Just a few days ago I found myself in my local gaming shop staring at the RPG games shelf. After all It has been a couple of decades I last lay my hand on a classic RPG game. But… now I had this urge (strange calling?) to go and find one! But wich one?? It was no easy choise but obviosly it was this here WHFRPG that came out on top. Since then I have been reading the rules trying to get the geist of it and yes I do now belive I have got the basics.

Still, my limited aging brain aside, for easing newcommers like myself into this gaming experience I do wish FF had set up some online walkthrough of the basic game mechanics, like finishing the caracter card properly.

However already I found plenty good pointers in this forum and I am sure I can xpect some good gaming ahead!

Cheers

Welcome to the grim and perilous world!

Some guides and walk-throughs would be useful indeed. There are examples in the books, a combat one with elf I believe, but more video/youtube type stuff would be good.

The stuff on glitzman's gallery, such as Count Dimon's rule summary sheets, can be handy.

It is a great game system - don't let the criticism here fool you, in part it is folks who love it just wanting it to be better and in part it's the internet.

WELCOME !!

You made the right choice, and the one of the things I like BEST about this game thus far are the Fans on the forums.

I was standing exactly where you are now about 10 months ago. While you will receive very little in the way of direction from FFG, the folks who are involved in actually playing the game are a wealth of information and I have found that they are always eager and willing to help. As the previous poster mentioned, Gitzman's gallery is a GREAT place to start. I think I learned more about the rules of WFRP 3e from the GM sheets there did I did from the rulebooks, or at least understood them more.

If you don't have a group to play with already and/or are interested in playing online ( 10 months ago I did not even know a tabletop RPG could be played online, live, with REAL people) Then ya gotta check out Neilgfoster's thread on this forum : http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=149&efcid=3&efidt=544068&efpag=0

The learning curve can be a bit steep at times, especially when trying to learn the mechanics on your own. Do yourself a favor and grab Emirikol's House Rules. It's a "rules medium" approach which you may find favorable and easier to manage:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/167876/WFRP3%20HAFNER%20Houserules%20v9.pdf

Haven't had my coffee yet so I might be a bit grumpy, but please…

Don't recommend someone to use house rules before even trying the game. The basic rules are not difficult (D&D in all recent incarnations is a lot more complicated). Sure there's a lot of cards and so on, but this makes the rules modular. You only have to learn the rules for the cards you're using.

To the OP, go ahead and ask any questions you might have, there's plenty of people around on this forum that are glad to help. If you need an example of character creation I think some were posted (by fans) back when the game was new, so digging around in the archives for a bit may be interesting for you. If you find it interesting, and I can find the time somehow, I could probably write up a combat example based on a combat in our last session.

Thanx a lot everyone for your kind encouragement, I’ll be sure to follow all your leads!

And yes I do recall my first encounter with D&D. After having, with a lot of enthusiasm, rolled out my first character only to some hours later give up the game in disgust! This because I could not find the game map… (sigh). Now this was before internet so I’m sure I’ll fare better this time.

I’m now up and running my first game. Designing an adventure was easy and very fun to do. Having played through my first encounter…well I now know I did do a lot of things not quite right… I know this now having rechecked FAQ and forum. But still a good experience so far. Especially I liked the dice system; they really do help bring out the story.
Cheers

Seconding playing the system straight before diving into house rules.

gruntl said:

Hmm,,, OK, I can see where I'm muddying the waters. Sorry. Guess I was hoping to give the O.P. the heads up that it's OK to omit several game components such as party sheets, talent socketing, etc., as outlined in the house rules. Sorry again.

It is a difficult system to get your head around until you play it. then things start to make sense.
it is also difficult if you come from D&D or other pen and paper systems as it is so diferent. Definately a steep learning curve. Some people don't like the action cards at first, but all it is is options you have written out for you rather than put down on the character sheet. Add in stances and the stance track and it does get a bit much at first for some though. The daft thing is it does make sense once you figure it out, and is right at your fingertips rather than buried in the rules.

To help get myself settled in it with any new and diferent system I set up a few example encounters from the introductory story and pitted the example pre-geenrated characters against them to see how they do. It helps learn the ropes before the big day. If they get slaughtered, or if they have far too easy a time of things I look to see if I did things wrong, or if things may need adjusting or taking into account. I make sure to create and out try a set of magic healing ranged and melee characters to cover the main points of character creation and then comapre them with the pre generated to see if they are under or over powered by comparison - i.e. looking to see if I got it wrong big time.

There are lots of counters and cards and whatnots in WHFRP - but you can leave some aside for the first few sessions and introduce things in once you have the basics. Call it house ruling, or easing yourself in - do what ever suits you. it's your game and I'm not going to insist you use the initiative tracker or fatigue right from the get go if you don't want to. Heck I ignore plenty and house rule much in my own games.

The best "walk through" way of learning the rules is to go the www.recklessdice.com site and going back to their first six or seven episodes and listening to the system spotlight sections…