McClaud said:

If we don't like the new system, then I'm sure we won't buy it. I thought I wouldn't like v2 because of some of the same gripes that I'm having now. At that time, I found that most of my gripes were unfounded, and I'm hoping that they will prove to be unfounded again.

But with your last comment you sound like you're accusing us of not liking your new marbles, and if we don't like them we should go play elsewhere.

I'm not here to have a nerdrage fight, but I do think that the contents of the new material - the rules, the artwork, the style of writing - do color the spirit of the game. Honestly, I'm intrigued by the story-telling dice and I hope that the cards don't turn out to be like Mortal Kombat special kicks that only that specific character can use. I'm sure it will be alright.

I hope you don't think ill of me for wanting the new edition to be the kind of game that I would like, because that's all I'm hoping for.

And goddammit, this was our playground first!

McClaud said:

From all I know of Call of Cthulhu the d20 version wasnt that well liked at all and didnt do well, much like other systems that got used with d20 like Star Wars.

I also never denied you cant use a system for another setting, people just dont typically choose another system for a game because it doesnt do it as well as a system designed with a style/setting in mind.

I also never said a system was dictated by its mechanics only that its system has to be able to support the feel of a setting.

You mention you can use World of Darkness for Warhammer, so why dont you?

I also ask if you believe you can do any game in any system, why do you buy (or play with) more than just one system then?

Ultimatly there is a difference between a character being able to hack their way through a large group of enemies (2+ times the party members) opposed to being challenged by a small group (equal numbers to the party).

Mechanics are there to show how a character is percieved in the system/setting (and often their ranking in relation to other characters in the same setting), it will ultimatly show their inherrant strengths and weaknesses within that system/setting.

We cant honetsly realy say for certain how 3rd ed will play out, since we dont have all the rules. We can make opinions on how it will look and feel and how that look and feel will work for our own groups. My posts I hope adds some food for thought or helps answers the original posters queries.

superklaus said:

I totally agree. People talk of D20 as an example of how the system isn't important, it's the GM.

But D20 is a generic system ! Like GURPS, for example.

Try playing a heroic fantasy game with the Paranoïa rules. Or with the original Star Wars rules, you'll see that a setting specific system is very hard to adapt to any other playing style and setting. And we tried !

Personnally, I don't like generic systems. I prefer very setting specific systems which really use rules and mechanics that support and promote a certain tone and playing style. Of course, you can always tailor it to taste, but the baseline needs to be very close to what I expect in the first place.

V1 had many design flaws, but the four pilars really gave us something different and grittier than AD&D, its immediate rival at the time. Armour points were new, parrying as an active roll by the player, it all felt very real and physical. AD&D, on the other hand, was completely abstract and did not promote the same visuals during combat. Attacking AC is very abstract. You get the feeling that armour blocks all and that sometimes agility makes the difference, but it's not that important. The mechanic result is a miss. In WFRP, we had connecting blows (real hits per the mechanic) that could be dodged (success at the use of the dodge skill). That changed a lot of the tone and visuals and pleased me and my group.

And of course the art and fluff were also much darker and "mature". We liked that too.

Up to now, I feel that V3 might have something interesting to offer, but some of the mechanics seem going in the abstract direction (elements of the mechanic that are not directly related to a physical action by a character in the game). Since that goes away from what I liked in V1 and 2, I'm a bit wary. This said, I like the attention to detail that FFG seems to have put in the design and I will definitely try the game.

In the end, the game is a setting that comes alive through role-playing and a good set of mechanics.

Terwox said:

Ah, thanks for supporting my theory on the topics and the excellent review of Ron Edwards. I too am of the impression that a RPG system influence greatly how the game is run. I have mentioned it on other threads from time to time, but seems to always be attacked, by people saying its not so, and use many of the same arguments that are sumed up here.

thanks again. System does matter. end of discussion

Mal Reynolds said:

Is the system all important? No.

Does the system matter at all? Yes.

Mal Reynolds said:

You hear that guys? That's it. It's over.

The words of the Almighty Excellency Ron Edwards (may the Great Polyhedron in the Sky forever Bless him), Lord and Master of the role-playing Hobby, cannot be disputed against.

You still want to debate this idea?

NO DICE.

Hit da road, bub.

Necrozius said:

Ron Edwards might be a twit, but that doesn't make him wrong. I'm hardly appealing to authority by invoking the guy, he's fairly ridiculous I'm appealing to the argument he makes in the provided link, which is a sound discussion of why system matters.

Saying "nuh uh!" is fairly meaningless. Saying "I took the above comment as snarky so I'll respond in a snarky fashion too!" isn't helpful either.

For me the grim aspect with the 2nd edition shine from the type of career offered to the players : Swamp Skimmer, Dung collector, Ex-Convict, Bonepicker, Flagellant and, of, cours the Rat catcher, to name a few. The famous division between "Folks or Noble" in the character creation also help to set up the mood. Because it is set right into the character creation system, it enforce the non-heroic, uninviting and sinister aspect of this RPG. The grim aspect of Warhammer in 2nd edition is then not just a matter of DM's choice and mood, it's officialized into the whole system, into the whole game aspects. Finally, the illustration for each career also contribute a lot to the grim aspect of Warhammer.

superklaus said:

And I agree with you. What I said was that system wasn't the end-all of how gritty the game is. While the system can make a difference, the system ultimately is at the will of the GM and his/her players. A majority of the game is dependent on how the GM presents the game and how he interprets the system.

Here's how D&D 3rd Edition worked well for me in my Warhammer campaign:
1. Critical hits. I never liked the original system of critical hits in Warhammer, mostly because they came after you ran out of Wounds. Here, it was easier to get a critical hit whenever the roll specified. Coupled with something like the Critical Hit deck released by Paizo, the game ended up being more bloody and dangerous.
2. Hit Points. Again, you can turn on the death machine no matter what system you use. In d20, it's just a matter of a) how many hit points you allow PCs and b) how much damage weapons/creatures do. Also, since direct healing is rare in Warhammer, healing in my campaign was not a guarantee. Fickle gods may totally ignore blessings, may ignore healing requests, may totally curse needy PCs. Faith and faith powers are totally in the hands of the GM - the system is easily manipulated to work against the PCs.
3. Gear. And here is the most important aspect that is totally GM dependent - what kinds of gear and treasure are available? If you make plate armor, powerful weapons and magical items rare or expensive, then the PCs won't own them (or own many of them). If the PCs don't own them (without making great sacrifices), then it's way harder than regular D&D, which just drops treasure into the laps of PCs. Warhammer thrives on the heroes making due with what they have, and they never seem to have much (at first).
4. Feat resistant foes, and harder to kill foes. The PCs will find themselves in trouble if they stick around to fight several Beastmen or Chaos Marauders, who can defeat a lot of those special feats that PCs can wield. It's no picnic in my game - I usually end up with mutilated PCs if they don't learn to run away when the odds are against them.
5. Disease, poison and corruption. It's not hard to add a corruption score to 3rd Edition. It's an additional thing that took me a few minutes to come up with.

Why haven't I tried using the WoD system with Warhammer? You know, that's a good idea. I could try it, and see if it works. The only reason why no other RPG has the WoD game system is because White Wolf owns it, and to get a licenses costs money. So there are at least 20 clones of every RPG system in existence, from d20 to WoD d10 to GURPS to Warhammer's percentile die rolling. The systems are not unique - usually, they tweek one thing or two things to make it different enough from X's system so that they don't have to pay money. Sometimes what is cloned has to do with the flow and theme of the game itself. I mean, this system is really not new - there's a few games that use unique dice, there's a few RPGs that use cards and there are a few games that use something similar to stance.

While it may not appear to people who played d20 Call of Cthulhu that it was successful, it sold as many as +200k copies. If that's not successful, I don't know what is. Maybe it's not the greatest system, or played that often today, but it sold successfully. And I know a few groups who play d20 Call of Cthulhu and All Flesh Must Be Eaten games with the d20 system. Again, the GMs make all the difference in those games, not the particular system. The players were more accustomed to the system, so they played with that system (regardless of the systems offered in the core material). I'm assuming the same can be done with v3.

Also, I wasn't trying to sound elitist when saying if you don't like v3, don't buy it. What I was saying is that as the consumer, you control what games you play. Voicing your concerns is fine, but going out of your way to try and sabotage other peoples' enjoyment is not acceptable. I understand if you dislike something, but on the same note, when I encounter something that doesn't appeal to me, I just say my piece and go and play something else. WHRP v2 has a lot of stuff to work with, and if you're a good GM, you'll figure out how to keep using the product infinitely if you chose not to move to v3.

Entomophobie said:

Which was easy to port into the d20 system. Whether a player is noble or poor, evil or good, should actually be the choice of both the GM and the player, and not something the system forces a player to take on. Careers are easily emulated by what skills a player can take, what gear they possess at the beginning of the game, and what attributes are affected by their progression.

It was really easy in v2 to just let the career system do that. Our earliest games using v2 actually had a noble disguised as a rat catcher, so I did some fiddling with the rules to allow the rat catcher to first take one run through noble career, and then take the rat catcher career. And I allowed the player to chose which of the two careers they progressed - eventually, an event made the player chose which to really take, and he chose noble.

McClaud said:

WoD would work better than d20 because, by its innate nature, WoD is gritty. There are layers upon layers of darkness and cruelty in that system with low heal and the ability to deliver huge amounts of damage...now, I'm talking old WoD rather than the new world as I have little experience with New World, but I can say, I'm not really a fan of it.

And you are right, d20 is easy to mod over to warhammer because it stems from the same genre. Fantasy is fantasy and systems designed for fantasy work well in fantasy, period. However, I think you needlessly added some complexity to your life by modding DnD rather than Warhammer. If you wanted crits more frequently in Warhammer just have it on a roll of 0-05%, for instance. The crit could have caused straight critical damage. Ulric's Fury however happens way more frequently than the dnd critical (1 in 10) instead of (1 in 20), which basically functions the exact same way mechanically, roll additional x damage. If you also wanted bulk hit points, there's a sidebar in 2e Warhammer that told you, don't want hit locations for all attacks, don't use them. I know this exists because I run 2e off bulk hit points. However...I don't allow starting players to roll their Wounds, I simply give them a flat number equal to their racial max (I think?) I know humans get 10. Then they can buy up their wounds from their as usual.

Why I bring this up is because you had to do an extreme amount of modding in order to make d20 function well as Warhammer, when, as I pointed out that Warhammer only takes one (maybe 2) adjustments to get the same effect you're going for. This is why Terwox's argument is so sound, because, a system by its innate nature is geared to achieve a desired result. D20 is geared to create the result of high fantasy where the heroic PC's can go meat-grinding in dungeons. That's what it does best and to escape that takes a huge amount of work. I remember meeting a girl with a stack of twenty dnd manuals she was sifting through to mod the game to fit her setting, tone, story, etc. Is that really worth it? I'm sure there were systems that could have better suited her needs, it just wasn't as flashy or trendy at the time.

For instance, d20 modern is just, flat out, not good at telling modern stories. Leveling, power curves, base attacks just doesn't reflect what it's like to be a Pizza Delivery Boy as WoD or many, many other systems create. This is why there are multiple systems exist in the first place, because the system does influence Tone and Genre. d20 WoD, by the way, is a great example of what I'm talking about because, innately, it totally rips out the entire "feel" of the WoD genre for a bulky, awkward, level based mechanic that just loses any tone of what the original WoD was trying to create. Of course, modding it to suit your needs is always a viable option, but at what point are you doing an extraneous amount of work? Wouldn't it be faster to abandon the system you're currently with for a system that more closely suits your needs?

The two Cthulhu systems are a perfect example of this. I won't go into how thinking sales reflect the quality of a product is just flat out wrong, (Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, and 3 anyone?), but I can say Chaosiums (sp?) Cthulhu and d20 are two totally different animals. The writer of d20 Cthulhu even stated that d20 Cthulhu was trying to create a new approach to lovecraft's genre rather than replace the old system. Cthulhu d20 is flashier, people have magic, you can kill more beasties, you can do more, you won't die and go insane as quickly, you can handle the problems with more gadgets and tools the system gives you. You can achieve the same effect using the old system, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of assessing power curves, nerfing monsters, and adjustments, etc.

With all that being said, yes, any system can be ran at any tone you want. It's a choice, that's all. But at what point do you want to spend all that time modding something to suit your needs rather than moving on to a system that fits more of what you're looking for? I'd say, pretty quickly.

Back a little to the topic at hand though, from what I've seen of 3e it does a nice job of offering two play styles in it. You have the grittier (dock hand and rat catcher style of play) and for those that don't want it you can have the high fantasy of troll-slayers, Sword Masters, and War Dancers. Warhammer should cater to both these genre-nitches and this system seems to do so better than 2e ever could. The only place I've seen thus far where the grittier feel might break down is via the action cards. There is a lot of over-handed gamey aspects to the mechanic that seem to lend themselves toward the high fantasy route rather than the lower fantasy, grittier feel of previous Warhammer editions. Again, modding the action card system will be easier than most because all you have to do is pull cards to make it fit the style of game you're looking for.

commoner said:

Even if I am a devotee of the Grim & Grit, (Though, perhaps not the Advanced Grim & Grit (AG&G 2nd ed.), the way it was presented in v2), I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that v2 could not cater to 'High Fantasy' the way that v3 will allegedly be able to. It seems to me like it's perfectly possible to play high fantasy with v2, even if some things inclined one to play lower fantasy.

Mikael Hasselstein said:

Right. You could run Universalis as a dungeon crawl, but D&D lends itself to a dungeon crawl better. Running Universalis as a dungeon crawl would require a heinous amount of mods, D&D doesn't.

Said another way, you could create a giant Vancian magic system in True20... or you could just play D&D.

(Aside: d20 modern and d20 cthulhu serve a decent purpose: They act as a bridge from d20 fantasy to other genres. I ran my first horror games on those systems, and at first level, I didn't really feel hampered by the system. Not that I'd recommend them to people who didn't know d20 ever, but I'd recommend them to people who know d20 only.)

Reiterated: Don't quote "seems to do so better than" with "could not."

Look, I'm not saying it's impossible to run High Fantasy in 2e. I've done it. I ran a Nights Dark Master's one shot and it was amazing. In my opinion, running a party of Vampires in 2e packs more power than I would say most games. However, if you were to put a Noble Lord next to a Vampire in that system, he'd have next to nothing to do game-balance wise. The best example I can come up with are the High Elves. In Warhammer, the High Elves, no matter how we look at it, are High Fantasy, maybe gritty high fantasy, but high fantasy none the less. By their innate nature within that system (i.e. requiring heavy stat increases) and their own unique magic system that far outshines human magic it would be difficult to integrate it into 2e. Ao it's either break the background of the elves to weaken them or increase the human power curve to match them. Now, I would have loved to have seen a suppliment like Night's Dark Masters or The Skaven book for the Elves, but like those suppliments, it would have to be religated to its own system as a stand alone game.

Besides this point, the other issue of High Fantasy is the cumbersome, long-casting times on many of the spells as well as the limitations on the Magic Dice until you reached high level. That system would have to either have a secondary magic system written for it or a lot of time would have to be spent modifying it. The Curse also hampers it significantly since the penalty of blasting off spells continually is not very favorable when you could blow up at any moment. On some level, this would need to change. One clear indication of this fact is the Strategy Battle Game doesn't employ it at all and as far as Tabletop Magic Systems go, Warhammer has succeeded above all else in the realm of High Fantasy Magic.

McClaud Said:
...
While it may not appear to people who played d20 Call of Cthulhu that it was successful, it sold as many as +200k copies. If that's not successful, I don't know what is.
...

Ahh, seems the confusion there was our different opinion on what makes the game 'successful'.

For me a successful system is more about how much it gets played, has been played for and/or how good the system is by those that like the system/setting itself rather than its commercial success (units sold).

maybe its easy to sell a such game because the dnd fanboys buy everything with d20 is printed on it. Has nothing to do with anything like quality or suitabilty.

D20 CoC wasnt so bad. A few years ago I ran a pretty epic D20 Modern campaign using D20 Moden, Urban Arcana, D20 Cthulhu, D&D 3E and Blood on the Rhine: Wierd World rule books.

I still prefer real CoC but again, as I said, it was a fairly good book and game.

I ran 4e D&D in the Warhammer World (see my house rulebook). It was pleasant enough at first (with it's newness) but that died quickly. The advantage of 4e over 3e is that magic items are not required. The big disadvantage of 4e however was that the system is designed for minatures combats in a dungeon and for rule inflexibility. The players liked the multiple abilities, but were ambivalent about the system compared to 3.5ED&D. DMing 4e completely (expletive) blows juicy prairie-dogging bloody, pinworm-riddled, mutant turds (as I've bemoaned before).

but the main problem was...

PC's cannot die in 4e so there was no "grim" there was only "annoying" to the PC's. 4e D&D is the "anti-grim."

jh