I have been determined to give this game a chance by playing it before I made up my mind about it. Today was meant to be that day, we were to make characters and play the intro scenario from the box. For most of us this was our first contact with the box and two of us knew nothing about its contents. The first hurdle was character creation, I have never encountered such a confusing layout at character creation. We took over two hours of finding and choosing action cards, talent cards, working out where specialties were and generally trying to work out what we were doing. If information is vital to character creation it should be in that section and the most imporant information should be in the first paragraph of each section. I found myself having to look to make sure that I wasn't missing restrictions and having to check other sections of the book to determine what I was buying. The first paragraph of the Talents section for example should make it clear what you can use them for, how they recharage and the fact that you could swap them out. IIRC it was the last paragraph of the Actions Card section that tells you that you can pick any action card you want as long as it doesn't have a prerequisite and it doesn't explain anything about how action cards actually work leaving a new player floundering trying to work out what he should take because he doesn't have the right information available to him.

The next hurdle was the rules, we just could not get our heads around all that would be needed to preform basic tasks, we worked out how to construct dice pools but had no idea about recharge counters, spent talent cards, maneuvers, what basic actions you could perform and how opponents affected rolls.

The final problem was the one that annoyed me the most, the £65 box only provided us with the basic action cards for 3 players, we had 4. Now if the adventurars toolkit was out then they could say that we could have spent even more money to play the game with 4 players but we didn't even have that option. What are you meant to do when you have a group of 5 people and the game does not provide essential components for one of them, tell them to go away? This game needs all the information that is currently printed on those cards to be repeated in books. It is rediculously difficult for a player to read up on information as he has to have all the cards available to him which is just unfeasable if you have one box between 4 or 5 people. The game seemed to suffer exactly how I feared, there was just too much stuff, it was constanly being knocked onto the floor or getting mixed up and was generally hard to find what you were looking for. Surprisingly there was also not enough stuff as we had to constanly wait for people to search through decks of cards to find something they wanted. I feel that this information should be available in book format to give people an easy way to read the material and familiarise themselves with it.

In the end it was decided that we would have to leave it and spend time reading the rules and getting a firm grip of the system before we tried again, probably in 2010 when we have access to the adventurers toolkit. Instead we played WFRP 2 which took us only 30 mins to get ready and only required 10 sheets of paper some pencils, rubbers and a bunch of d10s. We had a good time stomping some beastmen and our GM couldn't roll above a 1 to damage me after the first attack that took me down to 4 wounds. We are now heading to Altdorf to rescue a noble maiden if our Halfling doesn't get us all killed. I have to say that its looking like my recent purchase of WFRP 2 books from the christmas sale will prove to have been wise.

Kaihlik

I understand your frustration, and I, like many on the forums, do agree that the rulebook is not as well-written and clear as FFG's other products, which does put a lot of people off. A lot of the components used in the game are relatively new concepts in RPs, which add to the learning curve and possibly confusion. The limited resources is also a tradeoff of having everything you need on the table without having to refer to the rulebook very often.

That said, if you have more than 3 players, you can buy another core box if you have some money to spare, or if you don't want to, the common action cards (like the basic melee attack, ranged attack, dodge, etc) can be put in the center of the table for the players to reference to and the player write what they used down on a paper and put recharge counters on a small box near the name of the action.

Without a solid concept of the new mechanics, creating new characters will be confusing (it happened to me). Reading through the rulebooks once and reading the posted errata, then let the GM run the demo adventure "A Day Late, a Shilling Short" with pregenerated characters will sure to make everyone understand the rules. Once everyone knows what is used for what, then creating a characters will be much easier. If some things are still confusing, you can refer to the character creation example in the WFRP news section with the Dwarf Dockhand.

Oh and I found it's much easier to choose action cards based on 1) what main type of card they're looking for (eg. melee attack, ranged attack, social, support, magic, etc) and after that, then 2) the name fancies them or fit their character (eg. "steely gaze" for a character bent on being intimidating, "setup strike" for strategic fighters, or "reckless cleave" for the more gung ho and reckless characters). Don't concentrate too much on "what the card can do", but rather "what can your character do".

Hope you have more success in the future!

Fair criticisms from Kaihlik. I bought the game yesterday and I've done a lot of head scratching. My players are going to hit me with blunt object when I try to explain these rules to them (they are used to such systems as Trail of Cthulhu and GURPS, which, contrary to popular opinion is a simple system, just be prepared to put some hours aside for character generation...)

There are some things I like about this game - the action cards are great - but as Kaihlik says, not enough of them (and as I posted elsewhere, no action cards for monster actions!). The core mechanic is good. There are game mechanics obviously borrowed from Arkham Horror and Runebound (and I'm sure other FFG games), which is fine.

What's not fine - and I'm posting to agree with Kaihlik here - is the poor (if not terrible) organisation of the rulebooks and explanation of the rules. I've been reading the errata too, which hasn't been as helpful as it should. Most of my head scratching moments have been illuminated by reading the "Rules" forum, but even in that forum there are long threads displaying everyone's continuing confusion about aspects of the game. Take weapon skill specialisation, for example "hand weapons". What game effect is there in specialising in a hand weapon? Not explained. There's even conjecture this is from an earlier version of the rules! Bad editing in other words.

But the proof is in the pudding. I'll be sitting down with my players soon (once I get my head around the rules) to play - I'm perservering because 1. I spent a lot of money and 2. I really think there is potential for a lot of fun with this game (which is really the only thing that's important). Hopefully it lives up to this potential.

You might be "over-thinking" it a bit. The first time my group played I had two brand new RPG players and a seasoned vet. Character creation took maybe 20 minutes. When it came to Action Cards and Talent cards I told the players just to pick based on the card's title (whether they thought the card sounded "cool"). Besides I told them they could swap out cards over the first couple of sessions while they were getting used to the system.

As far as the rules, I found that WFRP has been easier to understand and more intuitive for all the players in my game. Although as an interesting side note my most experienced players had the most difficulty with the rules. In my experience I've found that games that embrace a new paradigm concept are usually harder for experienced role-players to grasp then newbies. Too many old habits.

Although not the best rules I've ever seen my group really hasn't generated near the number of questions and concerns that others in the forums have had. For example, on "hand weapon" specialization: it's on page 16 under the heading "Specializations".

"Specialization allows a character to add an additional fortune die to checks when the specialization is relevant."

There was a lengthy thread (actually more than one) about whether priests begin ttheir careers with certain acquired skills like wizards. I don't understand the confusion. The priest book didn't say anything about beginning with skills, so isn't the obvious answer that they don't get any? Again I go back to my last post, people "over-thinking" the game, especially experienced gamers. I find a lot of gamers start looking at new rules and thinking about how they "should be", instead of looking at them for how they are actually written.

RenoDM said:

Thanks for the clarification about specialisations, I totally missed that.

I'm really not trying to over think this game, I'm just reading the rules and trying to work things out. Maybe I'm a bit slow . It probably helps having a few brains look through it at the same time which I haven't been able to do - I really do have "lazy" players. Anyway, as I said, I'm not intending to give up on something that I expect to be a lot of fun.

This sounds like another 2e fan just taking yet another shot at this game with the same old tired arguments. Only enough stuff for 3 players. The info should have been in duplicated in books. How is having the info in a book any easier than on cards? It would be worse. This way, during chargen one person can be looking through melee actions while another is looking through the ranged actions and a third is looking through the support cards. A forth can be looking through the Talents at the same time while a fifth is looking over the Skills and specializations or equipment in the book. When you're done, pass whatever you have to the left. Seems much easier than having to pass around a single book. For the basic actions, what would you do if the info was in a book? You'd have the players write the info down on a sheet of paper. You can do the same here and not even use the basic action cards if you are concerned that some people will have the nice cards and some have hand written copies. Or you could make photocopies. Since the basic action cards are the same on both sides, you don't even need to copy both sides of the card, just one.

I'm glad you were able to put the game aside and have fun with your 2e stuff. If this version is too much stuff for you and you want to unload it cheap, I'll gladly take it off your hands. We're having a blast with it and I could always use more counters and a back up set of the cards.

mac40k said:

I want my cards listed in a book that I could keep next to my computer for answering forum questions.

Mordenthral said:

Get yourself one of these...

... and fill it with these...

Problem solved.

Yes, the card game sleves for 9 card solve the problem.

I understand everybody who thought that after they open the box they could play. Sorry without reading the rulebook You don't stand a chance, I think even that You should read it twice. I had readed all the rulebook and still sometimes I got a problem with understanding all the rules becouse my players sometime give me a really hard questions. The FAQ solves this problem a little bit but still there will always be new questions that need anwsers.

But still the game is a great expirence when I'm playing it with my friends - much better then others i must say.

I read the OP's post... and I do have to say it is, at least from my point of view, very biased. May be he isn't, but it came across it as such to me.

Because 1. For another RPG, do I expect myself to go on ahead with a game without first knowing the rules? I do not think so. I'd say that at least the GM would need to have some grasp of the rules for a game to be possible.

In fact, the fact that one could go into this game just taking it for granted that even if you have no firm grasp of the rules, you thought you'd still be able to play... doesn't that speak towards the seeming accessibility of the game?

2. This core set IS KNOWN to have material for 3 players. FFG mentioned it. Forum posters posts it. It is on the box. etc. This is known for some time now. two things:

-Knowing this, one still invited a 4th player. Was there really a 4th player, was there an actual attempt at a game? Or was this scenario's purpose to demonstrate the short comings of the core set? It makes one wonder.

-For a game without components, a Paper and Pen game like most RPGS including WFRP2e, one seems to have no trouble reading the rules and using PEN to write on PAPER, to play the game. Yet, a 4th player CANNOT do the same in this game for some reason. One cannot use proxy pieces of paper to represent cards and use actual cards as a reference (as some already suggested, but I wonder if such suggestion is really needed... it is basic human problem solving). In other games, one would simply use PEN to write on PAPER and reference it in a BOOK flipped open on the table. Yet, for this game, one failed to remember he could use PEN to write on PAPER and reference it on a CARD laying out on the table. Or even use photocopiers and printouts...

I must wonder, how does the OP usually like to play RPGs?

No offense to the OP, but after reading it I'm rather left with the impression that this isn't a very fair assessment at all, even if it isn't a fabricated scenario. And it compelled me to post this admittedly confrontational reply. But in all honesty, it is not my intention to flame or create arguments.

@ xenoss- Our regular gaming group has 1 GM. 4 players and 1 person who turns up when he can. Everyone wanted to try the game so what do you say to 1 of those people, sorry but FFG says no? It wasn't a case of inviting a 4th player as it would have been of uninviting someone. We could have gotten by I was just saying that annoyed me. We also didn't feel like spending another half an hour copying information off cards to play the game. On the rules thing, the GM and one of the players had been looking at the rules all week and set the date thinking they would have gotten a hold of it by then. The other players couldn't know the rules because we had no access to rulebooks.

So that you know it was not a fabricated scenario in fact I really wanted to give WFRP 3 a shot which is probably why I am so annoyed. It should probably also be noted that I haven't actually played much WFRP 2 as most games have been one offs before the game died (I bought the books in the sale because they were dirt cheap even with extortionate postage costs and they are all useful referance books for other peoples games).

I should also point out that I have gone into every single RP system I have played not knowing the rules and just fudging my way by until I pick up enough stuff, that includes WFRP 2, Dark Heresy, Old WoD, New WoD, Exalted and a friends homebrew system.

To all those people who say are saying the cards are just as easy or easier than a book I did say duplicated in books as they are in alot of circumstances a much easier referance material than cards (which are handy for gameplay but a pain in the but for trying to learn rules). It is unlikely while on a train that I will take out a deck of cards and start flipping through them especially since if I lose them, thats it.

We are still going to give WFRP 3 a shot, my main critcisms are that the Adventurers toolkit should have been out the same day if it was going to be required for a larger group, same with extra dice. The character creation information was too spread out and it was not clear enough what you were doing as you were doing it, I am a firm believer that you shouldn't need to leave that character creation section of a book to create a character (as long as you dont mind not knowing what you are picking does) as needing to do so makes it so much harder for new players to get into a system. I have the same criticism for the Song of Ice and Fire RPG which I havn't played yet but own. Really I think it could have been so much easier with just a few changes to layout.

The game probably doesn't have too much stuff when you are playing but at the start it is so overwhealming and you dont have the option not to use it. If the players could buy a book with the action cards, talent card and career cards in it then it would give them a chance to learn things on thier own and make gameplay go alot smoother IMO. This could then be combined with a standard A4 character sheet to remove the components for people who may not have them available or the space to use them. It is alot easier to carry around a few books than a box full of componants (important because half our group always has an hour travel time).

Kaihlik

Understood. Consider me corrected.

What FFG should do is put the basic player aids on pdf for free. Players shouldn't have to buy an additional core set or the Adv Kit to add materials for more players. I think the traditional Paper and Pen ways can still apply here, but then 1 or more people will not have access to the nice components to play with, and not everyone has a copier. So a printer friendly pdf for basic cards should be made available.

I can see what you mean by things too spread out before playing. And certainly not as "on the road" friendly as just a book. Nor is it going to be as friendly to people who play on "difficult terrain" (eg. not on the table). But I guess these aren't problems in the wider scope.

Please post your views again after you had a chance to play. I'd really like to know if your impression of the game changes. Because the game must be doing something right if after your initial bad impression, you still manage to like it afterwards.

My copy turned up yesterday, and i already feel ready to run the game for my group of players, it took me just a few hours to read the rulebook, and gain a solid understanding of them, ran through a mock generation, practised some dice pools so i feel comfortable with the system. Now i had already read through the designer diaries, the rules forum and the errata so had a good grasp of what was going on before i opened the rule book. One of my players is popping over this afternoon to do a character creation (I always try to get it done before the start of a session individually with my players when possible, as i can spend more time getting a feel for there character, and i find before a game there is alot of out of game talk, something i always forgot to sort out, and general questions about the rules/powers/setting that i need to clear up)so i will report back to see how smoothly or not it went.

So you know my view point i picked up second edition on day of release, have every book in existence (getting all except shades of the empire and the career compendium on advance order from black industries) and was more than slightly dubious about this edition as is my flags shop owner who is also a big fan of second and asked me to report back to him, with how it compares. My thoughts currently are that it will be a far better game than second edition once it has been properly supported, this im quiet worried about as it will destroy things for me if for example i have to stop playing for three months due to the lack of magic/priest supplement as the wizards and priests are linked to rank two out of five, these are the things i am holding my breath for because i feel the speed these come out will make or break the system. From a GM's perspective im hoping that the gathering storm is released shortly after christmas (within january) as i dont feel i have the tools to create a full campagin currently, without doing tons of my own monster talent/spell/power creation that might be out dated within the span of the campaign.

Back to the point, i feel that enough background reading in advance and a quick reading of the rules with some practise die roles you should have no problems running the game, but long term without support we might hit some problems. (I do agree however that the adventures tool kit should have been realeased before) As i am hoping to get mine next week, as it does add that extra player (and yes photocopy, lamanating and writing the extra cards out are options, but are inferiour to having them in front of you imo)

These are just my opinions and everyone is intitalled to there own obviously.

You are not the only person that experienced these issues. It had nothing to do whether you (or we) played 2E before or if we have some previous bias. Obviously if we dropped this kind of cash on the game we were at least willing to set aside such bias and give it a chance.

Our group played it on several occasions and found the game was not at all to our tastes. The things that were supposed to be selling points for this game ended up detracting from it for us.

You definitely aren't alone in your opinions.

Shadowspawn said:

Just curious, what do you consider the "selling points" of the game?

There are definitely some valid criticisms out there, and some in the original poster's comments. I know learning the rules can be difficult given the layout issues, but to be honest, I didn't find it any worse than almost every other main stream RPG out there.

I know you say that you just pick up new RPGs and wing them all the time, but I am likewise extremely confident that if one of you had bothered to read through the system BEFORE you sat down to play, a good number of your complaints would have minimized or eliminated. Still, the game isn't for everyone, nor should it be. That's why there are other companies in business, selling stuff that other people like.

What was the challenge with sharing cards with four people? I'm sure there are scenarios that could be difficult, but I've played a number of sessions now, with five players each (two separate campaigns plus a demo). The campaigns involved sharing cards to build characters. In none of these scenarios was this a challenge *except* sharing dice and having enough center stance/track pieces (and the latter wasn't a real challenge at all).

Having more than three, in my experience, is barely more than a minor annoyance. It's easier to share a few stacks of cards than a single book.

I hope that some people (such as the OP) give it another chance.

The book is horribly organized. As such, it's not a good game to sit down and figure out without first knowing the rules. It's definitely a flaw on FFG's part.

But I for one feel that if you do take the take to decipher the game's rules, that it leads to a more rewarding expereince in gaming.

People get really attached to 2nd edition and I've never know why. The setting is independant of the rules. And we all clealy enjoy the setting.

2nd Edition rules are percentiles, which are a workhorse rule system and simple but they are incredibly dull and offer no versitility. I'm not saying you can't have fun with those rules, but they really do lend to what I consider to be a boring set of rules.

3rd edition is a toolset (to use a video game term). They offer the GM a very versitile way of 'wielding rules' to aid the story. The GM has the power to add or remove Fortune, Misfortune and Challenge dice. Fatigue and Stress offer the GM more tools to balance the right 'feel' that they want to their game. But as with most new toolsets, it's unwieldy and confusion and is not intuitive. At least at first.

If you give it a try and like a little abstract and narrative in your game, I feel that 3rd is one of the most rewarding games out there. I cannot express how impressed I am with these rules. With the 2nd edition rules, I never felt like the system helped me out at all. At best your role as a GM, as far as the rules are concerned, are to impose a -30% to +30% swing to challenges. That really doesn't help me tell the story (it doesn't hinder me either mind you).

But with 3rd edition, you have a lot more free license to use Fortune, Misfortune & Challenge dice and to use Fatigue and Stress as tools to help guide your story and promote the "say yes" attitude. With the action cards, you have more depth to the battles, where decisions are meaningful (when to use your Active Defense cards, which attack cards will you use, etc). And, IMO, it only gets better as players purchase more cards in the future to add more to their repitoire. Adding an action card is so much more interesting than buying +5% to WS or +1A.

But that's just my opinion. For some, this game will be a refreshing change. For others, they will stick to 2nd edition.

I just hope that new GM's will take the time to really figure it out (decipher the rules, as I like to say). Then really give it a try. 1-3 sessions to see if it works. Then love it or dismiss it.

HedgeWizard said:

We had someone that almost failed one of his University coursework tasks because he was reading the rules for the game instead of doing it. I am not complaining about the WFRP 3 system, or claiming the game is in any way bad to play, what i'm complaining about is the fact that the game makes itself so hard to get into that I never found out. We weren't to know before we started trying that the game would be so difficult to get to grips with and so we gave up rather than potentially waste a whole day doing nothing. There is some glaring problems with the way the book gives out information that could have been so easily solved its frustrating, especially when you have spent so much money on the thing.

I have heard from many sources that the game surprises you and is increadibly fun to play, my biggest annoyance is that due to some design choices I never got to find this out.

Kaihlik

Kaihlik said:

The funny thing about this is that the design of the rules is more or less flawless, but the presentations and write up, the layout of the core book is horrible, had someone in the company that I work for presented a layout like that to me I would have sent it back to his desk with a big old "do it again you lazy bugger" remark for him, its simply just sub-par. Now mind you I'm just gonna intterupt myself before I flog this dead horse of mine about how much I think FFG's layout department sucks, not the templates, the look and designs are great, the executions are horribel, they let authors use hyphens instead of dash's, there are character confusion and rivers in the main body text (DotDG I'm looking at you), it's just terriblem horrible and that it gets between the enjoyment of the game and you is even worse, because let me just say this, the rules are great. They (once you deciper the rulebook, I had to call in D. Jones and a CIA linguistics team to do so) it's a rewarding, amusing and first off FAST system, actions are resolved snappily since its so easy to do everyone enjoys it. My advice to FFG is this, revise the core book, the other 3 are fine, the game masters book is actually great, and give it to the people who bought the game already and include the revised rulebook in all new box's instead of the old ones because it is that horrible.

I would also like to call for the books in the core box to be made available seperately or at least the 3 books players will be using. It would have been so much easier if we could each have bought a copy of the core rules to read over beforehand. The box is fine but it is so expensive that buying 2 copies of anything is impractical. We ususally have at least 2 copies of a system lying around to make looking things up easier and so that if someone needed to look something up while a book was being in use they could. We have 2 copies of DH, 2 copies of WFRP 2, 2 copies of Exalted, 2 copies of SoIAF + the PDF download (legal), 4 copies of Rogue Trader (still to play it but my players really like it), 2 copies of the NWoD rules. The only thing we dont have 2 copies of are the old WoD books but they aren't needed as much as we have books for the different games.

I think they need to split the box up soon and start selling components. I also think they need to think really hard about where they include new componants. New componants with every release will soon become annoying as ones aimed at players a group will end up with loads of copies and ones aimed at GMs will likely only have 1. They need to think about ease of play alot more in future suppliments. I would much rather play with some books and a character sheet if it means that I dont have to lug a massive box of stuff for an hour and a half into and across Glasgow, to play on a table too small to accomodate the stuff. Even if I only had to use action cards it would be much easier. Talents, carrer info, stance meter can all easily be transfered to an A4 character sheet if one was designed to accomodate it.

I know you are proud of your components FFG but please take into consideration those of us that find them inconveniant to use then designing your game. Consider people who only get a chance to meet up once a week to play and may not have the time to spend pouring over the rules and cards. You have set your game up to be played in a very specific way but that playstyle is just not achievable for some of your players and as the company providing the game for fans of Warhammer surely you should provide something that suits everyone who wants to play in that universe and not just those that can conform to the ideal.

Kaihlik

To be honest there is no real need for a group to have more than one core rulebook the things you normally look up in it are talents and skills ect. These have all been replaced by cards so no need. But a revised corebook that was actually edited and written in a clear concise language, buying it standalong, sure could be nice to be able to do that, but its not really needed. what I really, really. really want is print on demand talents, action cards and so on or be able to buy them in seperate little sets directly from FFG so that my players could buy their own cards and talents to keep with them if they wanted to, maybe a small career tool box for say a 10'er that contains a career cards for say the Apprentice Wizard, the Acolyte all the say bright order cards the top 10 most useful action cards, say the basic actions and channeling ect for them, 10 talents and a standup or two, a stand tracker and a few tokens. Same could be done for the slayer, or the wardancer when he progress' into bladesinger and so on and so on. That way most groups will still buy a core rule box or two and the expansions, but most players would after a few sessions get attatched to their characters and want a box, 65 pounds is a little much to pay for that, but they would pay 10 or 20 to get something like that.

I havent seen the game up close but couldnt you use a scanner/copier to print up some proxy cards for more players? Ive only played WFRP 2nd ed so im not sure how reliant the system is on all of the stuff in the box but man that sounds bad if you cant scale upward without another set or supplement.

RenoDM said:

I agree with your explanation of what specialisation with hand weapon entails, but regardless there is some confusion of specialisation with hand weapons within the rules. The hand weapon category on the melee weapons table is actually in the group ordinary, and by the definition of weapon group, this is actually what you should specialise in to obtain the fortune die on rolls.

Specialise in ordinary group to obtain forturn die when using hand weapons and daggers; you don't specialise in hand weapons even though that is listed as an option in the weapon skill description (or rather you could, I guess, but it would be pointless).