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Rodney Thompson
United States
Renton
Washington
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As of today, I've played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 3rd Edition (the nex big box set from Fantasy Flight) twice. More accurately, I've GMed it twice. I think I've got a somewhat solid handle on the game, and I thought that some people might want to hear some first impressions from me (at least, my Twitter feed seems to be ravenous about it).
Full disclosure: I'm a professional game designer, and I work as a game designer and developer for Wizards of the Coast. I also tend to like more games than I dislike. Lastly, I have ZERO experience with any version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying prior to this point beyond owning and skimming the 2nd Edition core rulebook. The Warhammer Fantasy world was pretty much alien to me on first exposure to this game. So, take that into account when reading my impressions.
My general impressions can be summed up as follows: This is a pretty standard roleplaying game made very interesting by the way they choose to present their character information. I know a lot of people have dismissed this game as a board game, but it is not. This is a roleplaying game that has chosen to print many of its character traits in the form of cards. I can't stress enough that the information is pretty mucht he same, it's just presented in a different venue. Also, it works. One of the biggest steps forward that the game makes is making referencing the rulebook completely obsolete for the players. Everything you need to know is on a card, with more or less complete rules text on it. As a fan of faster play experiences, this pleases me greatly. I think one of the best things that many of my favorite board games do these days is give the player every scrap of information needed up front. It's not hidden in a rulebook, it's on the table in front of you. For WFRP3, this is a huge strength in many respects. First, it makes for an easy to use system of tracking character abilities for the players. Second, and perhaps a more subtle benefit, is that every time you add a new element to the game (such as more talents or more actions), you don't need to do anything to make it easier to use; the cards are simply added to the stack, which means that, two years from now, I will go to the exact same place for talents that I do today: my talent cards. For D&D 4th Edition, we created a pretty awesome character builder that helps players manage their large collection of powers, feats, etc. WFRP3E makes a character builder completely unneeded simply by virtue of including everything you need to know on a card.If you're a D&D player, imagine this: every one of your powers, feats, or spells is on a card that you bring to every session. You never have to look at a book, or comb through many books, to find your special abilities. That's powerful.
And it's not just limited to the talents and actions. The brilliant thing about putting most of your character data on cards is that you can introduce whole new subsystems incredibly easily. For example, the player kit introduces followers...who simply get their own cards that you lay out in front of you. Sure, you'll need to read the rules once, but after that everything you need to know is kept on the table in front of you, in an easy to reference place. Through our two play sessions, we had no spellcasters...but if we did then spellcasters basically would just get another set of cards. Moreover, you've got some subsystems (like critical wounds, spell misfires, conditions, and insanity) that could very easily become both convoluted and a chore to remember. In this game, they are all their own separate decks of cards, so that if the situation comes up that triggers one of those you simply draw the card and place it in front of you. What's great about this is that it makes old mechanics that can be a chore to deal with (in my opinion, things like critical hit tables) something that can be easily added to the game, and something that is easy to track.
This brings me to another thing I love: after character creation, there's almost no math in this game. You don't track numerical modifiers or figure out which bonuses stack. You don't recalculate damage or to-hit numbers. Sure, most of those things are pretty easy, but I have run two sessions now and didn't need a pen or pencil at all. Damage is tracked by cards, conditions are tracked by cards, etc. so that I spent 0 time bookkeeping and instead spent all of my time adjudicating events in play. It's not a perfect system (see some comments about both dice pools and Gamemastering below) but it does have its advantages, particularly in the area of tracking. Anyone who runs games on a regular basis can tell you that tracking is one of the most annoying parts of in-game play. 4E eliminated round tracking with the saving throw mechanic; WFRP3 eliminates it with its components.
Yet another great part about the data-on-cards-not-scattered-throughout-books nature of the game is that it has a great built-in balancing mechanic. In a game like D&D, you often have all kinds of special rules and conditions that keep you from stacking X on top of Y to create a crazy broken character. WFRP3 handles the stacking issue by giving you X number of slots that can be filled with special abilities...and you never get any more! There are interesting combos to be had, for certain, but the nice part about the game is that you rarely have to worry about ability X stacking on top of ability Y, since you'll almost never have them active at the same time. Instead, as you progress, you gain more of these talents, but the number of sockets remain the same, so that you have more choices of what you can have active at a time, but they don't all build on top of each other to create a convoluted, interconnecting mess. It also does wonders for game balance, as it removes one of the toughest areas of development:balancing special abilities based on how they stack with other things. It means the game developers only need to balance talents against each other, and need have little concern about how they stack on top of each other. Some concern, yes, but since each talent is cordoned off on its own, and each talent can only fit into one of a limited number of slots, there's drastically fewer stacking issues. As a designer, I love this. As a player, it feels like you're making interesting decisions on a round-by-round basis.
I briefly touched on it above, but I really like how the recharging of abilities works. Basically, instead of having encounter powers or spells that can only be cast once per day, every action (and some talents) have a rate of recharge that is simple to track and remember. Once you get into the rhythm of your turn, this becomes second nature, meaning I can have multiple actions and talents in different states of recharge and still not be confused by it at all. Moreover, from a design standpoint it creates a huge amount of design space, wherein I can balance abilities based on not only what they do, but how quickly they recharge. It also means that you can bend balance on certain powers a long way, so that instead of having basically a toggle of two possible strengths of effect (weak & at-will vs. strong and encounter/daily), you have a much wider ranger. Some powers can be used every round; others take 2 rounds, 3 rounds, or more to recharge. It creates more variety in actions, and makes character building very interesting.
Another thing I like is the way intiative is handled, and story tracks in general. When you roll initiative, you essentially create initiative slots that can be filled, round by round, by any character in a given faction. So, if I roll a good initiative but I want my high elf mercenary to go first, he can...without having to do a bunch of fiddly delaying as such. Monsters do the same, though, so there is a greater chance that beefy monsters get their powerful actions off first. Similarly, their skill challenge/story tracking mechanic is nice, versatile, and visual. While some may find it game, I find that for things like chase scenes and countdowns it works really well. I'm still unsure about how it will work in dramatic scenes (should I let the players see their progress tracker so they know how close they are to intimidating the nobleman into aiding them?), but in many ways it's a nice, highly visual way to track progress in a scene other than by how many monsters are dead.
(As an aside: I really like how thoroughly keywords are used in this game. It makes it so much easier to define something in an unobtrusive way. Keywords should be used much more often in games of this complexity).
Monsters have some interesting things going on. They have their own actions, so they aren't limited to just the same things that players can do (yay exception based design), and their statistics are much simplified from what the players have. Furthermore, their actions are clearly spelled out, with descriptions of what happens when certain dice results come up, making adjudicating monster actions very easy. That said, I find the way those statistics are presented very difficult to read. There's a lot that's sort of in "code" and not obvious from first glance. Furthermore, they don't give statistics they should. For example, the game's damage soak value is Toughness + armor. Well, in a monster stat block, instead of figuring that for you they just have a number followed by another number (i.e. 4(4) or something like that), and you have to add them together on the fly. I mean, that's not hard by any stretch, but it is unintuitive, and I had to reference the rulebook several times during play to remember which numbers added to which other ones in which situations. I really hope Fantasy Flight takes a look at how they present their monster stats again; it's one of the greatest deficiencies in the game (see below).
Yet another area where the game does some great things is in the area of character advancement. The nice part is that you get SOMETHING after every session, and you're constantly improving. I like that you don't track numerical XP necessarily, and that every time I show up at the table I have the chance to be a little bit better at something than I was before, or have a new ability. The career system is what it is (I neither like not dislike it; it's just a system) and there are some fiddly bits that could stand to be ironed out (such as what you can advance when, and making it more clear whether or not you can save up advancement points). The other thing that is nice about it is that FFG has basically created a system whereby they can tell exactly how fast players advance based on the number of sessions they play. I know for D&D there are a lot of times where we've had to examine the rate of advancement, as advancement is one of the key areas that keep people coming back to your game. I don't know that I'd want this exact system for D&D, but at the very least they've created a very solid advancement system that they can use to accurately predict how their own players are advancing.
One mechanic that I both like and dislike is the new "party type" mechanic. Basically, your party as a whole gets a "Career" of its own, that provides special rules that benefit/apply to everyone in the party. I like that it helps explain why the party is together, and helps remove the necessity of the "you all meet in a tavern" session where you explain why you're all together. I like that each party type has different special abilities, and different talent slots. Since you can slot in unused talents into the talent slots of the party, and those talents then apply to EVERYONE, you benefit the party by contributing something that is uniquely yours. Moreover, since you can in turn take talents out of the party slots and slot them into your own talent slots, it means that players can effectively trade talents between each other freely--but only if their party type has that kind of talent on it! So, you party type determines the areas of your party's greatest versatility. Given the relative simplicity of characters, this adds a lot of depth to the party in the long run.
Alas, the party mechanics aren't all good.I feel like the party benefit associated with each party type can be easily forgotten. Worse, I think the party tension track might be completely extraneous. I understand generally its purpose, but it's really not clear when I need to use it as a GM. My players today worked together great, but there were some tense scenes. Is the party tension track just a punishment mechanic for players who let their minds wander or bicker too long? If so, that feels very meta, and is something I'm not crazy about having story/mechanical ramifications. In both playtests, the tension meter felt kind of like something that could be abused with a jerk DM, but in our case was mostly ignored. I'm not 100% against it, but I need some more instruction about how to use it for a positive gameplay effect.
I've talked a lot about what I like so far (and there's a LOT to like about this game), but there are a few things that I don't care for. The movement and distance system is one of them. I get it that they wanted to go abstract, but it's painfully obvious that this game would be much better with a grid (even a large-scale one, more like the concept of zones), rather than futzing with the distance tokens. Not only is it annoying to keep track of realtive distance if players go off in different directions, it also has inexplicable complication (why does it cost 2 maneuvers to go from long to medium range when it's only 1 to move from medium to close?) and extraneous distance tracking (I can be at close range with a guy, but not engaged with him, so in truth there's actually an invisible measurement of distance between close and engaged that the game isn't really honest about). I'm in no way suggesting that the game needs tactical movement or a 1-inch grid, but I think just being able to draw the equivalent of a big tic-tac-toe board and dropping the encounter locations into large-scale zones might have been a lot easier. As it is, distance and location is probably the most difficult to track thing in the game, and it feels like they reached too hard for abstraction while not fully embracing it.
Speaking of somewhat extraneous mechanics, the stance system is an interesting and unobtrusive mechanic that is introduced...and I think it might be so unobtrusive that it's unnecessary. In theory, this determines how reckless or conservative you're being. In actuality, players seem to reach for one side or the other and ignore the rest of the track. I guess I appreciate conceptually what it's trying to do, and like the variety it applies to your actions (each action card is two-sided, meaning that the action is slightly mechanically different depending on which side you're on), but in the end it felt like kind of pointless tracking that I didn't want to fool with.
The dice...ah, the dice. I'm of a split mind about the dice pool mechanic. On the one hand, it means no fiddling with math. It's relatively intuitive, and you get very good at it very quickly. Since the possible outcomes of your die rolls are written right on cards, it's easy to resolve...most of the time. At the same time, there are a lot of "hidden" results in the game; sometimes, if you get enough hits, you turn one into a crit. Sometimes Sigmar's Comet means one thing, and sometimes it means something else. Moreover, while I appreciate the rarity of true opposed rolls, trying to figure out anything other than attack vs. defense can be tedious. Why do I use challenge dice sometimes, and misfortune dice others? What's the real difference between expertise dice and fortune dice? I know there are answers, but they are far from intuitive after two plays. When I use a skill vs. a target's skill, my challenge level is determined by a formula that has to be referenced in the book, which in turn references multiple enemy statistics. Maybe I'm spoiled by attack vs. defense, but I felt like, a lot of times, building you dice pool when using a skill vs. another skill was time consuming. Given the frequency with which this occurs in the game, I'm halfway convinced that the dice pool mechanic could do with about two less kinds of dice.
This is sort of leading into my single biggest problem with the game: It doesn't make GMing nearly as easy as playing. Oh, sure, there are a lot of places where it's pretty simple, but there are a lot of places where it's downright convoluted. Monster stat blocks need serious work in becoming easier to read. Figuring out how to build dice pools needs to be easier. Figuring out how to interpret dice pool results on the fly, especially when improvising effects, needs to be easier. I have no idea how to create a new monster. Creating a balanced encounter seems difficult (admittedly, I've only run it twice now). I found that, without the cheat sheets downloaded from BGG, there's a lot of time spent looking in the books. What can you do with a maneuver? When should I add misfortune dice? What happens during the rally step (a very nice mechanic for creating a short lull in the combat)? What are the First Aid difficulties? I sincerely hope FFG considers putting out a GM screen with a lot of the most commonly referenced information on it.
Lastly, the rulebooks. They're pretty, but I found them lacking in the areas of readability, and more specifically in the ease of reference. Lots, and I mean MOST, of the rules are in running paragraphs. When you're trying to look up a rule during play, you end up having to search through multiple paragraphs of text, across many pages. What I wouldn't give for simple things like bullet points, inline headers, shaded text, etc. to make the rules easier to reference at the table. For all the great things the game does with making sure players don't have to reach for the rulebook, there are few similar advancements on behalf of the Gamemaster. The rules are clear, mind you; they're just buried and hard to find.
All that being said, I think there's a lot in this game that's brilliant. I give it a solid B+, and I would play in a campaign of this (and maybe even run one, depending on how easy to run their full-length adventures turn out to be). I think anyone who's a modern RPG designer needs to play this game, familiarize themselves with its strengths and weaknesses, and figure out WHY it does what it does. It's clear that Fantasy Flight put a lot of effort into thinking about how we play games, and though it's radical in some areas, for the most part it is merely a redistribution of data. You get the same things out of this game that you do any other RPG, you just have the information you need given to you in different ways.
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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Anyone who dismisses this as a boardgame hasn't played it, hasn't read the rules and is quite missinformed about the game. It's different than any other RPG and contains chits that assist in and make book keeping visible by all.
Good review. You make some good points ere and I will need more experience to see why the Monster stats are not intuitive. However, the only thing I disagree with you about is the dice pool. I found it made sense to me and seems to be just as fast/slow as finding all the situational modifiers off a chart or in a rule book as any other system. And with practice I am sure it will become faster.
well done and thanks for the review..
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Dead Eye Dick
United States
San Francisco
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Great review, and wonderful insights. Thanks for sharing!
A couple of points; you're absolutely right about the readability of the texts. The system would be much easier learned if the rules were better isolated from "flavor" text, and the layout were friendlier. I found it extremely useful to build my GM reference sheets as I read through them because of the layout.
You mentioned: Quote: such as what you can advance when, and making it more clear whether or not you can save up advancement points
Advancement can be clearer (and FFG did release more details in the FAQ), but on this point I think it is fairly intuitive that you can save advancement points, otherwise a player could never purchase skills/talents outside of their career or increase characteristics beyond their starting value. The former costs 2 advances per basic/talent and 4 per advanced skill. The latter costs advances equal to the change (moving from strength 4 to 5 costs 5 points). Obviously this could be clearer, but it does follow from the rules on advancement.
With regards to your comments on the party sheet, particularly the party stress tracker: Quote: I understand generally its purpose, but it's really not clear when I need to use it as a GM. I mentioned elsewhere that I think FFG put a little too much emphasis on their examples dealing with meta-aspects. E.g. player discussions, player strife, etc. I prefer to use it exclusively as an RPG tool. For example, my party was formed out of circumstance (they were asked to collectively look into something). As they were new to each other, they started out with a little stress. When the Apprentice Wizard miscast their spell and started levitating, I increased the internal party stress.
I think its use as a in-game, in-character tracker to track inter-party stress is perfect for such things.
My party is starting to get more comfortable with the dice. They very quickly grokked the success and quality of success mechanic, but now they're interested in creating the "narrative" of the roll. E.g. in combat, three successes were rolled and three challenges. They knew instantly they had missed, but with such a high number of successes matched by equal challenges, they created a quick blurb about how they threw a series of quick and hard blows at their opponent, only for their target to skillfully deflect and avoid each attack. Likewise, they are looking at the various dice types to explain away a miss or success (something fortunate occur, perhaps they tripped or their senses were deceived).
Thanks again - great read!
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
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The Party Stress track is THE mechanic that truly left me hating the game. It punishes everyone for anything done by any player the GM feels is slowing the game (My demo GM showed me that in the rules) or being contentious. It's also used in the demo adventure, as I recall, to represent the costs of certain failures.
I really don't like using group punishments in recreational activites; I'll do it in a classroom (because, as a sub, it's often the only leverage I have), but I sure don't want to do it to adults during a game.
And it IS a punishment mechanic. (Punishment is axiomatically an unpleasant stimulus after the undesired behavior.*)
I'll be looking forward to hearing how the various monsters interact in play; in D&D3, for example, I found the interaction of different monsters' powers in a single conflict often broke the challenge levels.
*The four classic B-Mod modes:
Positive Reinforcement: desirable stimulus after desired behavior
Negative reinforcement: aversive stimulus until desired behavior
bribe: desirable stimulus before desired behavior
punsihment: aversive stimulus after undesired behavior.
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Bossko B.
England
Brierley Hill
The Black Country
2012. BE HAPPY!
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Nice review Rodney. The first review that's actually think I might like this game, although at present there is no way I can afford it.
Also nice to see you here, I didn't know you were on RPG Geek, I'm Sithspawn over on SWPRG-Holonet.
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Dead Eye Dick
United States
San Francisco
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aramis wrote: The Party Stress track is THE mechanic that truly left me hating the game. It punishes everyone for anything done by any player the GM feels is slowing the game (My demo GM showed me that in the rules) or being contentious. It's also used in the demo adventure, as I recall, to represent the costs of certain failures.
I really don't like using group punishments in recreational activites; I'll do it in a classroom (because, as a sub, it's often the only leverage I have), but I sure don't want to do it to adults during a game.
And it IS a punishment mechanic. (Punishment is axiomatically an unpleasant stimulus after the undesired behavior.*)
I'll be looking forward to hearing how the various monsters interact in play; in D&D3, for example, I found the interaction of different monsters' powers in a single conflict often broke the challenge levels.
*The four classic B-Mod modes:
Positive Reinforcement: desirable stimulus after desired behavior
Negative reinforcement: aversive stimulus until desired behavior
bribe: desirable stimulus before desired behavior
punsihment: aversive stimulus after undesired behavior.
You're suggesting that you can ONLY use the party stress mechanic to punish players for meta-behavior or similar.
If you read my above post, I offered some in-game, in-character scenarios that I used to up party stress that have nothing to do with player issues. How a GM uses the tool is up to the GM - it isn't mandated by the rules. The rules, while offering suggestions are clearly just suggestions. It doesn't say "If player's do X punish them for Y tokens."
I think FFG did a terrible job at describing this mechanic when it can obviously be used for much more interesting and much more appropriate in-game effects, but they never mandated what you should or shouldn't do in the rules. They explicitly gave the GM a tool and offered some suggestions on how to use it.
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Dead Eye Dick
United States
San Francisco
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jgerman wrote:
...but with the poor organization and mechanics that appear to not have been fully thought through I don't expect much.
I am curious which mechanics you don't think were well thought through. From my vantage, I think the mechanics are brilliant, but they are poorly described or are tough to sort out because of the layout of the rules (hence a FAQ). I think it could have used a tighter layout with more examples.
Still, I find the mechanics very simple to grok during a playthrough, and I love that they've gone the route of not prescribing everything via the rules and rather allowing the GM to add modifiers on the fly to any check, etc.
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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aramis wrote: The Party Stress track is THE mechanic that truly left me hating the game. It punishes everyone for anything done by any player the GM feels is slowing the game (My demo GM showed me that in the rules) or being contentious. It's also used in the demo adventure, as I recall, to represent the costs of certain failures.
I really don't like using group punishments in recreational activites; I'll do it in a classroom (because, as a sub, it's often the only leverage I have), but I sure don't want to do it to adults during a game.
And it IS a punishment mechanic. (Punishment is axiomatically an unpleasant stimulus after the undesired behavior.*)
I'll be looking forward to hearing how the various monsters interact in play; in D&D3, for example, I found the interaction of different monsters' powers in a single conflict often broke the challenge levels.
*The four classic B-Mod modes:
Positive Reinforcement: desirable stimulus after desired behavior
Negative reinforcement: aversive stimulus until desired behavior
bribe: desirable stimulus before desired behavior
punsihment: aversive stimulus after undesired behavior.
Sounds to me like you hated the GM and not the game... the GM doesnt HAVE to use this party stress mechanic in the way you suggested. our GM suggested that the party sheet would be used more as a reward system where in if we used teamwork to accomplish tasks then fortuen markers would be placed here. he actually made mention of the stress machanic but said he would since he is pretty fair and balanced in egeneral he would not using it to punish the party for a single player in any way whatsoever.
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Jack Bennett
United States
Rougemont
North Carolina
Play. Always.
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Wonderful review, saves me the time of having to write one.
My biggest problem so far (and one of yours it seems as well) is the lack of organization and abundance of vague rules that make GMing, and getting everything right, difficult.
Not sure how long I'll be supporting the game, but I agree with all of the good things you said, which makes me really WANT to like it.
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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jgerman wrote: deadeyedick wrote:
I am curious which mechanics you don't think were well thought through. From my vantage, I think the mechanics are brilliant
The "abstract measurements" are the first thing that needs to go. It looks for all the world like they wanted to distance themselves from 4e and came up with a poorly thought out substitute. It's an attempt to represent two dimensional space using scalar values. It's fundamentally flawed and incapable of handling combats of any but the most trivial complexity. Creating a "quick visual reference" to where things are in relation to each other is precisely what this system *doesn't* do. In order to do that, you'd need to have tokens between every standie and every other standie on the table. This ad hoc version doesn't scale. You know what does solve that issue? I'll give you a hint, it's something that implicitly contains all the information necessary to tell where an arbitrary number of things are in relation to each other. There's nothing wrong with abstracting away portions of combat. Look to Agon for one good method, Diaspora for another. Both of those systems do it well and they do it without compromising scale. WFRP3e fails in this respect. It's not the idea that's bad, it's the implementation. If the goal is really to abstract away combat you need to be careful which bits your abstracting away and what you're replacing it with. IMO they should have went with a "Mind's Eye" system but that's obviously contrary to their design goals.. to sell you bits of colored cardboard. I was actually astounded to find that the rules didn't expand on this system beyond what we saw as a preview. I thought for sure they'd have taken care of the obvious issues. I'll still run the game and if parts of it work maybe I'll cut out the other bits, but it's probably not worth it. Why would I do that when there are plenty of great games out there for a less money and a lot less cruft. There are just far too many drawbacks to the system, starting with rules presentation and organization (including the silly notion that putting rules on cards as a primary source is somehow a good thing) and continuing on down. There's nothing innovative or exciting here, just mechanics that are begged, borrowed, and stolen from other games and presented using board game bits. This isn't wrong, plenty of games borrow. And bits are what FFG does well. It's just a shame that they're killing off 1e and 2e as a result. I would have vastly preferred that this had remained "Descent the RPG" and had the Warhammer franchise been left with someone that wasn't going to shoehorn it into the spare parts from the warehouse.
Wow it's strange... other than the way the rules are presented I pretty much disagree 100% with everything you have said here. Especially regarding the "nothing new" and the cards are "silly". The way that actions are resolved with the dice pool is pretty new and I think the use of cards rather than writting everything down on your character sheet is fantastic for several reasons. number 1 it gives everyone at the table easy visibility to everyone elses skills without any hassle. number 2 the cards themselves have a system that offers quite a few creative resolutions to the action being attempted.
To each thier own I guess, you have obviously made up your mind on this one. It's just to me, it just sounds like you said that it's bad "just because i dont like it" with a lot more words. The one area where you do sufficiently elaborate is in the area of abstract distance: a mechanism that I have no problem with at all. D&D seems to have turned into a miniatures game and I dont think FFG wanted to do the same with WHFRP.
Again, we obviously have drastically different opinions here as I couldnt disagree more with you, but I guess that's why there are many systems out there: some people will lke one system and not the other. I, for one, haven't had the remotest interest in an RPG in about 15 years until this one came out. I am very excited about this game. You have a fun and exciting system set in the most interesting fantasy RPG world (IMO) out of all of them.
As far as cost... do me a favor and price out the equivalent of starting materials for a game like D&D or pathfinders and tell me what you find.
For path finder the bare bones minimum Id say is the following
Core rulebook. 49.99
Beastiary 49.99
Dice set BASIC 12
and this doesnt include the Game Mastery Guide for another 39.99
price 111.98
well lets look at the VERY basic set of gear that I just got rid of from D&D 3.5
I'll be modest with the prices here, its what I payed:
Players handbook 30$
Dungeon Masters Guide 30$
Monster Manual 30$
Dice 12$
couple this with the fact that the game can be bought at Amazon for 62.99 for the core set right now and I dont think relative price is an issue at all. Not evn close really. With the systems I just mentioned, you get the books and a set of dice and that's it, you get much more in the WHFRP core set.
Tim
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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jgerman wrote: Unicorniclops wrote:
Wow it's strange... other than the way the rules are presented I pretty much disagree 100% with everything you have said here. Especially regarding the "nothing new" and the cards are "silly".
It's not strange at all, you completely missed the point of my post then threw up a straw man or two in response. In light of that, no, it's not strange. Quote:
It's just to me, it just sounds like you said that it's bad "just because i dont like it" with a lot more words.
I suggest finding a game to help improve your reading comprehension.
WOW. HAHHAHA... nice response. Im sorry if I hit a raw nerve, I certainly wasnt intending too. please explain these "straw men" you are talking about. I'm not sure I follow you at all. I'll take your snarky comments and personal attack as if I offended you somehow. Sorry 'bout that.
Tim
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
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D&D4 and WFRP3 are the 2 most expensive "core rulesets" on the market (not counting collector's editions).
The dice mechanic is borrowed from boardgaming. (Most of them actually are... not just WFRP3's.)
The putting of play data on cards is a standard element of many character-scale boardgames, and not a few miniatures wargames. (Clan War, Candamir: The First Settlers)
The abstract measurement of ranges is in many RPGs: Diaspora, The Burning Wheel Fantasy Roleplaying System (Revised), to name but two)
It really isn't innovative, other than combining all these.
As for party stress... if you're adding stress for other reasons, it's still punishment, and still a nasty mechanic.
The GM was a bit of a rules lawyer, always has been. He runs rules as written, and I try to as well. The "Rules are just guidelines" approach is, to me, nothing but a cop out.
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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I'd say that Pathfinder is the second most expensive as of right now, as some simple research pointed out to me.. for what you get especially, 2 medium sized books and a set of dice.
Quote: The Core set is available right now from Amazon for 62.99 As far as cost...
For Pathfinder the bare bones minimum Id say is the following
Core rulebook. 49.99
Beastiary 49.99
Dice set BASIC 12
and this doesnt include the Game Mastery Guide for another 39.99
price 111.98
well lets look at the VERY basic set of gear that I just got rid of from D&D 3.5
I'll be modest with the prices here, its what I payed:
Players handbook 30$
Dungeon Masters Guide 30$
Monster Manual 30$
Dice 12$
William. I can totally see what you are talking about with the party system being used by rule lawyers and what-have-you as soley a means of punishment as you have mentioned. but that isnt the way it HAS to be used nor how I feel it should be used. But I do think that the mechanic is fairly neat if used by a GM who is fair and uses it to advance the story rather than punish players. However, put this mechanic in the hand of who wants to be rude to the players or control too much of the game then wham, you have a situation just like you mentioned. Not the mechanics fault but the GM.
EDIT: As far as the mechanics that have been "done before" in other genres: /edit
In the format of the RPG, these mechanics are more unique especially when combined with the dice pool. I'm not saying this is the most revolutionary game ever. But it has several concepts new to the genre and does something exciting to me with the dice pool and emphasis on story telling.
For me, the presentation combined with the mechnics and the streamlined dice and skills interaction, this game has rekindled my interest in RPGs. I started out with D&D in 1979 and have tken a long hiatus until this game came out (since he 90s.) No one system can please everyone, of course.
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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EDIT: this post was regarding a post written by JGerman, who, shortly after this conversation deleted his account and all his posts went with him. I will leave it up here since I do't want to delete posts..
Tim
Thanks for explaining these "straw men" you are talking about.. I re read your post again, realized that I completely diagree with it (except for the part about the rules being organized in the books poorly... they are) Then I made sure I understood your post. I do, and disagree. I re-read my post to see if it made sense and adressed why I disagree. It did.
I asked you to explain these "straw men", you didnt. You just offered more personal attacks and snarky comments. seems like you just dont like people disagreeing with you. what is "abundantly clear" is that you are rude. Not that you did, or were intending to, but please do not explain why your snarky comments make the least bit of sense. They don't, but I am no longer interested in conversing with you at all as you dont have much to offer a conversation passed your little snide comments.
Thanks,
Tim
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Kerry Harrison
United States
Katy
Texas
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
Meep. Meep. Meep.
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Unicorniclops wrote:
I, for one, haven't had the remotest interest in an RPG in about 15 years until this one came out. I am very excited about this game. You have a fun and exciting system set in the most interesting fantasy RPG world (IMO) out of all of them.
This is the most interesting take on an RPG I've seen in years and the only one I've really wanted to play and was willing to purchase without first playing someone else's copy of it.
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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Yeah, We have a group of 6 and a GM playing... this is on the big side for a party, but, nontheless, I am really excited about it.
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
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Unicorniclops wrote: I'd say that Pathfinder is the second most expensive as of right now, as some simple research pointed out to me.. for what you get especially, 2 medium sized books and a set of dice. Quote: The Core set is available right now from Amazon for 62.99 As far as cost...
For Pathfinder the bare bones minimum Id say is the following
Core rulebook. 49.99
Beastiary 49.99
Dice set BASIC 12
and this doesnt include the Game Mastery Guide for another 39.99
price 111.98
well lets look at the VERY basic set of gear that I just got rid of from D&D 3.5
I'll be modest with the prices here, its what I payed:
Players handbook 30$
Dungeon Masters Guide 30$
Monster Manual 30$
Dice 12$
Now you're comparing apples (MSRP) and oranges (Amazon price, especially since Amazon wasn't shipping yet last I heard...). MSRP is $99.95 for WFRP3, and the GM kit is stated by many to be essential for many, and is another $20 or so.
Pathfinder is less expensive on Amazon, too... $31 for a core book and $25 for the bestiary (Both new).
Wal*mart has D&D core rules for $22.15 per book. $66.45 for a DMG, PH, and MM for 4E. Or the "Collection" for $63.48. On walmart.com. And no shipping, if you pick up at your local wal*mart.
So all three are right about the same price point online, and the same pricepoint MSRP.
Oh, and a set of dice for $12? I find dice sets for $7 routinely, and can piecemeal for $0.5 per die.
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Dead Eye Dick
United States
San Francisco
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aramis wrote:
As for party stress... if you're adding stress for other reasons, it's still punishment, and still a nasty mechanic.
The GM was a bit of a rules lawyer, always has been. He runs rules as written, and I try to as well. The "Rules are just guidelines" approach is, to me, nothing but a cop out.
I still don't quite get it... how is adding stress to a party sheet (and thereby affecting the characters) much different from adding stress or fatigue to a character per other rules? One of my cases illustrated elsewhere was something akin to the One Ring's influence in LOTR: a demon, when nearby would cause people to become subtly more angry and irritable with each other. To capture this, I added stress to the party group. How is that punishment?
As for the rules approach, I can see certainly see your point of view. I have played and enjoyed a lot of systems over the years, and for a very long time the bulk of those tried to simulate as many options for the characters as possible by outlining rules in as many cases as they could illustrate. As you seem to agree, that's a rule lawyers favorite environment. For myself, this new version has me breathing a breath of fresh air; I don't have to have memorized a million modifiers and abilities. Rather, I can add a simple fortune or misfortune die to capture the situation as the scene warrants it. I don't see how creating a core structure of a rule arbitration system (the dice, the skills, the movement) etc. is a cop out when it doesn't explicitly define every possible outcome or use.
But clearly, we're coming at this from two very different mind sets.
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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aramis wrote: Unicorniclops wrote: I'd say that Pathfinder is the second most expensive as of right now, as some simple research pointed out to me.. for what you get especially, 2 medium sized books and a set of dice. Quote: The Core set is available right now from Amazon for 62.99 As far as cost...
For Pathfinder the bare bones minimum Id say is the following
Core rulebook. 49.99
Beastiary 49.99
Dice set BASIC 12
and this doesnt include the Game Mastery Guide for another 39.99
price 111.98
well lets look at the VERY basic set of gear that I just got rid of from D&D 3.5
I'll be modest with the prices here, its what I payed:
Players handbook 30$
Dungeon Masters Guide 30$
Monster Manual 30$
Dice 12$
Now you're comparing apples (MSRP) and oranges (Amazon price, especially since Amazon wasn't shipping yet last I heard...). MSRP is $99.95 for WFRP3, and the GM kit is stated by many to be essential for many, and is another $20 or so. Pathfinder is less expensive on Amazon, too... $31 for a core book and $25 for the bestiary (Both new). Wal*mart has D&D core rules for $22.15 per book. $66.45 for a DMG, PH, and MM for 4E. Or the "Collection" for $63.48. On walmart.com. And no shipping, if you pick up at your local wal*mart. So all three are right about the same price point online, and the same pricepoint MSRP. Oh, and a set of dice for $12? I find dice sets for $7 routinely, and can piecemeal for $0.5 per die.
that IS true.. not fair of me to compare retail and what you can find on the internet... however, the point remains, there is no real difference in price with any of the core sets. I think people beleieving this to be an expensive in comparison are not taking into consideration the prices properly.
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
-
Fundamentally, a games rules are a social contract, DED... when one agrees to play a game, one is literally engaging in a contract for what the rules are. If one is going to use houserules, one needs to make them explicit ahead of time, or one is lying about what one is playing. The claim that "you can always change the bits you don't like" is in fact a form of advocacy of lying to players; if I say "I'm gonna run D6 SW 2E, and instead use 2E-R&E, or alter the nature of , I've just lied to my players, and changed the way the universe their characters live in works.
The party stress mechanic being used for punishing players who are not cooperating with each other or are taking too long is in the rules; not doing so is literally not playing WFRP3 as written.
Other purposes for party stress are also in the rules. Not doing so is also not playing WFRP3 as written.
I always try to play rules as written; I'd rather not have to houserule. When a particular mechanic, tho, provides such a viable venue for abuse in the rules as written as does the party stress mechanic, it's sufficient grounds for me to despise it. It's the one despicable mechanic. And it's the one unique mechanic.
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Ron R.
United States
Kentucky
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Unicorniclops wrote: aramis wrote: Unicorniclops wrote: I'd say that Pathfinder is the second most expensive as of right now, as some simple research pointed out to me.. for what you get especially, 2 medium sized books and a set of dice. Quote: The Core set is available right now from Amazon for 62.99 As far as cost...
For Pathfinder the bare bones minimum Id say is the following
Core rulebook. 49.99
Beastiary 49.99
Dice set BASIC 12
and this doesnt include the Game Mastery Guide for another 39.99
price 111.98
well lets look at the VERY basic set of gear that I just got rid of from D&D 3.5
I'll be modest with the prices here, its what I payed:
Players handbook 30$
Dungeon Masters Guide 30$
Monster Manual 30$
Dice 12$
Now you're comparing apples (MSRP) and oranges (Amazon price, especially since Amazon wasn't shipping yet last I heard...). MSRP is $99.95 for WFRP3, and the GM kit is stated by many to be essential for many, and is another $20 or so. Pathfinder is less expensive on Amazon, too... $31 for a core book and $25 for the bestiary (Both new). Wal*mart has D&D core rules for $22.15 per book. $66.45 for a DMG, PH, and MM for 4E. Or the "Collection" for $63.48. On walmart.com. And no shipping, if you pick up at your local wal*mart. So all three are right about the same price point online, and the same pricepoint MSRP. Oh, and a set of dice for $12? I find dice sets for $7 routinely, and can piecemeal for $0.5 per die. that IS true.. not fair of me to compare retail and what you can find on the internet... however, the point remains, there is no real difference in price with any of the core sets. I think people beleieving this to be an expensive in comparison are not taking into consideration the prices properly.
I think one of the factors the cost discussion might be missing is the fact that for most other RPG's the Player's Guides tend to be purchased by each of the players. I know in my old DnD group everyone had a player's guide as well as 3-4 class handbooks. There were sometimes $500 to $600 worth of redundant material sitting on a table purchased by 5 different people.
One of the selling points so far for me has been cost control. I don't need to have my players go out and invest in 3 other books in order to play. There are enough dice to go around the table for everyone to share. I'll be dropping money on the expansions I'm interested in and they have little to no financial commitment. Being the GM I'd be buying these anyway.
The ability/skill cards are great because suddenly there isn't 10 minutes of my game time spent searching for some obscure rule about the diameter of a fireball, or what sequence triggers a death blow skill. After 2-3 plays the books are only needed for occasional reference.
Realistically though, I also see this is a small drawback as running with 2 or three game groups suddenly creates a little longer set-up as you can't use the little boxes provided and a little extra bookkeeping is needed for each of the character sheets, but that's nothing that veteran RPG'ers haven't done in the past with any other role playing game.
All in all I think I'm saving my players quite a bit of cash. Enough that they can go buy 'my' player's guides for their games. 
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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First, I appreciate back and forth about this topic quite a bit.
Let me quote the books here:
Quote: The tension track on each party sheet is a subtle way the GM CAN
help resolve conflicts between players or their characters. When the
party’s focus starts to wander, or in-character arguments threaten
to cross over into player arguments, the GM can advance the par-
ty’s tension a space or two. If the characters are working together
especially well, the GM can move the tracking token a space or two
back to the left. The goal is not to punish or embarrass the players,
but rather provide a simple, visual cue that things are escalating in a
way that may be counterproductive.
It doesnt say you MUSTuse it this way at all... the rulebook also offers some roleplaying uses alternative to the meta uses. It doesnt say you have to do any of them... at all. It never once says if this happens THEN do this.. it always says you "can." The rules are purposely open for the GM to use these rules however they wish in the context of appropriate use. There is no rules here that are house rules at all... it says the GM can use it how he sees fit. No cop outs, no house rules etc... The book offers examples of the use of the mechanic and nothing more. The word "CAN" is the essential word here in all these examples. as apposed to this when damage is dealt, the target MUST take the damage.
Here are some other examples from the rulebook on how you can use this machanic in a more thematic sense.
Quote: With the Progress Tracker, he can simply shift the token back and forth
as tensions ebb and flow. Certain elements push it one way or the other. The GM could
decide that having a dwarf and a high elf in the same party, for ex-
ample, might start the track a few spaces further to the right, repre-
senting their innate mistrust and dislike for each other. A soothing
conversation and calming words by the Priestess of Shallya, on the
other hand, could diffuse a potentially volatile situation and reduce
tension by a space or two.
If I were GMing, I would use a combination of both thematic, and using it to reward players for working together. there are no social contracts being broken by NOT using this as a deterent, or as you put it, a punishment. Again, a different system for each player right? some may like it and not others... but the system is not at all flawed as you suggest. Of course nothing is perfect, but thanksfully, the tool is there to be used how the GM see's fit and not hard-written.
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
-
Given the wording in your quote, and the stated use, the authors genuinely don't known what punishment means, because the use of an aversive stimulus after the activity is literally the textbook definition of punishment.
It's literally a punishment mechanic. whether they delude themselves about that is another matter.
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
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I disagree.... as noted in my second quote from the book, it is used as a story telling machanism wherein a dwarf is partied with an elf. they arent being "punished" its to state that the party is more tense and may have other thematic situations arise from tht tension if it gets to be too much.. again it says it CAN be used in this way or that.. not as though it MUST.. you are coming from the position that is must be used that way.. I disagree completely.
If the GM chose to, he could make it a "punishment" mechanic, though I wouldnt want to play with that GM at all.
again... look at the word "CAN" the mechanic is open to use as the GM sees fit.
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Tim Collins
United States
Larkspur
California
-
It's only a punishment mechanic if you chose to let it be a punishment mechanic..
As far as FFG not knowing what punishment means. it doesnt really matter if they do or not since according to the rulebook, it doesnt even have to be used that way at all. It may be a valid point, which is another discussion entirely, but it's not relevant if you dont use it that way, and you dont have to according to the rulebook itself.
A "despicable" mechanic, only if you make it that.
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