Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2nd, new ruleset, any needs?

[Blacky]

With the help of the great, the smart, the sexy Paul Pratt (well, most certainly the other way around since he'll do a lot of the work) we've started working a new Fantasy Grounds community ruleset for Warhammer 2 (WFRP2). Yes it's an old game, but as far as I can see it's on the top 5 most played on a regular basis on several VTT communities. It will be a new ruleset, no code from the old one, fully modern, layered from CoreRPG. In English, and I'll do a French lang&graphic pack right away, but anyone could translate it in other languages using Extension and the new 3.0 string lang files system.

So, if you played or mastered Warhammer 2 and have any complain about the system, or remember things that are a pain around the table (real or virtual), basically any things that could be done easily by a computer and is a pain to do by hand, or advices, well now is the time!

I tried to think of everything, had some (I hope) nice ideas, but of course I certainly missed some things, maybe a lot.

Note: this is not a call for every house-rule existing around the planet. I know most table use some, I do too, but it's not practical to include those. We are aware of the state of house-ruling the game, and trying to find the right balance between automation and flexibility to give some room to GMs. And in the end, Fantasy Grounds has a mechanism for those, it's called Extension.

[Leonal]

Hi! Great initiative!

I had a chat with my group and here are a few thoughts:

1. A more generic Warhammer ruleset, which potentially can be used with ALL the different d100 variations in the Warhammer (40k) line, with the ability for manual labelling is better than many specialized ones.
2. Weapons:
   
   1. One field to type in special characteristics of a weapon and two fields to add the total bonus/penalty to hit and damage takes a lot less space and is easier to handle than listing all the different types. An alternative is how Pathfinder or 4e handles effects.
   2. A simple check-box to differ between using BS or WS, alternatively a box where you can select which attribute to use would be great.
   3. Not implementing automatic critical charts, or alternatively allow to use customized ones. The ones my GM are using are apparently made by doctors, and is way more detailed than what's in the book.
   4. Use as little vertical space per weapon entry as possible. Especially for NPCs they can take up too much space.
   
   
3. Skills:
   
   1. The way it's handled in the current version of the Dark Heresy 3.0 ruleset is perfect (i.e. linking to selected attributes and allow manual adjustments to the total). No changes needed from that one.
   
   
4. Inventory:
   
   1. Money may differ between games and several number-boxes with custom labelling should be allowed. (See Pathfinder)
   2. Encumbrance may also differ between games. Showing the total value, but not its effect based on a single ruleset would be ideal.
   
   
5. Dicerolls:
   
   1. Allow to enable disable showing success/failure count.
   2. Allow, either by changing the XML or in the option interface within FG, the GM to decide what counts as 1 degree of success/failure; either 10 or more from the target or 1-9. (E.g. allow a roll of 28 when the target to count as 1 degree of success or just a success.)
   
   
6. Graphics/design:
   
   1. Our group loves sleek, not too dark and "easy on the eyes" graphics. The Pathfinder and 4E rulesets are great-looking. However the Dark Heresy ruleset, which is awesome in all other aspects, made us change most of the more easily changeable graphics right away.
   
   
7. Hit-location:
   
   1. Allow the numbers to be entered in editable boxes instead of using a flattened and not easily editable graphic.

Hope this isn't too much. As you can see we would rather have one ruleset to cover all our WH(40k)RP needs. Our group has played DH, RT, BC and WFRP over FG, and if we could have the same ruleset for all our Warhammer games it would be great. Automatic calculation for generic things like skills and weapon hit chance rolls, but customizable for the specialized variations is what we are looking for.

Thanks for the work on the Dark Heresy ruleset thus far, and we're really looking forward to what you come up with! (Making the Dark Heresy ruleset more generic with different graphics might be less work, but that's just a guess for my part).

Cheers,
Leonal

[Blacky]

That's radical… and original

But I wonder if that's something doable. I know very little of the various 40K rpg mechanics, but I do know there's significant difference between them (and they're not exactly all the same) and Fantasy.

In theory I see two ways of doing this: either handle each case on a rule by rule basis, which would mean a lot of conditions (if; if; if; if and maybe a hard to read and maintain code; or a very generic one meaning very little automation. For example you talk about automation for skill calculations, but (at least some) 40K and Fantasy don't handle those the exact same way. And it seems the upcoming Dark Heresy 2nd edition will have more significant changes.

The more generic you get, the less automation you have. In my opinion to a fast point of diminishing returns.

There's significant ergonomics difference between the two, meaning 40K players and GM have different needs from Fantasy players&GM. To take one example, the 40K ruleset PC sheet has a huge full tab for weapons, which is quite overkill for Fantasy.

On top of that, even if they all share a name, they don't share that much payer base. A lot of Fantasy players don't play 40K, and the other way around.

All in all, it's probably all about coding practices (meaning it's all in Paul's hands): is it easier to do a common trunk ruleset with for example a child ruleset or an extension for each game; or is it easier to do separate rulesets at least for 40K/Fantasy? I honestly have no idea, but since Paul's doing the coding, I'll ping him about your idea.

[Alchemister]

This is indeed great news indeed, and much cause for celebration. We are just starting a WFRP2 campaign, so will get FB and suggestions, have notified current GM to check the thread. Many thanks.

[Leonal]

I think automation is good when it makes sense and doesn't clutter the character sheet. When playing the various 40K games, and now WFRP, skills are the ones where we appreciate it the most. Having to manually update skill values when the stat changes sucks. For everything other than skills and damage we generally roll the attributes directly and add modifiers on the fly based on e.g. weapon descriptions.

[damned]

i dont play but this sounds great - and you are developing from scratch with multi-language support which is a big plus too and if successful the approach can hopefully be incorporated into other CoreRPG rulesets...

[Blacky]

That's the thing, we all have different needs. The goal is to aim for most players, tables, etc. if possible by tackling the things that take too much time on pen&paper.

For some it's the skills, for others it's the various combat modifiers, or it handling the Imperial Calendar, or it's the quite complex Magic Test.

Take this last one for example, you got Magic characteristic modifiers, channeling bonus, components bonus, Magic test modifiers, armors modifiers, shield modifiers, and on top of that Chaos Dices. That's xd10+yd10-zd10+m+kChaosDices. And they say Shadowrun is complicated ^^ It can very well be a bitch to do by hand, which is why a lot of WFRP players&GM I know conveniently forget a lot of these. It may not be possible to automate, but for some players and even more for some GM it would be a life saver if it can be done.

Some options or tools or automation won't be needed for some table, that's perfectly ok. But to remove these for the sake of removing these…

As for house rules, some will probably being perfectly compatible with the ruleset. Other won't, but that's what FG Extensions are for

[Paul Pratt]

I like Leonal's ideas. There are a few issues though.
A. The weapons I have already reduced the footprint. The idea behind the check boxes and numerous fields was because 40k is complicated! High level games become taxing on players to figure out bonues. The way its set up was so a player could check the boxes and let the automation handle the rest. It was too large though. I have reduced it. Essentially all the checks are hidden now, click a button expand the list, set up the weapon, click to reduce it back to two lines, and away you go. Much better so far. For Warhammer, there are alot less weapon entries to track. And some that are difficult to thread into 40k's damage functions. I am working on this to be a small footprint, easily customized for a groups need, but still focused on resolution by automation.

B. Hit locations, I can make editable, with default values.

C. Inventory using multiple coin types will be in WFRP, in 40k I didn't see the need, and never thought of someone using it to get some WHFRP going!

D. Skills won't change

E. Dice Rolls and outcome/success reports. I am wondering how I can write that as an option. The idea for customized success rates, x 10, x5, x9 or whatever is intriguing and will see what I can do.

F. Graphics... they will be CoreRPG as a base. I am hoping Blacky can make an extension for those that want some eye candy. His work is just that too. Love it.

G. One Ruleset to rule them all... well my goal was one set to handle the 40k lines, and one set for WHFRP. There are quite a few things that vary. I have even thought of an extension you run to modify 40k to WHFRP. That etension is the size of a ruleset though. So many little things need to change. There was a NWoD set out there that had all those lines combined. When you started a new campaign it asked you to choose the systme and went on from there changing details. I am looking at that to see how I can possibly make it work.

I will keep you posted.

Some features I already have worked out are:
Adding NPC's to the Party sheet, loot distribution to them also. (For henchmen and hirelings) - Blacky asked for that, and was a solid idea.
Reduced weapon footprint.
New layout to the charsheet.
Temp modifier fields to all rollable fields. (the little white scrolling ones)
An xp/trait advance portion to the charsheet.
I will be hitting the major conversions to all the files over the next few weeks and hope to have a small set working soon.

-Paul

[Blacky]

B. Hit locations: my first proposal was to keep it simple, with the appropriates hooks to easily add Extension rules if needed. I mean, there are no strict rules in the books for precise location for a lot of things (given the nature of everlasting changing Chaos, such rules are by definition impossible). But if the humanoid location is default with the option to make new ones, add or remove location, change the hit% for each, that's good. Not very high in the priorities list in my opinion, a lot of things are much more useful, but that would be nice.

C. Coins: I proposed to keep the gold, silver and brass/copper coins by default, with a textarea for gems and any other various things. The ruleset could theoretically track the thing coins by coins, meaning crowns vs guilders vs dwarf gold and such and handle estimated change rates and current comparative value but that seems way way overkill to me.

E. Margin of success/error: I got nothing against an option to toggle on/off the display of margins (if on by default), but again that might be the realm of Extensions or low priorities. The 10+ is a degree of success/failure is at the very core of the rules, not even an optional rule iirc. But if done, shouldn't be that hard to do I guess, an Option check and for the house rule “0-9 is a degree” probably just add 1 to the degrees #. But again in my humble opinion more in the Extension realm, or very low priority.

F. I'll include graphics in the ruleset or do an Extension yes, in English and translated into French too. I would expect it to be as good (or bad, to each his own taste) as the Pavillon Noir Reloaded one at the very very very least.

G. To me, one ruleset to rule them all could be something only if it makes great sens from the code point of view. Fro the end user, player or GM, there's no crossover, absolutely no need to do it that way. I get for the various 40k lines, those games are in the same universe. WFRP is not.

As for the party sheet, my main concern was the Watch Order. Loot distribution is good too if not a priority, but since it's here if you could add a share coefficient (it's in the rule for henchmen, and can happen to any party even without the rules).

[Paul Pratt]

I am working on the share values to the party sheet now. Once I had the NPC's on the watch order, I'd figure I would go one further step.

The hit locations, I looked at what I had, and realized it wouldn't/shouldn't be that hard to change (ha! so I think now...)

The one that has me "up at night" is magic, and getting a decent advancement/xp page for WHFRP.