What are good resources for my players to buy if they want to get more involved in the world?

The Players' Guide is obvious. You get the rules without all the boardgamey stuff. Great for a player who wants to do some reading and prep work at home. But other than that?

The Players' Vault not. It contains the boardgamey stuff from the basic set. It's cool to have, but it's shared stuff, likely to get mixed up if somebody brings their own. Maybe it'd work if every player has his own vault, but that's not likely to happen. In any case, I doubt it contains much world background, and that's what we really need.

Adventurer's Toolkit: same story. Useful to have once, but I don't need two trollslayers or 2 wardancers in my group.

Really, the interesting rules and background info are in the Tome of Mysteries, Tome of Blessings, and in the Winds of Magic and (presumably) Paths of Faith books. But the first two are only available as part of the Core Set, aren't they? I believe parts of them may also be in the GM's Guide, but that sounds like the wrong book to recommend to players. Winds of Magic and Paths of Faith also contain a lot of information for the GM, not to mention cards and other stuff that players don't need individually.

So I'm kind of wondering: am I missing something? Is this background information and rules on magic use not meant for players? That'd be silly. I want to encourage my players to read more background stuff, to get more involved in the world. I'd like them to be able to buy the books separately. But they can't. Can they?

(Originally I typed a lot more background here, but my browser threw it away. I might type it up again if anyone wants to know more about my group.)

Hmm... It's a bit of a predicament. To be honest, there's not a lot of background heavy material published for WFRP 3.

Your two best options for setting material are the published adventures - but they are obviously meant for GMs, and the Winds of Magic, Signs of Faith sets.

It's true that you do get (a lot) of cards and bits, but they are going to be interesting (to a player who is interested in magic or faith). They contain an adventure - but that is in a separate book along with the material on the Chaos God that comes with the set - so it can be given to the GM quite easily, leaving the other book for the player to read. This is the book that has lots of background (and a few rules) for magic/faith.

I would personally recommend the Signs of Faith set over Winds of Magic, as although it is obviously most useful to priest characters, the religions, cults, temples etc are a big part of the setting that all characters would have some familiarity with. Most characters will know priests, will have been to temples etc, even if they've never shown an interest in divine magic. For this reason, it's a more interesting general background book.

The magic book contains information on the history and nature of magic - that is basically not very relevant to (and certainly wouldn't be understood by) most people, and information on the colleges of magic. Which, again - are not experienced by most people. So, this set is obviously good for people interested in magicians, or who want to play perhaps an urban politics game, centred around the intrigues between the colleges of magic, but in other cases, the Faith set is probably of more interest.

The other thing you could recommend your players do is try to find a copy of the 2nd edition 'Sigmar's Heirs' book - which is mostly background information on the Empire, or 'Shadows Over Bogenhafen'. This is the 1st edition book which contains a lot of the material which got revamped in Sigmar's Heirs, but it also contains an adventure (the first part of the Enemy Within campaign). Both of these are out of print, but it might not be too hard to find either of them on Amazon, Ebay etc. I bought Sigmar's Heirs on Amazon a year or so ago, and it cost quite a bit less than a full-priced WFRP 3 box set (like Signs of Faith or Winds of Magic).

You could also look for Warpstone Magazine (and a compilation book of articles called 'Corrupting Influence'). Some back-issues are probably still available from the Warpstone website. They are written by fans of the game (which include authors who have written professionally for WFRP in some cases) and are really excellent. The format is very professional, the artwork is great, and they are crammed full of interesting articles: adventures, background, setting information. I highly recommend buying any issues you are still able to get. It is aimed at the 'lower fantasy' end of the spectrum - be warned - so there's a lot of human relationships, plots etc... But not many earth-shattering magic weapons. Just so you're aware before you buy.

I have the core set, adventurer's kit, gm's toolkit, winds of magic, signs of faith + adventures edge of night and witch's song and on top of all, create vault.

Next important installment will be Omers of War.

WHFRP started card-heavy (board-gamy stuff) and has remained so. While Guides published now collect the data from all of the expansion, how will they keep up with Omens of War, Blackfire pass and any future expansion? It's quite difficult actually to invest in WHFRP and not end up with pile of cards in the long run if you want "the full experience".

I've favored cards as primary option for its modularity. And if two players are wanting the same card, it's quite easy to create proxies.

I bought Creature Vault to complete the card-driven approach: it was wondered around the launch of core set that why monsters were on book pages while most of the data you needed during the session was on cards (actually, all of it you could say). We wanted to have cards similar to Career sheets but got the next best thing which is the entire cast of monsters on normal size cards + all their skills. Now - it's fully no books required -experience during playing session.

You mentioned players buying possibly separate Vaults - I'd recommend them to buy collectively one, maybe maximum of two. You see this contains all the player-related cards of the original core set and you really really don't need multiple copies of it.

I also think this game is easy to misjudge as "board-gamey" with cards and a few tokens: not true. Cards simply act as a medium of documenting skills and talents in a compact modular distributable way. It's a great mechanic and unless you've tried it out you should not make hasty decisions.

I didn't mean to restart the boardgame vs. RPG discussion. It is an RPG, but one that makes use of some boardgamey elements.

I do have Sigmar's Heirs and Corrupting Influence. Pretty much everything ever written for 1st edition, and I picked up a lot of 2nd edition stuff for half price a couple of years ago. I've got plenty of background material. My problem is that I'd like to have something good to recommend to players that want to invest a bit more in the game. Books that are out of print and written for previous editions don't make very attractive recommendations, especially not for a big, luxurious game like WFRP3. But the only true player's book is the Player's Guide. It would be nice if FFG published a 3rd edition version of Sigmar's Heirs.

Of course another problem with official WFRP material would be that I disagree with a lot of it. I vastly prefer the WFRP1/TEW/Warpstone setting.

Maybe I should write a fan supplement that presents my view of the Warhammer world for WFRP3.

The advise on Paths of Faith is good. I agree that that is probably the most useful big supplement for players to read (and buy?). Though I'm still not happy with them paying for cards and a book they don't need just to get the one book they do need.

mcv said:

I get what you're saying (and I agree with most of it). At least though, most of Sigmar's Heirs is not rules, but background, so it doesn't really go out of date.

But yes - it doesn't leave you with much to recommend to players. I would like to see a lot more background being published but like you, dislike the tone of much of what is published, so in a way I'm glad they're kind of leaving it alone. It's obvious from following this forum that some players like high fantasy, while others really do not. Avoiding putting background material in detail and in black and white is one way of avoiding this variety of opinion becoming a problem.

Going back to your players though, they can either chip in - purchasing cards and everything else - that comes with the little background that is written, or they / you will just have to get background material from somewhere else.

As I want the rules and the background / adventures, it hasn't been a problem for me - but apart from the Player's Guide, there's not really an obvious supplement for players to buy if they want background material.

Angelic Despot said:

Unfortunately, that's not necessarily true for WFRP. Both background details and atmosphere have changed quite a bit over the years. Sigmar's Heirs refers to the Archaon, which will never exist in my game. Most 3rd edition stuff is way more high fantasy, over the top and caricatural. Ideally, I'd prefer to stick to 1st edition, but that's mostly bits and pieces all over the place, half of which is still not terribly consisent. But if you don't mind glossing over such things, I guess Sigmar's Heirs is the best generalbackground supplement for any edition.

Angelic Despot said:

I think it'd actually be possible to write it with lots of tweakable options to make it fit your style. I've been thinking if I ever write something like that, I'd dedicate a chapter to "Who is the Emperor?", offering several options ranging from the weak figure-head Karl-Franz to the heroic leader Karl-Franz, Heinrich Todbringer, and possibly some other options, also discussing the tone of the setting and the level of corruption or unity you want.

Angelic Despot said:

Same here. I want it all, but they don't. Many other systems have a couple of books beyond the basic rulebook that contain useful information for players. WFRP3 has information that's useful to players, but it's published in a really inconvenient way. Separate books are much more practical for that.

I think you guys are waaaaaaaay overthinking this. The players guide is well more than they'll probably ever need. If they want background on a specific place have them download Sigmar's Heirs or look at a couple Warhammer Fantasy battles books. There are so many Wiki entries on Warhammer that it simply boggles the mind. If you've got a player running a wizard or Priest or zealot, simply have them download the appropriate PDF from drivethrurpg.com

Unless your player is a hardened bibliophile, my guess is they don't sit around reading all kinds of background that's not relevant to their character's current or past situation.

Background is created by the story and the GM in most circumstances

jh

Emirikol said:

I'm kind of assuming that the reason for this post is that (however unusual), these players DO want to feel more invested in the game.

I don't think it's uncommon for people who play RPGs to have big game book collections either, so I completely understand why they would want to get into this. Plus, if you're really enjoying the game, reading up on it can make you feel much more able to get the most out of it.

I think you're right, that mostly it does come down to how the GM runs it, but that doesn't mean that enthusiastic players don't want to do their part.

mcv said:

I don't know how you broke up my quote and inserted your own thoughts, so all of my replies are here!

I agree with you on point 1 re: Archaon and the changing background. But I think it's also pretty easy to tell a player: "this was written for a different edition, post 'Storm of Chaos'. If you ignore all references to the war, then you'll still get a pretty good idea of what the Empire is like." And then it's also easy to follow that up with your variation on 'and by the way, all those heroic war councils the Emperor was chairing? Guess what? Official propaganda. He's actually been sick in bed the last 7 years'. i.e. The players can still learn a lot despite the Storm of Chaos.

Second point: I too think it would be possible to write a book that way. Indeed, I'd be happy if they did it. I just don't believe they will. The perfect way to do it would be this: several paragraphs about the political system, followed by 3 paragraphs showing how to amend this depending on style of game. So each section would have a 'if you like your warhammer heroic, then here's what else you need to know: the Empire has a Griffon, chairs grand councils and leads from the front. There are corrupt officials but brave ministers who cut through the bureacracy to get things done'. Then a 'middle way' option and a 'low fantasy, dirt and gritty option 'the Emperor has syphilis and hasn't been to one of the council meetings in years.' Perhaps you only need two options.

Anyway, I don't think it will happen because game publishers tend not to like having different versions of their game They may also think that it won't work. And that their ambiguity to date can be continued. I think they're wrong, but I'm not the one making the decisions! Also, GW may not let them cause potential harm to their intellectual property by creating an 'official' and 'unofficial' version (as that's probably what a 'veterans/old-schoolers' and 'newbies/DnD fans' version would likely come to be known as, along with all the mud-slinging that would entail).

It's really just one player that wants to invest in it. And he now has; he bought the Core Set, Player's Guide, and possibly also the Adventurer's and GM's toolkits. And he wants to GM it with his family, considering it pretty suitable for a casual RPG and for new roleplayers.

So now he also wants me to GM the WFRP adventures as soon as possible so he can GM them for his family.

In any case, I'll advise his to hunt down a copy of Sigmar's Heirs. He could probably use that.

Sigmar's Heirs really is one of the better splat books released for 2nd edition so he wouldn't be going wrong there (with the aforementioned caveats and what-have-you's of it being written for a previous edition's time line of events). It's still somewhat easy to find in the oldies bins at game shops, and you can nab it from DrivethruRPG or RPGNow if pdf's satisfy.

However, the suggestion made previously to do a wiki/internet search is a capital one. I use Lexicanum for quick references to "official" setting material for both warhammer fantasy and 40k. However, that site is based on the war game books and some of the timeline and persona information will be inconsistent with the world the FFG is working with (something that I personally hope allows FFG to explore areas of the world not yet touched/sanctioned by Games Workshop but that's entirely off topic). The geography and general history will sync up though, as well as a majority of major NPC's (minus any storm of chaos whirligigs). The best part is that it is free, and no more inconsistent with 3rd edition than what you'd get out of Sigmar's Heirs.