ragnar63 said:

I think we can be pretty certain that several of the writers understand WFRP very, very well - after all, we know some of them - but development is hampered by GW control, the game's basic design and the realities of market forces.

Cheers

Sparrow

ragnar63 said:

Email me, I have every single card of the game scanned. I can send to you the ones you have lost. You would have to print them though.

macd21 said:

No Sir, not at all, what also is missing is alot of Background, History, Fluff, call it as you want.
As you said, Elf Box for example, but there is so much more out there that needs attention.

WFRP3 is not complete at all for me.

when releasing a supplement it does not always have to come with actions for me. just the "fluff" as you called it, would be enough for me. some adventure hooks, background story and of course MAPS and HANDOUTS!! i really dig those

Oh yeah, Maps and Handouts…. good point!

Nope, WFRP3 is for sure not complete

I think we need to be more realistic about what 'complete' means. In terms of the rules alone, I think the game is complete. There are enough rules and cards now to build pretty much anything else we need from a mechanical perspective. There may not be a set of specific cards for a High Elf Sword-Wanger riding on his Grey Flibble-Dragon with its Poetic Vomit breath, but it shouldn't be a problem to find the cards that emulate them well enough.

The setting itself, of course, is pretty darn big, and I doubt that can ever be complete, so it's perhaps unfair to ask.

Cheers

Sparrow

James Sparrow said:

If the games basic design is part of the problem then they screwed up. Unfortunately I suspect that myself and many others have doubts about your first statement, as the mythos is the part that is very lacking. They appear to have plenty of technical writers, good at rules, but much of the setting I think has come from freelancers, some of whom I know well. If GW is the problem then they would be better off ditching WFRP.

James Sparrow said:

While I do agree that we have enough cards already (not that I would mind more though), I think you're generalizing a bit here. In my group people tend to select actions that fit with an already existing idea on the character. I would also argue that the actions and talents sometimes cause players to actually build up a believable character, ie they find a cool action, and think up a personality/background that works with it. I personally prefer this approach over WFRP1/2e, where everything was defined with career selection.

I find it a lot easier to create original and believable characters in 3e than in rigid class/career systems such as 1/2e or DnD/SWSE.

ragnar63 said:

ragnar63 said:

GW is a problem in the sense that it is so controlling when it comes to the IP and how it is depicted. It doesn't matter whether or not FFG or its freelancers understand the setting if GW has its own, rather restrictive understanding. This is a problem any WFRP licencee will face.

The game design is a problem only in as much as supplements are expected to provide ever more cards. I do actually see the advantages of having some cards in the hand during play, but it got out of control.

Cheers

Sparrow

gruntl said:

Why is a WFRP1 or 2 career any more restrictive than a WFRP3 career? They're just jobs. The player creates the character's background, personality and motivations. You also seem to be saying that WFRP1 and 2 are much like D&D, which is simply not true.

Cheers

Sparrow

GW is a problem I know from the freelancers, however their are ways around the problem.

I am more talking about the largely mechanistic approach to scenario design and writing. In V1 you have the linkage between the adventures in the Enemy Within. In V2 you have the adventure in the Core Rules leading into the Pathes of the Damned. In V3 the only linkage is between an Eye for an Eye and Edge of Night. In the case of the adventure in Omens of War you have the ludicrous spectacle of Reiklanders ending up in Neues Emskrank in Nordland, without any good reasion, just so they can fight a bunch of Khorne Berserkers to showcase the new Khorne card. Totally mechanistic and short sighted, particularly as the rules for Nordlanders, who might have had an excuse for being there, did not appear until Heroes Call, three supplements later.

Again the mechanistic nature of the writing comes out in the foes, PC's have had to face. You had Beastmen, Undead and Goblins in The Gathering Storm which was at least one too many, Skaven in Edge of Night, Norse in Omens of War and then finally Druchii in Witches Song. In Gathering Storm they would have been far better off losing the Undead and the Goblins and concentrated on some of the interesting political stuff highlighted but never used in the supplement. The only ones missing is good old King Settra and the Slann. Too many different kinds of foes in none too convincing settings, whereas the main foes in all the previous editions have been good old human beings warped or seduced by chaos.

That is what I mean by not understanding the mythos. The scenario writing seems to have been largely secondary to writing new rules and it shows. The best adventure by far was Edge of Night and the worst part of that was the Skaven ending.

I know I am not the most experienced person at roleplaying, But I would I would just like to say I agree with a lot of the points made.

I think that the core mechanics of the game are really fun and comparing 2nd ed vs 3rd, I really enjoy the system Especially!! once you've taken into account all the extra hard work the fan community have made. I must say however as someone who has come from warhammer as a modelling and gamer….I was really hoping for more to dig my teeth into…..I thought when I started that I would be finding more about the world of warhammer……more than I would get from warhammer already……things like in depth dwarf/elf/human culture and politics! as it stands it feels restrictive and I learn more from reading warhammer novels!

For me something meaty would really make me happy …..like a map and structure of the big characters in each race….political names and backgrounds ….who are the key people in each land and what makes them tick……rather than one offs that show you about 6 npcs in a backwards town on the far reaches of the empire!

Short rant over let me know if you agree haha

Cheers Daniel

I see the pointless discusion continues. Pointless becouse it will not change FFG policy or any idea they have with this line. By any idea I mean publishing the game they want so like continueing 3e, going to 3.5 e or even 4e. No hard feelings but personaly I wish they would make 4e with more classical aproach to RPGs so without cards, tokens and all the other useless stuff.

I don't have anything new to add on whether WFRPG is dead or not but this comment…

Beren Eoath said:

… is just silly.

If we don't discuss things there is ZERO chance of anything changing in a direction people want, because without someone, somewhere talking about what they would like to see the powers that be have no chance of finding it.

With public discussion there is a higher than zero chance of them finding it.

Matchstickman said:

I second this.
If we stay quiet then indeed nothing will change ever…

I think FFG is juggling way too much on their hands. It's hard to handle every product line well. So I think their basic policy is release sufficient material to allow the game to play in a complete manner, than start to release maybe 1 - 2 supplements a year to add something interesting to the compaign. For WH Fantasy, as many have said already, there is already sufficient amount of rule, so FFG will only publish 1 - 2 supplement this year.

Behonest, I read more than one FFG forum. Dark Heresy will complain that XXXX WH 40K game is taking up their resources (with XXXX being the newest release of the WH 40K core games). Same with Rogue Trader, etc… etc…

Fundamentally, 40K RPG is the same, but the rule always varies enough to make each game line not exactly compatible with each other. I also believe that they are not meant to be putting together.

Dark Herey got Lathes World this year. Which is a nice setting book, but it was not really necessary as Dark Heresy have most of rule published.

Rogue Trader got a Dark Eldar and a beasties supplement. Once again, these are nice to have, but these 2 books are not essential to the game line.

Death Watch got Successor Chaptor book which is once again nice to have, but not neccessary book.

Dark Crusade was just released last year, and it just got it's Tzeentch book and we can expecting more Chao Gods books to be followed.

Behonest, all those game line bear the same publishing pattern. We have 2 big publishing this year, Hero's Call and upcoming Enemy Within. it all fit really.

James Sparrow said:

It's of course not more restrictive when it comes to writing up a personality and background. But when I create a character I want the abilities and skills to tie into the personality, and this is something I've always found to be a bit hard to do in WFRP1/2e. As far as I know (it's been more than 10 years since I played WFRP1e and I've never played 2e, so maybe I'm wrong), you can't really pick careers and skills and talents freely in those editions, career choice is limited to GM fiat and availability of gear. Talents/skills are restricted to the ones on your career.

I didn't mean that 1/2e are similar to DnD, more than that the career/class choice is more limiting in those systems than in 3e. But that's just my opinion, feel free to disagree.

Regarding continued discussion, and being the forgotten orphans:

If the discussions here were entirely ignored and pointless, we would not be seeing evidence of evolution with Star Wars using "the good stuff.". How else would they know unless they read Jay's to-the-point rants, Valvorik's campaign journals, listened to Reckless Dice Podcast or read through some of the cool house rules floating around from Gallows and others?

We are the little martian rover :-). Conducting important RPG experiments that are spreading to new games…even if we are doomed to die alone.

FFG may or may not be done giving v3 undivided attention. But its a mature system now, and I have had gotten a lot of inspiration and read some great tweaks/houserules put forth from all y'all. FFG could do one POD a year and we could all still keep the lights on around here. Even though I am between willing suckers…I mean groups…at the moment I'm not throwing in the towel, and I dont think FFG has either. And even if they have decided to let WFRP die on the vine we are all used to silence from them so keep on truckin :-)

This would be an excellent week for them to release a POD set. (In lieu of actually communicating with us)

That would be typical of them..but they could save a lot of money by just showing some leadership here.

Regarding the POD's…it reminds me of when I go out to eat and have a doggie bag to bring home. It's what the dog gets. POD is leftovers imho. The dog is grateful, but its not at the table, with the nice silverware, tablecloth, as a full meal prepared with care.. and still warm

Moan moan moan. Can you hear us yet FFG? Do you have any clue what we are talking about?

This is as useless as yelling at the sky.

jh

Is there a soul in there?

I guess I don't have a problem with anything they have released, nor do I have a problem with the low product schedule. I would love new material. I think any fans love to get more material but I just don't think FFG has the manpower to do it. The star wars game had to have taken some work to put together a nearly complete rpg, developed in secret with a surprise release. That had to take resources to do.

I empathize with all of you. I really wish it could be what we all want but I understand the logistics of why it isn't.

The thing I would have loved the most is just a setting book of some sort. Some book that goes into the setting as deeply and thoroughly as the 2e stuff did. I picked up a lot of the 2e stuff for exactly that reason. I agree that this indicates a problem with the current edition but I don't know that I have ever had everything I wanted in an rpg.

As for communication, I'm right there with you. Paizo is such an amazing company in regards to that, I wish more companies shared their devotion to forums and such. I know there are others that do the same thing but I dont know the specifics of FFG and can't comment on why they dont. I can only sit here and wish they did.

All in all though, they have provided me with an RPG that I am happy with. I can continue to play it to my hearts content and as long as I can continue to find players and other groups to play with, I will be happy with my investment thus far. I have no regrets.

So my only advice is this. Be optimistic and enjoy the game. Share your experiences with other players and keep on playing. There are so many things across the rpg industry that I don't like. Edition wars, trolls, license limitations to name a few. This game did something beautiful. It revived my love for the hobby when so much negativity was dominating many aspects of the culture. I haven't forgotten that.

What most surprises me here is that people find it perfectly acceptable that they think the company's spread too thin! I don't know if that is the case, but if it is, it's not a great idea really. Product quality will be down, and so will the number of releases. I'm not saying that anyone should look at these games as loss leaders or loss makers, but as most of the work is done by freelancers anyway, all it really does need is a line manger who is willing to get new supplements up and running and then edit them. Unless sales have collapsed, this shouldn't be an overly massive expense!

As far as I know, many of the freelancers are looking for more work, but haven't been contacted for some time, same goes for some groups of the playtesters.

IanBear said:

I am glad that IanBear has raised this point as I was afraid to raise it. Unless FFG have got a completely new set of freelancers and playtesters on the go or even if they have taken everything in house again, it is impossible to see, after The Enemy within comes out, anything new apart from PODS for at least a year on normal timescales. If Star Wars is taking up so much of the staff's time, you would hope that freelancers would be asked to fill the gap. It doesn't seem to be happening so the question is, is anybody working on WFRP at all, apart from overseeing the final physical production of the Enemy Within? The delay on that could perhaps also be down to lack of staff perhaps.

Who knows but I have a feeling that we are not going to see much, if anything, more for WFRP before the license come due in two years time. Sad to say, but that is what the indicators show. It will have to be the fams who will keep WFRP going. Maybe the odd entry on the forum here occassionally will show FFG that WFRP is not dead but has just migrated away from FFG, assuming they care.

Himmelweiss said:

I think what people are losing sight of here is the WFRP history… 1st ed died… 2nd ed died… 3rd ed is going to die sooner or later. And the reason games die is solely because the cost of production starts to exceed sales revenue. It's clear even within this forum that the new game has very much split opinion, and D&D4 clearly shows what happens to your margins if you produce a product that only part of your consumer base likes.

We have to face it that although Warhammer may be a popular game, the RPG just isn't and hasn't been for many years (maybe never was?)

As for a complete game, be careful what you wish for. By the end of its life, West End Games' Torg was a complete game. It was a bloated, over-blown, over-complex, contradictory mess with dozens of supplements, adventures, expansions etc.. The same will happen with WFRP over time, as cards start to contradict earlier cards, power creep starts to become a problem: it's the RPG equivalent of entropy, an inevitable descent into chaos (strangely appropriate really!). So I'd rather take a game like WFRP, which is mature and reasonably well tested, it has the expansions it needs to cover the main bases without starting to feel saggy and over complex. Although maybe it's getting there.

And finally, for scenarios, I direct you towards the fascinating Designers & Dragons by Shannon Appelcline (hardback, published by Mongoose, not cheap but a cracking read). A clear trend throughout RPG history is that games and supplements make money, scenarios don't. Which is why pretty much the only game to produce dozens and dozens of scenarios over many years is D&D, in its various incarnations. (oh, Torg kinda did it too, see where that ended up ;-)

phild said:

i agree that Designers and Dragons is a great book. Has a cool layout that had me jumping back and forth to the companies I was most interested in.

If I were to make a wager, I would say that we will see one more (maybe two) more products in this line. I expect to see perhaps a sequel to Enemy Within dealing with certain world shattering events we know of. I would love to see them do an elf expansion but I think that may be just hopeful thinking.

Now, another possibility is this. They may let the line end with The Enemy Within. Then let the line sit until renewal time. If they renewed, it would be most likely a chance for them to revamp with a new edition. I'm not a fan of this but after two years of no products in the line, a new edition would generate sales. If the new star wars game does well, I would expect it to follow a similar format.

On the other hand, if they didn't plan to renew, they could do a last hurrah and print up additional hard bound books that compounded the material from all the expansions (actions, careers, talents, etc). I don't recall if it was them or Green Ronin that did something similar with career compendium but I believe the book sold well.