At Gen Con Indy this past weekend, Fantasy Flight Games announced the upcoming release of a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The 3rd Edition of WHFRP offers the same dark fantasy setting as previous versions of the game but also introduces a new way to role-play, offering a boxed set with group play in mind, expansions for additional players, and an emphasis on storytelling.

 

It’s a completely brand-new way of role-playing,” said Fantasy Flight’s Jeremy Stomberg. “It is not like anything you’ve seen before. It has a lot of stuff that looks like board-game

components, but it is by no means a board game.”

 

Designed by Jay Little (MLB SportsClix), the 3rd Edition base set comes in a giant box which contains four books and about 300 cards and 36 dice, enough for three players and a GM. The set will come out by the end of the year and retail for $99.95; additional sets can be purchased to incorporate more players, giving the system an “expandable” feel, similar to a board game with add-ons for extra players.

 

Stomberg was optimistic about how the game will be received by existing WHFRP fans and was quick to point out what makes 3rd Edition unique: “We had a strong negative reaction at first, and then as people have come here and have seen it and talked to us and talked to Jay, they’ve gone back to the boards and said, ‘Wow, this is really cool.'

 

"We’re making it more of a storytelling thing. We’re bringing RPGs back to telling a story and not just being miniatures on a board. We have tons of games that have miniatures on boards. What this is is telling stories, which is how RPGs began.”