I'm curious...

For those that were originally skepitcal, hesitant or otherwise uncommitted to buying WFRP 3e but ended up pre-ordering it anyway, what changed your mind? What sold you on the game? Was it a particular designer diary, someone posting on these forums or perhaps a local demo?

For me, it was someone from these forums - dvang.

I'd just like to thank him for A) always taking the time to post well written responses to people's questions, which piqued my initial interest, and B) running a great demo of "A Day Late, A Shilling Short". It was his succinct explanation of the rules and his fun demo that convinced me to take the plunge and buy a RPG, something I haven't done in a long, long time.

So, what was your 3e epiphany?

Playing the game at the insistence of a friend of mine. I was paying minimal attention for most of the lead-up, but he went and signed the store he works at up for the Emperor's Decree and asked me to run. I started getting excited when I got my hands on the rules the first time, and was completely sold by the time I'd finished running the first game.

For me it was the dice mechanic.

Specifically, it was learning that rolls, even opposed ones, are dealt within a single dice pool roll.

I had already seen the block, dodge and parry actions add misfortune dice to a pool, which i thought was a neat concept, but during that diary it wasn't made clear exactly how opposed rolls in general worked. When it was confirmed that this idea was at the heart of the system, that was enough for me.

My main gripe with 2nd ed is the "I attack, you parry, i attack, you dodge" annoyance of experienced combatants. Throwing in the occasional feint simply doesn't make the comabt exciting enough. One round is pretty muc the same as the next as the fight becomes a slugfest.

The "cooldown" mechanic of V3 also helps with this, but it seems that with the way the cards/actions are designed and the way the dice mechanic works, they is going to be very little in the way of stalemate rounds, becuase even actions that fail still have a chance of boons or banes to make them each a little bit different.

some other stuff help; stance dice, party sheets, importance on social encounters but the real thing that sold it was the single dice pool idea. Even if it takes longer to work out that two individual rolls, i think it just offers so much more in the way of interest to the table.

pumpkin said:

Me too. People have complained that reading the result might take too much time. I think I will make the most of that time by describing narratively the said result. I do that in V2 as well, but there is so much detail you can add to "i hit" "i dodge" repetitions. Having all the info at once (hits, dodges, parries, misfortune and fortune) makes me able to sum it up in one cool decription of the whole exchange, which isn't lost time. Quite the opposite. And greatly story enhancing too.

Gosh Yipe. Thanks!

Personally, I was *very* skeptical when I first heard about the new edition and saw some of the pics of the components. I was truly on the negative side, loving my v2 and thinking FFG had made it into a boardgame. For me, it was the seminar video from GenCon that got me to at least consider the game as a possible positive. I could see how everything was working towards helping the GM and players roleplay, rather than detracting from roleplaying. At that point, my main concern became the dice pool. I wasn't sure how easy it would be to interpret results, and how they would really work. Why not just use percentile? After reading the designer diary about the dice pool and task resolution, I firmly felt that the dice pool would be fairly easy to learn and use, and could really aid roleplaying. Of course, finally once I got my hands on the game and ran a demo, I was totally sold on it. Not only did the mechanics work great ... but it felt EASY as a GM to concentrate more on the story than being mired behind a GM screen rolling secret dice.

For me, it was a combination of things but it all started with Dan Clark's interview in the " inside look " video. He was a guy I could relate too (it didn't come across as someone trying to sell me something).

I had seen a lot of the negative comments about the game before that, so my perspective was tarnished. He made me want to have a deeper look though. So I grabbed the seminar videos and Jay showed some interesting ideas which made me want to read the Designer Diaries. After those I ordered the game (it's a pricey game in Australia, but I gave it a whirl...)

So far, so good.

First off, I kept an open mind and didn't dismiss it out of hand. But I was still quite skeptical given what I had gleaned only a few months ago. WFRP has been my favorite system and setting since I started GMing it '86 and I really liked what Chris Pramas and co. did at Green Ronin with v2.

Second, I tend to love FFG games; their quality, their flavour, their mechanics.

Third, I had come to appreciate Jay Little's thoughts having followed him for years on Boardgamegeek.com - enough to the point that he was at least worth hearing out on such a massive revamp.

But I came here every day, read the designer notes, watched all the videos and listed to people on various forums. I ultimately decided to pull the trigger on buying it because A) It looked very approachable for a novice and I am about to introduce RPGs to two new gamers, B) I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt and try it myself. My income allows me to make that decision.

I haven't decided yet if I really like it, but I do like what I have read and seen so far. Once I've ran a few sessions, I'll know better whether it will replace v2 for me.

For me this game seems to be a natural evolution to my prefered GMing style. For the past few years I've been trying to find more ways to convey information during the game then by writing things down, checking charts, or looking in books. I've used color-coded Alea Tools, glass marker stones, dry-erase boards, templates, etc. All of these things helped, but what I've truly been searching for is a system that can communicate basic mechanical information (like wound level, or degree of success) at a glance. Something that allows rules and mechanics to slip a little more into the background.

From everything I've seen Warhammer 3E seems to fit the bill for me.

For me, there are a number of reasons.

I first started by following those strange "Ratcatcher's Tale" entries on the website. Then the rumour was growing that there was going to be a 3rd edition of WFRP and I didn't like that idea! I was still collecting books for 2E and feared I'd have to start all over again.

Then I saw what the game was going to be and my apprehension turned into excitement: this looked like the kind of game I had been looking for for years:

an easily approachable system that

a) uses cards for character abilities instead of lists of feats & skills that you have to keep looking up in a book. An essential addition imho.

b) uses symbol coded dice rather than numerical dice, thus limiting the number-crunching and "math feel" while also using flavour elements from the setting in the dice.

c) divides the rules in a number of smaller books, so that a GM could lend his magic book to his wizard player for a week, for example

d) includes everything you need to start playing in one big box, even including character standups

Most of these were things I had been pondering about for years, thinking: why doesn't anyone do a game like that? When a game like that was announced and also turned out to be Warhammer (my second favorite setting to game in, along with Star Wars), I was sold and ready to make the transition.

And on top of that, we got the stance system and the party mechanics :-) Cool things I wouldn't have thought of.

It was the Designer Diaries that did it for me. I was trully horrified by the early press releases and the Gencon video did nothing for me. This was especially rrue as i feared that all the stuff I bought for V2 was going to be more or less useless. I think it was the diary on character creation that finally sold it to me, especially as I was very worried over the limited number of careers available. The Dwarven Dockhand persuaded me to preorder!

The Dice. They are quite possibly the best thing to happen to rpgs in the last, I don't know, I'd say at least 20 years. They really are the best feature of the game. Now that I've read it, I can clearly say...the core mechanic of Warhammer FRP is top notch, and dare I say, revolutionary. It really is intuitive, easy to pick up, and communicates a lot more information.

Also, the new character creation process is great. The old career system was rigid, this is looser, much looser. Transferring from one career to the next not only makes sense, it also facilitates character and story choice, which I love. Normally the "big box" systems (meaning systems targeted to a mass appeal) put careers into molds and specific tracks. Warhammer found a way to create tracks, but allow a player to break that mold wherever they want to. Those careers which need a directed path (Troll Slayer anyone) have it. It's fantastic.

Those are the two parts that pushed me over the edge to actually get it, the dice (and it's accompanying mechanic) more so than anything else.

For me, a combination of things, but mostly the controversy surrounding the game. Anything that challenges the RPG community and makes it so divided is worth a look, to my mind. If every 'review' had been negative, I would have given it a miss, but having mixed views by so many different gamers piqued my interest. The more I read in the design diaries, the more I liked the ideas. And let's be honest - I don't play 95% of the games I already own, but if I can take even one thing from them to enhance my gaming overall, that is money well spent. There are several ideas (narrative dice results, difficulty modifiers inherent in the dice pool) that I really like the idea of.

As for the cost being a negative - I am one of two GMs in our group of four regular players and in over 25 years of gaming only the two GMs have ever bought any gaming material at all. If we want to play it, we have to fork out all the money for it. So, $100 Australian shipped from Amazon is okay by me. I'll get the game much later than had I bought it from FFG, but I can justify the cost. I can't justify $150 US as easily. Given that local retailers have been touting costs from $135 to $180 AUD, I think the wait will be fine.