I'm curious about the upcoming lite version of this game, particularly about how they will go about playing the game without the cards. That would mean no tracking of recharge, which is a major part of the mechanics as it is now.

What are your thoughts on this and how do you think they will work around it?

I think the book will recommend tracking recharges with dice or with pencil & eraser. I don't think it's possible to leave out the recharging mechanic. It would just turn into a completely different game.

Would you just keep track in my head? I cant use this power for three rounds. And go from there?

We did it for years in other games with durations and what nots.

I was thinking perhaps a house rule for ongoing effects, something like this:

An ongoing effect (action Card) ties up 1 stress point. E.g. if you have 3 Will Power you can have three ongoing effects running and your stress would be at 3 points any effect taking you over your WP would immediately cancel all ongoing effects and you would loose stress points equal to the amount of ongoing effects you had active.

this would mean you could have a few actions going and leave room for a little stress gain from other effects and not loose your concentration. I think this could work well.

Just haven't figured out how to work around cooldown of regular cards.

Tracking with dice or pencil/paper is certainly a possibility. Tracking in your head, also possible for some things, like the every other round abilities. But I also have a hunch they'll have some alternative method to tracking action card usage. Perhaps taking a page from D&D where you have ever round actions, every encounter actions or daily actions.

The game isn't going to play any different. They aren't introducing new mechanics. You'll just make tick marks on paper rather than use tokens, although I suppose using dice to count down the recharge is another possibility. FFG is not creating a second, but incompatible game. People will be able to get together and play in mixed groups some with cards (either from Core or PV) and others not.

We played a session D&D4e-style: No tracking tokens, just "Per Encounter" or "At Will" or "every other round."

It worked fine, but my players wanted to go back to the chits.

Jay h

Emirikol said:

i can definitley see this happening for rules lite wfrp. if it is just tracking everything on paper then why even bother. nobody needs to write up an explanation of how to track things on paper.

It is the most logic step and definetly the easiest way to translate, but several cards will loose some of their mechanics or potential. For instance many grey order spells rely on putting extra recharge tokens on other recharging action cards.

I would get round it, by taking some sort of card and writting the name of the action on it, and then added some counters to it to show when it expires. I used to do it all in my head, but maybe I'm getting old, I just found it easier to use a tracking devise to keep track once there were multiples of things on countdown around.

Maybe this is why when 3ed came out, I went 'O, yeah ... that's a good move'

mac40k said:

This.

Every indication so far is that the game remains the same. There's simply going to be a new character sheet and some guidelines to help you play with fewer components. Why would anyone assume that recharge is going away or that the core mechanics would change?

You'll just track some things on paper now. It may be slow and tedious, but that's the price you pay for not using components to speed things up. The advantage is that you don't have to use as much table space.

I imagine once a group gets really good at it, the game won't slow down too much, but there will still be occasional questions like "is that spell still in effect?" or "when can you use that action again?" because there won't be an action card with tokens on the table for everyone to see. Also things like stance, wounds, stress, and fatigue will not be readily obvious.

Lucas Adorn said:

I don't think it's anywhere close to the most logical step. It would effectively create two different sets of core rules. It would be a nightmare to require new special rules for some of the actions when playing in the "lite" version of the rules. The "lite" version of the rules won't really be any change to the rules themselves, just some guidelines on playing the same exact game with fewer componentswhich will undoubtedly mean that you write things down on paper instead of using cards and tokens.

jeffeoff said:

The PV is billed as a complement to the info presented in the PG. Being as the PV has all the cards, counters, and career sheets from the Core Set, it wouldn't make sense that WFRP Lite would use different recharge mechanics, as I'm sure that FFG is hoping that players who pick up the PG eventually pick up the PV as well. So when you get tired of referencing the book for what all your actions do and want a handy reference, you'll get the cards. When you get tired of tracking recharge on paper, you'll want the tokens. Not to mention that it is already confirmed that the subsequent expansions will be in the "traditional" format, which would make them incompatible with Lite if different mechanics were used.

Unless they make regular HC book updates with the latest few expansions included.

Actually I think Having the PG Book will make it easier to sell the core set, since people can have a look at the rules and the mechanics for relatively cheap price and then when they realize that its DA BOMB!! they'll come back and buy either the PV or the core set to get the most product out of their money.

I'm saying this from a shop manager's POV.

Here is a little clarification needed - first of all You all know that in The GM & Players Guides and Vault You will not get everything that come so far. This is only an updated version of the core set without cards Spell/Blessing from Winds of Magic and Signs of Faith or adventures. So You won't get those materials in it. Second Jay said that in future all the expansions will still be made in boxes format - so we will be getting books and cards in one box. So , I think, that means one thing - there will not be other new format products.

And about the Lite version I'm really curious how it will look like. I can't wait to see the optional version of the character sheet.

And I agre that those new products are a great way to show WFRP to other player and to get some new one in play. This is a amazing move from FFG to show other people how huge, full of options and fun is the WFRP 3ed.

ffgfan said:

Jay stated in the original information about the hard cover books that they will include some information from Signs of Faith and Winds of Magic. My take is the spells only will be included in the books. Any adventures or information on Chaos Powers will be omitted. The other thing that was stated is the Vaults would NOT include cards or components from outside the Core Set.

FFG's goal is to continue to keep their boxed sets relevant while still offering an alternative to those that want to game without the components.

Regarding recharging rules:

As they did announce a new character sheet for the so called Lite version, I think a good idea would be put a space on this sheet where you can write your Actions, the effect of them, and with some "counter boxes" which you mark when you use the Action and then erase one at each turn's end. When some effect states that you "put extra counters" on another action, you just mark more boxes.