I am fairly new to the game, after buying a lot of the products and never getting to play. I have 2 questions.

1) Is this game discontinued/abandoned by FFG?

2) How similar are the game mechanics to FFG Star Wars? I own all the books for Star Wars and run it weekly for a local group.

The answer to your questions is:

1) Unfortunately yes, the game has been discontinued by FFG and though there was recently a reprint of several of the items it was announced a while ago that there will be no further development of or new products appearing in the WFRP3 line up, which is probably not the news you were looking for, but it is what it is.

2) Though I haven't yet played Star Wars it's my understanding that the game mechanics are similar in as much as it appears that Star Wars is a more refined product having taken some of the best of WFRP3 e.g. dice pools and refined them e.g. dice pool now streamlined so you need to roll fewer dice.

Not that they're similar enough to just use star wars dice to run WFRP3 or anything but I guess someone coming to WFRP3 from Star Wars and vice versa should have a head start. But beyond that I should leave it to others more familiar with star wars to comment further.

I've played in a WFRP3rd game for sometime, and I GM a monthly Star Wars game, so I can speak with some experience relating to this.

I'll put it this way; I don't like the WFRP 3rdEd mechanics, but I absolutely love the Star Wars mechanics. So... are they similar? Yes and No.

As Noel says, the FFG SW ruleset is a refined version of the 3rdEd mechanics, although I would say it goes further than that. For example the mechanics are not interchangeable. 3rdEd damage for example is fixed damage: You roll your attack, and your damage is based on the card action+stat. So 3 hammers for example might translate on a card as +2 plus your stat/weapon dmg.

That's 3 different values you've got to be aware of! Stat+Wpn+Card!

Star Wars ruleset does away with cards and having a fixed damage system.

Each success on a dice roll in SW = +1dmg + weapon damage, so the damage system is dynamic, with each success you get adding damage. This was one of the major gripes I had with 3rd ed.

Say for example you roll to hit in 3rd, you get massive success and it means nothing. I once got 12 hammers on a roll. None of those hammers with exception to the first 3 mattered. I find there is no actual jumping for joy with the way damage is dealt with in 3rdEd.

In SW, this is solved cause now you do certainly jump with joy when you get massive success.

The SW ruleset keeps the narrative of the WFRP system but improves upon it with the threat and advantage system. It's also much more faster as a system. No longer checking cards to see what they do when you get 2/3/4 hammers or checking reckless/conservative stances.

I feel the system is faster, it removes the clutter and removes the 'boardgame feel' that I felt was attached to 3rd. I'd highly recommend it.

12 Successes?

TWELVE????

I often use bonus successes as a means of adding a bit of extra damage or maybe adding some other random benefit.

I would rule twelve successes as an immediate insta-kill as well as a large modification to a nearby geographical feature.

Basically, when I run out of stuff to spend successes, boons and chaos stars on, I use the wonderful powers of imagination. Which can come up with some pretty hilarious results.

12 Successes?

TWELVE????

Yep. Not just that though, usually any successes over 4/6 tend to be useless as most cards are only 3/4. But yeah that's good if you use extra damage and such, but thing is that be you as a GM adding spice to the game (much needed spice) but mechanically there is no actual benefit aside from say a GM house ruling it or making it a crit success.

I got 12 when I was playing as an Ogre Maneater and I was on full reckless and was attacking something, can't rightly recall whatever it was, but I do remember feeling really **** at just how all that extra lovely successes didn't help me

I thought there was an added rule in one of the supplements (Hero's Call?), which enabled you to spend extra successes on extra damage. So 5 successes could mean you use 3 successes to activate the '3 success line', and the other 2 successes could then be used to add +2 damage. This was limited to a maximum addition of the player's rank. So rolling 12 successes would probably mean you still have extra successes that can't be used. For example, 12 successes, use 3 for the '3 success line', if your character rank is 4, then use another 4 to add +4 damage, then the last 5 successes would be 'lost'.

A simple house rule I read somewhere regarding extra successes was that when you used the highest success line on a card you could transform hammers into boons on a 2 for 1 basis. So in the 12 successes example above 3 hammers would probably be used on the action card, out of the remaining 9 hammers 8 of them could be transformed into 4 boons. Probably meaning you could activate boon lines, critical rating, etc. We don't use it in our group, but it seems like a solid house rule.

But I must say that I love the dice system of WFRP3ed and personally I think it's the best fantasy system out there. So if you're looking to get into a fantasy game, I'd recommend WFRP 3ed.

However, going back to the original question.

1) Yes, FFG has discontinued the game, but they did create a lot of content before that. So the supplements that do exist for the game makes it quite complete as most aspects of the Warhammer world has been covered, especially in and around the Emprire. That the game is missing an elf supplement is probably the biggest "hole" in the product line.

2) I haven't played Star Wars, so no new input from me.