Hi everyone,

this was a really good news, on the updates Upcoming page we can see that The Winds Of Magic are now on the boat so we can gues that the release date will be July/August 2010. Now I think this is a good news becouse I can't wait for this one, so my players.

I can only hope that this will be comming with The Edge Of Night just like The GM Tollkit was with The Gathering Storm.

PS. It would be nice if Jay would give us a next sneakpeak at what's coming next this year and what are the plans for future.

ffgfan said:

It would be nice to know about the actual content of this box:

- how many pages is the book

- how many cards

- other stuff if present (like cardboard parts)

Yeah, and what about:

- (fkg)basic action card for the 4°/5° player???!

It will be about time to have those!!!

Ghiacciolo said:

I doubt this. The core game was written with 3 players and a GM in mind. The Adventurer's Toolkit added Basic Action cards for a 4th player or the GM who wants his own set to reference. The Gathering Storm was written for 3 players. I imagine that the next adventure will be as well. There was not an additional set of Basic Action cards in the GM Toolkit, which may have been a better place that the magic supplement for them to appear if FFG had any intention of making them available outside of the Core or the AT. I personally can't imagine FFG wasting the resources to include additional copies of basic action cards in future supplements. Adding more players is as simple as sharing the cards and/or making copies and the AT has the "official" versions for those that choose to go that route. Including the Basic Action cards in the Magic supplement would more than likely be met with complaints from people who would have the impression that their inclusion meant something else got left out as a result or that they would have rather received some other new useful content instead.

FWIW, both of my groups are down to 3 players. We've become comfortable with this number. The PCs are diverse enough that they are not lacking from having fewer party members than most other RPGs. As fun as the system is, the increase in wait time in between turns from adding too many more people could make the game less fun. Also, there is the issue of fortune refresh which takes longer the more players in the group. It's enough that we've decided to continue rather with 3 than recruit additional players, at least for now.

I still think adventurer toolkit and magic carrer supplement are the most suitable place to add basic player stuff...

after all, why I, as a GM, would have to buy those products? just to let (maybe) ONE of the players play a *whatevercollege* wizard or a ratcatcher??! I think a better market strategy is to sell stuff to the player base too, not just the GM base, wich, according to your post, is just 1/4 of all the potential customers interested in FFG's warhammer roleplay products.

So these products should have intended something like: "oooh, u want to play that uber carrer?go buy your supplement pal!"

mac40k said:

Does FFG really not want larger groups to play WFRP? It's a really bizarre limitation to me. Lots of groups have more than 3 or 4 players. Why would FFG leave them out? Why design everything specifically for the smallest possible group?

As far as I know, your average RPG group consists of about 4-6 people (including GM). Less than that happens, but with 2 players, it really doesn't feel like you're playing in a full group anymore. More than that happens too. My group has 7 people. That's 6 players + a GM. I'm sure we're not the only ones.

So why would FFG only design for the smallest possible group? Why not assume average groups and make allowances for larger or smaller groups? Weird decision on their part.

Everyone's personal experience will be different obviously, but I think our definitions of what constitutes an average group size differ. I think the trend over time has been that group sizes in general are getting smaller. Back in the 70s and early 80s, most games and adventures were written with the assumption of 6-8 players (plus GM). Over time, that number has decreased I believe in part because as there are more entertainment options out there vying for people's time, it has become harder to get a large group of people to commit to getting together regularly for a tabletop RPG. The latest edition of D&D was written with 5 as the optimal number and has rules for flexing easily between 4 and 6. Beyond those ranges, it gets a little more squirrelly. Not saying you can't still play D&D with 3 or 8 players, but it wasn't designed for it. Similarly, the nWoD stuff with its reduction to 5 clans/tribes/whatever, seems to be an acknowledgment of smaller group sizes than oWoD. nWFRP has pushed that number slightly lower, having been designed for optimal play with just 3 or 4 players and a GM. I don't think FFG actively doesn't want larger groups to play their game, but rather acknowledges that these days it's easier to get a smaller group of friends together than a larger one. This happens to be true in my experience. For those of you that are blessed with larger groups, count yourselves fortunate.

Also, and I hesitate to bring this up, but their board game customers are used to playing games with 2 - 4 people. Those customers will more readily give nWFRP a try as they can easily run it with their existing board game group and don't have to go out and recruit additional players like they would if the game were designed to optimally support 6 - 8. Those customers are also prime targets for published adventures since they may lack the RPG experience to create adventures of their own. How frustrating would it be for them to buy the core set, play the introductory adventure in the core, then buy TGS only to discover that it has been written for 6 players? Meanwhile, you'll more often hear experienced GMs claim they don't run pre-made adventures. But even for those with larger groups that do, the system is flexible enough that you can easily mod it to accommodate more players. Far easier than expecting new GMs to pare it down for 3. There are plenty of games designed for larger groups. If anything, games designed for smaller groups is the under served market segment.

mcv said:

At the end of the day, the games are going to be sold with an 'optimum number of players'. This is one thing i have noticed changing over the last 30 years. Scenarios used to be written with 6-8 players in mind, come D&D3e & WHFRP2e that number had dropped to 4 players, and here we are seeing 3 (3-4) players.

From my experinces and observations that is the average group size. In my usual groups we used to play with more but over the years favoured the more compact size of 2-4. In fact I nowadays prefer the 2 player party, but maybe my games a bit more 'Fahrad & The Grey Mouser' than 'Fellowship of the Ring'. And the minimum group size is 1 player and I've played plenty of games like that.