Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3.0
Not sure if there are any Warhammer fans here but there is a new edition on the way
For more details check out the Full Site
I'm a long time Warhammer fan from 1st edition including 2nd edition. I was aware they had something up their sleeves but I was in no way expecting this. My initial reaction is shock and screaming NO GOD NO!!! But as I'm calming down and reading through the current info as impartially as I can (I have a really big pillow to scream into). I can't help but see some potential in this game.
They are bringing in some positive things. Concepts like dice results telling more then just pass fail. A group being an identity and greater then just the sum of it's parts. Characters being empowered into the story mechanically and not just wandering through it.
There are some similarities to D&D 4e with the action cards for example. But I have a feeling this will play far leaner then 4e does. I have a feeling this game though will be far more about the action and less about the tactics. Just thinking of other FFG board games that use cards for combat resolution, this could certainly be interesting.
I also can see the potential here as a Gateway game. I've got friends that would never consider playing an RPG under normal circumstances, but I could see them playing something like this.
Right now the big concern is the $100us price tag. That's a big number to overcome.
Either way though I'm interested. Every current Warhammer product has been fantastic, Fantasy Flight Games production values are through the roof and they are trying to do something new, which I have to applaud.
Fantasy Flight Games wrote:Fantasy Flight Games (“FFGâ€) announced today they will release Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition, a new version of the classic roleplaying game set in Games Workshop's Warhammer world. This version features an entirely new innovative approach to role-playing, one that FFG hopes will attract a whole new generation of gamers to the role-playing experience.
"We're proud to re-introduce the Warhammer world to role-playing with this revolutionary approach,†said Christian T. Petersen, CEO of FFG. “It is one that harnesses the flavor of prior WFRP editions, but brings about that experience in a more evocative, tactile, and visual way than the past," he continued. "We’ve worked long and hard to to publish a game that we hope will represent a positive paradigm shift in roleplaying game design, production, and play experience. This is not another re-tread of the traditional RPG approach, this is something new, something exciting. Something that existing RPG fans will want to test for themselves."
The massive Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition box, which will retail for $99.95, contains everything a group of adventurers will need to play – four different rule-books, 36 custom dice, over 300 cards, counters, “character keeper†boxes, and much more.
"We're bringing something new to the table," added Jay Little, Senior RPG Developer for the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay line. "This is a roleplaying system that captures the grim and gritty Warhammer world that fans have grown to love, wrapped up in an innovative design and shipped with the stunning production quality that FFG is known for."
Jay Little will be hosting seminars showcasing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition at the Gen Con games convention in Indianapolis, IN August 13-15, where a preview of the core set and its components will be on display in FFG’s booth. Preview articles will begin their publication on FFG's website – www.fantasyflightgames.com – in the weeks following the Gen Con convention and will continue leading up to the game's release this Fall.
For more details check out the Full Site
I'm a long time Warhammer fan from 1st edition including 2nd edition. I was aware they had something up their sleeves but I was in no way expecting this. My initial reaction is shock and screaming NO GOD NO!!! But as I'm calming down and reading through the current info as impartially as I can (I have a really big pillow to scream into). I can't help but see some potential in this game.
They are bringing in some positive things. Concepts like dice results telling more then just pass fail. A group being an identity and greater then just the sum of it's parts. Characters being empowered into the story mechanically and not just wandering through it.
There are some similarities to D&D 4e with the action cards for example. But I have a feeling this will play far leaner then 4e does. I have a feeling this game though will be far more about the action and less about the tactics. Just thinking of other FFG board games that use cards for combat resolution, this could certainly be interesting.
I also can see the potential here as a Gateway game. I've got friends that would never consider playing an RPG under normal circumstances, but I could see them playing something like this.
Right now the big concern is the $100us price tag. That's a big number to overcome.
Either way though I'm interested. Every current Warhammer product has been fantastic, Fantasy Flight Games production values are through the roof and they are trying to do something new, which I have to applaud.
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Comments
I've really liked FFG's products for Dark Heresy (W40K rpg), which shared much in common with the previous edition of FRP. It'll be interesting to see if they revise DH's rules to match this system, as well as player reaction. Lots of people like'd the d100/percentile system they had with the earlier games. This might be seen as dumbing it down too much.
As for the changes I don't really see it as dumbing it down. I mean regardless of what types of dice you roll it's all about creating some kind of percentage. You are either rolling under or over or matching, but that's all just about creating some kind of odds.
The idea of the action cards are to keep the rules more available and reduce the need to look things up in the book, which isn't a bad thing. I know for our own WFRP using the current rules I created a combat summary for everyone so they don't have to look through the books as often.
Where the dumbing down would come from is if the new rules reduce your options. If they reduce the freedom of choice in an RPG and turn it into a game of selecting your action based on specific cards. So it'll be interesting to see what news comes out after GenCon. I saw a few interviews from GenCon about it and they didn't really get into any specifics. Just more pimping it. Commenting on how the goal was to make the game more accessible, dynamic and exciting. But those are just meaningless buzzwords until some play reviews or actual rule snippits come out.
The dice pool mechanics took about 30 mins or so to get use to but then it was very quick to work out and make your pool up. The pool mechanics are very freeing for a GM because positive and negative modifiers are not absolute which means you are more free to use them. For example in past versions of WFRP if you handed out a -10% penalty that was pretty significant to new players often lowering their already low 35%(on average) chance to 25%. However now adding a penalty dice only potentially increases the difficult there's only a chance it'll cancel out an effect. It's really very useful in making the narrative more impactful without really hindering players.
Other nice changes the initiative system is fantastic. Unlike most other RPG's where everyone rolls init then takes actions in turn. You still roll init but it's a group initiative. Which means that the group gets to decide who acts when. So even if you rolled the lowest initiative you may go first because it's more beneficial tactically for the group. It's really cool and it's benefits were immediately apparent on the first round of combat. It allowed a couple archers that rolled lower in init to get off some arrows and pepper the enemies before the melee fighters moved into range. Now other rpg's often have mechanics for holding actions and the like to still allow for this but it adds extra book keeping to the whole thing. This way you roll init once and everyone just acts to their advantage.
There is a thing now called the stance meter. It's a mechanic to show how cautious or reckless your acting. It's a nice little tool which alters types of dice your rolling typically increasing your chance for success but potentially making you succeed but act slower, or succeed but take fatigue/stress. It's a nice little tool that adds flavor but personally I could take it or leave it.
The rest of the board game like mechanics basically just are a set of various types of counters and tokens so that you can visually track things on your character sheet instead of using paper and pencil. You can use them as much or little as you like.
Now as for actual flow of play. I would say that in terms of speed this game isn't any faster or slower then previous versions of Warhammer. In the 4 hrs we played we had some story based situations and a couple combats. That's pretty normal for a night. Combats themselves take about the same time to play out. However the actual events of combats change. So instead of having two opponents trade blows back and forth whack-a-mole style. Instead each phase of combat took a little longer but felt like more was happening. I have to say that I prefer this style of play. The whack-a-mole feel of combat feels very dated and something most RPG's have just been held over from legacy rules. Combat in RPG's has never really been a simulation it's always been abstract and WFRP 3.0 is just one more step in abstracting combat into a story and with the dice and action cards I think it does it rather well.
Overall I'm not going to say that WFRP 3.0 is better then past editions, it's just different. There are some things it definitely does better and others that are a wash. I did enjoy it and am looking forward to playing it again and can see playing it in a long term kind of way. I can see the potential in WFRP 3.0 and despite all previous hesitations I had those have been calmed.
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