As you can tell from headline i dont have this system yet but i have pre-ordered it in the uk....Should be here maybe wednesday....

Anyway i am dying to know what its like from a dms point of view and a players....

All the reviews i have read so far clearly have not been about the game itself just the components... We all know there excellent but that means nothing unless it is still warhammer at its heart...

Is there a campiagn coming out is this hinted at....

When is the game set....

What are the differences...

What makes or breaks it for you...

Look for what its worth i totally buy into the whole thing im excited by a roleplay product for the first time in maybe twenty years and thats credit to all those involved however you need dms like me to buy it because if we do so will the players...

Be warned that you might encounter some spoliers about the demo adventure... but otherwise I'd suggest that you check out the multiple threads in the Emperor's Decree section of the forum. There are pictures and numerous reviews of gameplay, oftentimes by first-time Warhammer/RPG players, as well as from the GMs.

Personally, I've GM'd the demo adventure 3 times now, and I am getting ready to do character creation and run some sessions with my regular group. As a GM, I've found it very liberating, allowing me to get out from behind my GM screen and focus on the players and the story. I really enjoy being able to give Fortune and Misfortune dice to reward player creativity, or to narrate various challenges.

I bought it the other week I had always wanted to play the system, and the FFG labeled helped push me over the edge. The group I have was also interested, so I bought it.

I won't blather on about the components. Instead I will go on about what I know so far and our first play.

The rules I don't know well enough one way or another to tell you if they work right or are balanced. Time tells that, and there just has not been enough. What the rule system does allow for though, in my opinion is better role playing. The whole concept of establishing a challenge, the dice involved and adding or subtracting fortune by way of all sorts of factors, be it role play, or wheather, or heroic events, is fun, and my players got into that roll.

Aditionally, the whole abstract space concept was....refreshing. Using symbols and counters to represent space and agree on how to manage it rewards role playing, discussions and story telling.

Don't get me wrong, combat is still important, and there are lots of tactical factors to weigh in. The story aspect of the game still forces players to work together in hard fights. Combat also can be punishing enough to want players to look for alternate means in resolving issues other than combat.

One thing I am still getting a hold of is the concept of insanity. In Cthulu characters going insane is part and parcel, but, I have never dealt with this kind of thing in a fantasy setting. Frankly, I think it is a great idea, and look forward to seeing how it all pans out.

On the down side, as a new GM in a new system, and also not a super Warhammer fanboy, there is not enough "fluff" to build campaign settings, or reall detailed stories. I mean, I can craft my own well enough, but overall, I don't have enough "culture" available to draw on in the initial box set.

Our first play was enjoyable. Up till now, when I have been the GM of our group, I was running "descent"!. So, this was initially viewed as Descent MKII when everyone came over and we started setting up.

Character creation was fun, using the books suggested method. Initially the dice and the amount of dice involved was treated with skepticism, but became fun as I made ample use of the fortune mechanic.

Its good game initialy is my take. If FFG comes out with supplements that build on the world, intros modules and other material that allow for players and GMs to build a fun story, then it could be a great game.

From a Game Master's view, I found the game as intended very difficult to run. I don't like rules-light games or rules-heavy games, or games with too much resource management and number tracking. WFRP3 feels like a good middle of the road RPG, with entirely too much resource management (accomplished by the use of tokens and chits) . While I like the idea of Stress and Fatigue, tracking them in game becomes an annoying task, not daunting, just annoying. The same goes with the various pools of dice that monsters/npcs get during encounters. These things distracted from our immersion I'm afraid

My player enjoyed the game mechanics and the dice. The thing they most disliked were the cooldowns on cards. The debate on cooldowns has been discussed here before so I won't get into it, I'll just say my players didn't like that aspect of it all. Stress and Fatigue managament were less annoying, and the agreement that this would probably be done with pencil and paper rather than counters was reached quickly.

The game is set right before the Storm of Chaos, 2521.

Big differences? Well, most everything is different, but some things remained the same.

Resource management, cooldowns, not having enough dice and cards to go around for everyone were just a few things. As a GM I found that I liked some of the ideas, but in practice it was more than I was willing to keep up with. Two players suggested that it was concentrating on the cards and counters made it harder for them to get into character.

My players represent a fairly broad group of gamers. Ranging from casual, to young and veterans. The general consensus was that they wanted to like it, but it just bogged down too much. I didn't dislike it near as much as I thought I would.. it just wasn't for us in the end.

Edit: In addition I'd like to add the above poster's disappointment that there wasn't enough setting material to build a game from. If I didn't already have a massive library of Warhammer Material from the tabletop game and former editions of the RPG, I would have been very disappointed in this aspect.

It's fun and easy to run as a GM (other than making a commitment to getting all the materials to the play-space). The game will be a lot more fun when its more complete (full list of basic and core advanced careers, all the types of wizards and priests).

It doesn't go far enough though in the social sphere. I'll have to hack in some elements to make that as fun as the combat. A shame really since without the ability to make the cards my contributions are going to look a little shabby...

Curious, couldn't the stress/fatigue/cooldown aspects be managed by card sleeves and a marker or two? tick the stress/fatigue and tick per cooldown until ready to use then wipe off? Might remove some of the fiddly counter action. (I'm a huge FFG fan, but sometimes the fiddly counters are over the top - example, the WoW boardgame - the first one - had waaaay too many counters, solution? Colored dice to track the same effects. Uncluttered the table and made it much smoother game play wise for my group)

After having run the demo, the counting-chits for fatigue/stress won't even be punched out of the cardstock. I'm simply not going to bother trying to manage beans. We'll use a pencil and paper. Tracking needs to be quick and painless. "Bob, take a fatigue." It's that quick. I'm thinking that for non-critical wounds, we may be looking at the same approach.

jh

Yeah, I think FFG would have had saved a lot of heartache if they had just used the tried and true method of just marking a tick mark on a character sheet. They could have dispelled a lot of the "it's just a board game" accusations.

Unlike HPs or Magic points in many other RPGs which are a finite resource that generally goes down during combat and doesn't refresh as often, Stress and Fatigue are a much more fluid. There are a number of reasons why Stress and/or Fatigue can go up or down during a single combat. Character sheets will get worn through by erasers if tick marks are used. Of course you could put the charsheet in a document protector and use wet erase markers, but that has it's own drawbacks such as ink transfer to your hands and/or wet tissues/paper towels on the table.

The tokens aren't a big deal if every player manages their own supply and just puts them on and off their character sheet as needed rather than trying to draw from a central supply.

Emirikol said:

What is the difference between you saying "Bob, take a fatigue" and Bob ticks off something on a character sheet or picks up a single token. They both take very little time. I can see if you just prefer to do tracking on your character sheet.

I have never been a fan of having to pull your character sheet out and write on it all the time during an adventure. I much prefer to have it just sit in front of me as a reference and am glad that 3rd allows me to not use pencils at all during the action. However, I am mainly a miniatures and board gamer, so using tokens to represent something is not alien to me.

I'm not trying to convince anyone not to use the chits. Use them if you like them. I personally don't like them and find counting out chits to be more time consuming and more "scatterable" than making a hash mark..but YMMV.

I just use a pencil over magic tape (then you dont' rub a hole in your paper We discovered how well that worked about 30 years ago with 1E D&D and it's carried over to all of our games since.

jh

Well, I've only run it once, so bear with me that it's a very new statement.

The Great Parts:

There are many, many great aspects to the game. The dice as difficulty, opposed resolution, competitive resolution, The way skills and Characteristics interact. I also really like the gm tracking tools. It's a great way for a GM to not only keep track of an impending event, but it also helps the GM move things along. I generally have one running at all times, with five steps to a neutral space, then five steps after the neutral space. I use it for various things, to make sure sections of the game don't go to long or to represent when something is about to happen (like the orcs are coming to kick in the door in x turns while the players are at a party. So give them party for five exchanges before the orcs barge in). I really like it and it adds pressure. The Critical Wounds have good flavor as well.

The dice in my group have evolved to the point we interpret them on every roll. I will say intelligence checks (like do I know x) are nearly impossible to interpret sometimes, so we skip them, but every physical act, we run along and interpret them. We generally play dice light (using dice only to resolve a conflict). That means if our rogue wants to climb a wall to break into an inn, if there is no one there to spot him we just say, you get to the window. Those types of checks we eliminated (unless there is some form of conflict, like, in the example before, someone is there to spot them or he has to reach the window to rescue a friend before a witch hunter barges in). Using the dice only for these critical rolls adds a lot of emphasis to the rolls themselves and creates new and interesting story complications with every roll. After using these dice, quite honestly, I can't ever see going back to standard gaming dice. These are just way too interesting.

The aspect of choosing initiative is also great. No, the big strong guy does not always go first nor do the ranged fighters. It's on a case by case basis. Again, this will play out differently with different play styles though, but for us and our very narrative combats it's fantastic and I can't see going back on this either (except to systems which have absolutely no initiative like Pendragon).

Character death, injury, healing and recovery are really well designed and thought through. They have tons of flavor and I like that a lot. Fear and Terror work fantastically and I really do enjoy all the status cards (they add tons of depth to situations, but I would have liked to seen more ways the players could create the conditions themselves).

The career system seems flexible enough. Leveling is full of choices (with some limitations) and the entire advancement scheme/career switching is much, much more open than previous editions. Also, the ability to skills, talents, etc outside your career is also the benchmark of a quality system. Too often character's are forced into molds and that generally never works out. In addition, Wizards in this game can choose to be more magic oriented, combat oriented, or both. I love that fact and it's something that the fantasy genre really does need, because I have no idea why in the world a Wizard should not be able to fight well (which first and second of even Warhammer supported.)

The production quality is top-notch.

The magic systems are great and look like they could be a lot of fun. The guy playing the wizard wasn't there so I haven't seen it in action, but it reads fantastically.

The party cards are brilliant, but I would have liked to see more of them.

The Bad:

I also support, that for a new gamer, the core does not give much world detail. The writer's of this game are very combat oriented. Even the introductory module says, "this module has plenty of opportunities for combat." Which, makes me beg the question, why is that important? It apparently is important to the writers. Even a lot of the game descriptions seem combat oriented (such as Winning Smile an action card doesn't give you social benefits, it forces the target to not be able to attack you for a turn.). So fluff takes a back seat. There is not nearly as much emphasis on the social aspects of the game. If you don't know a lot about Warhammer, you'll be left trolling the internet to find information. This is not to say there is no possible way to get great roleplaying, great stories, great aspects out of the game, it's just not the major focus of the writer's rule set. Still, what these dice and the freedom of the system and how difficulty is addressed can create, on the narrative side a great story and role-playing experience. It's easy to get around if story is what you're into and the system does work that way very, very well.

I noticed some criticisms about fatigue and stress. I do think the two separate pools are unnecessary. They are completely redundant, one giving ways to penalize physical the other mental. I can see where someone would want to separate the two, but it was really unnecessary. The more I've played it, the more I've realized they aren't. All it does is allow you to deflate the amount of Stress and Fatigue that can be gained on both sides. Where these two pools also become problematic is when a character becomes strained. So now, not only do you have to keep track of two pools and how those pools modify dice rolls, you also have to keep track of how those two pools are interacting and what the effects are when you become strained and then, once strained, you have to keep track of counters on insanities. Like the concept, don't like the execution. With dozens of chippies I would have at least liked a Strained chip or a box to check-mark: strained on the sheet to stop the endless amount of adding involved.

Stress and Fatigue also places another level of resource management on the game via the stance meter. Just to simply get to convert more dice, or switch the type of conversion, hell just to go back to no dice conversion, you have to gain stress, which you also have to double check against your Fatigue to make sure you don't strain. The Stance Meter is great, how the token adjusts on the Stance meter is not. I would have preferred players just being able to choose wherever the hell they'd like to be at a given time. Then allowed 2 Fatigue rolled on a Reckless check to mean just that. There is a downside, a horrible, horrible, downside to both sides of the meter so I don't see why players just couldn't choose to go one way or another. Here is also a place though we find the combat-oriented nature of the system because on the conservative side an hourglass is a delay which either adds two recharge to an action card or lowers initiative by one. Otherwise, it means you get things done a little slower? What does that mean if there is no threat and a guy is making a horse shoe. Maybe they could have given a black die on the subsequent roll or something, I don't know, it just needed a less combat assumption explanation attached to it for me.

I honestly don't think the problem with the Fatigue/Stress system lies in the chippies or no chippies, I think it's that the system is needlessly complex for something that could have been done much, much easier.

The action cards are good and have a nice flavor, they do, but they do conflict with freedom the system offers up front with its core mechanic. Also, the cool downs via the recharges are again, adding a lot of extraneous detail to the combat system (again, the writers are into that sort of thing so more emphasis was placed here). They focus on the exact and specific way you go about the slaughter with so much needed attention they remove the reason's why the slaughter was happening in the first place. ON one hand, this game supports a very narrative, very free-form, very player and GM in control system. On the other, it contains a very detailed, very precise, very single swing combat card mechanic. The recharge system is also an epidemic throughout the entire system as so many Talents, Wound cards, etc. directly modify or play off of the recharge system. There are talents which even recharge which again, takes from the story to the tidbits of resource management.

To me, the recharging talent cards is just a sign of an inherent problem with the system. They tried to make leveling very easy: 1 XP gets you one advance. It's nice in theory, but in practicality, it isn't. Expertise dice are way better than characteristic dice, but characteristic dice cost a ton more. Talents are good, some better than others, but instead of them being a single use power (once per session) or recharge, they should have made them either rank restricted or simply cost more (which could have been printed on the card: This talent costs x advancements).

With that being said, pulling all the recharge wound cards and the recharge from talents would not be that hard to do, it just takes a half an hour of sorting cards. The recharge mechanic to track duration is also a great idea and should be put into every other spell-focused magic system. Fixing recharge is also not hard (all you have to do is sit down and pull all the recharge modifying cards). Removing recharge entirely from the action cards, I have been trying to figure that out myself (other than just cutting them).

The Insanities and Wounds are nearly identical. I would have preferred to see more interesting insanities, but that's not a huge deal at all.

Not enough dice. The only thing that slows down the game considerably is sharing the dice. It's not like you're asking someone to pass you 1 d10 or a bunch of d10, you're asking people to pass you three of one die, two of the next, one of the next, etc. We tried the box system and that didn't speed anything up. We needed more dice and they should have been released at the same time as the core. It's my number one criticism of the package as a whole, that and there should have been 3 of each talent. There just should have been. I'd rather have less wound cards and more of them. The only reason for the extra wound cards was so people didn't have to write down wounds, but there, honestly, write the wounds and dole out criticals when they happen from a deck. Much easier that way.

Summary:

All in all it's a great game and I give it roughly a 4 out of 5 in terms of games I've ever purchased. It does what it does and does it well. There are parts I don't like (mostly recharge, stress and fatigue (choose one FFG), the stance meter, and the conservative dice penalty being something a bit stronger). Other than that, it's a great game. I know my negative comments seem longer, but they are simply a longer explanation to show you specifically why I didn't like something so you could either say, well I love extra-detail in my slaughter, that was just this guys opinion. Overall, it is worth it. Even after all of that, the only real conflict is between the action cards and the core, narrative, do it yourself mechanic and too much resource management versus the core mechanic. It's easy to get around the negatives. And the great parts far, far out way the bad parts for me.

Thank you for your replies...

I think many of you have clearly explained your initial thoughts...

Very well to be honest...

I have always wanted a system that goes into detail around stress and fatigue however i have never used one because i always felt it penalised the characters more than the bad guys...(would need to see this in action but for me as some of you have already said it could be a bean counter excercise)

The characters are constantly involved were the enemy are likely to be seen once...

Warhammer has an amazing world so in my case i know it very well but i can see why for new dms that not having that flavour may hinder them what i am looking forward to is a superb campaign to launch the new system with loads of maps ect...

I loved the old black and white ones that i could adapt and make look older than they were...Hope they make a return unless the colour plates are top notch..

Basically im getting very excited the books should be with me tommorow and i will feed back my thoughts..

Im already organising campaigns and that says a lot...

Anyway my thanks

I can address and hopefully help clear up some of your Bad points and confusion.

Winning Smile an action card doesn't give you social benefits

Actually, it is useful during Social Encounters. Take a look at the demo adventure, for example. The merchant Klaus has some action cards that give people trying to influence him , and such. Winning Smile means that Klaus misses his Social Encounter round and cannot use his scoial actions against the group. It could also just be narrated by the GM that the NPC stumbles over what they were saying and loses their train of thought. Really, these actions can be easily used in a social setting. I will admit that there is a lot more to the Warhammer World than is contained in the Core Set books. However, it seems to me that there's as much if not more background than previous editions. The simple fact is that there's just a huge amount of material about Warhammer, and it is too much to include in a single Core set.

I noticed some criticisms about fatigue and stress. I do think the two separate pools are unnecessary.

I disagree. Look at the example of the Trollslayer in the demo adventure. He has a Toughness of 5, but only a WP of 2. He can withstand up to 10 fatigue before passsing out, whereas only 4 Stress. That's a huge difference in managing the character. The Trollslayer can be more lax when executing maneuvers or actions that give him fatigue, but has to be extremely careful when doing things that cause him Stress. There is a significant difference between the two. Mixing them together is not really a good option, and reduces the need for player strategy/management.

There is a downside, a horrible, horrible, downside to both sides of the meter so I don't see why players just couldn't choose to go one way or another.

There are many advantages to going one way or another too. It's a simple roleplaying reason, though, that most people can't go from insanely reckless to perfectly conservative in a blink of an eye. They must build up their rage/composure over time.

Otherwise, it means you get things done a little slower? What does that mean if there is no threat and a guy is making a horse shoe.

That means the GM narrates some other sort of delay occurs. It takes longer for the PC to negotiate the shoeing with the blacksmith, so he has less time to go shopping. Perhaps the negotiation even took so long it needs to resume the next day? Or, they took so long that the blacksmith cannot start shoeing the PCs horse until the next day. The PC misses an important meeting planned for a specific time, since he was busy talking with the blacksmith. Etc. There are ways to handle non-combat delays.

On the other, it contains a very detailed, very precise, very single swing combat card mechanic.

Only if you take the name literally as what is occuring. There could be numerous ways to physically execute a "Troll-Feller Strike". Each use isn't necessarily the exact same motion, merely that the strike is a more powerful blow designed to strike harder than normal. It could be an overhand attack once, then a sideways attack the next time it is used, etc. Personally I think the action cards add more roleplay flavor than "standard attack/swift attack/lightning attack".

Recharging

I'm sorry you have found the resource management to be a problem. In the 3 games I've run, none of the players had a problem with it, nor did it detract from the players ability to roleplay. It has been no more cumbersome than making marks on a character sheet. In fact, players liked being able to easily see the status of the other PCs at a glance. We found the recharge was nice in that it made players (and NPCs) use different actions each round.

Expertise dice are way better than characteristic dice, but characteristic dice cost a ton more.

Expertise dice only apply to that specific skill. Characteristic dice apply to every skill or test that is associated with the stat. A stat increase also makes it less likely that fatigue/stress will have an impact on it. So, there are lots of reasons why purchasing a stat advance is more powerful than a single expertise die, thus they cost more. Yes, if you're swinging your sword an expertise die in Weapon Skill is better. That Expertise die in Weapon skill doesn't help with climbing, carrying gear, swimming, breaking open a door, or any other Strength-based check. Also don't forget that Characteristic dice get converted into Stance dice, so with some Stance piece purchases combined with stat purchases, and you could get a Trollslayer using 5 reckless dice, for example.

they should have made them either rank restricted or simply cost more (which could have been printed on the card

I think part of the point of recharge is to force a player to make choices. They can use the same card over and over repetition unto boredom. Different rounds they will need to perform different actions.

Not enough dice

Having run the game with 4 players multiple times, we didn't notice a lack of dice. Some of this, I am sure, is that people were interested in watching the rolls other people were making. Instead of everyone rolling the dice at the same time, each person got to roll. It didn't take much longer, and everyone got to see what/how everyone else was doing. I did occasionally wish I had my own GM dice, so I wouldn't take from the player's pool (I occasionally accidentally kept some). And I can see with more than 4 players possibly needing more dice just for the table size and passing the dice around. On a small(ish) table with 4 players, though, the dice included seemed to work fine for us. We left the dic ein the middle, and each player could reach and make their own dice pool without actually "passing" the dice very often.

that and there should have been 3 of each talent

I agree it would be nice to have multiple copies of the talent cards (and action cards, for that matter). However, it's easy to just write the information down or make a photocopy of the card. This assumes, of course, that players pick the same talent. Considering that you can socket talents on a party card, it is more of a benefit to the party if the group members take different talents. Think of the cards as part of the rulebook (but more mobile). Most rulebooks don't have multiple copies of the talent. They expect you to write the talent information down. WFRP at least, using the card, allows a single player to not even need to write anything down. If multiple people have the same talent, then they can either share or do what they would have done in any other RPG and write it down (or make a photocopy, etc).

So I am glad, despite what seem to be negatives for you, that your outlook on the game is still positive.

Commoner: Good technical review. We'll see how the house rules come out with some of your ideas

jh

I must admitt I am more then a little disapointed to hear it is lite on fluff. I was really hoping for a decent bit of background on the Reikland region, and a decent/detailed map or something. Maybe that washoping for a bit much.

Ah well it's not like I can't dig out Sigmars Heirs (if I can remember where I stuck it), and the map from DotR, or Mad Alfreds map I suppose.....

Not to thrilled about the inro adventure being "Combat heavy" either....I guess I better start working on an alternative....

All I can say is, the counters were much more invasive than simply ticking a check mark. Heck, if you just wanted to have a sheet of paper seperate from your actual sheet you wouldn't have a problem. WFRP3 expects you to change character sheets every career anyway, so...

It may sound good to simply say that its so easy to take a counter from a pile and put it another pile, but they do get in the way, they do get scattered to heck and back and they are yet another thing on the table that got in the way. When you add that to keeping track of your cards and their cooldown tokens, tracking magic, the DM having tons of seperate piles of counters to track everything from monster dice pools to monster wounds (stacked on top of the first wound cards) you start o get a picture of what the table looks like. For us, this was a barrier between the player and the story.

Cheers Commoner for that good review.

A final word from me on recharges....

I don't want to rehash the rediculous back and forth on other threads.

Here's my solution to the "problem". If a hero really wants to use an action with a recharge right away they may take stress (for mental) or fatigue (for physical) to perform the action...or...they can reduce the recharge as normal, or through a talent, etc...

here's my justification:

Imagine a football player dodging a tackle...

1) he dodges

2) he see's no other threat so he "recharges" as normal

3) there is another tackler!@ He exspends more energy and takes fatigue to dodge again

4)wait there another tackler!!!!#@#$%@#% He spends even more fatigue to dodge again..

5) and so on....

That's what I'm doing.

As far as spells go I won't alter the system though...I personally see it as a balance issue

All RPG's come with the caveat "If you don't like a rule...don't use it