 Goto [ Index ] |
Synopsis
Since this is a rather lengthy review, I thought I'd start at the end. If you just want the highlights, you'll find them here, and then those brave souls who crave more detail can continue into the rest of the review.
Production Values: 5 of 5. FFG has been doing high-quality games for many years now, and it shows. Art on the components, cards and books is excellent, and everything is in full color. The layout fades into the background, as it should, and makes things easy to read.
Game System: 4 of 5. They took a real chance in changing the system so drastically from the 2nd edition, and it really paid off. The dice pool mechanic becomes transparent very quickly and allows both the GM and players to really concentrate on telling the story. However, while completely playable out of the box, it feels like some sections, such as the bestiary and spell lists, are incomplete.
Organization: 3 of 5. The books lack an index, and while they do some cross-referencing, it's not enough to make up for the lack. In the beginning you'll find yourself going to the Table of Contents many times and wishing it was more exhaustive. On the positive side, the system is simple enough that after just a few sessions, you don't need to reference them much. That's scant comfort when you're combong through the books for "that rule."
Game Play: 5 of 5. Despite some reservations, our game group picked it up quickly and had fun playing. As a GM inclined towards storytelling, I found it really delivered in fostering the story without adding complexity. Player turns roll around the table much more quickly than in many other systems, which keeps the players more engaged in the adventure.
Value: 4 of 5. This is a tough call, and could well have been a "3." It's an expensive box designed for use by the entire group rather than for one player or GM. There are lots of quality components, but the $99 price tag will be a barrier for entry to some groups, especially "pick ups." As mentioned above, it's completely playable out of the box, but those changing over from previous editions will have a nagging feeling that it will be much better after a supplement or two.
Overall: 4 of 5. While not perfect, this is a solid game based on a simple, elegant system that encourages roleplaying and storytelling in your games. If you've been sitting on the fence, this game will win you over after you play it a few times.
Opening the Box
The first thing you'll notice when opening the box is the amount of stuff in the box:
The Basics
The basic mechanic of the game is to generate a dice pool, built from a variety of dice that have positive and negative effects. If the positive results outweigh the negative: success. There's an enormous potential for using the dice results to help further the story, which brings me to my second point.
This game is definitely geared towards Narrativists over Simulationists or Gamists. Many of the game mechanics help tell a story, and while there's plenty of supporting detail available, it's only as encumbering as you allow it to be.
They have also left some portions of the rules vague as a feature to allow for more choice and GM interpretation. If you want a specific rule for everything, this might not be your system. The basic framework is there, but if you need to tailor things to your group, there's plenty of room to do so.
So, is a board game? Not at all. It is a true RPG, though it uses a number of traditional board game elements to track certain factors. Those that don't like this can easily dispense with it and use pen and paper instead.
Book 1 - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
The first book is essentially the "player's handbook" of the system, covering anything a player needs to know - unless they want to play a mage or priest. This really ought to be made available as a Player's Guide separately. Just like the other three books, it is full-color throughout, well laid out, readable, and has lots of excellent art. So, it looks good, but what's inside? There are basic topics common to all RPGs, such as defining the statistics, skills, careers, etc., but what sets this apart from others?
Skills: there are Basic skills, that anyone can use, and also Advanced skills, which can only be used if trained. They've limited the size of the skill set by using specializations for each skill. They have suggestions for specializations, but leave a large amount of room for customization.
Talents: the rules for talents are primarily on the half-sized cards, but one of the nice touches is that they need to be active to be used and you can only have one or two active at a time, representing your current focus. They can also be activated for the entire party, allowing you to lend your abilities to the group and lead them in a common focus.
Character Generation: both character generation and continued improvement are a point-buy system that's quite elegant, simple, easy to grasp, but still allows for a huge amount of customization. While only time and ten thousand gamers will tell, there could be some broken combinations hidden in the plethora of choices. The careers are not as limiting as they were in previous editions, and the advances are far broader in scope.
Experience & Ranks: the suggested experience awards of 1 XP per session, plus 1 more for achieving specific story goals may be too chunky for some, especially since a 1 XP difference can be big at first. They use a level system called Ranks (which should be familiar to any Dark Heresy players out there), which is tied to experience rather than career, and provides a limitation on some of the more advanced and powerful talents in the form of a prerequisite. Again, there's a huge wealth of choices and very little in the way of limitation provided you're willing to pay a few more XP for non-standard improvements.
Dice Pools: while the dice pool mechanic has been around for a long time, the different options and probabilities that the WFRP custom dice bring to the table is unique. It's intuitive, very easy to read, and hides an impressive amount of statistical complexity behind those colorful polyhedrons. You can also "read into" the dice as much or as little as needed to move the story along, and depending on the preferences of your players, you could describe individual blows in combat or treat them as standard successes or failures. This is clearly one of the real strengths of the system.
Action Cards: instead of having a single list of actions for everyone, your available action cards define your character's possible acts. While some basic cards are available to all, many of the more complex and powerful actions are only accessible to certain careers. As your character grows and moves into other careers, this opens a dizzying array of possibilities and combinations. This also provides a neat way to expand the options available as the game grows, or even to provide errata just by changing a card or two.
Maneuvers: each character gets one maneuver each turn, in addition to their action, and can perform additional maneuvers during the turn in exchange for Strain. These consist of moving, using a skill, picking up a box, drawing a weapon, etc. To match the rest of the system, and provide easy reference, there really ought to be Maneuver Cards to use alongside the Action Cards.
Abstract Range: the game uses abstract range bands as opposed to the square grids of previous editions. While this does make the game move faster, I can see this bogging down or becoming prohibitively complex in larger or many-sided engagements. If you're used to laying down a grid map when it's time for combat, this may take some adjustment.
Combat: the initiative order is fairly creative, and the good guy and bad guy tokens on the initiative tracker can be used by any member of the group, so deciding who acts when is an interesting part of the combat dynamic. Also, assistance can be a powerful tool in combat, where players can assist the actions of others, adding dice to critical rolls. All of this brings in a more party-oriented focus. This is also a place where the flexibility of the rules comes into play. Rather than defining every possible modifier, they give some examples to get you started and then give the guidance that as long as everyone agrees on the modifier, it's good. Some may feel that is too poorly defined for their tastes.
Strain & Stress: pushing your limits will create Strain (physical fatigue) or Stress (mental fatigue), as will certain kinds of combat and action results. When you reach your limit of either, you pass out. It's a nicely done mechanic that works very well, and forces PCs to watch how hard they push their limits.
Wounds and Healing: the interaction between Wounds, Critical Wounds, and death is nicely done and works well. Healing is more logical than in the 2nd Edition, and while more trustworthy, there's not any more of it. So it's still very gritty. However, permanent debilitating wounds, such a loosing a limb or eye, are absent from the rules, which may upset players of older editions.
Equipment: the equipment lists are short and again serve as a guideline rather than an exhaustive list. This allows both GM and players to create their own items to individualize their characters. Encumbrance is a bit clunky, but quite functional, with stiff penalties for going over you limits. Equipment is another place where more cards might have been interesting. There is a single item card included in the game for a magic item, so I expect that we'll see much more of this in later products.
Book 2 - Tome of Adventure
Whereas the first book focuses on the player, the second could very be called the "GM's guide," and has a wealth of knowledge for beginning to mid-level GMs, the bestiary, and an introductory adventure. It has all the same good production and graphics as all the rest, but what's in it?
GMing: a good portion of the book is actually devoted to how to plan and run a good game, how to keep the story moving, how to plan the classic three-act episodes, how to reward you players, and other generally solid advice for narrative GMs. Again, Simulationists may find themselves feeling a bit left out.
Episodes & Acts: though somewhat forced, FFG's advice to work one's scenarios into Episodes and Acts is generally sound storytelling. Those who do some writing of their own may think it odd that the three-act structure goes into every episode, and they do not explain this as well as they could, especially since it's at the core of their advice on creating adventures. Still, it's a sound concept that any seasoned writer will recognize. They also provide some sample Episodes to get beginners on the right track. I think it will be very interesting to see if they follow their own advice on adventure supplements, as it could be a bit limiting.
Campaigns: they suggest a visual flowchart for a "campaign" - which is really what most of us would call an adventure. Once again, it's not well explained, even if it is a fairly good idea. For those writing their own campaigns (read: adventures), this might be a good means of picturing a story in your head, but may not work as well for longer or more complex works.
High vs. Low Fantasy: they actually take a moment to tackle this ticklish issue. Many of those coming from the tabletop game, Black Library novels, or D&D may be in the former group, and many who have played previous incarnations of the game fall firmly in the latter. FFG accurately points out that it is not the system that dictates how you run your game, it's the group. Starting characters in this edition definitely seem a bit more capable than their earlier edition counterparts, but not grossly so. The rules seem to tread the middle ground, and the aforementioned freedom given to the GM to interpret some of the rules allows them to tailor the game to their group.
Bestiary: monsters use the same stat line as adventurers, almost. They have the added stats of Damage, Soak, and Defense. While this means that the GM doesn't need to figure out equipment, weapons, or armor for his beasts, they're somewhat confusing in presentation. I got used to it soon enough, but it never really felt intuitive. They also have a pool of Fortune / Misfortune Dice that they can use over the course of an encounter. Each has a two-page spread with fluff on the left and crunch on the right. This is great if you're only running one type on creature, but not as neat otherwise. This is another instance where a Monster Card - perhaps the same size as a Career Card - would come in handy for the GM. Overall, the bestiary is a bit short, even though well-rounded, and it's clear that they're going to have to expand it in future products.
Intro Adventure: this is actually a better intro adventure than I've seen in many other rulebooks, but might not be the best one for a new GM. It has a good mix of linear and non-linear elements that should provide a good challenge to most groups. However, it has a large number of NPCs to manage, which could easily overwhelm a new GM.
Books 3 & 4 - Tome of Mysteries & Tome of Blessings
These two books, which essentially cover the magic system for the game for mages and priests respectively, are shorter than the others, mostly because all the spell descriptions have been transferred to cards. In both cases, more than 75% of the book is background material, with the actual rules taking up a paltry number of pages. That's a good thing. The rules present are simple and robust.
Mages & Priests: casters are kind of like batteries in this game. They can hold an amount of energy tied to one of their characteristics, but can hold and use more with some risk. They can use the Reckless-or-Conservative mechanic to recharge their "battery" fast-but-risky or slow-but-sure, which is a nice touch. The main difference between the two is that mages accumulate power and then decide how to use it, while priests choose a use and then accumulate power (if they don't have it stored already). It's a simple distinction, but makes a surprising difference in feel when playing the game.
Background: the fluff from these two books are excellent primers for the religions and mage orders of the Warhammer world, with some clever first-person accounts that make the history come alive. While the books briefly touch on dwarven and elven deities, it's not really enough for in-game use, and when it comes to magic only human orders are covered, and even not completely even then.
Completeness: with the basic set, you can play priests of Morr, Shayla, or Sigmar, and mages of the Bright, Celestial, or Grey Orders. Obviously, there are many more religions and orders not covered. This is going to annoy players that have their heart set on something specific. I understand the necessity to keep this box from getting any bigger (or more expensive) than it already was, but it really feels incomplete.
Other Points
Organizing: the one thing that FFG really did not take into account is how all the components would be stored back in the box. The cardboard insert does not help much, and the three players' boxes only help for cards actually being used by the players. I'd strongly suggest getting a small organizer (available from most hardware stores for about $2-3) for all the tokens and pieces, and a few card boxes (intended for CCGs; prices range from $1 to as much as $10 for fancy ones) for the cards not being used. This will greatly assist finding things and make the GM's job much easier.
One Book: the main player's book will be in great demand during early sessions of the game, and the fact that there's just one of them can be a big problem as your game group learns the system. Even later, this will crop up as they refer to more obscure rules. I certainly hope that FFG eventually releases a player's pack that has this book in it.
That's about it. If you've hung in there this far, congratulations and thanks for reading!
