I've had a lot of fun with both WFRP v1 and v2, having run a campaign v1 and played both v1 and v2. I found them both more flexible and enjoyable than their competition (like D&D).

It also allows PCs to munchkin up too easily or to have spent their points wrong and regret it, but are just as stuck as if they rolled poorly. But Im not against a point buy system if it is properly balanced and what not.

While these are a possibility (as with all point buy methods), it also provides much more potential for diversity since they can choose a variety of options for their starting characters. In v2, starting characters have very few means to differentiate themselves from each other; A few stat points from random rolling, a single random talent, and their one choice for a free advance. In v3, they can buy stat increases, buy their starting wealth, number of skills and talents, and also selecting the specific skills and talents. Unless they collaborate or both 'munchkin' the same, two starting Trollslayers could very easily have vastly different skills and talents and play very differently. I never minded the random stat rolling in v2, but I think the creation system in v3 is superior for the above reasons. It gives the player more control in developing the character to the player's idea, rather than rolling up a character and then forcing the player to make a character concept out of what he rolled.

Remember character generation, in general, creates characters at the beginning of thier careers and lives. This is Jams Bond while he is a freshman in college or Conan while still a slave. After a few adventures (or some extra starting XP) they develope into Pit Fighters and Junior Agents and after a few years adventuring/getting experience become Super Agents and Barbarian Lords.

In some sense this is true, but others it isn't. It's more about the generation making a character at the start of their adventuring life, or basically at the start of their story. Take the example of the diary character generation of the dwarf dockworker. He is created as an older dwarf. Certainly it is not the beginning of his life, nor the beginning of his career as a dockworker. The stat gains and skills purchased represent things gained (as explained by the author) through his time working as a dockworker. Yes, some characters could be young James Bonds, with little experience and relying on natural abilities. Others can be older, wiser, characters who might not be naturally exceptional, but have accumulated an amount of skills and strengths over time. These older characters never had the impetous to advance themselves until now late in life events catch up to them forcing them to adapt and grow. Imagine a middle-aged farmer, spending years farming his plot of land and raising a family. He learns how to be a farmer, grows some good strength to till the soil, but has no need to learn other skills. Suddenly, war breaks out and he is conscripted (start of his story/adventuring career). Now, his world is turned upside down and he must learn to survive in this new environment. He learns how to march, how to fight, perhaps learning herblore, cooking, or tailoring (mending uniforms), etc with the army. Circumstances have swept the farmer out of his old life and into the new. He is not young to life, nor new to his career at farming. He is new, however, to the life that has been newly thrust upon him. Whew, a slightly longer winded discussion than intended, but my point is that v3 allows this type of character background to be played at start, whereas the v2 version is actually more rigid and cookie-cutter for starting characters. in v2 you could say you were new to your career, or old to your career, but there was no functional difference in starting skill levels other than random stats values. v3, though, allows a player to buy and choose skills and talents if he wants a more "experienced" PC to start ... or choose to buy mostly stat increases if he wants a newer, less skilled PC. While still keeping PCs relatively balanced. Just as one example.

IMHO it seems like v3 has the advantage.

Peacekeeper_b said:

If thats what it take for you to like it then how do you know if you dont?

Farin said:

Because I dont like un-necessary drastic change. The entire theme of every thing I have said about 3E has been the same overall. What is so inspiring and original that couldnt have been added to a 3E that branched off the original system (more or less what DH/RT did).

For example, the career system could have been only slightly augmented to fit a more DH/RT theme or after spending 500XP you can change career (ie, you dont have to buy every advance) and can change again at 1000XP, 2000XP and so forth.

Or bring back the random talents/skills by age roll as was done in 1E.

Add creatures on cards, actions on cards, spells on cards, skills/talents on cards, careers on cards for 2E (obviously that idea isnt tied to the notion of dice pools and point builds).

Can the party character sheet, stance meter and so forth only work with the new system?

Overall my biggest grudge is the change from a streamlined and 20+ year effective dice rolling system/game mechanic to a clumsy dice pool system.

Heck, even Dark Heresy has minion/henchmen rules.

So that begs the main question, what is being added/changed that made it necessary to change the core/heart of the original system?

Peacekeeper_b said:

Better dice mechanics. You clearly disagree, but the 'streamlined' system for v2 was, IMO, awful. I simply can't understand how anyone could look at the WFRP percentile system and see a good dice mechanic. The new system works better mathmatically (the odds of any given result being more realistic and entertaining than v2). It also grants the player far more influence over the results than previous editions (in fact, far more than the vast majority of RPGs out there). This change required the introduction of custom dice and cards to make it workable.

Beyond that the changes are basically intended to speed up an improve gameplay. Things like tokens and counters are basically there to provide a fast and easy method of keeping track of stuff. If you wanted to you could always replace the counters with note-taking... but why would you?

This forum is great! You can really see a lot of interesteing opinions, to prove that all of us have different likes and dislikes.

In my case, I like most of what 3rd edition promises, specially dice pools, but also the cards and the slightly free style of distances in combat. So I will buy it for sure.

From the previews of 3rd edition I personally dislike:

1. Henchmen rules. I probably won't use them (though maybe I change my mind when I see them). I prefer the Monsters to give an "implicit" measure of their threat to the players. I dislike metagaming considerations by the players, like them deciding whether to flee or fight based on whether the monsters are henchmen or not (too much gamey for my taste, and I disliked the notion also in D&D, although there I can understand it because it is a high fantasy game). I also dislike the notion of my players slaughtering dozens of guards, mutants or beastmen, that's too munchkin for WFRP in my opinion.

2. And I dislike point-buy systems in general. They result in average characters and are good only for Powergamers; also, they slow the creation of new characters. I much prefer random systems for the reasons already given by Peacekeeper, and because they are quick (you can create a full group of characters in 15 minutes, without having to know what each talent does and how better to combine them (this is a time sink, specially for beginner players)... please FFG , offer also a well thought possibility for randomly determining heroes' stats. I loved it having strange combinations of Careers and stats in WFRP2... otherwise, this will be something I'll try to houserule.

Peacekeeper_b said:

rather then adding numbers together and having a pass fail and RULE MONGER system this new dice pool system give the player that added ROLEplay of "did i make it? by how much? oh crap there is a bane in there! oh wait i have a comet im good? o i see the hourglass i took to long, dang it!" that is really bring ROLEplaying back to its roots and have the player be involved and ingaged rather then having their faces in books and arguing over rules with the DM

Farin said:

My players do that already, without a bunch of dice telling them too. Thats why its called ROLE playing, not RULE playing or ROLL playing. And the roots of role playing is with the players, not the rules or dice or anything, If your players dont role play now, a bunch of yellow and red dice are not going to change that.

In fact, it will even reduce it in my opinion, as they will let the dice decide how they react and not the game and intereaction normally involved in such actions.

cogollo said:

for the house rule, try 1d6 -1 for stats and 1d4 for the other stuff : )

cogollo said:

I disagree. I always disliked the near complete randomness to making 2e characters. I didn't mind the random stat rolls all that much, but random rolling for starting free Talent and career (especially career!)? I typically have a character concept in mind, and I want to make that character...not try to think up a character based upon what the game made me take. Add in the fact that, other than the free random talent and stat rolls (which usually didn't vary much more than 5%), two PCs with the same career are virtually identical to start in 2e. They had all the same skills and talents and gear, etc. 3e allows much more customization of the PC at the start, and customization to the player's character concept, rather than what was randomly rolled. Yes, it might be slower. It also allows the player to get to know their character a bit, rather than just copying what the book says and then not knowing what their character can do when they start playing.

Peacekeeper_b said:

All my guys agree, this system will AID their ROLEplaying, Im GLAD you dissagree because i dont like being the only voice on that note, i play with NEW roleplayers and they have a hard time with it. So if your guys/girls are very good at roleplay then maybe this wont help you, but keep inmind that 2E is no longer going to get advances and lets face it WFRP is the best system out there, no matter what version you play

dvang said:

Thats a very good point and i agree

dvang said:

Interesting points. Still, I have seen more variety when using character random generation "à la WFRP2" than when using point buy systems like D&D3 or D&D4. People always say that they want to make their character special, then go min-maxing their character with point buy systems... my experience, probably different than yours but that's what I've seen happen.

Also, nobody will create a Warrior with low Strength or a Thief with low Agility because if you can assign your stats why would you cripple your main character's abilities?... but that's D&D mindset. I like the feeling of dread and a bit helplessness created by the fact of knowing that your characters are completely normal persons in the Warhammer world, the only reason they are special is because they are being played by the players, and nothing more.

I've read somewhere that having a low Strength FIghter is not realistic... but why? If you want to play guitar in real life, maybe your innate capacities are not the best but with a bit of training you'll play reasonably good (my experience)... why not the same with a character, seeing him grow from a weakling to a decent fighter... or maybe die trying.

And why is balance in an RPG so important? I've noticed that whenever people think too much of balance they change into a boardgaming mindset (and I love boardgame mindset but for boardgames, not for RPGs)... is real life fair? no... I will never be able to play basketball as well as Pau Gasol, my fellow Spaniard... should I complain and whine about it?... no, I'll try my best to enjoy my life and do interesting things... I expect the same attitude from my players in WFRP.

So, good luck for those that we'll use the point-buy system, I'll stick with random generation. 1d4+1 or similar for each stat and 1d4-1 for starting Wealth, Skills, Talents and Actions seem a good start.

cogollo said:

Real life sucks!

Real people have real flaws, some of which we've come to grips with, some we haven't. Some people have flaws that stop them from doing what they really want to do in life.

Roleplaying games are escapist fantasy. For a while, we live vicariously through our heroes, doing things that we can't do in real life.

My players don't want to have to suffer flaws that they don't come up with themselves.

Life deals you a random hand already, a little bit of control over the creation of a character in a game doesn't always have to be left to the whims of fate.

Sure it can be interesting (like your example of a sh*tty fighter striving to eventually BECOME good), but it really sucks when your character can't affect the flow of the story as much as the others, all because of bad luck during character gen.

You can tell your players of the merits of having flaws, from a storytelling / character development point of view, but you shouldn't FORCE the players to use flawed characters if they don't want to.

cogollo said:

DnD is mainly random gen..........lol ive been playing for many years and have ALWAYS RANDOM GEN my characters.....tho this system is better for all the reasons ive said and will keep saying lol

Necrozius said:

Real life does not suck... you get to play RPGs and do a lot of other interesting stuff...

Back to less serious business. I have run several campaigns and many of my players were always wary of random generation, yet they enjoyed their more or less crippled characters immensely and told me always that they could not believe random characters could be son fun... the job of creating a story that allows all players to affect it is the GMs job, not the result of some superbalanced chargen system ... if you feel your character is not adding anything to the story, then consider talking to or changing GM.

Last but not least, in my many games of playing RPGs I've never seen anybody purposefully crippling his character with a point-buy system. Again, my experience, but I believe being a good roleplayer and accepting flaws in your character does not mean being careless about your character's stats...

Farin said:

Not really, you have the option of point-buying characters. And anyway you always choose you feats, how many points you add to each skill and how to distribute your dice results for your stats.

Necrozius said:

And to finish... I don't force players to play with me as a GM. But if I'm the GM I expect them to follow the rules I choose... they seem to keep coming, so probably I'm not doing it that bad. When I play as a player, I give my GM the same trust.

Also, what do you think about randomly picking 3 careers and choosing 1? Would you allow players to directly choose their careers, or some randomness in career choosing is ok for you?

Peacekeeper, I disagree about the affect of the new dice rolls. Yes, I've seen some people generate some decent descriptions of their actions. But I've never seen some one spontaneously decide that their character got a sprained ankle after successfully jumping off a building. Also, as a GM, how do you arbitrate something good happening when some one fails a roll in a consistent and fair manner? That's the biggest thing that interests me in the new dice system - you can succeed, but you exerted yourself a bit too hard, and there's a bad side effect (and a bunch of other possibilities).

Also, I know that it's possible to come up with all sorts of things to justify weird starting score/ career combinations. But aren't the rationales and background stories saying that such a combination doesn't make sense equally valid? The Trollslayer with low toughness is a poor example, I admit, since any dwarf can be shamed and enter the career. But the marksman, low BS example - say he does come from a hunting community. Couldn't the low BS be the reason that he's not a hunter? He was expected to be great by his community, but couldn't cut it, so he left his home and became a soldier (or whatever). Sounds just as good to me. Now, combine that with a player that didn't really want to play an archer. You said he can switch to any other starting career, but he's now basically taking a 200 XP penalty for bad rolls at character gen.

In v3, with regards to the pick three career system - I'm going to give it a try. In v2, if some one had a specific idea and came up with a good backstory for their character, I would let them pick their career accordingly, or let them roll from a reduced table of more applicable careers. I will probably end up doing the same thing for v3 - use a reduced set of career cards if somebody has a detailed backstory and focused character idea.

cogollo said:

Errr... Yeah you make some good points, curse you.

For the record, I'm one of those GM's who tries to convince his players to pick flaws for their characters. And when I use a point system, I make sure to have at least one obvious weakness.

I'm speaking a little paradoxically. And badly, it seems, 'cause I don't even know if paradoxically is really a word.

NewTroski said:

Exactly the reason I like the dice pool system presented in WFRP3. I think this is one of its strongest points. I already told to some of my players and they are very excited about this system.

Fist, page 20 of WFRP 2E covers picking your own career and race (provided GMs dont mind) and so forth. So its not like you are forced to play any one career by random unless the GM says so, and that makes it a different situation completely (being your GM is a arse not that the game is broken).

So if you want your Dwarven Trollslayer you can have him. With Shally's Mercy you can guarantee you have a T of at least 41 to start with. Choosing Very Resilient over Lightning Reflexes and taking +5%T as your free advance and viola, T51 Trollslayer starting out the docks.

Using a few slightly altered rules, such as rolling 2D10 eight times and placing them where you want on your profile before adding your racial base (10, 20 or 30 as per page 18), changing the lowest of the 2D10 rolls to 11 (as per Shallya's Mercy page 19) and the optional rule on page 20 for picking your own career/race and you pretty much can get whatever you want for a character, or a close aproximation.

Again, most of the things pointed out as "good" with the new system could have been added toWFRP without a total rules rewrite.

Peacekeeper_b said:

That's probably true. However instead of being limited by the existing ruleset, FFG decided that they could create a better game by starting from scratch. You seem to have a problem with that, but I would ask why? I assume you already have plenty of earlier edition material, what benefit would you have seen had FFG chosen to just reprint all those books with WFRP 'revised' rules?

macd21 said:

There was plenty of material left for a 2E or 2.5E game to cover. With 2E being dead for new official material I dont get new official adventures, spells, rules, monsters and what not.

And I still contend, it will not be a better game.

Peacekeeper_b said:

There was plenty of material left to cover, but not material that would actually sell. You can't expect FFG to produce stuff at a loss.

As for the game, each change I've seen seems to be in response to a problem that the earlier editions had. The end result may not be a better game, but I applaud their attempt to try, instead of sticking with the same old mess for the sake of nostalgia. When you get down to it, in my opisnion v3 is v2 revised. It's just what happens when you take every element of the game and ask "how can I make this better", instead of just a few of them.

macd21 said:

Yes cause no one wanted a book on Elves or one on orcs or dwarves.

And Tome of Thieves sounded so boring.