macd21 said:

macd21 said:

As both and experienced GM and an experienced living person I'd never say such a thing. Things that are old are not meant to be obsolete by definition. I'm not talking about D100 being better or worse than Fancy Dice here (Look to my other post for that). I'm talking about the lack of respect FFG had in reguards to a storical RPG and it's fans. They are showing to not even having a clue about WFRP, it's roots it's pros and cons. They are showing no love and no care about it. They are just cannibalizing it and recycling it's name and setting for a totally new thing that is going to SUBSTITUTE HENCE KILL the 23 years old idea of WFRP. I'd never had anything against a new product to put aside WFRP. I'd never had anything against an EVOLUTION of the V2 system that added cards and boards to the existing gaming system. You know, evolution is a gradual thing, everywhere everytime. This is not evolution this is arrogant replacement.

How can people simply think "WFRP D100 system is old, then it is junk then let's replace it with something newer and fresher" without having in mind nothing more than pure money making?

I'd wish to know if FFG know the implications of such a drasting chance, rooted in the origins of WFRP gaming system. You see, one of the marvellous things about Warhammer, besides it's wonderful setting, is (was) the possibility to crossover different scaling games without much effort: you could play WFRP campaigns and use WFB rules for big scale battles without spending weeks in converting PC and unit profiles. That could also be done with mordheim if one wished to do some more tactical combat now and then. Do you think this will be still possible with the new ruleset? With the same ease?

And what about the tons of previous tons of supplement and campaigns that came out for V1 and V2? They are becoming useless and if one wants to play TeW or Doomstones with V3 simply has to pass nightmarish evenings to convert all the npcs and rebalance the whole thing.

macd21 said:

In the sense that if the result on the card tells me for instance "You get hit instead of hitting because you have opened your guard too much" (I'm making an example here), the GM has no much options here, do you agree?

It's clear that the problem mostly depends on how well done and openminded are the results... but why do I have to put my possibility to improvise and interpret things in the hands of someone else?

On top of that I guess action cards will have a well limited number of possibile results over them thus loosing their "fresh" appeal very soon.

You want a new disadvantage?

In V2 I can create actions on the fly. I just have to think if it will take a full or an half action to do it and how it will affect combat.

In V3 I have to create a card, think about all the possibile results, balance them and print them out. You misbalanced even just one of them? Reprint all the cards from scratch.

Man, when the Star Wars Prequels came out, I felt so totally betrayed by George Lucas.

I mean, the beloved original trilogy, the one that all the veteran star wars fans grew up with and cherished like a fine, aging wine, has been forever spoiled. All the integrity, magic and power of the first three films has been stripped away by these new prequels.

In other words, ILM has spat in the face of the True© Fans, and pissed on the original works of art that were the orginal films.

My childhood... oh by beloved childhood... forever raped by this evil new version of George Lucas. I saw those movies when I was just a kid! I grew UP with these movies!

How dare he bring in a new generation into star wars! They aren't worthy of the fine appreciation that us veteran fans have...

....

Erik Bauer said:

But hasn't the DM always interpreted and veto'ed any improvised actions by the players?

Does your DM allow the players to make up whatever they want?

@Necrozius:

Star Wars episodes I to III are worldwide acknowledged as sub standard quality movies, this without taking in account midichlorian, blind Jedy councils and bull$it$ like these.

But we risk a big offtopic war here.

macd21 said:

Necrozius said:

Is this a little sarcasm I sense?

Necrozius said:

Yes and it will always do it.

But one thing is to improvise without clearly suggested results, another is to improvise against clearly suggested results. In the latter case you have to keep in account the fact that if you say once to player A "Ok, forget the attack you receive back, you simply miss" you clearly cheated to save his PG openly and with discovered cards (ready: everybody know what should have happened and everybody know you palesely changed something in favour of player A). From now then you'll have to keep things balanced in the same way also for other players and abuse of this will start to raise questions like "Why the hell are we using this system with cards if 70% of the results are changed by you?"

This reverts back to my previous question: If I, as a GM, do not like the card system but I want to play an updated WFRP, can I decide to not use the card system for combat? Time will tell, but for now my fears stay here.

Erik Bauer said:

Consider this: The WFRP3 mechanic can introduce effects that are not part of a linear success/failure progression (a D100 roll can tell you if you passed or failed, and how much you passed or failed by, but that's about it without additional mechanics), cues to inform a GM when something else has happened or assist in defining how their success happened, that may influence the situation in another beyond the core matter of success or failure.

Any of that could, in theory, be introduced by a GM on the fly (then again, success and failure could be determined solely by the GM on the fly... who needs dice or a game system?). However, introducing the notion, without precedent, that a character's extremely successful attack has harmed their foe but left them open to the attack of another enemy (a known viable result of a basic ranged attack in WFRP3 - exposing yourself to an attack is determined independently of the success or failure of the task itself - it's a peripheral consequence), will just annoy players because it seems arbitrary. At that point, it may be an option, but it isn't really a worthwhile one - it's an arbitrary imposition onto what the dice are telling the player has happened.

As doubtful and thoroughly skeptical as I was initially, looking at the system now, as calmly as I can with whatever scraps of information I can piece together, it seems like it'll convey a lot of basic info which can then be interpreted as appropriate, providing cues and opportunities for elaboration that do not inherently exist where success and failure are linear (and noting that the HeroQuest board game doesn't come close to what the dice do in WFRP3 from what I can surmise - HeroQuest only allowed for simple success or failure as well). Without tacking an additional mechanic on, or simply determining it on a whim, how does a single d100 roll tell me that a character succeeded at picking that lock but took longer than expected doing it and almost got caught by the watch (in WFRP3, attempting to pick a lock cautiously, succeeding but rolling one or more hourglass symbols which represent delays), or that the character has given himself an opening to escape from the frenzied mob as he knocks one aside (in WFRP3, a basic melee attack, scoring a success plus two of the 'extra benefit' eagle icons)?

Erik Bauer said:

Because the D100 system is old junk that's better off being replaced. I for one won't miss it for a second. The only valuable element of the old WFRP system was the careers, which they are keeping.

Erik Bauer said:

Couldn't care less. If I buy a WFB book for use in WFRP, I look at the fluff, not the stats.

Erik Bauer said:

Not at all. I don't forsee any difficulty converting them to v3. You just insert appropriate NPC stats using the new system. v1 and v2 looked similar, but actually converting v1 to v2 required either a) just using the stats as-is (which IME was a terrible idea) or b) creating the NPC stats from scratch (which gives you a better result and will be exactly the same as the new system).

Foolishboy said:

I'm sorry, but the designers of today are far, far better than the designers 20 years ago. Even v2 was a huge step up from v1, despite keeping the dated D100 system. Huge improvements were made to the career system, as the designers realised that some players actually liked playing non-combat careers. Certainly there have been games that failed - and game designers learnt from those failures. Certainly change can be bad - but refusing to change out of a sense of nostalgia is pointless and holds you back. The new system could, conceivably, be worse than the D100 system... but that would be hard. The D100 system didn't really have much to recommend it.

That's Mac for ya. It's old so throw it out. Bah. New is not nessicarily better. And from what I've seen the new ed does look and feel like a blend of Hero Quest and WFRP. Just like D&D 4e feels like they decided to take the original ChainMail and add special powers to everyone.

Give me my old games that still live: Traveller (by Mongoose Publishing), HackMaster (Kenzer and Company), Palladium Fantasy (Palladium Books), RoleMaster (Iron Crown Enterprises).

And my old game that is dead but still loved and played: Alternity (just check out alternityrpg.net)

macd21 said:

Ahaha, this one is nice.

Have you ever looked at Harnmaster? With a simple d100 mechanics it makes wonder, much, much more than anything you can accomplish with a simple dice pool, more quickly and with much more details.

And RoleMaster? With a simple table gives much more results and Fail/Success.

I can accept that you are for WFRP 3rd, your right.

But what you are saing about d100 isn't true.

DeathFromAbove said:

I was refering only to the WFRP d100 system, not all systems that use percentile dice.

Would you mind detailing what in your opinion makes WFRP's D100 so obsolete and old Junk?

lordmalachdrim said:

Great game! Which, btw, used pools of numerical dice. I still organise a game of this from time to time.

Still, I don't think the way WFRP used d100 was special or elegant. I think that the strong points of WFRP (in order of importance for me) are:

1. Grim world, dark humour, lots of lore from other Games Workshop games, Blood Bowl and Mordheim being my favourite.

2. Career system.

3. For the 2nd edition, the Magic system.

4. Fate and Fortune.

If FFG is able to keep these 4 points more or less intact and improve the other, average and sometimes mediocre mechanics, of 1st and 2nd edition then they'll have achieved a success and rendered WFRP a big service, no matter what some "old school roleplayers" say.

When I read through v2 there was much to adore there, but the d100 certainly wasn't part of it. I wouldn't say its junk or even obsolete, it was just a nonissue. It works as a random number generator, is simple and quick. It gets the job done. Other than that it wasn't an interesting part of the system. Take it or leave it.

I do believe that a good system can assist your play at the table though, and when properly focused can help to achieve the type of feel you want from your game. I've been gaming for a couple decades now so certainly qualify as an oldschooler. I loved our old games. I love the new games I see though too. And I certainly believe that the game design we see today is far superior to the designs of yore. Its one thing to see a very elegant and efficient system and simply not like the game that it supports. But your personal taste doesn't make it any less of a great system.

For example, dicepools give a game a different feel. Love them or hate them, they do what they do. Substituting symbols for numbers in a dicepool is a very slick design. Its efficient and will make for faster recognition of successes or failures. In the same way that pips on a die are faster to read for successes, symbols will be faster still. That's just good physical design.

We can't know for sure yet about the mechanical design of the pools and what they achieve because we just don't know enough yet. From what I'm hearing though, it sounds like good innovation...if you even want to call it that. Some RPGs have been using standard playing cards for resolution for much the same effect. And I do find those to be a superior resolution medium than standard numerical dice (with or without charts).

Erik Bauer said:

Erik Bauer said:

I would venture a guess that Mac prefers a tight dice mechanic that has a solution for any occaision. However, the strength of WFRP in the past has been the ease with which story elements can be represented on a d100 chance scale. Of course that is not perfect and can scale just awfully. There are entire bits that require a GM to just make it up and move on. BUT it was easy to conjure up house rules and modifications that were really cool (or at least kept the game rolling).

I'm not disparaging dice-pools out of hand or standing up to shield a d100 system from those that hate it. However, it is because dice pools are statistically sexier in a probability and scalability realm that we could all very dearly wish for the old "junky" d100 system. I speak mainly to the proud WFRP tradition of houserules, fan creations, etc. Whipping out something new or modifying the RAW using a d100 and some good ol' imagination was/is something we have all benefitted from. Doing it with dice pools is not harder per se...after all you still go through the same overall process. it just takes more time and can make things seem like a chore. And if you don't have a good head for numbers you'll create more problems than you'll solve with a fist full of bad klickity-clacking. Add in the fact that you can't even use numbers to figure it around and you've got a noodle scratcher for any house-ruling cowboys out there.

Luckily the WFRP fans of every age are impressive at churning out amusing new ways of unleashing death, corruption and poverty on a new grotty pile of player characters. I think people ready to burn their decahedrons in effigy and those that have small hands ill equipped for dice pools need to hug and realize that they both love the same game and no one knows how bad or good it'll be until it hits the streets.

I'm still a proud member of the Wa-Tansee tribe.

EDIT: oh and I still hate the quote functionality of this forum

Just realised my posts today probably came across as confrontational. Late night + early morning + not enough coffee = grumpy macd.

Erik Bauer said:

Going over all the flaws of the percentile system would be better left to someone with better design skills than me (and who have had their coffee today), but when you get down to it the main problem is its lack of flexibility. This throws up all kinds of issues (the two most widely complained about being the whiff factor and the strong-as-a-dragon problem). It also suffers when it comes to probabilities (results tend to be extreme rather than 'average'). The rest of the problems with the system aren't so much issues with what it does, but with what it doesn't. It's a boring, inflexible system that is difficult, from a design point of view, to improve (hence just chucking it altogether).

The new system improves on (AFAICT) all of these areas. Dice pool systems tend towards average, rather than extreme results. It is more open ended, so it is easier to create a dragon that is stronger than a human can possibly be. It also adds new benefits - the multiple results creating a more complex range of possibilities and greater PC influence on the outcome through the stance system.

I've played with the v1 and v2 systems for years and had many great games with both. But not because of the D100 system. There were other aspects of the system that were great (the career system being the most important, IMO), but there wasn't any real reason to keep the percentile system. I considered converting to another system, only laziness stopping me.

macd21 said:

macd21 said:

What improvements? 'Modern' games are different... that in itself doesn't make them better. Myself, I think most of the new role playing games tend to stink. Complicated, pretentious and unfun.

If all this is "progress" then why is the hobby withering? It's withering because the original geniuses of hobby are dying off, the people who now write games aren't very good at it (and don't actually understand why the things that were done before were done) and because companies in the industry would rather leech off their existing customers by making them constantly rebuy what they already have instead of growing their fan base.

Requete said:

This is simply untrue. The hobby isn't withering because of shifts in game design philosophy. If I had to guess I'd wager that the changes have actually benefitted the hobby, but who knows for sure. Game design has evolved because folks have seen the use for evolution and found that it has increased their enjoyment of RPGs. To whatever extent the hobby has withered it has done so despite the continued existence of many old school design philosopies. The old stuff and styles are still there and have done little to nothing to prevent tabletop roleplaying from circling the drain.

Requete said:

No. Just no. In fact the exact opposite of the above is pretty much why the RPG hobby is still alive today. The people who now write games are very good at it. They know and understand why things were done a certain way, which worked and which didn't. Companies in the industry know that their existing customers have been tapped already and they need to grow their fan base by releasing new products.

Pen and Paper RPGs are in trouble for a number of reason and game design isn't one of them.

Go look at early RPGs. They're usually overly complicated and full of arbitrary and nonsensical rules. Who here remembers Advanced D&D? Getting experience points for gold but none for sneaking past guards? Arbitrary weapon and armour restrictions? Poorly balanced spells? 18/ Strength? Weapon speed factors and a giant table applying to hit modifiers based on what weapon was used versus what armour (a table almost no one used)? Not to mention D&D's atrocious hit point and armour class system. Or how about Traveller where you could easily die before finishing character creation? Or compare 1st edition WFRP to 2nd.

Modern RPGs have problems in the forms of piracy (it was never a terrible profitable industry to begin with) and competition from computer games. They survive because the quality generally improves, enough of us buy books and related products, and a computer still isn't the equal of a human GM.

Erik Bauer said:

Well if RPG's are about improvisation and the GM inventing exciting stories, then really what does it matter if the game mechanics or rules are changed?

It seems like a lot of naysayers on these boards want to invoke this as an argument to their cause when all they are doing is shooting themselves in the foot. If RPG*s are primarily about the players and the GM's imagination, acting, improvisation, cool stories etc. etc. Why, OH WHY, complain about changes to game mechanics?

How do you feasibly let game mechanics get in the way of roleplaying? Sure, if you're that power gaming kind whose simply out to abuse the rules in favour of making the insta-kill player character and care little for roleplay, then it might be a problem. But that doesn't stem from any sort of rule system or game mechanic, that stems from player attitude.

The very stuf you say that RPG's are all about is not supposed to be concerned over rule changes or game mechanics, so why would you invoke this "argument" when it speaks more against the naysaying opinion rather than for it?

Requete said:

Im curious about these statements where gloomy roleplayers claim that the hobby is withering. What do you base these claims on? Do you keep records of yearly statistics over how many roleplayers world wide decided to quit playing and how many decided to start playing?

Or is it (what I suspect) just assumptions based on the fact that a few of your buddies didn't want to play that much any more, and the regular guys and gals you used to see at your gaming store have all but vanished and therefor the hobby must be... "Dying"?

Do you have som facts and figures supporting these claims? (large scale polls with diagrams showing a steady decline of the number of roleplayers in the world etc. etc.)

Now you might argue that several gaming companies have disappeared, but that doesn't necessarily have to mean that the hobby itself is withering and dying. It's just that RPG-developing is such a specialized market, with a pretty consistent and constant customer base (we're not likely to see a dramatic increase in RPG customers, but not a dramatic decrease either). While there have been years with a large number of active publishing companies, this is probably just the result of fellow roleplayers who believed they could re-invent the idea and be able to attract a great number of new customers to the hobby in order to make market room for themselves (but clearly they couldn't). Hence companies have disappeared. But it doesn't have to be an indication of the hobby dying, it could just as well be an indication that the market just isn't able to support that many individual companies.

It's like trying to make it big in the broom making business. Sure most people have probably needed brooms at one time or another, but it's nothing you can really re-invent and attract a large number of new customers to. And the odds are very much stacked against you due to the current broom making companies that dominate the meagre market (it's not like you need to buy a new broom very often).

Some markets, just aren't able to support an infinite number of individual companies. Especially not a market with such a static customer demographic like the pen and paper RPG market.