New RPG's you've heard of/played/own

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Seems a bit condescending? While at the same time none of his points really have to do with the system. How much choice you have or have not is related far more to the group of people playing than the system.

 

He's talking about the combat in terms of lethality and tactical options, the character generation method and the special dice used in play. How can this have nothing to do with the system? 

[melkathi]

And how are the tactical options he describes such an awesome new thing? What he does say is that you have more than one choice but if you stick to your same action you are a boring person. Since AD&D most systems have come a long way from the "I hit the orc" -> roll die for attack -> roll die for damage. 3rd ed D&D tried to mix things up giving power attacks, cleaves, letting rogues tumble around and sneak attack etc. But even in the older systems, there was a vast difference between different players. Yes there were always the AD&D fighters who sat there silently and just waited for combat to happen so they could roll their d20. Just as there always were the wizards who's main joy of playing was to see how many die they could roll for damage with a spell. But that was just as much a fault of the group as it was of the system that rewarded this.

 

Character generation? You draw three cards at random from a deck and choose one? How exactly does that make for a more diverse choice than what we already had in 1st edition where you chose to roll a d100 on one of four tables? That you get to choose one of three and don't just draw one card and are stuck with it? Could just as easily let someone roll the die twice, just as you could make a house rule to only draw one card in the new system.

What does seem to have changed and could be argued as an improvement, is that they seem to have implemented a system to advance in your chosen career without the need to change to a different one. He could have made an argument how that is an improvement. He didn't though. He may not have convinced everyone, but he would have had a valid point: "You no longer are forced to become a witch hunter or templar to develop your character."  One could make a counter argument that that does not fit with the concept of adventurers in the warhammer world who find themselves in ever changing circumstances and therefor keep adapting, reflected in the changing careers, but that doesn't remove the merit of the change.

 

For his shiney new dice I simply do not care. Rpgs have always tried to find ways to break the boundaries of their dice. This move fits with the GW tradition of specialised dice as seen in their miniature games (artillery dice, scatter dice, sustained fire dice...). In the end though all they did was find a simple, possibly elegant, solution that board games have proven to work. Great. Not new though in what it provides in complexity. It may simplify things and aid the game flow, but it does not truly add a new depth.

 

All I see in that article is a person who had a past of terrible terrible gaming groups - most likely someone who tried to play a bard in AD&D with a group that just wanted to roll dice 'till every monster was dead. Yes, in the wrong group that could be a real disappointment.

Now he found a shiny new thing he loves and noticed not everyone agrees with him. He got upset about it and decided to convert the unbelievers. Though the unbelievers he is trying to convert are not those of us who played 1st ed WHFRP since he seems to have no clue of how this system evolved (for example: you never got kill XP in warhammer. Not having kill xp therefor doesn't suddenly make this system amazing).

So what he showed me is that there is a new edition that has nothing inherently bad at first sight. Good for them.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

So what he showed me is that there is a new edition that has nothing inherently bad at first sight. Good for them.

 

That's kind of the point, considering generally how much crap WFRP 3E gets. Also, dem dice are awesome.

[greylord]

I tried WHFRP 3e, hated it.  there's not enough defined in it and too MUCH DM fiat in what is or is not.  The dice mechanic doesn't fit with the WH ethos in my opinion (though it does work better for the SW:Edge of Empire idea which we have also tried), and to whereas in the older versions there was a way for it to be somewhat transferred directly as characters in WHFB (divide a state by 10, so a WS of 45 becomes a 4, etc) this version really doesn't translate at all to WHFB or anything else.

 

They made up a game, slapped the WH background on it, and called it WHFRP, but in truth it's a totally different game than the old WHFRP.  Their choice, but not really a fan of people making up their own games and slapping another name on it so they can sell it since it's bad enough that they couldn't sell it under it's own IP.

 

Which is probably what my real gripe is.

 

The system isn't so bad for the SW system though, fancy way of them making money since you have to buy all new dice to play it though.

 

Right now, more into PF than anything else.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I'm currently reading through Sundered Skies.

 

Its a fantasy setting for Savage worlds, in which the world is made up of separate floating islands populated by standard and not so standard fantasy races. There's a large pirate element because ships are used to traverse the "void" in between the islands and a bit of horror because exposure to the glow of the said void can make you mad.

 

A few other twists are that elves are by default evil slave owners, their slave race - the wildlings (any combination of animal and humanoid) is playable...

 

Its not fleshed out in the same in depth way Forgotten Realms and its like were - its short and sweet and made with the intention that the players should fill out the rest with their imagination.

 

I like it so far. 

[Walsingham]

Work avoidance rules!

 

~

 

I'd say there were three things I consider in a system, any system:

 

1) Can I tell the story I want in this milieu? Or act out the character I want?

 

2) Can I make/engage in dynamic exciting combat in a narrative sense?

 

3) Can I understand the mechanics enough to actualise points 1 and 2?

 

Point 3 always boils down to percentage probabilities. I completely fail to understand why any other method would be used, since the maths always ends up as a percentage probability anyway.

 

...Although now I think about it, there might be some mileage in letting the GM know the probability then obscuring it to the players. Maybe spome sort of computerised conversion system? i.e. "I want the percentage chance to be 67%. OK (checks) I need you to roll a d20 and catch this beermat."

[Drowsy Emperor]

After using any system for a while everyone develops a pretty good sense of what the likelihood of success of any given action is going to be.

 

Sure, apart from a select few role playing games that don't use dice the rest can be expressed in percentages.

But, percentile systems never look clean or elegant and character generation can take a while when you have to buy all the skills in points. Also the usual characteristics that are expressed in percentiles are stupidly abstract.

 

How exactly is my 60% in Climbing better than my previous 56% in the same skill?

[MonsterTV]

Hey Melkathi, your post about my blog was super condescending and ****ty and you make a ton of weird assumptions. I find your decision to completely blow off a terrific game engine because I wrote a flippant blog post about it, instead of actually trying the game yourself, really telling. WFR3E is not WFR2 or WFR1. It's a completely new system, and I understand that might turn people off who like the old one, but the fact is that game design has come a long way since the 80s. People are starting to realize that the mechanics can be incorporated into the experience, instead of just being a facilitator. WFR3 is a system that encourages the gameplay and themes of the Warhammer world, instead of getting in the way.

 

And for the record, I've never played a bard, I'm fully aware that you don't get XP for kills in WFR, and I have a bookshelf full of WFR2e books and I still enjoy playing in WFR2 games. I just pick 3e over 2e these days, and if you played a game instead of dismissing it outright, you might as well.

[melkathi]

Now he found a shiny new thing he loves and noticed not everyone agrees with him. He got upset about it

 

MonsterTV

Member Since Yesterday

• Active Posts 1

 

 

I rest my case.

[Walsingham]

After using any system for a while everyone develops a pretty good sense of what the likelihood of success of any given action is going to be.

 

Sure, apart from a select few role playing games that don't use dice the rest can be expressed in percentages.

But, percentile systems never look clean or elegant and character generation can take a while when you have to buy all the skills in points. Also the usual characteristics that are expressed in percentiles are stupidly abstract.

 

How exactly is my 60% in Climbing better than my previous 56% in the same skill?

 

Good points. However, I usually treat skills as the filter between the PC's imagination and delivering a result in their 'real' world.

 

most character systems I use start out with the player at low level, so they justify the greater chance referencing doing well or very badly in the past and learning from it.

[melkathi]

And that's why we had the most fun in the campaign that the players started with amnesia. Had them quickly roll a series of dice, noted down the results and we got to playing right away and a lot of things were discovered and fleshed out while playing. The abstract nature of stats did not really matter in that situation (gave them their stats at the end of th introductory session) and char generation was done faster than Chitika Fastpaws would have made them.

Edited May 1, 2013 by melkathi

[Walsingham]

faster than Chitika Fastpaws

 

 

*laughs coffee out his nose*

[Akimotos]

i've found numenera and the strange.... very intriguing

also i have:

clockwork universe - steampunk vs alien anthology

space 1889 - steampunk

demonwars reformation - by r.a. salvatore based on his books

the awakened

conquest of the universe

Thunderscape (very nice graphics in their book!)

Shadowlands Campaign

Wicked Fantasy's Reign of Men

Andronia: Region of Turmoil

freeport - city of adventure (pirates eyh matey!)

Rise of the Drow trilogy (from adventureaweek.com)

Shroud of the Ancients

 

all ffrom kickstarter... i'm patiently waiting until the books drop in the mailbox, but some will take quite some time. (to get finished and fully completed)