I'm an Open Box
I recently got a copy of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition boxed set (thank you, Christmas). It was something that I've been considering deeply since it was announced at Gencon. I loved Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay in previous incarnations and still have a bunch of the Green Ronin/Black Library stuff on my shelf, but I was unsure about the new edition.
I was struck by the cover price, I'll be honest. But the more that I read about the game, and the more I saw of what would be the final product, I was just too damned curious to resist. I asked Santa for the box set a couple of weeks back, and last week he happened to deliver.
As I sat on my couch, the box set sealed in front of me, I was struck with an idea. After I laughed for a minute or so, I broke out my cellphone and made with the Unboxing.
Now, after I've read the books contained within and punched out all of the little pieces, I figured other gamers might like to have a look at the contents of the box set. Posted below are my pictures of the items contained within the core boxed set, out of the box. Please note: some of the images are a little blurry. My cellphone's camera isn't the best in the world.
First, we have the box set itself, sealed up all nice inside of its sleeve. When I first picked up the set I noted how sturdy the box felt, and I liked that they kept all of the artwork and advertising details on a slip-around sleeve.
Then here we've got the flap on the front of the box slip open, showing off the description of the contents.
Yeah, there's not a whole lot to talk about there.
And this is the box with the sleeve off. I realize now that I should have put something next to the box to give a good sense of size. I guess you could take an estimated guess given the Xbox 360 behind it over there. In any case, the box is big, and is made of a very nice wax-covered hard cardboard. It feels very sturdy, with a surface texture similar to that of a high quality playing card, unlike the box sets that I had as part of my collection as a teenager (oh, my poor Dark Sun core set).
And now I've actually opened the damned box. And inside we've got all kinds of good bits, including a catalog! Here I can comment that the covers of the books are nice, though a little on the thin side for my tastes. I also think they have a bit of design in common with the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Ed cover dress. That's not so bad a thing, but I would have liked something a bit more different and distinctive. Then again, they are putting these books into a gigantic fucking box, so maybe that's distinctive enough for my silly ass.
Here we've got a little note that Fantasy Flight threw in the box. It's blurry, so I'll paraphrase. Basically, they weren't too happy with the production of some of the dice in the box, so they tossed in a second set of those dice to replace them with. I've got to say, that's kinda nice. This is the first time I've bought some Fantasy Flight product in a number of years (I also own their Fireborn books from years ago), and it's a nice indicator that they really do care about their output. I'm sure that makes me sound a little jaded about publishing and production, but... well, that's entirely true.
And there's the money shot. Everything out of the box, spread out all nice. From left to right, we've got the punch-out game parts and game books, little plastic standees to put character markers in, the Action and Trait cards, two bags of dice, a character sheet tear-off pad, PC tuckboxes, and the Career cards. In other words, lots and lots of bits.
And there's a picture up close of the character sheet and career cards. I through in the dollar bill to give a sense of size for each of the items there. In other words, the character sheet is about half the size of an 8.5x11 page, and the career cards are about half the width of that character sheet.
Well, that's all I've got for right now. Sometime over the next couple of days I'll go over my thoughts on the product itself, including mechanical design, presentation, and ultimately what kind of gameplay I think WFRP3 supports the best.
I would totally recommend putting on your favourite metal album of the moment for the next part. I'm feeling like a little Protest the Hero myself.
I was struck by the cover price, I'll be honest. But the more that I read about the game, and the more I saw of what would be the final product, I was just too damned curious to resist. I asked Santa for the box set a couple of weeks back, and last week he happened to deliver.
As I sat on my couch, the box set sealed in front of me, I was struck with an idea. After I laughed for a minute or so, I broke out my cellphone and made with the Unboxing.
Now, after I've read the books contained within and punched out all of the little pieces, I figured other gamers might like to have a look at the contents of the box set. Posted below are my pictures of the items contained within the core boxed set, out of the box. Please note: some of the images are a little blurry. My cellphone's camera isn't the best in the world.
First, we have the box set itself, sealed up all nice inside of its sleeve. When I first picked up the set I noted how sturdy the box felt, and I liked that they kept all of the artwork and advertising details on a slip-around sleeve.
Then here we've got the flap on the front of the box slip open, showing off the description of the contents.
Yeah, there's not a whole lot to talk about there.
And this is the box with the sleeve off. I realize now that I should have put something next to the box to give a good sense of size. I guess you could take an estimated guess given the Xbox 360 behind it over there. In any case, the box is big, and is made of a very nice wax-covered hard cardboard. It feels very sturdy, with a surface texture similar to that of a high quality playing card, unlike the box sets that I had as part of my collection as a teenager (oh, my poor Dark Sun core set).
And now I've actually opened the damned box. And inside we've got all kinds of good bits, including a catalog! Here I can comment that the covers of the books are nice, though a little on the thin side for my tastes. I also think they have a bit of design in common with the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Ed cover dress. That's not so bad a thing, but I would have liked something a bit more different and distinctive. Then again, they are putting these books into a gigantic fucking box, so maybe that's distinctive enough for my silly ass.
Here we've got a little note that Fantasy Flight threw in the box. It's blurry, so I'll paraphrase. Basically, they weren't too happy with the production of some of the dice in the box, so they tossed in a second set of those dice to replace them with. I've got to say, that's kinda nice. This is the first time I've bought some Fantasy Flight product in a number of years (I also own their Fireborn books from years ago), and it's a nice indicator that they really do care about their output. I'm sure that makes me sound a little jaded about publishing and production, but... well, that's entirely true.
And there's the money shot. Everything out of the box, spread out all nice. From left to right, we've got the punch-out game parts and game books, little plastic standees to put character markers in, the Action and Trait cards, two bags of dice, a character sheet tear-off pad, PC tuckboxes, and the Career cards. In other words, lots and lots of bits.
And there's a picture up close of the character sheet and career cards. I through in the dollar bill to give a sense of size for each of the items there. In other words, the character sheet is about half the size of an 8.5x11 page, and the career cards are about half the width of that character sheet.
Well, that's all I've got for right now. Sometime over the next couple of days I'll go over my thoughts on the product itself, including mechanical design, presentation, and ultimately what kind of gameplay I think WFRP3 supports the best.
I would totally recommend putting on your favourite metal album of the moment for the next part. I'm feeling like a little Protest the Hero myself.