Anyone tried playing 3e Warhammer Fantasy RP without "fiddly bits"?


Other RPGs

Liberty's Edge

Hi,

I see that Fantasy Flight Games have release 'rulebooks' (Player's, GM's, Monsters) for 3e WFRP. I read that it is possible to player 3e WFRP without the cards and tokens as required in the Corerule set. Is this true? If so has anyone tried and does it work very well? Wondering if I should invest in the game or just continue with 2e.

Many thanks in advance,
Stefan.

Sovereign Court

Well it's not just cards and tokens, it's also the dice that they use. Very similar (exact?) to the dice that come in like Decent.

I think they sell those as a separate supplement. Still the times I've played it, the game played a lot like a board game so maybe you might want to stick to 2e.

Maybe someone who plays it more and likes it will chime in with some reasons why you'd want to go with the new one.


Really, it's not a board game, its a RPG, with about the same complexity level/tracking to do than for a Pathfinder game. I find the cards/bits convenient, but if you prefer managing information on paper/computer/tablet, go for it - it will be the same game, and it's a good game.

Trying to hit a monster in Pathfinder : +BAB +2 because of this, -2 because of that, another +1 because of this, vs AC X, -10 because of this, etc ok, I hit! Now second part: damage! Lets see D6, +10 because of this and that, -3 because of DR, etc. For a result of 24 - I take a 5 foot step and as a swift, I maintain my Bardic performance.

The most complicated you will have to track in WFRP is something like this - so I cast a spell (choose dice pool and roll dice) - I loose 4 power, it's inactive for 4 turns and its effect remove two turns of inactivity on another spell and I may cast it instantly if I have power enough. I have, so I cast it for 3 more power, (choose dice pool and roll dices) I do 3 wounds on the Ork and I gain one stress and may make one free maneuvre (move your character position).

With the bits, you would represent that by putting removing tokens on cards. If you can track that on paper, you are good to go.

Personally, as the tracking is done sequentially over many pools instead of making all the calculus at once with the result affecting only one pool(HP) I find it really easy to track on paper.

You'll need the dice, yes.

Liberty's Edge

Sounds doable. I downloaded the 'extended' character sheets from the website. Hmmmm. Can I ask if you think it still has the flavor of WFRP? 2e while mechanically better than 1e did lose some of the feel.

Cheers,
S.


Stefan Hill wrote:

Sounds doable. I downloaded the 'extended' character sheets from the website. Hmmmm. Can I ask if you think it still has the flavor of WFRP? 2e while mechanically better than 1e did lose some of the feel.

Cheers,
S.

Yes and No. I'ts grimm, and gory, and can be really hard on characters, but magic is way more accessible and the sucess rate of any action is in fact pretty good (which I like, because it makes for a more cinematic feel in combat instead of a slow grind.) You can play fantasy heroes whit this system if you want to, but you can also play a very gritty game. I'ts more open and modular, and would adapt well to both first and second edition feel, I guess.

The action system is nice - allowing for out of the box thinking and giving everyone to do in combat scenes (social and intellectual characters can really help - findind weaknesses, distracting, buffing or debuffing, and all that with mundane means.

I played a dwarven gambler specialised in dirty fighting, granting small bonuses to fellow character by spiting in the eyes of ennemies or insulting them to grant strategic movement, for example, and have seen a great surgeon using his abilities to find weaknesses in ennemies, or a high spirited rat-catcher joking in the middle of combat, reducing the strees of comrades.)

A newly made character can join a seasoned group and still feel usefull - experience means getting better at a few things, and becoming a little thougher to kill, but it mainly gives you more options. You still can be killed by goblins if you are stupid or overwhelmed, and you never become invincible. But, you'll probably die more slowly than in 1rst edition.

But, as any RPG, you may tweak the feeling easily - The GM guide has a lot of rules options for getting the feeling even more grittier. And you can always rule out magic for PCs.

As for the background, no halfling (yet), and it's still very Empire-centric as of today.

Please note that all the material not covered in the 3 rulebooks (adventures, future expansions lime Omen of War, etc.) will only be released in the original format, including the bits/cards... It's not a problem - everything is compatible, but you should know this. Anyway, you always can buy the vaults later to get the equivalent of the core game + first expansions.

Liberty's Edge

So 3 three 'core' books + (I was told) 4 packets of the special dice, and I'm all set?


Stefan Hill wrote:
So 3 three 'core' books + (I was told) 4 packets of the special dice, and I'm all set?

Yep, sounds about right for the dice.

You may want to spend some time on the Fantasy Flight Games website before buying - reading other reviews and looking at cards/etc to get a better grasp on the system.

If you want to see the other side, the StrikeToStun Forum is known for it's general dislike of the game. Maybe you could gather more information there.

Anyway, it's slowly becoming my favored ruleset - fits my style of DMing and my group. I hope you enjoy. And if not, well, there are plenty of good games out there - we are having a lot of fun with FATE (legend of Anglerre) right now.

Pathfinder is a superb game, but why just play one?

Good Gaming!


3e WFRP is certainly an interesting game, but my experience is that it feels nothing like 2nd ed, and even less like 1st.

That said, if you want a very abstract and gamist, fluid combat system to tell stories about with relatively high danger levels you'll find it cool.

3e moved the world several steps towards the worst extremes of the wargames high fantasy feel.

For instance the made sword masters of hoeth playable characters. Hell, they didn't even include ratcatcher and sbvd in the initial release. Just two examples, but part of a wider trend.

It is also frightfully expensive to collect. It makes dark heresy and co look cheap.


Zombieneighbours wrote:

3e moved the world several steps towards the worst extremes of the wargames high fantasy feel.

For instance the made sword masters of hoeth playable characters. Hell, they didn't even include ratcatcher and sbvd in the initial release. Just two examples, but part of a wider trend.

It is also frightfully expensive to collect. It makes dark heresy and co look cheap.

Yes, but as a GM you can always restrict the available careers, and to be fair, the Sword Master is not in the initial release.

Anyway, they are both in the book release - but yes, as I already mentioned, you may have to tweak the game a little to get the first edition gritty feel. But it's far from being impossible, and the GM guide gives you options to do that.


All those shiny bits and peices:

First things first. The materials are very high quality, I can't fault that. Though a fair old number of them really do feel like they arn't really needed. The various PC and monster counters for instance feel like something i could really have done without. I play WFRP 1st and 2nd as well as WFB, models i have, in abundance. From first glance at the rules, almost all of the player aids other than the Dice and the stance & progress trackers would have been from my point of view, as well or perhapes even better handled by being in the book.

Faffing around with cards and tokens has never really been my thing. It also leads to the problem that i may well need duplicates of many of the items (or to atleast design a character sheet where the details of talents ect can easily be copy pasta'd in) to handly characters who wish to play the same career, or who have duplicate talents.

I can handle looking up spells and backgrounds/feats in mage: the awakening and DnD, so i don't see why I can't be trusted to do the same here. A well made character sheet and PDF referance sheet could handle 90% of this dross, allowing for it to be sold as a book at a price where i could have purchased it months ago.

Summation: Well made, but something i could have done without.

Funny Dice and that Nagging colour problem:

Firstly, i am colour blind, and who ever thought colour coding the dice was a bright idea, please give your self a slap upside the head. The Green and the Red are troublingly similar as are the Blue and Purple To make matters worse, in both cases these similar coloured Dice are of the same type, so it isn't even like i can reason that the Green dice are Characteristic Dice, which are D8s, so the D10's that look like they might be green must be the reckless dice. No rather, it is a toss up between two sets of D10, which look pretty similar and two lots of D8 that look pretty similar. I can already tell that it is going to make me scream with frustration.

All that said, what i have read of the rules so far, i really like the Dice pool system, in as much as it appears that you can get some very interesting combinations of pools. I am not sure i feel that the symbol system makes them much easier to read, but well see how that works in play.

Fate seems to have completed its meta-morphosis from something sublime into something base(not neccissarilly a bad thing). It now reminds me of the fool arcana in artesia: adventures in the known world.

Summation: Grrrr...Colours!!! Hmm...Interesting.

Zelots and Watchmen and Roadwardens, oh my:

The careers are pretty standard fair for WFRP. I am vaguely pissed off that fantasy flight they appear to have intentionally done a 'players handbook 2'(absence of gnomes, half-orcs and so on) on us, having not included certain Iconic careers in the core box, but provided them in another product so that you have to buy both if you want your small but vicious dog. Atleast, and this is a saving grace when engaged in such obvious attempts to 'force' purchase of additional material, fantasy flight had the good sense to get the The Adventurer's Toolkit out almost immediately after the corebook, rather than a year later.

Ofcause, none of this really deals with the mechanics, but once i have read the rules can re-read the careers i will re-visit them

Side note: The inclusion of Wardancers, swordmasters and iron breakers in the The Adventurer's Toolkit, does leave me to question asking my self 'does fantasy flight 'get' WFRP. These are careers that feel entirely out of place, and looking back on that climactic battle at the end of 'the power behind the throne', where my character gustav, third son of minor nordland nobility, student and agitator, struggled with KHV at the edge of the via duct, before finally throwing him to his supposed death, it just wouldn't have been the same with a swordmaster tagging along in the group.

Summation: Where's my Small But Vicious Dog?

A merry band of murderers:

The party sheets is an interesting touch, but not nearly as original as Fantasy flights promo video makes out. Just of the top of my head, Werewolf: The Apocalype was doing the same thing more than a decade ago ago using the pack totems. Orpheus, Promethean: The Created and Changling: The Lost have also all trodden this ground and that is sticking with one major player like white wolf. Pretty sure indies like house of the blooded have also been their. At first glance, this is an interesting variation on the idea but nothing ground breaking.

Summation: Interesting, but recycled.

Lay out of rules and the writing:

The books are badly put together, with elements of system scattered across the books in a fairly higgledie pigledy manner. It takes time to track down concepts pertinaite to combat and skill checks, which are kept in whole other books.

The language is far more clunky than i would like, with certain sections being explained poorly. In many ways, i think the entire system could have been explained much more clearly in perhapes half the space.

However, once past these issues it gets better.

The system basics:

The underlying system is interesting. I actually love the concept of pool, though i am still having difficulty reading the results quickly. Despite that, between the various different dice, a wide range of outcomes is possible, which allows for great narrative conclusions to the roll.

Combat:

Combat actually seems to be a really good, with thhe narrative elements of the dice system coming into its own throught its a ability to tell you about whats actually happening within a fight. One or two of the action cards are a little wonky, but for the most part the action cards achieve what 4e d&d powers set out to do, but manages to out strip 4th editions by some considerable amount. The actions allow for characters to really interact with the combat, setting up attacks for one another, debuffing opponents and generally weaving and interesting story around the fight scene. Their is a large part of me which would very much like to use a modified version of the system to run Exalted.

Damage, in is many and varied forms:

Between wounds, critical wounds, stress, conditions and fatigue, you have what is probably the best wound mechanic in modern roleplaying. If I had to point to any single element of this game which i love, it would be the wound system. I have yet to see how it plays out in game, but it appears to be one of the only true innovations the game makes, and one that I hope other games will take up.

The damage mechanic is woven into the narrative nature of the system, so that, in combat you can have events like a PC getting head butted, and suffering a broken nose, or getting blood in ones eyes after a scratch to the forehead, through to having limbs broken by vicious blows, and every outcome had mechanical effects which appear relatively easy to impliment.

A/C/E dice! Sorry, what?

This is probably my biggest single problem with the game, and one that it shares with 4e DnD. The game treats monsters as fundementally different from player characters, and condenses them down to a tiny stat line, using Agression Cunning and Expertise dice as an abstract to replace the details the monster is missing, Similarly, most treat stress and fatigue simply as wounds.

This is one of the clearest signs of gamism being a driving force in the design of wfrp 3e, and in a way points to why at a gut level WFRP 3e feel wrong to me. Traditionally most incidental thugs or enemies had names, full stat block, and those stat blocks could often tell you a lot about them, and help you deal with the changing nature of an encounter, should a PC do something unexpected. By contrast, 3e treats them at a mechanical level, as nameless, faceless mooks, not living people within the world. For me this is a real sadness.

On the one hand Falling, on the other hand swimming

The enviromental damage rules are...annoying. Firstly, they suffer from the 'why is it here' syndrome much of the book suffers from. In which you spend twenty minutes looking for it, only to find it mislabled, in the wrong part of the book.

Secondly, the wording and examples are not brilliant.

Thirdly, the falling rules are daft. With the rules as written, you cannot dies from falling off a building, if you role for it. Falls are either entirely non-leathal (though they can be horrifically debilitating, which I do like), or automatically leathal by GM fait, with no middle ground between. Fortunately, if offers some ways of making such an insta-death fall avoidable and interesting threats, but falling out of ans second flaw window, or from a roof, something that should be very dangerous, is treated as no big deal.

By contrast, the drowning/swimming rules are pretty much the best treatment of the subject I have ever seen. Being swept down steam in rapids has never been so fun or dangerous in an RPG

Money

The changes to the money system within the game setting seem really stupid...more like bad research than a concious choice.

Future of the game:

I hope, first and foremost that we will see a lot more monsters and NPCs published in the near future, and I appears that it will be the case, along side a great many new powers for them. As things stand, the availible monsters will get old pretty quickly.

P.S.

This was my response to the game on first buying it.

The box obviously is not the books, so some of the issues wouldn't apply,others have since been solved, but you might still find it interesting. I wouldn't say don't get it, but I would say read up on it very carefully, and play a couple of times if you can, before you commit to buying it.

Liberty's Edge

Zombieneighbours wrote:
Greatly appreciated review of the 3e box set

Wow, thanks for taking the time to so fully describe your opinion of the 3e rule-set. I have seen all the promo videos, of course they make it seem like the best thing since sliced bread. All three books are on Amazon for $80US, which seems quite reasonable to me for three RPG books. Of course the dice will be about $40US...

Still your comments hasn't made me turn away from the game, but rather has me even more curious about the 3e WFRP.

Many thanks,
Stefan.


I've been playing it for a few sessions and I'm really starting to dig it. The dice pool mechanics take a bit of getting used to, but I'm really starting to enjoy them now that I've got the hang of interpreting the different symbols (which isn't overly tough, but is a bit of a learning curve). The action card system reminds me quite a bit of 4E, but might actually work a little better. The wound system is really cool (dangerous but fun), though my character currently has a concussion I'm looking forward to getting rid of. It has some fun miscast and sanity rules as well. Overall, I think I could really get into this game. I'm looking forward to playing more of it, and running it sometime in the future.

I can't really compare it to 2E because I haven't played that version, but I'm not so into percentile based systems, so I think I would likely prefer this one.

Being a FF game, it is heavy on little components, but I've gotten used to that. I laugh a little each time we set the game up because it feels like setting up a euro style board game, but it plays like an rpg.

Liberty's Edge

P.H. Dungeon wrote:
I laugh a little each time we set the game up because it feels like setting up a euro style board game, but it plays like an rpg.

I guess this was my biggest worry - it's a board-game with RPG tacked on. Once I read they were releasing the books only for play without the "fiddly bits" (FF term not mine)I got interested again.

Most people seem to really like the way it plays. Well except on the StrikeToStun forums which has an edition wars equal to 3e D&D vs 4e D&D going on!

S.


Stefan Hill wrote:
P.H. Dungeon wrote:
I laugh a little each time we set the game up because it feels like setting up a euro style board game, but it plays like an rpg.

I guess this was my biggest worry - it's a board-game with RPG tacked on.

S.

Because of the more abstract combat system (not grid based) I myself feel it plays less like a board game than grid-based rpgs like Pathfinder or 4E...

Liberty's Edge

CunningMongoose wrote:
Because of the more abstract combat system (not grid based) I myself feel it plays less like a board game than grid-based rpgs like Pathfinder or 4E...

Which is interesting because it REALLY looks like WFRP 3e is a board-game! Abstract combat will suit my tastes, I've been a voice of discord on these forums when it comes to 'battle-mats' and 'board-game' like combats, i.e. 3.5e/PF/4e D&D.

The cost of the books isn't scary - but buying 'special' dice is something I need to do a bit of soul searching over - dice that will serve NO purpose other than 3e WHFP... Still the comments here and other reviews I have read would indicate that the special dice are at the heart of what is good about the game.

Thanks again to everyone,
S.


The board game thing, raised by a lot of people is a little unfair, in my opinion. But it is what they claim to I perceive. That said, their are a lot of bits in the core box which do make it feel different as a game.

My issue with the bits was never the use of them, I actually found them fairly useful (and long term I would not be surprised if you end up getting them as well stefan), it was that they should have been sold as accessories. The rules should be contained in rulebooks, because like dice, and character sheets and the like, bit occasionally get lost, unlike a character sheet, if you loose a card, it is like some one coming up and blanking out a section of rules in your books.

I also felt it was unreasonable for those who did not want to play using them, to have to economically subsidies those who did.


Stefan Hill wrote:


Most people seem to really like the way it plays. Well except on the StrikeToStun forums which has an edition wars equal to 3e D&D vs 4e D&D going on!

The history is the thing. Stike to stun has been their since their was an internet, warp stone was around even longer, and for much of WFRP's existence it has been they, not GW, hogshead, BI, or Fantasy Flight which have been the torch-bearers for WFRP.

It is a game that was in the wilderness, longer than it was in print, and kept a very strong following all that time. 2nd ed, was a great revision of that beloved game. 3rd ed was a new game.

While it is an interesting game, it will never be WFRP. Not to me, not to many people on StS. It isn't the game we played the enemy within to, it isn't the game that we kept going through a decade of zero support.

The 4e edition war was understandable, the 3e wfrp edition war was entirely predictable.


Zombieneighbours wrote:
they should have been sold as accessories. The rules should be contained in rulebooks, because like dice, and character sheets and the like, bit occasionally get lost, unlike a character sheet, if you loose a card, it is like some one coming up and blanking out a section of rules in your books.

You can do that now with the guides/vaults.

Zombieneighbours wrote:
While it is an interesting game, it will never be WFRP. Not to me, not to many people on StS. It isn't the game we played the enemy within to, it isn't the game that we kept going through a decade of zero support.

I can understand. I felt the same regarding 4E DnD (I started playing with the red box when I was 10.) It's a good game, mind you, even if a little too "gameboardy" for me, but I felt it was not DnD. Now, the game is more mature, and I could strip-off dragonfolks and etc. (or play essentials, maybe) and get a part of this feeling back, maybe.

But, my group played the Ennemy Within using first/second edition WFRP (we switched edition in the middle, because the mage player felt, rightly I guess, that first edition was gimping his character) and I dunno, for me the 3rd edition WFRP, under the heavy rule changes, "got" the feeling right - more so than 4E did for D&D.

I guess it's pretty subjective, and depends a lot of how you played 1e/2e, and who you played it with. For us, it was more of finally getting a decent ruleset for the setting we loved. And I insist on the subjective part - 2E WFRP was not a bad system, but we always felt, in our group, it was a little bland and stiff even if it played decently well.

That being said, it was never our "main" game and we did not spent time trying to sell or perpetuate the game. I guess I would feel closer to the ruleset was it the case. But I always saw the rule system and the setting as independant from each other - other people like you seems to insist that the ruleset had a lot of impact on the WFRP setting feel...

Isn't human psychology fascinating? ;-)

Liberty's Edge

Can I just as about the dice. How many is needed? They seem a LARGE expense and I must admit I'm a bit shocked at the price, given one post said about 4 packets are required (this assumes no core set). If I have myself and 4-5 players what would I be looking at in terms of numbers of sets of dice so that things don't grind to a halt every action while dice are passed around and then sorted out. These special dice really should be sold, and I would say at no more than $10-15 for a set that a person can use in game. If they don't then this seems a hurdle to attracting new players to 'have a look' at the game.

Cheers,
S.


Stefan Hill wrote:

Can I just as about the dice. How many is needed? They seem a LARGE expense and I must admit I'm a bit shocked at the price, given one post said about 4 packets are required (this assumes no core set). If I have myself and 4-5 players what would I be looking at in terms of numbers of sets of dice so that things don't grind to a halt every action while dice are passed around and then sorted out. These special dice really should be sold, and I would say at no more than $10-15 for a set that a person can use in game. If they don't then this seems a hurdle to attracting new players to 'have a look' at the game.

Cheers,
S.

Short answer? None.

Apps and Digital dice rollers are a fairly easy and cheap way to deal with the dice issue in WFRP.

The good ones hand you the results in an easy to read formate, which lets you know far more easily and quickly what the result is.


CunningMongoose wrote:
Zombieneighbours wrote:
they should have been sold as accessories. The rules should be contained in rulebooks, because like dice, and character sheets and the like, bit occasionally get lost, unlike a character sheet, if you loose a card, it is like some one coming up and blanking out a section of rules in your books.

You can do that now with the guides/vaults.

Zombieneighbours wrote:
While it is an interesting game, it will never be WFRP. Not to me, not to many people on StS. It isn't the game we played the enemy within to, it isn't the game that we kept going through a decade of zero support.

I can understand. I felt the same regarding 4E DnD (I started playing with the red box when I was 10.) It's a good game, mind you, even if a little too "gameboardy" for me, but I felt it was not DnD. Now, the game is more mature, and I could strip-off dragonfolks and etc. (or play essentials, maybe) and get a part of this feeling back, maybe.

But, my group played the Ennemy Within using first/second edition WFRP (we switched edition in the middle, because the mage player felt, rightly I guess, that first edition was gimping his character) and I dunno, for me the 3rd edition WFRP, under the heavy rule changes, "got" the feeling right - more so than 4E did for D&D.

I guess it's pretty subjective, and depends a lot of how you played 1e/2e, and who you played it with. For us, it was more of finally getting a decent ruleset for the setting we loved. And I insist on the subjective part - 2E WFRP was not a bad system, but we always felt, in our group, it was a little bland and stiff even if it played decently well.

That being said, it was never our "main" game and we did not spent time trying to sell or perpetuate the game. I guess I would feel closer to the ruleset was it the case. But I always saw the rule system and the setting as independant from each other - other people like you seems to insist that the ruleset had a lot of impact on the WFRP setting feel...

Isn't human...

Most of my discussion revolves around the Box set, because that is what i own. The Vaults and books are the way they should have started off, in my opinion. It would have gotten rid of a lot of the heat from the edition war.


I have a set of dice from my core boxed set and my gm has another from his, which works out to being plenty of dice. However, the dice pools you roll end up being large. For example you often roll a pool of around 12 different dice.

A lot of the fiddly bits aren't really needed. Many are just various tracking tokens to monitor durations for effects and the like, and you can do that on paper just as easily. However, there is a deck of cards for wounds, so when your character is wounded you get a card, and the number of cards you have tracks the number of wounds you have. If a wound crits or one of your current wounds turns into a crit, you flip the card over to see what the critical wound is, which is on the back of the card. As a result, the wound cards become important, and aren't as dispensable as the tokens are. Sanity and Spell miscasting are handled pretty much the same way, so the dm ends up with several decks of little cards that are handed out from time to time.

Stefan Hill wrote:

Can I just as about the dice. How many is needed? They seem a LARGE expense and I must admit I'm a bit shocked at the price, given one post said about 4 packets are required (this assumes no core set). If I have myself and 4-5 players what would I be looking at in terms of numbers of sets of dice so that things don't grind to a halt every action while dice are passed around and then sorted out. These special dice really should be sold, and I would say at no more than $10-15 for a set that a person can use in game. If they don't then this seems a hurdle to attracting new players to 'have a look' at the game.

Cheers,
S.

Liberty's Edge

Zombieneighbours wrote:


Apps and Digital dice rollers are a fairly easy and cheap way to deal with the dice issue in WFRP.

The good ones hand you the results in an easy to read formate, which lets you know far more easily and quickly what the result is.

That's pretty descent. Takes away a little of the fun of an TT RPG, i.e. the rolling of the dice, but I'm old fashioned that way. Still beggars can't be choosers and things like that would fit the bill for a bit of a look at the game.

Any idea how Criticals are handled without the deck of cards? I tried looking at the picture of the critical page on the FF website but it wasn't obvious - it sort of looked like a %-dice roll? Anyone know?

The main draw for this game to me came from the StS websites edition 'war'. The idea that the GM can introduce subtly into the results. All RPG's like D&D, PF, 1e/2e WFRP are all binary, you either succeed or you don't. Anything other than this is GM fiat and could be challenged by a player. The example from the StS site was climbing a wall while not being seen/heard. In D&D, PF, 1e/2e WFRP, like Yoda said, you either Do or Do Not, 0 or 1, etc. The poster showed how with the 3e WFRP you could have a success BUT something didn't quite go right - for example your sword got caught on the top of the wall or made a noise. Not enough for you to fail but something that would color the players next action. Conversely I guess you could fail but have some unexpected positive come out of the event. I guess you may have made a noise, a guard came to investigate but a piece of masonry became dislodged as you tried to free your sword which knocks the guard out. Wow a game where the GM is there to interpret and entertain - reminds of 1e AD&D only with actual rules to back to GM up!

As perhaps you can tell, 3e WFRP appeals greatly to the GM in me - just the dice and fiddly bits has to date kept me at bay. Well until now.

Thanks guys for dispelling rumors and half-truths I have been working on. With the book-only option and alternatives to the over-priced dice I'm going to have a bash. Not to mention the New Zealand dollar just hit a record high against the green-back. Seems fate WANTS me to play this game... :)

Cheers,
S.


The stuff that you mention about successes with a glitch are one of the things I quite like about this game as well. In fact it is one of the strongest parts of the new warhammer system. There are a few other games that work in this mechanic, but not that many. For example, the 4E Shadowrun rules have good system for glitches, so that you can succeed, but still have a complication.


Stefan Hill wrote:
Zombieneighbours wrote:


Apps and Digital dice rollers are a fairly easy and cheap way to deal with the dice issue in WFRP.

The good ones hand you the results in an easy to read formate, which lets you know far more easily and quickly what the result is.

That's pretty descent. Takes away a little of the fun of an TT RPG, i.e. the rolling of the dice, but I'm old fashioned that way. Still beggars can't be choosers and things like that would fit the bill for a bit of a look at the game.

Any idea how Criticals are handled without the deck of cards? I tried looking at the picture of the critical page on the FF website but it wasn't obvious - it sort of looked like a %-dice roll? Anyone know?

The main draw for this game to me came from the StS websites edition 'war'. The idea that the GM can introduce subtly into the results. All RPG's like D&D, PF, 1e/2e WFRP are all binary, you either succeed or you don't. Anything other than this is GM fiat and could be challenged by a player. The example from the StS site was climbing a wall while not being seen/heard. In D&D, PF, 1e/2e WFRP, like Yoda said, you either Do or Do Not, 0 or 1, etc. The poster showed how with the 3e WFRP you could have a success BUT something didn't quite go right - for example your sword got caught on the top of the wall or made a noise. Not enough for you to fail but something that would color the players next action. Conversely I guess you could fail but have some unexpected positive come out of the event. I guess you may have made a noise, a guard came to investigate but a piece of masonry became dislodged as you tried to free your sword which knocks the guard out. Wow a game where the GM is there to interpret and entertain - reminds of 1e AD&D only with actual rules to back to GM up!

As perhaps you can tell, 3e WFRP appeals greatly to the GM in me - just the dice and fiddly bits has to date kept me at bay. Well until now.

Thanks guys for dispelling rumors and half-truths I have been working on. With...

The dice pool is one of the games strong points. I love that the fact that you can do things like swing at your opponent, but be of balanced by the swing, or that you can get into a brawl, punch some one and break your hand cause.

The fiddly bits can be really useful, as i have said before. Certain ones like the wound cards are damned near essential (not how they cover crits without them, but I guess they use D% or D66) The Wound system is one of the best bits of the game.

Liberty's Edge

Sorry to ask yet another question. But is combat still WFRP? Meaning is combat nasty enough that attacking is the best option, well virtually never, due to the potential for lasting effects.

I am running out of questions and about to order so I can leave you all in piece, I promise.

S.


It is not the same.

You don't go into every combat, risking the lose of a fate point. But it is still dangerous.

The combat has taken a step toward heroic fantasy. You'll leave your first combat, tired and with injuries that take days to heal, but you'll probable still be alive and able to fight.

The system is disproprotionally biased towards combat, with two or three combat abilities.for every non-combat.


Zombieneighbours wrote:

Lay out of rules and the writing:

The books are badly put together, with elements of system scattered across the books in a fairly higgledie pigledy manner. It takes time to track down concepts pertinaite to combat and skill checks, which are kept in whole other books.

The language is far more clunky than i would like, with certain sections being explained poorly. In many ways, i think the entire system could have been explained much more clearly in perhapes half the space.

However, once past these issues it gets better.

This. Is alot bigger issue than people are letting on. It has to be probably one the worst writting for a good system I have ever seen. We played it once and have sworn not to go back till the actualy write the rules in clear English. Everything else is fine....but this...is why I can't recommend this product. Well without atleast big warning signs about this problem.

Also we found the dice a little too swingy at times. But that is not probably as much a problem when you get used to it. Also while sure it is not binary...but that does mean you spend more time interperting the dice.

As a side note of the bits and pieces....they are a grat help and all...and you could probably do without them...but I generaly dislike the idea of this type of stuff as it gets really annoting you you start loosing pieces. I am gad people are playing without them.


John Kretzer wrote:
It has to be probably one the worst writting for a good system I have ever seen. We played it once and have sworn not to go back till the actualy write the rules in clear English. Everything else is fine....but this...is why I can't recommend this product. Well without atleast big warning signs about this problem.

Yes, the writting is bad. You may want to print this cheatsheet and have it close at hand the first time you play the game - it will saves you a lot of time.

LINK.


I personally don't think the writing is as bad as the above posters are suggesting, but it isn't as clear as it could be in parts, and it can be hard to find certain rules. Universal Head put out a cheat sheet set that is awesome. Search it on google, download it and you'll have a very clear and concise outline of the system. I highly recommend it. It made it way easier for me to get my head around the system when I didn't have anyone to teach it to me.

As for combat, it can easily be more deadly than D&D. However, it can potentially be fairly cinematic as well. For example, there are a form of minion rules. So if the gm uses them a lot, you may have fights where the heroes are mowing down hordes of monsters. However, if the gm doesn't use them very often you'll have more gritty combats. It has the potential to be tailored to the taste of the group. If you want fights to be more deadly just up the damage weapons do by a point or two, give the monsters a few more aggression or expertise dice to throw around and avoid using henchmen.

Liberty's Edge

Zombieneighbours wrote:


The combat has taken a step toward heroic fantasy.

That is a little disappointing to hear. One thing that WFRP did was sort the adults from the kids. You try telling a D&D player that their 2-H weapon PC just lost their left hand. You would be screamed at about being a crap DM. WH, loss of hand means, hmmm, what can I put on the stump and how much will you give me for a used 2H-sword :)

S.


Stefan Hill wrote:
Zombieneighbours wrote:


The combat has taken a step toward heroic fantasy.

That is a little disappointing to hear. One thing that WFRP did was sort the adults from the kids. You try telling a D&D player that their 2-H weapon PC just lost their left hand. You would be screamed at about being a crap DM. WH, loss of hand means, hmmm, what can I put on the stump and how much will you give me for a used 2H-sword :)

S.

Tell me about it. :D

That said, I do like the way 3e handles injuries. Since you seem pretty set on getting it, save your judgement until you have had a chance to read through it.


I'm not familiar with the earlier editions of the game, but 3E doesn't seem to have a lot of loss of limb type crits (or any that I've seen). However, it can still feel pretty gritty, and it is still plenty deadly. There is a big deck of wound cards, so there plenty of options for crits you can receive, a lot of which are quite nasty.

Bottom Line IMO: it is a good game well worth checking out. I've only played about 5 sessions of it, but I'm quickly starting to prefer it over D&D/Pathfinder.

Stefan Hill wrote:
Zombieneighbours wrote:


The combat has taken a step toward heroic fantasy.

That is a little disappointing to hear. One thing that WFRP did was sort the adults from the kids. You try telling a D&D player that their 2-H weapon PC just lost their left hand. You would be screamed at about being a crap DM. WH, loss of hand means, hmmm, what can I put on the stump and how much will you give me for a used 2H-sword :)

S.

Liberty's Edge

The hardbacks should arrive mid-July. Thanks all for the discussion, I really am quite looking forward to reading them.

Regards,
Stefan.

Community / Forums / Gamer Life / Gaming / Other RPGs / Anyone tried playing 3e Warhammer Fantasy RP without "fiddly bits"? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Other RPGs