Leogun_91 said:

Really? Wow! Another point to the WFRP 3rd ed salespitch scoreboard.

While my hatred primarily concern elves first hand, halflings are a close runner up. And I know you can't really escape elves in a fantasy setting, but if the halflings are out then that's at least a plus, however... "small" it may be. (no pun intended ). This edition of the game just sound better and better!

Varnias Tybalt said:

While my hatred primarily concern elves first hand, halflings are a close runner up. And I know you can't really escape elves in a fantasy setting, but if the halflings are out then that's at least a plus, however... "small" it may be. (no pun intended ). This edition of the game just sound better and better!

My naysaying reasons:

-Lack of taking advantages of stuff not out for 2nd ed (or 1st ed for that matter), and instead the same thing done over again, not refreshing anything. (Or if they are remaking it as heroic fantasy with stances and challenges, well, that's even worse).

-Boardgame/cardgame/flashy replacements. Having played rpgs for over 15 years now I think, the amount of extra "junk" I have gotten from boxes and so on is astounding, yet not once has it helped much. (Earthdawn 1st ed cards for some items and monsters etc seemed a good idea when buying it, but quickly got scrapped. Dragonlance [i think it was] had this cardgame system too, and the least interesting rpg as a system I have ever played) The whole argument about "less bookkeeping and less needing to look up in books or calculate dice/skill rolls" I find rather funny - the moment I want to change anything, it ends up being WAY more difficult, or would remove some of the appeal with post it notes on the careers, items or other things instead of having one in my book for easy reference - or a handwritten sheet of paper added onto the gm screen. Add in having to pay for all the extra gimmic pieces whenver buying a suplement, making it more costly if wanting to "datamine" it for stuff to use, and it's even more annoying. Of course, for everyone that just plays games right out of the box I can see the HUGE bonus of this way of doing it. And judging by the marketing, they want new people to just pick up and play, so that seems to hold up.

-Customization options. The one thing that makes rpgs different from each other is the system and the setting. I always roll my eyes about Kage's constant GURPS GURPS GURPS posts, but I am really starting to understand him. You find a system you like that lets you create the "numbers and writing" part of the character (the personality you dont need the rpg for, you could easily just do that with some friends and imagination anyway), and the system lets you do what you want easy and creates interesting situations. From what I see about 3rd ed, it tries to shoehorn players into something (even having a player cap included!), much like boardgames or cardgames, and with that in mind, I bet there will be more narrative and characterization involved playing Chaos in the Old World (gawd, I am looking so much foward to that!) and games like that.

-The cost. It's new and all that, so it would be interesting to take a look even though I won't be playing it (my group would never play it, just as it would never play 4th ed D&D), and if it somehow would have something incredibly fun about it, I just won't bother to buy a whole box and hope it will convince me it is awesome. If that pricing strategy will keep up, I somehow doubt I'll ever buy any new stuff for it either.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Was describing the new edition to one of my regular players a couple of days ago. I'll admit I was fairly scathing about pretty much every aspect of it, but he was just shrugging it all off and saying things like "sounds interesting" or "we could work round that". Then I mentioned "no halflings", he's no longer willing to even give it a try.

So not everyone shares your own personal preferences.

BTW, why are you bothering with a fantasy RPG when you don't like 2 of the staple races of pretty much any fantasy setting and specifically, staple races of the Warhammer background (until now anyway)?

Actually, it has been mentioned that there indeed will be haflings, but in a separate supplement

Told him that. It just means he has no interest in the game until that supplement comes out at the very earliest.

Personally I think it's a sign of the direction the game/background is going in and it's one of the things I don't like from what we've been told so far. Halflings being relegated to "secondary race" status isn't good.

What my friends like about WFRP is that it's mostly medieval europe with Orcs, Skaven and Chaos.

Elves and halflings are used mostly as comic relief. We hate those guys.

Well, you must be looking forward to having 50% of the core box set devoted to elves then.

/sarcasm

Oguleth said:

Oguleth said:

It looks like it will be more customizable then 2nd edition. Besides, how can you complain about not being able to customize your character when that barely existed in 2nd. What if the cards are not "junk" but what if they are part of a really cool system.

Leogun_91 said:

Aww, crap. Guess this will be yet another elf-hating game where my character will take every opportunity to messily kill some pointy eared scum. Not that I mind, but that modus operandi might get old eventually.

OGULETH: Lack of taking advantages of stuff not out for 2nd ed (or 1st ed for that matter), and instead the same thing done over again, not refreshing anything. (Or if they are remaking it as heroic fantasy with stances and challenges, well, that's even worse).

Sounds like you won't be happy either way. If it isn't different, you won't like it. If it is different, that's worse?

OGULETH: Boardgame/cardgame/flashy replacements. Having played rpgs for over 15 years now I think, the amount of extra "junk" I have gotten from boxes and so on is astounding, yet not once has it helped much. (Earthdawn 1st ed cards for some items and monsters etc seemed a good idea when buying it, but quickly got scrapped.

I have to agree with you about the cards in Earthdawn. They're still attached to my ED1 rulebook! (Oh man, I want that Wrestling Mask of Oltion.) The cards in Earthdawn were strictly for reference, though.

V3's cards are used to look up information (how does my ability work?), keep track of new things you acquire temporarily or permanently (such as wounds and insanities), and some of the cards are dual-sided to take advantage (or to be an excuse to introduce) the stance system.

They're not just reference cards. They seem to doing a lot of useful things, from a roleplay point of view. But you really need to buy into the idea of stances before you're going to like the cards. If you don't like stances, the cards are probably going to make things worse for you.

OGULETH: The moment I want to change anything, it ends up being WAY more difficult, or would remove some of the appeal with post it notes on the careers, items or other things instead of having one in my book for easy reference - or a handwritten sheet of paper added onto the gm screen.

All RPGs have this problem. Adding your post-its reduces the aesthetic appeal. I'm sure we'll cope with that. I'm hoping that FFG releases blank card templates or includes a few in the core set, though.

OGULETH: From what I see about 3rd ed, it tries to shoehorn players into something... much like boardgames or cardgames

That's a possibility, but I don't see any evidence for that. I think what you mean by "shoehorning" is that the GM won't have control over the story, or that the game will be focused on combat almost the exclusion of social interaction. I don't think that's the case at all. The promo includes a description of what V3 thinks roleplaying is all about.

The stress tracker, which looked really restrictive and board-gamey to me, is actually controlled entirely by the GM's sense of how the PCs are getting along. I love that part of it. There's a second aspect to it, where players can add some of their abilities to the whole party -- which sounds card-gamey to me and I'm not sure if I like it. But maybe that's not as restrictive as it looks, either. Fingers crossed.

OGULETH: Even having a player cap included!

If you read the promo again, you'll see that there's no player cap. The game is "best suited" for four players but adding extra players is "easy". People at GenCon reported that you could play with more than four players using the core set, no problem. Your extra players will probably have to go back to using just paper rather than cards (which might be as simple as photocopying a couple of pages from the rulebook).

OGULETH: The cost.

I know. I know. $100 is a lot of money to drop on a game you're not sure you're going to like. Wait for the player reviews. If they're all five-star, drop hints that maybe you'd prefer bookstore gift cards for Christmas.

ChaosChild said:

No of course everyone will not share my hatred towards halflings, I just wanted to note down that halflings being removed is just fine and dandy the way I see it.

And truth be told, I usually don't bother with fantasy RPG's at all because I grew tired of the fantasy setting years ago and hasn't looked back since. Part of why fantasy settings can be such a turn-off for me is the fact that they have staple races. You so rarely see anything "new" to the setting, regardless of which company decides to make it. (and no, I don't consider all these bastard elf races like "nightelves" or "drows" or "pink fluffy elves with skin that tastes like sugar" to be "NEW" and original creations. They are just the same elf crap but with another theme than usual).

The reason why im contemplating getting this particular RPG is because im very familiar with the Warhammer world (even if I like the 40K setting a whole lot better), and the fact that this edition is going to try an unconventional way at roleplaying.

You could say that the very reasons most people say they dislike this game are the same reasons why im getting interested by it.

The fact that describing statistics in terms of Dice reduces the individuality of characters. WS 2 Dice is the same as anyone's WS 2 Dice. At most there would be 10 dice in one roll, so 10 incremental stages from a snotling up to a Bloodthirster. That to me is deeply unsatisfying. A bloodthirster isn't 2 pips from an elf hero, yet the compaction of stats into dice values means that they effectively ARE.

That and the NPCs are probably not going to be using the cards the PCs use, pushing them closer to mookdom and thus making them game a shallow vacuous glory tray. Hey, come feel big by slaughtering a bunch of mooks how are designed to suck so you can kill them! Wow, such a big man. Must feel proud to slaughter something that had no real chance of killing you. I bet you'd just love to fight THESE NPCs, did I mention they use the same rules and abilities as YOU? What's the matter? Not interested in having a fight when your opponent is as big as you are?

Sorry, mook rules in my opinion are just poorly disguised ego boosting. Yay I slaughtered 30 mook goblins! I am leet warriorZ!

The lack of variety in stats is pushing me away but if the NPCs turn out to be punching bags to make RPers feel big then I will definitely not be buying this.

Hellebore

ChaosChild said:

How so? It's not that you can ever take a halfling seriously anyway. And it's not because they are short and pathetic, it's because their entire culture and described ways of thinking is utterly ridiculous and game world atmosphere killing.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Then you're not playing halflings properly. If you apply the same imagination to them as you would to another race (without getting hidebound by the "stock" description) then they've got just as much potential.

There are as many Belkars out there as there are Frodos. Or there should be if people are actually roleplaying.

DagobahDave said:

Which is nothing different from any other RPG really. I mean try being the GM in a game with like 16 players and then tell me how good that went. (administrative nightmare according to me). So I can't really understand what all the fuss is about this game being "capped". No such thing has been mentioned, and even if it has been hinted that there is a "best suited" number, that really isn't any different from any other RPG.

ChaosChild said:

I'll quote the description from lexicanum:

They are roughly half the height of a fully grown man (hence Halflings) and are a peaceful and rustic folk, not naturally inclined to adventure or the ways of war. They have great fondness for the simple comforts of good food and drink, a taste which lends them a rather wide frame (though they are still delicate by comparison to Dwarfs).

Sorry, but to me that sounds like the generic Frodo/Sam/Pippin/Merry-halfling. Naive and peaceloving midgets, whose only concerns in life consist of choosing what type of ale to drink for their gazillionth meal during the day. And their main contribution to the world in general is primarily focused on cooking and brewery and similar novelties.

-"Oh give thanks to the halflings! For without them we wouldn't have such well tasting ale, and in an age where our lands are ravaged by daemons, dragons, ogres, rat-men, elves and Orcs, we must remember that life is all about ale and excellent cooking!"

Yeah, ale and good food is fine. But when you purposefully design an entire race/species to be ONLY about such things then it's hard to take it seriously. They resemble animals more than sentient individuals (sort of like Orcs, but at least Orcs are fearsome fighters and pose a real threat).

Have to say something about this new WFRP3 card-board-rpg game speculation.

Personally I'm not angry or sad about new dice or "help-cards" or whatever (maybe little disapointed that there will be so much new stuff to be purchaced like we would really need them). WHAT I am afraid is, that when ever we go for more boardgame-look, we go easily further from true Pen-Paper RPG.

Current WFRP system basically gives you change to create almost anykind of character. Somehow WFRPv3 seems very much limited with only 40 careers. Hope there is still all the same skills (or even more) and Talents/Traits (or similar). Or suddenly we notice there are no (this is just example) - say Sailors in the game (or any Skills for them either). And now suddenly high-sea adventure rules are gone (well careers atleast, if there really was anymore rules).

People like compare this very much to D&D. Well, D&D 3.0 (and 3.5) gave very open character possibilities advancing them even further by creating million prestige classes...etc. What I didn't like in D&D 4 is that suddenly basic rules were actually more limited. Skills were VERY limited. And then you just cannot create all kind of characters types as you might want to.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Have you ever heard of or played the game Everway? It was a box set RPG, developed and sold by WotC as a "visionary role playing game" because it included lots of visuals, was diceless but used specialized cards (fortune deck), other cards for the PCs, etc...

WotC had the idea, or at least some of the people there, that this was going to be a new wave of RPG, something never before done, totally different from book standard most RPGs followed.

It was originally introduced in '95, tanked and was sold to another company which did some expansion on it, who then sold it to yet another company and it died sometime in '01,w hen supposedly a 2nd edition was being worked on. So a life span of roughly 6 years over the course of three different companies, so maybe 2 years per company.

You'll find that there are the occasional players who absolutely loved the game, rave about it and how cool it was. But commercially it stunk and that was for a box set that sold for around $25-30.

So, when you're talking $100 for specialty dice that could get lost, sucked up a vacuum, or swallowed, cards that can get scratched, bent, stepped on, torn, wet, individual "player boxes" which could get lost, forgotten back at the house or misplaced, sat on, crushed, torn, wet, etc...as opposed to a single book, generic dice, or a simple character sheet, gimmiky pieces and fiddley bits don't look appealing at all. And never mind pets, this doesn't even scratch the surface of players with young children.

I'm sure FFG will offer replacement dice and cards, it would be stupid of them not too, but who knows. But the downside to all of this is what if they don't? What happens a year, two or three down the road if the game eventually tanks out and then someone needs replacements? Mad dash to eBay, unload the bank account for anyone looking to reaquire some pieces and parts to make your box set whole again for a game that is no longer in stock.

At least if I don't have a certain RPG book to run a game, odds are one of my group members does. How many individual group members are going to go out and drop $100 for their own WFv3? Maybe some will, odds are most won't.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Hey I have an idea for you!

You should go to Altdorf's market and hang around a little bit. Sooner than latter Mr. Crumpmunch Applebag should appear. He is selling apple pies on his pie cart. He is nice and jovial halfling with a slight paunch and he absolutely loves a good larger and fancies a good pie more than he should.

Then you should upturn his cart and beat him up because he is 'short and pathetic' and 'little better than an animal'. Since you will have several friends with you (your type moves in packs - you know agitators, human supremacists, fantasy equivalent of KKK - that sort) you shouldn't have any problems to accomplish that. After all he is short and pathetic and someone has been distributing copies of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Moot' for sometime around the market so the crowd has been worked up quite nicely and no one will oppose you.

But after that, latter that same night, first someone throws a rock through your window. That keeps on repeating night after night. You can not catch a culprit and you can not get a decent nights sleep. You are disheveled. And pathetic. Then you notice that food in bars and restaurants tastes like **** all of a sudden. It seems that all cooks have something against you. If you confront them they feign ignorance and point out that nobody else is complaining. You are disheveled and hungry.And pathetic. Then you find out that someone has bought-out all your outstanding debts. Someone short. And pathetic. And he has a proposal for you...You are now just desperate.

And all this happens even before that witch hunter shows on your doorstep and beats a living **** out of you for no particular reason.

Oh, It seems that poor Mr. Applebag was handling 'dubious' artifacts and objects (remember he has that nice and handy Resistance to Chaos talent) for this guy! It seems that he had some use for a pathetic Halfling.

Important note: This happens in v1 or v2.

In v3 you'll also be able to go through all of this but you'll just have to wait for Adventurer's Toolkit or some future supplement to be tortured for your disrespect for the best race in gaming.

Varnias Tybalt said:

And all elves are condescending and arrogant, when they choose to communicate with the "lesser races" at all.

And all dwarfs are vindictive, close-minded little sods who are only interested in mining anyway.

And all humans are dangerous, ignorant fools, and generally far too full of themselves to realise it.

Any race can be turned into a meaningless, oversimplified summary if you put your mind to it. If all you're interested in is playing a 2-dimensional stereotype instead of a character then maybe halflings aren't for you. On the other hand, if you're interested in actually doing some roleplaying then maybe you should give them a try. The most satisfying characters are the ones that transcend their stereotypical boundaries, while still remaining in character.

Personally I find that halflings are one of the best races for genuine roleplaying opportunities, simply because their relative lack of combat prowess forces you to play up to their social strengths (and there are many).

Oh, and wherever you got that description from, it doesn't begin to scratch the surface of halflings in WFRP, or any other decent game or piece of literature.

ChaosChild said:

I got it straight from lexicanum (you know, the unofficial wiki of Warhammer and Warhammer 40.000. Pretty famous amongst GW fans)

And you know, it really isn't my fault that Dwarves, Elves and halflings are two-dimensional stereotypes. I didn't write their descriptions to begin with, Tolkien did, and then GW came along and put pretty much the same spin on all the races. And if you go through the brunt of the ridiculously homogenous fantasy litterature out there you'll see that the stereotypes seem to hold true.

I tried giving most of these races the benefit of a doubt but so far I've only been bitten in the ass for it. That's why I pride myself in being the fantasy world equivalent of the KKK. While I might heavily dislike racism in the real world (you know, because it harms real people), it is by far more attractive and charming when you're roleplaying.

Not just because racists (simple minded as they tend to be) can be a bit charming in their own repulsive way, but because the stereotypical depictions of these fictional races always seem to hold true no matter where you look. They deserve to die (or be horribly mistreated) because they are just soooo incredibly boring and two-dimensional (unless of course, your's truly, sit behind the controls of one of them. But really, I can't be expected to drag an entire race from the perils of two-dimensionalism with my very involving roleplaying).

So don't blame me, blame the original authors. It's their fault for depicting these races in such boring ways.

I guess this is why I like Dark Heresy so much, because in that world you always, by default, play a human (more or less), and you are expected to be a hateful bigot when it comes to alien species, mutants, psykers and people with the "wrong" way of thinking. Regardless of how sentient and sweet they can sometimes seem to be.

Perhaps now you can see that I do take my roleplaying seriously and with passion, since because of the fact that im so willing and generous in exploring the really dark sides of human nature? (racism, hate and bigotry being a few major parts of it, in my opinion)

//Varnias Tybalt - Racist in fantasy worlds, but politically incorrect in every world

P.S Come to think of it, the name: "Altdorf Hitler" has got some kind of a ring to it.

Elves and hobbits like to sing and dance about nature and old dead lovers. They say things like: "dear me!" or "i am a child of the forest".

Now Orcs... THERE's an idea that I can get behind. Not in THAT way, but you know what I mean.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Well, I would just like to point out that you answering one stereotype by another. 40k is full of stereotypes just in this case they are bad ones.

Off topic: I almost stopped visiting and posting on Dark Reign (the best dark heresy fan site) because some people there took offence if anyone even mentioned to them that the original Rogue Trader (as in that ye olde book from the 80s) provided a picture of Imperium, that while still totalitarian (maybe even more than latter), is also less xenophobic and hysterically genocidal.

If you pointed out to them that if you systematically took off layers of latter novels and codices you could reach a version of game that while remaining substantially grimdark could be much more amicable to role-playing experience instead of the war-gaming one. These ‘fans’ often went ballistic after that and started arguing minutiae of the latter editions of 40k setting trying to prove to me that role-playing concentration camp manager conducting planet-wide extermination of Eldars (enter Xenos of your own choosing and I am not making this up) is either fun (honest ones) or exploration of humanities dark nature (goth ones). BS, it is not fun for me (or any sane grown-up) and it is not exploration but puerile endorsement. NOTE: I am not saying that you are puerile or insane.

It is really a shame for them because if they bothered to explore history of their hobby they could see its glorious roots both in Dune novels and Dying Earth subgenre but also in various black humored 2000ad SF comics like Nemesis the Warlock, Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dog that mercilessly poked fun on that kind of self-aggrandizing and borderline fascist way of thinking.

And BTW, Altdorf Hitler still gets his ass whopped well! First by Mootfia and then by Simon Wiesenthal, that witch hunter friend of that charming Halfling pie-seller Mr. Applebag.

DISCLAIMER: THIS POST HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME EITHER LIKING OR NOT LIKING v3 OR CLAIMING TO KNOW WHAT IS THE REAL WAY TO ROLEPLAY!

Cat that Walked by Himself said:

Can't say I agree with you. The hysteric and genocidal nature of the Imperium of Man is partly what's so appealing about it. It's so blatantly politically incorrect by todays standards and way of thinking. It almost bring back that same nostalgic feel that an old swedish RPG called "Kult" brought about. It actually instigated a wave of moral panic in this little country of ours where the "PC-ites" of the time proclaimed that playing such violent and depraved games might drive people insane, and it actually made several chains of stores to refuse selling RPG's at all for the forseeable future.

Back then, playing roleplaying games wasn't considered nerdy or excentric, but people actually believed you were worshipping satan and spent your free time plotting murdering your parents or something like that. It was great!

And the improved Imperium of Man (by improved I mean post "Rogue Trader 40K") has that same kind of bad, evil flavour to it. But instead of an occult, dark god worshipping flavour it has this genocidal, bigotry flavour instead. Instead of bringing your thoughts towards demons and serial killers, it brings the thoughts towards fascist despots like Hitler and some of the more radical Roman Emperors. It's GrimDark with a genocidal flavour. And it taste good!

And no, me thinking that does not make me puerile nor insane. (you are most correct in not calling me either)

Because this is a fictious setting. It's make-believe, meaning that real people aren't getting hurt by it. It's the same thing as when you butcher hundreds of digital people in your standard violent FPS-shooter (like Postal 2, gotta love Postal 2! ). It's not something stable and sane people would like to do for real, but in a fictious world you do it anyway, just for the heck of it. And that's good (whether your eight years old or an adult), better to give expressions to such dark thoughts and fantasies in an enviroment where no one can get hurt by it, rather than blowing of that kind of steam in the real world.

Oh and by the way: Altdorf Hitler wouldn't stay at any local markets for any pesky halflings to find. He would be a genocidal necromancer (sort of like the notorious Heinrich Kemmler), hell bent on transforming the entire world to a land of the dead. He would have his vassals build concentration camps for the individuals committing the crime of living and execute them in their millions, only to raise them as undead soldiers in his war of extermination.