I love FFG and own many of their board games. I also play Dark Heresy, which I also like. So, when I heard about the new Warhammer I was intrigued. When I heard about the radical new design elements for an RPG I was excited. I enjoy it when someone comes up with new gaming ideas.

I purchased WFRP 3rd edition as soon as it arrived at the local game store. The quality of the books and bits are top notch. I devoured the rulebook and was looking forward to testing it out in a play session. I liked the success system, party type, wounds, etc.

But...

Abstract range and movement. Before getting the game, this was my biggest concern. After reading the rules, it's the reason we won't be playing WFRP. My group likes to SEE the terrain. Likes to do exact positioning and movement. The abstract range and movement are just too much of a hurdle. It seems like it would become too convoluted with multiple engagements. And, how does it work in dungeons with corridors and multiple rooms and doors? We just prefer greater precision in movement and strategy. Yes, I know that some here don't think WFRP is about dungeoneering. But, we enjoy it.

So, despite liking other aspects of the game, the abstract movement (and a couple of other niggling things) prompted me to return the game to the store.

Hopefully, FFG will release an optional non-abstract movement system. If they do, I'll definitely buy back in.

Never played the majority of the rpg's that do not use maps or miniatures?

Probably wont even use the abstract system in the game here anyway and do it narrative as we have done forever. Its a good exerise for the imagination and moves the combat much faster and easier to focus on the game and not on the grid/minis.

Well, to bad you wont give it a chance just for that....

I'm surprised that you returned it solely based on the abstract movement and range rules.

The system is so open that I can easily imagine house ruling that stuff to use grids and such. I'm sure that someone has.

Ekek said:

Why not just use the movement system found in v1 or v2? Or why not port over any movement system you like? If that's your only complaint, it seems a shame to throw away the parts you do like because of something that is very easily house ruled.

Yeah, I was surprised that I returned it just for that reason, also.

But, I just don't feel like designing a house rule movement system now for a brand new game.

I'll keep monitoring the forums to see if someone comes up with a good system.

Well, the news of the abstract movement system was in the designers diaries for quite a good while before the game could be bought... Just saying... That everybody looking at games that have dev. diaries should read those...

I'm not complaining that FFG didn't say it was abstract movement. They did. As I said in the original post, I knew about it and that was the area I was concerned about before I bought the game. But, I wanted to read the full game before deciding. It just turns out that we didn't like abstract movement and I don't feel like designing a house rule movement system when we can keep playing other RPGs that have it.

I'm not disparaging abstract movement, I'm just saying that it's a system that my group isn't keen on. Others obviously like it.

And, I figure that I should let FFG know that there are some potential customers out here that would buy into the entire WFRP line if they release an optional non-abstract movement system. It seems like valuable information to me, for their design team. I'm just one person with this opinion who took the effort to post on the forum. How many more potential customers are like me? Who knows, I can't say. I can say that if they release a non-abstract movement system, they will get one more customer to buy their WFRP3 products. They will probably also get 2-6 additional customers to buy at least some of the WFRP products.

I reckon the only rules set that I can thing of that have rules for map movement are D&D and Savage Worlds. Even Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader have just paragraphs that state something along the lines of: "Well, if you wanna use maps you can make each square a meter, or whatever." Roleplaying Games always require house rules and some modification, and it's a shame that you returned this game because something as insignificant as this holds you back.

Especially when grid movement and combat in WFRP and DH/RT has been so horrible anyways! Don't get me wrong, I use grids when I play DH/RT, but combat is so static. D&D uses grids very well, but with DH/RT there's no need, really except for keeping stock of the situation (which can be done just as well abstractly). There's no movement within combat like 1 meter steps, or anything; just two people (or more) sitting there wailing on each other. Last combat I played in my DH game there was one turn of movement before the combat remained where it was.

That being said, DH/RT, and all of the WFRP rules sets are my favorite set of RPGs, so I'm not getting down on them due to their movement rules... See what I did there?

Ekek said:

I can relate. Setting up tabletop scenes with terrain etc. for important encounters is essential to the way I run WFRP. However, I'm not sure v3 is compatible with scaled distances unless you have a massive table. I regularly pull out my 4x4 terrain board during WFRP sessions, but there's no space on the table after the cards etc. A 25mm scaled combat system would require a more compact user interface. However, I can totally understand the appeal of v3's movement system for people who've never used minis in WFRP, and incidentally, those are the same people who would've been most likely to find v1/v2's less gamist combat system a bit dull. So v3 is bringing players into the "WFRP family" by catering to a different playstyle.

Herr Arnulfe,

Yeah, I never thought of the fact that all the player cards and bits would take up a lot of the table, leaving precious little room for maps. Good point.

And, I agree that WFRP3 is not aiming at us tactical movement folks. My group just isn't the target audience for this game. Alas.

An interesting debate...

I had to have my say i think that the abstract movement is a breath of fresh air...

I have been playing tactical rpg with the advent of 3rd edition d@d. For a while thats been fun however combats become to tactical in my view very chess match based. I am beggining to resent how its slows down the whole experience.

Abstract is faster for starters and instead of limiting what you do they have added several brilliant mechanics to support the players enjoyment.

I like the fact that things are a little grey because it gives me back the power.. Something using a grid takes away. I sometimes feel it becomes a them and me situation i hate that...

I have always wanted the game to be collaboration of efforts from everyone i believe this system achieves that.

The abstract movement adds more to the whole experience than it removes by being tactical..

Also if you want it to be tactical keep a move action to a certain distance ect ect however why do it.

In my view this is the direction all rpg games should go.

We've been playing with grid movement for a long time with games like D&D3 and 4, d20 Modern, etc... and this will be quite a difference for my group, too. But, it's one that I'm looking forward to it as a GM and hoping that it will help stretch everyone's role-playing and creativity. Yes, it's very different from what my group is used to, but I think in a good way. For our Diablo-esque rpg's we'll still play the games I previously mentioned but I have really high hopes for W3.

Mark

All,

Thanks for all the discussion. This is really a personal preference thing. You guys could probably convince me to give it a try, but I'm not sure I could get my players to buy in on abstract movement. And, $100 is a lot to gamble on.

(The game store took my copy back because I had not yet punched the bits or opened most of the cards. That would not be the case if we ran through the game.)

Suprisingly as mainly a miniatures wargamer, I love the abstract movement. One of my biggest complaints about other RPGs is that I really don't have the time or desire to make one-off terrain pieces or spend hours making maps for playing online. Plus, I have always found the standard movement systems to be somewhat archaic and cumbersome. WFRP is much more streamlined and it shows.

That doesn't mean I don't love the look of models on the table however. There is nothing wrong with using models to represent characters and npcs while also using terrain. As the ranges are abstract YOU can decide how far everything is without worrying about setting up this piece 4 spaces right of the wall and 2 spaces down from the stone column, and that piece here blah blah blah, you see what I mean. But to each his own. If you really wanted to use one of the more literal systems I doubt it would be too hard to convert.

boggle said:

By all means, people should try it before dismissing it. I tried it, and I've dismissed it (for my own games, anyway). There's too much going on in my combat encounters to handle everything satisfactorily with abstract movement. It's part of the reason why I won't run Burning Wheel either.

I agree that if you want a very terrain-rich game that the system doesn't work for you but you can bring a bit of terrain in easily.

I think you can easily use "location card" mechanic to create more specific sublocations bringing a bit of tactical into the fight.

At close range from "sinkhole" is "blazing fire", at long range from both is "entry to castle".

Another option is the location/terrain card is "2nd floor of inn, a series of halls and rooms, no more than 3 characters can be engaged at once (like the tunnel card), anyone beyond close range from someone else is considered in another room and cannot be targeted, maximum range is medium; ** boon indicates a tapestry pulled down on foe, chaos star means pushed out window / down stairs etc.", with GM note, "and of course lots of stunts possible, spend a fortune die and you can narrate whatever helping inn feature you want".

The key to me is that rather than the GM doing lots of work to create terrain, the GM broad brushes the potential the Players narrate what is fun using Fortune dice to make it so.

Rob

valvorik said:

Oh, abstract movement is perfectly fine for having a couple of terrain pieces. Where it breaks down is when you have a gang of mutants circling the PCs' barge on rowboats, throwing grapples and boarding from different sides as the PCs run around trying to repel them, meanwhile a Necron Heavy Destroyer is following behind the barge hacking at its rudder with a 2-handed axe. Add in the shallows that need to be navigated, and the limited light radius from the lantern hung on the bow, and it gets pretty complex. In a fight like that, placing chits between each combatant to indicate relative ranges is actually more work than measuring movements.

As a huge fan of minis and as a gamer who has built a garage full of gaming terrain I had some concerns also about the abstract movement and range system. Now the we've played a few weeks I have whole-heartedly embraced Warhammer's system. However I still like to use minis and terrain. So now I use both but I havn't changed, altered, or house ruled anything; I simply set up my terrain and maps and use markers to determine "range increments", per the standard rules.

What I love about doing this is the fact that I can the need for a grid, or even a tape measure, and use all of my old wargame terrain as well. As far as how much distance equals "x" range, just make a judgement call in the same manor as building a dice pool. When a player ask me how far am I from X? I give him a range increment. However I don't make the mistake of trying to say that each increment equals a specific number of feet, inches, or whatever. Instead I just make an ad hoc decision.

For example; out in a grassy meadow the player at long range from a target may be 200 yards away (just throwing out a random distance). In a dungeon the player at long range may be only 100 feet away (again a random distance). What is important is that in either circumstance the following things still apply: ranged weapons are at Long Range, and it will take 4 maneuvers to Engage the target. The actually distance can be whatever seems appropriate for the environment and the situation. Shooting a bow down a long dungeon corridor with a 10 foot ceiling is very different that shooting across a clear meadow. Likewise moving across an open field is different then negotiating rubble filled, blood soaked passages. The key is to think in terms of what the range means in any given environment. In our game the "range bands" vary from place to place, environment to environment, and sometimes even room to room.

Sometimes the difficult thing with abstration is to remember to think abstractly, and one of the hardest areas to do this in can be range and distance; two things that we are very used to descibing in very specific terms and measurements.

Herr Arnulfe said:

Lol, this example illustrates exactly why I don't play other RPGs, I would never want to be the GM that has to run something like that. I am sure there would be a satisfactory way to handle a similar situation within the WFRPv3 ruleset without getting into such intricate detail. Which IMO bogs down the game and prevents it from actually being fun. If you like these kinds of things then maybe stay away from this game, but I will leave my measuring for Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

On a side note, what is a Necron Heavy Destoryer doing attacking their barge and how does it use a 2-handed axe if one of its arms is a gun? LOL.

Edit: Ok, I have been thinking about your situation, you could easily make the barge itself a terrain card or give it attributes as such. As a note, anything I say below is just off the cuff, I am sure it could be modified easily. We could say the barge counts as medium range to move from one side to the other (so two maneovres to engage someone coming over the rails). Then we could say it is long range from stem to stern. If you layout your range markers it shouldn't be to hard to move around without having a problem. Your navigation could be done by whoever is steering the ship. Have them take an appropriate skill check anytime they get near the shallows and use a progress tracker to increment when the ship moves (every 3rd space counts as shallows or something more irregular). If there is low light then have characters add misfortune dice when appropriate. So you see, it really wouldn't be hard to do as that literally took me a minute to think up (although it is a little rough and could be fine tuned). The great thing about the system is that it is so open and I don't have to worry about all these little details as the system can handle them quite well with a few guidelines put in place, some skill checks, and some modifiers that I can determine all on the fly.

szlachcic said:

Well the players loved it, so I must've done something right.

ek,

I understand where you're coming from. I started out with basic D&D back in 1981 when we had zero details on position and maneuvers..then it kept getting progressively more like the miniatures wargame that it is today. When WFRP2 had essentially the same movement system as D&D 3.5e, it seemed a natural fit. I too have always used lots of rocks, trees and miniatures on my board, but I'm now HAPPY to get rid of the grid. I'm still totally going to use my mini's, rocks, trees, fences, walls, etc, but I'm going to do it this way:

GM:"Bob, your elf is engaged with the beastmen in [THIS AREA]."

Bob the Player: "I'm going to try to use that tree and rock over there to my advantage. Dip, duck, dive, dodge..."

GM:"Great, take an extra fortune die this round."

jh

szlachcic said:

It was actually a mechanoid mutant (Hovercraft Legs) randomly rolled from v2 Tome of Corruption.

I like the a abstract system but i did something beyond what the game intended. I place a dry erase map under the pcs and draw in the terrian, and then put out the distance markers. It works great and doesn't have the players freaking out about their being no map. IMO it's much easier to add terrian in an abstract game, then play without it in a very crunchy move system.

Sinister said:

Do you find the chit / range band system less crunchy than measuring inches?

szlachcic said:

That wouldn't take into account the elevated roof of the barge, the mast, the crates stacked on the foredeck (which could be used either for cover or high ground) and the chaotic close-quarters scrum that ensued once a few of the mutants managed to get onboard. There was also a "drift" mechanic that affected the barge's movement if at least one PC didn't continue poling every round. I like to put a lot of time into making my fights tactically interesting. No offense, but your 5-minute alternative wouldn't measure up.