot of cases, investing.

While I collect RPGs (to an extent) they are not a financial investment, at least not to me. Sure, some of them are ridiculously expensive, like an orange cover version of D&D module Palace of the Silver Princess. I own a copy of Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium. That book cost me $120 including shipping and is the most expensive RPG book I own, but it's not an investment. Expecting to retire off the values of collectibles is a fool's errand unless you are in the business of buying and selling them on a regular basis.

I find it much more enjoyable to read the books, and play them if possible.

Now, the idea that OOP means dead comes from the game manufacturers, specifically Hasbro. They encourage it, promote it, and hope that the idea takes root so that they can sell more books. An example of this from another industry is Microsoft Office. Do you know that the core of Microsoft Office hasn't really changed since Office 97? All that has changed is the number of features in it, many features of which go unused by 90% of the users.

I've already said that I would stick with my 1st edition copy of WFRP. The reason is simple: I believe older is better.
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Taranthyll · Post by **Taranthyll** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:01 am

Last night we put our Sunday night C&C game on hold to try out the new Warhammer Fantasy RPG. I've never played any of the previous incarnations of Warhammer RPG, so I can't make any comparisons, but I can say that this edition has followed the D&D 4E path and taken it even further.

What remains bears little resemblance, at all, to a role playing game and is actually more like a board game with a character that you can keep playing and improve between games. The game comes in a large, heavy box that feels as though it is jam-packed with gaming goodness. Unfortunately, most of the box is filled with cards and cardboard counters designed to drag combat to a pain-staking slow crawl. There are "four full-colour rule-books" that are bound in flimsy paper covers and all four books put together are about as thick as your average player's handbook from any other game.

The game mechanic is a cumbersome nightmare. For each ability that a character has there is a corresponding card that is placed in front of you. In many cases whenever you use an ability, such as dodge, or parry, you must place a number of tokens on the card. You remove a token at the end of each of your turns and when all the tokens have been removed you may use the ability again - this is the 'cooldown' that online gamers will be familiar with. In addition to keeping track of that, you also have a 'stance-meter' that keeps track of how reckless or cautious your character currently is at the moment. Likewise, your character card, which lists your attributes and skills is also host to an ever increasing pile of fatigue and stress counters that build up throughout an encounter.

Finally, the dice. Warhammer uses custom dice, which currently are not sold separately. As far as I know they only come in the big, giant hernia-box. The dice are typical polyhedra, but instead of numbers, they are covered in weird, cryptic symbols. Any action requires that you roll a huge handful of dice of pretty much every type. You have action dice (which can be replaced by one or more reckless or cautious dice depending on the current position of your stance-meter), boon dice, bane dice, and dice I don't know the name of - all of which need to be rolled to resolve any action. Some dice serve to cancel out other dice and the intent is that all these dice provide a story narrative of what happened during your action (my very first attack required the GM to sort through the dice, figuring out which dice results canceled out which, and after several minutes determined that I had missed). In other games a single glance at the d20 will tell you whether you are successful or not and the GM makes up something appropriate to your roll, but in Warhammer, the GM cannot be trusted to adjudicate so a bewilderingly complex resolution mechanic takes his place.

The game itself plays badly. There is so much crap on the table for the players to keep track of that combat takes forever, and any sense of role-playing or narrative is killed by having to keep track of all your counters, cards, and stance-meter. Presumably the designers have captured the gritty feel of the Warhammer world but, honestly, I was too busy sorting dice all night to notice.

In conclusion, I doubt very much that your average C&C player would even recognize Warhammer Fantasy RPG 3E as a roleplaying game. It is more similar to games like Descent or Talisman, but infinitely more complicated. I am profoundly grateful that I didn't spend $100 on this - there is a lot of great game material out there that will give you far more enjoyment for your money than the Warhammer boxed set. I'm an avid Warhammer Fantasy Battles player and love the Warhammer world, and playing Warhammer Fantasy RPG 3E has encouraged me to seek out earlier editions. Hopefully our experiences with the game will serve as a warning to others.
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 2:28 am

Thanks Taranthyll. Your reaction to playing the game pretty much cements my thoughts on this game as well. Much rather play WFRP2E.

~O
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huds0n · Post by **huds0n** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 3:19 pm

So Breakdaddy and I got our copies of WHFRP 3rd yesterday and I've only just skimmed through the box so far. But here is my 1 minute initial impression:

This is a Board game, not a Role-playing game. As per FFG, the components and presentation of this product are first rate. However, when i will be looking to do some Warhammer Fantasy Role-playing, it won't be 3rd edition. Because this product isn't an RPG. It's a sheep in wolf's clothing. When we get a session in to test actual gameplay out, i'll post back with a report.
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Post by **Breakdaddy** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:55 pm

huds0n wrote:
So Breakdaddy and I got our copies of WHFRP 3rd yesterday and I've only just skimmed through the box so far. But here is my 1 minute initial impression:

This is a Board game, not a Role-playing game. As per FFG, the components and presentation of this product are first rate. However, when i will be looking to do some Warhammer Fantasy Role-playing, it won't be 3rd edition. Because this product isn't an RPG. It's a sheep in wolf's clothing. When we get a session in to test actual gameplay out, i'll post back with a report.

Word. The contents of the box are very nifty but my initial impression is that this is more of a descent-style semi-boardgame than an actual RPG. It seems meant to scratch the WoW itch more than the tabletop goodness of many other systems. We will give it a shot and see if I am wrong about this. I hope that I am as it's not really my style of gaming if I'm right.

commanderFuron · Post by **commanderFuron** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:56 pm

Just call it warhammer quest and then it would be Awesome.

Long live WFRP 2e!

Omote · Post by **Omote** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:31 pm

commanderFuron wrote:
Just call it warhammer quest and then it would be Awesome.

Long live WFRP 2e!

Hearing some of the play reports, and watching those seminar thingys from FFG, it doesn't seem like Warhammer Quest at all. I guess I could see a WFRP3e being run more like a WHQ game, but a hyper-complex version of it. I'm not so sure stance counters and the like really feel like Warhammer in any way. *shrugs*

~O
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:33 pm

Dang. Sounds like I am going to seriously regret ordering this.
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serleran · Post by **serleran** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:01 pm

One simple question with enormous ramifications...

Can it be played out of the dungeon? I can easily see them adding something like the Runebound terrain dice, but, I'm assuming it is a dungeon-only game in the "core set." And, it'll cost another $100 to play anything else.
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Orpheus · Post by **Orpheus** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:46 pm

serleran wrote:
One simple question with enormous ramifications...

Can it be played out of the dungeon? I can easily see them adding something like the Runebound terrain dice, but, I'm assuming it is a dungeon-only game in the "core set." And, it'll cost another $100 to play anything else.

Nah, it's a full RPG not bound to dungeon-only experiences. The different dice simply reflect the various aspects which go into the task being tested in the roll.

The board game elements are just a different way of tracking resources besides simply marking a number down on a piece of paper, no different than if someone were to use glass beads to track the duration of a spell from round to round. There's more to it than that, and the "cool down" aspect of the abilities may not be everyone's cup of tea, but that's about the gist of it.

The books are thin because a lot of the rules are on the cards. There's no flipping through the book to find something when it's right in front of you on a card.

I haven't received my copy yet, but I have seen the material itself. The demo day at one of our local stores got seriously FUBAR'ed so no one was able to run it when I and severl others showed up, but all of the reports I've read seem to point to the game being fun and much less fiddly than it would appear at first glance.

Again though, it's not everyone's cup of tea. For full disclosure, I have played and enjoy 4th Edition so I don't really see the supposed 4e-isms of WFRP as a bad thing.

Everyone's opinions which have been voiced here seem honest and informed, so if you don't like it then you don't like it. Elsewhere however, I have seen hatred never witnessed before.
It's a game folks.

Get a life.

Post by **Breakdaddy** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:44 pm

Treebore wrote:
Dang. Sounds like I am going to seriously regret ordering this.

I hope that neither of us regret ordering this product. I really want to like it and will give it a fair shake when I play it, my first impressions notwithstanding.

serleran · Post by **serleran** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:26 am

Well, so far, it does seem like a more involved Warhammer Quest. That is not a bad thing. I am not sure I like the special dice aspect, but it might be easier to handle than it appears... I'm tempted to try it, but would not buy it until having done so.
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Post by **Breakdaddy** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:16 am

I could see approaching this game like Warhammer Quest and making it an ongoing mission-based game. Each mission would have pre defined parameters a la WQ or Descent: Journeys in the Dark and side quests that would reap pre determined rewards. I think I might be happier playing it that way than trying to shoehorn it into my RPG night games.

Orpheus · Post by **Orpheus** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:22 pm

serleran wrote:
Well, so far, it does seem like a more involved Warhammer Quest. That is not a bad thing. I am not sure I like the special dice aspect, but it might be easier to handle than it appears... I'm tempted to try it, but would not buy it until having done so.

One of the cool things that sold me on the game is that it isn't tied to a grid like 4E is. While I do enjoy the tactical aspect of 4E, I also would like to play something using the powers system while being a little looser in the tactical department. While WFRP doesn't really use the powers system wholesale, it does admittedly come close while at the same time abandoning the tactics involved in 4E.

There is no grid or board in WFRP, but instead abstract movement and spatial relationships are used. The stand-ups which come with the core set are to be used more to show where the characters are in relation to everyone else in combat without a super-defined distance between combatants. No tokens are used to show that two characters are engaged, one token is used to show that they are at short range, and they go on from there. This is actually how I have previously used miniatures outside of 4th Edition, and especially with C&C. I've never really been too concerned with whether or not someone is exactly 15 feet from another character.

I can't wait to actually get my set, and I hope that it is as good as I've been reading and believe that it will be.

I also hope that anyone else here who's purchased it will enjoy it. I know how hard it sucks to pay for something that you wind up not enjoying.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 9:06 pm

My Amazon pre order shipped today, so I will hopefully be able to give it a try this weekend.
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Post by **Breakdaddy** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 11:32 pm

Treebore wrote:
My Amazon pre order shipped today, so I will hopefully be able to give it a try this weekend.

You'd better hit those books hard if youre going to learn that system quickly enough to run it this weekend. It's fairly complex.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 12:05 am

Breakdaddy wrote:
You'd better hit those books hard if youre going to learn that system quickly enough to run it this weekend. It's fairly complex.

Worse than 2e?
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 1:55 am

Yes, probably because it is so different.

~O
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TheMetal1 · Post by **TheMetal1** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 7:09 pm

Wait - 2e was hard?
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 7:27 pm

TheMetal1 wrote:
Wait - 2e was hard?

More that it had poor organizational issues.

Much to my surprise my boxed set arrived today. So I guess it shipped last Friday and they didn't send me the e-mail until yesterday.

Initial impression is "very impressed". Now I will get into reading it in hopes of playing it later this week or over the weekend.
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TheMetal1 · Post by **TheMetal1** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 7:45 pm

Here is an interesting bit of news on the Warhmmer 3e front. RPGNow has what appears to be the four rulebooks available in PDF for about $25.00. Of course they are selling the dice sepeartely now too. My question is can you play with just pen paper and the dice or do you need the cards and other stuff?
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 8:32 pm

TheMetal1 wrote:
Here is an interesting bit of news on the Warhmmer 3e front. RPGNow has what appears to be the four rulebooks available in PDF for about $25.00. Of course they are selling the dice sepeartely now too. My question is can you play with just pen paper and the dice or do you need the cards and other stuff?

It looks to me, so far, that all of the info on the cards is in the books.
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Orpheus · Post by **Orpheus** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:09 pm

Treebore wrote:
It looks to me, so far, that all of the info on the cards is in the books.

Your post stating that yours was in the mail got me to checking my wife's Amazon account (again, she doesn't know that I know ), and lo and behold...it's in the mail! I'll probably get it tomorrow.

From what I understand, the abilities, powers, and whatnot which are listed on the cards are not included in the rulebooks. The books themselves just sort of reference them the way that third-party GSL supplements reference WotC material (i.e., "see power X in PHB," etc.). In other words, the rulebooks just contain the rules and not full descriptions of spells, abilities and the like.

Of course, I could be wrong since...well...you're actually looking at the damn material and I'm not!
Feel free to post some more impressions when you've had some time to look it over a little more. I can't wait to get my hands on mine.

Sir Ironside · Post by **Sir Ironside** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 9:35 pm

Orpheus wrote:
The books are thin because a lot of the rules are on the cards. There's no flipping through the book to find something when it's right in front of you on a card.

Reading other threads, on other boards, I never got this impression at all. I don't know if you mean that any rule that is on a card must be in conjunction with the rule book to get what the rule means. Like the book references the card rather than put the actual rule into the book. Which, in my mind a real bizarre and misguided way to do things.

That aside; I've heard a number of complaints saying that the rules you find on the cards are not worded the same as in the book making the rules written one way and the card is written another way, but they are the same rule. Which also is mind boggling they would do this.

So, even if Orpheus is right or the other people- who have the game- are right, the decision of both makes no sense.
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Post by **Breakdaddy** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 10:01 pm

Treebore wrote:
Worse than 2e?

Better organization of the rules, but a lot more fiddly stuff. You'll pick it up pretty quickly now that you've already got it. I was more worried that you would get it on say, thursday, and try to have a full on game ready for Saturday. That would be trickier unless you have a lot of time on your hands to read the material.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 10:27 pm

Breakdaddy wrote:
Better organization of the rules, but a lot more fiddly stuff. You'll pick it up pretty quickly now that you've already got it. I was more worried that you would get it on say, thursday, and try to have a full on game ready for Saturday. That would be trickier unless you have a lot of time on your hands to read the material.

My Bro and I are reading through the stuff right now..

BTW, the card info IS IN THE BOOKS TOO! So far the books read identical to the cards, but there may still be exceptions we have yet to find. We have only compared maybe a dozen cards so far.

We should run a game this weekend.
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