Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play Pre-Release Event
We held the pre-release event for Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play, the new version by Fantasy Flight. I have to admit, I was skeptical at first. I blogged about how unnecessary I thought it was with such an award winning version from Green Ronin only a few years old. I was pleasantly surprised to find the game not only good, but innovative.
Thoughts on the Game:
Joe: Once you get used to the way the dice work, and remember to use the card info at the right times, it is a pretty standard RPG experience. Some good things that we noticed were the ways that our abilities and even die rolls (initiative for example) could be used for the party, or for other party members. We all seemed to be involved in each encounter - while each character was able to take the lead in different types of encounters, nobody felt like they were just sitting on the sidelines until their "encounter type" occurred.
Me: Did character creation and an encounter with a "social" character. The social guys are relevant in combat, as they distract and feint opponents. The game seems true to the WFRP world, with some really unique mechanics. The dice pools are innovative and the cards (powers) encourage role-play.
From Dan Foster on rpg.geekdo.com: The mechanisms of the game (i.e. the Dice Pool) lend themselves to great bits of narrative story telling. This is the first time in a long time where I was getting excited to run a full out RPG campaign (I am normally a boardgamer)!
From NezziR on the Fantasy Flight forum: This game is fun, playable, and has a strength of design capable of long term play value. Moving forward, I will be using this system for WFRP campaigns at my table. If this system enjoys the support of the fans, and in particular, the publisher, it could develop into something very special.
Of course, it wasn't perfect, and occasionally the rules were buried in hard to find places or a power is mentioned in the rulebook that has a different name on the card. Making characters (not part of the demo) was really confusing. It doesn't have the concise level of rules as, say D&D 4 (D&D guys are really spoiled compared to other games), but it does have a richness in the role-playing side that will allow most people to overlook its technical flaws. If you want statistical number crunching and power builds, look elsewhere. If you want a rich role-playing experience with a system that works to serve that purpose, I think the new WFRP might be the right fit.
