What was wrong with 1st edition? Why was a 2nd edition necessary?

By Emirikol, in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

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Back to the original topic,

Much of what needed to be said about the reasoning for the publishing of a 2nd edition has already been said. I'm speaking as a grognard, but confessing that the v1 rules had their limitations. V2 brought some fixes, and as others have mentioned, these fixes were imperfect.

In regard to the setting, I honestly think that BI deserves thanks from the grognard camp for not ditching the old in favor of the new version of the WH-world, but for trying their best to show how you could read the v1 WH-world into the GW-mandated world. Knights of the Grail, I think, is the best example of that.

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LeBlanc13 said:

I second ALP's response.

I hate systems that restrict casting of spells for no better reason than to "balance" the game. Frankly, I like the path that 4th edition D&D took by giving out spells with unlimited castings and restricting more powerful spells to once per encounter or once per day. That fits a little better.

The WFRP 2nd rules, by far are better than the D&D 4th rules though. I find with Dark Heresy games and with WFRP 2nd edition, spell casters think long and hard about casting spells for fear of the reprecussions of miscasting. Perils of the warp and miscasts really go a long way to balance things. If the party is in trouble and their spell caster suddenly becomes possessed it won't go well. The random factor in WFRP and DH really help to enforce a sense of danger in casting that just isn't there in other systems I've seen.

I agree. And also, 2ed didn't just bring the mechanics for unlimited casting / dangerous casting. The apparitions that were common to those with Magic Sight (I don't remember it's names) didn't have any system mechanics to appear. Nor they had any systematic effect. But they were there for the GM to usem them or not.

Once, in a game I was GMing, a player started to use a lot of magic one after the other. It was all in-character, 'cause he was playing an orphan 15 year old girl who was picked up by a Celestial Wizard because he saw her potential right away. She was very relutant to interact with anyone, but was getting kinda addicted to magic, because it made the world change.

It was all happening in game, but as she was only a starting character, she rolled one dice to cast spells, and wasn't getting any 1s on them. So she started to hear the sound of wings, terrible wings, and they were getting closer and closer each time she waved a spell.

It was amazing roleplaying. The character ws frightned but went on, till the apparition showed itself and she went running through the woods, feeling it's claws ripping her skin. The rest of the players managed to end the Beastman they were still fighting and found her, aparently colapsed from tiredness, full of red-skinned lines in her body, like she was having an allergy of sorts...

A pity that game never went on...

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Schmee said:

Our TEW campaign was the longest campaign I ever ran, lasting 10+ years, on again/off again gaming.

10 years campaign??? Man... I just have to stand up and clap my hands for you for a bit.

Did it end? It must have been... I don't know a good expression to that... cosmical.

That makes me recall in the end of the 90s, start of the 2000s we had a fanzine called "Unfinished Campaigns" (in portuguese it does sounds better).

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LeBlanc13 said:

One of the problems with WFRP earlier editions was GamesWorkshops refusal to let go of the leash on ANY of their products. They have made some of the best skirmish games and board games around, but when they discontinue them so they can focus on the big boys these "lesser" products are left to languish. Thankfully they decided to turn over the licensing of their RPGs to a company that could put some serious effort into them with existing product lines to keep them afloat. FFG has resurrected GW's products and really invigorated them with their staunch support of the IP.

Dark Heresy was about to be canceled on another one of GW's experimental tangents. They create something great and then cancel it because it doesn't bring in the cash that WFB and W40k do. It annoys me that this company has such talented game developers that give up on games too quickly because they want to focus on those two tabletop games.

Anyway, I think the RPG franchises for Warhammer and 40k are in good hands now. Hopefully they'll continue running for a VERY long time.

What I do miss, even if I was not around to get them, is the narrative-only "suplements" Bl released. I'm guessing they came with 2ed, but I'm not near being sure about it.

I'm talking about Blood on the Reik, the Liber Chaotica fours (and the compendium) books, The Witch Hunter's Manual, the one about the Storm of Chaos... They were really great books and fun to read. And I do love the in-world books concept.

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Well they still may do more of those suppliments, why just last year they rereleased the Liber Chaotica in a single edition hardback so anything is possible. They were fun books and of a very high quality if memory sevrves me right, BL can be a bit hit or miss but those books were consistantly useful.

The Life of Sigmar, The Witch Hunter's Guide, Darkness Rising, Blood on the Riek, Liber Chaotica, Grudgelore, The Empire at WAr, The Loathsome Ratmen, and Liber Necris, I can not even count the number of times I used sections as handouts (photocopied and suitably damaged), they were great resources (Darkness Rising was even able to salvage part of the horribly written Storm of Chaos ending).

Moving back towards the op topic...

The creation of new editions has less to do with existing products and more to do with the direction the IP holder wishes to travel in. GW seems to be moving away from the production of new games and towards the licensing of their IP to other companies (a similar move worked for the Dwan of War series of video games set in the 40k background). If this is the case, hopefully GW allows FFG to explore the setting and fill in some of the gaps in the warhammer setting, the smart licensing of their IP should contiue to make GW a lot of money with little risk and hopefully will ensure many quality games for us players.

regards,

ET

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LeBlanc13 said:

Blood Bowl currently is in a good place. They have a fair number of teams. The only complaint I have is some of the teams are REALLY outdated models from the late 80's and early 90's style of miniatures. Low detail in wonky poses.

If they could do with the skaven, woodelves, halflings and goblins what they did with some of the other teams for new sculpts, I'd bee very happy.

Really? I loved the old halflings, especially the blocker with a cooking pot for a helmet. I also prefer my old dwarf team over the newer dwarfs, who look more like fantasy warriors who forgot their weapons instead of bloodbowl players.

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Pedro Lunaris said:

Schmee said:

Our TEW campaign was the longest campaign I ever ran, lasting 10+ years, on again/off again gaming.

10 years campaign??? Man... I just have to stand up and clap my hands for you for a bit.

Did it end? It must have been... I don't know a good expression to that... cosmical.

That makes me recall in the end of the 90s, start of the 2000s we had a fanzine called "Unfinished Campaigns" (in portuguese it does sounds better).

Yes we did eventually finish it. But, as I said it was an on/off deal. Lots of other stuff was happening in those 10 years. People switched jobs/schools, got married/divorced, had kids, etc. By some quirk we all moved in a weird pattern and would from time to time be in places that allowed us to start up a "game night"again. And we played at a "snails pace" at times. It took us 4 months of frequent, RP heavy gaming to get through 1st half of PBtT. There was a lot of "unofficial material" added. The Imperial civil war was a main feature in our game, lasting quiet a bit longer then it did in the campaign as written. The longest break we took was 1 1/2 years, when 100's of miles seperated us all.

We started playing in '87 and ended in' 96-97.

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LeBlanc13 said:

Kryyst said:

Blood Bowl is perfectly fine in the hands it currently resides. While it would be cool to see a huge commercial resurgence of the game. We don't want a new version of the game the LRB format is perfect.

Not a big fan of the LRB myself. Just personal. But the game is great for its ease of customizing your own league rules. I use a mix of the new and the old.

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Peacekeeper_b said:

LeBlanc13 said:

Kryyst said:

Blood Bowl is perfectly fine in the hands it currently resides. While it would be cool to see a huge commercial resurgence of the game. We don't want a new version of the game the LRB format is perfect.

Not a big fan of the LRB myself. Just personal. But the game is great for its ease of customizing your own league rules. I use a mix of the new and the old.

To each their own. But in terms of competitive play, balance and ease of play the current LRB 6 is the best version of the game to date. While there is always room for some improvement it's nearly perfect.

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mcv said:

LeBlanc13 said:

Blood Bowl currently is in a good place. They have a fair number of teams. The only complaint I have is some of the teams are REALLY outdated models from the late 80's and early 90's style of miniatures. Low detail in wonky poses.

If they could do with the skaven, woodelves, halflings and goblins what they did with some of the other teams for new sculpts, I'd bee very happy.

Really? I loved the old halflings, especially the blocker with a cooking pot for a helmet. I also prefer my old dwarf team over the newer dwarfs, who look more like fantasy warriors who forgot their weapons instead of bloodbowl players.

Okay, halflings were fun. I loved my San Franheimer .49ers (painted in Red and Gold. Awesome paint job.) The sculpts were funny, but honestly with a team of 14 to sixteen halflings I could have used more than the 6 sculpts they gave us.

Skaven and Wood Elves were weak, half-hearted sculpts even when they were new. The original dwarf team was awesome. They didn't need to redo the models they did. Sometimes I think GW sculpters don't look at what needs to be redone, but rather, what they'd like to work on that week. That explains to me at least why the Necrons and Dark Eldar are languishing as they are in 40k. While every week we seem to get a new space marine, chaos or ork sculpted figure.

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superklaus said:

There was nothing wrong with the magic system in 1st edition, and 2nd editon didnt improve it. Mages became colored (wft?) and divided in factions (maybe the designers played to much WoD or ars magica back in the days) and they get rid of the elementalist which I didnt like at all because it stole the game a playing ground and option - but the new "warp-only" policy of GW maybe dont allow elemental planes and elemental creatures anymore. Additonally I am suspicious about unlimited spellcasting without expenditure of magic points. Sounded (and still sounds) like a nod to powergamers and munchkins to me. Magic points remains the true regulatory tool to limit the amount of spells you can cast in a row. So I was not very convinced of the new unlimited spellcasting.

Fantasy flight can't bring back Warhammer Quest (it and Space Hulk were the two games GW didn't hand over to them).

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First Edition was certainly viewed as a major rival to D&D in the UK and also in Europe (though apparently not in mcv's vicinity), indeed it was sometimes dubbed 'the European D&D'. In the US it never made that impact and had what amounted to a cult following AFAIK.

I'm not going to get into one on the rule changes but I'd say that some felt that whilst the first edition had its flaws the fixes that v.2 tried were sometimes wrong-headed and made for a clunkier, more bean-counterish, game. There's certainly some useful stuff in the second ed. though.