So, a few of my friends were interested in trying out the latest version of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play. I made up pregens and ran them through the sample adventure in the back of the Tome of Adventure (ie, GM's Guide).
So, to begin with, making characters was very easy once I found all of the poorly organized information. By the fourth character, I'd really gotten the hang of it, but still, there were so many unexplained elements or, more often, elements that were explained in an entirely different section and sometimes a different book.
After a few goes, the players picked up on the dice pool system, which is pretty much what anybody who actually tries it says. I didn't feel that I was able to fully embrace the fortune and misfortune (white and black) dice beyond the core of what was listed on the cards, but that's mostly because we didn't have time. Still, I did add a fortune die for help from the Small but Viscious Dog and a misfortune die for a crazy flying leap attack, so it did get some use.
The first combat was a little slow, but then again the first combat of a new game usually is, so that's no biggie. In later rounds (I think there were about seven or so) the players were really moving through their turns with confidence, and Mindy (the huge mercenary) and Jake (the roadwarden) were making very good use of their abilities, blocking and parrying and dropping mighty blows and striking with vengeance. Even then, it was a close fight and half the party was down before the enemy was driven off. Using enemy abilities was simple enough since they had a sheet of thematic creature abilities (ie, "these are the cool things beastmen can do"), but enemies can do all of the "basic" actions too, and there was no sheet for those. With all four players, I didn't even have cards. Also, putting counters on things is a pain. If it's all you've got, then it's all you've got, but if you've got access to a pile of d6s like any self-respecting gamer, then you'd be better off just dropping some dice on your cards to track durations or accumulated stress or whatever. And I'm sure it won't be long until somebody condenses at least the "basic" action cards into a more manageable one-sheet.
The sample adventure was solid, though. Had some good pacing advice and an interesting "investigative" element that cleverly used the "progress tracker" to keep things from dead-ending. As it happened, the players did really well. I guess familiarity with the genre had them checking the "room that gives people the creeps", the library, and the cellar, because everybody knows that that's where forbidden things happen. We ran out of time right about there (we got a late start) so we called it a night.
Opinions were grudgingly to genuinely positive, though with some qualifications and exceptions.
It was pretty much agreed all around that there were just too many "fiddly bits" for fiddly bits sake. But I guess it is a FFG game, after all. The wound card/critical mechanic was popular. Maybe we missed something, but on more than one occasion, somebody got like, seven hammers (successes) but the attempted action only accounted for one of them. The other six were just wasted. And it isn't clear if the options listed on the cards stack. Sometimes it wouldn't make sense at all, and at other times it would seem weird not to. I tried to get the act/rally structure to work, but there was just too much going on at the time. For a "first adventure" it might have been nice if the rallies were marked in the book, and even more helpful to list what happens during a rally step. Mark pointed out that he liked the older editions' ability for the rules to "hide in the background" so you could concentrate on the story. I think if we were more comfortable with the rules they'd be less of an immersion breaker, but it was still a legitimate point. Mark also said that it felt like a roleplay-heavy board game. That's kind of inflammatory, but I can understand. If you're playing an RPG with a lot of board-game pieces, it's going to feel like that, at least until you get used to it (and again it would probably help to ditch most of the chits and tokens).
In the end, though, other preferences aside, everybody agreed that it still seemed pretty "Warhammer-y".
"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos
"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB