The main argument I have against the custom dice of whfrp and eote, is not that they cost money, all dice will cost money. The issue I have is how it is implemented at the table. All role-playing games are based around a risk to get a reward system, so there is an element of suspense as you are waiting for the action you have chosen to take to be resolved when the dice quit rolling. The custom dice of whfrp 3 and eote, due to the very nature of having action descriptors on the dice themselves, just tend to make the players just roll and see what happens , then decide to tell the events of the action. Until you roll the eote dice, there is no way to "know" that the successful gunfire from behind cover actually caused you to pull out of cover in order to aim and hit the target --- what if the player did not feel that to get a success it was worth it to lose an advantageous position. For other role-playing games, the player would have chosen to shoot, taken a penalty to his action, and made the shot --- whether he missed or not, he still maintained cover, as that was his choice to not lose cover but might miss the shot.

On the topic of EotE and custom dice. My group ran an extended and customized version of the beginner's adventure from the starter box. Even after 20 hours of gaming, there were still significant slowdowns when dice were rolled. Obviously, different groups will adjust at different speeds, and some of it is a matter of adjustment.

But the core mechanic has you assembling a dice pool (various actions and modifiers can add or subtract dice, plus the GM sets a difficulty which is also a series of "bad" dice added to your roll), rolling the dice and then interpreting the results. Interpreting the results is fairly straightforward mathematics, but still requires time as "failures" are subtracted from "hits" and "advantages" are determined and their effects decided upon.

It is not the worst system I have ever seen, but our group did not find it compelling either. The novelty wore off very quickly.

On the topic of converting DH to the EotS system, I also disagree that this would be a good move. EotS is more narrative and rules lite, with a few gimmicks. Additionally, I have severe reservations with yet another system where a character attribute (in this case Brawn) trumps armor when it comes to resisting damage. I won't get into the nitty gritty (already did that over on the EotS forums...at length), but its entirely possible to make a starter character who is almost immune to blaster pistols. As the tank character advances, he also becomes immune to more weaponry, and because Brawn allows you to use the biggest and heaviest weapons in the game...he is literally an MBT on steroids compared to any other combat oriented characters. Anyway, its a very simplistic system compared to DH/OW (which is perhaps understandable as it does not have years of iterations behind it), but its designed to be easily accessible for the board games/younger crowd so I think there's a limit what can be done with it. Again, that's not bashing the system because this is what it is supposed to do, and it does it fairly well.

There's nothing wrong with rules-lite and narrative - as long as the system still is intuitive, and players or GMs don't need much time to interpret the results.

In fact, I almost feel that Dark Heresy and the other games of this product line are narrative, too, but in a negative way: by being just a bit too detailed and presenting too many "cold hard facts" in their rules rather than allowing people to call upon their own creativity, with said facts in the worst cases not fitting well to the situation they are, as per RAW, supposed to be applied to.

Case in point: The Critical Tables, which are so well and extensively described that a GM may almost read the sentences to their players straight out of the book. Actually, I'd not be surprised if a lot of GMs do exactly this. Sometimes, however, these results would just appear out of place. For example, should three points of damage from a fist punch truly be described as the target's head "exploding like an overripe fruit" and, even better, the fist going straight through the head and hit another nearby opponent, just because your target was already at Crit 7? Anime-level shenanigans right there.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the Crit Tables when the game first came out, but after a year ... I guess "it got old", just like with Bladehate's EotE dice experience. Currently, I'm leaning much closer to a general approach like the simplified tables from the Inquisitor game, where the GM is forced to come up with their own interpretation of how to put the mechanical result into words.

Say yes to more improvisation! Creativity is the force that should truly be driving our games, not slavish adherence to complicated and convoluted rules attempting to cover any situation possible (and still not achieving this lofty goal).

its entirely possible to make a starter character who is almost immune to blaster pistols

Wow.

I really don't feel like there is a whole lot wrong with the current system. There are a few things that severely unbalance combat but otherwise many things are just either minor preference changes or something that can be easily houseruled. I think we should focus on the more serious issues rather than nit pick the system apart.

I wouldn't really say that there's a lot "wrong" with it. It's just ... large . Perhaps unnecessarily so.

But I still agree. Most fans of Dark Heresy and its sister games would have a certain expectation from any connected product (just look at the reactions to the first Beta of DH2), and in addition to this it is a bit more productive and thus interesting to discuss the more glaring issues of the RAW - simply because we're all more familiar with it, as opposed to personal opinions and experiences on alternate systems, where we're all running a risk of isolating ourselves into our little corner.

I wouldn't really say that there's a lot "wrong" with it. It's just ... large . Perhaps unnecessarily so.

But I still agree. Most fans of Dark Heresy and its sister games would have a certain expectation from any connected product (just look at the reactions to the first Beta of DH2), and in addition to this it is a bit more productive and thus interesting to discuss the more glaring issues of the RAW - simply because we're all more familiar with it, as opposed to personal opinions and experiences on alternate systems, where we're all running a risk of isolating ourselves into our little corner.

I think this is very well said. If we could start from the begining there are all sorts of things that should be changed but as it is we need to work with what we have.

I agree with you about the Crit Tables Lynata. Our group has stopped reading them out, but when we first started gaming my group was hugely pleased with them. The graphic, over-the-top way they were presented really brought home the grim-dark. Especially since most of my group had limited table top experience prior to the campaign, they really made an impression. We also do still use them as a starting point, but both myself and the other part-time GM in the group are comfortable extemporizing critical hits.

I don't mind rules lite systems either. I do like the feeling of rolling some dice and seeing a critical hit smashing the hell out of some baddie, but I am flexible about how I get to that result.