My Warhammer 3E arrived today.

[Treebore]

I was intending on writing a review since I have now played a session, but this guy just says it so much better than I would have:

Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

Edit: despite what it says, it opens the right web page for me. IF it doesn't work its Rodney Thompsons blog page over on the WOTC site.

 

[arscott]

Rodney's review is a good one. (Excepting, of course that I have to open Internet Explorer to read it--WotC's blogware is lately incompatible with my Firefox).

Howver, neither I nor the various folks I've played with had any trouble with the Dice Pools--Though most have experience with White Wolf and other dice-heavy games. And I'm beginning to wonder if the big dice pool is a callback to the miniatures game, given that It seems to involve throwing around fistfulls of dice.

 

[Treebore]

Rodney's review is a good one. (Excepting, of course that I have to open Internet Explorer to read it--WotC's blogware is lately incompatible with my Firefox).

Howver, neither I nor the various folks I've played with had any trouble with the Dice Pools--Though most have experience with White Wolf and other dice-heavy games. And I'm beginning to wonder if the big dice pool is a callback to the miniatures game, given that It seems to involve throwing around fistfulls of dice.

Yeah, the dice pool is pretty easy, its just a manner of seeing what cancels out what and then see whats left over. We definitely plan on getting more sets of dice if we decide to play this a lot. Having to recount them out for everyones turn gets monotonous.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I've been underwhelmed by what I've read so far, but the biggest thing that turns me off is the damn dice. I have a bucket full of dice and I can't use them to play the game? And I can't easily replace the dice that come with the game. If I lose my dice on the way to the game, or merely leave them at home, I can't borrow dice from another player, unless he too has pony'ed up 100 bucks. Maybe someone will reverse engineer the dice to normal 10 siders. I like having a clue what I need to roll to succeed. With v2, I might need a 56 or less, now I need to roll a @#$%& to succeed.

 

[arscott]

JRR, I wince when I read your comments. There are a few good reasons why someone might want to avoid this game, but disliking the dice system isn't one of them.

FFG is selling separate die sets, so your concerns about replacement are unfounded. And sure, if you leave your dice at home you won't be able to borrow from your friend to play, but you have to remember--this is a boxed set. Just keep your dice in the box with the rest of the game, not in your dicebag. And if you do forget your box, then you aren't playing anyway, dice or no dice.

As far as knowing what you need to roll to succeed, well, you just need to roll at least one net success. It's as simple as that. Admittedly, calculating the probability of success is tricky, but that's true of any rpg system where you roll multiple dice, from Gurps to Storyteller to Savage Worlds.

Anytime you're not just rolling a d20 (or it's higher resolution cousin, the d100), the best way to judge your odds is by calculating the average expected results-- For example, if your D&D greatsword does 2d6+6 damage, your average damage is 13, or if you're rolling 9 dice in a storytelling system game, you'll average 3 successes.

WFRP3 is no different:
[sblock]blue (characteristic) die: +1/2 success
yellow (expertise) die: +1/2 success*
purple (challenge) die: -3/4 success
red (reckless) or green (conservative) die: +3/4 success**
white (fortune) die: +1/3 success
black (misfortune) die: -1/3 success
[/sblock]
or, if you're more concerned about boons:
[sblock]blue (characteristic) die: +1/4 boon
yellow (expertise) die: +1/2 boon*
purple (challenge) die: -3/8 boon*
red (reckless) or green (conservative) die: +1/8 boon**
white (fortune) die: +1/6 boon
black (misfortune) die: -1/6 boon
[/sblock]

So someone rolling: ♦ ♦ ■ ♦ ● ■ ■ averages 5/6 successes (less than one, so not quite even odds of success, but pretty close) and 5/12 boons (closest to zero, but more likely to get a boon than a bane)

* converting the critical success and critical failure symbols to normal successes, boons, or banes, as they would be if there were no specific critical effect related to the action
** rounded for ease-of-use

 

[Treebore]

You can convert the dice to normal dice. The dice are 10, 8, and 6 sided after all. So once you get the dice you could make up a little conversion table showing what shows up on which "side" on which dice.

Then once you have this table written down you can use any numerical dice to reflect the rolls. I would still recommend using dice of similar colors though.

So take the yellow d6 and write down which symbol shows up on which facing, and which facing is blank. Realize a lot of the odds are 1:8, 1:3, 1:1, etc... so once you realize the frequency/chance they give each face to show on each dice type remembering this info will be even easier.

 

[FunkBGR]

I got mine a week or two ago, and have run a couple of demo sessions for people. I also bought up the Adventurer's Toolkit this past weekend. Now I just wish I had an easy way to make my own stuff for it, although a number of people are working on adding something to the Strange Eons tool.

Treebore, keep us updated as you use it, and share your thoughts. I've got mixed reactions in my group, but generally positive so far, and I'm curious how other groups react to it too.

Aside:
How did you put the dice notations in your post Arscott?

 

[Thanee]

Now I just wish I had an easy way to make my own stuff for it...

That is, pretty much, my greatest worry about this game... that it is quite limited in scope, unlike normal RPGs, where you can just make up stuff.

Hopefully, there will be plenty expansions (yeah, people will complain about that, too) to expand the scope of the game.

How did you put the dice notations in your post Arscott?

ASCII characters (check out your Windows Startmenu under Programs / Accessories / System Tools / Character Map) and COLORS, I suppose.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Treebore]

I don't see how it is limited in scope. I do see how you don't have very many careers or races to chose from, but story wise I see this as wide open as 2E.

 

[arscott]

Aside:
How did you put the dice notations in your post Arscott?

ASCII characters (check out your Windows Startmenu under Programs / Accessories / System Tools / Character Map) and COLORS, I suppose.

Yep. Someone over at the messageboards has worked out a special character-free no-colors required notation*, but I figured I might as well make use of enworld's capacity to prettify.

* under that notation, the above dice roll would be:
<BB>[Y](G)<P>[BB]