Peacekeeper_b said:

Yeah I will need to have access to the basic core rules and show them to my friends before I invest so much at once.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Peacekeeper_b said:

Like I've mentioned before - I don't use the WFRP rules within the Warhammer world.  So I don't need the setting book, that alone drops the buy-in cost for me.  And the style of my campaigns are such that 75% of what the PCs will face can be done with the core book, because they're either orcs, people (humans/elves/dwarves) or basic animals.  So that makes WFRP 2e a useful book for me at $39.99.  Which is a decent buy in.

While discussing this tonight with the online RPG group I'm starting up, we realized something else.  You won't be able to play 3e online using tools like Maptools that easily, thanks to all the custom dice.  Not without either all the players having their own dice and trusting their rolls, or a lot of macro coding.  One of the player's was really dismayed over the announcement - with the release of 3e, she's thinking she may never be able to afford a copy of Night's Dark Masters, whereas before she was hoping FFG would reprint it.

kristof65 said:

The online gaming has come up before and I think some people are already considering how to create some online resources for the game. I don't play online myself, so I wouldn't know.

FFG may make NDM available as a PDF, if they haven't already. I don't think there was ever really a chance that they'd reprint it - not enough interest.

macd21 said:

I would be happily surprised if FFG made more WFRP2 books available as PDFs.  I think they would have done so already  if they were considering it at all.  From what I understand, it's just not in the interest of a publisher to continue promoting and supporting an older edition once a new one comes out. I'm curious to see what will happen to the availability of the WFRP2 PDFs after WFRP3 releases.

Blue Wizard said:

Given that there is now a dead zone of no new WFRP product between now and 3e, IMO, it would make sense to milk the existing products for every bit of cash you can get from them by making them available as PDFs, at least until 3e is released.  It's not the like the PDFs have a huge overhead - they are basically already done, and you're not going to have a warehouse of them sitting left in stock after you pull them from the market, like you would with a print run.

I guess the fear might be that it will hurt their 3e sales - but if you look at Mongoose Traveller as an example, the availability of the PDFs of Classic Traveller, MegaTraveller, Traveller: The New Era and T4 doesn't seem to be hurting the new edition sales at all - in fact, Mongoose Traveller is not only selling well, it appears to be driving demand for the PDFs of the older editiions as well.  Of course, most of the Traveller stuff is till usable across the many editions, because other than T20 and Gurps Traveller, the rules are all similar enough to convert between systems rather easily.  Might not be the case with WFRP 3e

Cat that Walked by Himself said:

I was quite impressed with your halfling post, but not so much with this one. You're implying that 40k isn't "amicable to roleplaying" when it has xenophobia, which is totally ridiculous. You may have your political views, but don't try to foist them on others with a quaint little disclaimer at the end. Humans in 40k lynch planets, humans in fantasy lynch non-humans in villages when times get rough. It's a part of both settings and it's not going anywhere.

Ar-Gimilzor said:

Glad to hear that!

Ar-Gimilzor said:

Sorry to hear that ;)

But just to clarify my muddled thoughts a little bit: I feel (strongly - but that is only my - well opinion would be overstatement - let's call it hunch) that glacial but noticeable drift of 40k universe from the first Rogue Trader to Dark Heresy and especially 40k novels that involved introduction of almost hysterical amount of xenophobia and comic book violence is maybe good for tabletop wargaming but is bad for roleplaying.

As I have already pointed out some after game reports of Dark Heresy read almost like a session of Paranoia sans any humor.

Over the top violence, bigotry and xenophobia are part of 40k setting from its inception BUT they are just that: a part. Not the whole thing. There is (was) space for different ideas and concepts. From Emperor's Leto Atreides Golden Path-like desire to uplift Humanity and Star Child and Sensei to Eldar mercenaries working in the Imperium.

You see in Old World some people lynch some non-humans and wizards at some time. 40k as it is presented by some people is game where everybody is lynching everybody all the time (Heresy! Witch! Mutant! Xeno! GrimDark!).

It might work for some games but it gets old soon. I hope that new RT will set things straight on that account.

As for lynching in the Old World goes. I adore this quaint little custom! Just my players are usually on the wrong end of the lynch mob. I feel that it is in keeping with the picaresque nature of the game where some hunted neer' do 'wells save the day in spite of the established powers that be (that are usually corrupt and venal).

Cat that Walked by Himself said:

But those parts really stunk... Badly. Thank goodness they were retconned out of the setting. I want depravity, xenophobia, hatred, entire planets burning from exterminatus, crushing and soul destroying administrative organisations and all this mixed in with medival superstition.

Star-Child and Sensei just stinks too much idealism. And frankly, I can't take idealists in the real world seriously, imagine how much I'd laugh at them in fantasy worlds!

Varnias Tybalt said:

Nietzschean nihilism is just lost and unloved child of German idealism.

BTW, Hitler was an idealist ;)

Soul destroying administration? First, good luck in figuring IF there is any administration at all in the newest fluff and second administration was much more Kafkian in old RT fluff.

Also, who is stopping you from wallowing in depravity and all? Go ahead! I certainly won't come by your house to tell you how you should game. I might drop by for a drink but not to preach.

I just claim that it is bad for the game that is not tabletop wargame if there is nothing more then > depravity, xenophobia, hatred, entire planets burning from exterminatus, crushing and soul destroying administrative organisations and all this mixed in with medival superstition.<.

I mean role-playing Nazi in space gets old after some time.

Cat that Walked by Himself said:

Nietzsche was also an idealist you know, he just covered it up by acting like a gloomy and depressing sod. But there are bits in his writings that clearly shows his idealistic sides, he just didn't want to stress them that much. You could say that he was the worlds first emo-kid!

Personally I feel that being the gloomy and depressing nihilst is a bit stereotypical and cliché. Im a happy one instead, who smiles at the world despite the meaninglessness of it and all the countless commited atrocities throughout history. I guess im a bit more like George Carlin in that regard.

Hitler wasn't an idealist... He was just an underachiever! (and yes, you do get points if you get the Bill Hicks reference from that quote)

As for soul destroying administration, the Administratum is still very much alive in the 40K setting, in spite of the original RT getting retconned out the bad and stinky parts that no one really likes. They really know how to keep the good parts and throwing out the bad. (well most of the time at least)

Also, roleplaying Nazi in space comes with countless flavours. For instance, there is this mass of people known as the general public! Who have different opinions about the nature of the universe, the foreign, the alien etc. Sure the Imperial society might preach hatred, xenophobia and medival superstition, but being a voluntary outcast of society myself I can tell you that no matter what society might preach, it's people rarely agree with the slogans completely (or sometimes not at all). 'Cause if that was the case, I'd be a goody two-shoes politically correct feminist fanatic (like we're all taught here in sweden to be by, not only the educational system, but from pretty much all forms of news-media as well).

Hatred, depravity, xenophobia, exterminatus and medival mindsets aren't what 40K is about. The Imperium of Mankind might be preaching it, but let's just say that there is a big ass galaxy out there. Luckily without Star-Children and Sensei and such, but with other interesting and wondrous things instead.

Speaking of which, hasn't idealist sci-fi gotten quite old a long time ago with the Star Trek franchise?

Let's not get carried away with philosophical debates which are barely related to the games... I think darkness is an integral part of the setting, but it isn't all there is to the setting, so there I agree with cat guy... but at the same time, where there is darkness, it needn't be "satire" or "farce". As for the whole DUNE thing, those books were horrible and the philosophy didn't really make any sense as presented (I know what Frank Herbert was getting at and his papers are much more interesting in that regard than his books were) so I'd rather not get into those--suffice it to say the Emperor becoming a god has interesting possibilities, both for good and evil (as all things RP should be imo). One should also note the "good" sides of genocide--wiping out other species and people with other points of view leaves lots of room and resources for the remaining loyal imperial citizens, while village lynchings often do catch mutants or other undesriables

Now to tie this back to the original question of the thread, 3rd edition has a bunch of physical handicaps which will irritate players who prefer a system that is designed from the ground up for a few dice and some paper. Is it still possible to roleplay? Probably, but not in the way some people are used to or prefer. There is also the question of form affecting content--will 3E become a Warcraft-like dumbed-down system in which people are encouraged to play as superheroes or will it be dark and unforgiving with halflings strangling your weak characters in their sleep? It's impossible to tell right now, but people are worried because there are superficial similarities with other systems-which-shall-not-be-named and if they weren't going to change the nature of 2E in the first place then they wouldn't release a new edition. I myself will be sticking with 2E and picking up Chaos in the Old World, and that should keep me happy for the forseeable future.

Godwin's Law. Twice.

phobiandarkmoon said:

Godwin's Law is rescinded when discussing 40k.

macd21 said:

Can I quote you Sir? :)

As for 40k after reading through a few last posts it seems that we are in general agreement. 40k is not only about 'Grim Darkness of War', which is nice and dandy for tin soldiers, but it offers opportunity to roleplay and be something else then cyberd-up Telly Savalas in Dirty Dozen. I think that we all agree on that.

For Nazis...well I am like Indy on that account: I hate those guys. Chalk it up to my family history, leftist upbringing and fatum of geography (people in my country have waged 4 years long guerilla warfare against Nazis and their collaborators). I'll rather think of the Imperium of Men as Romans in Space or Stalinists in Space or Victorians in Space or Imperial Russia in Space or any mixture thereof then think of it as Hitler on Ice...pardon, Nazis in Space. But that is just me. YMMV.

I haven't finished my scenario for DH competition (my group was a little bit exhausted from writing winning entry for WFRP - tongue in cheek shameless self-aggrandizement) but it is a play on that trope - Nazis in Space that is. I'll get down to doing that these days and then you can tell me if you like my (our) vision of 40k.

As for original RT materials and books produced in that era (which includes WFRP v1 and The Enemy Within campaign) I just have to say that for me that was the peek of GWs creativity. Just yesterday I was leafing through Lost and Damned book and there was a wealth of evocative material on planets in the Eye Of Terror (Bubonicus planet where mortal population is forever dancing around the equator in Dance Macabre in praise to Nurgle and is slowly mutating in plague demons) and Imperial Religion (Cardinals Astrals and other church ranks) and Servitors (types of servitors - Technomats, Holomats, Lexomats and Drones) and Chaos and everything...They just keep throwing at you all these cool stuff in a few sentences and let you develop your own flavor of the game.

RT and WFRP are children of their times. And place, of course. British 80s. The era that also gave us Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper and Nemesis the Warlock and Slaine and other 2000AD comics and Grant Morrison and Alan Moore and Paul Greengrass and British New Wave in music and lots of good stuff. 

All latter incarnations of these games were less colorful and did not have that mad mixture of amateurish love for the pastiche and professional persistence and dedication to one's work. Just look at Bretonnia these days and then. Gone is CAS's Averoigne and here we have this bland Arthurian wanna-be just in order to produce an army that will be different then Imperials.

I am not saying that everything sucks nowdays. But I say that if we want to develop good roleplaying experience we should go back as far as possible (even to the Web of Eldaw) and inspect what made WFRP so good in the first place. As Karl Kraus once said: Origin is the goal.