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Herr Arnulfe

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Posts posted by Herr Arnulfe

  1. Posted

    plutonick said:

    I own two copies of UA, but I would hardly call the game successful. At least commercially.

    Well it's been around since 1998 and is still in print, so I'd say that counts for something. Transplant the core concepts of UA into a more recognizable genre and it could easily produce a sustainable RPG line, IMO.

  2. Posted

    Spivo said:

    I'd love Warhammer to be just that, but I fear the ones who want this, are not a big enough crowd to profit from... So while I dislike seeing Sigmar priests clad in 200 pound armor, I accept it if it means more sold boxes, and thus more expansions. I'm willing to accept a LOT, if it means the franchise keeps making more stuff. Because every roleplayer picking up Warhammer, is someone you can potentially recruit and show the more "fun" version of the setting to.

    I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy for the industry to keep producing games with 80% combat focus and then claim there aren't enough customers for more adult-themed games. I know lots of people in my age group (mid 30's) who are interested by the "concept" of roleplaying but are turned off by the violent/childish imagery. WFRP v1 and v2 had snarly troll-slayers on the covers because they were actually marketed at children and young adults. Both BW and UA are quite successful RPGs, even without having a recognizable setting attached.

  3. Posted

    Spivo said:

    I guess that's a matter of preferences really, and I'm not sure if there's a big enough audience for playing Wfrp with moral issues as main theme. I could be wrong though. Deathwatch and Rogue Trader works well, because it's about being super-duper fantastic heroes, and people dig that apparently.

    Rather than getting hung up on the term "moral issues", imagine a combination of Burning Wheel and Unknown Armies in the Warhammer setting. I used "moral issues" because that's how horror usually manifests in good Warhammer material (via Chaos). There would still be monsters, magic and some fighting, but it would play more like a grown-up's game than a kid's game.

  4. Posted

    Spivo said:

     

    Your idea sounds good, and I have no clue on what the content would have been, but you're really still making an expansion (like Skaven, Chaos, Vampires, etc...), that only a certain percentage of the customers will purchase.

    SNIP

    So I think it was the right move to make a new product, one can argue making it like 40K would have been better, but to me this works much better, and I know that is a matter of oppinion. But I think they kept the most important stuff from 1st/2nd edition, the careers, world (doh...), the low fantasy theme, and the magic. I've never been a fan of percentages, so I enjoy the fresh wind of weird dice, but also see it's more cumbersome than percentages, but the return, to me, is more details.

     

     

    I was actually envisioning a new game, like Deathwatch or Rogue Trader are to Dark Heresy.

    As to your second point, the cold truth is that WFRP v1 and v2 were basically geared towards early 20-something gamers who'd taken a few history courses in university and now wanted a more sophisticated way than D&D to whack monsters with a sword. Anything more than that comes from what people have added to the setting themselves, often inspired by early 90's writers like Jack Yeovil and Brian Craig, or the original Realms of Chaos books. The 'grognard' game that I'm envisioning would take the setting another step beyond v1 and v2. Let's actually deal with moral issues as part of gameplay. Let's do Burning Wheel in the Warhammer setting, but with better mechanics. The careers in WFRP v1-v3 are really just window-dressing to provide a sense of historical authenticity. There's very little support for actually playing a merchant, noble or peasant-themed game. 3rd edition just rehashes the same old gameplay themes but with shiny new mechanics.

  5. Posted

    Spivo said:

    I don't think so either.

    But I sadly fear many customers were naive enough to think that it would have been profitable to continue producing 2nd edition, with only new stuff being expansions with a small audience.

    At the risk of playing armchair developer, I think there are lots of directions percentile WFRP could've gone without resorting to Lustria and Naggaroth sourcebooks that only a fraction of the player base would use. Earlier this year, I suggested "Warhammer Horror Roleplay", an updated variant of v2 that focuses on the PCs' personal struggles with Chaos. Essentially, identify the core audience for v2 (i.e. "grognards") and produce a game that caters to their tastes (i.e. adult themes). Warhammer doesn't need to perpetually chase the fountain of youth. By now there are enough 30-50-somethings who grew up with Warhammer that it couldn't hurt to cater to an older demographic on the side.

    For my part, I've houseruled WFRP v2 to the point where it's better than the 40K games, but I can understand some v2 fans feeling like they were left with a prototype when you consider the love that's been given to the 40K line.

  6. Posted

    Spivo said:

    I agree, just said it seems like they wish it fails.

     

     

    Many of them probably do. FFG probably knew roughly what the result would be of ceasing support for percentile WFRP while continuing to offer 3 different percentile 40K games. I don't think they were naive enough to believe that everyone would switch over to the 3e system just because there were no other options.

  8. Posted

    plutonick said:

    Are you talking about this:

    forum.strike-to-stun.net/viewtopic.php  where some 2nd ed. players from strike-to-stun seem to have taken offense on this thread: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp  ?

     

    I just dont get the whole 2nd edition vs 3rd edition argument. It's the same for DnD, and is what makes me sad about our hobby. Instead of banding together and promoting it, we argue with each other about whose favorite version is the best.

    The StS thread was about GW's evolving "official" imagery for the Order of Morr and Amethyst Order. It just happened that the OP learned about the GW developments from posts on this board. He could have referenced the offending source material instead, but I gathered that he doesn't own any of it or else it wouldn't have come as a surprise to him.

  10. Posted

    Gallows said:

     

    Just from reading I really like it. TTT is a great campaign, but it needs some loving care to come together for the players and so far your expansions fix that.

    Thanks, we've got lots of ideas cooking and if we manage to finish the whole series TTT will be the type of campaign that you can run 2-3 times and have it play out completely differently each time.

  11. Posted

    Gallows said:

     We're beginning on chapter 5, so I can't use everything in expansion #2 (chapter 6 is mentioned though), but expansion #1 deals with chapter 7, so I'll post my feedback once we have done that.

    That's great! Over half of Expansion #2 deals with chapter 6 so there should be lots of material that you can still use.

  12. Posted

    Cwell2101 said:

     

    I'm very interested in knowing about a enventual schedule for expansions #3 to 5 (i found references in #2) if you have some idea, i intend to run TTT sometime next year for my group.

     

     

    If Expansions #3 and #4 go ahead (which is looking increasingly likely), they still won't be finished for another year. They're being developed concurrently because they deal primarily with the same chapters (3, 4 and 5). Expansions #5 and #6 are two years away and will also be developed concurrently because they both deal with chapters 8-9.

    Hopefully some people will play the campaign with "just" these first two expansions (128 pages of material in total) so we can get actual-play feedback to assist with the ongoing development of the project.

  14. Posted

    superklaus said:

     

    Na, exactly this kind of games bores the hell out of me. I have enough after decades of intrigue and catch the cultist szenarios. The time is more than ripe to move on to a different type of adventures.

    Well, that might be partly because "catch-the-cultist" in WFRP has become too formulaic: follow the clue trail to find out which merchant/noble is worshipping Chaos, and then play whack-a-mole with his daemons. However, I don't believe that freezing the timeline on the eve of a Chaos Incursion will fix this problem by itself; they also need to explore new approaches to Chaos on a system/rules level.

  15. Posted

    HedgeWizard said:

     

    I truly hope that this alt timeline plot remains as an alt timeline.  It was definitely smart to retcon the SoC and put the timeline of the new WFRP to years after TEW (even if the emperor is strong, wields a massive weapon and rides on the back of a gryphon).

     

     

    In my opinion, the best time period for WFRP would be just prior to the Conclave of Light. The general public would still be ignorant of the Chaos threat, and uppity High Elves wouldn't be arriving by the boatload to help save the Empire, but you could still play through a Chaos Incursion if you wanted to. Instead of fighting off the numberless Chaos hordes, campaigns would revolve around exposing Chaos and raising people's awareness of it.

    EDIT: on the other hand, Chaos is already united under Archaon by the time of the Conclave, so the potential for Realms of Chaos intrigue would still be limited. This was one of the strengths of the post-SoC setting. Archaon was gone, Chaos was divided, and the Empire was feeling confident in its apparent victory over Chaos. Sure the average Johann knows about the daemon hordes in 2523, but he believes they've been defeated. The average Johann believed in daemons during the TEW period as well.

  17. Posted

    jadrax said:

     

    The 8th edition Wargame rulebook basically revolves around the build up to the Storm the Chaos, with Archaon being quite active. The timeline details his coronation as Everchosen in 2519, and has his profile in the back.

     

     

     

    Oh, interesting. I bought 8th edition but haven't read the fluff yet.

    EDIT: hopefully the campaign won't boil down to "Chaos Undivided vs. Everyone Else", because that would be tremendously boring.

  18. Posted

    ffgfan said:

    PS. I'm very curiuos how Karl Franz died and what happened to Archaon? This is a balnk page in the Warhammer history, I hope this book will fill it.

    We still don't even know if Archaon exists for certain in WH canon, since he was never mentioned prior to the since-retconned Storm of Chaos campaign. Who knows, they might introduce an all-new Everchosen for this campaign. My personal preference would be if they treat this campaign like "the second wave" after the SoC. i.e. The Empire was weakened by the SoC, and now the Chaos powers are going all-out to achieve their individual visions for the End Times, no longer united under the Everchosen.

    In many ways, freezing the timeline immediately prior to a Chaos Incursion is the worst possible timeframe for an RPG setting. All the races and countries are united against Chaos, which removes the potential for internecine warfare, and non-Chaotic enemies like undead or greenskins are overshadowed by the looming threat from the north. In addition, Chaos is unified under the banner of the Everchosen so there's little room for Realms of Chaos intrigue.

  19. Posted

    Kharrak said:

     

    We'd have to know how close they are working with GW to write this. Obviously GW isn't going to let them write whatever they want, they are infamously protective over their IPs, so it can be assumed that they have greenlight most of this - but again, it may just be an alternate timeline. 

     

     

    Since the project appears to be run by Rick Priestly, I imagine they'll receive a fair bit of leeway. One of the problems with the SoC retcon was that it stripped away all the 2523 political background and replaced it with...nothing. The big question is whether this new campaign will pick up from the TEW timeline or the SoC timeline, and at what point in the timeline does K-F die?

    Very cool to see they're adding Warrior Priests of Taal and Morr to WFB.

    EDIT: the two-stage approach for each book is very interesting. I wonder if this project is meant to provide a "sliding scale" of apocalyptic progression i.e. the first book covers the initial advances of Chaos, then the second book covers the collapse of the Empire.

  22. Posted

    Marc Gascoigne at BI once explained the mapping ambiguity policy for v2 as retaining a sense of mystery about the setting. A similar explanation had been offered by MvS for keeping certain parts of the magic metaphysics vague. The Marienburg book covered several districts in detail but left others untouched. So it's possible that FFG is following a long (or at least, post-90's) tradition by leaving part of Ubersreik a blank slate for your imagination to explore, unfettered by preconceived notions or images.

  23. Posted

    UncleArkie said:

     AArrgh I have to answer that,

    But don't get the feeling that v3 surfs a little on the brand recognition from 2e which then again surfs on WFB/GW's bran?. To some extend the new game gets a free ride of instant advocacy which is now a year later also a little bit of its problem. Now that it has to stand on its own legs its time to test the foundation before branching out and seeking other markets, it its current state too much diversity could be hurting the brand more than helping it along due to a in quality and product conversion as the core of 2e players who converted would switch back already having money invested in the game that then leads to the game loosing advocates. Or am I on crack again?

    I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but perhaps that's for the best. I think FFG could stand to profit handsomely from having both "camps" competing to prove that their preferred version of the rules is more popular.

  24. Posted

    UncleArkie said:

     I get what your trying to say, but to put it very simply. Its like the same company selling a shampoo in two different bottles, same shampoo twice the marketing cost, all thats different is the logo and the bottle, they sit on the same shelves next to each other and the consumer gets less product recognition.All that would be different is the rules (the bottle) the content, the game itself is the world, rules are just catalysts for stories, we then use the rules we like to tell the stories and discard the rest.

    WFRP's situation is unique, in that the v2 game would still have instant brand recognition for many years to come. If Pepsi was bought out by Coca-Cola, Coke would continue making Pepsi because the loyal Pepsi drinkers won't just disappear overnight or switch to Coke.

  25. Posted

    UncleArkie said:

    I did yes, and I still won't be buying them, I already paid for the material in them so I don't see a reason to do it twice and I am not in opposition to you having the option of playing the game only using a core set of rules with no bit. However I think that its a very thin line that FFG are walking, also what you suggested was a re-release of 2nd edition for those players who wanted that, sorta a pathfinder like option, that is what I think is a silly and counter productive idea. 

    I suggested a new edition of the v2 rules, not a re-release. Call it the Warhammer Horror RPG, and make it a game about scribes and agitators battling their own inner demons while struggling against Chaos. Immediately it appeals to a different crowd from v3, and some people might even play both games to scratch different itches, just like some people play both RT and DH.

    UncleArkie said:

    Now I could go into a giant lecture on marketing strategy, but lets face it most people will TL:DR it, instead I suggest that you spend a few weeks reading up on the material and we can go into demographic focus, product spread, market targets and so on, its really complicated stuff and I'v been doing it for years on the community side of things and I am still a beginner so its not to dismiss your thoughts, they are valid, but from a professional point of view its a horrible idea.

    I did work in market research for 6 years before getting into the TV business, so I'm not completely ignorant of these matters...

     

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