Has anyone any thoughts on how to play WFRP without the pretty little counters and cards. I am a DM that has been running campaigns for about 20 years and after playing Dark Heresy thought I would give WFRP a go. After opening the boxed set I was greeted with pretty dice and counters and felt like I had been transported back in time 30 years. The system seems pretty good but I cannot bring myself to introduce this game to a very experienced group of roleplayers. It has a bit of Heroquest feel and I need to step away from this.

Has anybody put anything together to help with this?

Thanks

D.K

I can only say that experienced Roleplayers will have prejudices against that game and will claim that it looks like a board game, but when they immerge and stop mock they have a great time and play till the GM falls asleep. One condition hast to be met for this, the GM has to be open minded and in the flow with the system. So please got to a group already playing WHFRP and play with them for at least two session. Then you can decide if you want to sell the game to yout group or on ebay.

In germany there is a type of Roleplayer that is against everything new and against innovations like WHFRP.If i lead a group with those tyües of players in WHFRP i have to work hard, but in 4 of 5 cases those guys stand up after the session and had fun. After half an hour they overlook all their materials and are like children opening their first magic Booster.

Okay, I appreciate what you are saying and thanks for the input, I will look over the rules again and give this a chance, I love the campaign setting so it is probably worth a go. I am a very open minded DM and have ran games of all genres and complexity. I spent many years playing rolemaster and eventually shelved it looking for something with less rules. I love the Dark Heresy rules and I guess I was a little surprised to discover that the fantasy game was vastly different.

I will give it a go and see what happens

D.K

If u are an experienced GM i think u will have zero problems to lighten the system 'till the core and golden rule:

just grab ur dice and forget about anything else: by the telling on how many success, failures, boon, banes, chaos stars and sigmar comets scored, u will be able to narrate the outcome for whatever task ur players have rolled for...as easy and new as that!

The wound system on card is pretty handy too, so u may think to keep that...

Our group has been playing together since the early eighties, and been playing Warhammer the rpg since it came out in a white box edition. I had thought this edition of the game was going to be a hard sell to my players, but you know what they have really embraced it, and the player who was the most invested in the Warhammer universe came away from the second session saying that this was the best version of the game he had played.

The components do seem more than a bit overwhelming at first, but they do serve a purpose and make the game run smoother, if you don't want the props then download the expanded character sheet... HERE , you will still need the action cards, although you could scan them and arrange them into player sheets in word. Before you go this route I would play a couple of practice encounters with the props to get used to the system. If you give it ago you will find that the "it's a board game" thing is just not true, this a very strong role-play game, and the funky dice are the best thing ever, I don't know how I will go back to antiquated dice with numbers, I think it will be like going back to the stone age.

Whatever happens have fun, and good gaming.

Mike

The counters are exactly the same mechanic as making pencil marks on a piece of paper. So for anyone who absolutely refuses to play using counters, have them keep track of things with pencil and paper.

GravitysAngel said:

Another simple solution to replacing counters is by using those old dice that you don't need anymore, since you have the fancy Warhammer dice, to track various types of points. We use them for Fatigue (d12), Stress (d12), Wounds (d20), Power (d12) and Favour (d12)... possibly in the place of other counters, but I can't recall off the top of my head. We just place them on the relevant part of the character sheet and use them to keep track in that way. If the die is removed completely, then that stat is currently 0.

I also developed a very simple sheet with numbered boxes on it the size of action cards that some players use to track recharge, moving the card along the sheet in accordance with its recharge. It's simple, but effective and although it adds space, it makes things easy and no counters. I guess you could use dice for that too.

Waxfire

There are numerous things to track every round:

1. Wounds
2. Critical wounds
3. Fatigue
4. Stress
5. Talent Recharge
6. Multiple action card recharge
7. Active defense
8. Power
9. Stance shifting

D20 players are used to tracking two things:

1. Hit points

2. Instant use abilities: Daily, Encounter, At will powers..once used, you're done.

That's it.

Not much more to say about that.

I set all exhaust talents to Per encounter unless you spend a fortune point.

I set all 6+ recharge actions to per encounter unless you want to spend a fortune point.

Some people like tracking all kinds of stuff. I don't particularly like that. If I had the time, i'd set all action cards and talent cards to at will, per-rally/encounter, and daily and dump the fatigue and stress mechanics entirely.

jh

Emirikol said:

Well, that's D&D4, not d20.

In D&D4, you also track Healing Surges, and Per Day powers (such as Lay On Hands).

In d20, you also track spell slots (or spell points), fatigue levels, and you may track action points, ki points, per encounter abilities, per day abilities, effect durations, and a bunch of other things.

This is probably off-topic, but the biggest problem I see with D4e is that the players don't have to track much, but the DM has to have an accounting degree to track all the crap at his end (actually they use laptops at the encounters games I've played). Whereas, in W3e, the players do the accounting (well, there is some stuff dumped on the Gm, but we have the luxury of ignoring it if we want..for cinematic effect

I had a 2e player sitting at my table who said, "let me play it as it is meant to be..counters, flip ring tokens and all." He said he'd be back for the next game.

jh

Some cracking input here people thanks. I am certainly akin to complex rules (played Rolemaster for about 15 years) but converted to D20 for fantasy about 4 years ago. My group use laptops due to all of the different buffs that are used during a game. My fantasy setting has run for nearly 20 years and used 3 different game systems during that time. My wife bought me Dark Heresy at Xmas and I started a campaign which is running very well at the moment. I played WFRP 1st Edition many years ago and thought I would give the latest version a go.

I have now had a good read of the rules and am growing more intrigued. Will certainly give it a go.

D.K