Hello everyone, I just recently got into the world of WHFRPG, although I have been playing the actual Warhammer Tabletop since the late 80's.

My personal background is into videogames, in fact I work and have worked both as a concept artist and as a UI artist for AAA games, and have always enjoyed any hobby that relied on strong visuals and fantasy settings, same goes for boardgames, I have never liked much the abstract side of some ruleset, I only played boardgames, where I could actually see my character and the surroundings well represented moving about (Such as Hero Quest, Warhammer Quest, Space Hulk, Doom BG etc..).

Since my nature is being creative, and that I love fantasy settings, over the years I have tried D&D and a few others RPG's with friends purely because they wanted me to play, you wouldn't make me a RPG player from the looks, I detest massive rulebooks, that takes you months to read and still, you need to go back reading them while you play, and half the times the DM has to make up a rule for the situation.

When I heard of WHFRPG I thought "Great, another massive rulebook to learn only to see if you would enjoy the game 5 months later and £100 shorter", and almost let it go before even spending 30 seconds investigating.

But ****, I was surprised when I started seeing videos, and reading about it on the web, with almost no negative feedback (Perhaps due to the smaller population of players?), so I got the core box last week, which means I still haven't played it yet, however, as a person who's first language is not English and does not have the "brain capacity" to assimilate lots of information (Comes with being an artist ), I almost flew threw the main book, which is quite surprising by a personal standard, with only few points I am confused about, and of course some of the best visual (If not the best) I have ever seen made for a product that wasn't a videogame.

What I really love about it i (And this is probably where a lot of geeks will eat me alive for saying it) s that feeling of almost playing a boardgame, where lots of the cahracter behaviour is stimulated by the rules themselves, and they are visually rich in all aspects, there is almost nothing I have to write down, all of it is handled by visuals such as cards or tokens and not to compare it specifically to D&D or anything but, to make it makes the world of difference to have an artwork in my hands which detail my stats, instead of black ink on a white background with a simple coloured header line.

Knowing myself, I would have probably loved the idea of more tiles like dungeon building and such, but I still think that this game, probably is the most fitting RPG for non-geeks or people that just want to enjoy a rich dark fantasy enviornment without the tedious character building that feels worst than a job application combined with a tax return form.

I hope the approach for non-hardcore RPG gamers continues, because the moment they start complicating things or remove the visual side of things with less game pieces, and add info tracking with pencils, they will turn this into another random fantasy RPG clone, and loose the interest of people differently enclined to RPGs.

hi It was quite interesting to read your post. I too love the visual aids, the boardgaming feeling of WFRP 3. And I alwasys wanted to play a RPG that used a lot of the elements found in boardgames like Advanced Heroquest, Warhammer Quest and Descent.

But apperance aside, WFRP is also an abstract storytelling game, that neatly blend those two ideas together. It's not rule-heavy, it emphasize on storytelling and have some interesting game mechanics concerning just that, like Party sheets, the different modes, Rally steps (a favourite of mine), Episodes constructs, all rules and guidelines that helps create a story.

We just recently shelved Wfrp in favour of playing Pathfinder D&D. The descision was mine (the GM), we're picking warhammer up again in september. But Pathfinder although I have nostalgica for heavy hard-bound books, is a 600 page rulebook (glad I am not the DM). it would be impossible for me to introduce new players with a system like that.
with warhammer 3rd edition, on the other hand, I have allready introduced several persons to the game, which they quite liked. And I plan to introduce this gem of game to other individuals in the future.

In my group, some of the players still have negative feelings about WFRP, which I thinks is because of how FFG changed the game. I think it's unfair, knowing they have enjoyed WFRP 3e so far.

I know my group has much familiarity with the D&D 3,5 rules and now Pathfinder, and in away some of them think that THIS is a real RPG, and wfrp is just a experiment. But when we play Pathfinder (the Kingmaker,- excellent campaign by the way, take note of that FFG), I hear comments from time to time like "this celebration of our victory, certainly would lower our party tension". Or when another arguing between the half-orc barbarian and Dwarf ranger, someone always comment " uh-oh this will def. increase the tension meter".

when I hear such comments I know FFG has done at least something right in the eyes of my players. they might not be aware of it, but WFRP has influenced. And when autumn comes I really gonna show them how WFRP is played, how different it will going to be from the time consuming rules of 3.5, and how the flow will be faster with WFRP rules.

Don't get me wrong I love pathfinder, but now at least they will get some perspective into things, and a real chance to see that WFRP is not only an experiment but a game that focus on what really matters...the story.

another thing is that WFRP seems to reward flavours, you don't need to choose the most damage dealing weapon in order to be an efficient fighter, no if you pick the right cards you can do anything. it seems to be even more balanced than that of Pathfinder. since if you don't build your character right in that game you will find yourself leftbehind because of a Feat, you picked seven levels ago.

enough ranting, from me

enjoy the game whatever you're playing .

Hurk...

You said the "b" word...

Yeah some of us got a little animated about the changeover to third ed. We're still having a bit of rocky time, but still it's a nice system, god willing I'll get to play in a game myself instead of ALWAYS being the **** GM.

..always being the GM..

Yea, I know that feeling :

jh

So does that make us the pitcher or the catcher?

I will have to host a game as GM myself, but, that is not an issue, the real problem is that all of the players will not have a clue on how to play it, apart from the Warhammer lore, which some of them are big fanatics about, I will have to explain pretty much everything, and my skills at explaining rules are not the best, as I often skip, forget, or explain the rules in the wrong order.

When you play a game like D&D at least you can always ask one of the players if you are not sure about the rules, 90% of the times, someone will know what you are talking about, but with WHFRP, if there are any issue regarding the rules, it is I who will have to sort it out and I am pretty positive the first times, it will happen a lot, but as you mentioned before, the rules are simple and easy, so stopping to read the rules, will be something that will happen less and less often I think, until you won't need to do so at all, something which from personal experience find impossible when palying a big book RPG.

The only thing that I am worried about, or at least the thing I can see why some people might be turned off playing it, is the fact that the game pushes you toward playing a story that feels very much imposed by the design of the world/game, rather than creating a more personal story or character to the players and GM. I understand this is due to the fact that you are in the warhammer world, and cannot screw around the same way you would do with the usual generic/random fantasy world, I personally am a bit tired of people trying just for the sake of it to break clichés and ending up creating the weirdest character descriptions that a more free RPG offers you (I have seen my shares of druids who's life goal was to destroy nature, or goblins-werewolves being mayors of human cities..).

In WHFRP you need to find a story for your given job, you need to adapt your knowledge to a very restricted part of a fantasy world, which is the Reikland and so far I have the feeling, the game does not really want you to move away from there, so no chances to go to visit the dark lands of Sylvania or perhaps adventure far to the south into the deserts of the Tomb Kings or travel into the jungles of Lustria. Also there are not many things you can be, due to the fact that some beings would become too powerful, like elf wizards and such, but is not jsut about the imbalances, the game seems to push you toward playing someone "good" for example if you wish to be a group of Chaos warriors, who's on some nasty quest is to travel and conquer as many villages as possible enough to get the riches needed to rally a massive army to destroy the empire, that wouldn't be allowed due to lack of rules.

The Warhammer world is both a blessing and a curse to an RPG due to the restrictions, but incredibly rich detail, to me is a 95% good and 5% bad, situation, so I am pretty happy about it. and cannot wait to start the first session

Who said that? really? The only thing holding a game of WHFRP back is what the GM says.

So there isn't a supplement for Lustria? (And Sigmar willing there won't be for a while) So what? You and your crazy imagination can make something, anything, using the tools at your disposal.

And who the hell says your restricted by canon huh? You should aim to make the universe of your particular RPG your own. Because then your small time schmucks can start making BIG differences.

Well the reason why I said so, is because so far (From what I have read in the rules), much of the game requires physical stuff to be played, and unless the guys at FFG actually makes them, then you would end up straying too much from the actual reality of the WH universe I think, unless you are a massive fan with lots of books.

I do realise I could be wrong not having read the whole thing yet, but what I meant is that in this world I cannot end up placing creatures or enemies too much out of place, like putting a lizardmen invasion or small tribes raiding the Reikland. And this might be a lack of appeal to some, not to me of course, but my point was that some people might not like it because of it.

I am trying to understand why this game is not so popular since I deem it better and easier to play than any other RPG out there, and that is why I was making up some possibilities