Did Anyone play the new WHFRPG?

[lutecius]

I don't know where you are on the "rules complexity" spectrum, but if I have the choice between spreadsheets, tables and attack matrixes vs power cards, tokens and special dice, I think I am going for the latter.

I don't think this is necessarily correlated with rule complexity. Several rule-light games don't use tokens, power cards, minis or even dice other than d6.
I'm sure a game with tokens and special dice can be horribly complex too.
It's a design choice.

 

[TrainedMunkee]

I don't know where you are on the "rules complexity" spectrum, but if I have the choice between spreadsheets, tables and attack matrixes vs power cards, tokens and special dice, I think I am going for the latter.

These days I would go with simplicity over Rolemaster any day. Rolemaster was wonderful back in the day, when I had a lot of free time.

I hope that WHFRPG turns out great. It seems to be oriented towards bringing the kids in.

This is much harder than it seems. I have an 18 yr. old son. He is so used to playing video games, and the instant satisfaction, that RPGs are rather boring for him. I'm not putting video games down, I play too much Xbox 360 myself.

I brought him into my group. When it wasn't his turn he was bored and listened to his ipod, this upset my other players somewhat. I talked to him about it and he decided not to play, it was too boring for him. Funny thing is that he loves anything fantasy, especially anything having to do with dragons. He loves anything having to do with Dragonlance. Yet he doesn't like D&D? I have managed to get him to play Runebound, Heroquest and Descent on a regular basis. I have hopes that games like D&D 4e and WHFRPG 3e will bring some new blood into the industry.

I was in Europe with the American military and noticed that WHFRPG was much more popular there than here. If our European friends get to try the game before us Americans do, please let me know the mechanics involved in the game.

It looks like the game will be released just in time for the holidays.

 

[TheNovaLord]

WHFRP is preety popular in the uk. i my self dont see the appeal, but thats not to discuss here

I think at the first the UK-RPG community where all a bit up in arms for the most part, athe announcement of 3rd ed. Mostly the power card/special dice approach. I think the forums calmed pretty quickly so everyone is know on a wait and see approach.....

for the dwarf picture doenst look anymore silly than any other whfrp picture tbh.

be interesting to see after the success of MTG, release of 4e and this, whether 'the card' is the way forward for rpging

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I don't think this is an improvement or even innovative.
I find the minis + custom dice + tokens in different pools + action cards combination awfully fiddly. And board games have had them forever, this isn't exactly a new "interface".
I see how minis or even power cards can come in handy, but a game doesn't have to be designed so that all of these are necessary. This is definitely not what I'm looking for in an rpg. If it's a trend I hope it dies really soon.

How would this stuff be necessary? If you like managing variables of characters and/or enemies on a sheet of paper, you'll be able to disregard those fiddly bits.

Only custom dice might be a tad more complicated with lots of tables translating them into standard dice notation.

One should not judge a RPG system by the included components.

 

[TrainedMunkee]

How would this stuff be necessary? If you like managing variables of characters and/or enemies on a sheet of paper, you'll be able to disregard those fiddly bits.

Only custom dice might be a tad more complicated with lots of tables translating them into standard dice notation.

One should not judge a RPG system by the included components.

And don't judge until you roll the dice and give it at least one session. I'm not overly excited about the new system, but I will give FF a chance and at least play it before I judge.

I'm cheap so I will probably play somebody else's copy.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't think this is necessarily correlated with rule complexity. Several rule-light games don't use tokens, power cards, minis or even dice other than d6.
I'm sure a game with tokens and special dice can be horribly complex too.
It's a design choice.

What I meant was: If you don't want much rules complexity, you don't need either the table/matrix/spreadhseet variant nor the token/cards/custom dice variant. But if you like complex rules, these seem to be the way to go, and I think I prefer the latter.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

And don't judge until you roll the dice and give it at least one session. I'm not overly excited about the new system, but I will give FF a chance and at least play it before I judge.

Here we agree. Never judge a book by its cover and never judge a RPG without playing it!

I'm cheap so I will probably play somebody else's copy.

This I can understand. I have a good friend whose eyes start gleaming when he can fiddle around with all those bits. With a few gentle nudges in the right direction...

 

[DracoSuave]

Fantasy Flight has consistantly made good boardgame rpgs, and good boardgames in general.

They certainly are a trusted name in this business, and they'll probably do a better job of it than HeroQuest was.

 

[ST]

Yeah, that's the thing. The stuff that looks "gimmicky" compared to other RPGs looks a lot like components from their other games, so from their perspective they're applying tested techniques to a new venue. I think there's a lot of potential there.

Heck, if you were going to try to, say, design a game that used props or game pieces to speed up play, board game designers would definately have input for you.

 

[Heselbine]

For myself, I'm wondering why call this WFRP 3rd edition? Warhammer 2nd edition is a really good game, and not that old. From a marketing point of view I don't understand why they're not keeping 'proper' WFRP going and making this an entirely new game.

Because it looks fun, I have to say - I'm sure it will be a decent game. But WFRP 2nd edition is an excellent game too, and I can't see too many people converting over from one to the other.

I guess the bottom line is that WFRP 2 didn't make enough money.