Friday 1 December 2017

WFRP General: WFRPv1 PDF and a Director's Cut of TEW

More news from Cubicle 7.

They will be offering a PDF version of the original hardback WFRP from Games Workshop. The Humble Bundle version was a Hogshead version.

Also, they are developing a director's cut of The Enemy Within, with the involvement of none other than Graeme Davis!

Read more here:

http://forums.cubicle7.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9976

/Magnus

Thursday 30 November 2017

WFRP General: Finally some real news!

The silence from Cubicle 7 has been deafening and to be honest a bit disheartening. But finally, finally we get some official news.

http://cubicle7.co.uk/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-fourth-edition-news/

The good news: we got news!

The bad news: they fell into the "we can make it even better!" trap. So the release is mid 2018.

There will be a boxed starter set and a core rulebook, and the covers they share look great! I love the art of Ralph Horsley, and always associated it with WFRP even if he paints for another game.

Tomorrow we'll get more info, they promise, something about a multi part campaign from olden days of first edition. This must surely be the Doomstones Campaign! Or maybe The Restless Dead ... or maybe something about a bad guy living inside your house ... or whatever the title of that campaign was.

/Magnus

Thursday 14 September 2017

All of WFRPv2 in PDF ... legally. And WFRPv1 core rulebook!

You've probably heard about it by now but it's too good a deal to not pass on. There's a WFRP Humble Bundle available, where you pay what you want and get all of WFRPv2 in PDF format, together with the core rulebook for WFRPv1.

WFRP Humble Bundle.

Wednesday 24 May 2017

WFRP General: The future of WFRP

So there will be a fourth edition of WFRP. Many years ago, just before WFRPv3 was announced I penned a long post with my thoughts on what I'd do to revive WFRP if I had unlimited funds. I might as well post it now updated to reflect current events, it might give Cubicle 7 some ideas.

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What I would do to revive WFRP given unlimited funds

My thinking has turned to the question of what I would do if I had the WFRP license. I actually sat down and gave the topic some thought just days before WFRPv3 was announced. I was aided by the discussion on the forums of Fantasy Flight and RPGnet, where many thought-provoking perspectives were posted. It has now returned to my thoughtosphere.

The first thing I would do was to put together a road map of my plans. Then I'd solicit feedback on this plan from the following people (I've grouped some people together to make it easier to list them):

Warpstone
Liber Fanatica
Strike-to-Stun
Official WFRP writers for v1, v2 and v3
Dave Allen
Graeme Davis
James Wallis

If needed, I'd pay Allen, Davis and Wallis for special consultation. I would have to check with Games Workshop as well, but that's a given.

This would be an initial feedback loop, to be able to modify my plans, and to build interest and excitement among influential existing fans. Which I would hope that my plans would do (some people would not be excited at all, I'm sure, but they would be given the opportunity to influence the plans as much as everyone else. If they declined, there would be others to take their places).

The next step would be to do inventory of every published book for WFRPv1, WFRPv2 and WFRPv3. I'd also try to compile information on the best fan material published. The goal of this would be to get the big picture of what is already available for the game.

All this would go into a database. It would be edited if need be, and checked for consistency.

I would already have the right to the offical material, but I would want to secure the rights to as much high quality fan material as possible. I know that GW claims to own it all anyways, but I'd want to buy the rights for going industry rates.

Then I'd start production according to the plan. I'd take a good hard look at EFRPv3 and what they did right, WFRPv2 and what they did right, and at WFRPv1 and what they did right, and I'd work out new/old/improved rules based on that, but keeping the basic system from v1/v2. It would be more like v2 than v1, rules wise, I think, but I'd work with the combat parts to streamline and electrify the combats. I'd have a look at magic as well, but I'm not really sure what I'd do with that.

I have grown to like the WFRPv3 system, and would try to distill mechanics that would fit into the v1/v2 system if possible. 

I'd take the v2 bestiary and Sigmar's Heirs, and smash those together with the core book. One evergreen fat book. Then I'd rewind the timeline to before the Storm of Chaos. This core book I would put out as an open playtest for six months, before making one last revision.

Then I'd produce a lightweight boxed set, a la Mordheim, which combined the iconic grim and gritty WFRP with fast paced action and NPC interaction.

These two products would be released simultaneously. With plenty of adventure support on the web, collected from material already in production.

Then I would revise the v2 Realms books to bring them in line with the revised bumper core book.

Then I'd go on my spending spree and buy up some fan material, like everything Warpstone ever did and re-edit, convert and fix some things up, and release it and new stuff in bi monthly magazines, aimed to being cheap and affordable. All adventures would go up on a support website. I'd buy Blicher's maps and make them official WFRP maps. I'd pay MadAlfred for the research he did.

Then I'd have Graeme Davis collect and revise the original Enemy Within into one big campaign box, with lots of handouts. I'd buy Empire at War from MadAlfred as well, and replace Empire in Flames. I'd have to do something about Rotten in Kislev as well.

Finally I'd commission myself to develop an Altdorf sourcebook, and I'd pay Andy Law to create the megamap of the capital that he has been dreaming of.

I'd start a WFRP web site, with forums for all editions, and official support for my version. I'd create special areas for fan material for the current version AND for material for the other editions, if people wanted to create that. I'd offer templates for creating nice looking PDF-material, and try to recruit people from fandom to help editing and creating the fan material.

Why support several editions? Because v1 and v2 are very similar rules wiese, and stuff from one edition can be used with the other. WFRPv3 fluff can be used as well. The best fan material for v1, v2 and v3 would be converted to my v4 as well.

My strategy would then be to produce low cost support material to keep the core fans happy, and a bumper book once in a while. The starter set, the core book and TEW would be the products I really would want to be the core of my business. Buy those and play, if you continue with other stuff that's fine, but it would be the core that was the core so to say.

I'd probably lose a metric load of money. Which wouldn't make the publishers happy, but I think that my plan would be approved by a lot of fans.

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Well, it's a plan. Probably not what Cubicle 7 would be doing.

/Magnus

WFRP: Fourth time's the charm!

And so it begins again!

Cubicle 7 announcement.

WFRP will be back, and it sounds like it will be a continuation of the v1/v2 type system. The world I guess will be based on available source material, regardless of edition.

Let's see if this can revitalise my blogging!

/Magnus

Friday 27 January 2017

Third time's a charm! It's Cubicle 7

Sleuth EN World user TeichDragon noticed that the distributor for WFRPv2 products on DriveThruRPG is listed as Cubicle7. So it seems that the license landed at Cubicle7.

I don't know much about the company, but the latest RPG product I bought was the Adventures in Middle-Earth Player's Guide, which seems solid to me. They use Ralph Horsley as an illustrator for covers, and he has done fabulous WFRP illustrations before. And T.S. Luikart is a part of Cubicle7, and he has worked on WFRPv2.

There is a thread about this on the Cubicle7 forums, but there has been no comment yet from the company ... not even a denial. Suspect! Or a confirmation of sorts, if you interpret it that way.

/Magnus

Thursday 26 January 2017

Another part of the rumour of WFRP reborn!

Today I found another piece of the puzzle that is WFRP reborn. The producers of Zweihänder claims more knowledge!

An European publisher, speculated to be Modiphius. That sounds like it could be true. Asmodee is mentioned, as is Cubicle 7. Both those companies have earlier connections to WFRP.

Modiphius would be cool, since they did the 3rd edition of Mutant Chronicles, a game I co-wrote and co-created all those years ago. I'd love to see a MC style kickstarter.

Click here to read more!

Wednesday 25 January 2017

Rumours of a new edition

In a thread on RPG.net WFRP fan writer extra-ordinaire Robin Low asked for any rumours about a new edition of our favourite game. Of interest is one poster who claimed to have heard that the license has been aquired by a company and that an announcement is planned.

Fantastic rumour! But given that the source is an anonymous user that has only 36 posts on RPG.net, I am loathe to get my hopes up. But nevertheless, baseless speculation follows!

Further investigation reveals the poster to be an illustrator who has done some work for Robert Schwalb, of WFRPv2 fame and infamy. Maybe he has passed on some info heard from his contacts?

So given Schwalb's connection with WFRPv2 via Green Ronin, could the WFRP license have ended up at said company, now as a full licensee and not a production house for Black Library? Sure it could be true. Chris Pramas loves WFRP as far as I can tell, and could roll the game back to v2 rules without much effort or loss of gamer cred.

And if I would guess at an existing company picking up WFRP Green Ronin would be right up there with Modiphius. As a matter of fact, those are the only two alternatives I would feel comfortable with doing a new/updated WFRP.

The more probable guess is that this rumour is false. But one can always hope!