I must admit that I have calmed down some after an initial rant (See-MY TWO PENCE WORTH OF COMMENT !!!) - I am starting to like what I see from the previews

The dice system looks fun and different

The party sheets give the group focus

The careers and advancement system looks flexiable enough

The product quality looks great

I am still resistant because of the overall change to an established and successful system - but I love the Warhammer Setting and I am willing to give this a try - I might enough go as far to say I am looking forward to it.

DW

DENZ said:

I'm exactly the opposite, when they first annonced the 3rd edition i thought that it looked pretty cool, but the more i see of it i think its a abomination. The tools that FFG claim will help or speed up roleplay are actually things that in my opinion will slow down and hinder roleplay. To me this game is not even geared twords roleplaying its geared twords rollplaying, if people need fancy cards and dice and alot of special aids to roleplay their game it seems to me there is a problem with the overall game system. But it will probably be something that people who are new to roleplaying or enjoy rollplaying will really enjoy and that seems to be who FFG gears their products to so it will most likley be a great sucsess.

I'm getting rather tired of the just-short-of-insult insinuations - that if you use cards or special dice or counters then you're not a real role player or you must be new and not really understand roleplaying. Or that having anything more than a book somehow makes it not a real RPG. And using words like "abomination," really? Get off your high horse. Maybe it's not the way you enjoy the game, that's fine. I would say I respect your opinion, if you had actually tried it . But you haven't.

I've played various RPGs for 20 years now, and from what I've read v3 has some of the biggest innovations in that entire time. Am I 100% sold? No, but even if, after I've read the rest of previews and (hopefully) played some kind of free trial version I decide not to get it, I still think it's great that FFG isn't sticking to some paradigms that haven't changed in decades.

NewTroski said:

That happens any time there is a mechanics change - D&D 2e to 3e, 3e to 4e, WFRP 1e to 2e, now 2e to 3e (which is, admittedly, a bit more drastic than even the D"&D change).

However, the insults are going both ways - more than one WFRP 3e supporter has slammed the mechanics of 1e and 2e as "old and outdated", etc, sometimes using them as a sidetrack to other, more relevent issues, like the very real anger some of us feel about the way this entire edition change is being handled.

kristof65 said:

I like to think of the old edition guys as the people who prefer mom, or grandmas home cooking over a fancy restaurant or a big buffet. If I could go back I would have sunday dinner with my grandma one more time.... dang that was good stuff. anyway, im a buffet guy now so ill be buying into the 3e.

To be fair, arguing that the mechanics are old is pretty accurate (in terms of RPGs)

Outdated is arguable, but I try to back up any such claims with a rationale, such as: I do not like the probability distribution of a percentile system and think that dice pools allow for better bell-curve distributions.

I just see a lot of outrageous and completely unfounded claims about v3, and still some rumors being spread that have been stated to be false.

I try to take it all with a grain of salt New Troski. Some people are mad for various reason. Perhaps some people even really believe that the game is designed specifically for rollplayers or newbies and that any roleplayer worth his character sheet would turn his nose up at this new gadget. Eh, whatever. Those claims aren't actually gonna turn you into a rollplayer or a newbie, right?

If you let it get to you now you won't have enough gas left to stick around and listen to the cries of "Yeah, but real roleplayers aren't playing it...its all munchkins and newbies buying it!" if v3 is a success. You have to pace yourself man....

NewTroski said:

im just stating a opinion here , mine, ive been a role player for 28 years and have been a warhammer fan for about 25, i personally dont like or think that these news ideas and concepts that they claim will dramatically improve the state of roleplaying and enjoyment of said roleplaying are needed. When i started playing DnD in 1979 when i was 7 years old all we had was a book a module/adventure/story and some dice and paper and pencils and we got along great and had great times.Ive stated in other posts that even if the game is absolutley horrible and bombs i WILL buy it as i concider myself a warhammer collector as well as a player, just this last weekend i showed the videos to the group i currently play WHFRP with and they honestly thouth the gen con videos were a joke and it was a prank, that the new ideas were not needed and counterproductive to roleplaying. Obviously you think differnt than i do and that is great, we are not a bunch of cows just following the heard and that is they way it should be. Like i said what i said was just my opinion and it deffinatley shouldnt and wont effect the outcome of this game or anyone elses opinion of the game at all.

I think I had a similar reaction to the videos as you Istivan, I was initially intrigued by a new system but the videos left m cold. I don't know whether it was the fact that the videos seemed to linger on the new gadgets and gubbins or the fact that Jay Little kept on saying how 'cool' it was (it is self-evident that if you need to be told that something is cool, it isn't).

However, my opinion is swinging back towards intrigued with the designer diaries. Combining the information about character creation, dice pools and character development that's been revealed is leading towards a picture of a very flexible system with more individuality to characters in terms of both their profiles and their play (I think I like the cautious/reckless mechaninc allowing you to approach problems in different ways). I've also changed my initial view of the dice pool as unwieldy, I think I'm just unfamiliar, I'm actually beginning to see that in time adding the necessary dice to a roll will be as intuitive and quick as determining a difficulty level currently.

I'm still not sold on all the 'stuff' you seem to need. Although I like the stance idea, the linky pieces are a bit Heroquest (a mental association that might be why the boardgame tag keeps on popping up) and not to my taste. Having to 'lay out' your character sheet and associated cards also seems to say 'you must play at a table' which I think might actually be the biggest stumbling block for my group. The cards, I'll wait and see - could be fiddly, but if it means tha some of my group actually read about what they can do before they do it then it'll be a good thing. However the party card, I'm still not loving - it's place in character creation, the stress meter, the mechanic nature of a group dynamic, again the 'big table' tyranny.

I'm moving back towards interested but there's still things that I'm wary of (Has anybody else noted that the number and names of the the primary characteristics bears a remarkable similarity to those in a certain other rpg? Strength, Toughness, Agility etc...). I need FFG to convince me that I can play this game on a sofa.

Thanks guys, this is the kind of discourse I appreciate, even if it doesn't agree with my view.

Istivan, you said you think you'll buy the game regardless as a collector's item. Do you think you will give it a try? And do you think your play group can give it a fair shake, or is there too much negative sentiment already? If the system was applied to another setting, would you feel differently?

For my play group, I can see the various cards being a pretty big advantage. We tend not to get more than one copy of a book in our group, which leads to a lot of waiting and passing the book around to look things up. The stance tracker seems like the most gratuitous piece of flare included with the set. If I know how many cautious and reckless points I have, do I really need a physical representation of that? It may have other uses, don't know yet.

To be fair, most RPGs have pretty similar attribute names, and between 6 and 9 inherent characterics. It was a little unintuitive for my players first starting WFRP, since Weapon Skill was an attribute and not a skill (even though it's right there in the name).

Just because a system is older than the latest thing doesnt mean it doesnt do whats needed. Good RPGs are not computers where they become obsolete, just because they get a bit older.

Old != Broken (old is not equal to broken).

Realy all an RPG needs to do is:

1. facilitiate some kind of characterisation and story while having fun
2. enable you to alter the game to your own group's style of playing (within reason, genre jumping is a bit much to expect)
3. offer mechanics that dont completly shatter the immersion

WFRP 3rd ed looks like it offers the first point, while the second and third I cant say either way at this stage.

Will the game make new players/groups (new to tabletop RPGs) Role players or Roll players is the big question I'm guessing.

NewTroski said:

With my current group we just started playing WHFRP, most of them this is their first time playing WHFRP (they all have been roleplaying for many years the average age of my group is around 30, most have been playing 20+ years) like i said we just started playing and started with the ashes of middenhiem book and they just learned 2nd edition so we have no plans on even attempting 3rd edition. I do play with another group that plays 3.5 DnD and star wars saga, they are getting into 4th ed. as well and they kind of switch games weekly (currently like 4 games goin) if i get asked to run a game 3rd edition WHF might be the game i try to get them to play as a few of them expressed a interest in Warhammer.