WFRPG 3E: How's It Working out for You?

[Tewligan]

Ugh, my group hated this game. WAY too many bits and pieces, horrible organization, and poorly explained rules meant that I found myself looking forward to the end of the session the few times we played it. It does have some interesting ideas with the dice, but it just felt like a big, overly messy boardgame to us.

One of our big problems was taking the time to refresh on the rules, like Hand of Evil mentioned - we only got to play about once a month, and we did a fine job of forgetting a big chunk of the rules between sessions. I know that our scheduling problems aren't the game's fault, admittedly, but having to repeat the process of hunting through that awful layout every session to remember what the hell we were doing certainly didn't do much to make us like it more!

 

[C_M2008]

I guess we already were doing some of that stuff already...noted what we did and had references on paper.

The dice...well...I understand how you get the numbers and all...but I still haven't really calculated or figured out my real percentage chance with each roll (like in D&D, with a D20, each 1=5%, or with a D12 each 1 = ~8.3%, or with a d10 each 1 = 10%...) which means I can figure that I roll more dice, but my actual chance can be harder to figure out. Even harder is when the DM tosses in extra dice to the check or roll...since I've never really checked to see which faces have what on them.

I was just hoping for something a little easier for me to figure my chances out on. Some of it gets more of a feel of how it will turn out over time because you understand how the dice interact with an ability and the overall chances with the dice you roll the most...but with some checks, I really have no clue on what my chances to suceed or fail are.

Ask and you shall receive:

Dice probability generator - FAN MADE TOOL

If you play around with it, you should get some idea of what each die offers.

 

[GreyLord]

Ask and you shall receive:

Dice probability generator - FAN MADE TOOL

If you play around with it, you should get some idea of what each die offers.

Actually, believe it or not, I've already used that with one person I gamed with.

 

[Iron Sky]

My roommate bought 3e on a whim a month-or-so after it came out. He converted a bit of The Enemy Within over to it and we got going, playing one session and never playing it again. Here's our impressions of it:

+Dice system. I thought it was neat how it all fit together and thought it would be fun to interpret each roll as a DM. I'm a big fan of creating interesting description from random input (like my Story Hour ) so it is perfect for me.
-It was annoying that there were no duplicates of classes or most of the cards. What if two people want to advance into the same career? What if two players want to take Improved Dodge? Passing the card back-and-forth could be a possibility I suppose, but what if you have recharge chits on it or whatever?
+The classes themselves seemed pretty neat and fairly varied.
-Only three players out of the box. We only had three of us when we were played it, but what if there had been five? "Just go down to the gaming store and spent $ on a box to store your dude" doesn't cut it for our group. Also, what if I had liked it so much I had wanted to run a campaign at the same time - or even just a pickup game?
+Combat was quick and pretty deadly, though not nearly as much as 2e. We picked it up pretty quick and enjoyed it.
-Not enough puzzle-piece counters. After putting together a few stance bars and a DM tracking bar or two, we were pretty much out. I had tons of ideas floating around in my head with things I could use those to track as a DM and seeing our DM run out of them so quickly was disappointing.

Summary:
*4e fulfills our power-card-using, tactical combat desires, 3e WFRPG found itself a product without an available niche in our group.
*If this game had been less "bit and card" dependent, we probably would have liked it more.
*We loved how brutal 2e WF was, how fast the character generation was, and how little you needed to play it. We'd play 2e as our fast-and-furious, grim-as-hell, narrative combat alternative to 4e's deliberate, balanced, tactical crunchiness. 3e was a step away from what we liked so much about 2e.
*I dig the dice system and how the power cards interact with them. As an amateur game designer, game mechanics intrigue me and these were cool.

Maybe some day we'll dust off the box, try it again, and see if our impressions have changed for the better since we first played it.

Then again, maybe we won't.