Quote from: Windjammer;341488One of the Essen attendants who played a demo game raised a good point: the way the game is packaged pretty much precludes two people in a party opting for the same career. You can't have two slayers, for instance, without one of the guys having to photocopy all the cards for special moves, the career display, and so on.

It's one thing to design a game's components in such a way that replicating its content is harder for online pirates. It's another to have to cope with this effect as a legitimate owner, by either effectively forcing you to photocopy (in colour) tons of stuff and glue them on hardboard, or buy two boxes of the base set.
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Another potentially big dealbreaker - of course while its unlikely that your game will have two ratcatchers (in fact impossible if you can only get this career by drawing a single card from one pack) after a few career changes you may well need initiates/priests of say Ulric AND Shallya as these are different enough to fill separate party niches.

Similarly I can't see how you can play for any length of time without having the PCs encounter people in the same career as themselves - when that happens and they fight or engage in any significant interaction does the GM have to get back the cards from the player every round to know what his ratcatcher can do?

And what about advanced careers in general - I can't imagine that with only 40 career cards to choose from there are any in the core box.

So will there be no possibility of giving up ratcatching for cat burglary until they publish the Advanced WFRP3 box a year or two down the line?

If it turns out we have to pay $100/£70 for the equivalent of the D&D Basic Set then that's about as retrograde a step in RPG design as you can imagine.

EDIT - another thought: what if they make all the materials from photocopy resistant secure card stock - true they don't appear to have done this on any of their boardgames yet - but these are obviously much less pirated than RPGs routinely are - so who knows?

Thats a lot of questions I am going to need answered before parting with my $100/£70

Quote from: Windjammer;341488PS. Not sure how large the crowd is that is rubbed the wrong way by this thing in the first place. No one complained that Heroquest didn't allow for a party with two barbarians, or Runequest with two Ronans.

I'm not sure what you are referring to here, Heroquest the board game? Or the RPG? In any case, the reason two people can't play the same character class here isn't because of some setting restriction. It isn't even because of some "Balance" restriction. Its because of a monetary/structural design decision on behalf of these guys. That's what pisses one off.

QuoteWhat's more, given that career choice pretty much sets a high number of customization choices in stone for you, the differentiation potential between two player characters opting for the same career is too slim anyway to be enjoyable. It's like having a D&D group where two players have the exact same character sheet beyond the entry for character name.

So what? What would be the problem about that?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;341571I'm not sure what you are referring to here, Heroquest the board game? Or the RPG? In any case, the reason two people can't play the same character class here isn't because of some setting restriction. It isn't even because of some "Balance" restriction. Its because of a monetary/structural design decision on behalf of these guys. That's what pisses one off.

I was talking about HQ the boardgame. I agree with what you write here.

Quote from: RPGPundit;341571So what? What would be the problem about that?

The interest to play two nearly identical characters in a RPG campaign is, I think, not that widespread to be a problem if there's a RPG whose packaging is rather discouraging of the fact. In a sense, then, I'm less pissed off about the packaging of Warhammer 3rd as about the comparatively little room of character customization in Warhammer 3rd. I don't miss room for character optimization in boardgames, which are usually designed for a single session's play, but consider it potentially damaging in anything designed to last for a couple of months' worth of campaigning. Relatedly, I don't think the "replay" factor is high in the game if you play two campaigns picking the same career+race combo. But if it's solely designed to be a gateway product anyway, there's little harm in that.

Character customization is a must have feature for me.  It's the ultimate reason why 3e is the only D&D I actually like.  I could never really stand the old editions because I hated the "fighter is a fighter is a fighter" effect, and I can't really stand 4e either because the choices are all illusions, as every power has more or less the same effect.

If those are your perceptions they're a product of not individualizing characters through roleplaying.

You could have two rat-catchers in WFRP, statistically identical, but with utterly different backgrounds and stories and personalities. Different families, different regional backgrounds, different doomings, etc etc.

They would be very different to play, as such.

This is warhammer we're talking about, not Milton Bradley's Heroquest; the problem is that FFG seems to want to treat things as though it was Heroquest.

RPGPundit

Quote from: kregmosier;341437would like to see something like the old microgame-sized plastic box with additional career paths/races or adventures as boosters, as opposed to another "big 'ol box".

You mean like the old Steve Jackson games? Those were awesome!!

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;341737You mean like the old Steve Jackson games? Those were awesome!!

RPGPundit

Speaking of SJG, they just released a PDF of the Car Wars Compendium, 2nd ed Revised. (The green-on-black cover.)

Quote from: aramis;341878Speaking of SJG, they just released a PDF of the Car Wars Compendium, 2nd ed Revised. (The green-on-black cover.)

Ive got an actual dead tree version of that.  Wonderful book.  And about bleeding time!

Quote from: Captain Rufus;341920Ive got an actual dead tree version of that.  Wonderful book.  And about bleeding time!

So do I. And 2E, And 1E.

Nice.  Now I can get another copy as my old copy of the compendium (shiny 80s cover) is a wee bit on the rattled side.

Man, I miss playing that game.

Quote from: aramis;341939So do I. And 2E, And 1E.

My Car Wars Collection as it currently stands:

Miniboxes: Car Wars, Truck Stop, Sunday Drivers
Ziplocs 1,3, and 4. (I have ALL of Midville. FOUR TOTAL MAPS.)
AADA Duel Circuit: L'outrance
The AADA Vehicle Guide
Deluxe Car Wars
Deluxe Car Wars Compendium 2nd Revised.
Car Wars Tanks (Came with above.)
Convoy
Arena Book
Mean Streets
ADQ 10-2, 9-3, 7-2, 3, and 4, 8-1, 5-3, 1-1 through 3-4
Gurps Autoduel 2nd edition.
Mini Car Wars.
AADA Atlases 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7
AADA Game Master Shield
Car Wars 5th: ALL OF IT.

And the car I was a ridin dirty in when we had a short campaign going:

(Division 15 campaign)
See if you can guess why it has the name it does!

Arilou Special
Cost: 9430
Handling Class 5
2642 Weight
Acceleration 10
Top Speed 132.5
Subcompact
Xtra Heavy Chassis
Heavy Suspension
Medium Engine, Superconductor (Front Mounted) (1540 power)
Tires: Heavy Duty Radial
Single Weapon Computer (Light Laser)
Forward Mount Light Laser with Pulse.
80 Points of Armor: (20 F/B 14 L/R 6 T/U)

Personal Gear: (3601 cost.)
Body Armor
Armored Battle Vest carrying Minimechanic, Limpet Mine, Bowie Knife, Machine Pistol, and 2 Clips.
Fireproof Suit
Laser VLAW with Laser Scope.

I have G.E.V. in one of those boxes.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;341737You mean like the old Steve Jackson games? Those were awesome!!

RPGPundit

Absolutely, and agreed.  I think FFG would be wise to use a format like those for class/race option packs for players, or "modules" for the GM.  

I'll chime in and mention that i just picked up Car Wars and Truck Stop pocket-box microgames myself!  Also, thanks for mentioning the release of the Compendium .pdf Aramis...SOLD!