I got an insane deal from a store clearing out their WFRP

- Core Set

- Signs of Faith

- Edge of Night

- Omens of War

- Black Fire Pass

- Creature Vault

all for $50

I have not played WFRP (or many rpgs at all to be honest) since about 1992. My group is made up of a D&D 4th ed player, and a few players who just don't play RPGs too often. It seems that WFRP with all it's little components, and general approach to roleplaying may actually be very good for those that don't play many RPGS as it has a boardgame feel to it.

So, I guess this post is about:

1) How would you ease a group in to playing WFRP / Is it worth restricting the players at all to begin with?

2) What expansions are most recommended?

3) Finally, is WFRP actually any good? The rules seem fragmented, and a GM has no real hope of knowing the contents of every card/profession in addition to the rulebooks so does this system work.

Aranelthemithra said:

Absurdly great deal by the way!

1) Don't ease, just jump in. I've found the dice work wonders on new players. It will lead people into wanting to try it out after just a few rolls. Especially if they are coming out of d20 gaming the WFRP dice system will be a breath of fresh air, something new and innovative in an old hobby. I don't see any reason to restrict, but some might say to not allow Ironbreakers at rank one, but I believe they are in the Adventurer's toolkit and I don't see that listed in the sets you got.

2) The Adventurer's Toolkit is a must, but other than that they all have good material. Of the ones you got Signs of faith is needed if you have a priest character and Black Fire Pass for dwarfs. Omens of War is good all around. One you didn't mention is Winds of Magic which is good for magic users.

3) It is good! The rules are a bit fragmented but very simple to learn and easy to implement, just read through the primary rulebook in the core set once or twice and you'll do okay. The cards and bits are easier to utilize than they seem. it was daunting at first, or seemed so, but once I had a system of organization down (folders with plastic card holder sheets) I was golden. I could flip through everything and learn it quickly. They also make some card sheets that hold the bigger career/party sheets too, I found them on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009R8YL/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00

For the smaller talent cards I just sliced through the first layer of each pocket on the regular card holder sheets and then taped the bottom of the top section down, you can then put two of the smaller cards in one of the bigger card slots (sorry if that's confusing).

Let me know if you have any other questions. Good luck and happy gaming!

Congrats! Our group has found WFRP to be very fun, and I hope yours will too!

My favorite introduction is the "Day Late A Shilling Short" scenario available for download from Fantasy Flight Games' WFRP Support page.

Be sure to check out the Reckless Dice podcast.

Enjoy!

Aranelthemithra said:

I cannot recommend the PLAYERS GUIDE highly enough. Get either the PDF or the hardcover. This is the ONE THING that your players can get their hands on and can use 100%. It has all the abilities, spells, talents, etc that you need up to the products you got (except for the witch).

You got a great bargain. Start playing right away!

To answer your questions:

* 1. If you have the Player's Guide, you can start them with 90% of the availalble careers to choose from. It's personally, my favorite product out there. I would have your players draw three careers at random and choose one to play. The reason for this is that if they just pick "Trollslayer" 'Waywatcher" and "Bounty Hunter" which is what most ex-D&Ders are going to choose, they're really not going to get a great feel for the game or world.

* 2. Expansions: PLAYERS GUIDE first. It has all the spells and magic careers in it.

* 3. Is it good? It's as good as you make it. Warhammer is NOT D&D. It is not a combat game, as much as I hate to say it, as there are so many other ways to go with this game.

Play out the DEMO on the downloads page, and try out the system. If you need PRE-GEN characters, they are here by the way: www.liberfanatica.net/LF7download.html

You'll also find a trove of good stuff at Gitzman's Gallery, such as GM aids.

jh

Yes, Day Late, shilling short good intro. Be aware the sample pc's in the download from support page are not buildable as starting characters.

Do get the FAQ from the ffg support page as well.

Visit Glitzman's gallery and snag Count Dimon's summary sheets as a must have aid. With those, players hardly ever needed to look in books at my table, just the skills page is great.

And that was a great deal you got. I love this system, brought a table of D&D players over to it and they handle it fine. The more narrative approach to space and time are the things that got the most questions.

There are great downloads of maps and other stuff at various sites mostly for 2nd or 1st edition.

I do find using more distinctive tokens for stress and fatigue is useful.

Congrats on an great deal!
You don't need to know all the rules on every card - don't even try - that is the beauty of this system. I recomend going to the www.recklessdice.com site and listening to the early (like first six or so) podcasts. I learned the rules much better there than from the books (The Players guide is the best of 'em for clarity).

For supplements - I would say "The Witches Song" is probably the best adventure to just play out of the box…

Have a great time - this game is a lot of fun!

Brilliant deal.

Pick up the Players Guide, Winds of Magic and Lure of Power as well to give your players all the options.

Have a lookalso at the Liber Fanatica website for further fan made stuff as well. LF 7, 8 & 9 are all 3rd edition based.

In regards to knowing the rules, here's what I think is crucial to BOOKMARK in the books. The following are the pages that we usually have to look up on a regular basis(small post-its):

the skills (the list is handy--if you don't already have one printed from Court Dimon or Goblyn King's stuff)

healing

rest and recovery (how much do you heal overnight?)

how to die

how to go into madness

how fear/terror works

rally step

insanity

how to heal a critical wound to become a regular wound

how to use ACE dice

how do you recover fatigue and stress

how many fatigue/stress do you recover at the end of an act

universal dice effect (I recommend copying this and putting it on the "basic actions sheet" downloadable from FFG's wfrp page

list of maneuvers

make a list for your players of crucial thing:

maneuvers, and that spending fatigue is how you can get more than one (as the GM, I'd limit maneuvers to a reasonable amount)

how to move your stance, and that you can spend stress to increase your stance move on your turn

If there is a wizard in the party, hand him the book and let him figure it out. Accounting for magic points in this game is kind of "accounting" intensive, so they will need to know what to do.

jh

Aranelthemithra said:

I'd go for the normal character creation rules i.e. each player randomly select 3 careers and picks one of them. Encourage them to pick careers that are down to earth or low-fantasy but don't restrict them. Another similar way of picking careers is to have each player select 3 careers randomly and lay them all out on a table and then the players can pick from all the careers and at the same time encourage them to discuss how their characters know each other. Create the whole party together.

I prefer character groups where most players are humans. A couple of dwarves or halflings in the group work well also. I personally don't want too many elves (especially wood elves), one at most. But that's a matter of taste.

A day late and a shilling short has been suggested, use the scenario to teach the rules (and test them yourself).

I've noticed that it is a game which is easy to teach as "all" the rules the characters need to know is on the cards in front of them.

Aranelthemithra said:

Other than those you already have, Winds of Magic as it adds corruption and mutation to the game (also it's a neat book if you're ever going to have a wizard in the group). Some of the careers are also pretty nice.

The adventurers toolkit adds fun careers and actions.

Aranelthemithra said:

A definite yes, it easily is among the top 3 rpg's I've ever played. And any competition from other games is mostly due to sheer nostalgia.

As most things are on cards you don't need to know all the content. When a character is infected by a disease or mutation, you flip a card and the effect is right there. A lot of things work in a similar fashion. You do not need to know all the cards you only need to know when to deal them out. The modular nature of the game makes it easy to start with the basic stuff and then add things like locations, condition cards, party sheet, insanities, corruption, mutations, disease etc. as you go along.

You do not need to use all the different rules at first as you can easily add stuff along the way. Learn the basic mechanics, i.e. dice system, combat, use of action and talent cards, stress/fatigue, how recharge works and how to create characters and improve them. Then you're good to go, a day late and a shilling short can be played with newly created characters using only the basic actions to learn the system. Let the players pick the action and talent cards they purchased at character creation after playing through a day late and a shilling short as they will probably have a much better idea of what they want after testing the system (almost all of my players wanted to swap out an action/talent or two after a couple of sessions, as they didn't know how the cards they purchased worked when they picked them).

Thank you for all the wonderful responses.

I see people bemoaning the death of the game, which is sad since I still have a D&D rulebook (think 1978) and if I really wanted to, I could still play a campaign with it.

I have the original WFRP as well, same deal. It seems like RPGs are like board games in that they can survive being dropped if that happens. Additionally, you can build rules and adventures and campaigns and extend the game yourself. With the internet, surely whole communities will expand the game beyond anywhere FF thinks to take it even if with 100% support.

Great attitude. There are still folks running 1st and 2nd edition warharmmer and still people who love old style D&D. Me, loves this system and as long as enough of us do and share stuff then yup, we can keep tooting along with or without FFG support.