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Mythestopheles
2009-11-14, 07:15 PM
So there's a new edition (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=93) out, it looks pretty interesting and I've been considering checking it out.
Anyone else know anything about this? Anyone played previous editions?
Preview video Here (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=904)

Matthew
2009-11-14, 07:25 PM
Yeah, I played first edition quite a lot, pretty much my first adventure game led into via Hero Quest and Advanced Hero Quest. From what I could tell, second edition refined the original rule set and incorporated a few new things. This new edition looks suspiciously like a huge step away from the original system towards a completely different game experience. At $99 for the whole shebang (or more likely the introductory set) I doubt I will be picking it up, but the production values look really high and the designers are enthusiastic about what they have created.

It strikes me as a hybrid between the typical board game produced by Fantasy Flight Games and a more normal adventure game, so in all probability it will be quite good, but I do not plan to purchase it.

Kiero
2009-11-14, 08:35 PM
I've played 1e and 2e, and frankly anything would be better than the crappy systems they're lumbered with.

But unfortunately, the recent revelations about the new game suggest it's now got a really fiddly resolution to it which is less appealing.

If only I could get my group on board, we'd used a FATE 3 hack, but it looks like we're going back to 2e. :smallmad:

Tackyhillbillu
2009-11-14, 09:41 PM
WFRP is fun, if you go in with the correct mind set. It's obscure, difficult to understand, and a pain in the ass. I don't know why, but I've always felt it fits a universe where the best thing that can happen is managing to die before a Demon eats your soul.

Jakezor
2009-11-14, 10:43 PM
Got a chance to play the new shiny box version today.
It's alright. Got some advantages, some disadvantages, etc.

If I had to describe it succinctly, I'd say it's 4E-Meets Talisman that wants to be Exalted when it grows up.

To be a bit more elaborative, It's much simpler than previous editions, while still retaining much (though far from all) of the mad-crazy deadliness. Yeah, you can actually survive combats in the new version without becoming horribly disfigured or developing insanity. (Though that can still happen)

Many of the old character "classes" are around, but some of my mad-favorites (Rat Catcher, Hypnotist, who was about as useful in game as they are IRL) are gone, replaced by blander "Commoners" and such. Character creation is pretty straight forward, and you won't get shackled by poor rolls like in previous editions (especially 1st). All point-buy based character generation, but they end up being far, far from balanced.

The in game mechanics are horrendously confusing at first. Gone are the beloved D10, D20, D6, and even the marginal D12. Instead, you have different colored dice (freakin' 8 of them) with different names. You generate a pool of these dice based on your attributes, your "Stance", your proficiencies, your gear, what "abilities" (Cards) You're using, what color your shoes are, what the weather is, and whether or not your opponent had a full and balanced breakfast before going to war.

After a good... half hour of rolling ROYAL RAINBOWS of dice, you start to get the general hang of where your dice are coming from... But you really need a GM who knows what's going on to help you figure it out most of the time.

Distances are all abstracted, so need to count squares, hexes, or pray to the gods of spacing. You're either clubbing stuff, right next to stuff, or some degree of not right next to stuff. Which is a nice abstraction, and doesn't end up working too badly, provided your foes are relatively stationary. When you're both trying to move dynamically, it gets ... awkward.

All in all, a fairly enjoyable experience, though a tad expensive, certainly cheaper than DnD, and WW products with their plethora of source books. Really relies on the GM and players alike being willing to be pretty "hand wavey" with combat mechanics. If you want hard and fast number crunchy combat, this is not your system.

BobVosh
2009-11-15, 01:59 AM
Is it the meatgrinder I remember of WHFP? Or is the new rainbow brightness to herald a new rainbow brightness PC-friendly setting?

bosssmiley
2009-11-15, 09:03 AM
If I had to describe it succinctly, I'd say it's 4E-Meets Talisman that wants to be Exalted when it grows up.

Hah! A turn of phrase after my own heart. :smallsmile:

I maintain that a WFRP sans Ratcatchers is no WFRP at all.

Morty
2009-11-15, 09:15 AM
I haven't been really following it that closely. The use of colorful dice and cards kinda turned me off. A shame, since WFRP is a great system that suffers from less than perfect task resolution methods.

lesser_minion
2009-11-15, 09:33 AM
WFRP 2e was a very well-designed piece of work - it got rid of some of 1e's problems and then made a few improvements.

The percentile-based system works pretty well, although parts of it are a little messed up, multiple attacks are utterly brutal, and spells really should have used the same system.

There is really nothing particularly problematic in 2nd edition, however.

3rd edition, from what it looks like, doesn't interest me. Dice pools can be fun, and are actually a great system, but custom dice aren't.

The custom dice are particularly horrific. Apparently, the seven different kinds of dice are:


Characteristic Dice
Reckless Dice
Conservative Dice
Fortune Dice
Expertise Dice
Misfortune Dice
Challenge Dice



So basically, any given task will be resolved by making up to six different dice rolls, each of which is handled in a totally different way and has a totally different meaning, the sole saving grace being that you can roll all of them at the same time because the dice are different colours.

The sole piece of lip service payed to good design in all this mess is by remembering to distinguish all of the dice so that all of the rolls can be made simultaneously. Apart from that, I'm pretty sure the FATAL design team are taking notes.

Kiero
2009-11-15, 11:21 AM
So basically, any given task will be resolved by making not less than seven different dice rolls, each of which is handled in a totally different way and has a totally different meaning.

No. It's one pool, all those dice rolled at the same time, not several different rolls.

Flatulous
2009-11-15, 11:29 AM
Hah! A turn of phrase after my own heart. :smallsmile:

I maintain that a WFRP sans Ratcatchers is no WFRP at all.

Seriously, ratcatcher is out? WTF.

Morty
2009-11-15, 11:42 AM
There is really nothing particularly problematic in 2nd edition, however.



What I'd call problematic in 2nd edition is that it suffers from the "if you don't have the skill, you can't do it" problem sometimes - though it might just have been me - and the combat can get dragged for a long time - sure, two hits can kill you, but you have to hit first.

lesser_minion
2009-11-15, 11:52 AM
No. It's one pool, all those dice rolled at the same time, not several different rolls.

No, it is six different dice rolls that are all done at the same time, in the same way that rolling six attacks at the same time is still six dice rolls.

Every time you make a dice roll, you have to look up six different tables cards to explain what the consequences of each roll. You will also have to count up the results on six different kinds of dice.

It's commendable that FFG have made something playable out of this, but it strikes me as an astounding misapplication of talent.

Note that I am not against dice pool mechanics in general - nWod/Storytelling uses them quite well - but it seems to have been very badly done in the name of "making the dice tell a story" in a way that really should have been left to improvisation.

SolkaTruesilver
2009-11-15, 12:47 PM
I'll look it up quickly. I heard there are some interesting mechanics regarding Party Sheet.

But outside of this, I'll stick with 2nd Edition. She stole my heart :smallbiggrin:

Aedilred
2009-11-15, 01:38 PM
I've played 2nd edition and am passingly familiar with the first one; I have little interest in the third, although I have been reading the designer diaries to see what sort of game it's going to be.

It looks like it might actually run ok as a game once you get your head round it, but it also seems to be entirely reliant on cards, tokens, custom dice and all sorts of other fiddly paraphernalia that take up a large amount of space, are easily lost in between (or during!) sessions, and difficult to replicate in a non-tabletop format. Given that I do all my WFRP playing over the 'net, that's not all that helpful. Moreover, the cost of the box set once all these components are included is prohibitive, and because a lot of essential information is on the cards, you can't just buy the rulebook separately and play the game from that. In general, I dislike alleged RPGs that force me to use props.

I'm not a colossal fan of what they seem to have done with the career system, either. It was something of a love/hate feature in both previous systems (albeit, definitely a feature and not a bug) that you spent half your playing time as some scummy nobody and the best you could hope for at any given time was transition to some slightly less scummy career. The current one has amalgamated all the scummy careers into a couple of blanket ones, which is all well and good but has something of the D&D "Commoner" class about it, and considering that for many groups the vast majority of starting characters would fall into that category, seems a bit of a cop-out for me. The limited advanced careers are also slightly worrying- there simply isn't enough variety.

So in order for me to be happy with the game it needs to be expanded, and have a bucket-load of new careers, specifically advanced ones, added. It was a woeful decision too, I think, to leave halflings out of the starter set in favour of increased elven options. I dislike elves as PCs in WFRP- they don't sit right with the setting, whereas halfings go perfectly. I have little doubt that they and new stuff will appear in time, but inevitably in pricey box-sets which I still won't be buying, simply because of the price. I also think it was a criminal decision to provide only enough stuff in the box for three players plus GM. I know you can share it around, and there are booster sets available, but four players (or, rather, PCs) plus GM is pretty much the normal minimum for RPGs. It just makes one feel rather short-changed, especially given the cost of the set as is, that most gaming groups will have to make do, or shell out even more money just to carry on playing as is.

I'll be sticking with 2nd edition for the foreseeable future. If 3rd edition ever comes down to a reasonable price, I might buy it and have a look over it, but I really can't envisage a situation in which I'm likely to play it.

SolkaTruesilver
2009-11-15, 02:04 PM
So in order for me to be happy with the game it needs to be expanded, and have a bucket-load of new careers, specifically advanced ones, added.

What WFRP 2nd needs, me think, is more talents and traits (natural talents) for elaborate monsters and careers. Not only for fighting, but for many situations. Or a suggested feature of home-made special talents that players have to pay good XP to get them, allowing them for special things here and there.

The problem is, you compare the highest possible careers for players, and they don't get even close of the badass Exalted Chaos Warriors armed with mutations and chaos weaponry.

I'd say more high-level NPC stats might be interesting, with a special disclaimer "PCs should not, save special World-changing roleplaying interference, equal the power of these characters.". Knowing the stats of Valten, Teclis, the Graf of Middleland, Karl Franz, the Bretonnian King, etc... might be interesting.

And you might not even need to put them in the realm of 90% stats. Just give them interesting PERKS. Elven High Magic should also be put in (not as player-usable, but still with rules).

Special modules for Dwarf- and Elf- games also would be interesting. I plan to run a Dwarf Fortress-style game with an all-dwarf party eventually. Going to Karak Varn reclaim lost artifacts sounds like fun, specially if you don't do it as a classic "dungeon crawl" D&D, but more of a "Get in Moria, get out of Moria" a la Lord of the Ring. Subetly, discretion and other things like that is better than to attract the hordes of orcs and skaven. The moment they get into a real general fight that might be heard, they are in deeeeep trouble, and have to run/hide.

Which fits the spirit of WFRP, me think.

Morty
2009-11-15, 04:59 PM
The problem is, you compare the highest possible careers for players, and they don't get even close of the badass Exalted Chaos Warriors armed with mutations and chaos weaponry.

Are we talking about Exalted Chaos Warriors from WFRP or WFB here? They take place in the same Old World, but the power levels seem to differ dramatically.


Elven High Magic should also be put in (not as player-usable, but still with rules).


I've once seen a long-winded discussion on the subject. Some claimed that High Magic ought to have rules meant for NPCs, others said that it's too powerful to be seen in a WFRP session in other way that "a High Mage casts a spell and something spectacular happens".
I'd very much like to see some more detailed rules for elven magic in general, though. In the main rulebook, we're told that elves have much different magic than humans... but the advancement of an elven wizard is exactly the same as that of a human.

littlebottom
2009-11-15, 07:44 PM
this is what ive been dreading... :smallfrown:

in short, it seems best to stick with 2nd ed. for a roleplaying game, but if you fancy a long winded hack and slash, 3rd ed... just my opinion of course... ill proberbly put up an official blog about it in the WFRP blog (in sig) soon.