The game that dare not speak its name? (WFRP3)

With all the rumours flying around at the moment concerning the new Warhammer I thought it might be useful to compile a list of links and then some thoughts on what we've seen so far.

Firstly there's a pile of info up on Fantasy Flight's website (www.fantasyflightgames.com) in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay section (The homepage is here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=93
and a description of the new game here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=93&esem=1)
For those that don't know about it, Fantasy Flight held a seminar at GenCon discussing the new game and some of the choices they made. It can be found here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=750 it runs to about an hour though it is in multiple parts to make it easier to watch.

So, what do I think of what I've seen so far? I'm not sure. This is not and never will be the WFRP that I grew up with, though nor was 2nd edition. That isn't necessarily a bad thing as both 1st and 2nd edition are now rather dated as systems go. The new version (and I'm still reticent to call it WFRP3) does look very pretty, with loads of fantastic art but that doesn't make it a good game. The mechanics as they've been discussed look no worse than many games out there and in my experience Fantasy Flight have a very good track record with boardgames and this does resemble a boardgame in so many ways except the obvious one; it doesn't use a board.

As for the price point, well I'm expecting the base game to retail for about £75 and the expansion, which I'll come to in a minute, at about £20 (though I don't have any confirmed prices as yet). The base game box contains all that 3 players (yup, only 3 unfortunately) and the gamesmaster need to get started including character cards, party cards, 4 rulebooks (Players, GM's, Magic and Religion) and more. The expansion contains some more dice (to allow for an extra player) as well as more carreer cards for all including that perenial favourite, the Rat Catcher (they're not in the basic game either). This makes for an expensive game on the surface, though in effect it's not that bad. Considering that many games these days encourage if not force you to use peripherals like miniatures, battlemats or tiles, scenery, power cards, playing cards, paper clips, poker chips etc. it is quite refreshing to see a game with all those peripherals already in the box. The only things missing really ARE the friends, paper and pencils.

So in brief, it looks like it could be a good game though it certainly won't play like the previous editions. It also looks like a possible gateway roleplaying game with nice production values, a setting that the majority of people have at least heard the name of and a set of rules that encourage you to think as a group. This all adds up to a potential certainly.

With any luck though we will manage to secure a copy to review before release so feel free to post thoughts, more links and comments here and as I find out more I'll keep updating this thread. I championed 1st and 2nd editions in Edinburgh and I can only hope that the new edition will earn my praises too.

- LiAm