If you fancy yourself a well rounded role-player, you owe it to yourself to check out the pre-release event for Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay at the store on Saturday. The game tries to keep true to its roots, but it also deviates wildly from anything I've seen before in role-playing with a clever and creative dice pool system. Modifiers and bonuses add dice to the pool, rather than static numbers, which can lead to a huge number of outcomes, many of which are role-playing opportunities.
I tried it out this evening by creating an Agent character. In a test encounter, this smooth talker had his nefarious plans interrupted by a town guard. He used a social based power called "I Thought We Were Friends?" and succeeded. I decided he was being more aggressive today, so although I was successful, it added a bit of stress. The guard was sweet talked, but he really needed to be eliminated, so using the distraction, he attacked the guard. It ended badly, but we did get to see the combat rules in action. In a regular game, I would have been backed up by more combat oriented characters. Still, it was fun, once we figured out how everything worked.
