I just sent the last of my players home after a five hour gaming session that entailed a basic explanation of core concepts along with also working up characters. These folks have all played 2nd edition and are avid gamers who're enthusiastic with new games and much endeared to the Warhammer world. Keep in mind that I'm not a sponge as far as soaking up rules and so it was a little hectic at times fielding questions before and during play.

The adventure took part a large tavern with much time devoted to interaction based actions and then the second half entailed some combat out in the wilds. My opinions pretty much reflected those of my players.

The combat system is great, and unique. The only problem was gaining an intuitive interpretation of the dice. This is nothing in the form of a complaint and for the most part I described the actions after they gave me their final results on the dice. The also loved the social aspect and how it was worked out. I had thrown in some gaming, along with other social related interactions. So, all in all they liked the dice and how the system works with it.

The character creation was smooth and I had no complaints there other than trying to sort through all of the cards. When you own every set they've produces it get's tedious keeping up with them all and also trying to figure a good way to keep them sorted, LOL!

The complaints I received were minor, but I do agree with them on all accounts.

Movement during combat is really too abstract. We don't care for the 4th edition D&D style, but the tokens between creatures and players were often confusing. When you have four players and three creatures and markers between each keeping distance marked it gets very confusing and easy to forget when it comes to adding, or removing tokens. It's all great when you have a group of monsters that all rush in, but when you have players each going in different directions and then monsters that aren't grouped together it becomes a bad thing. We didn't use the location cards, so maybe that was the error, but I'm curious. We are thinking of a grid map with loose square counts for different ranges. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this.

Markers got easily mixed up during play. I assumed this would happen and actually bought beads for fortune, stress and fatigue. We still ended up using tokens for recharging and keeping up with favor and power so there was an occasional mix up. They almost seemed to be an annoyance. My thoughts were to use ten sided dice for things to keep up, but I'm curious if anyone else felt this way and might have used a different system? Also, on my side of the screen I noticed several times that rolling dice kept scattering the initiative keeper which was a minor annoyance. Again, any methods anyone would like to share?

Questions about rules: One of the main questions I had was if talents exhausted when used. The apprentice wizard was using a card that escaped me now, but it seemed to help him channel with an extra fortune dice almost every time he rolled. Is it a general rule that unless a card states it has a recharge rating that it can be used from turn to turn?

Also, a card such as a some of the defense cards that aren't listed with "Reaction" does this mean that these cards can't be used out of turn?

What does "Ancestor" mean on some of the action cards? I assume you must have the trait, but maybe I'm taking it from a campaign expansion that mentioned. I have yet to read through TGS, or EON

Overall, I'd like to say the game blew me away. I'd like to say the players were amazed by the components and the new system. The adventure was fine and they all had fun, but in all honesty it just made me wonder if we shouldn't have just stuck with 2nd edition. I'm by no means hating the game and also realize that we need to give it more sessions to make sure 3rd isn't for us, but I have to admit, I have purchased every product sold to date for this game and truly loved it all. The thing is, getting it all from the books to actual life isn't quite like I expected. It seemed like I was going the long way around the way for something I could have gotten done in a more simple way (3rd compared to 2nd) Has anyone else had similar thoughts? Keep in mind, I'm not whining, or a hater. I truly love the things FFG have done, all top notch! It's just I feel like I bought a Porsche that rides like a Hyundai once I get it on the highway, LOL.

Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe I expected an amazing reaction from the group with this shiny new game I'd bought. I truly don't know, but I just thought I'd share some thoughts and opinions and see what the forums think.

Cheers,

wOOkie

sugarwookie said:

LMAO

There's a lot going on in 3rd ed. compared to the older ones. I think there are several amazing ideas, but the lack of detailed explanations sometimes come in the way how the game is working and how it is intended to work. Abstract combat is one of these. Like my group you seem to be veteran oldschool rpg people and getting into the 3rd ed. mindset is not necessarily easy. It transfers a lot of storytelling to the players, especially when interpreting the dice, which can easily be exploited by the power hungry players if the GM isn't awake and aware. There are a lot of things which are not explained throughout, but have a "you should come up with your own favourite way to play this". I really wish FFG would create a "session in action" video, where the new players (and us oldschool too), could see how the designers intended the game to be played. This is because the mindset to play this game is quite different from any RPGs I've played up to date (and I've played over hundred different RPGs).

Once you get the rules rolling the system of the 3rd ed. and get your head around the different approach this game requires from both GM and the players, you're going to have a blast.

You bought a Porshe, but as you're accustomed of driving with Hyundai, you drive your Porsche like it's Hyundai. Learn to drive the sports car you now own like it should be driven and then come back and tell us if it is a great car or not.

Good stuff. I like these "live" reviews. Keep playing in the old world..and your group will eventually get hooked on the dice..going back to plain old d20 or percentile feels very empty after WFRP3 dice

On the game:

Talents have a recharge of 4 unless otherwise stated.

Think of engagements as a target instead of a grid. I'm debating on trying a target overlay! you could easily do a grid with 30' movement per maneuver without any difficulty whatsoever..although it will drag you right back to the 5'step-dance of D&D and 2e. The abstract movement was an attempt to make it feel more like a "roleplaying game in the mind" as opposed to the opposite..it's fine once you run it a couple times

I write down initiative on a post-it as well as ACE dice. I hear you on the scattering. Probably magnets on metal would work, but cardboard scatters.

We started the game on both "Rules Lite" and with the cardboard counters when it first came out. Half my players wanted counters, the other half wanted rules lite. I'd let them choose.

Best,

jh

HAHAA! I like the Hyundai remark Mord and understand what you're saying. I'm definitely not giving it up and the group also wants to keep on playing. I just had some doubts today and hate that when I look at all these expansions and books, LOL! I tend to hoard RPG's for some reason. I do like a lot about the game, and I'm sure it'll catch. I just looked at everyone and all the motherload of cards they had out and thought "Jesus, that's a lot of stuff! Then they're picking up tons of dice and throwing all over the place, LOL!

Emirikol, thanks for the answers. I'd like to know if anyone you know is using the target overlay and if you have a copy? That might actually work better than the typical battlemap. I don't really want to be exact, it was just that the players were having a hard time. I understand what FFG were trying to do and think it's a good idea. I just think it leaves a little too much out there and the tools they tell you to use (Counters) are a bad way to keep up with it.

Thanks again for the input! We'll see if the next session goes a little better! I'll definitely post when it happens.

Thanks!

Movement - The key for me is to remove WFRP3 from any other games you have played. Especially former WFRP editions. If you are comparing it to second as you play, you are setting yourself up for failure IMO. With the tokens, space is vital. Don't let things get too clustered. And, location cards really help. Instead of distancing based upon the people, you can immediately tie it to the location. "The orc is two spaces away from the building, which is one away from the hospice of shallaya, which I am one space away from" Which sounds like a lot but in play it is easy to see you are 4 spaces apart. Which I believe is extreme range. Also, keeping it simple to start doesn't hurt. Finally, you can just narrate it, like in any other RPG. Bring in the components as you need them.

Stuff getting mixed - I have yet to slay that beast. Next game I am doing to prepare my location in advance, giving me space and making sure nothing gets in the way. We shall see though.

Ancestor trait - Those actions are tied to Ironbreakers. The trait is not restrictive to only ironbreakers, but it illustrates that they are part of an ironbreakers moves.

Reaction - Not sure what you are asking, but you need to rely on the traits. For example, improved guarded position is meant to be used on a players turn, and not as a reaction, like block would be. The books say not to use traits as restrictions, but I don't see how you cannot. It is what they are.

As far as the porsche riding like a hyundai...I honestly cannot disagree with you there. There are a lot of aspects that are "GM discretion" which REALLY should not be. They are clearly meant to be something discrete, yet I am told to handle it myself. Which is fine in limited doses, but some things like the mythical influence should really be codified. Here in the next few days I'll probably sit down and figure something out for myself.

Oh, and interpreting the die pools will become easier. I say start it out with a simple counting of results, then narrate later as folks grow accustomed.

Two things...

Movement: Don't get worked up on where people are. I pretty much let my players have the ruling. If they say they're close, they're close. So while we use markers, we don't get worked up if they get mixed up a bit. We also use locations btw...

Tokens...: You did mention you bought beads for fatigue, fortune and stress? I have 4 beads, for fortune (green), stress (black), fatigue (red), recharge (white), and then we've begun to use miscast cards as power (thanks to an awesome idea by someone else in here). So we use miscast cards kinda like wounds. If they miscast on channeling/spellcraft, we simply flip one card (the player choses) and use that as miscast card.

Aside from that, one session is not enough... you need 2-3 sessions to start appreciate this game, because at that point things starts to stick.

A few quick comments/ideas...

Recharge: Unless a card specifically states it is exhausted, then yes you can apply that card each round. If it is exhausted then it has a recharge of 4 as Em says, unless the card specifically states otherwise.

Movement: We use a battlemat and when we need to, we mark ranges on there with a wipe marker (E for extreme, L for long etc..) we don't use the squares specifically as that can get back to counting squares and having to do exact placements which is time consuming, but even if we didn't have a battle mat i don't think we'd use tokens as suggested in book, as that is a bit fiddly.

Initiative track: I have that on the players side of the screen (I use the pre-built one provided in toolkit/vault) so players can see when they are able to go etc compared to NPCs.

Rolling dice: We use a lid of one of the smaller packs (Vaults or adventurer's kit) on the payers side of the table and players roll their dice in that... no spillage, no chance of things getting knocked. Sometimes i roll in the lid and sometimes i roll on my side of the screen depending on the roll.

I also agree with other posts and emphasise with your conclusions after your first session, WFRP 3rd ed does require you to get into a certain mindset and that can be tricky if you come to it expecting it to play like 2nd ed or other more traditional rpgs, but if you give it a bit more time, i think (hope) things will suddenly click with you and your players and then you'll wonder who you ever managed to play rpgs any other way....

good luck and good gaming.

Emirikol said:

Are you sure about that? I think it's the other way around given that some Talent cards explicitly state "Exhaust this card to..." gain whatever benefit they convey; the other Talents are just stated as flat effects with no mention of exhausting.

On the subject of the abstract combat / ranges, it really does work out pretty well once you get used to it. You should try it in conjunction with the location cards though; makes a big difference.

I like how fast and easy it is to slap down a few location cards to set a combat scene. You can get pretty creative with them if you are of a mind to,and the mild mechanical modifiers make encounters more tactically interesting.

KillerShrike said:

Talents that require exhaust have a recharge of 4. Some talents do not require exhausting, and therefore do not require recharge.

1) Movement - Location cards will help a little, as they can be points of reference for identifying ranges. Also, keep in mind that you don't necessarily need to keep range tokens in between every single NPC and PC. It sounds like you guys are trying to "grid up" and be too literal with positioning still. Also, you could consider making some specific "distance" markers that are labeled "Close", "Long", etc. so they won't get as confused amongst other tokens ... although I don't know what other tokens you'd have on the table where the standups are other than range tokens. I don't use any, although there are a couple of piles of tokens for the players to grab from ... but those aren't really in the play space.

2) @ markers. It doesn't really matter which specific token you use to track what. It's actually ok, for example, to use the physical fatigue/stress tokens to track recharge if you want. Sure, using different ones, perhaps color coded, might make things a little easier but it really shouldn't be a problem. Now, if you are talking about the tokens in a character's area getting mixed up ... then that seems to be a disorganization problem. Each thing needing to be tracked has its own area. Place recharge tokens on their respective card. Fatigue goes on the upper half of the character sheet, stress goes on the lower. The tokens really should not be close enough to get confused between each other if you keep them physically where they are supposed to be kept. As far as dice interfereing with the initiative track ... I'd suggest moving the track elsewhere. Or, make it a vertical track on the GM screen (or on its own), and use clips or markers to track slots.

3) First of all, you seem slightly confused. The example you gave, of the wizard's ability, is not a talent. It is a career ability, which is slightly different. Regardless, Talents and abilities do not exhaust unless they say they exhaust. If they say they exhaust and don't specify a value, then you put 4 (I think it's 4) recharge on as default. There are talents and abilities that are 'always on' and do not exhaust. Oh, and yes, the apprentice wizard ability does not exhaust, so they will gain an extra fortune die every time.

4) Yes, I'm pretty sure that if it doesn't say Reaction it cannot be used outside of the user's turn (unless it's an ongoing effect). I cannot think of any offhand, anyway.

5) Ancestor is a Trait. It is not a requirement/restriction. A trait is a keyword used to identify a card for when other cards/talents/abilities need to interact with them. For example, a talent that gives a [W] fortune die to Social Actions. Check your Action cards, and any action card that has the Social trait will benefit from that talent. Ancestor functions the same way.

sugarwookie said:

Go with that thought wookie. The game only gets better once you really get into it and see how different cards interact

Gallows said:

..and familiarty with the cards and tokens will eventually make them nearly invisible/automatic and less intrusive.

gsoul said:

Right...I interpreted emirikol literally to mean talents have a recharge of 4 unless they say otherwise, when what he was probably trying to say is that talents that do exhaust have a recharge of 4. I tend to be very literal minded.

I've been away a couple of days and have put things through some thoughts and I came back with more great input from you wise regulars on here, LOL! Love to hear from you guys when I have questions and you never fail!

Being that I'm not the brightest bulb in the carton, and the only one up til now that's read the rules it's been a process over several months of reading, rereading and then, well Hell! Reading again to try and make the sessions run as smooth as possible. I've missed a few things that are in the rules and the talent card recharge was one of them, so now I know how they work!

I would really like to hear from those who are using the location cards. I can't seem to get my mind around how to use them. To me they're so small I picture all the PCs touching them and it just seems, well sort of "Bleh". I'm sure I'm missing the point, so it would be awesome to see how you've used them. I do like them a lot, but again just haven't really grasped the concept. I also think that I have started to realize that before 4th edition D&D and older games such as WH2nd that movement was truly abstract and left to description. I never worried about it in the past. We used miniatures, but never counted spaces, or worried so much about range. I think the new games are steering us in that direction these days though and maybe I need to remember the "Golden" years where It didn't matter. I can see why FFG made a U-turn on this in relation to how it affects the story.

I still might try a battlemap, without the counting just so everyone will have some eye candy to look at. I might also try the range bands as well. Either way, I won't be using the tokens like I did last weekend.

Thanks for the support!

Here's a thread I started about the location cards a while back. Sadly, I haven't had time to respond to it in full with the uses, but I had a similar disconnect with how useful they were other than a picture placeholder for that 'terrain' during an encounter/fight.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=165&efcid=3&efidt=395673

Nice link, thanks for sharing! I would love to have someone actually give an example of how they actually use them in play. Anyone care to chime in and give me some ideas to go by?

Well you need to design your adventures with them in mind. Draw one at random and work it into an adventure, ideally a location where the game will be in encounter mode. That breaks the ice for you to use them. As far as dealing with range, if they are in it, they are engaged. Outside, close, then a token for each band out after.

What is it that is giving you trouble? To me, they are very easy to use. The key is finding a good reason to incorporate them. Another thing you can do is stack the cards vertically, in order of how the players will encounter them. For example : The first card is the city gates. Well, the group fails their social checks and are kept out due to a quarantine. The next card is then the broad sewer, the players only recourse to entering the city now. Out of the sewer they make their way into the wizards tower. They meet the wizard in his audience chamber after breaking the wizards puzzle. They learn his true nature, and he retreats to his magic laboratory where the epic showdown takes place. Not all of these need to be put down in the middle of the table for an encounter, but due to the vertical orientation, its all out in front of you. You could also throw progress trackers down to each, to gauge their progress in each location.

I'm sorry if that isn't as clear as it is to me. But thats one way I use them.

I rarely use them, but I have used them.

I interpret location cards to be sites of encounters.

In general I find that I will only use them if: (1) I have written the story with the use of location cards in mind or (2) I can somehow shoehorn the location cards into the story or (3) I make my own location cards.

In either case, I use the location cards to act as a location identifier. I place the location card near the party sheet to help the players remember where they are and any special rules that apply to the location. When the players leave the location I move the location card to the top of the play area (near my GM screen) to remind the characters where they've been. In this way, the location cards track the location "history" of the game. When players want to travel back to locations, I simply move cards around to indicate the current location - keeping track of how much time it will take (and if anything interesting happens along the way) to move from location to location.

The way I use location cards, they are very rarely within extreme range of each other, so sometimes I will place tokens between the cards to indicate how long it will take to travel from one location to another.

On the occasion that locations are within range (e.g. the "Road" is within Medium Range of the "Marketstrasse"), and an encounter is occuring where some characters (say the PCs) are in one location and others (say Beastmen) are in the other, it becomes easy enough to place the character standups on the location cards themselves, with the tokens representing the usual range definitions. This is similar (if not identical) to how they are used in the Core Rules.

I find location cards extremely useful and narrative when I'm feeling energetic enough to use them.

I have used Location cards in two main ways.

First to record/display any "general area" effects. For example, if everyone is in a woods, the Woods location card gets placed nearby to that the effects of the woods is easily readable/available for consultation. It does not need to be in the play/encounter area, because the effects are consistent for everyone.

Second, it can be used in a more "position-oriented" layout. As such, you place location cards relative to each other in the encounter area, with range markers between the locations. Generally, 2 or 3 locations can be handled easily on table (3 seems to work well). They provide good "fixed" areas to coordinate relative distances for PCs and NPCs to move between. Now that I have the GM Vault, with its additional location cards, I'll probably use a few more location cards around the table. I never worry about trying to fit all opponents ON the location card (if there are too many). As long as they are nearby, everyone knows if their PC (or opponent) is at the location or not.

I think the problem I have with them is that when I look at a Woods card I think of how small it is and take it to literal. To say the players are touching it means they are in it, or outside of it close makes some sense, but then again I think my whole problem with this is that I've gone and taken movement too literal. I'm going to try and be more loose with it next time. Thanks for the suggestions and maybe I need to incorporate them in and see how the group likes them.

Yeah man, you gotta keep things loose. So much of the system depends on that. There are certainly very very specific aspects, but then there are some really non specific aspects as well...Like you have discovered with the location cards.

sugarwookie said:

An entire scene could take place in the Woods. Most woods are larger across than a few paces anyway.

Or the scene could be on the edge of the woods, with a road running from the woods, through a field, to a castle gate 300 feet away.

It's all up to the specifics of the scene what locations are involved, how many, and how they are related.

Yes, even with location cards things need to be abstract. Location cards just help organize into "areas".