Varnias Tybalt said:

That was my point about 40k.

Every now and then, GW likes to mess with their 40k fanbase by changing the rules just enough that some minis have to be re-purchased because they no longer represent the new rules.

McClaud said:

Tell me about it!

And not only that, the recent 5th edition Codex books have gotten such boringly streamlined army lists. Just compare the current Chaos Space Marnies Codex with the previous one. The previous one was filled with interesting choices, not only unit wise but equipment wise and army-wise (where you could play Thousand Sons armies and Death Guard armies if you wanted to). All those possibilities and choices were just ripped out in favour of an easily digested army list, meant for those "poor eight year olds" who thought that the lists were "too complicated".

Since when was it considered fun to remove multiple choices in favour of simple and easily digested crap? (did I miss a meeting or something?)

The same thing happened with the Orks codex. Sure it needed an update, but there were so many fun things you could do with the old Codex. A few of them were upsetting the game flow that's true but the current one is just boring.

And the fact that each unit with a character have gotten a "custom armoury" to buy stuff from instead of a general armoury where you can buy stuff and give to ANY character you wanted, just makes things even sadder.

The previous designs weren't hard to understand at all, and most of all they were fun! The offered choices! Choices to personalize your army and make it stand out with it's goofy choices in wargear, specialized unit-sizes etc. etc.

But GW had to take all that away and turn it all into banality and mediocrity instead.

Second, whatever happened to the hobby chapters in the Codex books? With painting guides, modelling tips and other useful information for the beginners? Oh, right, they got replaced by chapters with coloured pictures of the 'Eavy Metal team wanking off ("Look at our mad painting skillz! We'ze da best!"). But they say that the pictures are there for "inspiration purposes" (yeah right...).

The hobbying chapters in the older Codex books provided lots of inspiration. It gave you a plan of how to get started and was immensly useful for me as a beginner. But some moron at GW decided that they had to go.

hate to say it (well not really because im used to being caustically candid about my remarks) but the new Codex books come off more like your average White Dwarf issue rather than a fully fledged Codex book.

It is something that most GW enthusiasts will have to face one time or another. Being "married" to GW is like being married to the coldest b*tch in history, who won't even bother to cease moaning with lust as she's cheating on you with your neighbour while speaking to you on the phone while you're slaving away at work. And at the same time she expects you to bring her home a diamond bracelet when you come home from work, otherwise she'll force you to sleep on the couch instead of having the "privilige" of sleeping next to her in your bed while she's still having her after-sex smoke, complaining that you cough too loud from the second hand smoke. That's Games Workshop in a nutshell for the average hobbyist...

Varnias Tybalt said:

I like the way that this man writes.

Christ, reading that was like therapy. I wish that I could go back in time to tell this to my high school self (ten freakin' YEARS AGO).

GW: Lots of people love the universes they own. Everyone hates the company.

Cynical Cat said:

I wonder if they are aware of that fact. Or perhaps the soulless corporate bigwigs running the show are beyond considering such trivial matters...

Varnias Tybalt said:

Don't hold back, man. Tell us how you -really- feel.

Mordenthral said:

What? Im feeling happy.

You didn't think I was upset or angry or anything did you? That post you quoted, that's me being fine and dandy.

(suffice to say, people don't like me when im really angry )

Varnias Tybalt said:

I have a couple of friends who rant. It's actually very amusing.

Varnias Tybalt said:

The company has been this way for the best part of 20 years now. I remember when I used to play 40k a bit... It was wayyyyyyy back in 2nd edition around about 1994 - the one which came with a cardboard cut out Dreadnought (surely enemy models should have had massive shooting penalties to hit it from the side) - and that was vastly simplified and dumbed down from the old first edition Rogue Trader. Even the Codex books they released back then were pretty heavy on fluff and low on rules and options, and I guess these days they might be even more so. I remember that changed the rules for the shock attack gun (most amusing 40k weapon ever) and actually made it... well rather dull. To be fair though, it did feel much more like a complete game, as opposed to a load of collected rules from differant books and copies of White Dwarf.

The games I really used to like were the ones where you didn't have to pay out a great deal of money on minatures; such as Blood Bowl, Man O War and Necromunda. Interestingly, all of these games ended up dropped after being supported for a year or so. Still, I have to admit that they still managed to get me to part with some money over the new Space Hulk. £60 in about 15 years isn't something I'll begrudge them though.

David Spangler said:

Bingo!!!!!!!!!!!

I admit I'm intrigued by the new mechanics. But that intrigue is very much overwhelmed by the disgust I have for the co-opting of the WFRP setting. I actually hoped that FFG taking over the WFRP and DH settings would mean someone big enough to stand up to GW, and do right by the game and setting. GW signing off on the changes simply means that FFG is as bad as GW, and becomes a company I'd rather not give my money to.

I would have happily bought into the mechanics to try them out under another setting. Sure, I might have had a hard time coughing up $100 for a completely new setting, totally unheard of, but given that FFG has done justice to several TV and movie properties in the past, I would have happily paid out without question for a property that doesn't have a decent RPG system for it currently in publication - Goodkind's Sword of Truth, Jordan's Wheel of Time, Stargate, Sanctuary, or any of dozens of well know and loved fantasy/sci-fi properties. I even would have bought into it as an alternate WFRP setting to be sold in conjunction with 2e, say something like Mordheim. But as a complete replacement for WFRP 2e? #$% no!

McClaud said:

I made this same point in the dice article's comment thread. Just as you can't calculate your percentage chance of hitting a hole in one, your character can at best decide that he's "pretty strong" so has a decent chance of lifting the stone idol.

Varnias Tybalt, do you play any other miniatures games? I'm just wondering what the married equivalent of Privateer Press or Rackham is

Maybe I don't understand how licensing works, but how could FFG have stood up to GW? They're bound by contract, and from what I've read of GW's legal team, the terms and conditions in that contract are going to be pretty tightly worded.

NewTroski said:

Licensing contracts work both ways - they are as tightly binding upon the licensor as the licensee, at least as far as enforcing the terms. A licensee can walk away from a license without penalty if the licensor breaks their side of the agreement. A larger company like FFG can probably afford a better team of lawyers to make sure the contract is favorable for them, too - unlike a small company like Hogshead, where it's more likely the license is one-sided in favor of GW. But it's entirely possible that 3e IS the result of FFG "standing up" to GW, and they used the contract to get GW to sign off on the changes.

But what I was really alluding to was that I had hoped that there were terms in the contract that required GW to actually pay attention to the line and/or give FFG a little leeway, rather than many of the delays that came about during the Hogshead era. I doubt the contract gave them this much leeway, so I've assumed all along that GW was onboard with the changes. Which doesn't surprise me at all - licenses are typically percentage based, and 5, 10, 15% (or more) of a $99.99 starter set is considerably more than the same percentage of a $39.99-$49.99 Corebook.

NewTroski said:

No you can't calculate your exact chances of hitting a hole in one, but you can decide the best course of action based on knowledge of your abilities. One of the problems with some dice pool systems is that they are so obscure that unless you are a maths wizard relating them to your characteristics is near impossible. Essentually under some dice pools systems you may not know that your character is "pretty strong", much less have a good idea of his chances of success in any given situation.

NewTroski said:

Well, im not that familiar with Privateer Press yet. But im trying to get my friends into playing Warmachine, since several of us have seen their miniatures and thought "Wow! They look so cool!" but no one have really picked it up yet. Though I bought the current rulebook the other day in order to get a good grip of the rules and mechanics and so far it's looking nice.

The trouble is that pretty much all of us have concurred that the Cryx minis look the most awesome, in comparison to the other factions. There's a slight risk that we'll see some proliferation in Cryx warbands if we decide to play it.

As for Rackham, I've only played Confrontation a few times, but the thing I really liked about the editions I tried was the huge selection of different abilities of each unit type and the way you could combine them. The game had that "moderately difficult to learn but offering a gazillion ways to master" feel to it. If I am too compare it with a Collectable Card Game, then Confrontation is like the Vampire CCG, while Warhammer is more like playing the Standard format in Magic The Gathering (meaning, very streamlined format. only a few decks are actually playable, while the rest will be beaten into embarrassing submision by the decks sporting the most popular cards). In Vampire you could win (and lose) due to several different factors and it was nearly impossible to guard yourself against every aspect available.

So that speaks to Rackham's advantage. The downside is their huge mistake in dropping the unpainted metal miniature line in favour of the pre-painted crappy plastic miniatures 'a la DnD minis.

Being married to Rackham in that regard is like being married to that multi-facetted, complex and intelligent girl who despite her brainy manners still looked really hot and sexy, but after marriage she started to put on some weight (grotesque amounts of pre-painted plastic weight), using her make-up in awful ways (instead of the tasteful and exquisite ways she used to do) and is starting to quit her complex and multi-facetted ways instead choosing to borderline on becoming the traditional, run-o-the-mill airhead bimbo (but without the good looks) watching Oprah on tv all day.

What im hoping for in Privateer Press (and their "Play like you've got a pair!" philosophy), is a hot and wild spouse. Sure she might not be as brainy and analytical as myself, but she's gonna weigh that up with tons of spirit and wild adventure. Sort of that impossible-to-find action woman who would be thrilled of the idea of going out to the woods with you, playing with explosives or perhaps have a "Mr and Mrs Smith:esque" paintball shootout with me, manage to shoot me in the head before I can do the same to her, only to follow up on my simulated demise by tearing off her clothes and have crazy sex with me before the smell of cordite (well CO2, but you get the point) can settle...

But then again, I always get those hopes up despite which woman... urm... "Game" im checking out.

By the way, I think I've crossed some kind of line when you start to compare miniature wargames and the companies making them with women. Sort of like going way beyond excentricity and into the realms of madness... But who cares!?

I don't know of a dice pool system that complicated. After reading the dice article for v3, it seems fairly straight forward, IMO the trickiest part is converting the attribute die to a caution/hasty die.

Luckily, I've played Magic and Vampire (and paintball), so I was able to follow along quite well!

Just a warning, WarMachine mk2 comes out next year, so you may want to hold off on additional book purchases. (Is there a way to PM?)

Foolishboy said:

It may not be obvious, but in this instance, the more action die you roll for your actions, the more likely you are to succeed. The more misfortune die I roll, the more bad stuff that may happen. So using common sense without being a math wiz, I'd say rolling more blue dice is good, rolling few or no black dice is good.

People saying out loud, "I have a 76% chance of achieving success," in my games find themselves facing a -5% to -15% penalty when they commit to the action. "I think I have a good chance," is preferrable, and sometimes I never give the players a chance to calculate their odds, skipping a player who takes longer than a minute to give me an action. Unless, of course, they're planning a strategy for war or something.

Nothing wrong with d100, just there's nothing wrong with odd flavored dice. I played an horror mental RPG once that used blind drawing marbles from a bag to determine success, where the GM can add or remove marbles as the situation dictates (and it was kinda fun and interesting)

McClaud said:

How black dice do you roll? Presumably the player would pick none, so the GM must be adding them, but as I understand it not only can the bad dice cancel success they can also make other really bad things happen. So it's not a simple case of roll 4 dice for success and roll 2 failure dice to cancel them out.

Foolishboy said:

Blue dice are your attributes. The stronger you are, the more blue dice you roll for that strength check, and the greater your chances of rolling the hammers that you need for success. The more skilled you are in a skill, like climbing, the more yellow dice you roll which further increases your chances for success. The GM adds purple challenge dice the more difficult the check is, and black misfortune dice. A player can also use fortune points and add white fortune dice. Finally, those blue attribute dice can be swapped out with Green/Red stance dice, which have an increased likelihood of success hammers (than the blue dice), but also have minor negatives of either delay or fatigue.

So, from a glance you can see all these factors of how difficult a check is, how a PC is skilled, how lucky (or unlucky), and loveral how likely to succeed. Yes, it's a bit more convoluted that a straight %. However, you can also succeed in a skill check, but have some minor bad things happen ... or you can fail a skill check but still have some minor good things happen. You can't get that kind of information from a single % roll.

I was quite skeptical about the dice pool when I first read about it. However, after reading the diary explaining them, I think they might actually be on to something. Sure, it will take some getting used to, but it seems to me that the potential is great.

dvang said:

Yes, many people were more than just skeptical on having very incomplete information. It's like hearing that the advanced career set will only come in pink and "oh, how I hate pink.. why did they choose PINK!?" but it's later revealed that it was a colour choice made to accentuate the addition of a built-in Fleshlight on the side of the box. Then it's all "oh, well, you know pink actually isn't that bad when you take the Fleshlight into account.. Maybe those FFG guys put a bit more thought into this than we gave them credit for.."

Not saying you were a hater, just that incomplete information sucks (no innuendo meant.)

Pink? Fleshlights?

What are you... a Slaaneshi cultist?!?

Necrozius said:

Nah, Khorne is my Dude. But I paid attention in cross-cultist training.

I've finally had a chance to look at the GenCon footage concerning the new edition of WHFRP, and I must say that overall my reaction is: intrigued.

My initial impression was that they had packed every Game Mastery series idea into one box and added in some interesting ways of linking it all together on the table.

They've clearly taken a big leap with the system, and I admire their courage on that point. They've adopted some very interesting and (in some cases) elegant tools for the system.

Effect Cards: this really seems like a no-brainer to me - having a reference on the table is just a good idea, and prevents people from having to hunt through the rules, which can slow or kill the game's momentum.

Career Cards: This certainly makes the integration of new supplements into the system easy, but I don't see this as a huge improvement over a book.

Party Card: While I like the concept of having a place to set effects that cover the whole party, other aspects of this card concern me. The Conflict Meter seems like a poor substitute for roleplaying, and could certainly shoehorn an inappropriate penalty to the situation if used verbatim.

Dice: I actually really like the dice mechanic (or portion that we've seen thus far); it's elegant, simple, and IMO better than the current percentile mechanic.

It looks like all the spirit of pervious editions of WHFRP is intact, but they've just changed the mechanics. I'm not 100% sold, but I'm interested.