Today FFG dropped a bomb of epic proportion! This was unexpected.
Mr. Davis did drop a hint about this a long while ago, but I didn’t think he was working on something of this magnitude!
More as it develops!
/Magnus
WFRP: Embrace change, or seek solace in familiarity?
Now that WFRPv3 has been going for well over a year, I have come to the time and place to figure out how to take this edition into account when writing for The Altdorf Correspondent. Embrace the new edition whole-heartedly or put on the grognard cape and grouse about the good old times?
Traditionally, I embrace change. I try new things, I look at them to see the old things in a different light. I look to the new to help me avoid a sense of “I’ve been doing this same thing for 30 years now” and to keep things fresh. I also have had the ambition of supporting the current edition of all the games I write for, be it D&D, WFRP, Kult, Cyberpunk or any other game I feel strongly about.
But I’m not as young as I used to be. I’ve played so many games, tried so many rules, seen so many plots, that I’ve grown confused. Rules have never been my forte, and with WFRPv3, I’ve hit a brick wall. The rules are clearly written, the components are beautiful, everything is top notch. But I can’t connect to the rules. When reading them, I don’t see stories in my head. I see rules, cards, components. I lose track of what WFRP is to me.
And as you can imagine, that is not where I want to be when sitting down to write about Altdorf and WFRP!
It’s not that I think the rules are horrible, it’s not that I think FFG are insulting WFRP gamers all over the world, it’s not the prices or the boxes or the bits. It’s simply the fact that this is very different from what I am used to, and that is enough to throw me.
So what to do? There are two basic aspects I need to consider; rules and setting. And here’s the lowdown …
For rules, I’m staying with WFRPv2. As I look more into WFRPv3, I might start to dual-stat things,if I feel I can get comfortable with the rules. But for the foreseeable future, WFRPv2 is my edition of choice for rules. I will bring in things I like from WFRPv3, and mine WFRPv1 as well. And fan material of course.
As for the setting, it’s more difficult. Or maybe more simple … I don’t really know for sure. I will go with WFRPv3 and mix in elements from WFRPv1, WFRPv2 and Warpstone. It seems to me that WFRPv1 and WFRPv3 are closer to each other in tone and atmosphere than they are with WFRPv2. And Warpstone is superb, and has a lot of the grittiness that I enjoy in the setting material published. So I’ll roll back to before the Storm of Chaos, and go from there.
This is not a big change for me. As many have noticed I am fairly loose with canon anyways, and the things I don’t like are simply toned down (the Emperor riding a griffon, for example). It’s easy to just discard a piece of setting I don’t agree with, and so the WFRP world I present is a curious mix of canon and heresy. Which is what I’m aiming for; my own take on the Old World, my own interpretation informed by my own tastes and sensibilities.
This is influenced greatly by the writings of others, primarily the official WFRP lines, but to an almost greater extent the writings found in Warpstone and historical records.
So there you have it. I will continue much as I have done so far, which will delight quite a few of my readers, I suspect. But there will still be a place for WFRPv3, mostly in commentaries on the products, and reviews. I want to embrace WFRP as a whole, not get bogged down with fruitless internal debates on the merits of one edition over the other.
Hope you’ll stay on and thanks for readin!
/Magnus
WFRP: Signs of Faith is in the shelf
Yesterday I picked up Signs of Faith. It looks great, as do all FFG:s WFRP boxes, and I’ve started browsing it. The first thing that jumped at me was the mention of several places and people in Altdorf, so I’d better get cracking on updating the map.
The piecemeal approach of WFRPv3 have drawn its share of criticism, and initially I also found it frustrating that the information published was so scant. But after looking through Signs of Faith, I realise that this is actually something I could have the time to digest, as opposed to thick books with dense text. So there might be an advantage to this format that I have previously overlooked: it fits better with the time I have to read RPG material these days.
The lack of nice and cool maps is still a problem with all official WFRP stuff, though.
/Magnus