Ever since Green Ronin’s original announcement that it would develop Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play: Second Edition for Games Workshop, gamers have been itching to get more details. In issue 22 of Warpstone Magazine (shipping now), more details will be revealed in an interview with Green Ronin founder Chris Pramas. When asked what needs to be fixed in the WFRP rules, Pramas, personally revising the new edition, had the following answer:
The core of the system is a good one but it has been a long time since the first edition. A lot of my work is simplifying, clarifying, and streamlining. The three “big issues” were long-term character advancement, the magic system, and the old chestnut of “naked dwarf syndrome.” I’ve addressed the first and third of those already and I’ll be sorting the magic system next. There were also some things in the old rules that seemed to be there because they were in AD&D, like alignment and class. Those we just tossed.
Chris’ words should reassure longtime fans of the game. Combined with popular WFRP authors and an ambitious release schedule (which you’ll have to read the review to learn about), the new version should turnout to be exactly the improved version WFRP fans have been hoping for.
Surely survivability was a pretty major issue as well?
Survivability? There’s plenty of extremely deadly games (for the characters) out there, many of them popular. What makes survivability such a major design concern for WFRP 2nd edition?
It’s jsut one of the major complants many people had about the game, that’s all. It would be the same for pretty much any other deadly for the PCs game going around.
I don’t recall hearing folks complain about the survivability of the system. It was self-advertised as a pretty rough combat system generally, and most fans that I’ve found both shudder and grin at at.
As for outright survivability, I ran the entire Enemy Within campaign post-college, along with most of the White Dwarves, etc. at the time. A number of characters made it through the campaign; several, of course, did not. There were no grumbles either way around that I recall.
Properly used (GW covered this in an article that came out around WHFRP’s initial release), Fate Points provide huge survivability in Warhammer, even with the luverly crits.