Anyone still play it? I haven't played the 3rd edition yet, how do they stack up against each other?

You have a very active community of wfrpg 2nd ed at strike-to-stun.net

It is difficult (at least!) to convert one to the other.

Lionus said:

Two unique systems.

2e uses a percentile based system. Very deadly. Background material as a whole is more and better in 2e.

3e uses a dice pool system. Also very deadly but not as deadly as 2e. Elegant roleplaying system. Mechanics are fairly loose if that makes any sense.

I like them both.

Lionus said:

WFRP2 is still very much alive - New fan-based projects (very good quality) keep coming…etc. As mentioned - Strike to Stun is good place to find out more.

But hey - WFRP1 is ALSO alive

WFRP1 and WFRP2 are basicly similar in game-mechanics. WFRP3 is totally different, and very much unique.

After just a quick look at some of the stuff on Strike to Stun, and all the links, I'm really glad I asked. Thanks a ton guys!

I have not played 3rd ed yet either, but i dont i think its the old system of depending what you role the GM works out in their head what happens, could be wrong. less about roling under 47 lol dawn can never hit anything when you want to!

I like 1st and 2nd edition and been playing it for 25 years, no longer got any 1st edition stuff bar the rulebook. But made sure i got all the 2nd ed books that time round.

YN

I am a 2e fan, though I love me some 1e as well. This year I wrapped up two WFRP2e games. The first was Thousand Thrones which I ran and the second was Paths of the Damned/Doomstones which I played in. Both were very long, the first spanned 2 years and the second spanned 5 years. I am having some time away from WFRP at the moment, but I will return to 2e soon enough.

Yeah, I have all the books for 2ed as well. They've been sitting in a plastic tub in the back of my closet for the past couple years as my group has wanted to do some 40K stuff, but I'm kinda getting the itch again, and wondered if it's even worth it to try to catch up to all the hundreds of dollars of material published for 3ed.

I really like the 2ed core mechanics (shared by the 40K lines), so could someone who knows please discuss the dice pool mechanics, how they work and any other aspects that are different. Even from reading the back of the box, 3ed seems more like a video game on paper than a proper RPG.

What do you think makes it a "video game on paper"?

Instead of tallying various points on a piece of paper or in the margin of your character sheet, you use tokens. 5 of something still equals 5 of something.

Instead of having to pass around rulebooks and constantly look up all your capabilities and options and how they interact with one another, you have that all printed on cards to lay out in front of you.

There's absolutely no difference in function between WFRP3 and any other RPG.

Blackberry said:

That pretty much covers it, its more about how information is presented in bite size bits. Instead of having 4 page character sheets, you have a small sheet, and a few cards that substitute. It is really very convenient at the table. It can be a bit overwhelming when you see what would have been 4-5 300 page rulebooks put into cards, because that can equal quite a large amount of them. Still, if you keep it to what you actually need that night, even as a GM, its all small enough to fit into one small tupperware container (plus a notebook and the guides for reference). For players its even less bulky. I use a sheet protector with the sheet and all the bits/cards in it for each player, with some paper clips at the top to keep stuff from falling out. I can fit all the WFRP PCs my players have ever made (8 or so) in one small 3 ring binder this way.

In actual play, it all works like a pretty normal RPG, but it does have a fair few subsystems. The cards and bits make it easier to understand/track, without them it can be a bit burdensome. The core dice mechanic is amazing. The varied results and custom dice can give some nice hints about how to describe actions/results, but they are by no means a chain around the GMs neck. As long as the symbols have a mechanical effect, I describe it in a way that sounds suitable for the results. If I don't feel like using which specific dice got which result as a guideline, I just use the overall net effect. I like it because it can spur the players imaginations as well. It is pretty awesome when the players see Chaos Stars/Sigmar's Comets, and get excited about what they might mean. They especially love to speculate on what kind of misery is upcoming from any rolled Chaos Stars.

I have also found that it can make a pretty good intro for new players. I got my wife to play it, and she actually understood the dice and cards pretty rapidly, and she thought d20 looked like quantum physics. I like the way the game flows, and it makes me feel very creative. I would start with the Core set myself, I think it is a pretty decent price on a certain jungle themed web retailer, and it has all the goodies to get rolling. If you like it, the Guides/Vaults can expand on the game nicely.

I play the 3rd edition of the game and I love it, but I have also played the 1st and 2nd ed for many years and I have to say that indeed, the 3rd ed has some pc game / movie falvour that it cannot be appealing for everybody. PCs are a bit too heroic as compared to 1st and 2nd ed and the cards mechanics…well is super PC game! Now I do a whirlwind and while this card recharges (WoW cold down time) I do a two cuts attack, and while the two cards are recharging I do now a double strike! Oh, now I repeat the rotation (PC game concept again).

But still the game is great.