Chernobyl said:

It's not. However it is not substantially more complicated. Also, by rolling 8+ dice with varies symbols you can go beyond a simple hit/miss dynamic. The dice/card system allows you to get more complex results. The roll might result in hit-maneuvre-counterattack, miss-maneuvre, critical hit-counterattack, miss-counterattack etc. The custom dice are required as it would be too time-consuming to use this mechanic with normal dice.

The dice/card system also works well with the stance mechanic to give the player greater control over the outcome. By choosing how much the character is willing to risk on a given task (how reckless or conservative) he can modify the dice roll to favour one result over another.

*bumps*

Apparently I need a longer post than that - yes, I think the mechanics and us knowing about them will make or break the new edition.

Anyone play Shadowrun or d6 Star Wars? The dice pools in those games could get enormous. Contested rolls were used as well. BUT I really enjoyed running and playing those rpgs.

Cheers,

Psektos.

Chernobyl said:

I suspect that people often ignore the old 'Degrees of Success', but the new system looks like it forces you to tell a story every time you roll - if there's a skull, you need to explain the negative side-effect, if there's an hourglass, you need to figure out what the heck took you so long.  If you roll the comet, what made the action so successful, how did fortune intervene?  I think this is more evocative than X degrees of success / failure.  But what worries me is that, as a play-by-forum player, how the heck am I going to get this online?!

EDIT: Remember also that many dice will come up blank - you won't need to interpret them.  I'm really in favour of dispensing with numbers - rolling 31 to hit is a little clinical.

EDIT 2: Buy Rattlesnake - I guarantee you will not be disappointed and you may just lure some friends and relatives into the realms of 'alternative' gaming.

Hmm, this is getting more and more interesting with every interpretation that I hear.

Combat, for my players, has always been long and tedious without some kind of flavour or style.

We always try to spruce it up by making interesting combat maneuvers or taking advantage of the terrain.

The only time that we get awesomely descriptive is when someone performs a critical or does a really neat move.

The idea that each dice roll, even in combat, could potentially tell a bit of a story sounds really GREAT to me.

Then again, I just played DnD 3.5 this past weekend and we all got REALLLLY bored by a two hour combat scene. It was terrible: the environment was not immersive nor were there cool obstacles to get in the way or to be used creatively. I kept wanting to perform neat maneuvers, but due to the impatience of the other players, I simply went with my two attacks. Really freakin lame.

So I'm a bit biased, I suppose.

QUOTE:

but the new system looks like it forces you to tell a story every time you roll - if there's a skull, you need to explain the negative side-effect, if there's an hourglass, you need to figure out what the heck took you so long. If you roll the comet, what made the action so successful, how did fortune intervene?

/QUOTE

I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of that stuff is indicated on the action card itself, so I doubt that the GM will be scratching his head that much over what to do.

Necrozius said:

It's not the dice telling the story - it's the GM!

And to me one great aspect is avoiding combat by role playing (and not doing combat with rollplaying)

Knight Panther said:

I fully agree with that.

It's just that combat is sometimes unavoidable, or flat out expected by some players.

Essentially I aim to make combat more interesting than: roll to hit, roll damage, roll to hit, roll damage...

Because, honestly, few of my friends make combat very interesting or thrilling. Not that I'm a saint, though- I'm guilty as well of this. The point is that the dice will potentially FORCE us to make combat more cinematic. Which is great. If not, then we can just ignore it.

Necrozius said:

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm - on a second thought I have to say, that your point is quite interesting. Until now to me combat was a necessity (Oh let's finish that gobo so we can continue with the story). So if I really have to fight it will be a challenge to "merge" combat and rollplaying. I'm curious about my groups reaction ...

I think that's one of the most interesting points about the dice. We might seem a bit skeptical about reading them. But if it works out they have the possibility to make combat alot more interesting and desriptive, as well as possibly allowing for a few more things to happen.

I don't see the dice taking anything from anyone at the table when comes to the narrative.  I understand that some folks feel like the dice will be limiting their roleplaying in some way and that they will be telling the story for them.  But really, dice are always telling the story in an RPG that uses dice.  That's what they are there for, to be that random element that determines above all other elements in which direction the story is about to flow.  I LIKE that about dice.  Sure the narrative or color is still in the hands of the players, but the dice are always deciding what is about to happen.  Once you turn to the dice you put the direction of the "story" in the hands of fate, its always been that way.

This dice system it seems will be offering a few more pieces of information to the narrative, but they're not going to be taking your roleplaying from you.  They will be helping determine which aspects of the currently unfolding narrative are thrust to front and center, and you get to respond accordingly as a player.  

I think the fear stems from the idea that the more a game is governed by rules, the less people do themselves.

As an example, Dark heresy currently has an absurd number of critical tables, one for each location for each type of damage. Do you think many people would invent their own critical descriptions when they've got them right there?

In the same vein, if the dice dictate the trials and tribulations characters encounter during their rolls, it is unlikely people will invent their own when the rules already cover them.

And because the rules cover this, it means the variety is curtailed down to those given.

Other examples include height, eye colour, weight etc. These are all provided for. If they weren't people would be forced to do it themselves which allows them to produce numbers not given in the tables. But because the rules already cover this, the players instead go on automatic and accept whatever was rolled as the 'official' result.

Rolling 'took too long' on your conservative dice is mechanically like rolling 'green eyes' or 'broken rib'. The rules have the situation covered so no need to think about it yourself.

But BECAUSE the situation is already covered, the players end up retreading the same small list of possibilities over and over again. Play enough campaigns and you'll have a character with every eye colour on the list and some duplicates. But you'll keep using the table because it's official and there.

Ironically the more help you provide, the less people actually DO.

Hellebore

 Well stated Hellebore, I guess I'm overlooking information that is leading us to believe that certain outcomes are delineated specifically by the rules.  Like perhaps, a certain combination of symbols means a certain specific interpretation?  I've missed that if that is the fear that is going around, and yeah, that would be pretty heavy handed of the system.

What I do like though, for example, is the idea of say time complications being included right there in the dice.  Stuff like that is gold to me.  Perhaps its because I really like the Burning Wheel system, which is also dice pool based, and it specifically allows you to take more time on a task so as to get an extra die towards success.  But if you still fail with the extra Careful die, then your failure isn't just failure but the narrative must include some sort of time centered complication.  I just really like that, and it appears that WFRPs new dice mechanic is providing a bit of that random narrative occurrence.  To me its no more different that simply saying, "This die rolls controls whether the story heads in a successful direction or a failed direction for your character."  Now, WFRPs dice will also be dictating a number of other random elements beyond success and failure, such as time and fortune.  I think that's really cool.  But I can see now why others may not like it so much.

Hellebore said:

Interesting. I have played and ran the granddaddy of all charty flippy nasty twitchy dice rolling monsters: Rolemaster. The charts and open ended dice rolls along with insanely customizable characters made for some interesting developments and offered the gamemaster a lot of fodder to work with.

The statement that the gamemaster tells the story is a half truth the other half of the story is told by the players.  The more invested the players are in the story the better the game. If the players start engaging in scenes and battles the better the story and therefore the game.

BUT again it will be up to the players and gamemaster to make the system work. The relatively recent system that uses a deck of cards to determine interactions and combats was fun to play as well. Personally I hate 4th ed because it makes you use miniatures and maps. I love a more free flowing system that gives the GM and the players more options that fiddling around with minis HOWEVER there are a TON of people who absolutely love 4ed.

*shrug*

Cheers,

Psektos.

Sorry Hellebore but I must step in and disagree with your analysis. BUT first I would like to thank you guys for being kind and thought ful. A great man once told me to keep my mind open to new ideas. You guys have given me a good read for these two pages.

The players of RPGs that meet every friday night at my store brought up a great point that hasn't been brought up before. Rolling the dice in this game reminds them of Rafiki or a witch doctor rollling bones.

You bring up the fact that players turn to tables for crits in dark heresy, but let's be honest, if they did not have that table to enforce wounds on the character would players actually destroy a limb or suffer a permanent wound when given the option.

The players I talked to love this new dice system. The dice are color coded so you know what to look for on each one. A quick scan over them for an hour glass, skull, comet etc. And then just add up the sucesses and consult the card. Many of them brought up how this encourages the DM to tell a story out of the rolls.

I never thought about this until they brought it up, but most GMs are afraid to do nasty things to the players. I mean the characters are apart of their story and world. They get attached to the characters just as much as the players do. Sometimes the GM becomes more attached to a character than a player, because they start to pull for them like a super star or underdog on a team. By rolling these "bones" they can no longer favor one character over another. This also means that a player can't accuse the GM of picking on them. Just like in the real world our fate rest in our hands just as the dice do in this game. And just like in the real world nothing is certain "stuff happens".

As I have been playing DnD 4th I realised that the roleplay aspect is no longer really a part of it. Its more like Descent now. The players get to heal up after every encounter and are not limited with abilities. One thing I loved about grimm was the team work aspect, and I knew FFG would try to get a similar mechanic in Warhammer FRP. I love the new team mechanic. It not only helps create that tension between characters but it seems from the vids that its also a way to tell players they are getting our of hand and need to get back to the game.  One thing I always felt was missing in roleplaying games, that I immediately noticed as soon as I finished Lord of the Rings, was that no RPG encourage players to roleplay out the out of combat and out of game, if you will, intereaction. In many games I have played with many different groups, I have to always be the one that works to try and get a Legolas vs Gimli rivalry going. Or the Boromir vs the party type of personality. This game adds that awesome mechanic that has been missing from all adventure games up until now.

Having everything turned into cards is also helpful...in a way. Depends how organized you are. But I really like how FFG worked on making sure the cards had a use by creating the stance system.

I personally think this game is the Nintendo Wii or the DS of RPGs. This system of roleplaying is what White Wolf has been trying to figure out for many years and Wizards gave up on. I had no idea how revolutionized this product was until I watched the vids. FFG congrats at thinking outside the box. You didn't just look at roleplaying games and figure out how to make yours better. You looked for what was missing in all of them and made it happen. Who knew a non major RPG company would change the way players play RPGs forever. Gygax and Arneston would be proud of this bold yet origonal move I am sure. 

Of course as always this is all my oppinion based on talks with Deadlands, DnD (both 3.5 and 4th), Warhammer FRP, Vampire and Exalted players.

I was talking about the fluff descriptions of those criticals. How it describes your receiving a crit 3 to the arm. We are talking about qualitative descriptions produced by the dice. The dice say you spent too long, or the dice say you fumbled. So I was talking about things in current games that have a qualitative description that comes with a rule effect (or for eyes and height, purely decorative).

I wasn't saying people would be left to describe the kinds of rules a critical applies to you.

The dice say 'you lose a turn for being too slow'. The crit says 'the bullet tears through your elbow joint sending shards of bone spinning in all directions and you lose your arm.' As an official rule they will always be used and most people won't be bothered coming up with anything else. So if the dice say you are too slow, you will always be too slow. There will never be another option on the dice for 'tripped over on your face' or anything else. The dice only have so many sides, just as a crit table only has so many lines.

I was saying that the idea that the dice 'tell a story' is only true in as much as the crit chart tells a story - a story with 10 possible out comes. The dice will tell a story, but will quickly tell the same story multiple times.

Hellebore