Hi all,

My group and I finished our first game of WFRP and I thought I would post our thoughts and see what other folks were thinking. We sort of continued the game where our old WFRP2e game had left off. The players had just tracked down a necromancer in Delberz and uncovered some clues that there was a circle of Chaos cultists that were seeking to open a mystical gate behind the Imperial battle lines. They set off to recover a runesword from the tomb of an imperial hero who had died during the last great Chaos incursion 200 years previous.

The PCs were a roguish Messenger, a treacherous High Elf Envoy, a psychotic Bounty Hunter and a Wood Elf Wayfinder. We had a 5th PC playing a cunning Dwarf Mercenary who was unable to make the session.

The adventure consisted of the players traveling through the Reikwald and playing hide and seek with a few herds of beast-men and a mysterious presence which was watching them through chaos infected ravens. The PCs easily evaded the beast-men until late in the 3rd night, when they were hunted and cornered in a bear cave. The beast-man force numbered 1 Gor and 8 Ungors in 2 groups.

The fight was pretty rough for the group. They concentrated fire on the Gor and took him down on the 3rd round, but not before he had dropped the Messenger down to 1 wound. The Ungor then poured into the cave and the Bounty Hunter and Wayfinder went defensive while the Envoy and Messenger tried to sneak in shots from behind when they could. When the PC's finally took out the 1st group of Ungor, the final group (which had taken a number of wounds from charging and stress from seeing their leader slain) backed off and retreated to the forest to watch and wait.

My thoughts: (and considering that this was our first shot with a new system)

• I liked all the cool cards, little markers and dice. They were colourful and made me happy.
• I like the Warhammer world because it is dark and the players are striving against big awful things.
• Character creation was fun. It was simple, but cool going through the cards and selecting the abilities that worked for the characters
• I like the simple stats and skills
• I think it is important to have good party balance in this game… we had 3 ranged combat specialists and a diplomat - it made things difficult when you the PCs were stuck in a cave surrounded by beastmen.
• We had a fifth player who wasn't able to show up - having the dwarf warrior would have been very handy
• The set-up took a bit of time. This should be reduced as everyone has the key components for their characters in the box now, but there is still a lot of stuff.
• There was a ton of stuff on the table (mostly because people had all their cards spread out – but still.) This caused some issues as we have a dice rolling challenged player.
• because we were using communal dice and the area in front of the players was used, rolling was in the middle of the table
• die rolls sometimes got confused with other dice that were sitting on the table
• the game uses lots of dice… Simple rolls used 4-5, but we had a few rolls of 8-9 dice.
• I think the rules were very well thought out and balanced (and that I shouldn’t have allowed a few specific abilities to apply to other tasks – I let a player use his extra fortune dice from being a Waywatcher in a natural setting apply it to a Nature Lore roll that he then used with an action card to get more fortune dice to another roll... yech.
• Characters succeed much more often than in Warhammer 2e, but you can still fail… a lot if you roll badly or are unlucky
• it took a bit of time to figure out what the result of a roll was (this will probably get easier with experience)
• I think if every PC had enough dice for their character (4 blue, 3 red/green, 3 white, 3 black, 2 yellow and 3 purple) they could prepare their roll ahead of time and probably speed the game up.
• I liked being able to use the stress and fatigue tokens – it felt like a good way to build tension and mood without going overboard
• I am not really sure how to do a “random chance” roll – i.e.: there is a 50% chance that the PCs can find a bridge, etc. Probably just roll a set of white and black dice with the number of dice skewed in the direction of good luck / bad luck (but I figured that out later)
• I liked the fortune points mechanic – how they work, how the GM gives them out and how they refresh
• It was cool that people could attach their talents for the whole team to use – I like the party sheet
• The NPCs were easy to use in combat and it was simple to track what was going on
• I think just marking down wounds taken and drawing the critical wound cards would be simpler that handing out cards for each hit.
• Clean-up took a lot of time – I think each player needs a separate box or something for the character sheet, cards, etc.

Some miscellaneous stuff: we were playing with the core set – which only contains components, etc., for 3 players. With 4 or 5 players there aren’t enough dice to easily go around and some people won’t have copies of all the cards. New dice packs are out this week, I think.

Conclusion:

I think the system has a lot of promise, but I am not entirely sure that it is an improvement over Warhammer 2e. Character and moster creation is simpler and I think it is easier to prepare for sessions. There are a lot of cool cards and abilities (and we didn’t even get into magic!) and I have the sense that making, playing and developing a character in the game would be a lot of fun. I think the main issue would be how long it takes to become comfortable with the dice rolls (and I need to improve my understanding of them as well). I had a lot of fun re-visiting the Warhammer world and would love to finish the adventure if we get the chance.

My players:

PC1: "I thought it was a fun evening but I'm not sure we need all these funky dice. I'm of the keep it simple school of thought. I did like the action cards however because it is easy to see the rules associated with what you want to do but that could work in a "normal" setting also. A bit like what we had for M&M. But it was fun to go back to a good old sword and shield adventure type. "

PC2: "I liked the game too. It's easier to hit but it's also easier to "get hit." I don't recall ever suffering two critical hits (incl. a dislocated shoulder before) in the past. I like the old dice system. I think one might get as much out of it just by using regular dice and then add in one or two "special die" for added flavour and all."

PC3: "I like the simplicity of skills and stats; I found the meaning of different dice rolls confusing, but that's purely due to a complete lack of familiarity with that kind of dice pool- a little more exposure and I could get used to it - and man it's nice to get away from d20 for once

-the power cards and the nature of their abilities reminds me a great deal of D&D 4e, the main difference being that such powers in 4e are strictly class specific (but very similar) -I really like the stress/fatigue mechanic

-I like the fortune points- it reminds me of something that's used in Riddle of Steel (except in Riddle of Steel they are 'spiritual attributes' that are tied directly to your character's passions, faith
etc)
-I roll dice consistently badly no matter what rpg I play -I don't know if it's my unfamiliarity with the system, the system itself, or the DMing, but I found it much easier to get into the atmosphere of the game -I thought it interesting that there is a 'character' for the group
itself- neat innovation."

PC4: "I like the world.
– It is cool to get back to the sword and the shield style play.
– The systems seems to be cool, but we need practice for the dice system.
– If we project to play more seriously, we probably need to adjust the group composition
– I'm ready to play more!"

That's it. Any other folks like to share their experiences?

CG7

I'm fortunate enough to be both playing and GM'ing. In the group I'm playing in, several of us have the Core Set (and AT), so we have plenty of cards to go around. We usually end up with a full set of dice shared between two people, so it's not that bad. In the group I'm GM'ing, I have just 3 players, so cards aren't an issue. I own a dice tray. A nice wooden one with a felt bottom. It's in the middle of the table and dice are right next to it. Rolls are made in the tray, then the dice are moved back to the pile next to it. You could do the same thing with a box lid to keep the rolled dice from comingling with other dice. It's a bit more work for me to come out from behind the screen to make my rolls, but I plan on picking up some extra dice so that I can have my own set behind the screen. Building the pools and adjudicating the results gets much faster after a bit of practice.

Players like that they hit more frequently. It still takes multiple hits to take an opponent with high T+Soak and high Wounds down.

Players love using actions that give the GM misfortune dice. They feel more in control.

Players love the flexible Initiative.

Crits aren't as deadly in and of themselves, but so far we've found them difficult to get rid of. Accumulating crits over multiple encounters results in a character ending up in a situation where a single additional crit, even if caused by just being knocked unconscious, will kill them. This limits the amount you can push yourself without seeking long term care.

Insanities that become permanent look to be even harder than crits to get rid of. I fear that you are much more likely to lose a PC to madness than to death.

Managing Stance and the risk/reward of better chance of success or even multiple successes combined with potential negative side effects vs. lower chance of success when hovering around neutral and relying on Characteristic dice is a fun dilemma. And based on the cards I've selected, do I need to think about spending advancements on stance pieces or should I just restrict my career exits to those with the same stance?

Career advancement in general will be full of fun choices the player will have to make. Do I restrict my Career exits to those that allow me to make use of the Talents I already have or do I intentionally want to move to a career that gives me the opportunity to gain different Talent cards, even if it means I can't use some Talents I already have?

Training in Weapon Skill and/or Ballistic Skill will be in high demand since Expertise dice are the only source for Sigmar's Comet and the only die with the Righteous Success. Should I seek out a Career that has (one of) these skills along with other advancement opportunities I'm interested in or should I just bite the bullet and raise them as a non-Career advance (assuming you don't start in a Career that has them listed as Career Skills)?

Taking a Fortune die on a Primary Characteristic is a quick way to get a bump on all your rolls tied to that characteristic, but a Characteristic die is better than a Fortune die, so do you spend an advancement to take the immediate bump or save up (and burn the slots) for the better bump?

Hi Cgeist, thanks for your post.

Im fairly new to this forum, I've been a fan of WFRP since its first edition although I have not played it much. However, I picked up this mamoth box sex and am excited to start gaming in this setting again. Any advice for those interested in playing/running this new edition? Do you use warhammer mini's in your games? I have a fair number of miniatures that I would like to incorporate into play and wonder if 3rd edition makes use of them.

Thanks again.

Joe

Since you may consider yourself fairly new to WFRP (like I am), I would say keep an open mind about the game, and just go with the flow. If during your game something crops up, make a ruling, and move on from there. You guys can check back with the rules later on and correct any mistakes you made in the next game. There's definitely no shame in that. Hopefully, you'll find that what is provided with the game will help you with your game experience.

As for miniatures, there are cardboard standups provided with the game, but do take note that there is only one representation for each enemy type. While the combat is generally abstract, there is nothing which says you cannot use miniatures for this game. Whatever makes your game experience better, you should feel free to do it.