Hello everyone,
when of the reason I went into WFRP was the sense of realism that the game creates,and the fact it's not just a cut & paste d20 system. Fantasy flight has done a great job making this game, but don't have a clear role outline with the careers. We have the Wizard and the Priest, but then we have a mass of "normal" careers that form into something into a combat and/or social roles. If one were to ask you "What role dose this career play?" how would you answer? Try to answer these questions using a Archetype model from WAR, Tank, Melee DPS, Range DPS, and Healer/Supporter. If you have a better model, feel free to use it, just explain.

The only "role" that's mandatory is someone with enough Soak or Defences to be engaged with a foe (tank for lack of better word). Otherwise, its whatever people bring to the table and the GM should be bringing what's interesting and challenging to whatever mix that is - a priest of Sigmar, Trollslayer, Waywatcher and Bright Wizard face different things than a Rat Catcher, Watchman, Servant and Charlatan - though to me the story of the latter group sounds more fun.

There is no standard "combat worthiness" of groups in this system, it varies wildly, and GM's must accordingly vary encounters and heroes also vary approaches. What works for one group facing the beastmen in Gathering Storm adventure is suicide for another group, but they are both "legitimate groups".

I'm thinking you are wanting to place all the careers into the achetypes, but i'd suggest you are heading down the wrong path with that frame of mind. These careers are not meanto to be archetypes, they are exactly waht they say they are, careers.

Some careers are fancy and have specific roles: (Ironbreaker is a Tank, Bright Wizard is a Ranged DPS, Shallyan Priest is a Healer, Thief is.. well… a Thief).

However almost all of 100+ careers available are just mundane professions that give your character some style. Warhammer RPG is not one of those games where you approach it trying to form a rounded, effective group which covers all the bases (Tank, DPS, Ranged DPS, Healer, etc).

Instead WFRP3 rewards character, style and story.

Gitzman

I totally agree with Gitzman.

Nonetheless, just for curiosity, do you allow players to be tanks?

I mean, it would be a very helpful role but….in my games for example enemies just ignore the heavy armoured PC's if they see they cannot harm him.

Again, I agree with the above posters in that it is very difficult to shunt characters into a specific party role as you might with other games.

For example, my Swordmaster is a fighter, but thanks to my refusal to min-max she's also a load of other things, I hope to bump intelligence with my next career as well as maybe train education. They benefit the character and more importantly, it's what I see that character doing.

I allow my players to tank, that is to say, one of my players has saga of Grungni. Initially I was worried, but really? Honestly? I can work around it so many ways it doesn't really matter.

Yepesnopes said:

There are actions that allow you to more traditionally "tank."

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It already been eluded to but the core issue is that the OP is applying purely combat-driven roles into a game that is not purely combat-driven.

It's not that you can't play that way, but it isn't the assumed default style of play. If that's what you want, then you should look more towards skills, action cards, and ability scores to fulfill those roles, rather than careers.

You would build a Ranged DPS character (for example) by having a high Agility, ranks in Ballistic Skill, and ballistic action cards. There is some interplay between this and careers (in which skills and abilities are favored), but there is nothing explicitly calling it out.

Most tabletop RPGs take a different attitude than MMORPGs do.

What MMORPG role would you match up with a Coal Burner? Diplomat? Burgher?

You define your own "role" by playing your character as your character is. That's all there is to it.

If you run into a troll, and you're not that good at fighting huge monsters, run.

If you run into a band of merchants, and you're not that good at talking, kill them.

It all depends on what you (and the GM) want out of the game.

These are all interesting points you guys have brought up. From the jiff that each of you explained, Warhammer is truly an RPG. I never thought it as that way, and I can say that it has blown my mind.

This is just something I thought when someone asked me this. In no way do I take pleasure in playing MMORPG, it is just what is "popular."

One of the most interesting aspects of Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play 3.0 is that the company seemed to work in more or less a bubble of personal experiance and in close connection to games workshop, getting both the atmosphere, art and mechanics to feel very tight with the warhammer universe and to some degree with its pre-descessor systems. The unique aspect of that is that this game is actually more in line with role-playing tradition, contrary to what most people assume about it because it uses "board game" components.

The truth is that this game is much closer to say a game system like White Wolfs D10 (World of Darkness) than it is to a game like 4th Edition D&D. It is by definition focused from the ground up and deeply rooted in the narrative. Even combat is far less tactical and far more narrative with options like the perform stunt card for example which effectively create a mechanic, within the rules, that allows a player to create a narrative description of an action which their might not be any rules for. Aka, Im going to try to stab this guy in the eye with my dagger as I do a somersault over him. You won't find activities like this even possible in games like 4th edition D&D with out a heavy infusion of house ruling and "making stuff up on the fly" because it is a "use your powers" in a tactical miniatures game, far closer to a board game than WFRP 3.0.

At the heart of this game is an incredibly satisfying story driven role-playing game. You will find it difficult to play as a tactical game because its rules are designed (intentionally) to not be that, because outside of D&D which is classic tradition, it is not really what role-playing games are about. Its often a misconception that because D&D came first that it defined what role-playing is. The truth is that D&D is kind of the outcast of what is otherwise a hobby of very deeply root collabarative storytelling games and experiances. Its the oddity, not the other way around. Most game systems endevour to be about collobartive story telling and they do not get their inspiration from miniatures games, computer games, board games or anything else, but rather from other, successful, storytelling games.

Concepts like "Tank, Healer and DPS" are not terms that are traditionally associated with pencil and paper RPG's. These are terms that have grown from PC games, prodominontly MMO's which while a reflection of pencil and paper RPG's are not by any stretch of the imagination attempting to be collaborative story telling games. These are basically First Person or 3rd person shooters, with a layer of fantasy elements designed to be more tactical rather than twitchy.

4th edition D&D really is the first game to my knowledge that introduced archtypes and actually designed a role-playing game with MMO's as inspiration using commonly held terms from that genre of gaming (even if they refute that). Its in part why I think it was poorly recieved, but personally I was kind of ok with that. My issue was that the system itself was designed from the ground up to be a tactical miniatures war game and as such, constantly pulled you out of the narrative, collborative story telling experiance. In effect, it was designed to intentionally keep you from role-playing. Archtypes and the over bearing choke hold of the mechanics is the primary cause. Warhammer does the exact oppossite. It creates professions that have a basis in reality, humanizing the game and creating mechanics to keep you in the narrative and maintain the suspension of disbelief as long as possible. Once you adapt to this mode of thinking, you will find that Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play 3rd edition is really one of the purest role-playing games out there right now.

Remember also, that you have lots more options to fight than in a pc-game. You can hide in hard to reach places, you can pursuade people into helping you, you can build A-Team-like "installations", pick your ground better, etc.

So even for a completely non-combat-character there are roles in a fight.

As a gm I reward cool ideas with lots of extra dice or even narrative outcomes of a fight.

To my mind you succeded as a gm, when your players are more interested in the story than in the fights.

Wow, BigKahuna, that is THE best description of what Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is all about that I have ever seen anywhere. You completely nailed it.

BK really summed it up nicely from the standpoint of scenarios that have been produced thus far.

If you were to play D&D or Pathfinder scenarios however with WFRP characters you would need a "healer" role and at least 3 combatants.

jh