Stargazer's World » WHFRP

Review: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Player’s Guide

Stargazer — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 10:00:43 +0000

I haven’t been aware of the WHFRP Player’s Guide until I got a coupon code for a review copy in my email inbox. But I have to admit it was a pleasant surprise. Even though I changed my stance on the latest iteration of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay there where still a few things that irked me. The new Player’s Guide remedies a lot of the issues I had with this game before.

As with all recent Fantasy Flight Games products, the 306-paged WHFRP Player’s Guide looks gorgeous. I haven’t seen a printed copy yet since this review is based on a PDF copy, but I am sure it will be of the high quality we have been seeing from FFG products for some time now. The artwork is of great quality although I think some of it is reused from the rule booklets of the WHFRP boxed set. In some cases I remember the artwork from even much older products like the original Games Workshop edition of WHFRP.

But what exactly is the Player’s Guide? It basically contains everything you need as a player to play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying. This includes all the rules needed to create a character and play the game. There are even guidelines that allow you to play and run the game if you don’t want to use the cards and tokens from the boxed set. Only one copy of each the Player’s and Game Master’s Guide plus a set of custom dice is needed and you are good to go!

The Player’s Guide covers character creation, the games rules (including combat, advancement, arcane and divine magic), equipment, and an overview of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay’s classic setting, the Empire. There have been a lot of great reviews of the original WHFRP boxed set all over the net, that explain how the WHFRP system works, so I won’t go into details here. Basically it uses a dice pool system using custom dice which has a surprising depth and complexity. The career system from earlier editions is still intact although it has been streamlined. The probably biggest change from earlier editions of the game is that even newly-created characters are much more capable than in Warhammer Fantasy 1st or 2nd edition.

Contrary to my initial expectations the combat system has moved away from the game’s miniature gaming roots. In WHFRP you don’t use a map or grid at all, distances and movement are abstract, and there’s no set time for a round. At GenCon 2010 I had the chance to play WHFRP with Mark Meredith, his wife Bridget and Jeff Uurtamo. While we all struggled with the rules a bit, we all had a lot of fun and the dice pool mechanic actually encouraged colorful descriptions of our action’s results.

What really makes the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Player’s Guide a must have product in my book is Chapter Fourteen (“WFRP Lite”), and the appendix which makes up for pretty much half of the page-count. Chapter Fourteen gives the GM and players some guidelines on how to run the game without using all the fiddly bits and pieces. Of course a lot of players might actually prefer to run the game with all the action cards and various tokens, it’s nice we finally get at least the choice to not use them. FFG also included an expanded character sheet and an action card worksheet at the end of the book, which will definitely make it easier to run the game in this “Lite mode”.

The appendix contains all the actions, talents, party sheets and careers from previously released products such as the Core boxed set, the Adventurer’s Toolkit or Signs of Faith. Even if you already own several of the listed products, the appendix can still serve as a great reference tool for the players and GM. The book concludes with a 4-paged index.

Considering the massive content and the great artwork the price of $49.95 for the print version seems more than justified. Alas the price of the PDF version is a bit too high for my taste. $25 may be much cheaper than what you have to pay for the hardcopy, but $10 or $15 would sound more reasonable to me.

Even if you are a veteran WHFRP 3rd Edition player/GM the new Player’s Guide might be worth a look. Having all the rules in one book and being able to reference all the actions and talents without shuffling through hundreds of cards is just priceless. If you are a new player or more of an old-school guy, the Player’s Guide may also be an interesting read. Using the “WFRP Lite” option allows it to play the game more like a classic pen & paper roleplaying game. Not having to bother with all the fiddly bits and pieces may be more comfortable to some players.

If you have been thinking about getting Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition for a while now, but the high price of the Core Set has kept you from actually buying it, the Player’s Guide and the Game Master’s Guide might actually be an alternative. Although the Core Set is currently available for the reduced price of $62.97 at Amazon.com, but when you consider that the Player’s Guide contains a lot of material from other sets as well (like the Adventurer’s Toolkit) it’s still a great deal.

Improve Your Game: Character creation as a team effort

Stargazer — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:00:45 +0000

In some modern roleplaying games, especially games based on FATE rules, character creation is something one player can’t do on his own. In order to create your character you have to cooperate with your fellow players. The character creation method in FATE makes sure the background stories of the player characters are already intertwined in some way. The GM (and the players) will never have to face the issue of the dreaded “team of loners” that have no reason to cooperate.

Another game that makes cooperative character creation necessary is the latest edition of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game. In that game each party has to chose why they are working together (there’s a limited number of choices) and each party type grants certain abilities. There’s even a mechanic for handling in-party stress.

What I’ve learned in my years of roleplaying experience is, that a game definitely profits when the first session of a new game consists of character creation and coming up with a reason of why these characters work together. And in my opinion game masters should make it clear that the characters are supposed to cooperate. In-party intrigue and infighting may be fun once in a while, but when the party members are on each other’s throats all the time, it has usually an detrimental effect on any game.

My advice to GMs is, that when you’ve decided what game to run, schedule a character creation session. Talk about what the players have to expect. Then ask the players to discuss their character concepts and make sure each character at least knows one other character in the party. Another possible connections are being a friend of a friend or having the same mentor, patron or enemy. Whatever it is give the players a reason why the would work together. And trust me, forcing the player characters to work together “because the king said so” never works. It’s better when the players come up with something themselves. The GMs role should be to encourage them to think about reasons.

As with all roleplaying advice your mileage may vary, but creating characters as a team effort definitely made things much easier for the players and the GM. If you haven’t done so, give it a try.

WFRP Toolkit

Stargazer — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 09:20:36 +0000

On May 19th Fantasy Flight Games’ WFRP Toolkit appeared on the iTunes AppStore. It’s a dice rolling application for the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game which uses dice pools of custom dice for task resolution checks.

As you probably know I’ve finally given in some time ago and bought the latest edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, a game I have been criticizing for quite a long time. But after reading the rules myself I can say some of my fears and criticism have been unfounded. WFRP may not be your father’s WFRP but it’s still a roleplaying game, and it’s even crunchier than I expected. The dice pool system using custom dice also adds a layer of complexity to the game, that I hadn’t anticipated. But that’s a story for another day…

But the fact that you have to use custom dice is certainly a drawback, especially when you lose dice or if anyone wants to have his own dice. One solution is to get the Dice Accessory Pack. But if you own an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad there’s now an alternative: the aforementioned WFRP Toolkit.

The app looks very much like any other FFG product: polished, great artwork. And for $2.99 it’s surprisingly cheap (for an FFG product). Aside from beautifully rendered and animated dice, you get a roll log, extensive statistics and full documentation.

If you own WFRP and an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad you might want to check this out!

WFRP: Their Fated Travels …

Stargazer — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:15:21 +0000

I was recently contacted by Robert James Freemantle, who turned the exploits of his Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay group into a story that you can now listen to on YouTube. I’ve embedded the first episode into this post:

You can listen to Robert’s introduction and the other episodes on his YouTube channel.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Unboxing

Stargazer — Wed, 12 May 2010 17:12:48 +0000

The day before yesterday I finally gave in and ordered the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game by Fantasy Flight Games. This time I decided to try something new: an unboxing video!

Enjoy!

Ask The Readers: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition anyone?

Stargazer — Mon, 10 May 2010 07:05:24 +0000

When the first details about the 3rd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay were leaked to the internet I wasn’t that happy. Action and ability cards? Custom dice? Dice pool system? This was not the game I’ve played and loved for my whole roleplaying career! I wrote a couple of posts (here, here, here and here) where I voiced my disapproval of FFG’s decision to radically changed my favorite game.

But over the time my anger and disappointment waned and I started reading reviews and playtest reports. While I still think that some aspects of WHFRP 3rd Edition are overly gimmicky, it seems to be a pretty solid roleplaying game. After listening to the latest episode of RPG Circus which featured Mark’s review of the game, I am actually considering buying and playing it.

What I want to ask my readers is if someone has played the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game, yet? What are your experiences? Do you think I should give it a try? And what problems have you encountered during your first games? As always, every comment is highly appreciated.

Best & Worst of Gaming 2009 [Part 4]

Stargazer — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:07:34 +0000

So, this is the last part of my look back at 2009. I won’t bore you with stories from the past from now on, because we live in the future now!
Thanks again for Zach from RPG Blog II, who had posted his “Best & Worst of Gaming 2009” series in December. Ok, without further ado, let’s look at the last categories:

Worst Trend

The notion that ”RPGs have to become more like boardgames/videogames/MMOs/etc.” is the worst trend of 2009. Of course, this idea has been around quite some time, but it again reared its ugly head in the last year. With its powercards, battlemaps and miniature combat D&D 4th Edition already is pretty boardgamey [1], but FFG really managed to overdo it IMHO with the 3rd edition of Warhammer FRP: custom dice, a lot of cardboard thingies, only 3 players plus one GM can play the core game. I prefer a classic game, where I just need the rules, pen, paper and dice to play. What’s so wrong about that?

Trend I Hope To See In 2010

More boxed sets! I have to fully agree with Zach on this. I am especially excited about the upcoming Dragon Age boxed set, that I preordered quite a while ago. But the recently released Doctor Who boxed set looks pretty cool, too. Perhaps it’s just nostalgia, but I always liked the old AD&D campaign setting boxed sets. And I believe the boxed set format is the best way to get new people into the hobby.

Product Of The Year

There are so many great products, it really is hard to pick any one of them. Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG is a strong contender (although I don’t own it myself), but from what I’ve seen, it’ would be worthy of being PotY. My second idea was Dragon Age by Green Ronin. Ok, it’s only out as PDF, yet, with the boxed set to come hopefully soon, but I’ve already fallen in love with it’s old-school charm.
But in the end I went with “Savage Worlds” by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Shane Hensley’s RPG is not exactly new. Even the latest edition, the “Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition” was released in October 2007, but for me, 2009 was a great year for Savage Worlds. Interest in the game rose all over the blogosphere and a lot of great settings, supplements and adventures for SW have been released last year.
And when you consider that the SWEE which contains all the rules you need to play in almost any campaign sets you back mere $10, then it’s obvious why SW is still product of the year for me.

That concludes the series. I hope you had a great year 2009 and I wish you a much better year 2010! Take care everyone. And now back to our regular program!

1 – I don’t want to bash D&D 4th Edition here, I just used it as a popular example, there are many other games guilty of needing too many gimmicks during combat, like my beloved Savage Worlds (which uses “bennies” (poker chips, glass beads, etc.) and poker cards for initiative). So please don’t start another Edition War in the comments. Thank you.

RPG News for December 4th 2009

Stargazer — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:16:19 +0000

I found a few newsworthy items I want to share with you guys:

Diaspora discount
Perhaps you remember my post about Diaspora, the FATE-powered Hard-SF game. Fred Hicks now posted on his blog Deadly Fredly, that the game is finally back on Lulu and that every customer gets a 10% discount on Diaspora until end of December!
So, what are your waiting for? The coupon code for the 10% discount is DIASPORA. Check out Fred’s blog or the publisher’s site for more details.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition support material
Yesterday I read on Purple Pawn about FFG removing all support material for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition as of today. I still could download everything (aside from the designer diaries and two preview PDFs, that didn’t interest me), and if you are still playing the 2nd edition, you should consider doing so, too, before the files are gone. I try to contact FFG and ask if they allow me to mirror the files on my site. If they give me permission, I will let you know.
Diaspora SRD
Ok, this is actually not news, but I just found out about it: The authors of Diaspora have made their version of the FATE rules available as a System Reference Document. This allows you to create derivative material based on the Hard-SF game Diaspora that is powered by FATE. Alas the SRD is available in HTML only, but I am sure someone will create a more printer-friendly SRD in PDF sooner or later.
You can access the SRD here.

Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 3rd Edition Trailer

Stargazer — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:13:53 +0000

It seems while I was busy offline FFG released a new trailer for the upcoming WHFRP 3E game. While I have to admit that the components (cards, dice, sheets) look very good, I just can’t see how this is going to improve the role-playing experience.
Some of the game play elements like the party sheet just sounds too much like something you would have in a board or card game but IMHO it doesn’t really fit into what I expect from a role-playing game.

The other problem is the price tag. $100 is a lot of money and most of that money goes into cards and custom dice that you a) definitely will need to play the game (don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) and b) are easily lost. Especially in times where people think twice before buying a new role-playing game, especially when you need to buy a supplement to have more than 3 or 4 players.

I love FFG’s board games and from what I’ve heard the recently released Rogue Trader is an awesome role-playing game, but I don’t think the new Warhammer Fantasy Role Play is a game for me.

WHFRP 3rd Edition Seminar by Jay Little

Stargazer — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:58:47 +0000

Yesterday I learned about this video seminar and headed over to the FFG site to watch it. It consists of five videos each about 5 mins in length in which Jay Little, Senior RPG Developer for WHFRP at FFG, talks about the upcoming game.

Alas watching the videos has just reinforced my earlier impressions of the game. Although I admit they have a few interesting ideas, I think that they should have sticked to the classic system instead of doing a whole new thing. Especially the introduction of custom dice and a lot of cards, markers, etc. and other boardgamey stuff and the focus on the more "heroic" classes is IMHO a step in the wrong direction.

What are your thoughts on these videos? Are you now interested more or less in this upcoming game? Did they do a good job of giving you an overview of things to except?

Confessions of a Gamer: In the Beginning

Stargazer — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:30:52 +0000

In the recent post about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay I revealed a few facts about my gaming history including that WHFRP was probably the game that influenced me a lot in how I see roleplaying games today. So I thought it might be fun to tell you a bit more about how I became a roleplayer. These are my confessions of a gamer, so to speak.

It all started when my friend S (I’ve decided not to use the full names of people here, out of respect for their privacy) asked me if I wanted to have a look at Battletech. I think I was 15 or 16 at the time. I believe I already had heard about the game already mostly from the ads in books I’ve read at that time. So, I went over to his place, where we met R. I actually knew R since early childhood, but haven’t talked to him for years at that moment. He was also a few years older and already had his own car (which came in very handy). We then drove to a nearby town to meet the other Battletech players.

I believe it was a Saturday afternoon in 1990 or 1991 when I first sat down to play a game of Battletech. Although I was a pretty bad tactician, I enjoyed playing Battletech a lot and I made fast friends with the other gamers. We then met every Saturday to play a few games of Battletech where I ususally used a Rifleman mech, which was my favorite. Alas it usually ended with my mech being the first to blow up since I tried to go toe-on-toe with better armed and armored mechs. I think I mentioned that I was pretty bad at this back then.

Sometimes during our meetings the others talked about another game called Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I haven’t heard about it before and just found out that it was not a game like Battletech but a fantasy roleplaying game. I’ve heard of D&D of course, but I only new RPGs from the computer. My friend S was actually part of the group and I regularly begged him to tell me about the game and what has happened during their game session. I also begged and pleaded to be allowed into the group, but alas the GM didn’t want me to join until they’ve finished the adventure. I believe they were running “Death on the Reik” or “Something Rotten in Kislev” at the moment.

My first chance to participate in a roleplaying session came in 1992 when we went to PhanCon. My friends S, R and me decided to give Torg a try, since the GM seemed to be a nice guy and S has played with him on the day before. So I rolled up my first roleplaying character. It was a private detective from the Nile Empire. I don’t remember exactly what the adventure was about aside that it featured zombies and I belive we were in Orrosh. This was also the first time I encountered a gaming jerk. From what I remember he was the kind that kills the mood especially for the newbies by telling them what to do and he boasted with his knowledge of the background and robbed us of the opportunity to make our own mistakes. But nevertheless the session was fun and I was hooked on roleplaying.

You may have already noticed that I started playing at a much higher age than most US gamers. From what I remember tabletop roleplaying games weren’t as widely known back then and especially when you come from the country, you didn’t have a lot of opportunity to meet roleplayers. My first experiences with RPGs were on the PC with games like Ultima and Bard’s Tale.

I think it was in the same year when I finally joined the WHFRP group. We started playing “Power Behind The Throne” and I rolled up an Elf called Nimron Ellion who turned out a coachman. Ok, it was a bit strange to play an Elf wielding a blunderbuss and driving a coach in the Empire, but we made it work. In the course of the adventure we uncovered the plot to overthrow the current rules of Middenheim, made friends with the local celebrities, fought a lot of evil doers and in the end where knighted. So my Elf made the career change from coachman to templar knight. Usually a career change like that is not allowed in 1st Edition WHFRP rules, but it was made an exception because of being knighted.

So in many ways WHFRP was to me, what the original D&D is to a lot of US gamers. I’ve played and later run WHFRP for many years and aside from TORG it was the first roleplaying game I actually played. I think my love for grim and gritty settings and percentile systems comes from that time.

This concludes the first part of Confessions. Please let me know what you think about this new column in the comments. When you enjoy reading about my gaming history, I will try to post another Confessions post every week at least. And please take everything I write in this column with a grain of salt. The events I wrote about happened over 15 years ago and my memory is of course not perfect. Especially if you where one of the members of that group back then, please don’t be too harsh on me, when I get things wrong.

Follow-up on my Warhammer FRP 3rd Edition rant

Stargazer — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:08:24 +0000

I have to admit that in my last post about that topic I was really ranting and raving. The original WHFRP was probably the game that influenced me the most in my gaming career and it will always be one of my favorite game. So I was pretty much shocked when I saw that FFG is about to throw out the classic system in favor of a new system that features fancy custom dice, action and ability cards.

I am obviously not the only one who is more than skeptical about the upcoming game by FFG. Several bloggers commented on the announcement of this new edition of WHFRP including UncleBear and Gnognardia among others.

And it seems the announcement has even more ramifications. As the German blog “Rollenspiel-Almanach” reported, there will probably be no continuation of the German WHFRP 2nd Edition line. The German version of WHFRP was produced by Feder & Schwert who now confirmed that their license has not been extended, so that there will be no German translation of “Shades of Empire” and the “Career Compendium”.

These are bad times for fans of 1st and 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. What do you guys think? Will they pull a WotC on us and remove all PDF products of older editions from the stores, too? Or will we at least complete our collection of 2nd edition books before the new game is out?

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay! WTF?

Stargazer — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:01:03 +0000

Fantasy Flight Games will release a new version of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game at GenCon this year.

WHFRP was one of the first RPGs I played back in the day (this was still the 1st edition then). The updated 2nd edition that was released a couple of years ago, was awesome. It not only managed to fix a lot of broken rules the old edition had but it also succeeded doing so without making it a totally different game.

And when I first heard about the 3rd edition Fantasy Flight Games is about to release, I thought it was a hoax. But alas it was not. Graham McNeill has posted the following on his blog (emphasis added by me):

A coupe of weeks ago, our regular roleplaying group was privileged enough to playtest 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The guys from Fantasy Flight Games were over at Games Workshop HQ, and Jay Little very kindly did a show and tell for us over at Alessio Cavatore’s house, where we saw how much the game has changed from its previous incarnation. Our gaming group has been going for some time and we were all interested to see what was new with WFRP, since we’d playtested the previous edition also. It was in interesting evening, and the game was very different to anything I’ve played before, with a lot of table space taken up by character sheets, action and ability cards, dice etc. It felt like a strange hybrid of board game and roleplaying game at first, but once the notions of the new mechanics took hold, it felt very natural. Likewise, the new dice pool system felt odd at first, but once we’d rolled a few dice it immediately became very intuitive, which is surely the holy grail of any roleplaying system.

Seriously! Is this D&D 4th Edition all over again? Why can’t they just fix things that are broken instead of making it a completely new game? At this time I still hoped for a hoax or at least a misunderstanding, but alas I was so wrong.

Now, it’s official. FFG has created a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and it’s a strange hybrid of board game and RPG and it uses dice pools, action and ability cards. And they sell it as a box for $100!!!

From the looks of it, WHFRP will be a great looking game with a nice box containing several rulebooks, custom dice and many cards. So the production value will probably be pretty awesome, but I don’t think a complete overhaul of the system was the right thing to do. Don’t get me wrong, the game looks great from an artistic standpoint. I can’t judge the rules, since I haven’t had the chance to check out the real thing, but I am worried. I am just worried that one of the oldest fantasy roleplaying franchises is turned into a boardgame.

I believe I sound like a total grognard right now, but why do these companies think, that we want games that use action cards and fancy dice? Does this really improve the roleplaying experience? And why is it necessary to change the WHFRP rules beyond recongnition? The box will also set you back almost $100. Obviously the industry is doing pretty fine, when you can release a $100 RPG/boardgame hybrid during a time of economical crisis! And I thought the “World of Warcraft Boardgame was expensive! Perhaps they reasoned that FFG’s strength are high production values and boardgames, so they wanted to make use of that in an overhauled Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game.

Sorry, I usually don’t rant on this blog and perhaps I am terribly wrong about all this. Perhaps the new edition of WHFRP is the best thing since sliced bread and we’ll all play and enjoy it in a few months. Or I am right and we’ll all hate it and I can say “See, I told you so!”

Stargazer signing off!