Topic basicly says it allready, I am wondering how well the game system works without the use of the Tokens and Components (I know they wont survive our gaming table (kids, cats, food and drink) so do the Hardcovers give you different mechanics for handling stuff or are the tokens and components mostly visual and reference aids and not as needed in the first place?

Basicly, how much will one notice (both in the in-book references and gameplay) that there are components to go with the game?

the WHRP3 system works even better without many of the dreaded tokens.

Using token force you to occupy a lot of space on the gaming table; for exemple the variuos progressing track used in nearly all the adventures are silly because there's no reason the players should know the progressing of the adventure or of the enemy secret project.

If the DM decide to keep the track hidden he needs to keep the screen raised all time and to 'carve' for himself a lot of space from the gaming table.

Also at the end of the gaming session the Master is forced to write down a record of every token (stress, fatigue, corruption points, etc) because otherwise there will be the risk of losing important information about the player's status.

WHFR3 è very innovative but the token system is awful and should be used only with action cards, talent and similar.

I disagree.

The tokens systems in particular for tracking events and progress creates a lot of great tension and excitment in the adventure and as a GM if you don't want the players to know what you are tracking you simply don't tell them, just let them see it which adds even more tension. You also don't have to show them how many links on the tracker either, you can simply add the links as the tracker moves up so they can only guess at how long the track is. It can be a bit meta gamy but hiding stuff behind the screen as a DM has always in my opinion had kind of an exluding effect on the group, aka, something exciting is being tracked behind a DM screen and the players don't get to see it which essentially means nothing to them and the result is that your tracking something exciting for no one but yourself (as the GM).. hence its kind of meaningless to the players and pointless to track. The tracker represents the something, but as you give player narrative ques and move the tracker up wether they have figuired out what the result of the tracker is or we that its for depends on them but having the tracker visible creates a lot of excitment and gets the players that much more involved.

As for other things like stress, fatigue, conditions, wounds etc.. These things are fiddly but considerably more informative. The problem with writing stuff on a character sheet is that other players at the table including the GM have to constantly ask you.. how much health do you have? But in Warhammer that affect is made triple worse because in addition to health you have stress and fatigue as well as critical wounds and conditions. Without the cards and tokens this stuff is pretty well hidden because the only person that will really be able to see it is the players. As a GM you end up having to track all this stuff on paper yourself and that raises considerably the bar of maintenance.

As for how do you track all the stuff after the game ends? Simple.. you take all the tokens, cards, conditions, everything associated with that character and put it all in one of the boxes that comes with the core set. Its that simple. The only time you really would have an issue is if you are running the game for more than one group, in which case ya you have to right a few things down when the session wraps up. Small price to pay for the convieniance of the whole thing.

What I see a lot of GM's doing is running the smaller character sheets during the game and than using full character sheets for in-between game tracking so that players can take their character sheet home with them.

Without the components I think much of the games charm and interesting mechanics have less impact on the game itself. The visual aids are a big part of what makes the game so much more fun to play and run.

I use glassstones and wooden tokens to improve the game experience, without tokens you can play another system.

madpoet said:

Or the GM can just use a side table for his screen, which works fine for me and doesn't take any space at all on the gaming table and isn't cutting me off from the players at all as it stands next to me instead. And the trackers doesn't take up that much space anyways.

madpoet said:

Forced? Easy to keep all these things in a character box, we used to record stress and fatigue (and the players did that recording on a post-it note which they attached to their character sheet and it took about 6-7 seconds at the end of the session). Now we use glass beads to represresent fatigue (red beads) and stress (blue beads) and we have eliminated the need to record anything at all between sessions as everyone can just pick up their little box and all the stress, wounds, corruption, fatigue, power/favour, conditions etc are right there.

madpoet said:

It only takes some time to get used to, but the token system works really well and gives me as a GM a quick overview of how the characters "feel" in regards to fatigue, mental stress, wounds, etc.

I agree with TheBoss and zwobot, the tokens (and cards) makes this game a lot better and it is a lot easier to get an overiew for the GM and the players.

Guys if you appreciate 3' edition for the tokens I think you re missing a lot.

Board game style is the reason 'cause many WHFR still play 2' edition.

The cards are useful because you can play without checking eventy minute the manual, the dice system is great but tokens are used too much.

To touch more on what Brence asked. As I failed to give my perspective on that in my last post (as I was too caught up in writing about how good the components are ).

Brence said:

For the most part you can record things that tokens are used for on a sheet of paper, stress, fatigue, wounds, corruption, power/favour. All these can just be represented with numeric values. This doesn't give the GM as good an overview as the tokens (in my oppinion), but if there are the risks of kids and cats (eating the components? ) it might be a good option. The mechanics are the same, all the tokens, bits and cards are mostly easy-reference stuff and playing "traditionally" is possible. But as madpoet said initially, the action, talent and similar cards make things a lot easier. But it is possible to record these things on paper to.

The dice system is still the same (and great) and the core mechanics work the same way so I'd say that it works well, even if you have to flip through the book a bit more during the sessions.

Brence said:

The hardcovers are supposed to be used to play without any of the components, but they still describe the action cards as cards in many cases, but it certainly is possible to play witout any of the tokens/cards. However, all the other expansions more or less assume that you use the card/token-approach, so you will be kind of limited in one sense.

@madpoet

madpoet said:

I realize I might not have been entirely clear with my point earlier and I'm sorry for that. Just to clarify, I don't appreciate 3ed for the tokens but I think they are good gaming aids which makes playing the game and tracking everything easier. I can keep track of the party's status at a glance, something I have found is harder to do in other roleplaying games (and I've played many different roleplaying games, so I don't play 3ed for it's board game style). I appreciate that FFG created a new innovative way of playing roleplaying games and it fit me and my gaming group well (we also play more traditional games and have lots of fun with that too) but I guess the tokens in WFRP are not for everyone and it's good that it's easy to skip the components that each gaming group feel are distracting/unnececary even if I think the all-out token-approach is a good thing and lessens the workload and tracking both during and between sessions.

I agree that the tokens can feel clunky, but only at first. Once you have a competent group of players who understand the rules the tokens become just another quick part of the mechanics. There is little to no upkeep required as, like several posters stated here, you just put them in your character box when you are done. I've found that, once organized and understood, the bits to this game make it a whole bunch easier.

I do have to say though that at first it was a bit overwhelming. My players were way to focused on the fiddly bits and not enough on the story. However once I streamlined the system (I too use glass beads for stress and fatigue) and the players understood when and how to apply the chits it became a cake walk. We spend no time fiddling now, its just all action with the players nearly automatic in their information tracking.

k7e9 has it right. I've been using a side table for years to hold my GM screen and all my information, even in games of DnD. I find that it works best that way. I am then face to face with the players and I don't have to worry about people seeing what I have in store for them. And the amount of saved game tablespace is immense

Another really great idea that a forum member --I can't for the life of me recall his name, passionate guy though!-- is to use tooth picks to track ammo. I've taken that idea to a whole new level and dipped the ends into metallic paint and added tape to look like fletching. The crossbow bolts I cut toothpicks in half for, and for shot I just use black glass beads. The players then toss an "arrow" in front of them once they fire one and at the end of the combat they roll white dice equal to the number of shots fired and recover an arrow for every success. This has worked like a charm and I want to say cudos to the guy, whoever he is. Brilliant idea.

I'm also planning on constructing encumbrance trackers so that the players are more visually aware of how what they are carrying is is effecting them. And I'm tossing around the idea of tracking supplies by having the party pay for supplies as a group at a set rate, and then tracking the supplies using Warhammer Invasion resource tokens placed on the Party sheet.

All in all I don't feel like WHFRP 3e has a boardgame feel to it. Its just different and that is why many people shun it, because they despise change, not because the game is in anyway inferior to 2e. I've found that no game is better for introducing new players to the hobby than this one, and the bits make everything visual so that its much easier to track and implement.

Well as said I wouldnt be opposed to using tokens and the likes I just wonder how much of the Cards, Tracks etc. are needed when using the Hardcover game books. I love the idea I just don't see them survive the wear and tear of our gaming sessions. Especially if those components are essential to the gameplay.

Thats mainly why Im asking.

I've been playing with tokens of some sorts in rpgs for years (glass beads are a favorite for fate points, etc).

I don't understand what all the hub bub is about. It's not some revolutionary idea.

It's not so much the fact of using tokens and the likes (we use poker chips alot of the time) but the appeal of the thing is rather daunting with special trackers and such (and offcourse the cards that feature the rules).

But I think that with the hardcover books and the usual gaming chips we could do this .

I divided the stress/fadigue tokens and crossed half on the stress side and the other half fadigue side. Now its easier to see if the token on the box were a stress or fadigue.

Discipline the kids so they learn not to touch things that belong to the grown-ups, lock the cat(s) out of the play room until the session is over, and have your friends put their food and drinks on TV trays instead of the main gaming table. Problems solved!

My crotchety response aside, though, I'd say you can play it either way equally well. My group likes the tokens, and I think they end up making the game more fun, but 3e would work just like all the other RPGs out there without tokens if you took them away. I wouldn't say that it will be much harder without the tokens than with; I'm planning an upcoming one-off session that's largely token-less, and the system doesn't seem to present too many problems without. In fact, if you're worried about the nice components getting screwed up, just make photocopies of things like the stance trackers and have them use poker chips or glass beads or something like that on the photocopies.

If you want to play WFRp in a 'lite" fashion just do 2nd or 1st edition. No customization necessary. Same world (adjust timelines to your prefered setting temperature), same grim, same peril. I ran a quick 2nd edition session for my cousin and some of her friends last weekend. They had a blast, and so did I.

Stripping 3rd edition down is totally doable don't get me wrong. It can even function well and still be some fun (I had a player initially insist on playing "lite"). But at the end of the day the game wasn't designed for that style of play experience. If you have players that are leery of trying 3rd edition because of the "bits-n-chits" trope (it is a trope at this point I think). They aren't going to be won over by the lite version. They'll latch on to "all the book keeping" or "why can't we get rid of the crazy dice," etc.

When someone wants chilled wine I wouldn't recommend making wine popsicles. I'd recommend sangria.

As for WFRP 3rd Lite...it's wine popsicles....

Brence said:

Poker chips in different colors would work well as a replacement for all the tokens. You can allways put the cards in deck protectors to protect them from food/drink/drooling cats and then you can play the game with all the components if you like.

Yes I have to agree on the whole WFRPG light thing, really the game is clearly intended to be played with tokens, chits and bits. To remove them doesn't prevent you from having to do the booking keeping of the mechanics which make use of those things so you end up considerably increasing bookeeping(on paper) if you do not use the bits which ultimatly will slow you down because 3rd edition tracks considerably more than your typical RPG.

I agree that some of the bits are a bit dark and small, so it can be tough on the eyes if you are playing in low light or on a small table, so ya its recommended to play this game in a well lit room on a nice big gaming table. One thing I have learned to expect from fantasy flight games of any sort is the requirement to have a large gaming table.

As for the whole "board game argument", I have to admit that was my first impression before I read the rules and before I tried the combat. I think you can write off most of the board game arguments to people who talk about something that they have never actually tried. It was the same with 4th edition D&D, you had so many people that complained about the game and called it "World of Warcraft on paper", but it was obvious when the discussions took place that they hadn't even the feintess clue about the rules of the game in any detail because they had clearly never played the game. It was just people hating it because it was new, different and they simply decided in advance that they where not going to like the game and blasted their uninformed opinions all over the forum with little actual usable information other than there trademark catch phrases. "Its like a board game" is not an opinion, its a first impression that you gather by looking at the product without reading it, so anyone who says that you can immediatly write off as "hasn't read it". No one that reads this role-playing system will have that opinion afterwards, its a narrators system with less mechanics than the Storyteller systems of White Wolf. Everything about this game is intended to be "non-invasive" to the story, even combat is intentionally designed to ensure narration is part of it.

I think the part of the game that people who claim its a board game is the character creation process in which you CAN use the rule of random career training selection but personally I think this is long over do in RPGs. The character creation process has become so overwhelming choice driven and the games mechanic driven (particularly combat) that people have forgotten how to be creative. The back story's I get for character these days is just pathetic attempts to justify optimal character design choices, as a GM that just urks me. I love the idea of a player getting a starting point. Pick a Race, Draw a career. Now tell me his story. Its great in particular for people who don't like running back story's or like to keep it light, the career choice and race choice already say a lot about a character and it isn't just the archtypical "Im a healer", "Im a rogue" stuff... so personally I think the career randomness is probobly one of the best features of the game and I will NEVER allow someone to select a career out of the stack as they please, it will always be done in this fashion.. thats how much I love it.

zwobot said:

May I ask what kind/color glass and wood tokens you use, and what for? This interests me greatly.

I use FFGs Supplies line of plastic tokens, though i wish they had the weight of glass during play, i'm glad they dont when it comes time to transport this game.

Cheapest place to pick up glass stones/tokens is a haberdashery store I reckon, they use them to fill vases and displays etc

Daedalum said:

Fantastic! I take it the wound tokens are used for your beasties and baddies, or do the players use'em as well?

Just for players, would be too much time consuming to count out tokens for creatures, let alone manage them.

Player Wounds are simply represented by red tokens instead of unturned wound cards, cards only dealt for crits. But I'm considering giving the players their full Wound threshold of tokens in the plastic shot glasses, taking tokens out as they gain wounds. this would be so it is obvious when they hit their threshold as the glass would be empty. Saves players having to count their wound cards. Wounds over the threshold would be dealt as unturned cards. But haven't tried it yet, not sure if its worth the effort.

I think component reduced play is viable, Emerikol's group have experimented with lots of tracking methods. But I think it would require some degree of tokens, or some other tracking method for the things that fluctuate turn by turn

Daedalum said:

True. Tokenless works well if you just stick a bit of post-it note to anything you want to track (or just use your character sheet). Of all the things to track though, action cards seem the one that just "feels right" to track with tokens even though you could do without.

jh

-secretly wonders what the haters will have to gripe about now that all such solutions have presented themselves

Doc, the Weasel said:

Ironically, our WFRP SECOND EDITION game players were using CARDS for the basic action and other rules references (attack, 2 weapon, etc). One of my regular players has always used little acrylic gems for tracking tokens for all his characters (wounds, rounds, etc.).

Tokens are nice with or without and are not required for any part of this game (because using paper works fine too). Nobody's shoving them down anyone's throat to use them (except maybe in Belgium, but I've not played with that guy on maptool for a while

jh

<ironically i longer really play D&D b/c of the change in tracking burden placed on the gm by the 4e system. it was no longer fun for me..after 10 levels of playing 4e that is...I just prefer wfrp3>