Just wanted to let Jason Little and the Fantasy Flight crew know that I think WHFRP3e is the freshest rules design in tabletop roleplay in a long, long time. I'm finding it completely supports my natural 100% improvisational GM style and approach (i.e. characters, plot, events all brought into the gameplay off the cuff). I don't use the GW fantasy canon - use Howard's Hyborian Age instead, which has proven a great thematic fit for the tone and feel of WHFRP. When I need game mechanics, I grab the card reference I need. The minor effects attached to "bane" and "boon" results from test dice rolls provide valuable cues for additional storytelling and interpretation. The Cunning / Aggression / Expertise dice system for NPCs is also ingenious and very useful.

I've never been more inspired to GM and my gaming is at the highest level since the fantastic Mage: the Ascension campaign I played in the late 1990s. Cheers to all the FFG crew that worked on this innovative game design.

My players dig how combat actions are determined in both success and damage from a single, sensible dice roll test. I also find the "refresh time" associated with Actions force player and GM to try different actions each encounter round, making for more dynamic play beyond the "I'll hack again with 5 dice in my pool".

i agree. i think its one of the better systems to run low magic fantasy settings. Its the type system that i would like to run conan, solomon kane, or elric in. its got a small but dedicated following despite being way too expensive, following on the heels of and being lumped in with 4th ED as not a real rpg, being slammed by 1st and 2nd edition lovers who could not give up d100 and having its rule set presented in very confusing manner across box sets and books. i dont know too many systems that would still be around after all that. i give a lot of props to the community who gave it an honest try and FFG for having the stones to try to innovate mechanics of a beloved ip while keeping story telling in the forefront.

I can see the "simulationist" gamers having a tough time with the WHFRP3e game model. You have to play the game hands-on to understand the value of the reference cards, tokens, special dice, etc. If your GM likes to run highly prepared, set script adventures, you'll miss out on a variety of opportunity attached to the game system and get caught up in its higher cost.

Myself, I don't buy "cheap-a$$ games" stuff. I like high production value and quality, and prefer to buy best-of-breed. I definitely get that with this game system.

BTW - If a GM bought the Player's Guide, GM Guide, a few packs of dice, and the Creature Guide, I don't see how the cost of game entry is much higher than any edition of D&D.

Glad to hear your views - please get them out there on general gaming message boards, blogs etc. We need to be missionaries to preach to the world what a great system this is.

I really see the underlying die approach to be so great that it should be the next "OGL" and other rule sets built off it for other settings - even though this edition does a great job of reflecting Warhammer tone. This plus the card decks giving the detail of all sorts of charts to roll on without the labour of looking up charts etc. Genius.

My group tried One Ring, the new Tolkien game and though we liked its feel and effort to reflect Tolkien, it just didn't have the flexibility and variety that Warhammer's system gives, we wanted the Warhammer underlying system under it (replace Chaos Star with Eye of Sauron and Comet with Gandalf Rune, rebrand actions, change tone of cards to be middle earth heroic not warhammerish and there you go!)

It's nice to read about people using the mechanics of WFRP 3 in other settings. I'm between regular game groups at the moment, and my potential pool of players are not as "balls deep" in Warhammer as I am. So I was actually planning on working up A Song of Ice and Fire -or- Joe Abercrombie's fantasy world for use with these rules. Seems really daunting at the moment, but knowing that you guys have shrugged off the setting of Warhammer for Conan without losing the KO punch of the game is really inspiring.

I definitely think the WHFRP3e game system would do a great job with all sorts of grim medieval fantasy, from "Mythic Europe" of Ars Magica legacy to Westeros of "A Song of Ice and Fire". If running "A Song of Ice and Fire" canon, I'd go to the original Guardians of Order d20 RPG book for ideas material. I like the production aesthetic and creative focus of that book moreso than the Green Ronin version.

BTW - In case anyone is curious, our group uses the Slayer Career as a proxy for "barbarian" in the Hyborian world.