To match superklaus' search-fu and "negative" quote posts, I found this little tidbit online about a brief WFRP 3e playtest from the summer.

www.graham-mcneill.com/gmblog/PermaLink,guid,24ed7843-8f78-48b7-a2cc-507afc907eab.aspx

"WFRP 3
A coupe of weeks ago, our regular roleplaying group was privileged enough to playtest 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The guys from Fantasy Flight Games were over at Games Workshop HQ, and Jay Little very kindly did a show and tell for us over at Alessio Cavatore’s house, where we saw how much the game has changed from its previous incarnation. Our gaming group has been going for some time and we were all interested to see what was new with WFRP, since we’d playtested the previous edition also. It was in interesting evening, and the game was very different to anything I’ve played before, with a lot of table space taken up by character sheets, action and ability cards, dice etc. It felt like a strange hybrid of board game and roleplaying game at first, but once the notions of the new mechanics took hold, it felt very natural. Likewise, the new dice pool system felt odd at first, but once we’d rolled a few dice it immediately became very intuitive, which is surely the holy grail of any roleplaying system.

By the time we’d despatched the goblins and rescued the coachman, we didn’t have much time left to play out the more interpersonal encounters of the intro game, but we’d already gotten our heads around the system and were already looking to develop our characters – which is a good sign in any playtest. Overall, I really liked the changes to the game, and it makes a nice change from sitting with my Players Handbook and a grubby character sheet. I’m liking what Jay has done with the game, and there’s a clear desire to make it fit properly with the Warhammer World, where a lot of the previous edition’s books, with the best will in the world, just didn’t."

There was a mention from somewhere that the guy who wrote this, Graham McNeill, worked for Black Library. I can't confirm this (not knowing GW or BI employees), but he does mention he was at GW HQ.

Notice the game seemed very different to him at first, but:

1) The new mechanics quickly felt very natural

2) The dice pool became very intuitive after a few rolls

3) In one session they got their heads around the system and were invested in their characters

4) They liked seeing stuff in front of them rather than looking through rulebooks

5) There was a clear desire to make the game "fit properly" into the Warhammer World

And this was from a single gaming session with the new 3e rules. So, this is a repeat of what has been said before by many of us. Yes, the game might look like a boardgame at first glance with all the cards, and appear like it's complicated, etc. However, it is quite probable that the game itself plays well and plays like the WFRP RPG that it is.

Enjoy!

Welcome to day one.

Cards!?

Did I just dream the last 4 months?

Not discluding the information given from Graham, but from what I recall, isn't Graham more so a Wargame player than an RPG player?

Sure his view counts just like anyones, but it often helps to know where their prefrences lie as it will always influence their take on a topic.

Loswaith said:

I don't know for sure. The link that took me to his blog said he was a writer for BI, I believe. His post says that he plays WFRP, and helped playtest v2, so he seems to have quite a bit of RPG experience, assuming he has played v2 since the days of playtesting it. I certainly am not suggesting that his opinion is the end-all-be-all, or necessarily worth more. My point, was that an experienced v2 group tried 3e and liked it, despite a dubious/unfamiliar initial appearance. Superklaus has posted a couple links to people suggesting that 3e is "bad". I thought I'd post one that offers a good opinion of it, from fans of v2. None of these posts can really replace our own experiences with the game, though. Just because 3e has a lot of cards & tokens, so appears to be boardgame-like, does not mean it is a bad game or that it feels like a boardgame. As I've been saying, I suggest people TRY the game before stating definitively they don't like it, or saying negative things about it.

He is a guy who writes novels and game material for GW, and also some stuff for WFRP when under BL, and since he gets a pay check from GW, I will not take his report at face value. Its like Disney having one of their stars give a review of a show on ABC. How much is personal opinion and how much is padding for the company who pays you?

Certainly true, Peacekeeper. We do need to keep that in mind. Just like we need to keep in mind that Chris Pramas could harbor ill-feelings towards 3e for not being included in its design, or that the RPGPundit gets notoriety by being inflammatory, etc. It's all food for thought, and we should take all these opinions with a grain of salt and let none of them truly dictate our own.

Mark the calendar folks. November 10th 2009, Peacekeeper_b and Dvang agreed to something!

... so what you're saying is that the latest good thing about 3rd ed not coming from FFG you could get was from 4 months ago?

phobiandarkmoon said:

It's not "the latest good thing", as far as I know it's the *only* playtest report on the net. All other "things", good and bad, have been speculation so far.

Living in Belgium, I can't participate in any Emperor's Decree event, but I'm looking forward to seeing pictures and reading playtest reports.

There are three (more or less positive) impressions from player who played the intro scenario at Spiel 09 here:

(German language only, but translate.google.com comes up with strange, but halfway comprehensible translation):

http://www.blutschwerter.de/blogs/5986-georgios/wfrp3-die-halb-nackte-wahrheit-578/

http://www.blutschwerter.de/blogs/2684-the-saint/wfrp3-vollends-bekleidete-luegen-577/

http://www.altewelt.net/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=570&start=0

Thank you, bearded friend.

I've read them and all three of them seem decidedly positive to me.

Looking forward to being able to play the game myself!

Interesting readings... thank you for sharing.

I most probably will be at the Italian event from 27 to 29 November, can't wait to put my hands on it in order to make some clearing in my mind.

phobiandarkmoon said:

Actually, it was just the first item that popped up in my search. I didn't keep looking after that. Yes, thanks to BeardFan for those other links.