One interesting thing I've noticed with EotE is that without a reference in front of the player I'm either having to remind the table what their advantage/threat options are, or I'm watching them default to 1 or 2 results simply because they can't remember the available spectrum, or they don't want to pause the action to dig through the book. I'm sure that will improve with experience, but it didn't seem to be as prominent of an issue with my Warhammer table. It's not stopping the show in a Pathfinder/research sense, but there is a noticeable lag. Several of my EotE players are already making custom action cards for their talents and reference cards for dice interpretation so maybe that will improve.

It sounds like the EotE symbol-dice implementation is suitable for casual roleplayers as long as their GM is prepared to do a fair amount of look-up for them. Is that a reasonable assessment?

How do EotE dice compare to v3 dice in terms of providing narrative "levers" for players and GMs to drive the story forward? The skill lists in EotE Beta seemed pretty rigidly codified, which IMO suits WFRP3e's implementation of symbol dice as "action descriptors" better than WFRP3e's generic skill lists. Any innovations in EotE to empower players with more narrative choices, or do the symbol dice still function primarily "action descriptors"?

I would say at least initially the GM will have a little legwork to do until the players either make a reference, or simply memorize the options. Either seems to be easily obtainable. The results charts aren't particularly large. This game, especially with the excellent Beginner Box, is highly welcoming and accomidating to new rpg'ers.

Narratively, the advantage and threat symbols are basically boons and banes. Weapon criticals trigger off advantage or Triumph (an upgraded boon, basically). There are a few charts with mechanical resolutions and usually at the bottom of the list the player sees an option to "notice some detail in a scene". This provides a little narrative encouragement. The bulk of the story telling flair, though, comes from Destiny Points. These are basically Fate points or Savage World bennies for anyone who's played those systems. A shared pool off "light side points" for the players, and "dark side points" for the GM are decided at the beginning of each session. When one, say a light point, is used it gets flipped and becomes a dark point. The push-pull economy ensues. You can use the destiny points to upgrade dice pools for mechanic purposes, or you can use them to make "declarations" about a particular scene. An imaginative table can run wild with this outside of purely mechanical purposes. Not exactly how I would approach that kind of mechanic in a 40k game, though, except perhaps setting up a chaos/zealot kind of exchange.

All in all, even though my table is running a sort of Firefly shoot-em-up game, there is actually a lot of narrative possibilities with EotE, but the methods that you would achieve that are very elementary and left to a certain degree of creativity, mostly on the side of the GM encouragement and setting an example with creative use of the Destiny pool. There are some politico, trader, and scholar specializations for social-minded players but they might find themselves in an odd experience next to bounty hunters and smugglers unless they were really into playing a Shadowrun "Face" archetype. I was actually running a Fate game for that group called Bulldogs! prior to Edge and we switched because of a shared love for the setting. There are so many general similarities in the narrative style of play that It took all of 10 minutes to teach the system basics and start rolling through a tutorial adventure.

The bulk of the story telling flair, though, comes from Destiny Points. These are basically Fate points or Savage World bennies for anyone who's played that system. A shared pool off "light side points" for the players, and "dark side points" for the GM are decided at the beginning of each session. When one, say a light point, is used it gets flipped and becomes a dark point. The push-pull economy ensues. You can use the destiny points to upgrade dice pools for mechanic purposes, or you can use them to make "declarations" about a particular scene.

Interesting, could you provide an example of the kind of declaration a player could make using the Destiny pool? Are declarations limited to PC actions, or can players introduce new NPCs, or influence existing NPCs? What sorts of narrative declarations could a GM make? Does the Destiny pool encourage an adversarial GM vs. player dynamic at all? Does this imply that GMs aren't normally entitled to make narrative declarations without using Dark points?

It sounds like something like this could be introduced to WFRP using a Law vs. Chaos division (although the definitions of "light side" and "dark side" in WFRP are often questionable, so I'm not sure how well a binary Destiny pool would translate).

The bulk of the story telling flair, though, comes from Destiny Points. These are basically Fate points or Savage World bennies for anyone who's played that system. A shared pool off "light side points" for the players, and "dark side points" for the GM are decided at the beginning of each session. When one, say a light point, is used it gets flipped and becomes a dark point. The push-pull economy ensues. You can use the destiny points to upgrade dice pools for mechanic purposes, or you can use them to make "declarations" about a particular scene.

Interesting, could you provide an example of the kind of declaration a player could make using the Destiny pool? Are declarations limited to PC actions, or can players introduce new NPCs, or influence existing NPCs? What sorts of narrative declarations could a GM make? Does the Destiny pool encourage an adversarial GM vs. player dynamic at all? Does this imply that GMs aren't normally entitled to make narrative declarations without using Dark points?

It sounds like something like this could be introduced to WFRP using a Law vs. Chaos division (although the definitions of "light side" and "dark side" in WFRP are often questionable, so I'm not sure how well a binary Destiny pool would translate).

I think overall they could have detailed Destiny point usage a little better. My experience with Fate is one of the things that helped me tenfold there. But, some random examples...

Player has to make a quick landing on an asteroid facility and needs to go outside to repair his sensor array. He may not have all of the right tools in the ship or didn't purchase a rebreather last trip to market but (flip point) ah, he finds an old beat-up rebreather under the seat that should last the few minutes neccessary to run outside and accomplish the task. (not intended for players to simply create and stockpile items or weapons)

The GM's nemesis npc character is in a firefight with one of the heroes. As the player builds his dice pool for the next attack the GM flips a point to turn one of the heroes difficulty dice into an upgraded Challenge dice. You won't defeat me, rebel scum!

The GM can equally use these points for many of the things you mentioned, he doesn't have to use the points to describe every detail, that's still standard fare...but he can use them to throw a detail in the middle of a scene that causes a specific conflict or point of interest. I use caution and restraint as far as creating a minion mob out of thin air, etc, So far I've mostly been using them in the dice pool example until the players really get into the flow of using them, and really only in exciting moments. The points are there to reflect the push/pull of the Force, and for when you are doing something important, but you want it to be awesome, and with little chance of failure. I think in the wrong hands and minds these points could setup an adversarial relationship. One player on the Edge boards even mentioned "hoarding light side points" as a tactic, which of course kind of goes against the spirit of the design. If explained correctly from the beginning, with perhaps a few boundaries in mind, it's actually a pretty cool mechanic that I've seen take a real shy, introverted player and made them a narrative force at the table. Through the simple act of spending a point, or doing something mechanical with their hands, it really gets the wheels turning and puts the focus on "what", "why", and "how", and not only doing something...but making sure it's awesome...which for new players is great. This is probably one of the reasons Fate Core is so well received right now. This mechanic may not hold much interest for a naturally narrative-minded grognard from the 70's, but you know...the future and such

I'm typing like a maniac and not as thorough here as I could be, but you hopefully get a rough idea.

I'm typing like a maniac and not as thorough here as I could be, but you hopefully get a rough idea.

Your description was perfectly edifying, thanks. I wonder if there could be a way of somehow tying the destiny pool into the symbol-dice (e.g. certain symbols allows players to use Destiny points). Perhaps a WFRP3.5 variant would have special Chaos dice, replacing the Stance dice, that could generate several different "flavours" of Destiny points for players to use, but they would also include Chaos stars. This would allow players to risk incurring Chaos stars in order to gain narrative leverage. Possible different flavours of Destiny points might include: Revelation points (revealing something hidden), Hero Points (allow your PC to do something heroic) and Blunder Points (cause negative effects on NPCs). Something like this might help to focus the Destiny concept and also make the symbol-dice feel more narratively dynamic.

I have run several scenarios with Warhammer 3rd, and my group liked a lot the new dice mechanics. So much, that we have used it to run short scenarios in other settings (medieval Europe and modern Afghanistan story).

For me the big problem with this system is the amount of extra pieces. All of the new mechanics (actions, talents, party sheets, etc.) are very very nice, but the problem as a GM comes when you have to transport all the stuff to wherever you are going to play.

I think all in all, FFG did two very innovative and interesting experiments with this game: the dice mechanics, and going to the extreme in how close you can get an RPG to a "normal" boardgame. I think both experiments were a success, but whereas the dice mechanics does not add too much clutter, the boardgaminess of the rest of the components is a bit annoying sometimes (storage+transport). I also think this part adds a lot of cost whenever they want to design a new product for the line.

My group has started playing now Edge of the Empire, and I think this time they really got it right. They have kept an "evolved" dice mechanics, and reduced the other bits to the bare minimum... If FFG ever decides to create a new WFRP version, I hope they try to go the same way...

I would at least get rid of the action cards, as they add too much clutter and sometimes restrict the players (people tend to focus on what they have in front of them and it's too easy for the players to concentrate too much on the actions).

In summary, if FFG goes for a new WFRP version I hope they:

1.- Keep the dice mechanics (maybe evolving it a bit, as they have done in Edge of the Empire).

2.- Get rid of the action cards.

3.- Keep the party sheet and the cards for Wounds and Conditions (I love the Disease cards and mechanics, for example).

4.- Design the system with an eye on development costs for future products of the line, so that they feel they'll be able to keep publishing them (I fear the main problem for FFG with the creation of new products for the line is that the cost is probably too high for an RPG).

Anyway, I am quite satisfied with my experience with WFRP3. It really helped me and my group focus more on the narrative aspects of RPG and our last scenarios in any RPG system have benefitted from this new view.

I have run several scenarios with Warhammer 3rd, and my group liked a lot the new dice mechanics. So much, that we have used it to run short scenarios in other settings (medieval Europe and modern Afghanistan story).

For me the big problem with this system is the amount of extra pieces. All of the new mechanics (actions, talents, party sheets, etc.) are very very nice, but the problem as a GM comes when you have to transport all the stuff to wherever you are going to play.

Sorry for the quote fail. See post below

I suppose it does depend on how you transport the stuff, but I can travel easier with WFRP 3 than I do with D&D and the like.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Sn6bD1LFQjw/Ua92clIMxwI/AAAAAAAABMo/JKwcSyfoOu0/w864-h648-no/13+-+1

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O_MRFj94i80/Ua92civ2QWI/AAAAAAAABLg/0bwEE6rROSE/w864-h648-no/13+-+2

I can carry every component made for warhammer in these three containers which I can carry with two hands. But the truth is, I usually only bring one. I place the adventure components in a tray (they're removable) and I can bring every dice, card, token, and bit that I need in one easy to carry container.

I suppose it does depend on how you transport the stuff, but I can travel easier with WFRP 3 than I do with D&D and the like.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Sn6bD1LFQjw/Ua92clIMxwI/AAAAAAAABMo/JKwcSyfoOu0/w864-h648-no/13+-+1

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O_MRFj94i80/Ua92civ2QWI/AAAAAAAABLg/0bwEE6rROSE/w864-h648-no/13+-+2

I can carry every component made for warhammer in these three containers which I can carry with two hands. But the truth is, I usually only bring one. I place the adventure components in a tray (they're removable) and I can bring every dice, card, token, and bit that I need in one easy to carry container.

Yes, that's a very good solution, and I also use a similar one (an empty tool box with dividers in which I carry almost all the important stuff... Still, it's a bit cumbersome and the storage is something you have to worry about. You need to be much more organized than with other RPGs.

In other RPGs (including D&D) you only have to carry around some books (sometimes too many, yes) but my opinion is that it's easier to transport everything around (though it's true that you must also move around the miniatures if you want to use them).

By the way, another cool idea of WFRP3 I forgot to mention is the Fatigue and Stress. I think it could have been implemented a bit better, specially so that it could affect the PCs during story mode, as it's too easy to recover, but the idea inspired us to make our home rules and having this intermediate form of damage adds a lot to the game.

My point is that WFRP3 has a lot of individually brilliant innovative ideas, but using cardboard components for all of them at the same time has added also clutter and transport+store problems. They can be solved, but need some extra time and thinking.

I also fear they add too much extra cost to the end products of the line compared with similar products of other RPG lines. I would love to know what's the cost comparison of producing a product for Deathwatch or any other Warhammer 40K and WFRP3. My suspicion is that it's much more costly for FFG, and therefore they cannot produce so many new products as they are doing for the other lines... I would love if they started producing adventures and modules just in book or PDF format, without adding more new cards and tokens (with the amount of available options that should be possible), but so far they have not done much in this avenue (apart from the basic books).

retail price-wise many of those lines are completely comparable. there's going to be less margin with the wfrp stuff due to printing costs, obviously.

@Tush I ended up getting those same containers. Game changer. Portability completely solved and I'm setup in about 10 minutes tops. Meant to thank you for that recommendation earlier.

I'm typing like a maniac and not as thorough here as I could be, but you hopefully get a rough idea.

Your description was perfectly edifying, thanks. I wonder if there could be a way of somehow tying the destiny pool into the symbol-dice (e.g. certain symbols allows players to use Destiny points). Perhaps a WFRP3.5 variant would have special Chaos dice, replacing the Stance dice, that could generate several different "flavours" of Destiny points for players to use, but they would also include Chaos stars. This would allow players to risk incurring Chaos stars in order to gain narrative leverage. Possible different flavours of Destiny points might include: Revelation points (revealing something hidden), Hero Points (allow your PC to do something heroic) and Blunder Points (cause negative effects on NPCs). Something like this might help to focus the Destiny concept and also make the symbol-dice feel more narratively dynamic.

In a way, yes. There are talents that involve destiny points. The Force die (single white die in that set) also can trigger abilities based on the points. Neat thing there is that there has to be enough light points on the table, or the player can't use the talent or power that round.