What is your opinion of Fantasy Flight Games?
X wing is fun. Thats all I have played
>>46480863
A bit costly for most titles, but their components are always top notch.
I dislike how they plan for expansions to shit though. This can lead to some games being horribly underwhelming with a base set of whatever you are playing until you beef it up with extra shit.
The LCG model was a good shot in the arm for people who do enjoy playing card games with customizable decks as well.
On the whole I like more about them then I dislike about them.
Their rulebooks are universally ass though.
>>46480863
I like them, I've had a blast with their 40k games and I recently played a short campaign with their Star Wars system, the funky dice are actually pretty neat.
Their Star Wars RPG is amazing, as are their Star Wars war/boardgames. I've heard Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is great too, though fucking expensive. That's all I know about them.
AGOT 1.0 was fun if a bit esoteric with some of its rules
The core mechanics and multiplayer were fucking fantastic though. I have yet to play 2.0 but I've heard good things
I like a lot of their stuff, but I'm worried about what they're going to do with L5R.
I know they're dumping the CCG for an LCG, which is something I'm neutral on, but I really don't want them to ditch Roll and Keep in favor of a special dice system, which seems likely given their history. Roll and Keep is perfectly functional and the current RPG ruleset uses it very thematically.
>>46480863
Their Star Wars RPG is fantastic, once you get a hang of the dice.
>>46480891
Amazingly enough that is one of the few FFG products I have yet to play.
I have the following stuff from them.
Warhammer Invasion (some expansions)
Warhammer Diskwars (including all expansions)
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3e (absolutely everything for it. Shit is unquestionably the game I spent the absolute most money on in my years of gaming)
Star Wars RPG (three corebooks and a few adventures)
Cave Troll (total shit)
Drakon (simple backstabbing fun)
Android Netrunner base game (didn't like it)
Descent 2nd edition (absolutely everything so far)
Talisman base game (no need for expansions)
Elder Sign (absolutely everything)
Call of Cthulhu the card game (all the deluxe expansions)
Fury of Dracula (interesting with a full group)
Eldritch horror (a bit wonky but fun)
Runebound (gets the most playtime and needs some expansions for the main quest line)
DungeonQuest (let's see how long it takes to die in terrible ways)
Runewars (haven't played it yet, relatively new purchase)
Rune Age (a fun deckbuilder)
Warhammer Quest card game (solid title that is a bit thin and once again need expansions)
Gears of War (fucking fantastic game)
Star Wars Imperial Assault (never even opened)
Battlelore (absolutely everything and a great simplified mini combat game)
That's about it so far. Figure I would snatch up Blood bowl Team manager and Chaos in the old world just to complete their Warhammer line of games soon enough.
>>46480863
The least concerned you are with draconian interpretations of their rules, the more fun you'll have. And you'll keep yourself sane too.
I love them for wh40k rpgs.
I hate them for what they have done to wh40k rpgs.
>>46480958
It always amazes me how their Star Wars RPG gets nearly universal praise but their fantasy game that used basically the same system was almost universally shat upon because it was different from the previous two editions of the same game.
SW RPG proved that the mechanics and ideas presented in the previous system were fantastic ones, but fuckers hate change.
>>46481053
The very idea behind a LCG is to make it so nobody can really buy a victory and it focuses on purely on utilizing strategy with access to the same cards as everybody else.
If you play a game for purposes of trying to out play and out smart your opponent, it is the better way of handling things.
>>46480863
They're a good publisher.
They make attractive games with decent components and generally do good things with licensed themes.
Their in-house designers are enthusiastic and creative but often seem to write ambiguously phrased rules and inconsistent rulesets that need a lot of ongoing clarification/errata. But to their credit, they are always good about providing that sort of support in a timely fashion. They sometimes fall short of the mark on balance.
Their planned-obsolescence cycle is a bit punishing if you want to get into one of their expandable games late in it's life.
Overall there are certainly a few things I wish they did differently, but I enjoy FFG products and plan to continue buying their stuff.
>>46481143
Yes, but the fact that they're completely abandoning the old game upsets people who are into it. I'm not one of those people, which is why I'm neutral on that subject. I'm worried about the RPG, not the card game(s).
>>46481174
Once again, they kind of have to abandon the old game completely if they want to have the proper balance.
I wouldn't be too worried about the L5R RPG, FFG has shown they know how to handle RPGs pretty well.
>>46481174
They've done it with the Thrones card game twice now. They switched from CCG to LCG, then streamlined the first edition of LCG into its current form, with no support for the old edition. I played the CCG and 1.0 LCG for years, and I decided to just call it quits when they announced 2.0. It really doesn't reflect well on them to just abandon a playerbase
Though I will say that the Thrones CCG had some of the worst examples of power creep I've ever seen. Like holy shit, it was bad at the end before they switched.
They need someone or a team of someones to doublecheck to make sure shit lines up.
>>46480863
They're pretty cool.
>>46480863
The stuff I've played by them has been great, just a bit pricey. But usually worth the cost.
>>46481104
What fantasy game was that? I'd be interested in that.
>>46481420
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It uses the same narrative dice SWRPG does.
>>46481104
That, or it proved that Star Wars fans will choke down anything and ask for seconds.
>>46481464
Can confirm, I loved Episode 7
>>46481509
I did too. :-/
>>46481439
Ah, I remember that. To be fair, it's a pretty drastic change.
>>46481420
Warhammer 3e.
The cards and bits and bobs were used to help you keep track of shit instead of referencing pages in the player's handbook and writing down damage and what not. It is probably the only RPG that I have DM'd where I didn't even need a fucking pencil to run it with no hiccups.
It was amazingly well though out, used the same success/failure, boons/banes, big good and big bad effects that star wars uses for its dice mechanic, has the dice pool effect, set-weapon damage, etc.
Pretty much everything that SW gets love for, WH3e did but it was hated because 1. it was pricey to get the base game box, 2. It wasn't WH with a d100 system which was blasphemous and 3. They excluded some standard stuff from the previous games (halflings, ogres, ratcatchers, etc) that they did eventually re-introduce. Hell they even made it so you didn't have to use a single bit or bob outside the narrative dice if you just bought the hardback rulebooks and people still kind of shat all over it because it wasn't 'MY warhammer'.
The edition war was just as bad among the Warhammer community as the 3.5 vs 4 edition wars was among the D&D community. Except very and I mean very few people rushed to the defense of the game changes for warhammer because of one big thing, all those bits and bobs USED to be absolutely necessary to run the game when it first came out and that meant pirating a .pdf of the title was basically impossible so the fanbase struggled to grow and ultimate it fell flat.
Still, it had about five years worth of stuff released for it and I would say it beats the shit out every other fantasy RPG when it comes to social interactions and such AND what was released was pretty much universally well done products.
>>46481464
As someone who didn't like TFA much, I've found the FFG Star Wars RPG very fun.
>>46481602
Were the dice ABSOLUTELY necessary for WHFRPG? Because you can use normal dice for the SW one.
>>46481067
>(absolutely everything for it. Shit is unquestionably the game I spent the absolute most money on in my years of gaming)
Yeesh. I waited for the christmas sale where they were dumping stock at cost.
Overall I think they're pretty good, their components are always top quality and their games are always at least good. However their release schedule for some games (GoT being a prime example) can be unyielding and very obstructive for new players. Also they're poor at letting new buyers know that buying a single copy of a core LCG will not be enough for any competitive play.
>>46481104
Or perhaps the difference in tone between the settings meant that one system fit nicely to one setting, but not the other. And/or that those who liked the idea of playing in one setting would generally prefer one of the systems. And let's not forget that there already was a quite good Warhammer RPG readily available, while on the Star Wars side you'd get to choose between an ancient one with no CC rules, or some d20 variant, so while for SW there was somethign of a hole to fill, but for Fantasy it could be seen more as change for the sake of change. It also meant there was more of a pre-existing fanbase for their specific thing (SW obviously having a pretty hefty general fanbase) which could be less than thrilled at things suddenly working a lot differently.
>>46480863
Their obsession with chits, tokens, and numerous decks of tiny cards is a bit distressing.
>>46481097
Gee, Brain, what HAVE they done to 40k rpgs?
>>46481104
That's because WHF fans are cancerous, toxic trash.
>>46481602
>didn't even need a pencil
I can confirm this. Hell the players didn't even need to write anything down if they weren't leveling up or buying shit from town or if they rarely came across solid basic loot (which was rare). Even the confirmed magic stuff in the game, which was incredibly fucking rare, had its own card most of the time.
The location cards were brilliant. They listed a generic local, had a brief description of the area on the back, and also listed any modifiers that would typically be applied given the local. Such as a burning building listed how to handle the checks required as time progressed to see if the characters took damage and how fast to typically advance those effects to where it got nasty quick. Sewers listed tight spaces and the effects that they caused and shit like that.
The monster cards were probably the best thing though. The monster vault included a card for almost all the monsters in the game, the front had a picture of the beast, the back had all their relevant stats. As a DM, you could plan an adventure and just flip through your cards for the shit they were going to fight and set them aside for the adventure for that night. You could make them more challenging by adding special attacks relevant to those creatures from their own action card pool too, but if they were kicking too much ass with those you could keep their attacks basic.
Then you had the BOSS modifiers that got introduced with the Hero's call expansion. That had you place a villain card in the center of a sheet that showed how being a boss of that type (like monsterous or sorceror) effected them. Told you what kind of new action cards they should take, modified their stats to reflect their above average station appropriately, and could be used with any enemy in the game given the way it worked.
From the floor up I could build an adventure for multiple session with ease in less than 30 minutes. Great system.
>>46481646
You can use the same conversion stats or online rollers for Warhammer, but the dice really do make for a better game in the same way the star wars dice really make SW a better game.
>>46481753
>nigga talking shit about mah West End D6 SW game
FUCK YOU, anon.
>>46481104
No, WHFRP 3rd was mechanically very different. Yes, it also had weird dice, but instead of good dice, better dice, bonus dice, and bad dice, worse dice, penalty dice, like star wars has, it had good dice, slightly better but also slightly worse good dice, a different slightly better but also slighty worse good dice, skill dice, and bonus dice, but only bad dice and penalty dice for the draw backs.
The stance system was fucking stupid, each BASIC action came with it's own card, for a total of 9 cards before you added any special actions. Including a card that said "Do something not on any other card." I'm not kidding.
The passive abilities had to be swapped in and out, so you could usually only have two or three active at one time, unless you could "equip" one to your party character sheet, in which case everyone got it.
Enemies were incredibly difficult to run because they also needed cards, or if you had the monster book, you could look up the abilities, except that the abilities were listed on a different page from the monster entry, so you have to flip between pages FOR EVERY ACTION.
Star Wars is a MASSIVE upgrade/refinement of the FFG weird dice rules.
Also, it's Star Wars. People will play it regardless.
>>46481753
"Change for the sake of change"
It wasn't change for the sake of change though. It was a system that (once understood) allowed players and the DM to fully focus on the game without flipping through books for what exactly a skill or spell does AND allow those spells and skills to be more complex because they are immediately available to the player to read.
I won't say it was streamlined, because it wasn't really, I will say it was an exceptional take on the RPG system.
I feel that it accomplished what it was trying to do, make the game more accessible for everyone involved including the GM while still being deep enough to keep you coming back for more for years, however, its changes pissed off the fanbase because it was different.
>>46481768
>That's because WHF fans are cancerous, toxic trash.
It's been interesting to watch the X-wing scene as GW and MtG fans start to make the switch.
You can pretty much always tell who they are, just by their elevated levels of hostility and anxiety.
>>46481768
Killed old game lines to resell the same game as before with different bells and whistles under another game's name, for starters.
Abandoned a few other focus on shit wars: the dicining, for another.
>>46481932
To be fair, none of the systems for Star Wars have been complete pieces of crap. SAGA has plenty of detractors, but it's still a solid system that works.
>>46481981
But the Star Wars RPG is actually good.
>>46481143
Damn this is one pretentious post
What if you like drafting?
>>46481932
>You had to flip between pages for monster entries and abilities.
No you didn't. The monster stats were on the top, the associated skills were on the bottom. All on the same page. The overall description and mannerisms of the monsters were listed in a different section for flavors, but for combat all that shit was on page.
The stance system was actually pretty brilliant. If you went reckless you had a higher chance of fucking something up (including yourself) and the reckless side of the card often had better effects if it was something a reckless character would do. For example, the slayer cards were universally favored for the reckless player, while healing based spells and actions universally favored conservative stances.
You had the same dice for Star wars buddy. The EXACT same dice EXCEPT for the stance modifier dice. They did away with the stance mechanic for SW, which is fine, but it did add a whole different flavor of gameplay and depth to Warhammer.
The talent slots grew with the career advancements too. You get an epic level career and you have five of those things available plus two for the party and those are a lot of modifiers kicking around.
SW was a dumbed down version of Warhammer in a lot of ways because they removed the cards and such and just started out with people writing their shit on character sheets again.
I got me some X-Wing and Imperial Assault, and say what you want about gratuitous amounts of pieces and exploitation of expansion packs, those games fill the space in between a tabletop RPG and more casual board games. Imperial Assault's Decent-style campaign and persistant characters keeps my players and I coming back week after week.
>>46482106
Looks more like streamlined and accessible than dumbed down to me.
>>46482055
This.
And the only 40k game that has been restarted is DH, and that was pound for pound for the better, applying a better rules base to a game that was began under BL taking lessons from OGL when it came to game design.
You really sound like a guy salty that SW is the new hotness.
Shut up, support DH2e like I do and have fun.
>>46482087
Then you are shit and everything about you is shit, how's that?
If you live near St. Paul, MN, their Event Center/HQ is a pretty cool game space. Played D&D there for years
>>46482087
>What if you like drafting
You can draft with quite a bit of LCGs if you know how to do it.
Also, MtG players don't like their game, they like the value they have tied up in their system and feeling smarter than other people while playing a broken piece of shit that has to be reset every god damned year and despite loads of people working on it still lets broken as fuck cards through that are almost immediately banned from play.
>>46482022
Saga was ultimately an excellent D20, but being the prettiest girl at a prom full of C's isnt necessarily the best praise.
Now saga did fail at some things. It became horribly unbalanced for force users late game, to the point the Jedi may as well do every damn thing. If it was all Jedi party, no problem, much like how 3.5 was mage imbalanced.
D6 was certainly not bad for its time, and honestly without D6 we probably wouldn't have half the old Star Wars EU (for better or worse) because it was so influential in spreading the EU and codifying some of the lore in the base book. It had a punishing morality system, but D6 isn't a bad system overall. Like gurps or any other generic system, what you get from it is what you and he players put in.
FFG does one thing really, REALLY well- there's not much math, and it's as simple as "add one from this, subtract one from that". He dice are wonky, but they work well once you get used to them. It's not the 3.5 modifier-fest, you don't need to worry about pips or anything, it's straight up "build a pool, toss, count successes, subtract failures, apply advantages and complications as necessary". The complications, triumphs, and despairs allow for really great spontaneous story-telling moments, and they give and take in equal measure. The force token economy between players and GM allows wonderful back and forward play too.
The Xwing series is fun, but expensive. Haven't played armada. But they seem to love their wonky dice, and as unusual as they are, they work, and at the end of the day that's what matters. It's fun, it's fast, it's not complex.
>>46482149
The only thing fundamentally different is the stance system and dice related to it. The stance system wasn't difficult to wrap your head around at all, allowed for players to have more control over risk vs rewards gameplay and allowed for even more customization of actions and abilities.
The removal of a system that wasn't complicated and had more variety to it is dumbing it down.
SW is still a good RPG though. The loss of the stance system wasn't a major blow to the game to me, but it did remove a pretty neat element.
>>46482087
FFG does special draft packs for several of their LCGs.
There's not a huge drafting scene, but the packs are well executed and often there's at least a little bit of prize support.
>>46482233
FFG has shitty space combat though. No getting around that.
>>46482276
>The removal of a system that wasn't complicated and had more variety to it is dumbing it down.
This is your opinion, anon, that having more in a game makes it better.
The problem is that your opinion almost always leads to a worse game with more conflicting systems; your statement is basically a love letter to 3e D&D and it's bloat that only worked to make the game harder for all parties involved, save those slavishly devoted to it.
I mean, notice how the words "fun", "exciting" or "engrossing" never turn up in your post. Because for you, it isn't about the system making the game better, but it being there so you can be proud of yourself that you have spent the required time figuring it out, not actually playing the game.
>>46482276
I meant more charsheets over cards.
>>46482087
I would guess that an LCG set could be drafted in the same way that a CCG cube can be drafted.
>>46480863
Their 40k RPG are fun.
I like WFRP 2e a lot, and I've yet to try Star Wars. I also hope they make RT 2.
OK a making games.
Probably the worst at publishing, supporting and specially translating games that aren't theirs.
>>46481161
>They're a good publisher.
I don't think you know what publisher means.
>>46482414
The stance system was not bloat though. It was one factor that made the game a little bit deeper is all.
That is a far fucking cry from having +85 to hit and retarded AC and caster supremacy and shit like that.
>>46482879
>Publishing is the process of producing and disseminating media
What are you on about?
>>46481391
The correct damage was written down in the original book in another table if I remember rightly.
That said, I agree. FFG's proofreading seems very shoddy in general. It seems silly too. They just end up spending the time to fix this kind of thing in erratas, so why not just spend the time, get it right, and release a better product?
>>46483314
It is right in the same book, it is for Shield of Humanity.
>>46482403
Very, very true.
"Rocket tag: the game"
>>46483064
They are actually designers, anon.
They have a third party printer actually publish the work.
To be fair, they do literally everything but print out bulk supplies, slap them in a box, and ship them out for sale. That is what publishing is fundamentally.
>>46483524
I'm afraid that in addition to being a pedantic fuck for no reason, you are mistaken.
>>46483524
Well, to be fair, YET AGAIN, they pay for their own publishing as opposed to getting someone else in to fund the publishing and they are paying a printer to get their shit knocked out.
I actually wish that they would use an American publishing company to speed up the process,
>>46483524
>>46483552
Disregard my posts, they are officially listed as a publisher of their games so I am totally wrong.
