Doc, the Weasel said:

Doc, the Weasel said:

Doc, the Weasel said:

He never said he didnt like the game.

In fact, I believe he said they were having fun with it but was dismayed at the longievity of the game as a campaign tool, i.e. running out of XP and character options way to fast and so forth.

And he is right, even before the game was released people were making house rules to "adjust or amend" rules published in the designer diaries.

However his comment of "brilliant system indeed" was out of line based on the posts he was quoting from. He seems more displeased about the notion that he pays a good deal of money for this game and in the perception of many people who have bought it and played it that options run thin after a few moments and they feel they shouldn't have to make up their own rules or house rule concepts, that the game itself shouldn't paint itself into a corner.

There have been statements that it takes 30 sessions to max out a character and that can be a year or two of gaming at 1XP per session. Well Dark Heresy maxs at like 15,000 XPs, and with 200 XP per session that is like 75 sessions. And many other games only have 8 classes, yes but those classes go to level 20 and so.

The point is, many times on these forums, when someone has a issue with the game they are often flamed and attacked as haters or grognard. The OP has really nothing to do with 1E, 2E D&D 4E and other games, it has to do with WFRP 3E and the posters perception is that for the price he paid, he shouldnt have to house rule, create rules, quite the game or spend more money. And honestly, he shouldnt have to.

Now it is a game, it is a company and they are trying to sell their product and make a profit off the game. Which is not a big deal. Most people would gladly spend extra money for more info and stas and game material (I mean, honestly, Ill buy just about anything Dark Heresy, even the the lunch box). He just doesnt want to wait 6 months to a year or so, plop down another $50 and finally get a halfling and 5 more rank 1 and 2 careers.

I love house ruling games, rewritting rules to fit my needs, style and vision. But it shouldnt be a mandatory approach to a game to make it work in the fashion that many people have had to do with this edition.

I just don't see the huge issues. I have made a few house rules for wfrp v3, but in 20 years of GMing there hasn't been a single system where I didn't need to (or felt he need to) make house rules - not even a single rpg. So that the system doesn't appeal to everyone in it's raw form isn't a flaw. At least the system is very open and it's minor things you need to do really.

IF it's the whole setup you don't like with the action cards and all the other cards, tokens etc. then it's not really something that is fixable. You have to understand that when they picked that design descision they also had to keep the cost down. The cores set has everything you need for at least 30 sessions. There are more careers in the system than there are classes in most rpgs.

I happend to like the fact that progression isn't going along a path like the old versions from basic careers to advanced careers, but that you can instead take any career you want to.

The reason I think some careers should be advanced (witch hunter, wizard, iron breaker, wardancer etc.) is because of the role playing side of things and not mechanics. Being a witch hunter is so much more than just the raw mechanics... For me this new way of doing the careers supports role playing much better, because it's easy to just say "Well just pick iron breaker again... fine by me", because it's a viable progression route and not game breaking in any way. The rules even open up for that kind of ruling, that groups find their own way of doing things. In the old system you wouldn't want to stay a rat catcher forever, because it would severely limit you... in this system it could be fun, viable and perfectly balanced.

Anyways... this debate is going in circles and I am sorry if my post was a bit lame with the "stop playing" comment, but it just seems like you have made up your mind and don't even want to do a few easy rulings to move the game towards your mindset. FFG are not going to fundamentally change the game, so it's just not constructive to complain about things you either can't or don't want to change.

Peace

I love house ruling games, rewritting rules to fit my needs, style and vision. But it shouldnt be a mandatory approach to a game to make it work in the fashion that many people have had to do with this edition.

Well if you don't like the game you have to or leave it. You make it sound like what he posts is the universal truth, but that's just not the case. It's one opinion. I don't share it. Yes house ruling is in order in my opinion, but no worse than other games I have played. On the other hand a lot of groups are playing it by the core rules and enjoy it. It's an opinion... not universal truth. It's not like I don't agree to some extent on the point he makes. It's just that the positive in this game far outweighs those few issues if you ask me.

Hey Peacekeeper_b

That was cool what you said. Very stand up of you to say all that. I'm glad you were able to get was I was trying to say.

BTW....yea Dark Heresy does kick ass! Love it

I think the game's fine with RAW but it also lends itself to fiddling and toolboxing and house ruling as well. It feels like that was part of the intention with the game. Not that its half done by any means, but that its an open sandbox for the GM. Rather than burden him with countless rules he may never need or want it allows him to adapt an excellent core system into whatever he wants it to be.

And covers those players who don't want to fiddle with the RAW as well.

Doc, the Weasel said:

Doc,tW

In terms of "advance careers" I was hoping for careers that had more than two talent slots and more options in advancement (say 3 stats, 2 to 3 wounds). Add some progression on the careers such as going from soldier to knight to inner circle to knight commander.

I'm just curious: how many people would be happier if FFG delayed the core set by a year, raised the price to US$160, but included rank 3 spells and some more advanced careers?

Magnus the Pious said:

You have to do what makes you happy.

Honestly - what are you seeking here now? Validation of your views? Not going to happen - some people agree with you, some don't.

The designer of the game has read the discussion by the look of it. I'm fine with your original post though my group don't seem to have any of the issues you mention. However the post I've just quoted seems redundant and provocative - and unable to be sensibly answered by anyone.

With regards to players relying on the same action cards over and over, hopefully FFG will devise monster action cards that could negate or make common actions, forcing the players to try new tactics. A topic on the subject of what actions players are reliant on and what ideas GMs can try to mix things up might be cool

It is the most incomplete rpg game I have ever purchased. And I have been thinking if this would backfire somehow.

It seems that this thread do provide some answers to my worrying. As it is now WFRP do not offer much as long term play. After reading all the posts on this thread, it confirms my suspicion.

This doesn`t mean WFRP 3rd edition will not have anything to offer in the future. But at the moment it doesn`t have that. I am curious to know what FFG will do about it. They are updated on the forum, and they should have known of any shortcomings the game would have. I am sure they have a strategy to amend this problem.

Only problem is, will they be able to correct this before too many players loose interest?

at the current moment I only deal out 1xp every session or two. this won`t fix the problem concerning long term play, but it may halt it just enough for some additional FFG product comes along that will save the day.

And saving the day, I think FFG will do...eventually

Daedalum said:

Monsters can use all current action cards already. So why not use that double strike against a player?

I understand the point of view for more advanced careers with better slot options, better skills perhaps, careers that are superiour. But I don't want it. I want the rat catcher to be a viable end career and if advanced and superiour careers were introduced that would break the current system. The current careers are no better than basic ones from a game mechanics point of view... and THAT is exactly what I want. So try to understand that the lack of more advanced and superiour careers isn't a flaw, but a design descision that some people find refreshingly enjoyable.

Concerning ADVANCED CAREERS, I've searched everywhere and I haven't found rules about it in WFRP3... Am I blind or what ? What is the exact restriction to start an advanced career ?

Gallows said:

Fine, but it breaks the sense of advancement and achievement if you've become a Swordsmaster or a Witch Hunter and are now forced to become a plain old Soldier in order to progress. The best thing about the career progression system was the sense of working to become the master of a field in some way, especially evident in the wizard and priestly careers. That just isn't present in the new system because of the lack of advanced careers and the samey-ness of all the careers

just to throw my 2 cent into the fray:

We had our first combat last session (first session we created chars and tried to get to know the NPC of the adventure), and after a RP heavy session and a combat heavy session, i finally can say how this system seems to me. First I want to make some things clear, please dont tell me ...

• to stop playing the game because i find it lacking
• to stop complaining about the downsides of this game
• that the game is great because your group is soooo cool and has fun with the game (because i never said or will say "no one can have fun with this game")

My basic problem is, that Pious and some others are correct. The game is lacking. Yes, nothing that cannot be fixed with some houseruling. I had dozens of gaming groups, and tried nearly every system I got my hands onto, and not one of those games was soooo complete/well rounded/made for me that there was no need to house rule.

But ...

I needed to rule small things here and there that we didnt like. In WFRP3 we need to house rule many things that simply dont work. Yes, we could simply ignore those problems, a good roleplayer can do that and all ... but I dont want to ignore 50% of my game. I dont want to tell the wizard player "sorry, only 2 wizard careers here, so ... bad luck, either out of your order and get another career or stop advancing!". Now ppl will tell me "we have this cool house rule where you can repeat careers!!!!". That rule is nice, but its only jury rigging, not a sound rule set.

To get to something I havent seen complaining about in these forums (if I missed something, I apologize), healing. As long as you have an Initiate with the right spells, you dont have damage after a combat. Why? Because after the combat the Initiate spams heals to remove any and all damage incurred by the party. As Favour can be gained ad infinitum, spells can be cast ad infinitum.

My main problem with the previous WH systems was the high lethality (I simply dont like to create a new toon every month) and I hope its different here. Unfortunately it isnt.With the plethora of NPC actions that deal crits, you amass crits and when your wound threshold is exceeded you're dead ... a bit slower than before (where a mob with more than 1 attack could kill you in 1 round) its not really what I hoped for.

I know, WH is dark and gritty ... but the chars one plays in an RPG are (most of the time) not those people that die in the first wave of an engagement, but those heroes that survive despite the odds.

A last question to all those, that think houserules solve all those problems: was there ever a game, where you needed to houserule so much as in WFRP, so early on from the release?

@willmanx: advanced careers have requirements on the backside of the card, right before the trappings section. disciples need to complete initiate, acolytes need to complete apprentice wizard, giant slayers need to complete troll slayer and kill a troll or similar dangerous beast, etc ...

I agree that rank 3 careers would have been nice, at least for the tiered careers (priest, wizard, etc.) but there aren't that many groups who manage to have over 20 sessions in 6 months AND have everybody alive to see rank 3 and a third career. Don't you want to go explore more characters and careers? What's the problem with finishing campaigns at rank 2 and then start a fresh one? By the time your second wave of characters get to finish their second careers FFG will surely have more out.

Anyway, you always redo a tiered career and count it as the next tier (i.e. after completing an Acolyte career, you start it all over again but just call it "Wizard" this time) ... it's not like the third tier careers will have anything special that the 2nd tier ones missed. You shouldn't be here for the accomplishment, you should be playing for fun... and besides the flavour aspect careers are nothing more than template that gives you slots for advancing your character in different areas! Oh, and you can always get fan-made careers, most of which are well thought out and will probably be a close match to the original ones when they do come out.

So stop the whining already!! What do you expect - FFG to rush and ship you a Box-o-Careers? Or to print some 17 books each month for you to have a "complete" system? You call the game expensive and incomplete, but if you compare it to a more complete system say D&D4 you'll see that WFRP is much cheaper and still offers more - it lets you tailor the experience to your group without worrying about breaking balance.What do you expect anyway? That you can play everything RAW as is out of the box, without adding anything for over 6 months and still have the same experience? You can always try different ideas for adventures with different characters and different goals.If you don't like certain rules - make house rules or try what others have done. You can't expect the game to be customized and tuned specifically for your taste! The majority of people likes it as is and is perfectly happy with everything that came in that box. I don't believe there was ever a game that pleased everybody. Don't expect this one to be the first that does.

If you follow the rule of 1 advancement per session, it should take quite a while before your Wizard career path is over and done. By that time, I'm sure we can expect a magic supplement.

Also, why couldn't a Witch Hunter take Soldier for his next career? He's still a Witch Hunter. Adding Soldier just means he takes up a more military approach, perhaps joins an armed force. It would make sense for the character and would add new advances to the character. But then, my experience of the previous WFRP was the opposite: I felt advancement was too slow and it took ages before a cool career like Witch Hunter even became available. That may be because we can only play for about 3hrs a week, but that makes the faster advancement of WFRP3 perfect for my group!

And again, so much is in the hands of the GM. if you want fast advancement, you can let your Zealot become a Witch Hunter pretty quick, but you could just as well rule that the character needs to really prove himself to the church of Sigmar, undergo tests etc. before becoming ordained as a Witch Hunter, which would require the char to finish at least two careers before being able to rise to the rank of Witch Hunter.

It's all possible and I vastly prefer this to the 2nd edition system, personally, where my Initiate of Sigmar became pretty annoyed about the fact that he had to wait quite a while before being able to do anything interesting like casting divine magic.

None of this needs houseruling to "fix" things in my opinion, the game just empowers the GM. So, for me, it works.

Then again, if it doesn't work for you, I'm sorry. I realize this is indeed very different from the previous version and it's not to everyone's tastes.

As for combat problems, I haven't played enough to comment on that yet, but I'd just like to stress that one person's disappointment may be another's relief.

willmanx said:

You're right. The only restrictions I found are in the advance carrers sheets, asking for a precise carrer achievement first. Very easy to house rule.

Iffo said:

Most groups I know play once per week, and skip the regular date about once per season. So yeah the average groups where I live, plays about 24 times in 6 months.

And no, I dont want to quit my character after 6 months ... maybe you get bored with your character after 6 months, I dont. Ever tried making a character that is more than some stats and and a bit of fluff you make up as you go? Sorry if I sound a bit pissed, but after being called a powergamer for years, now I get admonished for not dumping my toons after 24 sessions .. thats ridiculous.

Iffo said:

Yes I can HOUSE RULE that careers can be repeated, what one misses is a new career ability. And to get to the part where you tell me how to play ... you wont believe, but I dont need you to tell me how to play. It's not in your competence to tell me why I should play, and for the records, I do play to have fun, I just dont have fun with a lousy system. An please stop repeating that the game can be made to work by fan work, it doesnt become more useful if you repeat it again and again. Yes, I can pay a construction team to build my house, and then fix all the errors they made ... or I can complain about it and try to get them to fix it. Dunno what you would do ...

Iffo said:

If i pick up DnD/Shadowrun/{nearly any RPG} books for 100$, I can play a lot longer than 20 sessions before having to resort to house rules or new characters. Heck, we played for over 2 years with only the 3 core books from 3rd edition (which cost us 60 bucks together) ... and we could have more thatn 3 players with only these 3 books

So your claim that its as unfinished as all other RPGs is plain {fitting swearword of choice}, No Pen and Paper RPG I found has a 3 player and 6 month limit in 100$ worth of material. Most Core Rules which cost between 20$ and 50$ can be used by more than 3 players, and played longer than 24 sessions, before needing to resort to additional supplements.

Just a small question to all the "go fix it yourself"-preachers:

If you bought some other product and it didn't work as expected, would you fix it yourself or expect the dealer/manufacturer to fix your situation?

phobiandarkmoon said:

But your not liking it is quite different from the claims that it is not complete.

Personally I have no idea whether or not it is complete - FFG may well spring more advanced careers on us some time in the future - particularly for specialised careers.

While I love the system the lack of clear direction about what is coming up beyond the next expansion or two is frustrating and leads to lots of roundabout debates like the one here.

Personally I see the Core Set as something akin to the old red box D&D starter set, but on steroids. It is enough to last my rather slowly progressing group for ages but I understand the frustration that some people are feeling with magic careers and the like.

TonyACT said:

The Red set is barely at all like this set. It was like $15 (sure it was 27 years ago, but inflation hasnt made that $100). Wasnt limited to GM +3 players and was readily supported by the blue set quite quickly. And it didnt need house ruled, as many people here say it does, and it was 27 years ago when RPGs were quite in their infancy.

And it didnt replace/wipe out the older rules which were still being published simultaneously.

Unfortunately this argument/debate/thread is reduced to the "stop saying bad things about my game" "I like the game but you arent listening to what Im saying" and "FFG is flagged in the head for making this" camps. No one is really going to change their minds.

Experienced RPGers are going to have no problem making new rules and adjustments.

People who get to play on a irregular basis will not face this problem for a lot longer then regular players, like high school and college kids who can, almost without fail, play weekly.

If the game is targeted to draw in new fans, it will hit a brick wall as they may not have the experience to house rule. And if it is to draw in new fans on the concept that they should only play in once every month or two, they will more likely eventually pass to another game.

If the defense of the game becomes it is not meant to be played weekly and not to be played by newbies, then it becomes an elite niche game and will probably disappear into obscurity in a few years. Which is a shame.

phobiandarkmoon said:

I plan to take Swordmaster and Witch Hunter and other careers that seem "progressed" but not "advanced" out of the initial deck before I deal them out to the players. Then they can aspire to those careers as well.

willmanx said:

WFRP Rulebook, pg 28, Chargen Step 2: To determine the character’s starting career, the player shuffles together all the basic career cards not in use by other characters, and draws three careers at random.

You can't start in an Advanced career. When changing careers then, at a minimum your current career and the Advanced career will have one trait that is not in common.

As for completeness. It was fairly obvious from the start that the Core Set was never intended to provide a "complete" game. No Halflings (coming in a later supplement), incomplete Wizard/Priest spell/invocation lists (coming in a later supplement), Slim Bestiary (looks like we'll get a few more in the campaign box), etc. Heck, they've even hinted at the possiblity of additional types of dice. It was also a given from the start that the system was designed to allow easy expansion and that all expansions would be boxed sets adding new careers, action cards, talents, locations, items, etc. along the way. Long term play is dependant on future releases, which is what FFG is counting on to have a viable product line. Now whether or not the pace at which they release material keeps up with any given group is questionable, but the fact that the game costs what it did and is incomplete and/or will cost you more if you want to keep playing it was fairly well known going into it. Really can't believe people are surprised to find out that FFG intends for you to have to buy more product.

Seriously, how many threads back in the old days were started by someone looking to get into 2e with the question, "What do I need?" Only to be answered by the vast majority of people, "Just the core. Now if you want to spend more, here are some of my favorite supps, but really all you need is the core." That model doesn't have long term profitability. The other route is to release an "incomplete" game that requires you to buy future expansions to be able to keep playing. The risks with this model is that you have to release product quickly enough to sustain interest without overwhelming your customer base with too many costly expansions in a short period of time. Some people will play through the existing material and be champing at the bit for the next expansion while others on a tighter budget may feel they can't keep up, so finding the right balance is a key marketing decision. At some point they also risk the amount of product being overwhelming to new players, but at least new players can still get it piecemeal and at their own pace.

The game does have long term playability. The core set does not. If they don't release product quickly enough to keep pace with your individual group's pace you have the option of starting another campaign (maybe Gathering Storm) with new characters or putting your game on hiatus until additional expansions are made available. Whether or not you are willing to continue to spend money is also going to depend on your own budget and whether or not you are enjoying the game enough to keep doing so. Since I'm sure FFG intends to keep making money from this product for several years, I wouldn't expect the game to be anywhere close to "complete" anytime soon, if ever.

Is it more expensive than many other RPGs? Yes, but personally, I am enjoying this game more than any other in recent memory. I look forward to additional expansions and running out of play room anytime soon is not currently an issue for either of my groups. I think my money was well spent and I look forward to giving FFG more of it.

Iffo said:

Actually, you bring up good issues (although in frustration). If Jay could put out a 1 page guide of "What is an advanced career? How do you qualify? What's so special?" etc., we could probably make some strides on what to expect.

There are players who like to switch characters and there are players who like to rank-up. I think FFG should follow the lead of what MMO's and other successful game systems have done and cater to both.

jh

mac40k said:

Once again, Mac40k comes in and says exactly what I would have said, only better.

@Hedgewizard: Waitaminute, did you mean that I said it better or that you would have?

OTOH, I thought we already established that I'm just channeling you anyway.