** WARNING! THIS POST IS RATHER LONG AND WITH IMAGES **

Ok, I am back from GenCon! I had an extraordinary amount of fun. Of course, I haven’t been to a gaming convention in about 15 years.

I arrived Wednesday afternoon and my dad (who is an old-school gamer) wandered around checking out the various venues and picking up Will Call tickets.

Thursday morning was similar as we looked at the various gaming rooms (mostly boardgames).

Finally, 10am the Exhibition Hall opened and I headed over to the FFG area to see Jay Little. I said hi and we talked for a few minutes. Little did I know that this was going to be the only time I would have to speak with Jay during Hall hours. We talked for about 15 minutes before people began stopping by to ask about WFRP. I left Jay to start his spiel while I went to buy stuff from the FFG booth. (Signs of Faith, Into the Storm, Arkham Horror minis, and Space Hulk:Death Angel card game, if you’re interested). With products in hand, I got into the Deathwatch line about 10:30am, for the 12 noon sales start. I was still like the 30th person in line.

FFG’s demo area. It was Big, and constantly busy throughout the convention, from what I could tell.
Those pictures were taken while I was in line for Deathwatch.

Various photos of Jay demoing and explaining the new WFRP to packed tables throughout the convention.

FFG also had a room for their boardgames, where I spent a large portion of my time watch or trying various games like Descent, Starcraft, Tannhauser, etc.

I don’t know how many people know this, but I am the lead for a WFRP playtest group. It turns out, FFG had some extra seats for the Ennie awards on Friday night (of which FFG products, WFRP and Into the Storm in particular were nominated several times) and Jay was wonderful enough to invite me to come along and sit with the FFG folks.

I was introduced to Ross, Sam, Zoe, etc, and also Dan who is Jay’s main co-conspirator on WFRP. I was happy to meet them all, and everyone was very nice to little old me.

Here’s the FFG crew sitting in the front row. The empty seat next to Jay (umm… yes, that *is* a beer in his hand) is where I was sitting. FFG won 2nd as Best Publisher of the Year. Considering the field of nominees, it was a slightly unexpected (but well-deserved) win.

(again, I apologize for the crappy photos) Jay giving a spontaneous, but well deserved, acceptance speech for FFG.

Finally, and probably of most importance to everyone …
Saturday afternoon Jay gave the “Small but Vicious Seminar”, which gave information about the next years worth of WFRP products.

Again, please excuse the crappy photos. I’m not very good with my camera, so I’m sure I didn’t get the setting optimal for the room/lighting. I tried to take a pic of each of the slides. I’ll add notes after slides about that slide.

First up is Signs of Faith. Available at Gencon, it’s the newest supplement. It includes priests for the remaining human deities, as well as leveling them to Rank 3. (I purchased it, but haven’t opening it as yet.) Also included is information about Nurgle, his followers, and disease. The disease mechanics are excellent. A disease card gets placed into one of the PC’s (or even a pet’s, or Party’s) talent slots. While there, it disables that slot. Ick! Additionally, a disease can gain “symptoms”, thereby becoming worse and adding additional negative effects on a player. Even better (or worse for the players), if the Severity total of a disease+all its symptom cards ever is greater than a PC’s Wound threshold the PC will die. Ouch! Diseases are pretty nasty for a variety of reasons. Very cool, IMO.

Creature Guide! A hardcover book that includes all the information for all the monsters released up to Signs of Faith. Additionally, there are some new monsters introduced. It is the only one fo the 3 new hardcover books to have an real new information in it.

The Creature Vault. It has a lot of stuff. Firstly, it has large party/organization type cards. These are used for Groups of similar-type monsters. For example, the card in the picture is for Greenskins. The top track is for their Waaagh! And the bottom for their Morale. Every monster group category (Beast, Dark Elves, Greenskins, etc) has their own card. There are a couple exceptions, like the Skaven, who get a couple cards based on clan (Skyre, Pestilens, etc). Additionally, every monster Action printed so far has been reproduced as a separate Card. These cards include both a Red and Green side, in case a GM wishes to alter a monsters default stance.

The Creature Vault also introduces Monster Cards! Yes, each monster has its own card. These little beauties are crammed full of information, yet look to remain very pretty. I’m not sure how well you can see the photo, but showing as example are the Griffon and Witch Elf

Looking at the Witch Elf, we can (hopefully) see the anatomy of the new cards. Top left is the Threat value. Top right is the Wound Threshold. Along the left side are the stats, and along the right side FFG has broken out the default Damage/Defense/Soak value out of the stat block. Below those is an icon, that for the Witch Elf, matches the Melee Action Card symbol. This icon informs the GM was type of additional action card, should the GM desire, to add to the monster’s abilities. Below that is a bunch of text, using mostly keywords, for special abilities (which can be referenced in the Creature Guide). Left of that is the stance, and at the bottom of the card are the handy A/C/E values. Lots of stuff, but nicely layed out IMO, and still room for some very nice artwork.

Player’s Guide. The only “new” information it has is an ability to use percentile dice to generate a race/career. Other than that, the guide is a hardcover compilation of errata and additional examples of all the player material. The book also contains charts of all the current Action Cards available to the players. Also, there is a detailed example of character creation, and other examples to make rules clearer.

The Player’s Vault has all the goodness (and more) needed to add an additional player to the game. Career standups, a copy of the action cards available to PCs, careers, talents, etc. This does not include any dice.

GM’s Guide. It is hardcover as well, consolidating all the GM rules from all the supplements, which includes Corruption and Disease. It has percentile charts so GMs, should they desire, can roll percentiles to determine Criticals, Insanities, Diseases, etc. if they don’t want to use the cards. Again, it doesn’t really have anything new, merely clarifications and errata and consolidation of things from all the supplements. One clarification to note: The intent of Healing is that each healing action can only be used once per day per person. So, First Aid can only be used (successfully) once per day. Splints and Bandages can only be used once per day. A particular Shallyan healing blessing can only be used once per day, etc. (all per person, obviously). IIRC, Jay mentioned that Signs of Faith has information regarding priests “spamming” blessings, and possible negative represussions for doing so (such as being ignored by the diety, ie, NO blessings work).

GM Vault. Tokens, location cards, cards for critical, insanities, diseases, etc. Also, I believe that Jay said it included specific standups for the adventure An Eye For An Eye. The GM’s vault does include 12 dice, although which ones were not specified.

The Witch’s Song! An adventure expected to take 4-6 sessions. Jay mentioned, tongue in cheek, that he heard it was rumored that it might have something to do with Hedge Magic or Lesser Magic. Also, it takes place near Marienburg, and most likely contains information/background on that area.

Omens of War = Khorne! Here’s the things Jay mention are planned for this:
- It is military focused.
- Khorne & followers
- Complete adventure
- Background & history of the Old World/Empire focused on War and warfare. So, important battles, etc.
- Knightly orders
- Mounted Combat (mount information not available at this time)
- Add military careers
- Permanent injuries

Black Fire Pass is the supplement hinted at with the Journey to Black Fire Pass demo. It is dwarf focused. Jay shied away from calling it the Dwarf Guide, saying that the WFB Dwarf Army book is what he considers the definitive Dwarf Guide. That said, it will show the Pass as seen through Dwarf eyes, it will have about 10 new careers (mostly dwarf based), dwarf tech and dwarf runes as well.

What could possibly be next?

Aha! Some cool artwork related to Slaneesh, completing the last of the four Chaos Gods. No actual details available on it, however.

And there you have it! That’s about everything I remember, although Jay is welcome to add further details if I missed anything!

I'm sure that FFG will be posting a video of the seminar shortly, so you can see it in better color and more active than my few poorly pictured notes. Feel free to ask questions, and I will answer as best that I can.

Oh, thanks for this. Now I know it all is worth waiting. Now I'm really geting excited about all the products that's going to be released. It all is looking amazing and the future is really bright! Thank once more and I'm waiting now for the official video from Jay.

This only gives me a prouf that Jay know what he is doing and he is THE RIGHT MAN IN THE RIGHT PLACE!

WFRP is the real hammer! And it all is going to be BIG!

PS> I hope that The Edge Of NIght and Signs Of Faith will be soon avaliabe. And that teh upcoming section will be updated with the new WFRP products.

Holy crap, how much do I want to put my paws on all that stuff

I'm gonna hibernate or something to cut down on waiting

Great stuff

Many thanks for sharing this!

It does indeed look like the game is in good hands.

Wonderful, just wonderful.

Thanks a lot Dvang (and Jay of course), you just dispelled my fear of the new Hardback guides. If the only new rules thing is that percentile rule for character creation, then I have nothing to worry about having to buy all that staff again. I wish that player's vault had dice tho. Players like to have their own dice. On the other hand, how could they distinguish them from the other player/gm's dice?

And the creature vault is just beautiful. Just what was missing from WFRP3.

plutonick said:

And I don't have to worry to about having to buy any of the Vaults or the Core Set. I'm quite satisfied with these infos so far. Can't wait to get my hands on the Guide series. This alternative entry point is a nice idea, Jay, you got a few new customers, I think.

Thanks a lot for the great exposition of photos and information, dvang!

So it looks like I can safely ignore the Player’s and GM’s vaults. The guides look nice & handy enough to be attractive though – but I will probably postpone buying them until I have a bit of extra money to spend.

The most important info for me has been concerning the creature stuff:

• the Vault looks wonderful and I am really looking forward to have these cards ready and stop fumbling around with the large book or awkward photocopies
• but I will also have to get the Guide because there seems to be only very little fluff on the creature cards. I first thought the backside would be fluff info (like on the career sheets) but this is not the case. However, I also appreciate having a nicely sized picture of each creature on the backside of the card to show to my players

So great stuff here, but I will have to spend the full amount of money for both the guide and the vault.

Now we’re only waiting for you to provide us with a sneak peek into Signs of Faith!

If I could I'd nominate your post to the Ennies!

Great! Thanks millions!

/M

"(...) each healing action can only be used once per day per person" - this rule apply during encounters?

Tee hee. It's exciting to see the stuff I've been playtesting finally being revealed to the public.

GenCon looked like a lot of fun. Too bad I'm a THOUSAND miles away.

@plutonick:
Regarding dice in the player's vault. Jay mentioned that players will widely vary. A PC that strongly favors one stance, for example, won't need many green/red dice of the opposite stance, so there will be a toss up on what kind of dice, and how many, need to be included. In the end, since the dice can already be purchased by players as a separate product, it was decided to not include any dice.

@ozean: Ok, give me a day or two to crack Signs of Faith open and review it, and I'll post some info on it if you want.

@Armoks: Well, the discussion was about healing out of combat. My memory is a bit fuzzy. I'm sure it will be in the video. My impression is that it meant all the time, including during encounters. Wounds are supposed to be difficult to remove.

I was a bit disappointed in that I was hoping to have Jay run a WFRP game one of the nights. It would have been great to see how he GMs and see if I could pick up anything to use with my group. Jay and I tried to arrange it a couple times, but it ended up that he was just too exhausted to do anything in the evenings once the Hall closed (I don't blame him). I figure it just means he owes me

Wow, awesome write-up (with pics, no less!) dvang! Really glad you were able to attend and get all of that great information for us. Glad to get some more information about all the new stuff.

Those monster cards look AWESOME!

Really happy that healing and "blessing SPAM" are getting some more attention in the rules.

From the pics, it looks accurate that the Slaanesh expansion is going to veer towards roguish types (with perhaps some social / diplomatic careers too?).

I gather with all the stuff they need to pack into the Player's Vault, there was just not enough room for dice, and with the relatively fewer items going into the GM's Vault, it made sense to put them there instead.

Definitely getting the Creature Guide and Vault, and considering the Player's Guide and DM's Guide too.

The disease rules sound really cool. I'm glad they didn't just replicate the corruption mechanics.

Great write up Dvang, the new stuff looks awsome.

What I would be interested to know now, from the people that have been playing with the current system, and from what you saw and what Jay mentioned, what they/you will be buying and why...

For me, it now seems that both the Creature guide and Creature Vault will be required, despite some speculation previously to the contrary, both are really required if you want a chit heavy game, although it looks like you may be able to get by without the vault, i don't think the guide is optional in that sense now, would you say that is true? I am a little concerned that "some" of the information will be repeated from the guide into the vault, but it looks like the vault and guide will be have enough unique information to make them both worthwhile purchases, at least (although I can't help but think that perhaps if the bestiary had been released at a time different to the guide/vault introduction, we would have seen a more classic 3rd ed release for the bestiary, with less replication of data and a smaller overall price that the combined price of guide and vault; still no point crying over spilt warpstone dust..)

All of the signs of faith material will be in the various 3 guides/vaults books, so someone buying all guides/vaults doesn't need signs of faith, correct?I doubt I will buy the players'vaults/guide, so for me signs of Faith is still a must buy, I think, and I am looking forward to your more indepth review of that, especially the diseas mechanic, hint hint...

The GM guide is the tricky one for me; how much additional information is going to be "clarified" and how else could I get this info, if I don't buy it..? Take your healing clarification, for example, how much other info of that nature is in the book and if I don't buy the guide (because I have the core set) will I miss out on those clarifications or will Jay update the FAQ to bring such clarifications in line? I think that is my concern about that product at the moment, I may need to buy it to get hold of a small number of clarifications, because I don't really see much value (for me) in the other content of the book; if they are "many/" clarifications, i might be able to justify it to myself, but will have to see.

The uncertainty with the guides/vaults aside, the Khorne book looks great and I especially like the concept of permanent injuries that it will introduce; you can beat a player ending up with a false hand after one too many fights in 1st/2nd ed! ... I hope the permanent injuries stuff follows in that vein for 3rd ed.

Its good to see that the other new products are also following in introducing new concepts of the wider world, and therefore usable outside of the immediate explansion; lesser magic in the witch's Song, Dwarf Runes in the Black Fire Pass etc etc,

It would be good to know if The Edge of Night also introduces anything extra in that sense, as you have managed to get your grubby talons on that too....a quick review of that would go down a treat on these boards, I reckon... hint hint, again.....

...oh, just seen you got Into the Storm, not Edge of Night.. I am always getting those two supplements muddled up in my head from some reason....

Was Edge of Night not available, or have you already play tested it?

Thanks for the informative write-up and all the photos, dvang! Answered all my questions and much more.

Armoks said:

I'm sure it means once per day. It shouldn't matter whether it's during encounter mode or story mode. Once per day.

Hmm.. ok pumpkin lemme see what I can handle here:

I expect I will be buying everything eventually... because I think it is all useful.

For me, it now seems that both the Creature guide and Creature Vault will be required, despite some speculation previously to the contrary, both are really required if you want a chit heavy game, although it looks like you may be able to get by without the vault, i don't think the guide is optional in that sense now, would you say that is true?

No. The Creature Guide will give backgrounds for the monsters and stats like the ToA does. So you could buy just the Creature Guide if you didn't want to use the monster cards from the Vault. On the other side, if you already own the various supplements, which already have the various monster backgrounds/info, you could avoid the Creature Guide and just buy the Creature Vault if you wanted to use the monster cards. Lastly, of course, you could buy neither if you already have the supplements and don't want to use the monster cards. Or, be like me, and buy it all. The advantage of getting both the Guide and Vault is that the monster cards don't have enough room for a lot of the creature specific information, so FFG had to use keywords for certain abilites. These can be looked up easily in the Guide for the monster, but if you have the supplement you can easily look up the monster there instead (and thus don't necessarily need the Guide). Again, if you have all the supplements, you don't really need the Creature Guide. It's useful, though, because it consolidates all the information into a single book rather than having to look through each of the supplement books. Of course, as I said, FFG identifies on the monster cards which supplement that the monster comes from, so that makes it a little easier for the GM to look up the information. The one caveat is that there *are* some new monsters introduced in the Creature Guide that aren't in the ToA nor a supplement. The Vault will have a card for them, so having the Guide will be handy, but the background/info isn't completely necessary to using them in a game.

I am a little concerned that "some" of the information will be repeated from the guide into the vault, but it looks like the vault and guide will be have enough unique information to make them both worthwhile purchases, at least (although I can't help but think that perhaps if the bestiary had been released at a time different to the guide/vault introduction, we would have seen a more classic 3rd ed release for the bestiary, with less replication of data and a smaller overall price that the combined price of guide and vault; still no point crying over spilt warpstone dust..)

Well, there is some repetition. Both the Guide and the Monster Cards from the Vault both have the monster's stats. Other than that... The Guide has monster background information and descriptions. The Vault has physical (and two-sided) monster action cards to use, as well as stand-ups. So, IMO, not really a lot of duplication.

All of the signs of faith material will be in the various 3 guides/vaults books, so someone buying all guides/vaults doesn't need signs of faith, correct?

Well, the adventure isn't in the 3 guides/vaults. So that is one thing that is missing. Also, from looking at the slide for the Player's Vault, I don't see career cards shown. Action cards and talents, standups, yes. So, I think that the career cards are still in the supplements only. I could be wrong, though.

signs of Faith is still a must buy, I think, and I am looking forward to your more indepth review of that, especially the diseas mechanic, hint hint...

Yes yes. I'll try to look at it in the next day or two and put up some info.

The GM guide is the tricky one for me; how much additional information is going to be "clarified" and how else could I get this info, if I don't buy it..? Take your healing clarification, for example, how much other info of that nature is in the book and if I don't buy the guide (because I have the core set) will I miss out on those clarifications or will Jay update the FAQ to bring such clarifications in line?

I believe that you will only miss out on additional examples and GM tips. Rules clarifications, like the discussion on healing, are planned for the FAQ. Really, the things about the GM's guide is that it consolidates stuff into one book. So, rather than needing to look in WoM book for corruption and the SoF for disease, it's all in the GM Guide. Oh, and the GM guide has (for those that want it) percentile charts that GMs can roll on to determine insanities/criticals/diseases. It is probably the "least-needed" buy for me, although I will get it at some point just for the convenience of it.

It would be good to know if The Edge of Night also introduces anything extra in that sense, as you have managed to get your grubby talons on that too....a quick review of that would go down a treat on these boards, I reckon... hint hint, again.....

Actually, I haven't picked up a copy of The Edge of Night yet. So, no review of that from me yet, sorry.

I should point out that Jay did stress that, although the game starts centered and focused in Reikland, that their goal was to expand into different regions. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that The Witch's Song takes place around Marienburg, and Black Fire Pass takes place, well, in Black Fire Pass.

Additionally ... I forgot to write that Jay mentioned the Player's Vault (I think it was) had new bigger and double-sided character sheets. Additionally, all the Vaults come in the nice sturdy boxes like the Adventurer's Toolkit (although some are a bit taller because they have more stuff).

I will be buying everything as well, because I just love all those shiny things

I wish I could know that Signs of Faith will be available so soon, so I could send my money to Dvang (along with a crate of beer ) so he could buy me a copy and send over the sea

dvang said:

Are they bigger, because they had to redesign them and include some stuff on it so you can play without components? I hope so, I don't really want to mess with creating character sheets... Or heck, maybe I want to, but only if neccessary.

dvang said:

We've been told that the Creature G + V would include 95% new information.

Thanks for the quick response Dvang.

An interesting take on the creature guide/vault; I think I will end up buying both just to get that extra info on the extra new creatures in the guide. It will be useful to have all info in one place too I guess, it looks like the Creature Guide is the least expensive one on the range too, so shouldn't stretch the bank account too much. It seems a lot of the guide will be replicated info from supplements I already own (or will own shortly...), but the vault looks like it has plenty of exciting things in it, and at least those two products don't overlap too much.

Good to hear the clarifications will be going into the FAQ as well as the GM's guide, I am still tempted by it though. I think the ToA is one of the best "good GM tips" books of recents years in all of the many rpgs I have read or played, and really refreshed my mind set on GMing, which when you have been GMing as long as I have, is always a good thing; it doesn't neccessarily say anything new BUT puts all the great ideas on GMing in one place, so if the guide expands on that it could be a useful buy anyway.

Now about that Signs of Faith review....

Will the Player's Vault contain all of the player materials (action cards, talents, spell cards, etc.) from Winds of Magic, The Adventurer's Toolkit, and Signs of Faith?

RabidWookie said:

dvang wrote:

Well, the adventure isn't in the 3 guides/vaults. So that is one thing that is missing. Also, from looking at the slide for the Player's Vault, I don't see career cards shown. Action cards and talents, standups, yes. So, I think that the career cards are still in the supplements only. I could be wrong, though.

So he is not sure if the Player’s Vault will have the career card that were in the supplements, other than that it seems it does.

ozean said:

He said he saw action cards, talents, etc. in a slide for the Player's Vault. We don't know if that means every action card, talent, etc. will be in the Player's Vault.

Are they bigger, because they had to redesign them and include some stuff on it so you can play without components?

Yes, I believe the intent was to make them have more space to track stuff on the PC sheet instead of using tokens (if desired).

We've been told that the Creature G + V would include 95% new information.

I'm not sure where you got that impression, I don't recall seeing that having been said anywhere. I think you might have misunderstood. The Guide contains "dozens" of new creatures, the rest is just a compilation of creatures from the Core Set and the released supplements (up to Signs of Faith). The Vault contains a lot of new stuff, yes. This "new stuff" are the creature cards and the creature group cards and the creature action cards. The creature card information and creature action card information (other than the non-default side) is all stuff that is contained in the Guide entry/supplement entry for the creature. The only truly NEW information are the creature group cards and the non-default stance sides for the creature action cards (oh, and cards for the dozen new creatures included in the Guide, which is technically new information). So, as I said, if you don't want to use the creature cards (and I kinda lumped the creature group cards in), then all the information you need is in the Guide.

@pumpkin:
Advantages of the CG are - dozens of new creatures ,all current creatures compiled into one book for quick access.
Advantages of the CV are - creatures group cards, all creatures cards (including new ones from the CG), all creatures action cards.
The one possible issue with getting the CV but not the CG ... if you don't have the supplement that has the creature there might be some ability keywords on the creatures cards that you might not be able to work out what they do, which could be especially true with the "dozens" of new monsters introduced with the CG.

I too think the ToA had some great GM info and tips in it. Having a better organized, better example-filled book with new tips as well sounds good to me. However, as I said, it's probably on my "least needed to get" list, although I'm sure I will pick it up eventually.

Now about that Signs of Faith review...

Geez, I'm still at work. Gimme time to get home and open the box, would ya? Do you guys want pictures of the contents too?

@Rabidwookie:

I believe the PV includes all components to add a new player. so, it has stance markers/track pieces, standups, various tokens, all the currently existing PC talent cards and all the currently existing PC action cards. Now, that said, I don't recall Jay specifically saying whether this included careers. I do not see a picture of career cards on the PV slide, which would indicate to me that careers are not included in the PV. I am fairly sure that Jay said the action and talent cards included are everything currently released.