Is CONAN the best d20 option for WarhammerFantasy Roleplay?
- Thread starter Yuan-Ti
- Start date
GhostWolf69
Mongoose
Let me just put it this way.
One Book, One edition (allthough in several printings it is still the same rules).
I have never over the years ever felt the need for an Errata or FAQ. I'm not even sure there is one... and there definetly doesn't have to be, because it is all in there. And I don't think we have ever argued about a single rule through the years.
Is it a "modern" system? No.
Is it the best ever? Definetly not.
But it works, goddamit!
And it is good in my book.
Balance-shmalance, since when did the DM have to rely on a rule system to keep things balanced? One good thing about the Conan RPG was that they threw all those CR's and XP-charts to hell!
/wolf
One Book, One edition (allthough in several printings it is still the same rules).
I have never over the years ever felt the need for an Errata or FAQ. I'm not even sure there is one... and there definetly doesn't have to be, because it is all in there. And I don't think we have ever argued about a single rule through the years.
Is it a "modern" system? No.
Is it the best ever? Definetly not.
But it works, goddamit!
And it is good in my book.
Balance-shmalance, since when did the DM have to rely on a rule system to keep things balanced? One good thing about the Conan RPG was that they threw all those CR's and XP-charts to hell!
/wolf
GhostWolf69 said:
I couldn't agree more on both counts. I managed to balance WFRP just fine. Before I even had Apocrypha Now, I had dwarf and elf characters face a whole lot of animosity and racism. It worked quite well to balance an unbalanced system with just pure roleplaying.
I am also quite happy that Challenge Ratings, Encounter Levels, Effective Levels, and XP Charts have gone the way of the dodo. I don't miss 'em one lick!
TTFN,
Yokiboy
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Mongoose
lumpensammler said:
So, why did you play it for 3 years if it was soooo un-fun?
Kostchtchie
Mongoose
Seriously what was this "I hate d20" guy even doing anywhere near this site. Totaly un-ashamed trolling.
I dare him to post again and confirm otherwise. :roll:
waiting...
back on topic. I have a "old World" section in my home brew world. It is very Warhammer Fantasy, gritty, cynical, ugly, corrupt and chaos ridden. Sure I have to create some magic styles and ajudicate standard fantasy races on the fly but very few people want to take an elf etc when they miss 3 feats and a whole much of region bonuses (as I call the race mods, which I have applied to the relvant areas in my world)
I am putting together an addendum I call "Pangea" which is a sort of players supplement to the 3.5Players handbook. It is a concise rules version of the differences and anything else I have plucked from Unearthed Arcana or Slaine (which after Conan is not much)
Conan's too good. Just a few non-spell casting classes..
Also some stuff from Excaliber, Arthutian Legends PDF for my Aquilonia/ Bretonia area.
work
I dare him to post again and confirm otherwise. :roll:
waiting...
back on topic. I have a "old World" section in my home brew world. It is very Warhammer Fantasy, gritty, cynical, ugly, corrupt and chaos ridden. Sure I have to create some magic styles and ajudicate standard fantasy races on the fly but very few people want to take an elf etc when they miss 3 feats and a whole much of region bonuses (as I call the race mods, which I have applied to the relvant areas in my world)
I am putting together an addendum I call "Pangea" which is a sort of players supplement to the 3.5Players handbook. It is a concise rules version of the differences and anything else I have plucked from Unearthed Arcana or Slaine (which after Conan is not much)
Conan's too good. Just a few non-spell casting classes..
Also some stuff from Excaliber, Arthutian Legends PDF for my Aquilonia/ Bretonia area.
work
Hi, this is your friend Hyena opening another can of worms with one of his pet peeves : play balance. I think lack of play balance should not be held against WHFRP, whatever his other failings are. Play balance is well and good in itself, but should be overridden by the settting's flavor. Careful play balance in D&D is OK, because the game is setting-less in practice. WHFRP is a game people are attracted to because of its setting, so adhesion to the Warhammer Universe logic should rightly trump play balance considerations. Another fine example is the late LOTR RPG by Decipher. The system also had his failings, lack of playtesting was obvious, but it did a spotless job of throwing play balance out the window for the sake of flavor. This not not to say some characters should riduculously overpower others, I'd hate to see Terminator-like barbarians in Conan, but in setting-heavy games there's no problem in tuning playbalance somewhat down to cater to the setting's logic. IMO, of course.
GhostWolf69
Mongoose
It's a can of worms allright. Luckily I agree with you.
The main reason for my disslike of Balance Tools like CR and xp-charts is that it encourages meta-gaming. My players are much more likely to think and/or say "Hey this monster is presented to us, so it has to be balanced for us."
Where as in WHFRP they would just run like hell if I described the encounter horrible enough.
I don't think my players have ever retreated or run away from an encounter in DnD... as a result they die from time to time becasue they were not supposed to beat that particular encounter... and as a result they whine and bitch about it to no end: "How come you threw CR5 critters at us when we're only lvl2?? That's not fair! You are supposed to balance the game dude!" And my reply is... "It was balanced... I would have let you get away if you had so much as tried to run." But no... they don't get it... the reason here is the system.
When the very same people play WHFRP they can be scared shitless in a regular bar brawl, cause they know that even if they have Fate points, they are extremely hard to come by, and they don't want to spen one just because some drunken peasant got a lucky strike...
... not to mention when they run into horrors from the void of chaos... man they run like hell. 8)
/wolf
The main reason for my disslike of Balance Tools like CR and xp-charts is that it encourages meta-gaming. My players are much more likely to think and/or say "Hey this monster is presented to us, so it has to be balanced for us."
Where as in WHFRP they would just run like hell if I described the encounter horrible enough.
I don't think my players have ever retreated or run away from an encounter in DnD... as a result they die from time to time becasue they were not supposed to beat that particular encounter... and as a result they whine and bitch about it to no end: "How come you threw CR5 critters at us when we're only lvl2?? That's not fair! You are supposed to balance the game dude!" And my reply is... "It was balanced... I would have let you get away if you had so much as tried to run." But no... they don't get it... the reason here is the system.
When the very same people play WHFRP they can be scared shitless in a regular bar brawl, cause they know that even if they have Fate points, they are extremely hard to come by, and they don't want to spen one just because some drunken peasant got a lucky strike...
... not to mention when they run into horrors from the void of chaos... man they run like hell. 8)
/wolf
You know if you hadn't reminded me that, I'd have forgotten to lecture my players about encouter balance. I'm gonna make me a big wooden sign saying in bold : 'YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE : ENCOUNTER BALANCE IN THIS GAME IS SET TO COC MODE. BAD GUYS ARE AS POWERFUL AS THE STORY REQUIRES. IN OTHER WORDS : FUCK. CHALLENGE. RATING. IF YOU STILL HAVEN'T LEARNT ABOUT BETTER PART OF VALOR, NOW IS A VERY GOOD TIME TO DO IT.' I'll smack each of them around with it, so they won't get to say I'm not playing fair.
Edit : Hey, look ! They have automatic editing of the F-word ! No, Ghotswolf that's f-u-c-k, not f-e-i-n-t.
Edit : Hey, look ! They have automatic editing of the F-word ! No, Ghotswolf that's f-u-c-k, not f-e-i-n-t.
GhostWolf69
Mongoose
Hyena said:
:lol: LOL :lol:
Hehehehe.... nice!
/wolf
GhostWolf69
Mongoose
Heron said:
Yeah... I'm just so worried they'll screw this up that I can hardly wait.... the agony.... what if they mess it up?... I can't take the tenssion any more!!
*wolf starts to chase his own tail around and around in a circle until he falls down panting with exhaustion and dizzyness*
/wolf
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Mongoose
GhostWolf69 said:
Yeah, I undrestand this. I had my players swarmed by 9 drider in a drak forest when they were only first level. One guy decided he wanted to stay and fight. Another character died later in the campaign because he didn't want to run as well. All this even though I told them before the campaign began that they wouldn't always be able to fight and win.
To me, balance only means one thing - that there is an equal balance between how much fun each player (including the DM) is having.
Thats it. As long as everyone is enjoying themselves to the same extent, who cares that Bob's character is twice as good at killing people as Joe's?
And unless the mechanical imbalance between PCs is huuuuuge, the GM can always compensate for it by RPing. Yes, in WFRP, Elves were far and away the best PC characters. On paper, at least.
But when they hit town and are the targets of anti-elfism by the suspicious, predominantly human population, they would gladly surrender their +20 to I in order to be treated like human beings. At least in my campaigns...
Thats it. As long as everyone is enjoying themselves to the same extent, who cares that Bob's character is twice as good at killing people as Joe's?
And unless the mechanical imbalance between PCs is huuuuuge, the GM can always compensate for it by RPing. Yes, in WFRP, Elves were far and away the best PC characters. On paper, at least.
But when they hit town and are the targets of anti-elfism by the suspicious, predominantly human population, they would gladly surrender their +20 to I in order to be treated like human beings. At least in my campaigns...
GhostWolf69
Mongoose
Mayhem said:
Correct, and you are forgetting something. The Elves have past their prime, so they lack favour with the gods... only 1 Fate Point. That is pretty bad and can usually get any elf killed faster than the average human hero... even though the elf's stats is way better.
/wolf
GhostWolf69
Mongoose
nidhog said:
That is the rumour yes, and that is what I'm affraid they will screw up.
/wolf
GhostWolf69
Mongoose
Hyena said:
I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole... :lol:
Send me a PM.
/wolf
I don t wanna fan any flames here but I m still a big proponent of balanced characters. The WHFRP game I was in had a mix of humans and elves, and the elves were superior to the humans in such drastic ways. This is consistent with all GW games, which use point systems as a balancing factor... in an RPG there s no such mechanism. The human players would watch in awe as their elf companions made them feel impotent in comparison.
It really bothered many of the players (human and elf alike). A better DM might have been able to bring some level of equality, but the disparity was huge. Spellcasting was much the same way, no system of checks and balances.
I think the great strength of the d20 system (and I m an unabashed d20 fanboy) is it s balancing of characters and races. Even in my D&D campaigns I never use CRs and XP charts etc, they are tedious and unnecessary, but maintaining a relative level of equality amongst players is paramount to keeping a harmonious party, IMHO.
It really bothered many of the players (human and elf alike). A better DM might have been able to bring some level of equality, but the disparity was huge. Spellcasting was much the same way, no system of checks and balances.
I think the great strength of the d20 system (and I m an unabashed d20 fanboy) is it s balancing of characters and races. Even in my D&D campaigns I never use CRs and XP charts etc, they are tedious and unnecessary, but maintaining a relative level of equality amongst players is paramount to keeping a harmonious party, IMHO.
Hyena said:
Wolves fear controversy but snakes do not. :wink:
YES! The WFB (fantasy battle) has all kinds of silly crap in it -- such as the aforementioned
Most of the novels completely avoid those, although there is the occasional mention of them. At the time the WHFRP was released, these things did not exist in WFB, so they did not appear in WHFRP.
And Wolf has much to fear that the kinder, gentler GW may very well release Teenage Mutant Ninja Warhammer Roleplay.
