Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - Come and see

Well I've just finished skimming the Character Generation system and I like it. Still not entirely sure what all these things do yet but the system for making characters is pretty simple and intuitive. Talents, skills, wealth, actions and even the party's character are all covered.

Oh and you can make random characters too. So thats all good :D

- Liam

I am your gaming god, in my temple of Geek.

Random characters are very important to me - part of the heart of WFRP as I've experienced it is the sense of having someone forced to deal with whatever is thrown at them regardless of their background, and the lack of control in character gen always made that even more fun.

Trying to interpret the figures in front of you into a response when confronted with screaming horrors from beyond the abyss is simple if you have a hardened warrior, but what if you've got a soft-skinned noble? Do they step up to bat or do they lose it and Flee! Will the halfling baker rise to the occasion, or turn around and haul buns? Sorry, that one was terrible.

Anyway, Shevy is pleased about random chargen and wishes to hear more.

Shevy

Wayne England...

John Blance...

Adrian Smith...

The artwork is superb, even down to the counters and character stand ups. This is one of the most attractive games I've seen in my life and it even looks like it'll play well too :)

Mechanically (and I promise to go into all of this in more depth later) it is nothing like previous editions nor is it like D&D4 either so if thats one of the things you were afraid of, fear no longer. Yes there are a lot of cards and components but to be honest almost every game I've ever run or played has had a table covered in cards, counters, miniatures, badly photo-copied character sheets, chips, dips, refreshments, torn up copies of rulebooks to reference during sessions etc. This game compresses so much of that junk down into an easily referenced and visual format. This game is really tactile with everything on the table having a purpose that is clear to everyone who's looking.

Even the abstract range and movement system feels good and the way it shows on the table is simple. Especially with all those location cards too. The location cards are a representation of where the encounters take place and also they have effects that can be triggered by dice rolls.

I love so much about this game and how so much interacts with other parts of the game.

So until tomorrow when I continue, thats it I'm afraid.

- LiAm

I am your gaming god, in my temple of Geek.

One of the things that I have always loved about Warhammer is the insanity system. To me its always been a game of hard blows and critical hits to the mind and soul as well as a game about hitting things and more often than not being hit back. The new system doesn't pull its blows on this count either with rules covering both the temporary effects of insanity as well as more permanent ones.

During your time travelling around and being fed through the meat grinder... erm boldly adventuring in the dark places that is, your character can choose to or sometimes is forced to take stress, whether its Fatigue (for physical traits) or Distress (for mental ones) the trial and tribulations of adventuring will take their toll eventually. Suffer too much of both and the strain can push your character over the edge into temporary insanity. Keep pushing yourself and you'll gain more.

We maybe and maybe not. Each Insanity has one or more traits. If the any of the traits correspond to the source of the strain then you've lost the plot as it were and gain the insanity temporarily. No matching traits? You've escaped this time but what about the next time... And given that as long as you're strained you run the risk of gaining more it will happen eventually.

So what happens then and what about permanent psychosis? Insanities become permanent after the encounter. Make a check against the severity of the insanity in question and if you succeed you've shrugged it off. Fail and you have a new thing to add to your sheet :D

With Insanities ranging from "The Dry Heaves" and "Gibbering Terrors" through old classics like "Agoraphobis" and "Catatonia" (a personal GM favourite) to new twitchy frothy goodness like "Don't Leave Me!" and "Rotting Body" (you start to think your body is falling apart in front of you). "Delusions of Grandeur" reminded me of a character in my campaign from years ago too, just from the flavour text... And would you like to suffer from an "Irrational Compulsion" or even some "Unnatural Cravings" because given this is Warhammer I know I wouldn't.

So all in all, with rules for Fear, Terror and Insanity I feel quite at home in this incarnation of Warhammer. The system is simple and straightforward, the insanities easy to grasp and run with and although a couple of them are (as you would expect) quite harsh compared to others none are as crippling as some of the ones from previous editions.

And there's a whole lot less phobia's too. That's for Call of Cthulhu ;)

So, join us tomorrow for our next thrilling installment: Brash Young Fools or Swords For Hire. Which Adventuring Party are you?

- Liam

It's not metagaming... My character's just thinking outside of the box :D

We've just finished puting together our pre-order and release discounts and bulk deals and they're listed here:

http://www.black-lion.co.uk/node/1349

- Liam

It's not metagaming... My character's just thinking outside of the box :D

So, in the vast and adventure filled Old World, how do you think lowly passers by would describe your party? A posse of "Brash Young Fools", "Intrepid Explorers" maybe. Or like so many groups before you, are you just a "Gang of Thugs". Well now your party gets to have a character sheet too and let itself be known to the whole world for what you are.

According to the rulebook the Party Sheet represents "... the teamwork, leadership and camaraderie of its members". Or in other words its there to keep track of how much you bicker before getting things done ;)

The sheet consists of several different parts. Firstly is the Tension Meter at the top of the sheet. This is a series of coloured triangles 8, 9 or 10 long that keeps track of the tension that arrises not only from the internal conflicts within the party but also the pressures from without. As your party tension increases (it can decrease as well) it will start to affect the group.

Below the Tension Meter are the Name and the traits box. Traits may be relevant to cards and effects during play.

Next down are the Tension Events. Remember I said that as the party tension increases it has an effect. Here's where they're listed with one effect triggered when the party tension reaches 5 and another when it gets to its maximum. These are usually some form of stress and/or fatigue penalties that affect everyone in the party.

To the right of these is the Fortune Pool, with a nice picture that'll look nothing like the horrid grubby mud and blood covered adventurers you are but it's always nice to have something to aspire too ;) Here's where you collect the party's Fortune points while it builds up enough to refresh everyone's pool.

Next comes the Special Ability. Each type of Party has an ability matching it's theme. "Gang of Thugs" for example get "Legbreaking" where once per session a party member can spend fortune to grant everyone in the party +1 damage for the turn, whereas "Swords for Hire" can exhaust some resources to free up others to use now.

Finally we get to the Talent Sockets at the bottom of the card. This bit is something I really like. Each Party card has 2 or 3 (depending on the party) slots where you can place talent cards. Each slot can be filled using any of the PC's available talents not currently being used by a party member. Once slotted in place it then affects the whole party, not just that one character. I like this because it allows the sharing of useful abilities, just as if the party were actually training and adventuring together, learning from each other as they go.

All in all the Party sheet adds a couple of interesting mechanics as well as providing a place to keep track of fortune and tension. The talent card slots are a fantastic idea and I like the idea that you as a group have an ability too thats tied to the way you typically go about things.

Next: Dice!

- Liam

It's not metagaming... My character's just thinking outside of the box :D

Dice...

Frankly it's not a roleplaying game for me if it doesn't use dice. I know diceless systems exist, and I have to admit that Castle Falkenstein does have a special place in my heart but really, it's all about the dice for me. 4, 6 ,8, 10, 12, 20, 30, 60, 100 or even 1000 sided rolls make me happy. Actually D4's don't but that may have something to do with the amount of times I've trodden on one in the night...

Warhammer does not disappoint on the dice front with 36 custom dice in 7 different types. There are 8 Characteristic dice (pale blue D8), 4 Challenge dice (a very nice purple coloured D8), 4 Expertise Dice (yellow D6), 4 Conservative stance dice (green D10), 4 Reckless stance dice (red D10), 6 Fortune dice (white D6) and 6 Misfortune dice (black D6).

Each dice has a combination of different symbols depending on the type of dice. Hammer symbols are successes, crossed swords are challenges with success and challenge symbols cancelling each other out. A Righteous Success symbol allows you to roll an extra die of the same type and add its result to the pool. Banes look like a skull and fuel negative side effects whereas Boons look like an imperial eagle and fuel positive side effects. These results make up the majority of what you'll find on the dice. There are a few rarer results too though... The Chaos star triggers especially bad side effects on certain locations and cards or acts as a bane if not. Conversely Sigmar's comet denotes powerful positive effects or can be treated as a boon OR a success if there's no ability that suits. A Delay is denoted by an hourglass which allows the GM to add recharge tokens to an ability or make an adjustment to the initiative tracker. Exertion, as you would expect, adds 1 fatigue or Stress to your character depending on the nature of the task and looks like a tear drop. Some symbols, like successes and challenges, can appear twice on the same side of the dice and certain symbols pair up on certain dice. Some sides are also left blank and thisd result has no effect.

For example on the Stance dice the Conservative dice have 4 sides with hammers (successes), one blank side (no effect), 2 Eagles (boons), 2 sides with both a hammer and an hourglass (a success and a delay) and one side with a hammer and an eagle (a success and a boon). Looking at this die you can see that 5 sides have at least 1 success and 3 sides have at least a boon. 2 sides might cause a delay though. Given that a conservative character is supposed to be the one who is more cautious though more likely to take time to achieve his goal the dice seems to tie in with taht nicely. On the other hand the reckless dice has 2 sides with double hammers (2 successes), 2 with a hammer and a tear drop (a success and an exertion), one side with double eagles (2 boons), one side with an eagle and a hammer (a success and a boon), 2 sides with a skull (bane) and 2 blank sides (no effect). So when you succeed you really succeed (though at a cost potentially).

I should point out that this is a lot easier to do in person when you can actually see the dice in question.

You build a dice pool starting with your characteristec die. Grab as many dice as you have points in the relevant characteristic. Next add any expertise dice for any relevant skills or specialisations etc. Next add any Fortune and Misfortune dice that may be applicable. These could come from criticals, spells, ability effects, terrain etc. The GM can add any relevant challenge dice (these have NO good results) to the pool now for resisted effects. Finally you swap out an amount of characteristic dice equal to your characters current position on his stance meter.

Congratulations, you now have a dice pool. It weighs in at not very much. Why not call it Bernard?. Probably because the phrase "Rolling Bernard" just sounds wrong. Oh well, on with the review...

Now roll all the dice. Discard any dice that come up with a blank face. Count up the successes and discard one for every challenge symbol you get. Do the same for Banes and Boons and whatever you've got left after everything cancels out.

The thing I really like about this mechanic is that once you've rolled you can really see where the success or failure comes from. It allows for good and bad luck to have an effect without becomeing overwhelming. Your training really helps (those Sigmar's Comet results can be pretty good) and your stance will have a definite effect on your results too.

So all in all I really like the new dice and the mechanics that come with them. Want to know more? Come by the shop. I'll show you it all and even let you roll the dice yourself. It's a, lot easier that way ;)

- Liam

It's not metagaming... My character's just thinking outside of the box :D