Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;602729Hi ZWEIHÄNDER!
On the official forum you said:
Would you care to elaborate on that? (Maybe in a new thread?)
In what way was the math broken, what were the pains to understand it and how does your take on the system repair the damage?

Hi Dirk! Per your request, I've splintered this off the previous thread. First things first...

According to several polls I've run (and opinions gathered from Strike To Stun), GMs feel they must 'cheat' difficulty during Basic Career - otherwise artificially lowering the difficulty for some actions. Let's look at an example. The average starting Characteristic in the game was 31%, which is illustrated in the character creation chapter. This means that someone who is trained in Drive, piloting a cart has a 31% to succeed under average conditions (Average +/-0%). This is assuming that they're under some manner of duress. Even under the best conditions (Very Easy +30%), they would succeed only 61% of the time. While the rules indicate that a GM should not test a Skill unless there's some sort of risk involved, any measure of difficulty requires a successful skill test (inclement weather, driving at night, piloting through a busy street).

Secondly, the number of Characteristic bumps (+5/+10%) were unevenly distributed across Careers. While the differences aren't very apparent during Basic Career, once players begin to enter second and third Career, they become readily apparent. My first intuition was the design is intentional, counterbalanced by the spread of Skills and Talent. With that, I began to chart out every Basic Career in a pivot table, quantifying and ranking distributions of Characteristics, Skills and Talents across these and Advanced Career. It took nearly two months to convert the entire core Warhammer 2e book into Excel. Long story short, my findings indicated that they were picked arbitrarily. While this was fine during Basic Career, it really begins to break apart at Advanced Career. There were certain career paths which were significantly weaker than others. There were even some career paths that were vastly overpowered. In my own game, we found that warrior-type of Careers were being trumped in their ability to hit with Melee by characters who didn't start out as fighter-types but moved along their career path into an Advanced Career which boosted their Melee significantly.

How I fixed it in ZWEIHÄNDER was with a solid math distribution up front. Assuming all Skills hold the same value, I distribute equally the same number of Skills, Characteristic bumps and Talents to each Career. This made things far more fair across the board from a math perspective. I also ramped up the math distributions and qualified three specifics "Tiers" of growth that characters qualified for as they selected new Careers. And, there is no longer a penalty for being untrained. Instead, there is a bonus for gaining further focus (called Skill Rank) in a particular Skill. This means that someone who elects to remain a criminal-type (called an Archetype) will get bonuses in Skill Ranks, whereas if they moved into another Archetype (socialite, warrior, ranger or menial), they'd not get Skill Ranks in their old skills, as they're dividing their focus elsewhere.

While balance is certainly important (and no RPG should devolve into a game of math), distribution and fairness was easily addressed following a basic precept - equal distribution of opportunities for all Careers. Reward people for remaining within their Archetype with Skill Ranks or reward people for moving into new Archetypes by lending them new Skills. Under this example, you sacrifice your ability to succeed more often by gaining new skills instead (or visa versa).

You should really take a look at the article for Hugo Stoat over at http://grimandperilous.com. It illustrates the growth pattern and math distributions across these same three Tiers. It also lends particular insight as to how ZWEIHÄNDER is balanced:

Hugo Stoat, First Tier
Peasant
http://grimandperilous.com/?p=135

Hugo Stoat, Second Tier
Peasant/Militiaman
http://grimandperilous.com/?p=143

Hugo Stoat, Third Tier
Peasant/Militiaman/Peasant-hero
http://grimandperilous.com/?p=180

You should use the word "random" in place of "broken".

What you basically mean is that you prefer things to be "balanced"... i.e. nearly identical in all respects.

Quote from: Blackhand;602737You should use the word "random" in place of "broken".

What you basically mean is that you prefer things to be "balanced"... i.e. nearly identical in all respects.

Identical in that every career has the same number of options made available to them, absolutely. But not identical in that they're indistinguishable from one another.

My final opinion is that the Green Ronin team did a very good job with "low level" Basic Careers, but didn't give much forethought into play testing "high level" Advanced Careers. Coincidentally, it's the same opinion I hold for a host of other RPGs.

One of the reasons why we moved the print date for ZWEIHÄNDER was to avoid these same pitfalls. We want to test everything thoroughly.

To be honest, I never really cared much that some careers were demonstrably better then others.  Warhammer isn't the kind of setting where equality and social justice rule the day.  

Someone getting lucky and being able to go something like Noble->Duellist and be a better fighter in the second career then someone who bounced around the lower class military/merc stuff for 5 careers is part and parcel of the Warhammer world.

Making all the careers mathematically equivalent is boring to me.

Quote from: Blackhand;602737You should use the word "random" in place of "broken".

What you basically mean is that you prefer things to be "balanced"... i.e. nearly identical in all respects.

Yep. 4e destroyed this hobby given everyone seems to have a chance to succeed at everything.  Excuse me as I puke.  Sorry if some landed on you.  Just sad now. VERY SAD KITTY.  OR PISSED AT YOUR VERSION OF WARHAMMER. PICK CAREFULLY NOW...Or I might actually get angry.

Can you PLEASE DO LIKE ROLEMASTER? Unless you prefer I personally tell everyone I know to never buy your game and say it's 4e revisited just to make sure you get it? Maybe?

I hated pure math in school even though I happen to be good at it. Question,  why would I like something I loathe in a game about a role I am assuming?

Lucky for you I am far less angry now. So explain ok? Because if Blackhand and myself agree completely, you sir are in serious trouble and the Mayans may not be cokeheads and by extension I may have to take the Pundit seriously.  Given he is a magical wizard and all. He said so right? It must be true. I run Mage right?  I must be an actual Obrimos....

Marley, I'm trying to sift through your two posts here, but I'm not sure what you're asking. Let me take a wild stab at it...

If you mean "does everyone succeed at everything" and "is it influenced by 4E", the answer is a resounding no. If you look at the progression of Hugo Stoat over the course of Tier One, Tier Two and Tier Three, it will illustrate that there is challenge for task completion across all levels - even for a character that's been "min-maxed". Truly, I invite you to take a look at those three links above and click on the character sheets. The proof is in the pudding.

The math is inherently the same as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but the number of options available are equally distributed across the board.

Hi Zweihänder,

thank you for the answer. I see what you mean.
(And I didn't notice before that you limited your "broken math" claim to 2e. What's your take on 1e in this regard?)

When I got WH 1e almost the first thing I did was hacking the careers. Not because I thought the math was broken but because I wanted to make them fit my setting. (I am flipping though my notes of that time for the past two weeks now to see if there is anything salvageable. That renewed interest made me find ZWEIHÄNDER, btw.)

I was never a WH Fantasy Battle player so for me the Old World was just another default, example setting, not the main attraction of the game. I played three (rather brief) campaigns in other settings instead.

I guess I never really had a problem with uneven characters. Ok, if there are 25% skills vs. 80% skills after the same amount of play time (or # of careers) something seems off. But I am not sure if a mere statistical approach really ensures fairness.
If all careers have the same amount of advances (percent-wise) that doesn't mean the general usefulness of the character (or his survivability) is balanced. Some stats that are more important than others.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;603101Hi Zweihänder,
I guess I never really had a problem with uneven characters. Ok, if there are 25% skills vs. 80% skills after the same amount of play time (or # of careers) something seems off. But I am not sure if a mere statistical approach really ensures fairness.
If all careers have the same amount of advances (percent-wise) that doesn't mean the general usefulness of the character (or his survivability) is balanced. Some stats that are more important than others.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1E suffers from a host of issues above and beyond what 2E tried to fix. There are Careers which receive a literal crap ton of Skills, with no real rhyme or reason as to why they gain more than others. If you look at the Career Paths, there are several which can quickly give players every single skill in the book. That being said, I absolutely adore the older version; I vastly prefer 1E over 2E.

On the subject of what stats are more important than others, I'd argue that it's unquantifiable. It depends purely on the kind of campaign a GM is running. While some skills (such as the ability to hit) are important, they may not be more important than Athletics, Drive or Pilot if you're running a game that hinges on environmental challenges. Around my gaming table, we use Coordination, Athletics, Awareness, Resilience, Scrutinize and Stealth far more than any Melee-based or Ranged-based skill. The allocation of Skills relative to the Characteristic was one of the things WFRP 2e did get right.

There is a bigger and longer version as to why ZWEIHÄNDER is built how it is, but verges into what I consider the value of the system (which I don't want to share with the community until after the book is released).

If you're interested in sneaking a peak at the character creation process, head over to grimandperilous.com and click Contact to send me an email. Providing you're willing to sign an NDA, I'd love to show you what we've done thus far.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;603107That being said, I absolutely adore the older version; I vastly prefer 1E over 2E.

Are there things in your game that are more based on 1e than on 2e?  I certainly get more of a 2e vibe from what i've seen so far.

Quote from: mhensley;603306Are there things in your game that are more based on 1e than on 2e?  I certainly get more of a 2e vibe from what i've seen so far.

Naming conventions for Talents, Professions and the way magic works is a big take-away from WFRP 1e. I also prefer that WFRP 1e assumed players would be moving between Basic Careers, instead of moving immediately into an Advanced Career. That is in place as well.

One major divergence from both editions is the inclusion of Archetype. Archetype determines the "career path", instead of the Profession defining the path. This allows players to make better choices and be far more flexible when it comes time to move into a new one. All Basic Professions in ZWEIHÄNDER have one Archetype, whereas the Advanced Professions have two Archetypes. So, it doesn't limit the choices a player can make but helps create a visual path how a player can move between multiple Professions without having to really plan ahead (as many players did in WFRP2e). The career paths in both editions were extremely limited, and in many cases presented odd combinations of Skills that significantly imbalanced some players' characters from others around the table.

For instance, let's say someone starts out as a Peasant. That's a Commoner Archetype. But, the story over the campaign takes a turn towards an impending internal war. At the end of the Peasant's First Tier, he can then make the choice to become a Vigilante (Commoner and Warrior Archetype).

Essentially, players should make a choice as to which Profession they move towards, based on the way the story is going, but also have a visual indicator into what other Professions they can move into if they're not really certain which way to go.

Wow! I actually agreed with Blackhand on something... I um... probably just a fluke.
I'm another who isn't bothered by this stuff that seems to be bothering Zweihander... unless I'm not understanding his issues... but to understand better I'd have to be bothered more and... well, I'm not.

I like the idea of bouncing between Basic Careers instead of jumping only to an Advanced Career.

I am not overly worried about balanced careers. One of the most common houserules in WFRP 1e was people doing some sort of balancing act between the base careers.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;602741One of the reasons why we moved the print date for ZWEIHÄNDER from autumn 2012 to Q1/2 of 2013 was to avoid these same pitfalls. We want to test everything thoroughly.

That's good news.

BTW, post a link to how Zweihander has replaced Chaos.

Also, do you have a map of your game world?

Quote from: Spinachcat;603949BTW, post a link to how Zweihander has replaced Chaos.

Also, do you have a map of your game world?

Yes, I'm interested in this as well.  Also, I'd like to see a preview of some monsters.