Whether the player characters are altruistic champions of justice, self-serving anarchists, or simple folk just trying to stay one step ahead of impending doom, they are often the focal point of the game’s stories and adventures. While a character’s abilities are rated to provide a mechanical measure of their aptitudes, a character is more than a series of numbers or list of skills.

This designer diary takes a closer look at each of these four races and what makes them distinct, including details on a few of the special abilities available to members of each race. An adventurer’s race also influences their starting characteristic values, as well as the number of creation points they have available during character generation.

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=814

I like the set up. Lots of cultural details and a couple of abilities. Each race seems unique and in a few paragraphs the major movers and shakers of their culture and their gods are discusses. Succinct and useful.

Nice one, thank you very much! By the way, do the races get any bonuses to characterestics?

Ravenheart87 said:

The short answer, yes PC race does influence starting characteristics.

For a longer answer, you'll have to stay tuned to a future designer diary that shows exactly how players get to customise their characters during chargen by spending creation points.

ynnen said:

Sweet. Thanks for the quick reply, can't wait to see that preview.

ynnen said:

Now I'm excited .
(after being a little bit down, when I saw human "once per..." which reminds me of D&D a bit, and special "1 EP less to change profession" which will make my future mechanic changes for no EP progression even harder than before, because I will have to put something in exchange for humans...).

How long will I have to stay tuned? (you know, impatience )

ynnen said:

Can't wait for another preview of the system. This one was great, the best of all that came so far.

In the future will we see Tables of Contents for all the books from the core set? That would be great.

I could read about WFRP 3ed every day, can't wait to buy the game.

Interesting that the High Elf Racial is named "Isha's Chosen" as that's potentially confusing with all the wood elves running around. I'd have gone with "Asuryan's Chosen" instead, personally. But that's a minor gripe.

I'm not opposed to the narrowing of origins too much provided expansions sort out career tables for other parts of the Empire reasonably quickly. Still sitting on the fence on 3rd Edition.

I noticed that humans was mentioned to be Reiklanders.

Does it mean there will be other human races to play in the future? For instance Middenlanders or even Kislevites?

...And will they be different in terms of racial abilites and characteristics? maybe even more than previous editions?

If so that would be awesome

Keep up the good work FFG

What once was one, now is broken... humanity!

I think that they taken the option in Sigmar's Heir about provincial "talents" and "expanded" the notion, creating different "races".

I'd love to see much more races, from your future products! This is brilliant!

Desert races, sea races, sewers races, city races, road races, bandit races, cart races

That was a nice tidbit. I'm sure they'll have stats for humans from other regions in expansions. Middlanders are always popular, who doesn't like a Hochland Long Rifle, and life isn't the same without fake Russians.

Sorry, but can't understand why anybody sees this as a good thing.

In comparison to WFRP 2nd, the 3rd Edition is very limited. Fewer careers, fewer races, fewer "bithplaces"...

Dwarfs only from only little Karak. Come on FFG, as small as a Karak is as fewer dwarfs from this Karak going on adventure in "distant" places...

Two elf races, : Almost nobody play elves in the WFRP. They are to rare and don't fit into most of the adventures.

Thats not a WFRP and I'm almost sure that this game will not be sucessfull...

Bruenor said:

True

For only 9.99$ you can buy Ostland character pack and have more 2 cards. If you buy 2 charakters pack (Ostland and Nortland only 19,99$ ) you have Ostermark charakter pack for free! So Sad FFG...

Bruenor said:

Ae you serious?
Can't you see the exceptional idea behind all these?

You can buy a multitude of expansions pack just to have ... humans!

While, just from the start, genius childs can travel the Old World with their noble looking elves!

I generally like what I see about the races included in the first release but I do have a problem with once per session abilities and do not find this very satisfactory as it brings in an external time frame “the session” into the game world. A game session can be any length and within that time in the game world can run quite differently, you could play for three hours and it be virtual the same in game time or play for twenty minuets a several days pass. The option would be to go for once per “game day” but then it seems a bit like a granted spell power.

Back when I ran WFRP1, I actively discouraged people from playing Elves since I felt they were presented as being rare for the setting. That didn't stop people from wanting to play them since a starting Elf had many favorable advantages. Dwarfs and Halflings were much more common in the setting and more likely to be found wherever Humans were throughout the Empire. Nobody ever wanted to play a Halfling and I don't recall anyone ever doing so. Let's face it, Halflings were included only because they were at the time an iconic Fantasy race due to Tolkien and every other FRPG had them, but the Halfling got more disadvantages than advantages as a starting character, so there was less incentive to play one. Since I own, but never played WFRP2e, I can only assume they fixed this since there now seems to be much more love for the Halfling than was present when I ran 1e.

This new version seems to be limiting the base of adventures (for now) to the Reikland, the most progressive area of the Empire and thus containing the highest population of HIgh Elves. Elves should still be more rare than Humans as far as I'm concerned, but at least an Elf character won't be a shocking sight to the majority of the populace, like they might be in other parts of the Empire. The inclusion of Wood Elves is more of a stretch, although they have given a nice rationale for Wood Elves to be out and about rather than secluded. On the other hand, since Dwarfs were already commonly found throughout the Empire, it seems unnecessary to specify a specific Karak, a newly created one at that, as the source for Dwarven characters.

I still feel that the game worked best when it was Human-centric, something this version seems less suited for. In the past, when my gaming groups were larger, it was basically a party of Humans with a single Elf and maybe one or two Dwarfs. A lone Elf and Dwarf working together was easier to rationalize. In essence, each was joining a band (and cause) of Human adventurers and had to put aside their ancestral differences. There was still banter between them, but enough humans in the group to separate them if and when necessary. In a 3 or 4 person game of nWFRP, it wouldn't be surprising to see no human character at all. It will be interesting to see if FFG provides support to rationalize why groups of Elves and Dwarves would be out adventuring together.

I

mac40k said:

When running or playing WFRP v1 I predominantly saw groups consisting mostly of Elfs and Dwarfs. Humans were a distinct minority (halflings were non-existent. v2 fixed this somewhat, but non-humans were at least half of every group, if not more. I don't think v3 will be any different.

The fact is that many players will want to play elfs or dwarfs, simply because they like them. The only way to counter that is to make humans more powerful mechanically than the other races, something which is problematic from a gaming and setting stand point.

I have never run a party with an elf in WFRP. Not once, and we're talking some heavy playing time since 1986 to today. It's almost universally 3/4 Humans with Dwarfs filling out the party. I did run a one-off adventure for some new folks in the late 90s that was all dwarfs. But that was it.

A big part of the reason for that is these two factors: 1) Elfs are seen as fairly alien outside anything but the largest cities (wood elves weren't encountered much outside Athel Loren), which corresponds to penalties for social interaction in most situations, and 2) my players just didn't seem interested in playing those sorts of characters.

That may change this v3 go around, as I am introducing the system/setting to new people, one of whom has never played an RPG.

I don't see a problem with the inclusion of both High and Wood Elves, after all the GM can change any setting into something different for the style of game they choose to use. The drop of Halflings, until a later supplement, might seem like a bad choice, but chances are they will be developed further than anything done for Elves. So I see this as an attempt to explain the differences between two of the Elven cultures.

Having the Dwarfs from a nearby Hold seems more at odds when you consider the fact that Dwarfs have actually had a long standing relationship with the Empire and some have even made Human settlements their home.

I currently have a group of 6 PCs consisting of 2 Humans, 2 Elf, 1 Dwarf, and 1 Halfling. I am disappointed that Halflings will not be in the core set for WFRP 3e, but I hope that with the inclusion of High Elf we might finally see some different takes on magic between the races.

One of WFRP (all variants) longstanding problems is that compared to humans all the nonhuman races are massively under developed. How much info was there on Halflings in v1? A couple pages, including one in the religion section covering their god? The dwarves got a supplement near the tale end of v1's run, but for most of the time information was fairly thin on the ground. As for v2 none of these major player races got a sourcebook yet Bretonnia and Kislev each got one. Realms of Sorcery was cool, but nonhuman magic is a side issue for the book.

I wish halflings had been included, not because they were ever popular in any of the games I play, but for completeness. I can live with them being in a supplement because they were never a popular race for my players. I do want WFRP to contain more background for dwarves and elves that WFB army codexes and it finally looks like that might happen. I'm quite prepared to live with them starting small and then expanding and that careers such as Swordmaster and Ironbreaker will be playable. So, overall, I'm reasonably happy with what I'm seeing so far.

In my games all Elves are banned as playable races, they simply don't fit together with humans.

Instead we got quite a lot of Dwarfs and Halflings cause they're rather common in the empire and works socially better in the groups.

I still use Gnomes in my games and they are also a playable race.

The current race selection in 3:ed is rather sad... and only Reiklanders!!! Plain silly! I suppose you will get a new human race card in each booster pack.

I wonder if enough 15 year olds will get their moms & dads to cough up the $$$ for this diluted, pale imitation of WFRP. I fear that this new game will not only be a critical failure, but a financial one to boot.

Why there are High/Wood elves and not Empire/Mountain dwarfs?

And adding Halflings (for fan's joy), was so pricy?

I can pay 101$ ...