Tell that to the sisters of battle. All but unmentioned from rogue traders release to very late second edition.

Tell that to the C'tan, who appear at the head of the necron army, despite only having been mention once years before, and so on...

Gnomes might still be canon, but simply not have come up. Do i really want that to be the case, not really, they don't fit well with my vision of the warhammer world, but there has never been a book that deals in detail with the area where the gnomes are reported to live, that has failed to mention them. We haven't had a suppliment that talks about Ind in a while, but i'm pretty sure it still exists in the warhammer world.

zombieneighbours said:

I think it's all just mental blocks you are putting up for yourself. All the answers to your questions are pretty simple to find and in logical places.

zombieneighbours said:

Halflings neither where so core besides the moot aren´t comon, and a dwarf sub-specie tinker would be a chaos dwarf, but again you wpoouldnt see a chaos dwarf side by side with a dwarf, well neither with a high elf, but with the situation after the chaos storm isnt so uncomon than before...

ugrosh said:

Well, judging from the WFRP 3rd edition adventure content that we have so far, Halflings seem to be much more common than elves. Both The Gathering Storm and the adventure in The Winds of Magic have Halfling NPCs while there was not a single Elven NPC in any of the adventures published so far…

Ah halflings...They are inserted into adventures with one purpose: To make light of a situation. Even cannibal, zombie, light-saber wielding, ninja-halflings are simply laughed at. They serve no other purpose and will always only be recognized as such. Whether it be Lord Farquardt or Tasselhoff Burrrfoot, they are simply never taken seriously by players, GM's or anyone else.

Whereas elfs..oh, elfs...oh, elfs. They are simply a goth element that are typically ignored and impersonal. They are usually presented in scenarios as eithe r info-booths or chaps-wearin' moon cowboys imo. I can't even remember the last time a player in any of my groups actually played one either.

Dwarfs. Dwarfs come out almost always as jolly, drunken Santas.

These are the cliche's of our lives (or life's in WFRP).

jh

wfrp 1st ed: halfling core playable PC race

WFRP 2nd ed: halflings playable PC race, halflings place in imperial society codified across multiple supliments

WFRP 3rd ed : halflings disappeared a PCs, while still being relatively common NPCs.

Gnomes are not chaos dwarfs. For a start, chaos dwarfs are from north east of the worlds edge mountains, while the gnomes are south west of the empire. Gnomes are not chaoes worshipping sorcerer dwarfs who turn to stone over time.

(text deleted because the weird forum system messed up my post again beyond any hope of repair)

gruntl said:

Simulationism isn't necessarily reductionist (simulating every sword stroke), and I think a good simulationist system would mean you don't have to worry about everything being realistic, because it would flow naturally from the system.

Whether WFRP is simulationist, gamist or narrativist, I think it's a mixture of all three. It has narrativist tendencies and gamist tendencies, but most of the time, the end result comes out plausible enough to count as simulationist to me. You can probably focus on whichever style you prefer.

I think you get the most fulfilling RPG experience with a good mix of these three aspects, but I'm not sure WFRP actually has the right mix. There are some real oddities in how maneuvers, skills and actions work in various situations. Opposed rolls don't work the way they should. I'm not convinced the A/C/E pool is really worth it (though I guess it's easy to fix that by using more fleshed-out opponents where appropriate). For some aspects to really work, I think you need to play Fate/Diaspora/some similar system first, in order to understand how it's really supposed to work.

The great thing about the system is that it's very tweakable, and the silly bits are easily house ruled. The awesome part about the system is that you can tweak and house rule some really awesome stuff that I've never seen in any other RPG. Example: don't put all your wound cards in one big pile. Instead, keep the wounds you get in a single blow together in a single injury pile. Each injury pile can be healed only once, and the remainder goes to the big "long term injury" pile. Instant (simulationist) awesomeness that I've always wanted but never been able to accomplish anywhere. But in WFRP it's easy and makes sense.

Emirikol said:

Emirikol said:

I don't know, halflings in eberron are damned scary dinosaur riding aborigines, and crime bosses. While WFRP 2nd cast them as really fairly common and important part of the empire. Okay had the pie thing going, but other than that, i wouldn't say that they represented a comic element. Especially not fieldwardens, damned nasty basterd with those slings.

That's what I mean though: they're not truly scary. You may die when facing one, but you'll always die laughing.

jh

dvang said:

It's a mixed blessing. During play, it's great that you don't have to take a pencil to your character sheet every time something happens. But at the end of the session, you need to write a lot of stuff down without there being a good place to write it down, or you lose a lot of information. It doesn't work well across multiple sessions.

dvang said:

It's surprising how few people think about it considering how many people have it. Every company should employ a colour blind person just so they have someone to catch these kind of mistakes.

dvang said:

I don't like them. I would have preferred prospectors and minstrels.

dvang said:

I'm not so sure if this is true for most RPGs. It certainly is for many, but I know plenty where NPCs follow basically the same rules as PCs. And not just highly simulationist systems like GURPS. More narrativist systems like Diaspora or Dogs in the Vineyard also use skills/traits/aspects for NPCs, only they allow you to fill them in during play, as they become relevant.

dvang said:

Not at all. It's not about character creation, it's about using the same rules, skills, abilities, etc. With the A/C/E pool, virtual skills can come and go on NPCs. You might pretend they have a certain skill, but as their pool runs out, it's gone. When you meet them again, no idea if they'll still behave like they have that skill. It gets a lot less consistent.

zombieneighbours said:
A lot of the issues with the game came up to bite me on the arse. I thought i'd gotten the basics down pat, but fairly quickly realised i did not know how many action a character could take, or how active defense worked, or how passive defense worked.

Well, to be honest, that's kind of expected the first time you try a new system. Have you really played a lot of other systems where rules issues haven't arisen the first time you play? I don't find the answers to those questions very hard to find after some looking around. The Clarifications/FAQ is really quite good as a first check for things that you don't grasp immediately, often such issues have been clarified.

As to a cheat sheet, you should really check out the one by Universalhead, it's just a superb piece of work. It's also very professionally done, could have been made by FFG themselves. You can find it here:
http://www.headlesshollow.com/freebies_games.html#wfrp3

mcv said:
Simulationism isn't necessarily reductionist (simulating every sword stroke), and I think a good simulationist system would mean you don't have to worry about everything being realistic, because it would flow naturally from the system.

Whether WFRP is simulationist, gamist or narrativist, I think it's a mixture of all three. It has narrativist tendencies and gamist tendencies, but most of the time, the end result comes out plausible enough to count as simulationist to me. You can probably focus on whichever style you prefer.

I think you get the most fulfilling RPG experience with a good mix of these three aspects, but I'm not sure WFRP actually has the right mix. There are some real oddities in how maneuvers, skills and actions work in various situations. Opposed rolls don't work the way they should. I'm not convinced the A/C/E pool is really worth it (though I guess it's easy to fix that by using more fleshed-out opponents where appropriate). For some aspects to really work, I think you need to play Fate/Diaspora/some similar system first, in order to understand how it's really supposed to work.

The great thing about the system is that it's very tweakable, and the silly bits are easily house ruled. The awesome part about the system is that you can tweak and house rule some really awesome stuff that I've never seen in any other RPG. Example: don't put all your wound cards in one big pile. Instead, keep the wounds you get in a single blow together in a single injury pile. Each injury pile can be healed only once, and the remainder goes to the big "long term injury" pile. Instant (simulationist) awesomeness that I've always wanted but never been able to accomplish anywhere. But in WFRP it's easy and makes sense.

I agree with everything you write here. Mixing the three aspects is a good thing, it's just that I often find games that take the simulationist approach to the extreme to be quite boring, and I really don't find wfrp3e boring. I really like the "solid basic system - few detailed rules" approach that WFRP3e has, as you say I think that makes it incredibly easy to come up with quick, believable additional rules when needed.

Opposed rolls are fundamentally flawed (they don't scale well at all once the actor starts getting many dice), I don't like them at all. I would probably never use them if I was a GM, instead relying on competetive checks and progress tracks. I guess they can be fine to use if you need a on-the-fly solution though.

gruntl said:

mmm...WoD, 2nd Ed WFRP and call of cthulhu 5th (one caviat, i ran it recently after a long break, and had forgotten how initiative worked, so was left scrambling(the combat section is not amazingly well layed out)).

All of these systems are so intuative that, I was able to pick them up run, with minimal issues, after only a quick read. Of them, WFRP is hardest to do that with, but still possible.

The trouble i had with 3e WFRP where beyond what i would normally have, which is why it was worth mentioning.

I was, uncharacteristically, playing purely with books, and did not have internet, due to the location, so the clarifications where not easy to find. The issue really was that due to the poor lay out of the book, it was very difficult to find the answers at the flip of a page.

When i get a new white wolf or Paizo book, i can within about three days, instinctively flick to the right page in about ten second. I have had 3e WFRP since before christmas, reading it speradically, and i cannot do the same with it's books.

Thank you for the cheat sheet, you sir, are a scholar and a gentleman.

I just wanted to say thank you for disagreeing, but not acting as through my perceptions and view points on the game are either invalid, or the result of close mindedness.

This game is not simple to learn. It took me two complete read throughs to grasp the basic concepts in this game. While simple once you learn them, I think the formatting and organization of the books makes this game harder to learn than in needs to be.

I've never had to read through a game twice for other games I played to get a "Basic" grasp on the rules before. I've played D&D (v1 thru 4), Shadowrun (1st & 2nd ed), Vampire:tM (1st ed.), Deadlands (orange books), WFRP 2nd Ed, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, DragonAge: The RPG and most likely others I'm forgetting. I've never had this level of learning curve in a game before.

The most recent game I read through has a similar effect system with it's dice but is WAY simpler to learn and use. It's the dragon die system put out by Green Ronin for the DragonAge RPG. Rolling 3d6 (two dice of one color and one of another) and I can get the level of complexity that WFRP3 offers on every die roll. The odd colored die is referred to as the dragon die.

Doubles rolled on any two of the three dice equals a critical effect called a stunt. A separate list defines what you can do when stunt points are generated. Effects are purchased with points equal to the number rolled on the dragon die. Utilizing this chart is really no different than looking up the symbols on the WFRP3 dice summary chart to interpret them.

The number rolled on the dragon die also indicates the level of success or failure when appropriate. A failed roll means you want to pay attention to how low the dragon die number is. A successful roll means you pay attention to how high the dragon die number is.

That's pretty much it... and Green Ronin didn't have to come up with a bunch of multi-colored polyhedrals with a ton of symbols to do it either.

I'm not trying to knock WFRP3 down and say it's a horrible game, but it's WAY more complex than it needed to be, while espousing in the rules that is so simple to learn and use with no need to reference the rules during play.

Kryyst said:

Why would i have a mental block exactly?

gruntl said:

I have a similar experience. I used to be a big fan of GURPS (the king of simulationist extremism, I'd say), until I realized that actual play was just too much work. I have to accommodate the system, instead of the other way around. I want a system that works for me and takes work from me, not one that I have to work for and gives me extra work.

On the other hand, many experimental "indie" games (usually highly narrativist or gamist) just lacked that feeling that what we were doing mattered. They were too gamey, too gimmicky, and lacked a decent foundation in a plausible imagined reality. Well, Dogs in the Vineyard actually worked quite well last weekend (mostly because we had some really interesting and unexpected plot twists, which I love), despite the fact that everybody died. Mostly, though, I'm looking for systems that respect all aspects of play. I haven't found the perfect system yet, but WFRP is on that list, as are Diaspora and The Riddle Of Steel. I also want to take a look at The Burning Wheel some day.

gruntl said:

I've been looking for ways to fix opposed rolls. I like the idea of handling everything in a single roll, but WFRP's dice are too asymmetrical for that: I want "negative" characteristic and expertise dice just like misfortune dice are negative fortune dice.

LeBlanc13 said:

Exactly. The system is easy, but the rules are hard. Or the rules make it hard, or something. I think the rulebook needs to cut down on all that text. Start with two pages that explain short and to the point: this is how the system works. Everything beyond that is all based on these simple basics. There you explain how to interpret dice symbols, and what actions and maneuvers are.

And they need to make that distinction far clearer than it is now: an action generally requires a skill roll, yet a maneuver can be a skill roll? Can I perform First Aid in the middle of combat? Can I use Guile and Honeyed Words for the same purpose in the same turn (one as maneuver, the other as action)? Can I use Steely Gaze in the middle of combat? These really basic aspects of the game is not explained anywhere.

If you've got two different things you do in a turn, you've got to make sure that they are different and each serve a role: a maneuver gets you into position, an action tries to accomplish a goal. So a maneuver means to move a little bit, or you give yourself or someone else a small bonus or penalty, whereas an action makes use of that positioning to really accomplish something, whether it's hurting someone, healing someone, or moving a marker in social combat.

This is how it should work. Or, if this is not how it should work, the book should start by explaining how else this is supposed to work, because at the moment, it's not clear at all, and maneuvers and actions are trespassing on each other's turf.

And then, after they've made that clear, they should continue to explain how this works in combat, how it works in social and other situations, every time explaining what the role of actions, maneuvers and skills are in that situation.

mcv said:

I would have killed for the rules system to have been handled in the way your describing here. Nice clear writing. Add in solid examples of how each element works, at each step, and your onto a winner.

mcv said:

This is huge ! EXCELLENT explaination.