It never ceases to amaze me at how cheap some gamers are. I understand being conservative with your money but please! If you are that concerned find a game group who owns the game and see if you can sit in a session or two, or watch a demo game. If the game doesn't warrant the price to you, find a different game. It's that simple.

From my perspective it is one of the least expensive RPG's to come along in a while. Let's compare to my current D&D group:

Five players and one DM: (all prices at Amazon's 33% off) 6 Players Handbooks at $24 each ($144), 1 DM's Guide at $24, Monster Manual 1 and 2 at $26 each ($52), a minimum of 2 sets of dice per person, that's 12 sets averaging $8 each ($96). Now that alone is $316 and we havn't even touched on "extras" like minis, any of the other rule books, adventures, or a subscription to DDI. Already we're looking at $52 a person to play at a minimum level.

In comparison let's say you buy 2 sets of WFRP from Amazon at $62 per set ($124). You now have enough for 6 players (not the five in my other example) and several duplicates of things, including the rule books. Cost per person, $17 each. Unless you are the kindda cheap-ass that buys one book and photocopies it for your players, or even worse gets a pirated copy off the internet, there is no way you can't appreciate how inexpensive this game really is. And besides, we're talking about a hobby here, by it's very definition it is a luxury, not a necessity. Roleplaying is the least expensive hobby I partake in.

zombieneighbours said:

To be fair, I think you're taking what I said out of context.

For the price of the core game, you have enough components to play with 3 players + GM without sharing any of the card components around and play easily.

Similarly, if you purchased a boxed set of D&D, the players would still need to pass the PHB around to reference the material that they need throughout the early stages of a game.

So, purchasing the one copy of the game to get up and running appears to be decent value... is what I meant (I perhaps should have gone into it at more length)

For the record, I'm not arguing able the level of detail in the above games (clearly D&D 4e has more material in say the monster manual) - most people aren't going to be fighting the equivalent of epic level monsters within the first few weeks of release, so the point is essentially moot no?

Don't get hung up on the bits like the cards and stance meter. They work Beutifully.

That is entirely a subjective opinion. After running the game several times the stance meter and bits were found to be a major issue with the game, issues that led to our group voting it down. This is after giving it multiple tries, using the free adventure and other situations and test scenarios.

Magnus von Bildhofen said:

Currently running a large game (8 players) I am liking the idea of a smaller game, not only for me as GM but also for my players.

I think that when you run larger games, people end up not being able to have enough attention focussed on their characters, especially when you get those guys who consistently decide to take the limelight and are overbearing personalities.

It's not fun for everyone and RPG's are meant to be fun. I think with this game leaning towards more social interaction and narrative, then giving everyone considerable opportunity (using artificial limits) to roleplay their characters is neat.

Other's may not feel that way and that is of course their choice, but I am liking the idea of a much more intimate setting with players where we get more chance for roleplay.

Shadowspawn said:

That is an entirely subjective opinion.

WARNING - Not to freak anyone out, but all my opinions are subjective. That's kind of the definition of opinion.

Get your friends to chip in?

It's $100 in Canada, which means $25 for each player and GM. Not that shabby, seeing as $25 wouldn't buy me any previous WFRP book.

zombieneighbours said:

Its true that it only supports 3 players wouthout some creativity, and this initially annoyed me too. However once you get your hands on the box and start pawing though all the stuff then you see that at some point someone had to impose some limits.

Also it seems likely that if you have six players in your group the odds are that at least one of them is fanatical enough to buy his own copy of the core set then you're in the problem solved zone without any effort. I mean who could look at all those cool bits and not want to own them?

Okay mabe I have a problem.

Mordenthral said:

Sure i do, but i don't pay £60+ for those core materials books in general.

I avoid GMing for more than three players. In my experience, the smaller the game, the better it runs. With three players, everyone has enough to say/to do, you have good party interaction and the chance of one or two overbearing personalities hijacking the game are very small.

Of course, that's just me and maybe better GMs than I are more capable of running larger games. What can I say, I tried being a high school teacher for 6 months and that didn't work out for me either:)

I don't know how much of an issue this will be for larger groups.

RenoDM said:

I am sorry but i am individually very poor. This isn't me being cheap, this is me looking at a very highly priced luxury good, having to consider my tiny budget for luxury. This represents my luxuary budget for the next three months at the momment.

I can't pop along and see other groups playing if, because to my knowledge it hasn't been released here, no one i know locally has expressed any interest in getting and i dont have the money to travel to place where demo games may be run.

As for good value, your kidding me right? A group of four can be given everthing they need to play WOD for £17 a person(in reality). If it follows the sharing model, then it can equip the entire group for £16.99. Exalted, call of cthulhu, WFRP 2nd, dogs in the vinyard and agreat many others all follow this model, which is frankly cheaper, and spreads the cost more evenly, while not causing issues with regards to ownership.

This is an increadible expensive game. You can't escape that

zombieneighbours said:

It seems to me World of Darkness is one of the cheaper roleplaying games out there right now then, compared to my own experience, at least.

I am GMing Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars Sage Edition right now and I can't believe I've already spent € 100 on the core book, a campaign setting book and the adversaries book! I'm lucky I already had a bunch of miniatures, battlemats and dice or it would have cost me even more.

For this price, I have a single copy of each of those three books I mentioned. All the skills, feats, talents and Force Powers are listed within the pages of these books so if one of the players wishes to see what a particular talent does for their character again, I have to hand them the book so they can look it up (none of them have any of the books (yet)). I've actually printed out the Force Powers and made little cards of them because those are much easier to handle around the table.

Don't get me wrong, I love that game, it's a great system and all that, but I think for a group of 1GM + 3 players the new Warhammer offers far greater value for money, at least compared to Star Wars and D&D.

I can't speak for World of Darkness, of course but the truth is... in my opinon... All of these games are far too expensive.

In my experience, RPG books are much more expensive than most other books of similar quality (from an aesthetic standpoint), such as history books or art books. Plus, some of them "require" or at least strongly encourage you to go out and buy dice, miniatures, battlemats... All of which are ridiculously expensive too.

But... I'm afraid I just really love roleplaying games... And board games, and miniature games... So I pay the money, knowing that this is ultimately a tiny industry compared to video games and it needs the money to survive. It's a choice I make, knowing full well that this hobby is expensive. Or at least, it feels expensive to me.

RenoDM said:

All from thewarstore.com (hi Neal), 2 copies of Rogue Trader costs $62, 10 ten-sided dice roughly $8, a copy of Creatures Anathema $32. Grand total of $102. And thats if you buy 2 sets of the rule book. I have been in very few games in my life where every player has the core book, in fact, most campaigns I have run in , only 2-3 of the 6 or so players (counting me) have any books for the game.

And its not that Im cheap, I regularly give Dark Heresy booksas Christmas and Birthday presents, own 4 copies of Dark Heresy Core Rules, 3 Inquisitor Hanbooks, three copies of Rogue Trader (one of them the limited edition), every Dark Heresy book released so far, every WFRP 2E book released and much more. Its just the contents of the new WFRP to me do not merit me spending the money.

So the notion of price not being a issue is completely wrong, Many of us who are against the new system will not even get a chance to really try it as we dont want to risk the cost.

zombieneighbours said:

Roughly as "annoying" as printing out character sheets for "normal" Role Playing Games you mean?

To be fair, I can't say that I've played any Role Playing Game that didn't sort of demand some diligent usage of a printer or scanner. Sometimes because such simple tasks as printing out character sheets, and sometimes because the players might need reference sheets from the book and there's only one rulebook in the group to go round.

IF you're a seasoned player of RPG's, then one should almost (by default) expect that some photocopying and printing work will be needed, regardless of what game you play...

I think the premise behind this critique is a valid one. Again, FFG could have saved a lot of heart ache by making the core game work for four players. That just seems to be a lot more prevalent than a DM + three players.

FFG could have taken the approach of putting all the Talents and Actions in a book, but determined that having them on cards not only enhanced play (which it does due to eliminating the need to reference books during play), but would make integrating expansions easier. As supplements are released, you just have more cards to look through when advancing, but you don't run into that problem of needing half a dozen books on hand and having to remember which book a particular Action or Talent is in. Outside of the Basic Action cards, I really can't see it being a big problem for most groups. There is such a variety of options to spend your Advances on that even if you have two Troll-Slayers in the party (for example) they probably won't be selecting the same cards. Who wants to play a clone of someone else's character when there are so many ways to differentiate them between Actions, Talents, Skills, and stat increases? In fact, it probably behooves the party to minimize duplication and diversify available options. Doubly so for Talents which can already be shared via the Party Sheet. So the amount of card sharing that is going to be necessary is probably minimal at best, outside of the Basic Action Cards. For those you will need to make copies (or share), but the benefits of having the info on cards heavily outweighs the inconvenience of needing to make copies of the Basic Action cards and the occasional other card that might be wanted by two players.

Could FFG have left the counters/tokens out and left you with mere suggestions in the rulebook on items that you could use instead (like many other RPG's do)? Yes, but they opted to put enough counters/tokens in to support a GM and 3 players, because FFG is known for quality game components. At some point they had to put a limit on the quantity because for whatever reason, they wanted to keep the MSRP of the Core Set at $100. I've already speculated in another thread that I think the Adventurer's Toolkit is all the stuff they wanted to stuff in the Core to start with, but just couldn't do it for that price. In addition to adding the Basic Action cards and tokens to support a 4th player, you get a few more Careers, Actions cards, Talents, and Party Sheets. For whatever reason, they determined that a $100 box and a $30 (virtually essential) supplement would sell better than a $130 Core Set. Again, this is speculation on my part, but the net is you end up with enough components for a GM and 4 players since most people that buy the Core Set are going to pick this up as well. That's a fairly average sized group. Sure there are groups with more players, but it's not like you can't play the game without the "official" tokens. You could create your own Fatigue and Stress counters by just hand writing the words on squares of paper; you don't even need a printer or graphics program. Or you can use glass beads, poker chips, coins, or other items that most RPG'ers have collected over the years. And the tracking tokens are pretty generic and serve multiple purposes in the game already, so any other object would do for these as well. So the only argument to be made here is that you may feel like you are being asked to pay for components that you don't really need or won't use if you have more than 3 players since you will have to use something else for the other players anyway. I'm not sure how much of the cost of the Core Set is specifically tied to the tokens, but compared to the books and cards (and dice) which are the real meat of the system, I'd say they are a smaller portion. And seriously, if you are already complaining that $100 is a lot of money while at the same time complaining that it doesn't have enough tokens for your group of 8, you weren't going to buy a $150 box that had enough components for 8 anyway, but then neither were all the groups that only have 3 - 5 players (which I suspect are a majority of groups).

People have countered that the game is flexible enough to support more than 3 PCs, if you are open to the possibility of sharing the occasional card, or photocopying.

Some people have even stated, from first hand experience of actually playing the game, that they ran it with four or five PCs, and very few if any cards needed to be shared.

So I'm not entirely sure what else there is to be said, other than personal opinion from various sides about what their gaming preferences are.

I know that the naysayers hate to hear it but... it doesn't sound like the game is made for everyone, just like any other RPG out there.

If three card-sets in 3e supports 3 players

then

one ruleset for 2nd edition only supports one player right. Does that mean that I have to buy three 2e core rulebooks to play the game? That would cost like, $100 or something...

I find the 3 player limit a really funny argument

jh

I'm finding this entire circular argument about perceived affordability vs. perceived value getting more and more entertaining with each post.

Sorry, but this is one of those debates that can't be 'won' or the other side 'convinced'.

Emirikol said:

[emo voice here] but, but, but we've all got our best rules lawyers working on it...

lol

jh