macd21 said:
Halflings are an interesting and important race option for WFRP. They are not, however, a popular option. High Elves and Wood Elves are simply far, far more popular. Taking up space in the core with a race that only a tiny minority of players will ever use is a waste of space and money. If one of your players wants to play a halfing they can buy the expansion that they'll be described in.
macd21 said:
Halflings are an interesting and important race option for WFRP. They are not, however, a popular option. High Elves and Wood Elves are simply far, far more popular. Taking up space in the core with a race that only a tiny minority of players will ever use is a waste of space and money. If one of your players wants to play a halfing they can buy the expansion that they'll be described in.
Or we can continue playing v2 or even go back to v1...
But that is not the issue here. It is just that lack of Halflings because they are not economically viable also implies certain direction that we might find displeasing.
Listen, I just came back from the screening of the Inglorious Basterds (new Tarentino) and you know one of my friends commented that while he liked the movie he thinks that moviegoers will be generally confused because, for reasons that I won’t go in now, it is a film that doesn’t go out of its way to please any specific target audience. And as Poe proved letter/message/story always reaches its destination.
That is a BS. I think that Tarentino hasn’t started filming after reading through pie charts and statistics with only profit in mind. If he did that he would have made Transformers 2 (Danger Will Robinson, danger, don’t take your epileptic younger brother to see this movie. He’ll have a seizure!) and laughed all the way to the bank. But he wanted to tell a specific story. Not any story but very specific story and he used tools and style that he found to be the most appropriate.
And you know what? Compared to RPG ‘industry’ movies are let’s just say more serious one…
If FFG allows itself to be bullied by players aspirations (either way – grorgnards as well as fanboys) or be directed ONLY by economic necessities to the point that they are sacrificing essential parts of the game fluff then it is bad. Really bad.
I might be a minority here but I always felt the most comfortable when WFRP was in the hands of the Hogshead. And James Wallis.
I don’t want for ‘my’ RPG settings to win popularity contests I just want them to be there for me like Old Friends.
There is a lot Gordon Gecko talk around here (coming from the both sides of the fence) but I would love for WFRP to have a caretaker and not a slave-driver.
Leogun_91 said:
macd21 said:
Halflings are an interesting and important race option for WFRP. They are not, however, a popular option. High Elves and Wood Elves are simply far, far more popular. Taking up space in the core with a race that only a tiny minority of players will ever use is a waste of space and money. If one of your players wants to play a halfing they can buy the expansion that they'll be described in.
That might be true but I know only one player who plays elfs while halflings can be considered by several players......and if the halflings would be given the same attention in the core book as they are now (maybe skipping the fieldwarden when you are so limited on careers) they would hardly take any place in the book anyways......you could even just skip half a page of the intro story to get the in.
Interestingly, I never met anyone, who played a halfling. Somehow everyone I met seems to hate those dirty little scumbags. Still, I have far more dwarf and human players, than elves.
Same thing here, I've never met anyone who've wanted to play a halfling. Actually almost everyone I've played WHFRP with chose to play as humans, and I can't blame them. In my personal opinion dwarfs are the only reasonably interesting non-humans.
Anyway, I definitely don't think cutting halflings from the core box is a purely economical decision. FFG just had to make priorities and I'm not surprised that halflings aren't at the top of the list. For example, a complaint lodged at v2 was the rather thin bestiary section. Would a larger bestiary in the core book have been worth delaying the halfling release for? I think that for many it would have.
Poe said:
Same thing here, I've never met anyone who've wanted to play a halfling. Actually almost everyone I've played WHFRP with chose to play as humans, and I can't blame them. In my personal opinion dwarfs are the only reasonably interesting non-humans.
Anyway, I definitely don't think cutting halflings from the core box is a purely economical decision. FFG just had to make priorities and I'm not surprised that halflings aren't at the top of the list. For example, a complaint lodged at v2 was the rather thin bestiary section. Would a larger bestiary in the core book have been worth delaying the halfling release for? I think that for many it would have.
If you allow me to be snarky I would say that playing Wardancer can wait even bit longer.
And oh yes, v1 had both huge bestiary and halflings. So, you can both have a cake and eat it 
Once again, I present to the court irrefutable evidence of why halflings have to go:
Necrozius said:
I rest my case.
My experience is definitely that Halflings are more popular PCs than Elves, but my players tend to be more roleplay-focused than stat-focused.
Necrozius said:
Once again, I present to the court irrefutable evidence of why halflings have to go:
Necrozius said:
I rest my case.
Good G*d! He's eating!!!! We can not have that in our game! You know because in the World of Perilous Adventure no one eats... EVER!
And here is why...
http://www.warpstone.darcore.net/hhdown.html
Go play. Come back latter. We'll talk. Have some fun. Eat some pies.
Cat that Walked by Himself said:
And oh yes, v1 had both huge bestiary and halflings. So, you can both have a cake and eat it
I know that people eat in RPGs.
That's not why that picture is a hilariously awesome tool that my friends use to ridicule halflings, though.
It the SHAPE of the food that he's putting into his corpulent mouth.
...yeah.
(I'm really just joking around a bit. Halflings are fine in the setting, and supposedly they'll be brought back in a future expansion.)
Leogun_91 said:
macd21 said:
Halflings are an interesting and important race option for WFRP. They are not, however, a popular option. High Elves and Wood Elves are simply far, far more popular. Taking up space in the core with a race that only a tiny minority of players will ever use is a waste of space and money. If one of your players wants to play a halfing they can buy the expansion that they'll be described in.
That might be true but I know only one player who plays elfs while halflings can be considered by several players......and if the halflings would be given the same attention in the core book as they are now (maybe skipping the fieldwarden when you are so limited on careers) they would hardly take any place in the book anyways......you could even just skip half a page of the intro story to get the in.
Leogun_91 said:
That might be true but I know only one player who plays elfs while halflings can be considered by several players......and if the halflings would be given the same attention in the core book as they are now (maybe skipping the fieldwarden when you are so limited on careers) they would hardly take any place in the book anyways......you could even just skip half a page of the intro story to get the in.
Cat that Walked by Himself said:
It's not about them being economically viable. It is about giving your customers value for money. And no, those customers are not 'bullying' the company. They are simply indicating their preferences - and this is a perfectly valid one. That small amount of space taken up by halflings in v1 and v2? Would have been better spent on adding another race, or giving us that stats for another monster in the bestiary, or hell, just giving us a bit more fluff fiction at the start of the book. I know the halfling fans won't agree - but the point is that there are too few halfling fans out there to justify them taking up space in the core.
macd21 said:
It's not about them being economically viable. It is about giving your customers value for money. And no, those customers are not 'bullying' the company. They are simply indicating their preferences - and this is a perfectly valid one. That small amount of space taken up by halflings in v1 and v2? Would have been better spent on adding another race, or giving us that stats for another monster in the bestiary, or hell, just giving us a bit more fluff fiction at the start of the book. I know the halfling fans won't agree - but the point is that there are too few halfling fans out there to justify them taking up space in the core.
Ok. You are Scrooge McDuck in disguise
Again: I would prefer my game less profitable if more profit would mean that it will become something else entirely. That is my preference. I guess that I see RPG games not only as business but also as a tool for creative expression. Yes a game but a game with something added.
@Necrozius
No, seriously go play (GM) Fear the Worst. Your players will never laugh at the sausage again. I mean it is really fun starting adventure for WFRP. 
Cat that Walked by Himself said:
@Necrozius
No, seriously go play (GM) Fear the Worst. Your players will never laugh at the sausage again. I mean it is really fun starting adventure for WFRP.
Okay now I'm seriously curious! I can find the adventure at that link that you posted?
Cat that Walked by Himself said:
Ok. You are Scrooge McDuck in disguise
Well, I think it comes down to this:
More people play humans than halflings. More people play dwarfs than halflings. More people play wood elfs than halflings. More people play high elfs than halflings.
Putting in Halflings means cutting one of the other races. Obviously that isn't fair to the fans of the race that is dropped - and there are more of them than there are halfling fans. Alternatively, they could cut the material on each of the elven races in half to create a single elf race - but that forces the fans of those two races to use half the material they are entitled to, again for the benefit of the tiny number of halfling fans.
If halflings are really as un-popular for the majority as it seems, perhaps the expansion that includes the halfling race should include something that promotes or glamorizes that race?
Perhaps by including a super awesome halfling related (or halfling only) quest?
Necrozius said:
If halflings are really as un-popular for the majority as it seems, perhaps the expansion that includes the halfling race should include something that promotes or glamorizes that race?
Perhaps by including a super awesome halfling related (or halfling only) quest?
Oh come now, halflings always serve a purpose in any given setting. 
They are a lot of fun to hunt down whenever you see them.
You can run, you stunty, ridiculous little thing! But you can't hide! I'll find you and BURN you! 
I don't know if keeping Halfings would have taken up so much space. The description of Halflings in WFRP2 doesn't even take up a full column on half a page. Even if they have lengthened each of the racial description sections in WFRP3 it still couldn't be that big. In D&D 3.5 Halflings are described over a little more than a page, and in 4E there are only 2 pages with half of the page being a large graphic (and let's not get into font sizes). Overall it's not that much space, and I don't know that there is a good reason to have to limit the total number of races in the core book to 4 come the desire to add another Elf subgroup. The way it feels to me is that instead of 4 races in the core book to choose from, you now have 3, which I suppose is sort of true.
Also, what about Halfling NPCs? Will there be no Halflings at all in the Old World without the supplement?
Blue Wizard said:
I don't know if keeping Halfings would have taken up so much space. The description of Halflings in WFRP2 doesn't even take up a full column on half a page. Even if they have lengthened each of the racial description sections in WFRP3 it still couldn't be that big. In D&D 3.5 Halflings are described over a little more than a page, and in 4E there are only 2 pages with half of the page being a large graphic (and let's not get into font sizes). Overall it's not that much space, and I don't know that there is a good reason to have to limit the total number of races in the core book to 4 come the desire to add another Elf subgroup. The way it feels to me is that instead of 4 races in the core book to choose from, you now have 3, which I suppose is sort of true.
It doesn't matter if they only take up a small amount of space, if you want to have them in the box then something else has to go. A couple of monsters? Spells? Setting material? FFG looked at halflings and their importance to the game, based on player feedback, and decided that they weren't important enough to include in the core.
I missed the player feedback session for 3ed 
Seriously, though, I can appreciate the point your making.
"SAYANORA, SAMWISE, YOU FAT F#&K !!!!!"
Blue Wizard said:
"SAYANORA, SAMWISE, YOU FAT F#&K !!!!!"
Necrozius said:
Cat that Walked by Himself said:
@Necrozius
No, seriously go play (GM) Fear the Worst. Your players will never laugh at the sausage again. I mean it is really fun starting adventure for WFRP.
Okay now I'm seriously curious! I can find the adventure at that link that you posted?
Yes! It was the last effort by Hogshead before J.Wallis decided to close the shop (he was frustrated by industry at large - d20 craze did not help either). It is very nice adventure featuring a buttload of usual Warhammer bleak and black humor.
jadrax said:
Blue Wizard said:
"SAYANORA, SAMWISE, YOU FAT F#&K !!!!!"
Have you been eating DagobahDave's special pills?
No. Too much sausages.
Blue Wizard said:
"SAYANORA, SAMWISE, YOU FAT F#&K !!!!!"
"My goodness! But Mr. Frodo: I LOOOOOVE you!"