dvang said:

<rant>Got it... that's the kind of answers that make me think if the answerer really cared about the core of my topic before answering like an advertisement</rant>.

I'm not minding overall information, I've seen your pics and yes the three books stacked are the same thickness ov V2 main book. We know that already.

It's not a matter of forcing my gaming group to play every week (in fact it is them to force me GMing every week!) or to give them lots of advances to rush careers. Actually my campaign is running since 4 years and they are entering in the 2° advanced so maybe we have the opposite in my group.

BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT.

My point is: in V3 starter box you have, for a higer price, less gaming options, less coverage of the careers spectrum than you had in V2 and that is limiting my gaming options quite much. If I pick V3 I decide to barter my freedom of playing a whole set of campaigns without buying anything else than a starter set. I did it with V1, 25€ in the '95 and ran a 9 year long campaing bringing my players to 4th advanced career without the need of any expansions.

The same thing I could do with V2.

What about V3? I can't. I HAVE to buy more expansions or to write down them by myself. That's the point.

Now let's go to counter some of your weaky weak points

1)You state that in V1-V2 wizards from Apprentice to Wizard Lord are the very same career just with different levels... wrong game, that is D&D. In WFRP, my dear friend, class concept does not exists. They are different careers with their own advance scheme, skills and talents. Believe me, a Magister is much more than a 3rd level apprentice!

2)Quoting you "For me, it's not really that big a deal. I was already going to buy that WFRP Companion/Tome of Salvation/etc expansion. Now, it also comes with the advanced careers for wizards/priests. Woohoo, bonus!"

I have to correct you, your last sentence should have been "[...]Woohoo, getting where V2 Basic Book already were!". You see, all those advanced careers were within V2 core book, no need to buy Realms of Sorcery or Tome of Salvation for playing them.

Well Eric, I gotta thank you for your thread-jacking here. This thread was supposed to be for people who had questions about how stuff worked in the game and it's instead turned into a debate over the validity of the core game set. Fantastic. Well since this thread has been derailed, I might as well take it right over that cliff. Waaaaaagh.

Anyway, I have to say it for the billionth time, yes you'll have to buy more stuff. Yes, it doesn't cover all that the 2e core covers. But that's like someone complaining the 2e core doesn't cover vampires, Bretonnia, or Skaven. It's also like saying the 3e core should also cover Bretonnia, vampires, and Skaven because, after all, there is a 2e book out for them already as well. You see my point? Furthermore, did you ever buy any other suppliment for 2e? Have you ever bought any suppliment period? Because if you have, then you're shooting your entire complaint in the foot. You buy secondary products, yet you refuse to do so with this game. Fantastic.

Really, I think the issue here is how you feel personally slighted that you're not going to be able to keep your four year running campaign going under 3e. Well, if you really think about it 4 years is a long time and no matter what you did, you would had to have taken time to convert over to this edition anyway, because not everything lines up squarely. If you're willing to do that work, just go a little further and make up the career stuff you need to play and be patient for the rest. Especially since you level slowly, it'll give time for the support products to come out and all will be squared away. Or, as many people have said, do you even have an intention to buy? If not, a whole lot of people are wasting their time trying to highlight the points while you stick to your guns over how your four year campaign can't make the cross, perfectly. I ran a game for twelve years, still going from time to time, and it's crossed over so many systems it's not even funny, many of which did not even support the core powers, etc. All my players and I had to do was spend a couple of hours one week, tweaking things, and the game ran perfectly smoothly. You could do the same. You could start right now (as I have been doing with 3e) tweaking things in your head to match the needs you have and be ready to start adapting those ideas to the system once 3e comes out. You could tell me you don't have the time, but you sure seem to have time to come here and banter over how your needs aren't being met.

Last, but certainly not least, support products are good because they sell more games. Selling more games means a company can stay in business. A company staying in business means we get more games. More games means we have more fun. So absolutely it's a marketing scheme, but should you crucify them for it? No. Not all businesses are Microsoft and the pennies roleplaying pulls in proves they are more of a labor of love than profit. But the writers still need to eat, feed their children, buy health care (in the US), have some toilet paper to wipe their a** with, so all in all, it's probably best for them to sell products in a way they can keep eating so they can keep writing. You see you could go build them a chicken coup and grow them chickens so they can have eggs and tasty soups just so they can write gaming books you love to play when you're done screwing around with chickens, but isn't money just easier instead? It could be worse. You could be getting price-raped on a car after your transmission just blew out so you had to buy one, even though, about ten years from now, cars won't even run on oil and you know that, but you're buying one anyway at a 60% mark up knowing full **** well, in ten years, gas is going to be about ten bucks a gallon here in the states because most people won't be using it anymore and the "costs of the product" will be too high. Or every time you pump that gas at an extremely high price and somebody on the news is telling you the mark up is due to a shortage, just that morning you read that exxon made record breaking profits. Honestly I don't know why people hate buying things to support what they love when they're so willing to pump money down McDonalds, and Microsofts, and Car Companies, and Drug Companies bloated ceo-******-bags without blinking a **** eye. Or, better yet, they'll go to the movie theatre and give 2012, or wait Jumper their ten bucks without second thought (or reading the absolutely horrible reviews) that the value of the product they're purchasing is piss. Nope. Be damned they want to view a motion picture and that trailer sure was flashy. And believe you me, 3e has gotten way, way, way better reviews than 2012 has and 2012 is the largest grossing movie since summer over the weekend even though, everyone, and I mean everyone, thinks the film made to make it would have been better put to use wiping Michael Bay's ass.

So really Eric, get over it or get off it or do whatever you need to do to make up your mind. 3e is fantastic....period. I admit there are things I still love about 2e and 3e will never replace, there are flaws as well with 3e. But really it's apple and oranges, or looking at a computer made in the eighties (with the big green font of doom) compared to what we have now.

commoner said:

Rally, you could believe it or not I'm not used to thread-jacking. But in this case I feel something is wrong and I have to clear up my mind about it. Sorry it had to happen in your thread.

BTW wise readers can use this debate to answer what is in my opinion the key question about V3: Is it worth the investment? Is the new gaming system worth a spiral of "you have to buy this in order to play things you could have played out of the basic box if it had been done with V2 philosophy?

commoner said:

Honest answer? I DO have plenty of V1 and V2 supplements, almost everything that has been printed. But that is not my point... Re-reading my previous posts will enlight your mind on the fact that it was a "Let's pretend I do not have any supplements" situation.

commoner said:

Here again... my examples were meand to put in light my point but you are starring at the finger, loosing the beauty of the full moon I'm pointing it at.

Let's try to explain it again:

V3 has come out as a successor, substitute and an evolution of V2, right? No trouble here. Easy to understand.

Now, what defines a successor, evolution and substitute? A good guess is something that does the same things in a different, hopefully better, way.

Now let's face the gaming possibilities V2 Basic book offered for a price of roughly 50€.

Roughly 60 basic careers and 54 Advanced careers. (I'm taking careers as an example because I feel them as one of the core points of WFRP), giving us quite a lot of freedom and possibilities. I can start a low level campaign aswell as high level campaign with the basic book. In fact I do have wizard and priest careers ranging from apprentice to Lord, from Initiate to Arch Priest.

Talking about wizardry and religion, other two key points of WFRP, with V2's basic handbook I can choose from the entire spectrum of magic as each school has it's own spells and rules. Same thing for religion, one can play priests from any religion as there are rules and spells from any of them. Oh and there is a minimum background for both magic schools and religions aswell.

Now let's talk about V3 Basic Box.

Many careers are not there, restricting player's choices: he can't play a priest that is not from the three religions in the basic set, he can't either be a wizard that is not from the three schools that are in the basic set.

A GM obviously can't start a high level campaing unless he plans not having high level wizards or priests within the party, thus limiting the options he would have had in V2.

Oh, I agree with you, V2 had lots of expansions, but do you see? Realms of Sorcery is not mandatory in order to play the full spectrum of wizards, neither Tome of Salvation is mandatory in order to play the full spectrum of priests. With V3 you are forced to buy the equivalent expansions in order to play the full spectrum of wizards and priests.

With V2 you could not play Skavens and Vampyres without the appropriate expansions and that it's true, but not a limitation: V2 is a sequel of V1 that did not allow it too.

V2 was a good sequel because it's basic book contained the same thing as V1 did but renewed. What about V3? Can't say the same thing.

commoner said:

I know suppor products allow companies to sell more and thus to live more. That's why I bought more or less everything I found about V2: I was free to choose if to buy them or not, I could have run my campaign without but I knew it would have been better with them. V3 in that aspect is more about forcing players and GMs to buy things that's the similarity with collectionable games that i totally dislike.

commoner said:

I'm a computer guy myself and I do know well the evolution from 8Bit computers with 4kb of ram and tape loaders up to today's Quad Cores with 4Gb of ram and Terabyte Hard disk drives. But you know what? Computer always come more powerful, more capable and with more options that the previous incarnations.

V3 is like having to buy a custom FFG computer, at the same price of a complete one, with just a mouse and an HDD. You want to write texts? Buy a custom FFG made keyborad! Want to install games? Buy our own custom FFG made CD-Rom drive. Want to listen to music? Buy our custom FFG soundcard!

At the end of the day you spent the double to have the same thing of a normal computer.

V3 is fantastic... period. Mmmm.... quite a strong point here don't you think? You're going to absolutes here, removing withi your sentence my freedom to think diversely. I can tell V3 has a good gaming system, yes, but is it worth the risk of having to collect lots and lots of components just to have the same things basic V2 had by default?

Now that is a question we have to answer for V3 newbies!

I bought WFRP1e when it was first released and GM'd weekly for over 5 years. Nothing since has come close to that experience. When 2e was announced, I was estatic. My favorite game of all time was getting an update. But why play 2e? I already had everything printed for 1e, some in multiple copies. So they streamlined the mechanics by doing away with dice other than d10s. Some people claim the magic system is improved (although that is a matter of opinion, it appears to be the majority opinion). There are tweaks that supposedly fixed some of the things that some people felt were "broken" in 1e. But at the end of the day, what is the compelling reason to switch to 2e if you were already happy with 1e? It was more of the same. (For the record, I did buy it and several supplements).

Now nWFRP is not 3e. It is not an update to 2e with tweaks and minor changes. It is an entirely new way to roleplay in the Old World setting. You will notice that FFG did not call this game WFRP 3e. It is not designed to be the successor to WFRP 2e. Plain and simple. I've purposely avoided calling it 3e and have instead used the acronym nWFRP, a notation I borrowed from discussions of White Wolf's World of Darkness game/setting, which also had multiple editions of the old World of Darkness games before they completely redid the system. If anything, nWFRP is a larger shift from previous editions so the acronym is perhaps even more fitting here.

From what I've seen (and I did get to play the demo) nWFRP is a great system and I look forward to having many hours of fun with it. Possibly as many as I had with 1e. No, it does not have as many careers as 2e, but careers and advancement (like much of everything) work differently in this game. Comparisons of number of careers aren't appropriate or relevant. It's apple and oranges. It is not 3e, it is a different game. While I won't say that it is impossible to port over an existing 2e campaign to this system, the game (or at least the Core Set) was not designed with that in mind. If you've got an existing campaign happily chugging along in 2e, there's little incentive to buy this product at this time. If you want to try something new and different in a setting that you love, when you are ready to start a new campaign, perhaps you could give nWFRP a try. The Core Set is ideally suited to starting a new campaign. Will you have to buy expansions to sustain a longer term campaign? Yes, and FFG is counting on enough people enjoying the game to want to do so.

If you are a fan of 2e, I'm sorry you won't be getting any more of the same (in the form of new supplements for 2e), but I'm happy where getting something entirely new and different. It's full of fresh ideas which really appeal to me and stimulate my imagination. Hopefully, enough other people find this to be true as well so that the product will have a long and prosperous life cycle. You may not appreciate the new game, but the value proposition of moving from 2e to nWFRP is at least far greater than the move from 1e to 2e was.

Erik: Don't buy the game.

And yes, your point is valid it does stink that other wizardly paths and cleric powers aren't available in a limited form from the get-go, as in 2E. A "conversion guide" at this point probably isn't printable without recommending you write your own cards. And yes, it's a blatant marketing scheme. It's maybe even a little over the top as far as successors in gaming usually push it.

Thing is, it's not like anyone is unaware of this. However, the idea that you're being forced to buy this is neurotic... nothing is stopping you from playing 2E for another 4 years! In fact, why the heck would you change system now? Nothing forces you to play a game with more supplements than the core set. Why would you even buy supplements if you can't play a decent game out of the core set, unless you're some goofy collector or enjoy the typically bad included fiction?

That's my answer. Don't buy it, it's already obviously not worth it to you. Can we get back to game mechanics? Although I suppose a lot of those are now in their own sub-forum.

I've been thinking about this. Imagine this game with 4 more supplements.

• An arcane caster supplement (like Realm of Magic)
• A divine supplement (like ... whatever the divine one is called)
• A bestiary expansion (like the bestiary)
• and maybe a campaign toolkit expansion

Now, those 4 supplements, with analogs to supplements in v2, would expand the core set to similar (or better, considering the campaign supplement, which is rumored to be what 'Project Thunderbolt' is) play value and long term capability of v2 with all its most important supplements (barring scenarios, which I'm sure are coming as well).

V2 had all the 'basic' stuff there, but those sections (magic, divine, bestiary) weren't really solid offerings until the supplements came out (even then, I thought the bestiary left something to be desired). So, given the same time frame for release, couldn't v3 have the same core information levels after supplement release?

I mean, you can say, "OMG this is not enough wizards!", but in v2, even though they were there, they were a little light in the ass. The same for Priests and Monsters. They really weren't useful till they were expanded. We had to wait. When they were released, they were awesome. I see no reason why that's not the case here, there's just a priority shift and some minor resource reallocation due to their choice of materials. We don't know what's coming up - this may have been the right decision.

My opinions: There will be expansions. They will expand the system to, at a minimum, the information and option levels of v2. They will be awesome. If you snub your nose at v3 this early in the game, you might miss out on something really special. I would suggest people keep an open mind and don't 'argue' yourself into a corner this early in the game. Who knows, later you might be saying, "Aight, these expansions are awesome. This is starting to look pretty cool."

From everything I've seen, things are moving in a very interesting direction. I'm curious to see how things play out. I'm very optimistic.

Um - I would like to hear about the social aspect of the system. I am in the middle of writing a campaign, and will translate the mechanical components to v3 once I have the system. Still, as I write, I like to have some better understanding of the mechanics so that I can design to a less extent the encounters. If Nezzir or someone more familiar can elcuidate that portion, pretty please?

Cheers!

HedgeWizard said:

I assume you're talking about 'social encounters', or game situations in which social mechanics can be used.

There are several way social encounters can be handled. They can be handled with a standard skill check, just like other games. They can be handled with augmented skill checks, which are skill checks using action cards. Or you could use the unabridged RAW and do a full on social challenge (some people are calling this 'social combat' or 'verbal sparing').

The standard and augmented social interaction checks need no explanation. They are equivalent to rolls you've made in any game and should probably be used to handle minutia like haggling or asking directions that are not a major focus of the act (though more elaborate encounters of this type could be fun once and a while).

The full blown social challenge is an encounter in its own right and usually specifically written into an act. They will generally be planned in advance and will have an affect on the act or episode outcome. Social challenges have many mechanics in common with combat. You roll for initiative (using Fellowship instead of Agility), you play Action Cards (there are special social skills and talents), and you create and roll dice pools and interpret the results (to the benefit or detriment of the party). There are no 'manoeuvres' (though I suppose there could be) or 'social hitpoints'.

Session usually involve players talking back and forth with the GM. As the encounter progresses, the GM will typically award fortune or misfortune dice, depending on the strength of the players performance and the attitude of the NPCs involved. Now and again, your GM will probably stop (perhaps at pre-defined points) and allow a roll that includes any modifiers up to this point and any action cards you may have declared in advance or wish to play.

Progress for these encounters are typically monitored with a tracker and includes a defined goal or outcome.

The above example is just one way to do it. It's really very versatile. You can allow the action cards to play an important part in the encounter, and the rolls to be the focus, or, you could fade the mechanics into the background and just use them to support the encounter while focusing more on the roleplay aspect. How BIG a part of the encounter the social challenge mechanics play depends on the GM and play style.

Hope I answered your question.

Nezzir - yes, that's perfect thank you! Have you played/read the Song of Ice and Fire RPG by Green Ronin? If so, would you equate the new social "combat" system to be akin to that? That's what is sorta sounds like...

HedgeWizard said:

I haven't, I'm sorry.

Here's an example of how you can use the Social Encounter system (I'm still working out the details):

The PC's are trying to influence the merchant houses - political factions - minor nobles - criminal organizations - coaching houses - stevedore unions - etc., of a given area; or even all of the above at the same time.

An adversarial organizaion is simultaneously trying to influence the same group, or groups.

A track is setup for each group the players wish to influence. A tracking token is used on each track to mark the progress of the party and the adversaries in influencing the organization(s). When the tracking token reaches the middle point, certain resources become available for one side or the other, or perhaps a normal roleplaying opportunity becomes available. When a marker reaches the end of a track the full support of that organization is granted to that side.

Using the available Social action cards (I believe there are 10 or so), and Support action cards, other cards like Perform a Stunt , and Charm/Guile/Intimidate skill checks, players take an action, and use one or more manuevers per turn.

The scale would be three rounds per day (using an Access the Situation if you want to rest), with the ability to continue to act throughout the evenings at the risk of accumulating more and more stress and fatigue until they have to hit the hay.

The thematic ranges of Long, Medium, Close and Engaged could represent different towns, districts, neighborhoods, buildings. Characters could take manuevers for movement, changing a socketed talent, supporting another character they are engaged with, change form of transportation, preparation, use a skill (Observation, Folk Lore, etc.), manage equipment, and so on.

Since range and time are not exactly defined, the corresponding scales can change as the needs of the adventure, or campaign change.

Doing something like this would be enhanced by all the mechanics used by the system - stance, interpretive die pool results, fatigue/stress/strain, etc.

Lots of versatility inherent in the system as it stands - none of the above would require 'House Rules' - it's all covered by the existing skills, talents, action cards, dice pools, manuevers, and range system.

Ahh - that's great information. Cheers! That's give me enough understanding that I can write some loose encounter details, filling in the mechanical components once I get my copy.

Thank you both for the very detailed responses.