Herr Arnulfe
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Posts posted by Herr Arnulfe
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Zagor said:
I don't believe it needs to be mechanically more complex than an opposed skill check moderated by a tracker for success, especially given the narrative nature of the game as i suspect this would tend to slow gameplay (which is anithesis to this new way of playing) but i guess the ultimate benefit of a roleplaying system is freedom and flexibility. Your game, your rules.
Why bother roleplaying at all, if the result just boils down to a skill test anyway? No, in order to properly integrate social mechanics with roleplay, the rules must follow alongside the ebb and flow of conversation, using skill tests (or Action Cards) to mediate conflicts of opinion at various points throughout the dialogue. Each die-roll must meaningfully represent something that was said in-character, and each outcome must represent a particular NPC bias that's been reinforced or overcome in-character.
Unless of course the matter is of little importance or interest to the plot and players, in which case you may just resolve the dispute with a single Opposed test, rather than waste everyone's time with a drawn-out roleplay scene.
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Rat Catcher said:
And you come across as quite opinionated and a touch arrogant.
Mea culpa, that's probably how I'd describe myself as well.
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Rat Catcher said:
I'm not the one being sensitive pal. And I interpretated it in the exact way it was meant, namely off handish and very dissmissive, also puts a major block on any discussions about house rules. Now that's my interpretation of it, and you can do with it whatever you like.
See?
There's a difference between what he's given you to do with what you like, and what you're giving me. Specifically, he's provided a great deal of actual play information, and you've just given me some attitude. So I'd be more likely to take offense to your comment than his, but even that would be a stretch (unless I was over-sensitive, which I'm not).
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Rat Catcher said:
As for your houseruling statement, I do beg your forgiveness for being so presumptious as to think I could offer perhaps a little help on the matter.
Must be something in the air today
Don't be so sensitive. Armoks already stated earlier in the thread that he understands houseruling is an option, but that's not his point here. This is what I meant earlier by "circular arguments". He politely informed you that he's not interested in a discussion on houserules - the "up yours" bit was your own interpretation.
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Rat Catcher said:
All right mate, calm down, I'm just asking that's all
Sheesh.
I think Armoks has remained quite calm. He's backed up his original claim with hard data, and he's not interested in hearing about houserule solutions because as far as he's concerned that's a separate issue.
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morskittar said:
I wouldn't say inconsistency is "dumbing down" necessarily (though I wouldn't disagree that there's been a lot of dumbing down in some areas). I really think deliberately ignoring disagreements is an advantage. Rigid and iron-clad canon leads the route of Star Trek, and I'd really hate to see GW's background go that direction.But then again, I enjoy real world history as well, which is even more fluid and contradictory. It's unusual to see that in a game setting.
I think there's a balance to be struck between keeping the canon flexible, and also providing cool, meaty details that people can sink their teeth into. Sometimes GW errs on the side of the former, producing vague background material that isn't very inspiring. Sometimes they err on the side of the latter and paint themselves into corners that require entire books to be retconned (e.g. SoC).
Personally I think the best approach is to leave the objective truth open-ended (e.g. "is all magic actually Chaos?") and then zoom in on one theory (e.g. the relationship between Ulrican magic and Chaos) in loving detail to keep the material focused and inspiring. Leave the sandbox flexible, but pick a region of the sandbox and build an awesome sandcastle to show the fans how it can be done. Don't give us a sandbox full of half-finished castles.
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morskittar said:
The Sylvanian nobles (some say they're undead, but I don't really believe it) are off in their province and part of the Empire, and that girl is nice, even if they say she's a vampire. Quite the looker too if you catch my drift. *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*"
There's another important factor. Strigoi and Necrarchs are probably hunted more fervently because they're ugly. Carsteins, Lahmians and Blood Dragons are sexy, so they're tolerated by folk who don't know any better.
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Sinister said:
Then there's the question of how a witch hunter would react. If a witch hunter was faced with a chaos cult leader who defeated an evil necromancer, would he shake his hand and have a drink with the man? I think most of us would say he'd still kill him.
I suspect that a Witch Hunter would leave the vampire-hunting up to Morrian Vampire Hunters, but given the opportunity he'd probably stake a blood-sucker too. Most witch hunters are just too busy burning mutants and witches to worry about vampires.
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Sinister said:
See my take is much different. Everyone knows about vampires, yes. And they have weaseled their way into society yes. But it seems to me the constant xenophobic nature of the world where mutants are killed on site, means that the same must be said for witch hunters and even civilizans dealing with vampires. It's not so much, thou will not suffer a witch for religious reasons, it's all sociological and political, allowing vampires to live is like allowing a chaos cult to operate, it's a risk to safety and security of the human race.
Think how much hatred their would be for vampires if they organized a terrorist attack in our society. Then think about how much hatred there would be if they sacked half your country, like the carsteins did. If we were paranoid enough to lock away american citizens of japanese decent during WWII, I have to believe that the the humans of the warhammer world are paranoid x100 to that, and after a real true threat, would have all sorts of laws, and homeland defence plans aimed squarely at vampires.
Well for one thing, individual mutants and witches are easy targets while vampires aren't. It's sort of like the US going after Al Quaeda while leaving North Korea alone. Taking them out is just too dangerous. If Mannfred ever mounts a major offensive, that could change of course, but right now people are content with the status quo.
Also, Chaos is contagious; vampirism is only passed on to select individuals. So aside from saving victims from being blood-sucked, there's no compelling reason to risk life and limb taking out vampires. Most Old Worlders probably aren't too concerned about someone else being blood-sucked, so long as it's not them. The best way to avoid being blood-sucked is to steer clear of vampires and avoid going out alone at night.
Finally, Chaos is the biggest threat to the Empire, according to the Church of Sigmar. Waging a campaign against the Vampires could weaken the Empire to the point where Chaos would prevail. Vampires use the humans' fear of Chaos to their advantage, always holding back from becoming the greater threat themselves, but steadily advancing their own goals in the meantime.
P.S. I also believe the Von Carstein lords know things about Sigmar and previous Theogonists that the cult would prefer to just leave buried.
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I have little problem reconciling the concept of certain Vampires being accepted, or at least tolerated in the Empire. Keep in mind, the Vampire Wars were a time of hysteria when Altdorf itself was under threat. Since then, the Von Carsteins have learned to curb their ambition for the sake of preserving Sylvania as a viable political entity. In the post-SoC period (which admittedly is no longer canon) Mannfred von Carstein was even heralded as a saviour by some folk. Yes, most Vampires are evil, but so are many human lords. If humans understood the true scope of the Lahmians' ambition, they probably wouldn't suffer Genevieve to live, but the vampires' agenda is unknown to most. With the number of Lahmians who've infiltrated human courts, it's likely that many of them would've been exposed over the centuries, but does that mean they were immediately put to the stake? I could imagine that over time, the erstwhile Lahmian infiltrators would become critical cogs in their noble house's political apparatus, and not so easily replaced or discarded. Some of them might be instructed to remain undercover, but others (especially renegades who cut ties with Neferata) might be accepted. Of course, the Order of Morr wouldn't likely be as charitable, but on a societal acceptance level it's already known that Vampires walk among the living.
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There are many RPG gamers who'd balk at a structured social conflict mechanic, so I can understand the reluctance by designers to deviate too much from a freeform approach. But I do see your point; once you've introduced a certain amount of structure, you might as well go all the way.
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Necrozius said:
There are people in this thread arguing that the monsters in the bestiary should be much stronger.
According to them, a GM shouldn't have to pull strings to adapt a monster's stats to fit their campaign.
Doesn't necessarily mean they're bitter though, or even balance-fetishists (it might, however, mean they're borderline Obsessive-Compulsive with Histrionic tendencies
).But nah, I imagine they're probably just dudes talking about stuff they like/dislike on the internet. I certainly haven't seen any signs of bitterness in this thread (at least not from the critics anyway).
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Necrozius said:
Well hopefully the upcoming GM Toolkit will soothe this bitterness: it is supposed to include rules to make bad guys meaner and tougher.
Hopefully nobody's feeling too bitter about the stats of a Troll in v3. It's just a single monster in a single RPG, after all.
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Gallows said:
There is no way a bestiary can cover any NPCs I want to use. Instead I want it to be a guideline for creating my own. Just offer the very basic description and examples. For me the cup is filled exactly as much as I want it, because I want sugar, cream and plenty whisky in there as well (seriously though I'd never defile my whisky in that way). You just expect different things from the bestiary. FFG made a bestiary I like. If they made one you like, then I wouldn't find it of much use anyway. It's not because the bestiary is lacking. It's a design choice and one I support.
So...if the bestiary listed Trolls at 30 Wounds instead of 16, would you feel it was too "limiting"? I'm not sure whether I understand how design philosophy as you describe it is applicable in this example.
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It's not immersion-breaking, it just doesn't seem very Warhammery.
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Armoured Trolls just don't fit the Warhammer Troll imagery at all. I wouldn't be a canon nazi about it, but it wouldn't be the first fix I'd use either.
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Necrozius said:
So that Troll who went down like a b*tch might not be so much of a push over with the equivalent of plate armor and a great axe in each hand (hey, they're big, why not?).
That would be the LotR fix, not the Warhammer fix.
I don't think I've ever seen an armoured Warhammer Troll outside of Blood Bowl.
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RenoDM said:
But about 20 minutes in, as his troll-slayer killed four henchmen bandits in a single attack, a smile crept across his face.
Good grief! Were these starting PCs, or did you slip him Gotrek Gurnisson for a lark?
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Lexicanum said:
In MMO's, where boss encounters are the bread and butter of raids, enemy creatures meant to be defeated in groups can have anywhere from 5 to 10 times as many wounds as a player. (Uber boss mobs have hundreds or thousands of more wounds, but that's another ball game). There's not even a single instance of one creature that has over 30 wounds.
The Giant has only 22 wounds. That's barely twice what a weak human would have (9 base + 2 toughness).
I wouldn't say that giving Giants 5 to 10 times more Wounds than a player was MMO-like. In fact, I'd say it was realistic considering relative body mass. Now, if a human NPC champion had 5-10 times as many Wounds, then it would start smelling more like D&D than WFRP. But it sounds like it might just be the large creatures that were nerfed in v3.
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Lexicanum said:
I don't think it's a constant requirement, but it is a stated design goal of WFRP 3e to be dynamic and malleable to the GM's desires. So, ignoring that can be detrimental.
It's like a truck, it's designed to haul cargo. So during its design certain concessions were made to allow for this cargo hauling capacity. So it might not have as much leg room, or the engine might consume too much gasoline, or it might not accelerate as fast from 0 to 60, all of which can be drawbacks if you don't value the cargo hauling capacity it has.
Sorry, my comment was perhaps too vague. I wasn't referring to overall flexibility, but rather the weakness of Trolls specifically. If it's just one or two monsters that are too weak RAW, no problem. If the majority of opponents needed to be tweaked upwards to make the game sufficiently challenging, then I'd find it more tedious. But really, I don't even know for sure that Trolls are too weak - I'm just going based on other people's reports. My sense from playing v3 was that PCs do have a significant advantage because of the various special NPC rules, but it was something that was hard to quantify or even put a finger on.
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Did you get a lot of passersby stopping by the table to look at all the toys? I'd imagine that would be a major advantage of WFRP v3 at conventions; even people who aren't playing the game will notice it.
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Necrozius said:
Not every gamer out there appreciates the subtle Lovecraftian flavors of WFRP and Dark Heresy as much as we do.
Most people, I'll bet, get a slightly different impression when they look at the diverse cover art of flaming bright wizards, Sigmarites wielding impossibly large hammers and crushing orcs into pulp and Chaos Warriors in armor so ridiculous that they make the members of Gwar seem subtle.
There's also some great Blanchian Warhammer artwork depicting shadowy alcoves, dusty laboratories etc. Hopefully WFRP doesn't base its design objectives on the covers of WFB army books alone...
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Necrozius said:
*I* don't believe that they are either.
But typically, in sword and sorcery epics, fighters, mages and thieves tend to take the spotlight.
Nerds usually don't.
Surely WFRP can be more than just a swords and sorcery epic? The Enemy Within campaign was conceived by Rick Priestly as something rather different, in fact Graeme Davis' brief for Shadows Over Bogenhafen was to write a "Fantasy Call of Cthulhu adventure". But maybe v3 is a different animal altogether.
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Necrozius said:
Several solutions have been proposed. Some of them from the RAW.
Create more danger with obstacles and hazards.
Make the location of the battle favor the monster over the heroes.
Give the monster more action cards.
Give the Troll plate armor and a great axe.
I dunno, double the **** troll's wound total or give it more A/C/E dice to work with.
SEND IN MORE TROLLS.
I agree, that's why it's similar to the v2 Low Skills argument. The default solution there was to "just add modifiers", which is also relatively simple and follows RAW, but it still generated circular arguments where neither side could quite relate to the other.
Are Social Encounters underdeveloped?
in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Posted
willmanx said:
Ok, back on track in this thread :
I believe my reply was quite topical to the discussion. In particular, his suggestion that the Progress Tracker should just be used as a measure of Social Hit Points by those who desire mechanics. I disagree with his assertion, because the level of abstraction required for Social Hit Points is antithetical to roleplay. That approach would be similar to the Body of Argument system in Burning Wheel, which requires the stakes of the conversation to be delineated clearly beforehand. In reality, social discourse doesn't usually work that way.