Warhammer 3e Demo Experiences -OR- How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bits

[kaomera]

I don't think you can have been very interesting in "trying the game" if you didn't even give it a whole session. Sounds to me like you had already made up your mind and just wanted to be passive-aggressive to people.

While this may indeed be the case the player may simply have had vastly different expectations from what the experience turned out to be, even if purely because of the mechanics. Someone who hasn't been following the news on the FFG site or ENWorld could easily have expected something much more like previous editions (I've see a report that at least one GM was not aware of the magnitude of the mechanical changes until he got ahold of the demo material). For some players a significant change in mechanics is going to ruin the experience. Some people just don't like percentile dice, others don't like dice pools, and some may even dislike rolling d20s.

I got pretty much this same response (although for somewhat opposite reasons) when I left a CoC game at a con some years ago. The immediate assumption was that "Oh, he's a D&D player, so of course he's not willing to enjoy anything else." The thing is, I had played and run CoC before, and IMO the scenario this particular Keeper was running was a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl with a few inaccurate Mythos references thrown on top.

Anyway, to get off of this threadjack, WHFRPG3 looks kind of spiffy, but after playing 4e I'm not as excited as I could be about the physical components. It might be an interesting experience, and I'm open to trying it, but I'm not shelling out the price they're asking to do so and I reserve the right to find it unappealing. I'd probably want to watch a game in action before I tried it. One of the local gaming stores might end up with a "play copy" (several of the regulars have stocked up quite a selection of Euro-Games that are available to play), so maybe I will get to see it in action at some point.

 

[AllisterH]

I don't think they got the novels. Black industries kept those.

Personally, I'm unclear as to what the value of the license is....FFG couldn't produce novels, they have the license after all the main and big expansions have been produced by Black Industries.

What exactly was FFG planning on? Given that I imagine the license wasn't cheap (I figure only the WW and D&D campaign worlds would be more expensive), in retrospect, we should have expected a 3e distinctly different.

 

[Mournblade94]

I don't think you can have been very interesting in "trying the game" if you didn't even give it a whole session. Sounds to me like you had already made up your mind and just wanted to be passive-aggressive to people.

*sits down, rolls up character*

"Not for me!"

*sits in corner, reads comic books*

That would be an incorrect assessment.

After 2 hours of playing you can have an adequate feel of how the game plays.

Ifigured it went without saying I withdrew gracefully. Most people would. A demo is not like a con game. The demo is trying to sell you the game. Where I thought I was getting a stremlined wfrp game I was infact getting a more complex talisman. I was not sold. I had no preconceptions as I knew nothing about the new edition.

It is no more rude to skip out on a demo, than leaving a car dealership after a test drive

 

[Herremann the Wise]

It is no more rude to skip out on a demo, than leaving a car dealership after a test drive

Sort of like taking it for a spin, going halfway around the block then politely getting out saying you'd prefer to walk back to the dealership. Not rude, but maybe just a little weird. Obviously we can all be a little weird at times.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Gort]

Ifigured it went without saying I withdrew gracefully. Most people would.

Well, quite. Gamers tend not to be "most people" when it comes to social graces It's probably just my jealousy talking - peeves me that there aren't any playtests in the UK while you US guys can just walk out on yours!

 

[arscott]

For dice pool systems, I've found an "expected results" gauge to be more useful -- for example, In the storytelling system, you can expect one success for every three dice you roll. A similar system can apply to WFRP3 dice (though the multiple die types and various resulting symbols obviously make things more complicated.)

Just to follow up on this, here are the expected successes and expected boons/banes for the various dice:

Successes:
Blue +1/2
Red/Green +3/4
Purple -3/4
White +1/3
Black -1/3
Yellow +1/2

Boons(+)/Banes(-):
Blue +1/4
Red/Green +1/8
Purple -1/2
White +1/6
Black -1/6
Yellow +1/2

Notes:
The values for the red and green dice are rounded slightly, for ease of use and to keep them consistent with each other. Sigmar's comet is considered to add 1/2 success and 1/2 boon for the purposes of this chart, while the chaos star is counted as a bane.

 

[Maggan]

What exactly was FFG planning on? Given that I imagine the license wasn't cheap (I figure only the WW and D&D campaign worlds would be more expensive), in retrospect, we should have expected a 3e distinctly different.

The prevailing theory is that the RPG license was thrown in with the more lucrative board game and card game licenses. Easier for GW to manage one company, and a chance for FFG to try the Descent approach with WFRP.

Myself, I'm curios what they'll do with the WH40kRP line.

/M

 

[C_M2008]

From what I've heard and seen this game seems awesome.
It seems much more suited to the style of play I want (RP heavy with occasional short, non-tactical combats) than the last two editions of D&D. I really like the innovative take on dice rolls, and it seems like it will quickly become second nature.

I haven't played any warhammer games before but the game still sounds like an rpg and plenty gritty to me.

I'll certainly be placing a pre-order for this as well as the adventurer's kit and a couple sets of extra dice.

 

[jgerman]

Really? Half the hardcovers are still available directly from the FFG web site, and the entire collection is in PDF from RPGNow.

False.

There are about 30 published items for the system. Less than half of them are available direct from FFG, not all of them are hardcovers and that excludes the core book, which you'll note is not available.

Less than half are also available through RPGNow. They never finished bringing them out and now they will not. The PDFs are available for a 'limited time only'.

 

[Emirikol]

Asmor, thanks for the write-up

Asmor,

Thanks for the write-up. I enjoyed running the demo here in Colorado. The system is nice and the backgrounds are concisely written up (religions, schools of magic, reikland) and a couple nice maps. Like all the systems I've run over the years, I've made up a few house rules for my style and to eliminate stuff that could get lost.

I've got good background material from 2E and 1E stuff, so it wasn't hard to whip up a scenario in the empire (I'd forgotten what a good bit of background was in Sigmar's Heirs . So, I'm ready to run 2 slots at GENGHIS CON in Denver, CO.


Since there wasn't even so much as a single WFRP-TWO event at GenCon, I was pretty pessimistic about the future of this game. There's a lot of bitching and groaning from 1e vs 2e or 2e vs 3e, but not a lot of courage at making it to game conventions to expand our beloved hobby. I applaud any of you who step up to run WFRP (any version) at conventions and game days.

All the best,

Jh






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