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.

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.

johnV says:

June 27, 2010 at 4:34 pm

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.

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 =)

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)

10 coins = 1 enc, as the rules state, seems workable I guess, and since, as stated in the rules, each coin weighs essentially an ounce, we can therefore extrapolate a larger-than-silver-dollar coin-sized object as the standard representative unit of encumbrance, small, compact, rigid, stackable, though round and not easily interlocking, and somewhat heavy for its size.

From this we get:

10 oz or coins = 1 enc, so…

5 oz or coins = 1/2 enc

16 oz (one pound avoirdupois /US) = 1.6 enc
(which I personally would call 1.5 enc for simplicity sake if only working with lbs as the important weight factor)
2 lbs (30-32 oz or coins) = 3 enc
4 lbs (60-64 oz or coins) = 6 enc
6 lbs = 9 enc (I’d call this 90-100 coins for simplicity)

To me it looks like it would be easier to make coins weigh less than an ounce and have 20 coins be a US pound.
-If you did this, it would make each coin weigh .80 oz each, or, with some somewhat unsteady math, 23 grams each coin to come up with 460 grams per pound or 25 g per coin to equal a full 500 g (1/2 kg).
-This would make 10 coins = 1/2 lb or 230-250 grams (1/4 kg), where 1 kg = 2.205 lbs.

Going by this, 1 enc = 1/2 lb (8 oz) or (very roughly) 1/4 kg (250 g).
I have no problem with THIS portion of the ENC system, really, one ENC system is as good as any other, just about, if you have to use one – some arbitrary number represents bulk and weight, and while this takes its liberties with the gap between US/European measurements, it’s doable overall, though I haven’t checked the equipment to see how well it maps to items, though I think one would have to consider an “effective bulk” rating that is worth so much weight, that is the tradeoff to explain “heavy” pillows and such.

The problem is the weight of people.
So someone weighing a standard S 31 + T 31 x 10 roll of 620 enc = 310 lbs (4,960 oz) or 155 kg. But I still don’t see people with high S and T weighing massively more – it breaks down here as well. I can see using S and T both as maybe the basis for carrying capacity, rather than just S though.

It is weird WFRP uses a table for determining height and weight and tells you how much coins weigh in both real-world weight and encumbrance, then uses an encumbrance formula that totally makes characters’ weights in the two arenas contradict each other.

If anyone is interested, I planned on putting these in a zip as a PDF and the OpenOffice spreadsheet file so people can add their own favorite third-party Types in and have their own custom Types lists.

Basically, the only thing NOT on the profiles is the full description of the Type, and the explanations of each Unique Schtick – I figure since you have to look Skills and Schticks, Sorcery, etc. up, I’ll put together a Unique Schtick list too for that.  These are basically for people who already are familiar with the Types and just need a quick reference to make new characters, or newbies, it should work for both.

Not directly gaming related, but more to the visitors to this site. First of all, I’d like to thank you for your visit, and I do hope you find something useful, or at least entertaining, as that’s the intent (useful moreso), because that’s what *I* look for on the net, is rare, unusual, useful, specific/niche resources that I need but nobody seems to have, and so that’s what I aim to provide, if and when possible – that and voluminous amounts of text, but that’s just a freebie.

Anyway, just quickly, I’d like to give an official welcome to visitors from Tabletop RPG Fun’s top 21 countries, as shown in the list below, from the very cool, free Statcounter – so “Hi!” to everyone from the US down through the Republic of Korea!

Italy? Third for visitors to this site? Why? What do I have that has an Italian aspect to it?  And I still puzzle over #17, ” ” – apparently I get visits from the Great Void, 3 so far, who apparently also play RPGs when they’re not busy being no one and doing nothing.

I always feel bad, from the first days since I got on the net and figured out how to use “analytics” or keyword tracking

programs and find out how people got to my site, at the sometimes bizarre phrases that I used as “one-off” throwaway comments that for some reason “stuck” as major hits in searches, like my old site jpatt.net (now a parked ad domain) got the most hits for Paulina Poriszkova (or however you spell her name), because I mentioned her ONE time in an offhand joke in ONE post.

Luckily, keywords and searches have improved some since those days, but now it’s more specific and you have to live up to your reputation you make for yourself – you make a couple of good posts and then your hits start coming from those, and without a lot of similar posts, you feel almost like you’re cheating people.

I recently made a post about a bunch of sites that let you generate images of your own custom superhero characters, and that turned out to be pretty darn popular – my most popular post yet, even outpacing my paper miniature one, which was also a big walker. But that isn’t really my forte – I made the post about those – it’s kind of a dead fish – there they are, use them, you know, what more can I say?  I suppose if I got the gumption I could do tutorials or something on how to use one or more of them, I dunno.

Warhammer 3rd Edition has been out a while now but I still get comments on some of my posts now and then, which surprises me, as I feel like I’m kinda in a state of suspension – I don’t really have any real idea people are visiting with no ACTIVE activity – I can look at these stats and see this many hits and such but it doesn’t mean anything to me, I mean it doesn’t give me much useful info to go on, of what people think, what they’re looking for, etc., so when I get a comment on assumedly forgotten posts, I’m surprised all over again people actually read what I write on my own site, that people find it from search engines and the few places I post links, or my signature where I post.

I have a larger map but this is just a general idea anyway, that set me back. I’m once again amazed at our culture and technology, allowing people, even people like me, I’m nobody, just some middle aged guy of no note with no particular skillset and only some basic college classes, hardly been out of my own state here in the US, but the things I’ve thought up, my opinions and creations, have been read by people from countries I’ll never visit, people in foreign lands who speak languages I’ll never learn, with beliefs I might never understand.

It’s not that it makes me “important”, it’s that the internet cuts through the whole concept of “important”, like “space folding” or wormholes or something, and just replaces “important” with “useful”.  Countries can share with each other – not on a national governmental level, politics and military and trade goods, but the citizens themselves, the PEOPLE, the heart of the countries, not the structure, can share information and culture and behavior, humor and outlook and goodwill, and help each other, cooperative, selfless and beyond the bounds of nationalism, racism, religious intolerance and all that nonsense.

Maybe someone in Holland really needed that Warhammer 2nd Edition Mass Siege rule addition I wrote, or maybe I needed that fan-made article from the Phillipines on how to run faster mook combat in Feng Shui – do any of us, the writers or the downloaders care where it came from or where it’s going, other than appreciation-wise? No. And even better, for us, is maybe someone will get that thing we put heart and sweat into and will say “This isn’t at all what I wanted, or what I thought, this is really pretty awful”. If we can KNOW this, THIS is what makes things great, because we get feedback – we get to improve, we get important information and opinions and likes and dislikes from others, to get to know what people think we did right or wrong, what people are or aren’t looking for, how far out or close we are to other people’s general mindset on the same subjects.  Maybe my aforementioned siege rules were terrible (probably are, the more I think about it, and need redone), but maybe someone took the kernel of an idea and made their own GOOD ones, that’s great too! And if they emailed me and told me what they thought, that would be even better!

None of us are going to become famous or rich (even if that WERE possible in RPG circles) even if we’re top content producers and even get real published and internationally sold documents, but I think there is something satisfying, maybe it’s just ego, about knowing you’re able to provide something to someone, something useful, practical, something someone else is looking for and appreciates, to someone else, especially someone far off, someone different than yourself – because when you’re able to do this, you’re also able to realize maybe they AREN’T so different after all.

FS Modern Character Sheet

Yes, it’s that time again.  I have compiled a new set of updated FS character sheets, now with juncture skinning and “watermarking”, shot counter, Big Bruiser/Normal dual Death Check/Impair listing (on one sheet) and streamlining a few different rough edges from the initial batch.

• 69AD “Jade”
• 1850 “Papyrus”
• Modern “Chrome”
• 2052 “Circuit”
• General Basic “Vanilla”
• Zip of all five 2010 sheets

Hope those are of use to someone!

What I did NOT expect was to find so MANY of the “make your own” style websites, and I’m not just talking about superheroes here; there are “make your own living room”, “make your own celebrity”, “make your own shirt”, “make your own normal person” (doll), pets, buildings, locations, just about anything else, some in rather unassuming places on the web. I am very impressed with the amount of free resources available to people wanting to create their own virtual scenes, people and such, but lack the artistic talent to do so.

At any rate, I’ll just give you the rundown and it should really keep you busy for… well, practically forever! Although the different sites have different methods for “saving” your finished work, I personally advise taking a screenshot of your finished creation FIRST, opening up a graphics program like MS Paint, Paint.Net, GIMP, Photofiltre or any other suitable application, paste it out of your clipboard as a new image, and save it to your hard drive.

Hero Machine
The most famous superhero maker – it has a TON of options.

Hero Factory
More stylized and “indy” with a different take on things.

Fabrica De Herois – Blogspot Version
Spanish (?) superhero maker at a Blogspot page.

Fabrica De Herois – Official Version?
Different version of the above – more hero types, fewer choices each.

Cartoon Network’s Ben 10 Hero Matrix
Sort of bordering on superhero, it is really alien, but still a nice crisp maker.

RainbowDressup.com – Male Superhero
I’m surprised – this actually is fairly good for primarily a doll dressup site.

Girls Games 24 – Female Superhero
Female version of above.

Hero Creator X
A non-realistic cartoony superhero creator – still not bad.

Super Heroes World Maker
More like Colorforms, drop pre-made characters (Green Lantern, etc) and people into a scene. Still neat!

Super Hero Doll Maker
Basically just a “drop the outfit on the female doll” site but might be useful for a quick character.

Princess Presto’s Create Your Own Superhero
This helps teach kids English, rewarding them for correct answers by outfitting a character as a superhero.

Dream Avatar
Pudgy little “Chibi” anime characters, but an ok selection of items.

South Park Character Maker
Well known.

Dressup Empire
An astounding collection of “makers” for people, scenes, pets, etc.

Dress Me Up
A very large site of dressup options and categories, easily comparable to the above.

Dollzmania
Essentially a giant clearinghouse, hub and index of Doll sites.

Superhero Doll Maker
I guess this vaguely be called a superhero section as it claims, as it has a couple of recognizable super accessories.

Dressup Spot
More of the same.

Marilee’s Paper Dolls Page
Classy paper dolls, like old style line-art realistic, fairly specific. Includes Hyacinth and Richard Bucket.

Marvel
Obviously the most comic book looking, but not a whole lot of options.

Hero Factory
Stupid randomly generated comic/hero name!

Fabric De Herois: Blogspot
Only a few types, but good selection of parts, and overall quality is spotty.

Fabric De Herois: Official (?) (I made the name in PSP)
Stylized but unmistakably high quality, more hero types but fewer parts.

Hero Machine (blurry from too many jpg/gif conversions of old image)
Closest thing to a quality “universal” character generator as one can get.