Wood elves will most likely have racial bonuses and abilities reflecting nature, survival and other guerilla warfare stuff.

High elves will most likely have racial bonuses and abilities reflecting higher learning (magic?), sophisticated diplomacy and courtly intrigue.

Wood elves walk like this: "Doop dee-doop dee doop", while High elves walk like this: "Awwww yeeeeeaaaaahhh...."

...while halflings drool and swing dead cats like flails.

marz.twin said:

Well, the humans in the first supplement are listed as Reiklander Humans, and the Dwarves are listed as being from a certain hold, strongly implying than when the eventual human and dwarf books come out there will be more varietiy.

As for all those setting books, they have never been made before, and the likely reason is that the potential market is very small. That, and there's plenty of story to tell in Empire. If v3 starts selling like gangbusters, the more likely it will be that the smaller niche books will be slotted into the budget.

marz.twin said:

I wouldn't get my hopes up about sourcebooks treating the subjects of Araby. Nippon, Cathay etc.

Mainly because Games Workshop themselves haven't done much regarding these lands in the Warhammer fantasy setting (sure, they have put them on their fictional world map, an they have written small slivers of texts mentioning details about those lands, but not much else). While FFG might hold a license to making RPG's based on GW's Intellectual Property they still seem to be expected to run any ideas they have by with the GW creative staff before implementing them in the RPG's. Since the creative staff at GW haven't done or written much about these lands, you can imagine how ardous the task would be if FFG's writers will have to ask the team at GW about every single thing the books are intended to include.

Perhaps if Games Workshop ever decides to create armybooks regarding these lands in the setting, and they have built a solid foundation for them in their IP. But you'll probably not see anything in the way of sourcebook material regarding those particular lands in the forseeable future...

I've been thinking about this and have a few concerns with the races system. I'm not liking the fact that the inital set you are solely Reiklanders, or dwarfs from a single hold, but you are able to be two distinct whole races that are very different from each other. I understand that FFG have probably done this to reduce cost to the players (still steep mind you) but they fell in love with the idea of Wood Elves vs High Elves.

I think it is more to the new format with cards more than anything. I would have preferred it to have been the whole of the Empire, dwarfs in general and maybe one race of elves ( likely High Elves). Other races should be introduced through small racial packs with extra careers and fluff (your halflings, wood elves, Bretonnian's, etc). Maybe this is what FFG have planned, but the simple fact remains that Humans are the most populous beings in the old world yet they are only 25% of the playable races. Perhaps the Career system has done this, but again you are limited to Reiklander careers - no gunners from Nuln, theorically there should be nothing to do with Ulric as a career as they are from Middenheim and so forth.

I wonder whether the focus on such small 'areas' of the world will limit rp in different places until the appropriate expansions are released with the careers, fluff and other details that bring the region to life. For older (read 1st and 2nd ed players) the lack of information isn't going to hold them back, but new entrants into the game may not have the same opportunities.

Still, I wait for even more information to be release through dev diaries. The dice pool post had me interested. I can see the possibilities, but I wonder about the time used to 'read' the dice. Intially this is going to take a while, but'll speed up as you understand it more. the ability cards though really limit you as to what you do. I do like the success with negative effects though.

It would seem that the default 'setting' is Altdorf, therefore the only 'races' available are those most likely to be found there. Note that the Wood Elf race is supposed to only represent elves from Athel Loren, not elves from elsewhere (such as the Wood Elves of the Empire). That said, I don't think there will really be any problem with saying that your human character is from Middenheim or your dwarf from Karaz a Karak.

If I am to have a worry on this new edition, it would be that it is overdone, 2nd Ed was just fine, why not continua along that line if you want a 3rd Ed?

But again as I've stated earlier, we need a demo video session where rules are explained and played with character generation and play. It's difficult to say yes or no before that arrives. :-)

macd21 said:

I have played Warhammer Fantasy Battle ( the Games Workshop miniatures game) and have read very, very much of the Warhammer background for the past 20 years. Elves are very much more popular than halflings in their gaming universe. This is Warhammer after all and halflings are just not going to be as important as in a Lord of the Rings or even a D&D background.

macd21 said:

(This is why I rarely visit this forum anymore.) So how do you know they were never popular?

macd21 said:

And what data would this be? You've said in other posts that rpg companies never look to the forums for trends or data and that they should never do so as such data is completely unreliable and skewed.

So.. what and where is this data?

1010 Cloud Deck said:

That would be the data that BI and FFG presumably accumulated over the years, from customers and playtesters. I'm relying on forum anecdotes, polls and personal experience, they can't afford to do that.

Isn't all this nonsense about what races people imagine might be more popular and what data they presume FFG has gathered completely irrelevant?

Surely a game in which you can play any kind of elf and play halflings as well is less likely to alienate people than one in which you can only play two kinds of elf and don't have the option to play halflings?

Duh!

You'll find a 3.5% drift per year in the buying power of Halfling real estate moguls of the Moot. Since there are no inheritable rights to nobility or feudal authority amongst the half men, the land owners of the Moot find their influence waxing and waning yearly. Many scholars have positively identified this as contingent upon the fluctuations in the pie market; tied irrevocably to the fruit harvest. This in turn has given over a large amount of clout and authority to the independent and unionized farm labor throughout the province seeing as they have their tiny hands on the main source of revenue for any would-be halfling tycoons.

So whilst many of us postulate on the inherent democratic feelings amongst the small folk, truly one must look at the economic situation that has forced their hand. Taken alongside their diminished mental capacity for an attention span, and you find a rather chaotic churning of the societal butter so-to-speak as one wealthy halfling gives way to another year to year.

In short, due to a lack of the consistent inheritable leadership that the surrounding provinces take for granted, it would be both wise and prudent for your most august majesty to grant my realm the authority and privilege to act as steward and protector of the Moot. Continuing until such a time as a suitable Elector Count can be chosen from amongst the wee folk to provide a consistent lineage that will lend stability and a modocum of proper dignity to an erstwhile emberassing political blot in our Empire's history.

Obediently Yours,

Lord Marius Leitdorf, Elector Count of the Grand Barony of Averland

P.S. Halflings like totally suck so we'll probably kill em...FYI..long live Averland and whatnot..teeheeeheee anyone have a banana?

We can all thank the Mad Count of Averland for removing Halflings from the initial release of 3rd edition.

Aldred Fellblade said:

That assumes that FFG care all that much about alienating the small number of halfling fans who played v1 and v2. They presumably decided that providing more support for High Elf and Wood Elf players was more important than keeping a tiny number of halfling players happy. Besides, the option to play them will be in an expansion.

I suppose Halflings will come with an expansion exploring the Empire outside Reikland as it will, hopefully, include the Moot.

Still, if you are very interested in playing a Halfling before the appropriate expansion comes out, I don't see what is stopping you from playing one. It should be pretty easy to agree with your GM to create appropriate stats for a Halfling by taking into account the relation between races in 2nd edition and adapting the initial 3rd edition races accordingly.

So:

Halflings had 10 points less than Humans in WS, Strength and Tougness, but 10 more in BS and Agility. They had 2 less Wounds and some extra Skills and Talents (see page 19 of the WFRP 2nd edition) ( man, they were weak, no wonder many people did not want to play with them; I liked them though, one of the funniest experiences of my gaming life was playing a Blood Bowl Tournament with a Halfling team ). So there you go, take a Human from 3rd edition and apply those changes to him and you can play with a Halfling. Should take less than 5 mins. Remember also to change the starting equipment of the Human appropriately (you know, silver cutlery, pan on the head as helmet, beer-tray for a shield, etc., etc.).

What about roleplaying tips? You can get those from WFRP 2nd edition or any of the many books that feature Halflings in the Warhammer world.

Some of you would then say: "And what about 15 year old newcomers to the game? They'll miss the wonderful experience of playing a Halfling and poisoning the bad guys with dubious ratmeat pies!! What an outrage!" Right, but anyone interested enough in playing them will surely be able to do what I just told you: adapt the Reiklander Human a bit to get a Halfling... and remember The Hobbit (the film) is coming in one year or two, so FFG will probably wait for that movie to go out so that their sales of Halfling related products go sky high...

macd21 said:

You're still assuming that it's a small number of players who like halflings. Just because you personally don't like them doesn't mean that holds true for the population at large. I could just as easily take the numbers from my own gaming group and declare that 33% of all WFRP players play halflings as their race of choice, but I won't because that would be an extrapolation from an inadequate sample size.

Please don't try to speak on behalf of the general gaming population unless you've actually taken the time to ask a representative sample for their opinions. Not everyone's as close-minded as you apparently are.

ChaosChild said:

I agree that personal anecdotes don't make good arguments.

That being said, in all the years that I've played these games (about 17 yrs) , of all the people that I've ever played with (approx. 40 or so people from various backgrounds, not just geeks) I've only encountered ONE person who always wanted to play halflings. And everyone teases him for it to this day.

I know that it doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but all of my peers couldn't care less about halflings except for comic relief.

ChaosChild said:

I'm not basing this merely on my own experiences. It is true that I don't really have much evidence to back up my claim, though I do know that BI didn't consider halflings a popular race. That may have been close-minded prejudice on their part, but I believe they probably did some research into it.

macd21 said:

Leaving the tortuous question of the 'small number of halfling fans' aside surely that is what's particularly horrifying. In previous editions providing more support for elves wouldn't have necessitated leaving out halflings. The end result is a reduced variety of racial options any way you look at it. Isn't telling people who are pissed off that they can't play a Halfling that 'Yeah, but it's better for FFG that way' kind of redundant. No matter how great it may or may not be for FFG it's still going to piss off the guy who wants to play a Halfling. The success of FFG's business is not actually my concern; the content and quality of WFRP products is.

Aldred Fellblade said:

I'd say that such assumptions are pretty reasonable.

Just consider the fact how often Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry have been the butt-end of countless jokes circulating the internet and compare them to how often Legolas have had to suffer the same fate.

You'd get a pretty good idea of how serious people treat the concept of halflings in general that way.

Do note that Legolas was played by Orlando Bloom in the movies. Reasonably that actor should have provoked a lot more harsh jokes because... well he's Orlando Bloom! But because he played an elf with ninja-skills, everybody just likes him... Except me, but I despise both elves and halflings... And Orlando Bloom, but that's beside the point...

Jumping in on the halfling debate (though as they're in the Adventurer's Toolkit I'm not sure what the big deal is):

Halflings are undoubtedly less popular to one group - the Warhammer Fantasy Battles gamers FFG is probably trying to suck in. Wood Elves and High Elves are armies in their own right, whereas I'm not sure there's even a halfling unit in the Empire army list anymore. (There is of course the Dogs of War unit, Lumpin Croops' Fighting *****)

So, from a marketing standpoint I can see why they'd do it.

Let's turn this around.

New scenario: FFG says the four starting races are Human, Dwarf, Wood Elf and Halfling, saying High Elf would come out later in the Tool Kit.

Obvious response is "WTF? In WFRP 2 we could choose Elf and then tweak to make it a Wood Elf or High Elf, but now we are forced to play a Wood Elf, and if we want a High Elf we have to buy the Toolkit? I'm forced to buy a supplement to play an Elf that's not a treehugger! Why not switch with the Halfling? Who plays those anyway?"

There's just no pleasing in some people...

sudden real said:

Exactly! Or, they keep both elf types and put halfings in instead of dwarves? Talk about being written down in the Book of Grudges for that one! In essence, it seems like for some reason FFG was limited to only 4 races that it could include with the core set. Halflings got the 'short straw' (haha, funny!) as the least necessary one to include.

Aldred Fellblade said:

I respectfully disagree. If you consider it essential to play a Halfling, it's really easy to adapt the stats of a Human Reiklander and create a Halfling. You only need to compare the 2nd edition stats of Halfling and Human and agree with your GM on how to adapt the stats of the 3rd edition Human.

There are tons of material already for Halflings in the Warhammer world, so even if you don't want to wait for the expansion, playing a Halfling should not be a big problem.

Also, if FFG is not successful, the content and quality of their products will suck, because there will be none.

What if they just wanted to try something different? Switch it up some - "Hey, let's try making more detailed elves. Unfortunately, since we are limited by page count, that will mean bumping the halflings to a later book." Also recall that GW approved of the change. It is even possible that the change was at the request of GW, since they don't seem to be too fond of halflings in WFB. If they were, they could have included some in the latest Empire army book rewrite.

Aldred Fellblade said:

The content and quality of the RPG is exactly the reason why the halfings were left out. There is only so much space in any RPG corebook/box. They decided they could fit 4 in. It was decided they would put in the four races that would appeal to people the most - and halflings didn't qualify. FFG believes that a corebox with humans, dwarfs, high elfs and wood elfs is a better quality product than one with humans, dwarfs, (generic) elfs and halflings.