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Role playing game articles, reviews, humor, links, free downloads and more
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Posted By J P on July 23, 2010
I voted, as my legitimate graphic below demonstrates:
I didn’t know a lot of the things, and didn’t have any experience with the rest so I didn’t vote for MUCH, but I still voted. And yes, I DID vote for WFRP3 in a few areas, just because I still think it is probably one of the more deserving games, though I did put in a good vote for BASH, though I haven’t played it – everything I’ve read about it, I like.
Posted By J P on July 16, 2010
A friend’s nephew, let’s call him “John Freeman”, and some of his friends, got a starter set of Dungeons and Dragons, 3.5 I think, none of them had played, apparently, and one of them ran an intro scenario.
“John” said that after about only thirty minutes in, during combat, a couple of the other half dozen people said, “Hey man, did you bring Call of Cthulhu? Let’s play that.”
These are about 16-18 year olds, so I’m fairly surprised, considering this is a group that he has played games with before, Warhammer FRP 2nd Edition and I think Champions, and CoC and some other games, and considering how popular D&D is in other places in general.
From a realist and personal standpoint, I’m not surprised, and am gratified that there are young people with the same kind of discernment that lead me to think what “John” does – “it’s like playing WoW but in tabletop” – which wasn’t meant as a compliment, even though he’s a WoW player.
Posted By J P on June 29, 2010
I’d like to thank John V for the below comments he left, which I’m reposting here as a lead-in (I’ll remove this from the front page if he objects).
johnV says:
nice post JP, OK so i have been curious about this System. out with the old in with the new….I’m cool with that except for a few things. i do believe FFG probably put a lot of work into this system and its true it seems quite inovative. there are some things to be merited here.
my first issues is where did this come from. why the complete reHall? it speaks of a whole Marketing ploy to me. “if we make a new system people will need to re bye all new stuff” $$$. its the way most Roleplaying companies get more money. its a business after all. but when you invest time and money into a system you love its very hard to just through that all away and start fresh.
if you look at the newer version it reminds me so much of Advanced Hero Quest like nothing else. why didn’t they not call it something like that and publish it as a warhammer type game. i guess its a global move to make RPG games more like the Gamming style of WOW even then newer art work is heading towards that style.
You had some awesome original artwork from John Blanche in the v1 which was truly original and really helped create a feel for War hammer as that grim foggy wet and some what oppressive medieval European environment that set it apart from D&D and still does. fantasy art has become so generic and its so sad to see Warhammer v3 head down the same WOW/D&D path.
unfortunately i feel like FFG didn’t really review the old system for any of its merits v1-2 where a fast but detailed system which allowed you alot of freedom. now this new system has headed down the old tabletop cards and dice system its sorta taken the romance out of the game and particularly the artwork on these glossy over charactered colored cards ruins most of it for me sort like eating an over cheesy cheese Pizza.Ah well its a new game so take it or leave it i guess if your new to the this then jump in FFGs and made some great Tabletop games for good old family fun. but for me sorry FFGs i doubt t I’ll be investing my time in the new system especially as they seem to be company that believes they know best and has no interest in connecting with the established and passionate community. also now there is a clear separation between tabletop battle and Roleplaying which is a dam shame for massive campaigns.
well back to collecting old Warhammers Roleplay stuff woot :)… thanks FFGs for making these gems more collect-able.
rockin it Old school :)
john
This main content of this post embodies the essence of what I’ve been trying to say – on one hand, I understand companies are in business to make money, but on the other hand, and you need to adapt or follow the trend or whatever to stay popular and relevant, but at the same time, you can’t help but think the whole redo of the Warhammer sysytem for v3 was for the sole purpose of $$$ and with little or no regard for long-time fans of the game and setting and existing system.
Chaosium is somewhat guilty of the same thing for half a dozen editions of Call of Cthulhu with precious little changed from one edition to another, BUT – the rules remained virtually unchanged at least – you don’t HAVE to have the newest version of CoC to play with the newest module or campaign – heck I’ve got 4 and even have had to make do with 3rd edition and there’s almost no difference in running or playing as long as you have the latest character sheet, you can wing it.
You can’t wing an entirely different dice mechanic, character and statistics setup, spell system, etc. That’s an interesting point about the art going from the more gothic black and white feel to the more generic D&D/WoW fantasy bubblegum/cheesecake – as I mentioned in an earlier post, nowhere is this kind of fashion-chasing more evidence than in the 3rd edition’s book design, that is nearly identical to D&D’s, made to look like old tomes – I thought it WAS a D&D manual at first.
As I’ve said in reply to other commenters, I HOPE it’s good, and I wouldn’t mind playing it, I might even like it, I don’t have any problem with dice pool systems, and though I’m skeptical, the whole “card” setup for everything could lead to a useful routine of keeping things efficient – I just wish they had found some other way to do it than gut WFRP.
Posted By J P on June 18, 2010
I need to make some corrections from my last entry:
I know I would keep the measurements of a 250 enc sack of wool being about 360 lbs and 36 10 lb. units, each of which is about 10 sq yd of wool yarn, enough to make a full outfit.
I actually find that 200-240 sheep were typically figured, at that time, to make up a sack of wool, so each would only be providing 1.5-1.8 lbs of wool each, not sure why the vast difference from the 10 lbs. I found yesterday, but historically, that was the much more common reference, with some figures as high as 280 fleece per sack.
I find a site that says to make a 36″x36″ (1 sq yd?) blanket out of worsted wool, you need 1000-1100 yards of yarn, so it apparently takes roughly a thousand yards of yarn per square yard of worsted wool, so 3,000y = 3 sq yd.
I miscalculated in my earlier post, as I find that supposedly, a pound of wool produces anywhere from 200 yards to a mile of yarn. And I think it is listed as taking about 3 sq yd for a light wool coat (I presume suit coat) in modern times. Throw in the pants, also about 3 sq yd probably, a vest, probably 2 sq yd, you get about 8 sq yd.
I’d say you could extend this to about 4 sq yards for a light medieval coat, 2 sq yd for a tunic, and 3 sq yd for pants, for a total of about 9 sq yd, then add in for a cap and socks for a medieval peasant, for 10 sq yd of yarn, or about 10,000 yards, assuming 1,000 yards per pound. So that takes care of a 10 lb. unit of wool perfectly. How symmetrical.
Taking all this together, 10 lbs of wool produces considerably more than enough to make a modern man’s full suit (not including cotton shirt, socks, shoes etc for modern times), with probably the 1 mile of yarn per pound measurement.
I’d still say:
1 lb worked wool = 1,000 length yards of spun yarn/1 square yard = .70 enc = 1gc retail
1 lb raw wool = 1,000 length yards worth of yarn/1 square yard = .70 enc = 10s retail
10 lb raw wool = 10,000 length yards worth of yarn/10 sq yd = 7 enc = 5gc retail
364 lb raw wool = 364,000 length yards worth of yarn/364 sq yd = 250 enc = 182gc
Maybe once the raw wool is worked into square yards of cloth, its Craftsmanship goes up, increasing its value, so this being raw and unworked wool, it would be Poor (1/2), so 80gc or something similar? Plus being trade goods, it wouldn’t be standard book retail price I’d guess, as it would be done at a trading volume discount.
**EDIT: I see now I doubly miscalculated. Previously, since each pound was also 1 sq yard, there should have been 364 square yards per sack, at 1gc each, so 364gc per sack, so even halving that, you just now get down to the 182gc.
Clearly the problem lies in Warhammer’s math and not any of my figuring, because my effort is beyond impeccable =)
Posted By J P on June 17, 2010
Bags of Wool
Someone posted on a forum that in the Enemy Within Campaign, there are sacks of 250 encumbrance wool that can be used for trading, but he had no idea how much they’d be worth, or how “big” a sack was, etc. So I delved into the internet to find out – this is my story…
In the WFRP2 Old World Armory, it says a light coat, which could be made of wool, costs 3gc and weighs 5 enc.
I found a non-game school test site that includes a question that says a coat requires 5 square yards of wool to make a coat. No idea on context but it’s close enough for me, so assume another 5 average for pants and maybe a cap or something.
I know ENC is bulk too but although wool is very poofy and bulky if carried by the handful, I’d assume wool would be stuffed in sacks as tightly and efficiently as possible, and could be considered to be reduceable to minimum mass and weight.
I also found historical mentions that a sack of wool was developed as a standard unit of measure about 1310 (?) and weighed 26 stone, or 165 kg/364 lbs.
From the above, since a bag of wool “weighs” 250 enc, and say the average fleece worth of wool weighs 7-10 lbs (I’d go with 10 to make things easy), you’d just need to figure out how many square yards of wool you can get per fleece (or pound of fleece).
Since each fleece weighs 10 lbs (6.87 enc), there are 36.4 fleece per 250 enc sack of wool.
1 sack = 250 enc or 364 lbs of 10 lb. wool fleeces
364 lbs / 10 lbs = 36.4 10 lb. wool fleeces
250 enc / 36.4 = 6.87 enc per 10 lb. wool fleece
5 lbs wool fleece = 3.435 enc
1 lb wool fleece = .687 enc
1 enc = 1.456 lbs wool fleece
The core rules state that 10 coins = 1 enc, and a coin weighs about an ounce. From the coin and wool examples, and assuming a coin weighs less than an oz instead of a full oz, we see that 1 enc of coins is 1/2 lb (8 oz or .80 oz each), and 1 enc of wool is 1.456 lbs, so the “bulk” difference is .956 of a pound, close to a full pound worth of difference, in bulk.
So for pure weight with little or no bulk considered for an item, its enc value is 1/2 lb per 1 enc, or 2 enc per lb, while for bulkier but lighter items, their enc value may be as much as 1.45 lbs (or more) per enc, or .687 enc per lb.
One source on the internet says 10 lbs of wool can make a modern man’s suit. If we say the same would apply for a medieval peasant, the coat and breeches and maybe a cap take up about 10 square yards of wool, that’s about one fleece’s worth (10 lbs of wool, or about 50 yards, at 5 yards per pound) of wool yarn. As an aside, a coat takes about 10 hours of labor to make, so I imagine a full outfit would take about a day and a half probably, not counting shoes. Also, in general, a new wool coat set most farmhands back about 2-4 weeks wages, historically.
Anyway, simplifying the numbers above, we get:
1 sack = 36 fleeces worth of wool, 250 enc, 364 lbs/165 kg, 162gc
1 fleece = 10 lbs, 7 enc, 7.07 sq yd wool, makes 1 outfit, 4gc 10s (probably charge 5gc for outfit at least)
5 lb wool coat = 5 enc, 5 sq yd wool, 3gc for finished item
5 lbs wool = 3.5 enc, 5 sq yd wool, 2gc 7s
1 sq yd wool = 1 enc, 1.7 lbs, 1gc (as listed in core rules)
1 lb wool = .70 enc, .70 sq yd wool, 12s (so 1 enc per sq yd of wool)
So according to my calculations, 1 bag of 250 enc (and sq yd of) wool should be worth about 162 gold crowns.
Since we know that usually 10 coins is 1 enc, and 20 shillings make a crown, it is likely that the 10 coins or 1 enc of coins would weigh about 1/2 a pound, or 8 oz, not quite an ounce each.
Now, if you assumed each coin did weigh 1 oz, then:
10 oz coins = .625 lbs = 1 enc (compact, heavy)
23.3 oz wool = 1.456 lbs = 1 enc (bulky, light)
20 oz = 1.25 lbs = 2 enc
46.6 oz = 3 lbs = 2 enc
Either way, the only way it makes sense for an objectively lighter item, like wool, to have the same encumbrance value but be over twice as heavy as an objectively heavier material, is for the bulk to be minimized, and thus the wool is able to be “folded” down and packed so finely that you’re able to fit 3 lbs of wool into the same “mass and bulk space” as 1.25 lbs of coins, which does sort of make sense from a certain standpoint. You can’t bend and fold coins to make them fit into a smaller space, but wool you can flatten and fold tightly.
You just need to decide 10 coins is 8 oz (1/2 lb) or 10 oz (.625 lbs)
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