Fantasy Flight games put out their upcoming list for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for the rest of 2010 and into 2011.
There are some interesting things coming out. (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wfrp/support/SiftingShadows_lorez.pdf)
While half of it is expansion material and adventure stuff that I'm looking forward to. There is a more interesting development.
They are putting out hardcover rule books to cover the current game that contain everything you need to play (except the dice) without using cards, trackers etc.... It sounds like that means they'll just have all the card information printed out in the books in what likely will be a more traditional way, like feats/special powers/spells like in D&D. I don't know how they'll be handling the trackers currently, if it's just numbers on a character sheet or some new way of dealing with things.
On one hand this could make many people that have been reluctant to latch onto the current system very happy. It makes the buy in a little easier and centralizes the mechanics which could make certain things easier.
Based on the current release schedule the bits format isn't being dropped in the immediate future. We've got several new boxes coming out for it that continue support for this version of the game. Also the Hard Cover books still use the same core rules but will have some supplemental rules that are needed to play the game without using all the bits. This may be something as simple as a bigger character sheet with areas on it that you just drop counters onto.
Realistically the bits method of expansion will eventually come to a point where very few new bits are needed. We don't need a never ending supply of new careers, that's just silly. Perhaps 10-20 more careers (few basic with the bulk of advanced) would basically round out the set. New action cards are welcome but not really needed unless they were planning on making this game an LCG where new action cards trump old action cards. That I think is something most would agree is a bad idea. We don't really need more location cards as there are already plenty and a few here and there in some adventure box sets rounds it out. We don't really need more status, wound or other misc. cards for the most part. So other then the priest box set and maybe one more box set to finish off advanced careers (both normal and magic using) the card based line is largely complete when it comes to the mechanics of the game.
That means all that's left is supplemental rules, settings and adventures. Supplemental rules don't need to be on cards, they never had. Setting books wouldn't need cards beyond maybe some setting or item cards and adventures don't really need new cards either. Gathering Storm has a few unique cards but really they aren't needed. They could have just put out the scenario in pure book format and nothing much would have been lost. This will become even more true after the next few card releases come out.
The important part is that FFG is supporting WFRP they are rounding out the bits game very well with a few critical boxes that fully flush this version of the game. The HC books will be easier/cheaper to produce and easier to stock for retail, which is important to some stores. Some gamers will definitely prefer the book version of the game. We bits lovers, who would never consider playing that way now, can't ignore the fact that they probably have a player or two in their group that wouldn't spend money on their own box set but likely would pick up the Hard Cover rules. Personally while I have no intention of buying the HC version of the book I'm hoping that it does come out in PDF format because that would actually make a PDF version of the rules usable on their own.
In the end the Bits and HC versions based on the information on hand create two versions of the same game and should get all the rules to the same spot. Then they can concentrate on putting out setting/scenario material in one format that works well with whatever medium of the game you prefer.
Lastly for people wanting to do convention style gaming the HC version will make that a lot more palatable. Speaking personally the thought of random strangers touching my bits gives me the cold sweats.
Hmmm...
All the more reason for me to keep an eye on this. As I'm slowly entering "economic recovery" mode, Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 3rd edition is one of those games I have my eye on.
was psyched at your news.
then looked at the releases. great, a shift from 1 core book (1e, 2e) to the money grab d&d 3-vol. model. and those prices--not a cheap buy-in. i was curious to see what 3e is about, but i'm not spending US$120 (list) for the 3 volumes.
still, if folks like it, fine. guess i'm sticking with my 1e stuff. but then again i have no group to cater to or worry about these days.
Yeah, i saw this and thought it was hilarious.
It is a piece of brilliance by the business boys over there.
Let's see...
1. Release new game with all the boardgame trappings. For a high price.
2. release the 'rulebooks' that are useless without the full gamebox as pdfs. For a high price (lowered to merely 'pricey' recently).
3. Release the same game in a traditional hard-back book form. Maybe some fools that have the box will buy the same stuff again! On the other side, maybe we'll get some of the folk who haven't bought the boxes!
Will they be selling the bits / cards / dice separately?
'Cuz I don't see how the HC is going to bring in new players who then have to buy the box to actually play the game.
The point of the hardcover books is that you don't need the bits to play the game. It has all the rules that currently show up on the cards in the books. So basically action cards are presented like feats/spells in D&D. It that supplements in new rules that you would need to replace the current bits.
So all you need to buy is the Hardcover rules and the dice separately and you are good to go.
More info
Quote from: Jay Little FFGGreetings, everyone. We realize that with the excitement of the new releases across the RPG lines, there have been some questions raised over the series of Guide and Vault products we're developing for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I wanted to take a moment and clarify some of the issues so both new and veteran players know what to look forward to with the upcoming releases.
Also, if you're going to be attending GenCon, be sure to attend the Small But Vicious Seminar on Saturday (details available at our booth), where I will be presenting more information about the product line and answering questions.
Q: If I have the Core Set will I need the Player's Guide?
A: No, although the rules have been updated with our recent FAQ and may be clearer in some areas, there is no new rules or information.
Q: So what does the Player's Guide offer over the player information from the Core Set?
A: We have condensed all the information from the cards and careers of sets up to and through the "Signs of Faith" product for easy reference, and there are rules for playing WFRP "Lite" (i.e. without components, for those that prefer this method). This includes action cards, talents, career abilities--virtually all of the player-focused content released so far. Also, the Player's Guide features some new examples and diagrams, as well as some clarifications and streamlined organization.
Q: How about the GM's Guide?
A: If you own the Core Set, you'll not need the GM's guide to play WFRP. The GM's Guide, like the Players' Guide, does provide for detailed lookup tables for a number of game elements. For example, there are complete charts and tables for some effects currently managed by decks of cards, providing both a handy reference, as well as a means to play the game using more traditional means.
Q: So, if I have a new group interested in playing WFRP, where do I start?
A: The Core Set is the ideal starting point for a new group and a superb value. The core set's component mix can easily support 4 people (1 GM and 3 players). Additional players can be added with additional copies of the "Player's Vault" if desired. Now with the release of the new Vault and Guide products, if a player wants additional rules sets on hand, you can pick up the "Player's Guide" without having to get another Core Set (an augment this with more sets of dice, if needed).
Q: So did the original model not work?
A: We've had phenomenal sales of the WFRP products that we have put out to date, with several already in their the second printing. By adding these Guide Books and Vaults, we are responding to player feedback and requests to give players options to expand their group without having to purchase additional Core Sets.
Q: So you'll continue to sell the Core Set?
A:Yes. It's still a great value and the ideal all-in-one entry point for a group.
Q: How about future supplements?
A: These will be released in the same way that we have released our supplements to date (such as "The Gathering Storm" and "Winds of Magic") including both the rules, source materials, and components in one box
Q: Can you tell us why the anticipated Slaanesh box was not on the release schedule through summer 2011?
A: No, what happens in the Inevitable City stays in the Inevitable City.
Now that's all good information. The current Core set is still the standard and will be for the future, it's not being replace. The guide is a supplemental way of playing and not the new default.
Very interesting. I might be tempted by the Hardcovers, but one thing I'm uncertain about is why they're releasing a box (for 40 dollars) with bestiary cards and then (for 30 dollars) a book containing write-ups of... the same beasts that are on the tokens? Well, I don't know.
Edit. From krysst's last quote:
QuoteSo what does the Player's Guide offer over the player information from the Core Set?
A: We have condensed all the information from the cards and careers of sets up to and through the "Signs of Faith" product for easy reference, and there are rules for playing WFRP "Lite" (i.e. without components, for those that prefer this method). This includes action cards, talents, career abilities--virtually all of the player-focused content released so far. Also, the Player's Guide features some new examples and diagrams, as well as some clarifications and streamlined organization.
Awesome! My major bug with Warhammer 3rd was the fiddliness with the bits. If the system is fully playable without them (e.g. the cool down mechanism on the cards) this sounds rather attractive to me.
With a thread title like that, I thought, "hey ho, here comes WHFRP 4th Edition!".
Actually the box set is quite stunning, heavy and stocked with all the kind of goodies you'd expect from a boardgame. (WOTC take note). It will be interesting to see how the hardback varies from the box set. I prefer PDFs, so if WHFRP 3e remains as a box set only, its not going to "travel" well.
Wizards of the Coast releases D&D 4e as a bunch of books, then decides a bunch of boxed sets is better.
Fantasy Flight Games releases WFRP 3e as a bunch of boxed sets, then decides a bunch of books is better.
Really, I suspect neither has any idea of what they're doing. :confused:
Quote from: The Butcher;397292Really, I suspect neither has any idea of what they're doing. :confused:
Much as I suspect you only read part of the thread and not all of it.
Quote from: The Butcher;397292Wizards of the Coast releases D&D 4e as a bunch of books, then decides a bunch of boxed sets is better.
Fantasy Flight Games releases WFRP 3e as a bunch of boxed sets, then decides a bunch of books is better.
Really, I suspect neither has any idea of what they're doing. :confused:
To be fair, WotC's boxed sets are in an entirely different player/price category.
Quote from: kryyst;397267So all you need to buy is the Hardcover rules and the dice separately and you are good to go.
Add up the prices for the 3 core books and dice. Most expensive RPG ever,no?
Hmmm ...
board game format ---> book format
book format ---> board game format
Will be interesting to see how well WotC's Ravenloft board game fares, and how soon it gets abandoned.
Quote from: Spinachcat;397263Will they be selling the bits / cards / dice separately?
'Cuz I don't see how the HC is going to bring in new players who then have to buy the box to actually play the game.
What I understand is that there are three hardcover rulebooks: a PHB, a DMG, and a MM. These have the info from the cards in a traditional RPG format.
If you want the cards and bits, there are three more new bit box sets, one for each hardcover book. These have the cards and counters and stuff.
Quote from: Gabriel2;397304What I understand is that there are three hardcover rulebooks: a PHB, a DMG, and a MM. These have the info from the cards in a traditional RPG format.
If you want the cards and bits, there are three more new bit box sets, one for each hardcover book. These have the cards and counters and stuff.
Will the game be playable with only the hardcover "core" books alone?
Quote from: ggroy;397305Will the game be playable with only the hardcover "core" books alone?
You'd still need the special dice. Presently there's no good way to get them separately. You could buy two of the offerred packs of spare dice and still not get as many as there are in the base set.
But the game can be played without many of the bits. Instead of grabbing an action card, you'd simply have to reference or write down the action description in the book. Instead of tracking things with counters, you'd make tick marks on paper. In many ways, it's a very conventional RPG.
Wounds are a problem, because critical wounds are dependent on the wound deck. Insanity is another little problem to playing the game with no bits, as that is managed by a card deck too.
I don't think these new products are introductory routes. They strike me as products for people who are already into the game and want the info in one place and/or their own copies of the bits.
Personally, I'm interested in the Monster book.
what are the special dice, anyway? i'm sure you could substitute normal dice and just consult a table or somesuch instead, yes?
Quote from: beeber;397420what are the special dice, anyway? i'm sure you could substitute normal dice and just consult a table or somesuch instead, yes?
Yep you could.
Red D10
Green D10
Blue D8
Purple D8
Yellow D6
White D6
Black D6
Every type of colour die has different markings on them and a typical roll would be: 3 Blue, 2 green, 1 Yellow, 1 white, 1 purple and 1 black.
I would imagine referencing a chart would be really annoying.
that many unique/special dice? waaay too fiddly for me :eek:
Quote from: beeber;397430that many unique/special dice? waaay too fiddly for me :eek:
If you count the extra percentile d10 that comes with most dice sets, it's the same number of unique dice types as D&D.
Quote from: hexgrid;397436If you count the extra percentile d10 that comes with most dice sets, it's the same number of unique dice types as D&D.
but they're not straight numbered dice, so that doesn't make sense. you can't just use your regular gaming dice to play without major adjustments it seems.
regardless, with all i've heard of 3e, and with no group, i have no interest in actually purchasing it.
Basically they're just making two different versions of the exact same game.
1.) The original, card and token based game that turned off many due to its fiddliness.
2.) Traditional rules compendium based game. Books+dice=off you go.
They're banking on pulling in new people with the book-based design and having some people get both.
For all the people saying WFRP3 is really quite traditional, just keep in mind...
1.) Time is highly abstract, there's Story-mode and Combat-mode. Basically cards and powers are meant to be used in Combat-mode. It brings up weird situations like a Shallya priestess either being able to heal the party completely after combat, using her "healing spell" card an unlimited number of times in Story Mode, or either not being able to cast spells at all outside of combat.
2.) Range is abstracted, which is ok if you're in 3:16, where the good guys are on one side and the bad guys on the other, but not too great if you have say a wagon traveling through the Drakwald Forest under attack by 8 bandits with missile weapons surrounding the wagon.
3.) WFRP 1 and 2 were known for good adventure maps. WFRP3 basically has none, mere sketches.
4.) The adventure structure is strongly narrative. We're talking literal Acts and Scenes here with "Rally Phases" signifying either time-based or dramatic breaks in the action.
It's traditional in the sense that there's no shared narrative control mechanics or Conflict Resolution going on, but it's not as traditional as WFRP1 or 2 by any means.
Seems to me that so far it's standing on the shoulders of previous editions.
Where's the world-building or are FFG content to rake in money partly based on the content of previous editions?
Quote from: One Horse Town;397522Seems to me that so far it's standing on the shoulders of previous editions.
Where's the world-building or are FFG content to rake in money partly based on the content of previous editions?
World Building in what regard? They've got a campaign set out, another on the way soon and a 3rd announced as well as an adventure to boot. They are forging new stories into the Warhammer world and not just putting out rules.
But as far as the world overall is concerned it's still Warhammer so it's still set in the Empire with all the regular places you'd like to visit and more often avoid.
With world-building OHT is talking about filling in the Warhammer World. Darklands, Arabia, Tilea, Albion. None of them have been really addressed in a WFRPG.
To answer the question, this edition seems to be for one purpose really. To play in the time leading up to the Storm of Chaos. In other words, this game is a prequel to WFRP2 chronologically.
As a result, IMO, you're not going to see anything new.
My prediction - 2011-2012 will have several modules, fill in the other three Chaos gods, add in new classes to possibly reach the amount of classes available in WFRP2. At some point, the battle rules will be updated enough to let the players actually run through the Storm of Chaos.
Unfortunately, any GW licensed RPG, either Fantasy or 40k, is going to have serious wold-building issues. The only world-building allowed must operate within the umbrella of the GW wargame fluff, so they're always shackled to the wargaming fluff, which is written to sell minis, not create a coherent setting.
That being said, FFG could fill in the Old World under contraints of the timeline just like they are filling in the Imperium and beyond under constraints of the timeline, but with this type of game, I doubt they will. Setting verisimilitude/simulationism, whatever you want to call it, just isn't a focus of this edition of the game.
This game is dark, gritty fantasy seen almost through the lens of a pulp or supers type format, very episodic and focused on the action and individual story as opposed to seen from the point of the setting as a whole.
Quote from: CRKrueger;397526This game is dark, gritty fantasy seen almost through the lens of a pulp or supers type format, very episodic and focused on the action and individual story as opposed to seen from the point of the setting as a whole.
Which is why it stands partly on earlier editions. This is fine if A) As an existing player you have the earlier material or B) you don't mind paying for shiny bits and system when the stuff that is useful has already been published.
Quote from: One Horse Town;397528Which is why it stands partly on earlier editions. This is fine if A) As an existing player you have the earlier material or B) you don't mind paying for shiny bits and system when the stuff that is useful has already been published.
Yeah, they're busting out the money rake. If you're interested in running the type of game you ran with WFRP1 or WFRP2, all WFRP3 brings to the table is a new system and some pre-Storm of Chaos modules. That's it. There's not enough detail on any of the cities you visit to hang a traditional campaign on without tons of fill-in work.
In FFG's defense, they're not even trying to make a game that you could run a WFRP1 or WFRP2 campaign on, they're going for a different type of campaign.
Glad to hear this...thinking seriously about the hardbacks now.
Thanks for the heads-up!
I won't be buying these, but it sounds like a good idea. While some of the counters help expedite things (and the art is great, especially on the career cards), WFRP3 as a whole is just nightmarishly fiddly. I'm desperate for time as it is; I don't need to pad my sessions with another hour of set-up/clean-up.
Quote from: CRKrueger;3975154.) The adventure structure is strongly narrative. We're talking literal Acts and Scenes here with "Rally Phases" signifying either time-based or dramatic breaks in the action.
The suggested adventure "structure" is basically systematized railroading. On top of the high rate of character success (even for rank 1 rat catchers), that was my biggest non-fiddly problem with the game.
Quote from: One Horse Town;397528Which is why it stands partly on earlier editions. This is fine if A) As an existing player you have the earlier material or B) you don't mind paying for shiny bits and system when the stuff that is useful has already been published.
or C) You are a new player and don't care about playing in the preformed world of past editions and cannon.
2nd edition core books didn't really have all that much detail in it, it was built on 1st edition and while 1st edition had a little bit more flushed out setting in the core book it's not like they did lots of splat books on the world. You just had campaign books that detailed the areas they were in.
3rd edition isn't much different in these regards. It has an overview of the world and when they put out a campaign setting they pour more detail into it, still leaving enough flexibility should you want to flush it out.
Warhammer as a world has always been controlled by GW and information, real detailed information that is, has always been scattered all over the place between the RPG, the Fantasy Battle, novels, magazines and the web as a big repository.
The disconnect I think is that most Warhammer fans have been compiling data for so long that it's source is almost secondary. New players don't have that kind of background their version of the world will be much different the standing fans.
Quote from: EmboldenedNavigator;397558The suggested adventure "structure" is basically systematized railroading.
Actually they give fairly flexible ways on how to not railroad stories. Comments and suggestions throughout effectively say "Plan something ahead, but be prepared to change is when your players do something entirely different"
Something like:
Act 1 "Meat the Client"
Act 2 "Find the source of the problem"
Act 3 "Fix the problem"
Now if at Act 1 the players kill the client you'll probably want to do a rally step (basically a momentary pause where everyone players, GM and characters) take a breath during a 'holy shit!' moment and then at that point the GM's going to need to come up with a new Act 2.
But the whole Act structure is just their way of breaking up a story into manageable chunks that are easier to think about. The concept is a little more formalized but it's nothing really new that most GM's aren't doing already.
Of course nothing will break if you just run the game like you normally would and ignore their Act structure for one you are more familiar with.
Quote from: EmboldenedNavigatorOn top of the high rate of character success (even for rank 1 rat catchers), that was my biggest non-fiddly problem with the game.
I've been playing Warhammer for a long time and while I'd have never admitted it in the past as I always had a work around. The high rate of failure in past editions has always sucked and often needed to be worked around and taken into consideration.
By contrast in WFRP 3 Characters often can succeed, perish the thought.
Quote from: kryyst;397566By contrast in WFRP 3 Characters often can succeed, perish the thought.
My problem is that they have taken it to the other extreme. While WFRP1&2 may have tilted too far to the "gritty" side, WFRP3 takes "heroic" to an extreme. While I love the concept of detailed successes & boons, their frequency basically makes everything a matter of degrees of success with failure being an aberration. And when the intro adventure assumes a couple of fledgling Scribes can take on a beastmen ambush without too much trouble, it loses the horror element that makes WFRP unique.