Thanks for clarifying, its been years since we played (it was a few months following its release) the campaign. Personally I found chapter 8 to be the weakest it was essentially a travelling to Kislev chapter and was pretty boring and would have required immense amounts of additional material from me before I would actually play it but as things happened we didn't get that far, my party got fed up and half of them saw though Karl's mutation from the start, I cannot remember how or why it happened but they Killed Karl, the real one and chased down the fake ones as well just to make sure way before we got there which was a relief as I wasn't looking forwards to that big dungeon either, Dungeons have never worked in Wfrp beyond the scope of a large house because combat's so deadly the players should have the chance of being able to avoid it realistically most of the time, that dungeon was not one where that would have been possible so it would have gotten dull quickly. Even the fantastic Dungeon in Lure of the Liche Lord had myself (DM) and my players somewhat fed up with combat by the end of it, so much so I let them avoid the final confrontation with the Liche allowing them to negotiate favours with him, now that Dungeon was wonderful though being as it was loaded with information, traps and overall pretty light on combat but hell was it deadly.

Anyway back on topic my personal favourite chapter was number 7 but I felt that the writer was trying to relay far too much information in far too small a amount of space and I also feel the expansion material for this later released by Libra Fantatica goes a long way to staggering this information as well as solidifying it in one place for the DM. Honestly though overall I prefer Warhammer fantasy at early 3rd career of development at the top end because I find it becomes silly at higher levels of play and that the RPG engines (Mechanically 2nd or 3rd, not knowledgeable enough about 1st to make an informed opinion) are simply not designed to handle Characters of that ability level. Also while I love the 3rd edition dice system, I feel that it should have been brought in for Starwars instead and instead a improved version of the 2nd edition system should have been used instead for WFRP, this is for multiple reasons; The amount of content already in existence that could be used would have allowed the writers to explore new areas of the World rather than going back over previously covered ground (in less detail as it turned out); Secondly while the 2nd edition rules were far from perfect, the big issues could have been fixed within that system using a lot of the same mechanics found in Dark Heresy (1st & 2nd edition) allowing again for a far more polished rule system rather than a new system with its own massive flaws, especially when the cost of that system is entered into the equation (its the most expensive RPG I've ever owned).

Anyway off topic rants aside (because I'm pissed with how WFRP has been treated by FFG, though not even close to how strongly I feel about what's just happened to Warhammer) I'm not surprised Nathan Long wrote that chapter because you can see Ulrika and her sire in those Lahamin's clearly, I've always thought that's who they were based on, but not actually used because of it causing issues with there and his narrative.

Yeah, the vampire thief running on the roofs of Altdorf was clearly a nod towards Ulrika. I liked that a lot actually.

I really liked the storyline of Nagash in TT. They've gave him interesting background, the mystery of the tilean box and its creator was very cool and challenging and the ending where he returns and posseses Karl's body was much more interesting than the one with the Black Witch and her spider army.

I disagree however about the 2nd's mechanics. While not perfect they still work good enough, albeit high level PC's tend to derail the game a lot. I can tell that from my experience as both a long time GM and a player, for whom WFRP is a game of choise. Dark Heresy would certainly not help WFRP, as WFRP's mechanics are Dark Heresy's biggest problem, being mechanics meant for a close combat setting and not one, where you shoot bolt guns at one another. DH is a system that needs a lot of tweaking if you want it to work at all. WFRP you can tweak, but it's not necessary IMO.

To explain its issues such as a Dragon/Daemon Slayer being able to easily out wrestle a dragon when it comes to the basic profile I've got issue with, along with the +/-30 as a maximum modifier because its seriously limiting in terms of your statistical range which is why the Dragon issue above exists too narrow a range of values with too hard a limit upon them. There are aspects of DH I dislike, its career system for starters which has nothing close to the flex you want in a RPG in my opinion and there's talents coming out of every orifice but that's not to say it doesn't have a good deal of aspects Warhammer 2nd edition would be bettered by.

Also I never said there was anything wrong with 2nd edition beyond it could do with having some aspects as I mentioned above fixed and with the vast amount of additional material it has over 3rd edition its without a doubt the most easy pick up and play edition of WFRP. Oddly though I find it ironic that the main area's in which for me 2nd edition fell short, that of too narrow a range of statical variation for higher levels of play, with not enough bonuses/penalties which creates a system when the curve of ability statistically becomes too steep so once you hit a certain level the chances of failing or succeeding are reduced down to critical successes or failures (for example it wasn't too difficult to rapidly gain dodge blow 80% or above making it practically impossible not to avoid a degree of damage) are the same issues that are found in third editions late game, though in fact its curve is even steeper, with too many beneficial die types and not enough negative ones, this is purely for a mechanical perspective (third has other flaws mechanical such as needing more skills and otherwise such as being too component heavy) so it went down the same path of being unsustainable for prolonged campaigns without seriously restricting advancement which is in itself a problem in a RPG because they are all about development (character, and Narrative).

Yup, and for me 2nd edition was much better when it came to sourbooks, references to fluff and other Warhammer works and so on. Not to mention 3rd looks more like a board game to me, which is not something I expect from a PnP title. I agree about Dodge Blow being a tad broken, and combined with a shield it really did boost the character's survival a lot, but there is always magic, crossbows, handguns or simply hordes of dudes. Altough I've never used any house rules in WFRP, while DH must be house ruled, or else it's unplayable to me.

The 3rd edition move to cards and tokens to replace having to look up actions and keep track of things on paper was for me a good step forward in game design. Its use of decks of effects to draw from combine random generation with a means to set out the effect for a player or GM to reference (crit, insanity etc) an elegant approach. Overall it supports play without having to look up things in books as often and narrative play (e.g., only one PC at a time will have a given permanent critical wound - though simulationist play would say sure everyone could have same one, narrative play says this is a character feature and should be unique).

At times the physical components were not as good as they could have been (e.g., the tracking chits could have been differentiated more, stress/fatigue similar to the Arkham Horror brains/blood trackers for example) but those are physical execution not rules design issues. The rules incorporated indie thinking about more complex resolution systems (less pass fail, more "yes but, no but, yes and, no and", "yes and but", "no and but" options).

I find the the "board game" critique misplaced and part of an 'edition war' debate I don't see very useful. Nothing I say about my liking of 3rd should be taken as a "3rd better/worse than 2nd or 1st" etc. point. For itself, 3rd's use of physical components doesn't make it a board game any more than the use of dice makes D&D a craps game or use of cards makes Monopoly a card game. TSR/WOTC experimented with rules on cards on and off for years and it and Paizo have since gone that way big time, even an indie game like Mouseguard moved in that direction with its boxed set.

I like, as GM, being able to scan table and seeing cards and counters know who's "fresh as daisy", who's tired, stressed, bleeding badly etc. because these things are tracked visibly instead of written down on PC sheets.

I see WFRP3rd an attempt to really incorporate these various features into itself from the ground up. As a first adopter/innovator its take on this would never be the best iteration of the concept but was still groundbreaking and refreshing.

Yes WFRP 2 had more fluff, WFRP3 uses the same timeline and setting (just before Storm of Chaos) so all WFRP 2 fluff can be used with it (unlike the timeline and setting differences between WFRP 1 and 2).

The 3rd edition move to cards and tokens to replace having to look up actions and keep track of things on paper was for me a good step forward in game design. Its use of decks of effects to draw from combine random generation with a means to set out the effect for a player or GM to reference (crit, insanity etc) an elegant approach. Overall it supports play without having to look up things in books as often and narrative play (e.g., only one PC at a time will have a given permanent critical wound - though simulationist play would say sure everyone could have same one, narrative play says this is a character feature and should be unique).

At times the physical components were not as good as they could have been (e.g., the tracking chits could have been differentiated more, stress/fatigue similar to the Arkham Horror brains/blood trackers for example) but those are physical execution not rules design issues. The rules incorporated indie thinking about more complex resolution systems (less pass fail, more "yes but, no but, yes and, no and", "yes and but", "no and but" options).

I find the the "board game" critique misplaced and part of an 'edition war' debate I don't see very useful. Nothing I say about my liking of 3rd should be taken as a "3rd better/worse than 2nd or 1st" etc. point. For itself, 3rd's use of physical components doesn't make it a board game any more than the use of dice makes D&D a craps game or use of cards makes Monopoly a card game. TSR/WOTC experimented with rules on cards on and off for years and it and Paizo have since gone that way big time, even an indie game like Mouseguard moved in that direction with its boxed set.

I like, as GM, being able to scan table and seeing cards and counters know who's "fresh as daisy", who's tired, stressed, bleeding badly etc. because these things are tracked visibly instead of written down on PC sheets.

I see WFRP3rd an attempt to really incorporate these various features into itself from the ground up. As a first adopter/innovator its take on this would never be the best iteration of the concept but was still groundbreaking and refreshing.

Yes WFRP 2 had more fluff, WFRP3 uses the same timeline and setting (just before Storm of Chaos) so all WFRP 2 fluff can be used with it (unlike the timeline and setting differences between WFRP 1 and 2).

Fair enough. I can agree that WFRP 3 simplified a lot of things, but on the other hand I'm from the times of pen and paper. I like to memorize all the rules, I like to use my rubber band to modify stats and I also like to have a certain ammount of order on my gaming table, so less is better in my book. I'm also one of the few people that like SoC and WFB's and WFRP's regression to "before the Storm" was a major flaw in my opinion. Of course these are only my opinions, so...

I'm also one of the few people that like SoC and WFB's and WFRP's regression to "before the Storm" was a major flaw in my opinion. Of course these are only my opinions, so...

The timeline retcon would have been OK if they replaced the Storm of Chaos with something better. Instead we got 10 years of stasis followed by...this.

I'm also one of the few people that like SoC and WFB's and WFRP's regression to "before the Storm" was a major flaw in my opinion. Of course these are only my opinions, so...

The timeline retcon would have been OK if they replaced the Storm of Chaos with something better. Instead we got 10 years of stasis followed by...this.

Exactly, and that is a goddamn travesty.

The 3rd edition move to cards and tokens to replace having to look up actions and keep track of things on paper was for me a good step forward in game design. Its use of decks of effects to draw from combine random generation with a means to set out the effect for a player or GM to reference (crit, insanity etc) an elegant approach. Overall it supports play without having to look up things in books as often and narrative play (e.g., only one PC at a time will have a given permanent critical wound - though simulationist play would say sure everyone could have same one, narrative play says this is a character feature and should be unique).

At times the physical components were not as good as they could have been (e.g., the tracking chits could have been differentiated more, stress/fatigue similar to the Arkham Horror brains/blood trackers for example) but those are physical execution not rules design issues. The rules incorporated indie thinking about more complex resolution systems (less pass fail, more "yes but, no but, yes and, no and", "yes and but", "no and but" options).

I find the the "board game" critique misplaced and part of an 'edition war' debate I don't see very useful. Nothing I say about my liking of 3rd should be taken as a "3rd better/worse than 2nd or 1st" etc. point. For itself, 3rd's use of physical components doesn't make it a board game any more than the use of dice makes D&D a craps game or use of cards makes Monopoly a card game. TSR/WOTC experimented with rules on cards on and off for years and it and Paizo have since gone that way big time, even an indie game like Mouseguard moved in that direction with its boxed set.

I like, as GM, being able to scan table and seeing cards and counters know who's "fresh as daisy", who's tired, stressed, bleeding badly etc. because these things are tracked visibly instead of written down on PC sheets.

I see WFRP3rd an attempt to really incorporate these various features into itself from the ground up. As a first adopter/innovator its take on this would never be the best iteration of the concept but was still groundbreaking and refreshing.

Yes WFRP 2 had more fluff, WFRP3 uses the same timeline and setting (just before Storm of Chaos) so all WFRP 2 fluff can be used with it (unlike the timeline and setting differences between WFRP 1 and 2).

There are parts of 3rd edition I love and it was incredibly innovative and brave, I'd just wished a RPG setting that wasn't my favourite was used for said experiment. The critical damage, wounds corruption, talent slotting along with diseases are great and I really like the whole concept of Action cards but I don't feel they are good for RPG format from a customers perspective as they failed to cover enough with produced ones so there are huge holes in terms of produced actions, it also makes it more difficult for fans to produce and make there own (I know strange eons is amazing but I'm talking from a production perspective - I use photo card, full colour ink and then laminate them but its expensive and time consuming, let alone creating them and making art for them so they don't look out of place, also while I love writing rules and material I hate/dislike graphic design or any Art as I'm awful at it being Dyspraxic), don't get me wrong I actually really like the action cards though I feel the key words and various styles should be natural ways of restricting and limiting access to them (house ruled this extensively) and if they had actually produced a more rounded or complete range of them I'd say they were fantastic sadly the produced products seemed woefully and needlessly limited especially for non humans or higher level characters leaving my card decks feeling woefully lacking despite my having every action produced for 3rd edition.

I feel limiting careers to cards was over kill and needlessly restrictive (even more so than action cards) and its aspects like this that I feel massively reduced the amount of real content in 3rd edition, while the heroic lean of the core mechanics just again felt like a deviation from the aspects of the setting I enjoyed. I love 3rd edition and feel as a basis for a rules set its far superior to 2nd edition but 2nd edition is a far more mechanically complete rule set that requires far less work from the ground up to actually get the mechanics to do what I'd like, as I feel 3rd needs additional die types along with a extended skill system, a restructure of specialisations, a overhaul on careers, another huge one for experience, a huge amount of work expanding actions, profiling and writing rules for the various races, a reworking of the party cards, a massive restructuring to bring a proper background narrative/mechanic system into character creation, as well as some tidying of some areas of the rules where I feel the mechanics make no sense in regards to how development works; for example A wizard or priest that goes into a Career like Scholar, noble or investigator suddenly cannot cast spells as they lose the Lore/Order slot is just clumsy and needless, especially as I believe that advancing in those careers should require far more than simply having enough xp and should have strong narrative aspects that need to be dealt with before hand and these careers really go towards broadening and diversifying the type of priest or wizard they are while providing additional ways in which they can attain that difficult narrative based advancement (and the hugely powerful benefits of progressing too higher tiers in these paths).

Not sure I agree about looking things up but I've got a great memory for mechanics and rules so the only things I ever used to have to refer too in 2nd edition were the spell lists, but I do like the wounds/critical damage etc being in front of me so I can see who's easy meat and who's not. A aspect I dislike however is something adapted from 4th DnD into 3rd edition which was NPC, Monsters and Villains having a limited pool of refreshing actions rather than being built in the same way as PC's, I really dislike this and while I know some people don't like having too much choice or lots of actions to learn and would rather have a few flavoured effects instead I hate it and feel its massively distracting from the game immersion and while I know I could describe the same action in a differing manor instead, that could be argued for all actions and thus its a case of either have action cards or don't but no half measures (same with stance which while it should be heavily based upon racial factors should still have some flexibility and Cunning, Expertise, Aggression pools in place of a proper profile - its lazy character creation and its dull in my mind).

There's some components in 3rd that I feel are more of a luxury than a requirement such as progress trackers, npc group card trackers and all there types, along with physical handouts and maps, cards for some items/equipment and talents spring to mind, though I feel these do enhance the game they are not required and if it was between having them or more hard content then I'd take the content every time but they are nice.

Finally I'm in full agreement regarding the Board Game comparison being flawed as its simply untrue as 3rd edition in terms of mechanics is far more abstract and conceptual thus making 2nd edition in mechanical terms far more board game like being as it breaks down directly with combat grids and hard mechanics for conflict resolution and movement as opposed to narrative movement and abstract range. 3rd edition is also set pre-storm/end times which was for me a more interesting point in time than post Storm (though that does have some great aspects as well) but overall the combination of the two provides perspective GM's the choice of timeline which is only ever going to benefit there creativity.

This all sounds very good and I don't doubt that 3rd edition coud be a good game. I just can't imagine playing A) an RPG that looks like a boardgame and B) that has so few careers and is based around print on demand. Not to mention the timeline shift. That's probably my main pain with this game.

Finally I'm in full agreement regarding the Board Game comparison being flawed as its simply untrue as 3rd edition in terms of mechanics is far more abstract and conceptual thus making 2nd edition in mechanical terms far more board game like being as it breaks down directly with combat grids and hard mechanics for conflict resolution and movement as opposed to narrative movement and abstract range. 3rd edition is also set pre-storm/end times which was for me a more interesting point in time than post Storm (though that does have some great aspects as well) but overall the combination of the two provides perspective GM's the choice of timeline which is only ever going to benefit there creativity.

I consider 3e to be "boardgame-like" or a "board/card/roleplaying game". While you're correct that positioning is more abstract in 3e, there are several mechanics that require tracking from round-to-round using physical components that are common in boardgames or CCG's. Stress, Fatigue, Stance, Talent-slotting, Initiative, Action recharge and Party Tension all use cards and/or chits that require players to be focused on the table. Sure, Stress and Fatigue are just as easy to track on paper, but the inclusion of variables in 3e which make round-by-round tracking necessary was a design choice. Traditional RPGs like WFRP 2e usually only require tracking hit points and ammo on a round-by-round basis, perhaps also keeping track of which characters have a Parry readied. This isn't a criticism of round-by-round tracking BTW, I can understand why some people might prefer RPG rules that feel more like a cohesive "game".

Finally I'm in full agreement regarding the Board Game comparison being flawed as its simply untrue as 3rd edition in terms of mechanics is far more abstract and conceptual thus making 2nd edition in mechanical terms far more board game like being as it breaks down directly with combat grids and hard mechanics for conflict resolution and movement as opposed to narrative movement and abstract range. 3rd edition is also set pre-storm/end times which was for me a more interesting point in time than post Storm (though that does have some great aspects as well) but overall the combination of the two provides perspective GM's the choice of timeline which is only ever going to benefit there creativity.

I consider 3e to be "boardgame-like" or a "board/card/roleplaying game". While you're correct that positioning is more abstract in 3e, there are several mechanics that require tracking from round-to-round using physical components that are common in boardgames or CCG's. Stress, Fatigue, Stance, Talent-slotting, Initiative, Action recharge and Party Tension all use cards and/or chits that require players to be focused on the table. Sure, Stress and Fatigue are just as easy to track on paper, but the inclusion of variables in 3e which make round-by-round tracking necessary was a design choice. Traditional RPGs like WFRP 2e usually only require tracking hit points and ammo on a round-by-round basis, perhaps also keeping track of which characters have a Parry readied. This isn't a criticism of round-by-round tracking BTW, I can understand why some people might prefer RPG rules that feel more like a cohesive "game".

Well there's that and there's also the case of using our gaming table for putting things like maps, hand-outs and beer & prezels. Chits, tokens and so on would only crowd the place and made it really hard for us to play and organize our game effectively.

Someone asked about a Thousand Thrones conversion document. Scroll down the page in this link a bit.

http://www.liberfanatica.net/TTT.html

The 3rd edition move to cards and tokens to replace having to look up actions and keep track of things on paper was for me a good step forward in game design. Its use of decks of effects to draw from combine random generation with a means to set out the effect for a player or GM to reference (crit, insanity etc) an elegant approach. Overall it supports play without having to look up things in books as often and narrative play (e.g., only one PC at a time will have a given permanent critical wound - though simulationist play would say sure everyone could have same one, narrative play says this is a character feature and should be unique).

I couldn't agree more. I have GM'ed just about every RPG in existence and WFRP really won me over. The fact that players have huge variety in character creation and skill selection, the stances, dice... all of it made for a very fresh experience.

It got a bit unmanageable with all the tokens, we ended up using dice for countdown timers, but even that got to be overwhelming from a player perspective.

From a GM perspective, it was so freeing to just add black or white dice to signify modifiers that normally would have been a rulebook lookup.

The setting was top-notch and we had a huge blast for what we could do with it.

But the lack of releases really killed it for us, we had players waiting for new Tier 2 and 3 skills that never got printed.

Anyway me and my friends are hugely saddened in the death of WFRP v3. I really wish they hadn't let this product die. It is by far the best RPG I've ever played, despite its flaws.

It seems that FFG is really struggling when it comes to RPG's. The last one, which had a reasonable release schedule was DH 1. DH 2 is... still alive, despite a lack of releases (I klow they are working on a new one, but come on! This system could really use some updates and a new core rule set at that). WFRP 3Ed was so much neglected that it was almost a shame. I don't like it personally, excpet for fluff material, but it's still WFRP and it did not deserved such a fate.

_{This is kind of the point where I suggest that if you want to keep it alive you should totally run some games over VOIP. Specifically for me.}

_{This is kind of the point where I suggest that if you want to keep it alive you should totally run some games over VOIP. Specifically for me.}

That sounds cool, but what's your time zone?

GMT.

GMT.

Mine's CET. We can work something out. Let's move it to priv now.