Here is a summary of results of the "Share your party compositions" as of post #43. The racial and career breakdowns (in total, including rank 2-3 characters). Your thoughts? Should FFG be focusing more attention to the actual careers being used?

Actual numbers: spreadsheets.google.com/ccc

jh

Focusing in what way? The careers in use are already there, support is largely done. What we could use now more then a glout of basic careers is more advanced careers.

Emirikol said:

8 Waywatchers and not a single Scholar, Seer, Scribe or Servant. The answer to your question probably depends on whether the average v3 player prefers iconic WH combat-focused careers, or whether non-combat PCs don't currently offer enough interesting options in the v3 rules. I believe focus groups could answer that question.

Seer and Servant are relatively new to the game. So established groups won't be as ready to pick them up. Scribe, I imagine would never be all that popular because it includes less immediate hooks.

Additionally, some of the careers are weighted based on availability. For instance Apprentice Wizard is a stepping stone for Wizards. There are no other options so it will get career-spammed. Waywatcher is one of two available Wood Elf Careers so again, it will be spammed for those who want elf specific careers. I also think waywatcher is a better designed career than Wardancer, as not many players want to fiddle with their stance meter as much as War Dancer requires.

Servant is a good career, with a good special ability...but it pales in comparison the Commoner career benefit gives you. The Career ability card is what most of the Career choice comes down to IMO. Scribe's is not very combat focused. It has a linear special ability targeted toward a skill set that is not used all that often. It would be a great transition into Wizard perhaps, but why wait a level when you can just start a Wizard from the get go. So it's game-relevance is decreased. Also, I imagine social resolution in most gaming circles does not get nearly as much love as combat resolution, therefore, an ability such as Scholar's that allows you to flip your knowledge for a fellowship check is not all that...impressive. Sure, you get three career sockets, but that hardly makes up for an ability you get to use only ever so often.

Warhammer, by its name and nature, is a combat-focused genre. It is based after a miniature WAR game after all. To make the less played careers more important, you would have to do something to change the war emphasis of the game. This largely comes down to play style for the most part, but most gamers, I have found, only use plot/story/exposition to get to what they consider the meat - which is a good combat. It would be safe to say that 90% of all RPG resolution is combat no matter how its dressed up. I feel though this is because all systems from a mechanical standpoint emphasize combat. Even this incarnation of Warhammer which does have a very narrative focus is sometimes lost in the myriad number of action cards that are combat focused and those that aren't (such as Call of the Wild or Honeyed Words) become very confusing how to resolve recharge, etc. when not in encounter mode. The rules provide a great model for combat encounters, but not how to manage a great social encounter.

So I guess my point is those careers that are less played are largely due because their is no other alternative (apprentice wizard) or they go against what is not only the standard norm for most RPG players (combat) or are not rewarded enough in the system (because they focus on more nebulous mechanical issues such as social and knowledge based encounters). Therefore, this chart will be always reflect what the norm of play-style. To figure out these careers (such as scribe) will take a lot more work on the part of the GM and the player to make their career relevant. If the GM does not sandbox play, then in the end, these characters will typically start as a scribe, swept up into some action, then spend the rest of his writing career hunting dragons, chaos demons, and what not. So it begs the question, what is the point of being a scribe?

Now, there are many groups who obviously enjoy the alternate careers. So FFG still needs to support them as much as the rest. Otherwise they might as well create a small handful of careers called: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Bard, Noble, Commoner, Ranger, etc. But what I feel they also need to include is more direction on how to run games differently, how to make these careers viable and still enjoyable for everyone. We gets tons of information on how to be a player, but next to nothing in the world of RPG's on how to be a great GM. The toolkit/tome of adventure had some good ideas, but it didn't go far enough.

P.S. One of my players just switched from Agent to Student, pursuing scholar actually.

commoner said:

Scribes can decipher cryptic handouts, draft letters of introduction to important NPCs, and gain employment with any number of guilds or institutions that might have plot connections. In my WFRP games they've always been considered useful characters, but perhaps their career ability in v3 is too weak.

Again, I've written this from the standpoint of "standard" play. A generality. This thread is about generality so I figured I would speak more generally. I can think as well for a thousand uses for Scribes as well...heck, my group has a combat on average about 1 in 4 sessions, so I know what they can do as well. I was speaking from the standpoint that most games are combat focused. In a combat focused game what use is a scribe other than interesting backstory?

Yes, the ability is weak. If their career ability applied to all knowledge checks rather than just education checks, they would be worth it. But needing two boons on education checks (something that is not rolled that often) seems a bit limiting. Especially if a game is fight-centric.

I agree with Commoner's point of view.

First off I think the idea of spreadsheeting this is kind of interesting - but ultimately we need to consider the why's of a number of classes before we cry imbalance.

Many people don't have some of the classes even available yet. For example - in my group we have an Amber order Apprentice who spends most of her time in wolf-form. And one of the other characters was definitely leaning towards Amethyst apprentice wizard at creation as well. But how many groups have the very recently released winds of magic options? Or have gotten a chance to career switch into it?

The game is very new. When you don't necessarily know a system, the first impulse of many players is either to seek something that will 'survive', something appropriate for the style of game they've chosen (adventure!) or to seek balance.

So for example my group has a Gambler, Roadwarden, Initiate and Apprentice. But its also difficult to tell that the gambler is thinking of scribe and forger as advances, and the roadwarden is more leadership oriented, and our heavy hitters are the Sigmarite and the Amber order mage. Moreover the group is very balanced on stats (we have plenty of 4s but not many 5's). And tend to have good fellowship scores, and don't shy from social encounters.

What I noted from the thread (which was awesome by the way) is that alot of the games are still in their first career. Which tells me that many are fresh, or new games, and people haven't flexed their creative muscles and tried coming up with non-conforming groups. So while playing an 'elf' and thus a Waywatcher is probably very popular - I don't know if those games that let the intrigue and social situations shine are even out there or being experimented with. As Herr Arnulfe demonstrated - its really down to the GM and the type of game he's running to open up the different classes. I think the game did an awesome job of letting social characters have useful abilities in combat as well as sandbox play - we just have to wait for the different expansions to come out and the games to naturally progress.

Also the amount of people viewing forums is a very small sample percentage. And the amount of people posting about their games is even smaller. I think your sample size is tiny to jump to any definitive conclusions. What I do like though is that most of the actually published classes have at least 1 person playing them. And some I didn't expect (SMUGGLER!) have many.

I guess Warhammer players seem to really like Wizards and Combat characters... If that's the case..the success of Winds of Magic and the upcoming Warriors & Khorne boxed set should really be flying off the shelves right? ..whereas could we expect that "social"-themed character products may come off a little light in sales?

I always had the impression that WFRP players were more "roleplaying" oriented, rather than WFB-oriented...

jh

If you counted Tile from my post in "post your party" then my party has both students and one of the three gamblers, I guess we like unpopular careers.

Emirikol said:

I would agreetaht WFRP is geared way, way toward the roleplaying side as compared to other games. But gaming in general is geared toward fights, where most resolution happens via combat of some kind and almost always all climatic resolution happens in battle. This is not the case in some people's games (including mine, though it does happen with me too if the story dictates it should), but generally speaking, that is how things go, no matter how "roleplaying" oriented a group is. You can see it in the ways games are even typically written. Combat and the intricacies of combat get way more love and attention than social or trade skills with entire sub-systems created just to deal with damage, wounds, to hit rolls, actions, defensive actions, etc. No other part of the system has these effects written into them and if they do not nearly to the extent as it is written in the core. "Social Combat' is kicked around in Warhammer, but does it ever get a four page walk through like the combat system does? Now, I'm not knocking this game. The trackers and various tools they've introduced have gone a heck of a long way in improving social/knowledge dynamics and make them way more realistic for players who are not familiar with how to use them and I love WFRP for that. But fact is, even then, Education will never be as important as Weapon Skill. Maybe in one game out of ten, but fighting will always come up more frequently. Rarely is anyone going to "read it out" to solve the problem. LOL!

Actually, education plays a big part in our games. For one, I picked up education during creation, and boy did it ever come out lucky. Since nobody else in the party (or the majority of the world) can read, there are several times where players found scraps of paper and clues, but couldn't decipher the meaning of it (particularly since some of it was in code). Twice so far in our few games we actually did 'Read it Out' for the victory. Once in front of a village tribunal convened to burn some cultists (which turned out to be the wrong people).

I think combat can be fun, and it can be epic, but part of the reason its stressed in most systems is because chatting up a bartender seldom leads to character death and the consequent loss of party member, new characters, and trauma to story and party. The things that can kill you get a lot more love to keep them clear and 'fair' if you will.

I agree highly that this is a much more RP focused game, with many more possibilities for sandboxing and playing in ways different from other systems. Although my group has just started up and we aren't deeply into the game yet, it looks like our average ratio will be 2-3 games of legwork and dedicated RP to 1 game of heavy combat. It doesn't hurt that combat can be highly lethal. In most games you clash, dust off, have your 'healer' spam some heals, and you're ready for another round. Here a simple bar brawl where someone pulls a lucky knife can lead to a crit or two, which means your next combat encounter can drop someone permanently.

If you find a village that sacrifices people to chaos you can't just play the 'we're 12th level adventurers that can wade through four dozen torch-and-pitchfork-bearing-villagers with impunity' card. You have to actually consider actions, and try to come up with solutions that don't get you massacred. This alone leads to less of a 'solve everything by starting a fight' scenario. Yes we're heroes. Yes we can survive rough odds. No we can't just keep fighting all day, every day, then drink and do it again.

I don't feel my smashy awesome Sigmar goodness is overlooked by any means, but I've gotten more use out of my fellowship and education than I have out of my warhammer. Similarly, when the fighting starts those combat classes and stats sure do shine, but on the upside - our gambler (with his mad social actions) probably gets more limelight time than my glowing hammer - and he's greatly appreciated for it!

my contribution in your career numbering post add some non combattant :

• High Elf Envoy

• Human bretonnian Agitator
• Human bretonnian Docker

• Human reiklander commoner
• Human reiklander dilettante
• Human reiklander thief
• Human reiklander Apprentice Grey
• Human reiklander Apprentice Light
• Human reiklander Initiate Sigmar

• Halfeling Servant

• Dwarf Troll Slayer x2
• Dwarf Miner
• Dwarf Agent
• Dwarf Hunter

shinma said:

Chatting up bartenders is oftentimes not worth rolling for. However, chatting up the local nobles at a masquerade ball, or bluffing your way past prison guards can have serious consequences and major story implications. It's a well-documented fact that most gamers struggle to come up with things to do in their games besides combat. WFRP players have a reputation for being more creative with non-combat encounters than D&D players, but that's largely because the published adventures have provided a wide mix of challenges. Some of the most famous ones are very combat-light (Shadows Over Bogenhafen, Power Behind the Throne) and give the GM all kinds of support for intrigue-based roleplaying. So Emirikol's question remains quite relevant IMO. Given the strong bias towards combat PCs among forum members, should FFG be focusing more on adventures like Gathering Storm, or should they be making more adventures like Edge of Night?

Just because people are playing 'combat' characters doesn't mean they are playing combat-heavy games.

It's a fairly reasonable assumption to make that you're (individually and collectively) going to have to do a bit of everything during a game / campaign, and while you can roleplay / talk / think your way through many situations - whatever character you're playing - you can't generally roleplay your way through a fight and hope to survive (and kill/incapacitate) as well as a combat character can. If as a player you want to be involved, there's a strong temptation to play someone who can contribute something to most situations. Especially if those situations take up more than a couple of minutes of real time when they occur.

That's not to say that an uneducated thug can be 'roleplayed' as someone who can read a magic scroll and talk their way successfully through a nobles' party, but the player does at least have options in a way that an unarmed scribe trying to fight his way through a zombie horde to the other side of the room usually does not.

And that's also not to say that combat-capable characters cannot be characterfully played by players who want to engage in a lot of roleplaying. A warrior priest, wizard, mercenary captain can all be intelligent people able to think, scheme and socialise with the best of them.

I haven't yet got my copy of 'Edge of Night', but from what I've seen here it sounds much more up my street than 'Gathering Storm', so I hope for many more combat-light adventures and odd 'civilian' character options (and a lot more non-combat action and talent cards). Though I do say this as someone who enjoys some combat in my games.

Updated through post #53. The only ongoing surprise is that Wizard seems to be the most popular career, otherwise people overwhelmingly prefer combat-oriented careers. I've not done a min-maxing analysis of career ability cards, but I'd imagine that plays some role in the matter as well.

jh

Angelic Despot said:

True, theoretically you could just as easily make a Battle Burgher as a Talky Trollslayer, since WS, BS and Fel skills are all Basic. But if the GM just roleplays social conflict without using any mechanics, then there's no point buying social skills anyway. Meanwhile, it seems like the Education niche is dominated by acolytes and initiates, who can fulfill the core function of a scribe/student-type PC (i.e. basic literacy and knowledge) and also cast spells. Guile and Skulduggery are Basic so the Rogue niche can be handled by any PC with a good Agi score. So perhaps it's the system, rather than the focus of the adventures, that's failing to provide incentive for people to play non-combat careers.

I am a bit surprised by the combat apparent combat focus as I have always considered Warhammer Roleplay to be first and foremost a game of investigation. I often describe it to newbies as "a fantasy version of Call of Cthulhu". I know the game originally stemmed from a war game but in my experience I have found very little cross over between players of warhammer fantasy battle and warhammer fantasy roleplay.

With my lastest group I have played through a short campaign of my own creation and The Gathering Storm. My players (who include a couple of 1st and 2nd edition veterans but also a some newbies) biggest complaint, aside from excessive emphasis on combat in TGS, has been that their new characters are too good at combat. Only one of the 6 characters is combat focused the rest are all rogues.

The fact that wizards and elves are common is also a surprise to me. I have been running this game on and off for twenty years and I think I oculd count all of the elves and wizards in my campaigns on the fingers of one hand. I do have a hedge wizard in my current campaign but at the moment he is more of a danger to himself than anybody else.

I think it is a sign that this game has attracted fans from other games rather than just converting fans of the 2nd edition. This has got to be a good thing for the game but I can only hope that FFG remember what made this game memorable in the first place. The world does not need more copies of D&D.

Captain Fluffy said:

In my experience, people who play both WFRP and WFB get their combat fix from the battle game, and prefer to explore other aspects of the Old World in the RPG. What might be happening is that v3 is attracting players who seek the "Warhammer (WFB) experience" without the requirements of collecting and painting an army.

Herr Arnulfe said:

Excellent point on social stuff and non-advanced skills. I was just discussing this with a friend and noted that if the GM isn't working something into the games where the troll slayer is "stressed" because of his lack of social skills, it's just as bad as beating up on the poor scribe in combats (with all things being equal). The part I've got to work through my head is: HOW do you justify a stressed troll slayer from a social situation? (for example).

Should there be situations where the GM is going to say "Trained Only" for basic skill checks such as skullduggery or guile? (or perhaps checks are too easy?)

This new information that has come to light has me thinking of things to include in an upcoming scenario I'm writing.

jh

The Dude: I dropped off the money exactly as per... look, man, I've got certain information, all right? Certain things have come to light. And, you know, has it ever occurred to you, that, instead of, uh, you know, running around, uh, uh, blaming me, you know, given the nature of all this new s..., you know, I-I-I-I... this could be a-a-a-a lot more, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, complex, I mean, it's not just, it might not be just such a simple... uh, you know?

Emirikol said:

That shouldn't be a surprise. That single career really handles 8 different character types, and mages are fairly popular.

Were there multiple entry careers for wizards, I bet their individual numbers would be in line with the other careers.

I think Herr Arnulfe and Emrikiol is on to something here.

Most RPGs seem to emphasise most of their rules on combat and the structure around combat, and that is an important aspect of any RPG. But often they fail to do the same for the social parts of the game and even the investigative parts of the game. Many players and GMs alike sense this and emphasise their character creation around combat or what is most important for that typical game.

Of course there is anohter point to that, combat can be dangeours, you don`t wont your character to die in the first combat, survival instinct. So naturally you invest some in combat orientated skills, abilites, traits etc.

This adding up that some GMs ignore social skills or rules at all, further downplay the imporance of such traits, abilities, and can lead to unfortunate meta-gaming " I can speak well enough for me in real life, so therefore I need not put anthying in social skills". The less a GM calls for social rules or rolls, the less likely a player will invest anyhting on it.

So we GMs have a job to do, and luckily WE have a game that supports social encounters in the greatest detail you possible want. WARHAMMER FANASY ROLEPLAY offers that in terms of stress, even fatigue an in-depth rule mechanisms. just take a look at Edge of Night. So it is up to you GM to make those social rolls counts.

and YES the high frequency of combat in TGS do concern me a bit. But knowing that EON is a complete differnece I am a bit reassured that FFG will produce varied modules/ adventures of great quality in the coming years.

and...good gaming

Emirikol said:

Emirikol said:

Something I like to do is make players roll dice and checks more often than appears necessary. Take a 'typical' situation: Characters walk into the pub. The players say 'we buy drinks, sit down and the social character chats up the barmaid to get the information'. I guess most GMs just ask the social character to roll.

I would ask all of the characters to roll observation (to get them into the habit of rolling, even when there's nothing special to notice - and to disguise the occasions where there is something to notice - and then have them all roll fellowhip. Even those not 'doing anything'. Those that do well can gain fortune, reduce the number of stress tokens they've got etc, as over the course of the evening they relax and have fun. Those grumpy combat monsters aren't going to benefit as much. They're also less likely to be involved in beneficial social situations too.

I think the way to use social actions is not to say that unless you have the 'winning smile' action that you can't be nice to people and chat them up, but that the action represents a knack you have for something that most don't. (Which is actually not that different to combat. Anyone can try to shoot accurately, but if you don't have the action card, you're only going to be getting a couple of fortune dice for good tactics etc.)

I suspect that many GMs and many players like a lot of the non-combat stuff, and perhaps even devote most of the game to it. But people are less used to using game mechanics in these situations. And with mechanics like fortune and stress, WFRP actually has more opportunities to reward non-combat characters for their stats, skills and abilities in a defined way than many games do.

I love all the non-combat characters and like to run combat-light games, but I'd by lying if I said I didn't enjoy the odd fight. And as a GM I'd like to know that I'm not at risk of killing my characters every time someone throws a punch at them (excepting stupid decisions on their part of course!).

interesting post Despotic Angel (or was it Angelic Despot?)

you mentioned you made your players make some "empty rolls", like observation. But what if they make it? you tell them something or nothing at all? I sometimes use "empty or fake rolls" myself. there is even a couple of examples of using such a method in TGS as well. I make something up if they succeds at "empty rolls"

I agree that many GMs and players alike like non-combat situations. But in many of those occasions I have noticed a sharp decrease in dice rolling or calls for dice rolling by the GM, and frankly playing for 3 hours without a single dice roll is boring (for me). So your method is a part of the solution to make the game interesting mechanically in non-combat situations as well.

But its not the whole part. as you mentioned WFRP 3 has many interesting ways of rewarding players that do well socially or attempt at social encounters. One way could be using the condition cards. If the troll slayer is confused at the masquerade ball, why not "reward" him with the perplexed or demoralised condition until he "figures it out", thus rewarding him by taking away the card once he moves arround and try to figure out how this ball is working.

how my witch-hunter came to reward himself with the "intoxicated" condition card.

When the soon-to-be witch-hunter achieved his second insanity, he got really depressed and decided to drink a whole bottle of wine that he had found. I handed him the intoxicated condition card with a glee. Than one of the other player come up with the idea, "why not put that condition card over one of your insanity cards?" he further explained that drinking is one way of coping with mental breakdown. I agreed thus we made a rule that the poor witch-hunter whenever he drank enough to get the intoxication condition card he could place it above one of his isanity cards. I love this system, easy to use easy to expand on.

good gaming

Hey Mal, that's really cool (condition over insanity). I'll add that to our list of house rules for LF #7

So, here's how I"m imagining all this:

Troll Slayer player: [..just finishing speaking very eloquently as a PLAYER and grinning to himself thinking he's won the GM's admiration and easy passage past the noble's guard]

GM: "Ok, now roll charm. I'll give you one fortune die for good roleplaying, one black because he detests dwarfs and one purple since it's a regular check."

Troll Slayer Player: [face drained of blood as he realizes he's got a 2 in fellowship..rolling... FAIL and suffer stress]

So the moral of the story is that during roleplaying encounters (social encounters) the GM needs to get used to saying, "OK, NOW MAKE A ROLL."

jh

Social failures are more likely to have story-related consequences than mechanical ones (e.g. Wounds, Stress) which is probably why many players don't feel they're as important. If the GM hasn't set up his scenario with much latitude for players to manipulate the story, then it doesn't matter if the Trollslayer fails to impress the Duchess because she wasn't really going to help the party anyway.