Any systems you really, REALLY want to run or play?

Paranoia is great for online/play by post. Assuming no one takes it seriously and gets butthurt.

Oh yeah, I was always appreciate game designer trying to reach new demographic. I'll keep it in mind.

World system is also good. In fact, somebody is working on an Exalted World hack.

Dawn of Worlds is a free world-building RP without much confusing rules. Makes a great way to setup a world to use in future RP Gs.

I've been looking into Fantasy Flight Games's Warhammer 40K systems and I'm drawing toward Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader. If I can just figure out how gaining skills works and find a group.

I've always wanted to give Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay a go, mainy because of the Reckless Dice podcasts.

If so, I'd suggest 2nd Ed as opposed to the 3rd/ whatever that abomination they have now where you need their special dice and cards to play.

Edit: Argh, they're playing that... Thing.

edited 29th Apr '13 6:23:53 AM by IraTheSquire

^Hehe.

I prefer the straight forwardness of Dark Heresy/2ed's percentile roll down system myself. But 3rd edition's glyphic dice pool system is worth a try. It's good at capturing high risk/high reward game play.

Gimmicky game mechanics aside. The War-hammer fantasy universe is well detailed and surprisingly historically accurate in parts. Especially in regards to the career classes. Yes you can play a assassin or a Apprentice Wizard. But doesn't playing a Ratcatcher or Barber-Surgeon sound so much cooler?

@Dark Solider, what about skills confuses you? I know the system quite well so I should be able to help with that.

Advances appear to offer skills and talents that are acquired during character creation.

For example, a Guardsman in Dark Heresy can take Drive (ground vehicles) at creation, and that skill is also on the Conscript advance table. If I take it as an advance, does it count as the +10 for skill mastery described on page 96?

Not quite. If you get drive as a basic skill it means you can use it but with half your characteristic value. Once you get it as a trained skill you get it with your full characteristic value. So a Guardsman with only basic drive and an agility score of 40 would have to roll under 20.

From what I understand by looking at the character sheet, there are four tiers of skill knowledge: unskilled, skilled, +10, and +20. Does the aforementioned Guardsman, having taken Drive instead of Swim at creation, have Swim unskilled and Drive skilled?

After thinking it over, the Guardsman wouldn't have to take Drive as a Conscript because he took it at creation (unless it's for a different vehicle type) and could wait until he reaches Guard and take Drive +10.

yeah being skilled means you get a bonus in what ever it is you are skilled in. Can't see what you don't understand about it.

It case anyone is interested here is a quick run down of how the dice work in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition. While the earlier editions use the very simple 2d10 roll down percentile system similar to Dark Heresy, 3e change this to a rather odd symbol based dice pool system.

The game uses a total of seven unique dice which are as following

• White Fortune Die ⬜, a d6 with the faces: blank, blank, blank, ⚒,⚒,🐦

• Black Misfortune Die ⬛, a d6 with the faces: blank, blank, blank, ⚔,⚔,☠

• Blue Attribute Die ♦, a d8 with the faces: blank, blank, ⚒,⚒,⚒,⚒,🐦,🐦

• Purple Difficulty Die ♦, a d8 with the faces: ⚔,⚔,⚔⚔,⚔⚔,blank,☠, ☠☠,✵

• Yellow Expertise Die ⬛, a d6 with the faces: 🐦,🐦,⚒,blank,☄,⚒+

• Green Conservative stance die ⚫, a d10 with the faces: ⚒,⚒,⚒,⚒,⚒🐦,🐦,🐦,Blank,⚒⌛,⚒⌛

• Red Reckless dice ⚫, a d10 with the faces: blank, ⚒⚒,⚒⚒,⚒💧,⚒💧,blank, ☠, ☠,🐦🐦,🐦⚒

Basically a hammer (⚒) is a success, double hammers (,⚒⚒) are two successes. A exploding hammer (⚒+) means you get the success and get to roll for another one. These are canceled out by the swords (⚔) and double swords (⚔⚔).

Birdies are Boons(🐦), which while not successes in their own right give the player minor bonuses. These are turn canceled by Banes or skulls (☠).

Players love Sigmar's Comets (,☄) whicn means that Fate Has Smiled On You. G Ms on the other hand will love the Chaos Star (✵) which means they get to be evil little assholes.

When playing in the Conservative Stance you'll sometimes get a ⚒⌛ result which means success with a delay. Playing in the Reckless Stance you may take a stress(,⚒💧). Take too many stresses and you will pass out so be careful with over when exerting yourself.

edited 4th May '13 4:38:50 AM by joeyjojo

I think I may have been mistaken earlier, the other 40k lines (which are all far better written and easier to understand) are more clear. Either houserule it (you get a skill during creation you have it skilled worked for my group and didn't break anything) or maybe try the official forums.

That sounds too close to a board game than an RPG to me. Then again Fantasy Battle's old system (setting is fine) never appealed to me either.

edited 4th May '13 6:38:08 PM by Rationalinsanity

No one has ever made that comparison before. Ever.

edited 4th May '13 6:55:30 PM by joeyjojo

Perhaps board game was the wrong phrase (on which I blame a few shots of whiskey), but I tend to prefer straight rolls with modifiers rather than half a dozen types of dice/faces. Probably good once you get used to it though.

^Hehe.

It's similar to the World Of Darkness in that modifier favour the universe's 'flavour' over exact numbers. Some people prefer clear numerical transparency over that but the end results at the same. weighted number generator use to build narratives.

I'd prefer game systems where I can use dice that I just buy from anywhere as opposed to having to use specialized dice, especially when you need so many that it is very hard to pull the FATE thing where certain numbers mean certain non-numerical things. And everyone can bring and use their own dice, as opposed to everyone needing to either share or get their copy of the Warhammer.

edited 4th May '13 9:36:07 PM by IraTheSquire

Isn't Fate the textbook example of a needless specialty dice system but?

FATE's got one specialty dice and is specifically designed such that it is very easy to just use normal dice (1 and 2 is a step down, 3 and 4 is neutral, 5 and 6 step up). Warhammer 3e not only need several different types of specialty dice but some of them have the same number faces (the D6s), making it necessary to have dice of different colors as well which makes it extremely hard to keep track.

In other words, Warhammer 3e is FATE's idea made extremely complicated, to the point that you've got to use their specialty dice and cannot convert normal dice, which I think is deliberate as it forces you to get more copies of the game.

edited 5th May '13 12:09:59 AM by IraTheSquire

How accessible do dice need to be compared to rulebooks and such? I thought stores that stocked up on the books would also have a supply of dice? (At least, the d-whatever kinds.)

Generally. Any store that sells Dungeons & Dragons will store the iconic dice for it. FATE dice are a bit harder to find but if worse comes to worst you can just paint over a set of d6s or roll a d4-d4 for similar effect.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay third edition dice however work only for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay third edition.

For FATE: or use the 1-2 = step down, 3-4 = neutral and 5-6 = step up thing as suggested by many websites and the book (from memory). Since the range is the same, you can throw a bunch of D6s, quickly sort them out, and do the crunching.

For Warhammmer 3e, however, if you're using "normal" dices (as in dice that you bought from stores) after roll you've got to figure out which dice is for what (since D6s, D8s and D10s represent different things), and then figure out which numbers stands for what (because the ranges can be different), and then sort them out and do the crunching. It's like FATE, s, but a thousand times more complicated.