James Sparrow said:

The arthurian quote is supposed to be ambiguous, as in: the grail is used to serve the king, but the king (is supposed to) serves his people. But I was thinking of it as a good metaphor for an RPG, in that often we end up (at least to a certain extent) serving the system (ie adhering as closely as possibly to what is written) and forgetting that the system's true function should be to serve the game.

just to clarify my thoughts on this being the grail...

In my view this is the game i have been searching for my entire life...

Dont get me wrong many rpg are very good

but for me this is the one...

boggle said:

Wow!

How old are you? Just to get an idea...

DeathFromAbove said:

As there are plenty of editions and WFB all taking place in the Old World I can't help but agree.

DeathFromAbove said:

I'm thinking I'm beginning to see your problem with the system. Without insulting you in any way - it looks like what you find enjoyable in a game isn't really what WFRP3 stresses. My experiences with Harn were few and far between (I looked at Core and played some Gold edition). Essentially like hackmaster and other systems of the time, it stresses extensive tables to try and simulate the handling of interactions. Instead of 6 simple stats you have substats for all sorts of categories (eyesight, attractiveness, manual dexterity versus balance etc). And of course there are pages upon pages of skills. What harn seems to stress (and what you seem to appreciate) is great sets of rules attempting to simulate a realistic experience in a medieval fantasy-type setting.

If you will indulge me I'd point out that its impossible to generate 'a skill for every situation accurately' (which WFRP3 hand-waves and defaults to a base stat), and I will argue that the depth of a character and their personality is firmly grounded in a solid backstory that is tied into game, which leads to fun and meaningful interactions with other PCs and NPCs. The amount of skill lists you have don't provide personality and depth - they just give mechanical relavance to things you may (yourself) or may not have (rolled on a table) come up with.

DeathFromAbove said:

Interesting tidbit. We all use the base cards for WFRP3 of course, but in the course of a demo, I drew up a new location card on an index card based on the description of a Inn/Bar one of the players was attempting to go to. Similarly, fatigue is flexible in WFRP. The GM's given some out when a PC tried to do something outlandish as part of the cost, and we've added it when it makes sense. You can also make your own injuries as appropriate. The cards simplify the system (no need to roll), and keep tracking tidy. Try to think of them as much part of the base rules as any table you've seen. They're a table given physical form so they're easier to handle.

As for magic? I'm content with the WFRP system. I hate spell memorization and mana counts - but that's a personal preference issue I think.

DeathFromAbove said:

And here we sort of get to what I percieve as the disjunct between you and WFRP3. You seem to enjoy very accurate tactical simulations, where you can be 'clever' in pulling off good movement, sound tactical positioning and pressing your advantages and pushing the enemy's disadvantage. Its very true that WFRP3 doesn't stress these things. Its a very cinematic/story driven encounter setting. I personally like its combat because it is deadly and its quick. Most people that enjoy it seem to like it precisely because it's not painstaking slow miniatures-like movements, and it gets away from that.

To try and put it this way - minions that act like one think of as military units. They're a squad. If someone describes their character as thinking strategically (taking higher ground, using pikes against horse etc) that's grounds for some free white dice. If they act foolishly, give the enemies white dice (or them black dice) instead. The plusses, minuses and strategy are more baked into story. If someone wants to pull off a ****-cool-move that's possibly worth fate points in the party pool - but you could simply rule that good tactics and sound combat strategy does the same.

Overall I can see why you don't enjoy the system. Its amazing, its flexible, and it hits alot of points that people crave (integration of narrative and system, story support, easy streamlining of plusses and minuses without pages of rules to handle it), but all the things we actually love about it take it further away from that pinpoint realism you seem to crave in your rules systems.

im 42 years old...

Been dming since i was 14 and have been dming for the same group for 25 years....

Played them all.

Ok most of them

Regards

Sean

Fabs said:

I admire your defense of the game you like. I personally do not see, have seen, or have been lead to believe that the extra bits have added to my groups role playing experiences, our enjoyment of the mechanics or the overall game. The few times I played it I felt stifled and stymied by the extra bits and felt I had less freedom to just role play.

Again, its a personal view, and obviously not one commonly shared here on these threads and this forum. But many of these tools added to the game I have seen before, perhaps not all in one game, perhaps in slightly different forms, perhaps worse or perhaps better. But I do not consider them revolutionary or ground breaking.

I am more than pleased that everyone is enjoying their experiences and would never deny you that. I just challenge the ground breaking notion.

Tell you what, Ill give in to different and experimental LOL.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Peacekeeper, let me see if I can elucidate why I disagree with you. (And I invite both you and others to jump in with examples)

Roleplaying has its roots in earlier times, but the big system and hobby push came in the early 80s with DnD and the original Warhammer Fantasy leading the way. There were a number of small-time clones that did their best to emulate these two with small rules variants, some of which had more staying power than others (I have a copy of the original Amazing! system on my shelves). Overall while they tried to find a different niche, or correct perceived problems, these games in essence didn't do anything new or brilliant. Hackmaster, Harn, etc add more tables, add more stats, add more options, but work off of the same theme and base mechanic.

A few games tried breaking out of the mold (such as Gurps and Traveller), and some changed up the equation with percentile dice (I know palladium kept single die combat but I think they did percentile skills) such as Call of Cthulu. The first big 'shift' came with WhiteWolf in the early 90s. They changed up the equation from the fantastical sci-fi and high-fantasy fare, and tried pitching a simpler system, with fewer rules, and more roleplaying, and consequently picked up 30% of the market in their heyday.

Around this time there was some experimentation. We saw a few more flavor variants of different games (Superhero Genre, Tri-system, BESM etc), but although many picked up fans, they also never took off on a scope that changed the hobby or reached the amount of people that the industry leaders did.

Then we saw d20 and the OGL hit the market, and in my oppinion some great potential for roleplaying died. I saw amazing games using innovative systems (like Engel with their Tarot deck in the original german) go d20 and ultimately be just another clone that died on the shelf. I remember being in awe of the Dune system I saw demo'd because of its capacity to scale on a global and individual level, but it got converted to d20, nobody bought it, and ultimately the company folded in obscurity. From this morass a few good things came.

There was some experimentation on the theme (ex: Mutants and Masterminds), WFRP2, and most importantly the rise of the Indie game. And this is sort of where my main point starts.

There was a discussion on another post about GNS theory (here's the link for easy reference: www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_matter.html). In quick summary - the author proposed that there are 3 types of games or 3 major elements in a game that people like and crave, and that most games present on the market combine all 3 and a good GM must prune the parts that he or his group do not like, leading to a harder time running a good game, and a waste of GM resources in doing so. This was the rallying point for Indie games (or more specifically Forgian games) where people started trying to design a game that appeals to only one of those overall gaming styles.

The result was several hundred interesting games, most of which are not sustainable long term, none of which reached any level of success close to what the 'muddled' 'poorly designed' games like DnD carry. Why?

I will venture a very simple hypothesis. By cutting out 2 out of 3 of the gaming styles - you end up with a neutered game. Maybe on occasion you don't WANT a narrativist solution to a problem, or your players like just a touch of simulationism in their narration to resolve how something should happen. The point is that you narrow your target audience severely, and lose rather than provide options.

So now to get to my point: what makes WFRP3 as I believe it to be 'groundbreaking'.

The 'bits' that you refer to have cropped up in a few games. We've certainly seen cutouts and minis before. Tracking tokens are nothing new. But then we get to the points that matter: cards, dice and system.

I have seen cards used as part of a system (both regular playing cards, tarot cards, and even special custom cards) but the only rpg game I'm aware of that more or less (technically it doesn't, but I know 0 groups without them) requires cards with powers on them to play is 4th ed DnD. The difference is that their cards you print out and for the priviledge pay $9 a month, whereas these are pre-printed, but you don't have an easy errata option. But rather than saying 'cards are cards' let me draw your attention to the difference. The 4e power card lists a power. Your roll on it (system) provides a result that is binary (hit or no hit) and its grades of success measure only a damage differential. Your average power card for WFRP3 has only a partial binary grade (success or no) and often provides very different outcomes based on banes/boons/c-stars. There is a big difference here. Cards are a method of carrying the game, and putting rules right on the table. That's been done, but the way they interact with play is very different.

Secondly the dice are something new. Its not just their appearance (I have seen odd dice before in board games), but their use. Each roll isn't just a hit/no-hit system, it really helps you get into the story and tell it. The dice are also very narrativist in many ways. The flexible nature of fortune/misfortune often gets the players into the game, have them narrate portions, and often times suggest results. When banes come up they don't just blankly stare at the GM and wait for some vague meaningless interpretation ('Well bob, you miss the goblin') but they often times tie the reason for the black dice into their story ("hang on hang on, so I got black dice for drinking heavily before the fight, so what happens is..."). And I know its not just my players, because for every demo I've run, people get into this, grasp the concept, and start having fun with it right away. I've seldom seen people fired up when they miss in a system. This is one of them.

And finally the system (the meat of it). What I find revolutionary about this system is perhaps not revolutionary in concept, but it is definitely so in context. I've seen simpler character creation, and more complex. Rules that are better written, and those that are not. The concept that I buy into is the idea of the bargain and the power of saying 'Yes'. In most of the more 'successful' systems out there (4e, Pathfinder, RT) rules are clear cut. On a turn you move five. Your gun fires 100 meters. 75 meters is long range. If you can't move far enough to do something you are blocked by the rules. If you want to pull off something extraordinary and cinematic - that's too bad. This system uses a barter between the GM and the player in a fashion that I have seen before (in narrativist forgian games) but nowhere else, and what makes it revolutionary is that it manages to not just pull this off, but to seamlessly incorporate it intuitively into a system that is successful, designed with all three different game types, and FINALLY uses some good game design and new ideas and incorporates it into a more classical game - bringing some new thoughts and new blood into a tired genre.

So to sum up. Its not that each piece of the game is so unique and never before seen that the game is revolutionary. What makes it so extraordinary is that it takes the better pieces of before seen things, and ties them together into a somewhat classical format, giving us a game that has all the trappings of an old school RPG but with all the new storytelling elements we crave. That has never been done before to my knowledge, and that is why I support the system and find it so extraordinary.

Calling it holy grail might be stretching it, but to me it comes darned close due to one thing alone, the dice.

In no other system have I been able to do anything without needing tables, skills, etc... and get a full blown result describing everything.

If I want to I can theoretically show up as GM with nothing but the dice, and it would still be a smashing session. I agree good storytelling can make even dice obsolete, but if you want a system, no other gives you this freedom as these dice do.

A player can do XXX, I tell him to pick up XXX dice, and then the result gives us all the basis for narrating what happens.

shinma said:

Back in August, I met up with friends from my university gaming society for our annual get-together. I played in a game in which we had no character sheets or numbers attached to our characters. When we needed to we rolled 2D6 and the GM made a judgement based on circumstances and character. We had fights with velociraptors and a giant spider. We were swept down a river towards a waterfall, caught by rocks and had to get to shore. We had to sneak about and avoid being seen. We tricked someone into giving us information (and later had to kill him when he turned hulk on us). We had to bully and deal with someone to teach us a magical ritual to get us home again. Character background was sometimes added to and developed as a result of nothing more than high and low rolls on certain actions.

We managed all this while sitting in a cafe bar around a table that was only filled with coffee and hot chocolate mugs, plates of food, and a few six-sided dice. We didn't have to worry about range or position, even in an abstract sense; we did it in our heads. In years gone by, I've seen GMs run end of campaign castle seiges with eight PCs and half a dozen NPC armies, without having to track progess. I've played in 1912 air races with a dozen players and a GM who just rolled a D20 and made up all sorts of stuff on the fly. I can offer many other tedious examples.

Don't get me wrong: there is absolutely nothing wrong with WFRP3 as a set or rules or as an approach to roleplaying. However, what would be groundbreaking and innovative would be a game that showed that complex, creative and dynamic games can be run and played without relying on rules any more substantial than a simple randomiser, common sense and consideration for your fellow gamers.

WFRP3 has some interesting and no doubt fun and useful twiddles, but at the end of the day it's still just another RPG with a load of detailed rules.

Now the setting... well, that's something special. I just wish people would get excited about that for a change.

Cheers

Sparrow

I'm starting a new topic regarding the world.

jh

shinma said:

Nah, HM use four (4) mini tables, just in combat, but can totally play without them. I think you havent' begin to understand the point from what you have written.
I like games where I, as a GM, can play with a couple of dice.

If you will indulge me I'd point out that its impossible to generate 'a skill for every situation accurately' (which WFRP3 hand-waves and defaults to a base stat), and I will argue that the depth of a character and their personality is firmly grounded in a solid backstory that is tied into game, which leads to fun and meaningful interactions with other PCs and NPCs. The amount of skill lists you have don't provide personality and depth - they just give mechanical relavance to things you may (yourself) or may not have (rolled on a table) come up with.

Even here, nothing more far from truth. A sturdy skill base that will cover the majority of the situations.
The point of the background story is an old and trited one.
Even my chess piece can have a rich and interesting background story. That will add little to a chess game.

Interesting tidbit. We all use the base cards for WFRP3 of course, but in the course of a demo, I drew up a new location card on an index card based on the description of a Inn/Bar one of the players was attempting to go to. Similarly, fatigue is flexible in WFRP. The GM's given some out when a PC tried to do something outlandish as part of the cost, and we've added it when it makes sense. You can also make your own injuries as appropriate. The cards simplify the system (no need to roll), and keep tracking tidy. Try to think of them as much part of the base rules as any table you've seen. They're a table given physical form so they're easier to handle.

I don't have to drew anything or "create" anything. I tell a story with my players. That's all. I don't need anything rather that the PCs sheet. The added tools are our minds.

As for magic? I'm content with the WFRP system. I hate spell memorization and mana counts - but that's a personal preference issue I think.

Mana counts? Memorization ? I'll rather say "fatigue"...

And here we sort of get to what I percieve as the disjunct between you and WFRP3. You seem to enjoy very accurate tactical simulations, where you can be 'clever' in pulling off good movement, sound tactical positioning and pressing your advantages and pushing the enemy's disadvantage. Its very true that WFRP3 doesn't stress these things. Its a very cinematic/story driven encounter setting. I personally like its combat because it is deadly and its quick. Most people that enjoy it seem to like it precisely because it's not painstaking slow miniatures-like movements, and it gets away from that.

Even here, misconceptions abounds.
There are systems were combat are detailed and not slow or where miniatures aren't required.
In v3 I substitute miniatures with a tons of gadgets that, while limiting the players/gm add little to the situation.

To try and put it this way - minions that act like one think of as military units. They're a squad. If someone describes their character as thinking strategically (taking higher ground, using pikes against horse etc) that's grounds for some free white dice. If they act foolishly, give the enemies white dice (or them black dice) instead. The plusses, minuses and strategy are more baked into story. If someone wants to pull off a ****-cool-move that's possibly worth fate points in the party pool - but you could simply rule that good tactics and sound combat strategy does the same.

I do battle reenactments and... the last time I've saw a single fighter (player) taking care of a squad (even of totally inferior foes) where... never.

Overall I can see why you don't enjoy the system. Its amazing, its flexible, and it hits alot of points that people crave (integration of narrative and system, story support, easy streamlining of plusses and minuses without pages of rules to handle it), but all the things we actually love about it take it further away from that pinpoint realism you seem to crave in your rules systems.

My english is poor and I don't have the capacity to exaplain myself but, I assure you, that flexibility isn't what I don't like.

That's enough!

shinma said:

I am in the same boat as Shinma on this. The Holy Grail will never be found its the quest that matters, the longing for knowledge that is most likely unattainable ... that's the point, and this game delivers a seriously real experience that my players and myself love..... Only problem is I'll never get to play, cos I'm the only one willing to Narrate. Oh well I don't mind being everything in the Warhammer Setting bar the PC's. Very good breath of fresh air in my opinion!

DeathFromAbove said:

Oh the language barrier / lack of human emotion in text based communication. I saw the original post that sparked these over aggressive replies as a light-hearted jab at the expense of our hobby choice, which in my opinion is miniscule when compared to more main stream hobbies. I am of the opinion that people need to lighten up before posting angry replies, and realize that 9 out of 10 times the person on the receiving end of such tirades is completely innocent of any possible fault.

As for cost of the game I just spent the last 120$ CND that I had to my name on a product that I don't feel is in anyway overpriced, WHFRP. I am a musician as well as a GM / Narrator, and the costs I've accumulated collecting, repairing and upgrading my equipment casts a mournful shadow on anything I've bought for Roleplaying. I'm a proponent of Boggles theory that the more you play the less you pay!

Cheers and for Sigmar's sake lighten up!

shinma said:

In the Immortal words of Stan Lee

" NUFF SAID!"

James Sparrow said:

I've played a large number of games like this. What ended up happening is that after a while, this grows hollow for me and my group (this is of course our oppinion, it may work for you just fine). For a while we experimented with alot of narrative driven games with systems that encouraged clever storytelling and very little mechanics, and left alot of things up to the GM and fellow players. We drifted back out of the indie games and back to more traditional ones because there is just something about having some tactics and frameworks that is deeply satisfying because it lets you actually play with rules and use your wits to win the day rather than just agreeing that you're clever and win. The risk management system WFRP stresses is very satisfying in that regard.

In essence, games that involve a lot of storytelling (often with absurd situations you mentioned) ended up being fun in a nonsensical-silly way, but didn't lend well to long campaigns, developed characters, and didn't feel like 'games'. What does that mean? I'm not sure where the line is drawn (and I don't feel enough of an authority to say: Yes this is a game, or No this isn't a game) but collaborative storytelling is different than playing a 'game'. Part of the game elements that make things fun for myself (and for others I know) is having the rules and the dice, and playing within such a framework (minis and the overwhelming variety of 'bits' in WFRP aside). A card game like poker is clearly a game with no narrative element, and a game such as say Polaris is a narrative structure with very little game element. For myself and my friends to be satisfied there has to be more 'game' element than 2d6 and arbitrary decisions, but not so much structure that it strangles the story. The reason I like WFRP (and believe it to be so good) is that unlike say ... 4e or hackmaster (or a variety of other games) the balance IS on the side of narration and story, and putting the narrative in the hands of the players and the GM and not have it be so structured and bound by the rules that the control falls to those aforementioned rules rather than to creativity and good narrative - yet it has just enough rules and structure to keep that 'game' balance.

I do however see your point on the quantity of tools and that not necessarily being required (although I guiltily have to admit I do like the included toys ^_~)

James Sparrow said:

There are a number of games out there that match this description pretty well. Universalis, Burning Wheel and The Window are prime examples, and if you like a tiny bit more structure (or backstory) Spirit of the Century (with the Fate engine) and the Dragon Age rpg might be more up your alley. Give them a gander.

James Sparrow said:

Hear hear, and agreed.

DeathFromAbove said:

The point of the background story is an old and trited one.

Even my chess piece can have a rich and interesting background story. That will add little to a chess game.

Although I agree with your point on the chess game, I don't think the analogy applies. A chess game is separate from the backstory, which doesn't interact with play. In an RPG your background influences your actions and moves (unlike a chess pieces) and is the pool from which the narrator draws story ideas, and uses them to showcase and spotlight your characters history, actions, moral decisions and relationships. A background attached to a chess piece doesn't change the chess game, whereas a background attached to a character not only changes theirs, but it also changes the experience for every other piece (PC) in the game.

I think I see what you're aiming at though. If I recall corectly - in harn the backgrounds actually change gameplay mechanics, where this may not affect directly the system in WFRP3 in a specific mechanical sense.

What I'll suggest though is that the rules cover that in a 'broad' sense. For example, if you specify that you have a good relationship with person X (whether its a tavern wench, or a local noble) this can provide fortune dice for convincing them to aid you, or similar bonuses for all the men in their employ that have heard great stories about you saving their life/livelyhood. Its just not spelled out as such during creation.

DeathFromAbove said:

I don't have to drew anything or "create" anything. I tell a story with my players. That's all. I don't need anything rather that the PCs sheet. The added tools are our minds.

This is true, and a good point. Sparrow said as much earlier.

As a side note sometimes though the tools can (and do) help. As an example, I've been reading Valvorik's thread on his Gathering Storm Gameplay in the GMs forums. He cleverly used the 'keywords' on a career sheet to provide some bonuses. While my imagination may have possibly stumbled on the idea out of the blue, the career card and its possible relevant use provide a new mechanic to the game that I don't have to come up with out of the blue. Its a great example of working within the game framework, rather than struggling against it.

Again, not disagreeing - just pointing out something to consider.

I think you explain yourself quite well! And you're right, harn may have been a bad example (I actually mentioned this post to my friends at a game, and they mentioned that the editions of Harn I saw quite some time ago were far more complex than the updated and newer versions which were streamlined and more flexible) because of edition conflict on my part.

Reenactments however don't help you visualize what could have and would have happened. For one, reenactments are safe. People in them have nothing to lose, and they know they won't die. Units fight till they are demolished, but people don't drop their weapons and run in terror when their best friend screams clutching their guts on the ground. Most knights were paid in food and goods to train day in and day out in combat for years on end, and a single heavy cavalryman was worth 10 peasant infantry easily (well for a few hundred years till the longbow, guns and so on). I don't know if you see people trampled by a heavily armored destrier in your reenactments, or what sort of effect having a few men crushed screaming into the mud has on unit moralle.

Also, you're forgetting magic. Again, I'm not sure how many times you've seen someone with a flamethrower take you a dozen men like a bright order mage can in a single blast. Or when several guys in leather armor with some shortswords go up against a towering giant in full plate their weapons are useless against, swinging a glowing hammer that crushes through armor like tissue paper and leaving a trailing corona of glowing power screaming with the might of his god. I'd take these guys over a squad of totally inferior foes any day.

I recognize that you prize realism, but this game (like many others) stresses the heroic (larger than life) actions of people who are far beyond ordinary, and strives to make combat both deadly, and at the same time cinematic. It may ultimately not be your cup of tea, but its worth considering.

shinma said:

With regard to the first point, that's not my experience. I played in a weekly campaign that lasted two academic years. Modern setting, essentially realistic rather than over-the-top, with a deep sense of unease. This was followed by another game in the same setting that ran for an academic year. Both ran without character sheets and numbers, and just the odd roll of a D20. There was another year-long game, very high on magic - we had skill scores added to dice rolls to hit target numbers deciced by the GM, but that's about as far as the rules went - you mention developed characters, but I think you may mean character advancement; we managed both in this game based on the in-game actions, decisions and choices made in response to challenges within the game.

I have Mouseguard, but I did get bored reading the rules. The point I'm trying to make is that an innovative and ground-breaking system would be one that is essentially absent, and shows gamers how they can do all the things you describe without needing so much in the way of rules.

I'm not against rules (I like several systems), just making a point about what's ground-breaking and what's not.

Cheers

Sparrow

James Sparrow said:

Point well taken (and you're right on character advancement). Again, it might be cup-of-tea-ness.

Mousegard has certain limitations (partially due to setting limitations) and not a brief rule-set if I remember correctly (I've seen it but don't own a copy). My other suggestions may be closer to your mark. The Window has a total of 2 pages of rules, and works with any setting period (plus it's free online) - and stresses very little system involvement (and there's a number of others in the vein that have been around for decades).

shinma said:

I see where you are coming with this James, however I largely disagree that is at all groundbreaking. There are hundreds onto hundreds of games like this already on the market (in terms of INDIE RPG'S) and a handful of games that reached a broad, store by store release (Nobilis- sp?). Heck, I was playing this way back in 1989 in a game based off the Aliens franchise. So it is far from innovative. If you look at any RPG, in terms of narrative, all systems (regardless of how heavy or lite the system might be) are fundamentally designed around this principle. (modifiers to a die roll equal how good or bad you are at something.).

While I do agree with you that a great system has to support narrative decision making and all we really need is a concept and a die to resolve disputes, I have found through my actual experiences systems such as these make the assumption that everyone plays for the same reason and play in the same way as the creator of the system. We also don't need these systems at all since they are best designed as home-brews so they can be tailored to a specific group's play style. A system-in-print should give us inspiration to create better stories and a better experience.

Putting the GAME into Roleplaying Game

And that is what FFG has done. They added more gaming elements into the Roleplaying game. And for me it works well since I love boardgames as well. And that is what RPG is for me, a boardgame without the board, instead of the board you have immagination. But you need rules to navigate the murky waters of immagination so hence the rules.

The Holy Grenade

Calling it the holy grail gives off an odd resonance in my ears, too religious! But I get it that Sean meant, it as the One game for him, not that we should embark on a holy crusade and wage edition wars again (die infidels! my RPG is holier than yours, bow to my superior edition). But WFRP might be a holy grenade, in that sense it shock the gaming community and stunned a few guys, it might even have scared some designers (take a stun condition card, place 4 recharge tokens on it, remove one such token for each time you learn somehting cool about the game).

FFG might have lobed a holy grenade into the gaming industry, announcing with a big bang "look what we can do", beacuse they believed they had an truly awesome rpg in their hands (claws, tentacles or other appendages). And yes for me WFRP is that Grenade that woke me up from so many sleepwalking rpg sessions. The smoke of Shock and disbelief and dizzines of rude awakening, dispersed and a crisp, clear and briliant game was now on the marked.

Warhammer is my kinda grenade, holy or not.

good gaming

For me, what WFRP v3 can be summed up like this:

It accomplished what D&D v4 tried to do.

Our gaming group started out a few years back, when D&D v4 was released and was a strictly D&D group to start. Our GM was following all the updates and using all the tools released, printing out ability cards for us, buying minis, battlemaps and so on. And it was pretty cool at first. I really liked having all my available actions as cards on my hand, ready to play.

But the game just took forever to actually play. They went completely over the top with the "game" part and ended up with a wargame where you could RP between fights if you liked, but the system didn't really concentrate on that. All the "actions" were things you did during combat, which made them useless as soon as you weren't playing a hack'n'slash kick-down-the-door game. The actions were also called very specific things and described very specific actions. When you play this card you swing your hammer around you, hitting everyone in an arch, when you play that card you hit your opponent in the leg and so on. Our GM tried to encourage us to make our own name for the abilities, but we never really got that much into it.

Playing it with minis and a warmap also made it much stricter in what you could and couldn't do. Sure, I guess you could have made up unconventional manouveres and the GM could have allowed that, but the moment you stare down down at a gridmap, it's easy to get mentally locked into it like a game of chess.

Our GM eventually grew tired of the system, since telling a story based on battles that each took about an hour or two to play through was really not what he was into RPGs for. We spent some time messing around with a few different RPGs (Rogue Trader among others, but it's hard, if you're not very familiar with the setting, to RP as over the top GRIM as you need to do to make the game feel right.) He also looked at boardgames, trying to find something that could be described as a "board game RPG" (closest being Tales Of Arabian Nights, which was great fun but didn't really have much of a "game" to it, since you have to have played it a LOT of times to make anything resembling informed decisions.) I'm guessing he saw the potential D&D v4 hinted at but hadn't quite realised.

Then WFRP v3 came out. Which in many ways feels a lot like D&D v4, except that the focus is shifted away from micro-managing combat and slightly more towards broader brush-strokes and mixing the card-mechanic into all aspects of the game, instead of just the combat. I'm still sitting there with my cards, but now I can allways glance over them and wonder if any of them are usefull in the current situation. And when we do fight, I feel much freer to just use the cards as inspiration, selecting an appropriate card and making up what exactly I do (cards like Dirty Trick and Devious Manouevre are great examples).

On the surface, the two games look much the same, but when actually playing the two, WFRP seems to encourage creativity while D&D seems to stifle it.

I'm not sure if this is the Holy Grail of RPGs, but it sure is fun

Ralzar said:

Perhaps more and more people are growing tired of the direction D&D has taken?
Consequently aren't satisfied by v3?

Who knows.

commoner said:

I have a suspicion that each of our experiences are of slightly different things - it's kind of hard to say for sure. Certainly, what I'm talking about has not been supplied by indie games or by Nobilis.

Also, I don't think you need a system to support narrative decision making (although I know some folk do regard just rolling a die as a system); you just need a bit of imagination, common sense and a fairly like-minded group of friends, essentials for any RPG, I think.

Regardless of that, I still don't think WFRP3 falls into the category or ground-breaking, though I may be forced to accept that it has innovative elements. The question is, do the innovations really add anything? Are they just codifying things that at least some groups have been doing for years? Are they things thst just force you to play at a table? What are they really adding to the experience of roleplaying that was missing before? This latter question in particular seem worth considering.

Cheers

Sparrow

James Sparrow said:

For you, what they really added?

James Sparrow said:

What you've described, I've seen in many indie games. A bunch of guys sitting around a coffee table, rolling only a couple dice for randomizers (very rarely) and holding up a whole story that way? Yep. Very common. Oh it has a few skills that increase over time as well? Also, very common. I agree with commoner that this doesn't take alot of system, and is probably better done by each group for their individual games and needs, but I'd need more details on what you've played with specifically to provide specific examples. But the 'talk alot, roll little' idea supported by a system with few mechanics isn't that rare honestly.

Note - whether its your cup of tea or not ... that's a different question ^_~

James Sparrow said:

Well said.

James Sparrow said:

I'm probably opening a box of worms here - but here goes anyway.

Words, have existed for a long time. Most of them have been polished by use. But put words together and you have a book. Now you could say 'wow, books are made of words. Like we haven't seen those before.' Or we could discuss the merits of the book, and compare it to other books, and talk about innovative style choices, word choice and the other parts that good reviewers observe.

WFRP is an RPG. It uses dice, tokens and cards. All things we've seen before. What it does though is tie narrative control, a loose ruleset, and a great setting into a system in a way that other games don't. That is the unique part. Not the bits. And that does add alot to the game (at least, I feel so, your mileage may vary). I think commoner put it really well, it delivers what other games only promise.

As to your question of what it adds. Well for me, it adds a missing game element from loose narrativist structure, and a bit of a strategic element, while losing none of the story or the narration (or perhaps making it a tad more cogent).

Don't know if that helps clear up or not.