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"The currency is based on the idle thoughts and dreams of people. More private, unique, and important thoughts are worth more to trade. The entire economy depends on a vast network of depressing orphanages." Yo can I play a game that properly explores that idea instead?
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Sep 10, 2019 15:11
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This is why I always dumpster the good/evil and lawful/chaotic labels and replace them with something more appropriate thematically for the campaign. For example, when I ran a short campaign about being explorers on a Land of the Lost island, the two axis were Preservation vs. Destruction ('take nothing but drawings, leave nothing but tracks' vs bringing back taxidermied creatures) and Selfish vs. Selfless (are you doing things for personal gain or the benefit of knowledge). No one should play a chaotic evil explorer, but a selfish destructive explorer fits in just fine and can have meaningful disagreements in the party without anyone smiting each other.
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Dec 3, 2019 16:22
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Now I want someone to describe Star Trek to me after only reading the Klingon focused EU novels. "Mostly it's about being thirsty for rhino-people in loving sadomasochistic relationships and committee political maneuvers."
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Jan 31, 2020 20:18
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Yeah but the Ghostbusters RPG had been out for 3 years at that point. Not all good games design was discovered in the 90s.
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Feb 20, 2020 00:56
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Pretty sure Ghostbusters RPG was out by 1989. No way it was released more than 5 years after the movie. In fact, wasn't the Star Wars RPG based the D6 system that started with Ghostbusters, or am I getting my RPG evolution history wrong? Edit: To add context to this conversation to anyone who might be reading this thread and isn't familiar with West End Games/WEG, the D6 system was the first major system (I think?) to use proto-Fate Points, dice pools, and "cinematic" rules (no rules for movement rates, weapon ranges, etc). It directly inspired Vampire: The Masquerade and Over the Edge. I'm pretty sure someone did a F&F where they talk about it a lot more. Tibalt fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Feb 20, 2020 |
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Feb 20, 2020 03:02
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Tylana posted:Sadly the Wounds/Vitality/LifePoints or whatever system, especially with the base damage of Star Wars energy weapons basically meant every player character was going to be one shot by an enemy crit before like level 10 IIRC.
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Feb 27, 2020 20:46
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Tsilkani posted:Okay, so I'm trying to revive my Infinity RPG review, and I'm slogging through the first rules chapter, and I'm wondering should I go to the trouble of writing out the various character conditions, or should I just list them and move on? To point to d&d 3.5, the interesting thing about the Toughness feat isn't the +4 HP.
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Mar 4, 2020 20:33
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Kaza42 posted:Examining the muddled design process and identities of feats that lead to a +4 hp feat existing at all.
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Mar 4, 2020 20:52
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In your experience, Tsilkani, how much of the game happens in each of the three scenes? The different rules are giving me strong Shadowrun vibes, where some characters dominate their preferred type of scene but aren't as helpful in other scenes. If I make a physical combat focused character, am I going to be sitting around waiting for the GM to finish up the hacking part of the adventure with the infowar characters?
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Mar 10, 2020 18:26
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I get the appeal of having Mamluks and Janissaries in your Arabian Nights inspired setting, and I appreciate not wanting slavery and it's accompanied baggage being a central element to your game. I also understand that trying to minimize and sanitize slavery, even in a very different context from Western chattel slavery, is not going to be a acceptable choice for many players. I don't think a perfect solution exists, but I do appreciate the intent behind Al-Qadim's choices. Edit: also, unless there's a whammy coming down the road, I appreciate they stayed true to the historical harem as a feminine space within a home and not the nubile pleasure domes of Orietalist fantasy Tibalt fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Mar 16, 2020 |
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Mar 16, 2020 17:46
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Ithle01 posted:So, Ricardo is basically just an episode of The Twilight Zone?
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Mar 16, 2020 21:03
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Bieeanshee posted:Yeah, this is where I checked out. I don't need that kind of verisimilitude.
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Apr 8, 2020 05:23
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Dawgstar posted:Although in one case they DO have demonic directives. Sort of. "Are we the Baddies?" "No, of course not. I've never really thought about it. Why do you ask?" "Well, we have demons everywhere."
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Apr 10, 2020 15:12
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Nessus posted:
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Apr 11, 2020 03:28
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are... are Juggalos Hunters?
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Or, just like... let your players tell them to gently caress off! They get pissy, leave in a huff, mutants show up, you do your thing with the mutants, the sigmarites show up an hour yelling to let them in because the beastmen are coming. Now you've got an interesting scene where the mutants don't want to let the sigmarites stay in the inn. Same dynamic, just reversed.
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Apr 14, 2020 16:18
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My players agreed to murder the leader of a local gang in the Borderlands for 10 crowns each, or about $25,000 or so according to the 4e book. They were pretty excited about it.
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Apr 18, 2020 18:49
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The Skeep posted:The ultimate grift... Becoming a chaos cultist specifically to curse items and sell them to priests for purification.
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Apr 19, 2020 01:11
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Renegade Crowns and the random dungeon generator book for D&D 3.5 - Dungeonscape, I think? - are my two favorite toolkit random generator books. The GURPS books are okay, but they were a little too focused on being accurate or correct to produce a lot of fun results. I did enjoy the fascists alien cow centaurs I rolled up with GURPS Space though.
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Apr 19, 2020 04:41
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Turns out the venn diagram of "ways of solving a problem that don't bring unwanted attention" and "ways of solving a problem that involve a QCB carbine" are two barely touching circles.
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Apr 21, 2020 17:56
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So I happened to buy the WFRP 4e starter set, and guess how the intro adventure starts? A corrupt militia commander frames you for starting a riot and forces you into the adventure
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Apr 24, 2020 23:00
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Pedagogy is an important skill I actually have something to contribute to the discussion! For the past few weeks, I’ve been running a game of WFRP 4 Edition as a way of learning the system, as well as online games with Roll20. While I have Some Thoughts and Spicy Hot Takes on 4th Edition, particularly about how the presents itself to a GM, I don’t quite feel ready to start talking authoritatively about what the game does well or poorly. Mors Rattus has already provided a complete summary of the core book here if you'd like to know more about the actual rules. But I also picked up the Starter Set for the game, which is billed as follows: Store Description of Contents posted:The WFRP Starter Set contains everything needed to bring the grim and perilous world of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay to life. Whether roleplaying for the first time or preparing for your next epic campaign, this box is for you. As someone familiar with being a GM but new to 4th edition, I feel perfectly ready to share my thoughts on this introductory kit. First off, I want to acknowledge that Starter Kits are hard to do well. The first starter kit for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, “Lost Mine of Phandelver”, is generally considered pretty bad. Wizards of the Coast seemed to agree, as they released the ‘Essentials’ kit, “Dragon of Icespire Peak”, a few years later. D&D 4E had "Keep on the Shadowfell", an introductory adventure that some people in this thread blame for souring an entire generation on the edition. Creating a fun adventure designed to be run by first time GMs for first time players requires you to balance a lot of conflicting needs. I also don’t think the Starter Set is a good introduction to WFRP 4th Edition in particular, or roleplaying in general. It’s not bad, for the most part. It’s just mediocre for its intended purpose. To help show why, I’ll be rating each section 1-5 on two grades. The first grade is how cool, or interesting, or fun I think it is, something I’m calling Quality. If I think a segment is going to be a blast to play or run out of the box, it gets a 5. If a segment is boring garbage, it gets a 1. A lot of this is going to be wrapped up with what appeals to me in Warhammer Fantasy in the first place, so this absolutely a subjective rating. The second grade is how useful or instructive the segment is for new players and GMs, which I’m calling Guidance. If a segment is perfect for someone who has never played an RPG before, and teaches the rules well and models good behavior, it gets a 5. If a segment is confusing, misleading, or instills the sort of behaviors that ruins games and groups, it gets a 1. Any segment that requires extensive revision is also going to have a lower Guidance score - you can’t expect a first time GM to recognize a problem and know how to fix it, or even have the confidence to “go off script”. Rule 0 is absolutely not an excuse in a teaching environment, in my opinion. Wow, that's a lot of words to say "The first rating in mine, the second rating is a hypothetical new GM", isn't it? With that, I’d like to start talking about the contents of the kit starting with the pre-made characters, then the introductory adventure and scenarios, and then the setting guide. Next time: our brave adventurers!
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Apr 27, 2020 03:25
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MonsterEnvy posted:Looking forward to this. I actually quite enjoy the starter set. But I am curious what others thought of it. It's just all over the place.
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Apr 27, 2020 04:44
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Our Party of Pre-made Punks Quality: 3 Guidance: 2 The starter kit comes with 6 premade adventurers, with a ‘cover sheet’ that gives you a bit of backstory, some personality, and a few bullet points on why’d you play them. On the character sheet themselves, you’re given a choice of Motivations (which refresh your resolve points), a couple of ways to tie your character to the rest of the party, and five Secrets. You have to take at least one secret, but each additional secret will earn you 1d10 extra shillings. Minor spoilers ahead, by the way. My biggest issue from a Quality standpoint is that they’re kind of… uninspired. The Amethyst Wizard (who uses death magic) is dour and sarcastic. The Dwarf Slayer feels he has lost his honor, but acts in a very honorable manner. A Halfling Thief you say? Don’t want to break too far out of the mold, there! Again, I understand that it’s an introductory adventurer, but it feels a bit like being given a character sheet for a Human Male Fighter whose parents were killed by the Evil Wizard. It’s fine, but… well, a 3 out of 5 is fine too. As for Guidance, I have some really serious problems with these characters. First, I will say this - letting the players choose the motivation and secrets is a great way to let them customize the character and make it their own. But these characters (and their secrets) model some very problematic behaviors, and characters receive an extra 1d10 shillings for each additional secret, so players are incentivized to take all of them. There are a few examples, but the worst is Molrella “Molli” Brandysnap the Halfling Thief, who is described as follows: quote:Who is Molli? Raised in a single-room with her large extended family, Molli’s happy, gregarious, fun to be around, and utterly confused by Human morality and concepts of ownership. This lands her in a lot of trouble. Frequently. ‘But me winnin’ smile will see me through!’ Caught by Salundra trying to steal her horse four years ago (it was a long story), Molli has been hanging around the young soldier ever since. Molli and Sali are very close. But, then, Molli is close to everybody. A few of the secrets also provide seeds for inter-party conflict, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but not something I’d want to encourage for new players. On top of that, a lot of characters have a secret that is some variation on “You’re actually an evil bastard. +3 Corruption”. Evil characters are a bit tricky to handle, especially for new players. Also, Corruption is specifically called out in the core rules as something that new players won’t be familiar with, and they might be unable to accurately gauge the danger. ”Be Very Careful, Pg. 184” posted:Used sparingly, Corruption Points are great fun as Faustian deals are made for rerolls and traded back for memorable roleplaying moments as minor betrayals spread, but if you’re playing with a group that doesn’t readily understand the Old World, the points can accrue very quickly, sending characters into a spiral of mutation and madness. This should probably be avoided. Mutation is effectively a death sentence if discovered, so it’s important new players are cautioned when their actions may lead to corruption. Just like every child in the Empire is warned of the dangers posed by the Ruinous Powers, players should be warned that Warpstone should not be touched or even approached, that tainted artefacts are dangerous, and the Cultists of Chaos should be avoided at all costs. Of course, the circumstances of the adventure at hand may force your group into the most horrendous situations with corruption around every corner, but that’s WFRP. My final issue with these characters is that they each start with 2200 XP. The starter kit describes this "as if" they had played 20 sessions, because they wanted to give you a "a group of characters with already developed bonds." I’ll save most of this discussion for when (if) I review the core rulebook, so I’ll keep this complaint as short as possible. As far as I can tell, neither the Starter Kit nor the core rule book provide guidance on what to do if a character dies. Based on how you interpret a few other rules, the core rules seem to imply that your new character starts over fresh with 0 XP. I’ll create an example character starting from nothing, to show how much weaker your character (and your party) will be if this happens. Alternatively, based on the other interpretation of the rules, your new character starts with 2200 XP. It took me a bit over an hour to create the 2200 XP version of the character Felix Panke. I timed myself to check. You could probably add on another 20 or 30 minutes on top of that if the player isn’t familiar with the 4e rules, gets confused about something and did it wrong, or needed to ask questions. Of course, that assumes I did the character correctly - it’s entirely possible I messed up something along the way. That's a pretty long break in the action if a character dies, or if somebody has their own concept that they really want to play. Now, is it a bad thing that the characters are experienced enough to be competent, well-equipped, and dangerous? Of course not. Is it the fault of the starter kit that creating a mid-tier character takes some time? Again, of course not. A lot of my frustration here is actually directed at the core rules and the lack of advice on starting a game with more experienced characters or what to do if a character dies. It also feels… misleading to introduce new GMs and players to the ‘fun part’ if the intended play is supposed to be “Yeah, you’re a beggar now, but you’ve got A Destiny and you’ll become the crime boss” or whatever. It would be like a D&D introductory adventure started you at level 4, but the PHB seemed to imply that you're cheating yourself if you do this. It's also an issue if someone wants to bring their own character, but I don't hold that against the Starter Kit. Okay, enough, I said I’d keep this short. Lets meet our cast of characters! I've most of my thoughts already, so these are just truncated stat blocks and a few additional comments, in case you don't care about those sort of things. Felix Panke, Human Road Warden, 120 XP pre:WS 31 Athletics 36 BS 40 Charm 45 S 39 Charm Animal 30 T 40 Climb 39 I 35 Cool 35 Ag 36 Consume Alcohol 45 Dex 26 Dodge 36 Int 30 Endurance 40 WP 30 Haggle 47 Fel 42 Intimidate 39 Intuition 35 Fate 2 Leadership 42 Fortune 2 Lore(Reikland) 33 Resili. 4 Navigation 35 Resolve 4 OutdoorSurival 30 Wounds 14 Perception 42 Ride 36 Stealth 36 Talents Lightning Reflexes - +5 to Agi Marksman - +5 to BS Sharp - +5 to I Suave - +5 to Fel Very Resilient - +5 to T Weapon Skill Damage Qualities Crossbow 45 +9 Reload 1 Dagger 41 +5 But despite being incredibly lucky on his rolls, this version of the character is going to struggle to keep up with the rest of the party. The 2200 XP version would do much better, but wouldn’t be as illustrative. Note that despite being a career that's pretty combat focused, he's going to lack the armor, weapons, and skills to really fight besides Gunnar and Salundra and is barely better than Holli (a distinctly non-combat character) at being on the back line. If Felix isn't challenged by an adventure, nobody else in the party is going to be either. Here are the premade characters, with the reasons why you should play them that the starter kit provides. ”Salundra von Drakenburg, Human Soldier” posted:Salundra is the natural leader of the party, and has several significant advantages, including: pre:WS 49 Athletics 43 BS 35 Charm 28 S 36 Charm Animal 46 T 43 Climb 46 I 32 Cool 56 Ag 33 Consume Alcohol 48 Dex 28 Dodge 43 Int 37 Endurance 53 WP 46 Haggle 28 Fel 28 Intimidate 41 Intuition 32 Fate 3 Leadership 55 Fortune 4 Lore(Reikland) 55 Resili. 3 Navigation 32 Resolve 3 OutdoorSurival 37 Wounds 15 Perception 32 Ride 33 Stealth 33 Talents Luck - +1 Fortune Point Noble Blood - Are noble, which can help Read/Write - Can read AND write Savvy - +5 Intelligence Warrior Born - +5 Weapon Skill Weapon Skill Damage Sword 62 +7 Dagger 62 +5 ”Gunnar Hrolfsson, Dwarf Slayer” posted:Gunnar is strong, tough, resilient, and quite fearless, as he is desperate to find an enemy worthy of him. pre:WS 45 Athletics 23 BS 26 Charm 18 S 38 Charm Animal 52 T 51 Climb 38 I 34 Cool 67 Ag 23 Consume Alcohol 63 Dex 38 Dodge 33 Int 28 Endurance 63 WP 52 Haggle 18 Fel 18 Intimidate 43 Intuition 34 Fate 1 Leadership 18 Fortune 1 Artisan(Jewler) 48 Resili. 3 Navigation 34 Resolve 3 OutdoorSurival 28 Wounds 18 Perception 34 Ride 23 Stealth 23 Talents Fearless - +20 Cool to resist Fear Nightvision - See up to 20 yards in the dark Read/Write - Can Read and write Resolute - Cause +1 Damage when you Charge Weapon Skill Damage Qualities Axe 60 +7 Dagger 60 +5 ”Molrella Brandysnap, Halfling Thief” posted:Molli is just lovely, a ray of golden sunshine in an otherwise grim and perilous world. Play her because: pre:WS 23 Athletics 47 BS 39 Charm 50 S 20 Charm Animal 48 T 32 Climb 35 I 43 Cool 58 Ag 44 Consume Alcohol 32 Dex 46 Dodge 54 Int 26 Endurance 42 WP 48 Haggle 50 Fel 50 Intimidate 20 Intuition 53 Fate 2 Leadership 50 Fortune 3 Pick Lock 51 Resili. 3 Navigation 43 Resolve 3 OutdoorSurival 26 Wounds 10 Perception 53 Ride 44 Stealth 54 Talents Resistance(Chaos) - Auto-pass first test to resist Chaos Nightvision - See up to 20 yards in the dark Acute Sense(Taste) - Taste things imperceptible to others Orientation - Always know where north is Weapon Skill Damage Qualities Short Sword 23 +5 Dagger 23 +4 Sling 49 +6 Pummelling ”Ferdinand Gruber” posted:Ferdinand is a wizard, which means most citizens if the Empire fears him. Play him because: pre:WS 42 Athletics 31 BS 24 Charm 23 S 25 Charm Animal 43 T 28 Climb 25 I 32 Cool 63 Ag 32 Consume Alcohol 35 Dex 27 Dodge 31 Int 48 Endurance 42 WP 43 Haggle 23 Fel 23 Intimidate 25 Intuition 43 Fate 3 Leadership 33 Fortune 3 Heal 32 Resili. 3 Navigation 32 Resolve 3 OutdoorSurival 48 Wounds 10 Perception 32 Ride 31 Stealth 31 Language(Magic) 61 Talents Petty Magic - Cast cast simple spells Read/Write - Can read and write Savvy - +5 to Int Coolheaded - +5 to WP Weapon Skill Damage Qualities Scythe 47 +8 Spell Skill Effect Dart 61 Cause 0+SL damage hit Light 61 Create a purplish light Shock 61 Inflicts a Stunned condition ”Amris Emberfell, High Elf Merchant” posted:Amris is an Elf with a sharp mind and a mysterious past. Play him if: pre:WS 48 Athletics 48 BS 42 Charm 51 S 28 Charm Animal 53 T 28 Climb 28 I 56 Cool 48 Ag 48 Consume Alcohol 38 Dex 47 Dodge 48 Int 60 Endurance 28 WP 53 Haggle 48 Fel 41 Intimidate 28 Intuition 56 Fate 1 Leadership 46 Fortune 1 Animal Care 60 Resili. 1 Navigation 61 Resolve 1 OutdoorSurival 60 Wounds 10 Perception 61 Ride 48 Stealth 48 Talents Acute Sense(Vision) - See things other do not Sixth Sense - Ignore Surprise with Intuition test Night Vision - Can see 40 yards in the dark Read/Write - can read and write Weapon Skill Damage Qualities Sword 53 +6 Dagger 53 +4 ”Else Sigloben, Human Witch Hunter” posted:Else shoots her way out of most problems, bellowing to Sigmar, god of the Empire, as she does so. pre:WS 42 Athletics 28 BS 48 Charm 31 S 32 Charm Animal 48 T 45 Climb 32 I 29 Cool 55 Ag 28 Consume Alcohol 35 Dex 24 Dodge 28 Int 33 Endurance 45 WP 48 Haggle 31 Fel 26 Intimidate 45 Intuition 34 Fate 2 Leadership 34 Fortune 2 Stealth 28 Resili. 4 Navigation 29 Resolve 4 OutdoorSurival 38 Wounds 15 Perception 28 Ride 48 Talents Resolute - +1 Damage when Charging Night Vision - Can see 20 yards into darkness Coolheaded - +4 WP Read/Write - Can read and write Weapon Skill Damage Qualities Pistol (x2) 56 +8 Damaging, Impaling, Penetrating, Pistol, Reload 1 Dagger 42 +5 Sword 42 +4 Next Time: Instead a boring tavern, start your adventure with an exciting shopping trip
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Apr 27, 2020 16:12
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wiegieman posted:Don't forget willpower bonus for spell damage. I guess my other complaint about starting at 2200 xp is that it obscures everyone's origins a bit. Molly started as a Pauper (beggar tier 1), Gunner was originally an Apprentice Artisan (artisan tier 1) before he switched to Slayer, and Sali was originally a Scion (noble tier 1). It would have been nice to work that progression into your starter kit, Cubicle 7!
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Apr 27, 2020 17:40
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The Halfling Mafia is a major plot element in Ubersreik in a Season 2 of The Wire sort of way, if the GM chooses to use those scenarios and focus on those elements. The Kender version of WF halflings isn't really supported by the core rulebook or the rest of the adventure, either.
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Apr 27, 2020 18:47
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Making the Rounds, Part 1 Quality: 4 Guidance: 4 Well, actually, before we jump into the introductory adventure Making the Rounds I should talk about the structure of the adventure book. The book opens with the intro adventure, which is designed to teach you the rules and introduce you to the setting in a step by step way. It also contains 10 single-page ‘scenarios’, which are a bit meatier than an adventure hook but aren’t quite a full pre-made adventure. According to the book, they’re intended to be used by more experienced GMs and play groups, either by themselves or to bulk up Making the Rounds. The first four scenarios are set in Ubersreik and are useful to any game that visits the city, while the six other scenarios tie into the pre-made characters. While I might give them a little more leeway, when rating the Guidance of these scenarios it’ll still be from the perspective of a new GM with a group of new players. Also, there really isn’t a way to discuss these adventures without spoiling them, so spoilers ahead. I personally don't think it'll affect your enjoyment of the adventure besides the final segment. Part 1: To Market, To Market… Summary:The Characters, whilst enjoying the Ubersreik market, are caught in a riot and later accused of instigating it... So first, a little context. There is another adventure campaign called The Enemy Within (TEW) which is generally regarded as being very good, and is being re-released for 4th edition. This adventure is set within the context of the events happening in TEW, and how those events are affecting the situation in Ubersreik. Specifically, the Emperor Karl-Franz has just ordered the Altdorf military to invade the region, take control of Ubersreik, and hang any supporters of the Jungfreud, the former rulers. Why are the Jungfreuds and their men being hung for treason? No one in Ubersreik knows - you’ll have to buy TEW to find out! Order now! It’s actually not directly important to this adventure, and just provides a lot of interesting and useful backdrops to the events. In particular, members of the Watch who were loyal to the Jungfreuds are either dead or have disappeared, and a new Watch Captain from Altdorf has taken on the duties. As the Watch is currently made up of Altdorf outsiders, and the Altdorf military is using Watch duty as a convenient way to demote unwanted or incompetent soldiers, organized crime has quietly exploded in Ubersreik. As you can probably guess, your characters end up joining the Ubersreik Watch. I really like it, it’s a great way to utilize the setting without getting bogged down in exposition. It also creates a state of affairs where a couple of PCs can have a big impact. Ubersreik is also an excellent city to use for introducing new players to the Warhammer Fantasy setting. It's a city-fortress seated at the mouth of Gray Lady Pass, the only pass through the Gray Mountains into Bretonnia. This makes Ubersreik a firmly Imperial city, but close enough to other areas if your party wants to have Grail Knight and Haunted Woods adventures in Bretonnia, or Drinking & Grudging & Delving adventures in Karaz Azgaraz if they want. I kind of wished they had included one Bretonnian Knight among the pre-mades to take advantage of this, but it's a better decision Guidance-wise that they didn't. The river Teufel runs through the city, and the guidebook does a fairly good job of stressing the importance of river travel to the Empire. Also, there's a bit of tension - Dwarves make up 20% of the population in Ubersreik and have built the marvels of engineering that are the bridges and massive sewers. The reason that the Dwarves have built all these infrastructure projects is because Ubersreik keeps getting destroyed by Greenskins and Chaos after the dwarves ignore their promises to help defend Ubersreik, and then swooping in earn a lot of gold during the rebuilding. The people of Ubersreik have noticed a bit of a pattern here. The adventure opens with the party arriving in the Marketplatz of Ubersreik, looking to do a bit of shopping. The GM is encouraged to describe the bright, loud, crowded markets, with enticing smells and interesting items for sale. The starter kit includes a handout to give to the players that includes the conversion rate between crowns, shillings, and pennies, a brief explanation of the Haggle rules, and a short list of things the characters might want to buy. Again, I really like this way of introducing the players to how the economy works in WFRP. The Consumer Guide section of the core rulebook is 20 pages long, poorly laid out, and full of rules text, so searching for the price of a specific piece of gear from the half dozen tables is a chore. This is a much better way to do it that won’t overwhelm the players. The players will also learn the rules for simple skill checks, rolling Perception to find what they’re looking for or Gossip to ask for directions, and opposed skill checks, where they Haggle with the shopkeepers over the price. Unfortunately, we also run into the first flaw in this adventure. The GM is directed to introduce the characters to Heske Glazer, proprietor of Heske’s Dragonglass. Heske is described as follows: “She is a statuesque Human woman in her 40s with silver-streaked, blonde hair. Her eyes are different colours: one is bright blue; the other — clearly made of glass — is amber shot through with emerald swirls.“ Unbeknownst to the characters or players, she works for “a very powerful patron” in Ubersreik (the Ubersreik guidebook offers a few characters for the GM to choose from), and has picked out the characters as competent adventurers that the patron would like to employ. Great! A notable NPC with a gimmick and a secret who has an ambiguous but beneficial relationship with the PCs, good j- Oh, she never shows up again in the adventure and the PCs have no way of learning her secret. I want to be clear here - the fact that Heske Glazer’s role in the story is kept vague and that GM is given the freedom to decide the identity of the patron isn't the problem. It’s debatable whether you should put that responsibility on a new GM in your starter kit, but whatever. The problem is the placement without payoff. It’s GM 101 that the more detail you give an NPC, the more important they become to your players. When you name an NPC, it implies that the name is important. Every “the party adopts a nameless NPC” story starts with a player asking for a name. So when you give Heske a name, an identifying feature, and a backstory, and then you force the introduction to the party, you are placing her as an important character to the story. The note-taking player is now asking you how Heske is spelled, and the inattentive player is asking whether the eye is actually glass or if Heske is heterochromatic. Role playing isn’t Theater, but you’ve definitely introduced Chekov’s gun in the first act here yet no one is shot in the third act. And it happens multiple times in this chapter! A mysterious woman working for a powerful patron, an attempted murder foiled by the PCs, and an ACTUAL murder are all introduced and will have minimal effect on the rest of the adventure ahead. Well, anyway. The players are given a chance to do their shopping, roleplay their characters a little bit, and get used to making rolls. When everyone has gotten a chance to act and interest begins to wane, the GM makes everyone roll Perception to notice the riot that’s about to break out around them. I like this a lot, especially with new players but with adventures in general. As a general rule, the GM should be introducing an inciting event and the players react to it to get the adventure moving. Once the story has some momentum, you can start asking the players what they do next, but usually the GM has to give it that first push. This is also an excellent way to introduce the rules for combat. A fistfight has broken out, and each character in the party is confronted with a member of the BRAWLING HORDE! pre:Brawling Horde M WS BS S T I Agi Dex Int WP Fel W 4 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 12 Weapon(Fist) +3 Felix has to make a simple Perception test to realize what’s happening. He does, and manages to not be surprised when a riot springs up around him. With an Initiative of 35, he acts third after Amris and Molli. He wins the Opposed WS roll by +5, and hits the nearest rioter with a boot to the chest for 8 damage. In fact, just about any non-Halfling character is going to be fine in this fight even at 0 XP, especially with rerolls from Fortune and Resolve, and the Halflings can easily Dodge out of the ruckus. Put an experienced combatant like Gunnar in this situation, and he’s potentially dealing 12 damage a round with his bare hands after he builds up some Advantage. It’s not a threatening situation, and it’s not supposed to be. The riot involves a group of entertainers, so you have a couple comedic fighters thrown into the mix, like an exceedingly tall man who turns out to be three halfling jesters in a trench coat or a pair of acrobats who try to flip kick the characters. On the second round of combat, a cart full of halfling pies is knocked over and pies are all smashed, causing the greasy cobblestones to become Difficult Terrain - another excellent way to introduce rules. After six rounds of this, the encounter suddenly turns serious. First, a fire breather named Fosten the Fiery is shot in the throat with a crossbow bolt. With a simple Perception test, Felix gets a good look at the murderer - a thug with a distinctive scar on his face and a milky eye. Since each character gets a chance to make this Perception roll, it's extremely likely that SOMEONE will see the murderer. As the PCs will later be accused of committing this murder, surely this will come back later! They can catch him, but the thug refuses to say who hired him and even if they do find out why, it’s completely unrelated to the PCs and doesn’t affect the rest of the adventure. The PCs also notice an old woman trying to protect a young maiden wearing an expensive dress from five knife-wielding thugs. The thugs will murder the two women over the next two rounds unless the PCs intervene. Felix, being both a Fantasy Highway Patrolman and having heard enough stories about rich young women defying their families and marrying for love, bites on the obvious plot hook. The adventure mentions what happens if the party doesn't interfere, but Salundra is explicitly a character motivated by justice and also what group of players isn't going to interfere with a mugging? The thugs are armed with knives and are slightly more dangerous than the Brawling Horde. If he tried to take them on 5 against 1, Felix would probably get Overwhelmed and stabbed to death. Luckily this isn't a single player adventure so he has 3 to 6 adventurers to back him up, meaning this also isn’t a particularly dangerous fight even at 0 XP. The woman is immensely grateful and promises to repay them before running off, and the book informs the GM that this act of heroism will affect things in the next section. This is technically not a lie. Technically. Moments later, the Watch shows up and arrests everyone, concluding this part of the adventure. Overall, without the context of the rest of the adventure, I really like this part. As far as Quality goes, it’s a pretty great way to introduce Ubersreik and getting caught up in a spontaneous riot and preventing a murder are pretty good inciting incidents for an adventure. Still, I can’t really forgive the adventure for planting all these great elements here and refusing to pay off on ANY of them. The Guidance it provides is pretty great as well - it introduces tests and combat in a fairly smooth way, and offers solid advice for a new GM. In particular, it explicitly tells the GM to transition straight to the next scene in jail and not get bogged down in the details of the PCs surrendering to the Watch, getting in the paddy wagon, going through booking, and so on. No, that’s boring, there’s nothing meaningful about it, skip to the next scene. And if a player says “Wait a second, Molli would try to escape!”, it offers this advice: ”And Fade to Black” posted:When the riot at the Marketplatz is brought to an end, don’t worry about exactly how the Players arrive at the next scene, just move on and push the story forwards. If a Player thinks their Character should be able to escape or slip away unseen, instead of contradicting such wishes, ask the Player to explain how they were captured and brought to the next scene. But don’t dwell too long on this, as it’s important to keep the game moving swiftly. Next time: The worst section of this adventure
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Apr 28, 2020 16:04
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Night10194 posted:E: As to facing 5 thugs with knives, isn't Outnumber much, much, MUCH worse for you in 4e than 2e? As in, 'enemies get +20 at 2-1, +40 at 3-1, and your Advantage bleeds the entire time?' The thugs get a 40 WS and daggers are more damaging than fists so they're tougher than the Brawling Horde, but your party has their own weapons plus Fortune and Resolve. Even a small O XP party without a lot of combat careers should be able to muddle through, and you only need to deal with 3 of the thugs before they flee. The full party of 2200 XP adventurers is going to both outclass and outnumber them.
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Apr 28, 2020 16:46
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Part 2: Law and Order Quality: 1 Guidance: 1 Summary: ...Mysteriously, a local lawyer steps in and convinces the judge responsible for the case to let the Characters serve as members of the Watch to work off their ‘debt’. So last time, our new GM had just convinced his players to get on the train, keep the story on the rails, and go directly to jail. Our polite and well-behaved players agree to go along with it. How are they rewarded? They have a few cute but pointless interactions with the entertainers while in lockup. They’re called before the judge, who accuses them of starting the riot and murdering Fosten the Fiery. Before they can say anything, ‘their’ lawyer barges in and demands a recess. The lawyer explains that they’re obviously being framed, but there’s nothing they can do about it. If they agree to join the Watch, they can get out of it. The players get a brief chance to roleplay while the judge asks them questions. The judge sentences them to 3 years of service on the Watch, with the punishment of death for dereliction of duty. The section ends. You're suppose to roleplay each of those scenes. WHY. It’s a mostly pointless, boring section that has just ruined any goodwill your players had towards this adventure, for no real purpose. On the previous page, the adventure book tells you to skip over the boring parts and get to the exciting bits, and then it has this bullshit. It doesn’t even make sense! As far as I can tell, after re-reading the GM only information a second time, here’s the plot: somebody is setting up your characters up to take the fall. This is completely unrelated to Fosten’s murder, or the attempted murder of Jocelin Karstadt (the young woman you saved). Heske told her boss that you looked like competent folk, you were nearby when a murder happened, so the mysterious patron decided to frame you to force you to work for them. But since you saved Jocelin, the Karstadt family hires an attorney to get you off, who does this by getting you onto the Watch. This is where saving Jocelin technically affects the plot, by the way - if you don’t save her, the lawyer doesn’t tell you who hired her or why. Later in the segment it instead states that your lawyer is working for the patron who framed you as part of a plot to get you on the Watch, so that’s confusing. Heske, her mysterious patron who framed you, and the Karstadt family immediately exit the adventure stage left, and it no longer matters. I could at least understand why all this complexity was necessary if it mattered to the story, but it doesn’t. The only important elements, err, element here are “The judge sentences you to join the Watch.” Nothing else matters. And it’s not like it’s fun to roleplay being questioned and berated by the judge, and there isn’t much roleplaying to do anyway. As described, between spending time in lockup, arguing with your lawyer, and being questioned by a judge - and having my players call it bullshit out of character - I would expect this to take the better part of a gaming session. If the players don’t fight it and just go “Yeah, yeah, skip ahead to when we get our Stinkin’ Badges”, it’s just going to annoy them when they have to go before the judge for questioning after talking to their lawyer. Let me throw out three examples of better ways you could do this. Your name is called and Gunnar wave the “mutant” with the brandy hidden in his fake tentacle good-bye. But instead of taking you before the judge, you’re placed in a coach and taken to a nearby mansion where the servants politely but firmly direct you to a luxurious office. Inside there is Heske, the woman from the market, and her mysterious patron. “Everyone is blaming the crazy adventurers - you - for starting the riot, and the judge is planning to throw the book at you. I can make the charges go away, but I need a favor from you in return. The City Watch is staffed by incompetent Altdorfers, and crime is getting in the way of business. Join up, help get them into shape, and I’ll owe you a favor. Or don't... I'm sure the Gray Mountain Penal Camps' reputation is over-stated.” Your name is called, and Salundra shudders as you squeeze past the silent, staring mimes that you’ve shared your cell with for the past several hours. But instead of taking you before the judge, you’re placed in an office. Salundra snaps to attention as General Jendrick von Dabernick enters the room. “At ease, soldier. I have a special mission for you. Corruption is rampant in the City Watch, and it’s destabilizing the city. Unfortunately, I don’t know who I can trust, and I need to keep this operation quiet. To provide an explanation for your demotion, you’ll be accused of murder with the sentence commuted to service on the Watch. Do you accept your mission?” Your name is called, and Molli give Geri the Bearded Halfling Woman a long hug before leaving. You’re taken before the judge, and it turns out he’s the judge from Doc Hollywood or Cars, depending on how old you are. He sentences you to three years service on the City Watch. Why does this have to be complicated? Skip over the boring parts and jump to the exciting bit where you’re rookie cops already. It’s not fun, it’s not exciting, and nothing your players do will affect the outcome. This just serves as a way to force the players onto the Watch, and threatens them with death if they decide to leave. It takes too long and creates too much complexity to achieve even that simple goal. Out of character, you shouldn’t have too much trouble with getting your players to go along with adventure where they join the Watch without bludgeoning them into it. I would never run this segment as written, and I think it’s actively harmful to the development of a new GM and his player group. But like I said, this is the worst part of the adventure, and it picks up from here. Next time: Training Day (2001) is an American Crime Drama starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke
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Apr 28, 2020 18:32
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Part 3: Learning the Ropes Quality: 2 Guidance: 3 We finally get to the meat of the adventure - being rookie cops on a corrupt police force. You're introduced to Watch Captain Pfeffer, a young but competent military officer, and Watch Sergeant Klumpenklug, your direct supervisor and a friendly veteran of the force. The PCs have been assigned to the Docks, the poor, crime-ridden district next to the river Teufel. The rest of this section is filled with short scenes that set up a situation and suggest skill tests for the obvious courses of action. For example, while on patrol the PCs find a tenement building on fire with folks trapped inside. The book provides examples of using Leadership or Intimidate to start a bucket line, or passing a Cool test to charge into the fire and Athletics to avoid acquiring the Ablaze Condition. As a side note, in 4th edition Conditions like Ablaze and Bleeding are still really bad for NPCs, but the PCs can negate them by using Resolve. You can also use Resolve to ignore psychology and the modifier from critical wounds (to prevent breaking or a death spiral, respectively), and stand back up to keep fighting if you drop to 0 wounds. This is why I mentioned that burning Resilience to prevent a mutation makes your character a lot squishier in a way that isn't very obvious until you start to lose a fight - without Resolve, running into a burning building is potentially deadly. With Resolve, none of the characters are really at risk unless they have terribly bad luck. Besides the burning tenement building that introduces Conditions, these scenes don't introduce any new rules. Instead, the focus is on revealing that Klumpenklug is both corrupt and an rear end in a top hat. For example, when you see the fire, he points out that you're the Watch not firefighters, and watches from the sidelines with a beer if your characters decide to help anyway. It's a little weak in my opinion, as Klumpenklug seems to be right in line with the sort of graft that the core rulebook describes as endemic to Imperial law enforcement. For example, Felix has the option to buy the Criminal talent when he promotes into the next tier in the Road Warden career, because a lot of Road Wardens are corrupt. He's also an rear end in a top hat in an IDGAF way that isn't particularly malicious towards the PCs - grabbing a beer because you're not paid to fight fires has some chutzpah. Getting out from under Klumpenklug is supposed to be the motivation for taking on a very suspicious, obviously dangerous job at the conclusion of the adventure, so getting your players to hate him is pretty important. The adventure seems to recognize this, because the section ends with Rewards!, a scene where Klumpenklug is given a medal and a full purse after he takes credit for everything the PCs did. This is some really cheap heat. I mean "The heel wrestler making fun of the local sports team" levels of cheap heat. But, again, this is an introductory adventure so I can't really hold a grudge about it. It personally makes me roll my eyes a little bit though, along with the name "Klumpenklug." The organization of this section and the next section is odd. You're supposed to run all of the scenes in Part 3 except for Rewards!, move on to Part 4 for a bit, and then circle back for the "Klumpenklug steals your glory (and your reward)" scene. I personally would have moved Rewards! to the end of Part 4 in the book to make this clearer, but it's a minor quibble. Overall, I feel that this section is mediocre. Nothing here is really sparking my interest, and it doesn't really offer much support to a new GM either. It does an alright job of introducing the players to their new position, but having every scene focused on Klumpenklug's corruption makes it repetitive. It also doesn't offer much advice or structure for a new GM to work with - the scenes are presented with no advice on how to flow from one to the next. Even a few lines of advice on transitions would be useful here. The scenes themselves are a bit shallow and short on characters and scenery, which makes them feel underdeveloped. I wish they had cut down the number of scenes with Klumpenklug and instead used the format from Part 4 for the remainder, where the book presents proper (short) adventures. But, I didn't really notice anything that I disagreed with either. It's just sort of fine, I guess. Next Time: Police work is a lot more fun without Sgt. Smart-Lumps
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Apr 29, 2020 05:45
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Night10194 posted:In the Complete Book of Elfs for 2e D&D there's a holiday where the elves get hosed up on magic wine and form kill-mobs to go out and compete at collecting orc ears. This is supposed to be jovial and fun.
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Apr 29, 2020 20:18
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Part 4: Troubled Town - Without A Trace and Dramatic Currency Quality: 4 Guidance: 3 In this section Klumpenklug retires to the Raspy Raven tavern, where he’ll accept the PCs' patrol reports and a portion of the 'fines' they collect. The section contains 2 adventures that are well developed and pretty entertaining, and one adventure that should have been cut completely. I’ll cover the latter adventure first. Dramatic Currency relates to the milky eyed assassin that murdered Fosten during the riot. He’s a thug named Einuage Spaltmann with a mutation that lets him see in the dark out of his ‘bad’ eye. He was hired by a rival entertainer named Benedict Gurkenfeld, the actor-owner of the Theatre Variete. Gurkenfled hired Spaltmann to incite the crowd and turn them against the rival entertainers, but “imagined some thrown tomatoes and perhaps a scuffle, not a massive brawl and murder!” Spaltmann will refuse to implicate Gurkenfeld (so you’ll never find out this backstory) and it doesn’t affect the rest of the adventure in any way, shape, or form. Most of the write-up is for Spaltmann’s stat block, with a few scant lines about how to find him and why he did it. I would have cut it and the murder completely. Well, okay, enough of that. The first adventure in the section Without A Trace. A poor boy approaches the PCs about his missing father who disappeared in the middle of a dark, foggy night. Everyone else has written this off as a deadbeat father abandoning his family, and that beggars disappear on the Docks all the time, but the boy thinks the PCs are proper officers of the law who can help him. If the PCs ask around about it, they discover a dozen other people have disappeared - "not just beggars, but respectable folk" including former members of the Watch. If they bring it up with Klumpenklug, he suspiciously tells them to drop it immediately. This is a red herring, as the missing Watch members were Jungfreud loyalists that Klumpenklug helped identify and he doesn't want people to discover his betrayal. When they investigate it further, the local crime lord known as The Baron might send a group of thugs to rough them up. This is another red herring - the Baron isn't involved with the missing people, but assumes the PCs are investigating her instead. If they persist in investigating, they learn that the missing beggar wasn't involved with crime. pre:M WS BS S T I Agi Dex Int WP Fel W 4 50 30 30 40 30 30 30 30 30 30 12 Weapon +6 Eventually the PCs will find their first actual clue - an 'abandoned' rowing boat with huge claw marks and a section of stone and wood fused together from Troll vomit. The culprit is the Teufel Terror, an intelligent and stealthy river troll. No one will believe them if they claim a troll is hiding in the middle of the city, so the adventure expects you to lay a trap for it. This is where the book introduces the Critical Wounds rules, as they fight the Teufel Terror. pre:M WS BS S T I Agi Dex Int WP Fel W 4 40 15 55 45 20 15 15 30 20 5 38 Amphibious, Armor(2), Bite +8, Die Hard, Night Vision, Painless, Regenerate, Size(Large), Vomit, Weapon +9 I rolled out combat with the premade party and a group of five randomly generated 0 XP characters to support Felix to see how they'd do. The premade party rolled well and reduced the troll to 0 wounds in the first round of combat. The Felix's party was able to scare it off after three rounds, but it required everyone to use up almost all of their Fortune points, one of the characters to burn a Fate point to avoid death, and another chose to take a point of Corruption to get a second reroll. It's a potentially deadly fight, but even 0 XP characters should succeed if they use their rerolls and have reasonable luck. ...if the GM isn't using the rules for Outnumbering an enemy in melee, which aren't included in the Starter Kit rules. I didn't use them when rolling out combat above, but I can predict the effect. If the GM is using those rules, the troll is doomed. If an enemy is outnumbered 3 to 1, you get a +40 WS modifier when attacking them - any character is going to outclass the troll in combat, and the increased SL is going to negate the troll's armor and most of the Toughness Bonus. The troll will still have a good shot of downing a PC each round with their standard attack and extra bite attack if it gets a turn, but it probably won't kill a PC outright if they have Advantage. The Starter Kit also doesn’t include the rules for Disengaging, meaning that when the Troll flees there isn’t much the party can do to stop it. This is an issue I have with this section from a Guidance standpoint, but not enough to take points off. I get that simplifying the combat rules is necessary for a starter set, but Outnumbering and Disengaging feel pretty important to me. Cutting the Two Weapon Fighting rules makes sense… except Else is all about jumping into combat with a pistol in one hand and pistol or sword in the other. I can’t find the rules for Magic. That sort of stuff. Otherwise, I like this adventure from both standpoints. For Quality, I’d be pretty excited to run an adventure about essentially hunting down and killing an urban legend in a very Warhammer Fantasy way, and “the Baron thinks you’re investigating her and wants you to stop” is both a good red herring and a great way to introduce the local crime boss. I especially like how you don’t actually have to kill the troll to solve the problem, if you fight it witnesses will see you and corroborate your story. At that point it becomes an Altdorf military problem, but you still get credit for finding and fighting the creature. If you DO manage to kill it, your characters become local heroes on the Docks. My only knock from a Quality standpoint is that the red herrings don't give the Teufel Terror enough room to be a real presence before they find and fight it, but I strongly debated giving this a 5. Besides my quibble about the rules, I have a few issues with the adventure from the Guidance standpoint. The main one is that the adventure book doesn’t offer much advice on what to do if the party becomes fixated on the Klumpenklug or Baron red herrings, and the clue with the troll vomit is potentially missable if nobody succeeds on the Perception test. These are easy pratfalls to navigate, but a new GM might not see them and be flustered if the party decides to hunt down The Baron or try to research the missing Watch members. The book does have a line warning you about this, but I think a few sentences on how you could redirect the players to the Teufel would have been helpful. The book also seems to overestimate the danger of the river troll, suggesting that you skip Without A Trace completely as it may be too deadly and it risks killing the entire party. This is absolutely not true - the premade party is more than capable of handling a single troll, and at this point any character will have at least 1 Fate point to burn regardless of XP level. While burning Fate and losing Fortune rerolls is a big deal, one thing I really like about WFRP is that PCs get these free extra lives. Combat in this edition is very variable, extremely swingy, and can potentially turn deadly on any roll… but if the luck turns on a player, they have that trump card. In my opinion, THAT is what the book should be telling a new GM, not that they should pull their punches and skip one of the better parts of the adventure. It would have also been a good place to repeat the Fate and Resilience rules. Honestly, this makes me pretty concerned that the writers don’t understand their rules well enough. If you skip Without A Trace, the whole adventure book is significantly worse from a Quality and Guidance viewpoint. Hopefully most GMs will ignore that advice. SInce this is getting a little long, I’ll talk about the second adventure A Secure Deal in another update. Next time: Con men and a murderous bank vault
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Apr 30, 2020 19:00
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MonsterEnvy posted:A few things to remember about the Core Rules for fighting a troll. Fun fact though, while looking at the Size rules for creatures in the core rulebook, I noticed that a creature can ignore the Disengage rules if they're fighting smaller creatures. The fact that this corner case is mentioned under the Size rules, in the back of the Bestiary chapter, 200 pages away from the Disengage rules is pretty indicative of the problem I have with the core rulebook's layout and organization. Night10194 posted:Does the adventure path/starter kit slowly introduce these more specialized rules, like a tutorial? Because they're pretty core rules. Tibalt fucked around with this message at 00:16 on May 1, 2020 |
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May 1, 2020 00:12
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Section 4: Troubled Town - A Secure Deal Quality: 4 Guidance: A Secure Deal is the second full scenario in the section, and I enjoy it a lot. It doesn't directly introduce any new rules, but it is the first player-driven adventure in the book. By 'player-driven,' I mean that the events are going to be incited by the players' actions and the NPCs will be reacting to those actions. This is where we really see the limitations of my hypothetical new GM - I can't really judge how comfortable I would have been running this adventure when I first started. I feel like I would have had enough to work with, but the adventure book doesn't really offer advice on improvising or reacting to your players. I waffled between a Guidance rating of 3 and 4 for a bit, before deciding that a manageable cast with recognizable goals and clear plots to uncover made this a good introduction to this kind of game. At some point, a GM needs to learn how to improvise and react as a skill, and this adventure is just as good a place as any. It's also one of the better versions of the "Everyone is lying to you for their own reasons" adventure. The group is approached by Kurlass Meingot, a glib merchant whose investment schemes keep collapsing in unlucky turns of fate. Obviously, he's actually a con man, but beyond that he's one of the worshipers of Ranald, the light-hearted God of Thieves and Trickery. Kurlass is running a scheme with a dwarf merchant named Barlin Silverbeard, who is actually the disreputable leader of a criminal throng who hates humans. The scam is centered around a fairly contrived dwarven bank vault that is air-tight and opens only once a day on a timer. Silverbeard has upgraded the plan from fraud to "murder the marks by 'accidentally' locking them into the vault where they'll suffocate", and Kurlass isn't really on board with this. Ranald is the Robin Hood God of Ocean's 11 capers, not greed-motivated murder, and Kurlass is a good Ranaldian. Kurlass' plan is get the Watch involved so that they'll blunder in, muck up the carefully set scheme, and scare Silverbeard into ending things before the dwarf murders someone. Unfortunately for Kurlass, Silverbeard is really committed to his murder plan. Like I mentioned above, the cast of characters is kept small and easily manageable - Kurlass, Silverbeard (and his throng), and the four merchants who are given a recognizable gimmick. The crime is outside their normal patrol in the dwarven neighborhood of Dawihafen, so the adventure has a little bit of a China Town/Little Italy feel to it and it gives any dwarf (or dwarf-adjacent Sigmarite) PCs a chance to shine. Everyone has a reason to lie to the PCs, including the greedy merchants they're trying to save, but everyone also has a reason to reveal the truth about the other characters. Between this and the ability to uncover facts about everyone from investigating, it's entirely possible for the PCs to actually figure out what's really going on - a HUGE plus in any mystery-type adventure. The other thing I like about a mystery-type adventure is that figuring out everything isn't necessary to save the day or even understand what happened. Here are the stat blocks for Silverbeard and his throng: pre:M WS BS S T I Agi Dex Int WP Fel W 3 55 30 48 51 30 20 30 30 65 35 30 Traits: Night Vision, Weapon +8 pre:M WS BS S T I Agi Dex Int WP Fel W 3 45 30 40 45 30 20 30 30 50 20 16 Traits: Night Vision, Weapon +8 Editor's Note: In fact, after re-reading this post before posting, I've decided I will run combat with Silverbeard and his thug, and potentially revise my Guidance score if I'm right and it becomes a slaughter for the PCs. My only complaints, besides the lack of GM advice, is that the connection from "Kurlass tells you that Silverbeard might be scamming people" to "Murder Vault" scene is pretty thin. I suspect most players will recognize that the time-lock on the vault is somehow important when Kurlass describes it, but I'm not sure how many of them would make the jump to the murder plot. I would have added a contigency plan where Kurlass tells them where and when the merchants are visiting the vault so that they're more likely to interfere, instead of making them shadow one of the merchants to the meeting. The murder vault plot also feels a bit too contrived, and neither the rule book nor the adventure offer any advice on safe breaking. The implication to me seems to be that the party can't do anything if they get there a too late and the merchants are locked in, which I feel is a really sour note to end on for the adventure. This concludes this section, and Part 5: The Prisoner & The Warden is the conclusion to the introductory adventure. Next Time: 16 Blocks (2006) is an American Crime Drama starring Bruce Willis, Mos Def, and David Morse Tibalt fucked around with this message at 03:40 on May 3, 2020 |
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May 1, 2020 17:03
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Tangent - Rolling out combat with Silverbeard's Throng Okay, so this sort of became a more involved thing than I expected. If you’re not interested in reading about a relatively new GM rolling out combat involving 15 different characters, I don’t blame you and your'e not missing out on much. Anyway, I created a Roll20 instance to handle the rolling, and tried to play the characters optimally as I could without taking advantage of the fact that I’m rolling both sides. While doing this, I noticed a few rules that I might have been misinterpreting, or interpreting correctly but presented in the book in a way that’s a bit unclear. I figured I’d use this as a learning experience, so I tried to be as rules-accurate as possible. To begin, the adventure describes Silverbeard confronting the players with his throng. I included the full party of 6 premade characters and assumed no one had Surprise on the other and that the PCs have all of their Resolve and Fortune. Also, the fight is presented without a map, so I’m using a faux-Theater of the Mind style of running the fight. In particular, I won’t be using rules for attacking from the sides or behind, which benefits the outnumbered PCs. Finally, the PCs will be focused on taking down Silverbeard as efficiently as possible, while Silverbeard’s Throng will be spreading out their attacks. Taking out Silverbeard will cause the rest of the Throng to break and flee, and I justify this behavior for the PCs that taking out the leader is standard tactics that players would use and something that’s called out specifically as a way to get Advantage. The first time I ran this combat, I had Silverbeard at the front of his Throng where he could be charged. Besides Amris having to burn a Fate point to avoid a very unlucky Critical Wound that would have killed him instantly, they rolled very well and had no trouble killing Silverbeard in the first round of combat before he even got a chance to act. For funsy I played out the rest of the round so that Else would at least get a turn to act, but the thugs failed to do much of anything on their turns. One thing I hadn’t appreciated before now is that the PCs have a higher initiative, letting them act first and charge the Throng instead of the other way around. Charging gives them an initial bonus of +1 Advantage, and using Fortune rerolls gives them excellent odds of winning the Melee test for another +1 Advantage. Once the Advantage was against them, the Throng had very poor odds on succeeding in Melee combat without the benefit of Fortune or support from ranged units, meaning the PCs accrued even more Advantage. I chose to re-run the combat with Silverbeard in the middle of his throng, and interpreted the Outnumbering rules differently. RAW, the number of characters Engaged in melee combat on each side determines who Outnumbers whom, and since Amris, Gunnar (+20), and Salundra (+40) were only Engaged with Silverbeard… well, you can see how they were able to dish out 20 wounds. This time Silverbeard had a front line to protect him, so the PCs won’t be able to charge just him, and I counted the entire frontline of the throng for the purposes of Outnumbering, meaning neither group outnumbered the other. This time the PCs rolled much more poorly and weren’t able to focus down Silverbeard. Amris and Salundra both failed to hit on their initial charges despite using Fortune, meaning the Thugs on the frontline had Advantage. Initially Gunnar is able to build up +5 Advantage over a few rounds and seems like he might be able to hold the frontline, until a lucky Critical Hit by one of the thugs manages to wound him and reset him to 0. The fight becomes a battle of attrition where the PCs are outnumbered by tough dwarves, and Salundra and Amris drop to 0 wounds and need to burn Fate to survive. At this point I decide to hit the panic button and have Else burn Resilience to exploit the Dual Wielding rules: Dual Wielding posted:When armed with two weapons, you may attack with both for your Action. Roll to hit with the weapon held in your primary hand. If you hit, determine Damage as normal, but remember to keep your dice roll, as you will use it again. If the first strike hits, once it is resolved, the weapon in your secondary hand can then target an available opponent of your choice using the same dice roll for the first strike, but reversed. So, if you rolled 34 to hit with the first weapon, you use 43 to hit with the second. Remember to modify this second roll by your off-hand penalty (–20 unless you have the Ambidextrous Talent). This second attack is Opposed with a new defending roll, and damage for this second strike is calculated as normal. The only exception to this is if you roll a Critical for your first strike. If this happens, use the roll on the Critical Table to also act as the roll for the second attack. So, if you scored a critical to the head and rolled 56 on the Critical table for a Major Eye Wound, your second attack would then strike out with a to-hit value of 56. If you choose to attack with both weapons, all your defensive rolls until the start of your next Turn suffer a penalty of –10. You do not gain an Advantage when you successfully strike or Wound an opponent when Dual Wielding unless both attacks hit. The party has burned 2 Fate points and 1 Resilience point, and Amris, Salundra, and Gunnar all have Critical Wounds with varying levels of severity that will require medical attention and time to heal. They rolled poorly and Silverbeard’s Throng rolled well, but not unusually so. If I hadn’t exploited the Dual Wield rules, the Resilience rules, and my GM knowledge that killing Silverbeard wins the fight, I think the PCs would have been wiped out completely. Either way, I feel absolutely confident in saying that this fight is objectively deadlier than the Troll fight. The fact that the Troll fight is treated as a potential party killer with warnings to skip it and this fight is thrown in as an optional response by Silverbeard is a huge red flag, and makes me retroactively adjust my Guidance score. Tibalt fucked around with this message at 19:49 on May 17, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 03:37
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Night10194 posted:Oh, hey, it looks like that hasn't changed from 2e: Adventure writers not realizing a single big enemy is going to get its poo poo kicked in while 'reasonable number of reasonably trained foes' is one of the most dangerous encounters in Hams. So, first, the Troll flees after it drops below 20 Wounds, which mean it effectively has 18 Wounds. Silverbeard has 20 Wounds. The Troll has Regenerate and Painless, which makes it tougher in a long fight and less susceptible to critical wounds, but they are comparable. The Troll has TB 4 and Armor 2, so it has a damage reduction of 6. Silverbeard has TB 5, so he has a damage reduction of 5. So the Troll is tougher, right? Except the SL of an attack contributes to the damage, meaning a higher WS from the defender also reduces damage. The Troll has WS 40, Silverbeard has WS 50, so Silverbeard is taking the same amount of damage when the party manages to hit. But WS is better than armor (in melee), because if the party misses he takes 0 damage. Also, the Troll is large, so he takes more damage from ranged attacks. The Troll has a +9 Weapon and a +8 Bite compared to Silverbeard +8 Weapon, so in theory the Troll can hit with two attacks per turn and deal significantly more damage. In practice, the Troll isn't going to have the Advantage available to use his Bite, and the extra WS that Silverbeard has means he's doing more damage on average because he's hitting on rolls where the Troll would miss. Edit: I mean, reducing them both down to just hit points and average damage is glossing over a lot of detail, but still Tibalt fucked around with this message at 06:15 on May 3, 2020 |
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May 3, 2020 06:03
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Night10194 posted:It's one of the curious things about WHFRP: There really isn't any Imperialism/Colonialism the way we understand it. Trying to do that to the New World would have problems. Lizard shaped ones. The Dark Elfs probably did it to the residents of Not America, but it's not really mentioned or talked about. Everyone is kind of tied down to their normal sphere of influence and maybe squabbling with geographical neighbors by needing to be ready for existential wars with hellvikings and legions of the dead. A big part of that is probably Fantasy England not existing on account of the British Isles being a mysterious realm of fog, and Fantasy Spain being relegated to "Uh, it's next to Fantasy Italy", and Fantasy Africa... Does the African continent not exist in the Warhammer Fantasy setting or am I just forgetting something? Edit: anyway my point is that the areas doing the colonization and the areas being colonized during the Age Of Exploration/Colonization don't really exist in the setting and it wasn't a big part of the HRE's thing like it was for Western Europe. Tibalt fucked around with this message at 20:16 on May 4, 2020 |
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May 4, 2020 20:11
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Night10194 posted:It does, but they've never really done anything with it beyond Araby and some mention of a Lizardman colony in South Not-Africa that lost the ability to make Saurus and is made up entirely of Skinks.
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May 4, 2020 20:19
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Man, Vin Diesel and Nick Cage seem like the two actors in Hollywood who are most living their dream.
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May 5, 2020 22:25
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Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 4th Edition Starter Set Part 5: The Prisoner and the Warden Quality: 2 Guidance: 3 The introductory adventure comes to an end with one of the better Tzeentch Plots I've seen, which isn’t the high praise that it seems. Overall it's a little too short, and isn't connected with the rest of the adventure, so I don't like it as a climax. As its own segment however, it's not bad. Initially the ending was off putting to me, but it grew on me a bit. I think spoiling the adventure will affect your enjoyment, so fair warning from this point forward. The adventure opens with Ilse Fassenwutend, a road warden, seeking out the PCs for a job offer. Her characterization is.. not the best way. Here's how she talks: Ilse Fassenwutend posted:‘There’s a prisoner. Stone mason. Name of Maurer. Cold bastard. Murdered many. Knocked a head clean off. Was tried. Found guilty. Awaits execution. All’s well, eh? Well, no. For good or ill, Reikland watches for signs. Holy signs. If a prisoner is scheduled for execution and something goes really wrong, the execution is stayed. Executioner’s axe breaks, or lightning strikes the headman’s block, it’s time to reschedule. Most times, second execution gets the job done. But not always. Sometimes things go wrong twice. Then a third date is set. A final date. You see, if the third execution goes wrong, it’s deemed to be the ‘Will of the Gods’ intervening for an innocent and the prisoner is set free. Fully pardoned. Twice Maurer has gone to the block. Twice he’s come back. The man is evil. Know it. Think the Dark Gods are watching him. His final execution date is approaching, yet the poor excuses for Watchmen here want no part of it. Sodden cowards… If you investigate the situation, you find that Ilse isn't lying but she isn't telling the full story either. The reason the Ubersreik Watch and Altdorf Military don't want this job is because they think it's cursed, on account of everyone involved in the first two execution attemptions either drowning on dry land or disappearing. Kind of a big thing to skip over there, Ilse. In return for taking this very suspicious job, the PCs will get a signed affidavit that gets them out of Watch duty. Everyone and anyone they ask will tell the PCs that this job is absolutely cursed and that you should stay away. The adventure assumes that you'll hate Klumpenklug and Watch duty so much they'll take the job anyway. Personally, I don't think it'll take much incentive to get players to take the adventure hook, but the adventure does provide a short sidebar on what happens if they don't play along or decide that the Gods do want this guy to live. It's not a lot, but it at least acknowledges that your players might not want to take the bait and enjoy being on the Watch. As I mentioned, this is one of the better Tzeentch Plots. The prisoner, Holger Maurer, has a mutation called Piercing Gaze that allows him to see flaws and how to exploit them. He uses this as a stone mason to find and break stones... but he could also use his mutation to find exploitable flaws in people, organization, or governments. This is why a Tzeentch cult called the Shifting Grasp tried to recruit him, which Maurer responded to by murdering them. They're still trying to kidnap him, but Holger Maurer doesn't want to become a cultist and will fight alongside the PCs when the cult arrives. They have a cult leader known as Diebold Bedrohung, pre:M WS BS S T I Agi Dex Int WP Fel W 4 42 27 43 66 30 27 36 41 48 40 16 Traits: Armor(3), Corrosive Blood, Corruption, Dark Vision, Mutation, Painless, Weapon +8 pre:M WS BS S T I Agi Dex Int WP Fel W 4 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 12 Traits: Corruption, Mutation, Weapon +6 I feel like this is a good point to have a brief aside about Corruption in 4th edition. When you have more Corruption Points than your TB + WPB, somewhere between 6 to 10, you risk mutation. The two ways you can get Corruption is either voluntarily, trading 1 Corruption for a second reroll after your Fortune reroll, or involuntarily when you're exposed to cultists, daemons, warpstone, etc. Mutating will reset your corruption, but your GM can also offer to reduce a character's corruption in return for 'dark deals'. The examples they offer are letting an enemy escape, 'accidentally' shooting an ally, or falling asleep on watch. I really like these rules, although I'd understand why other people don't. I think it does a good job of offering the player something they'd want, and while the example Dark Pacts are boring, I could imagine having a lot of fun with it especially if your GM can offer seemingly innocent deals that will have unexpected consequences. The corruption rules are absent from the Starter Kit, as far as I can tell, so players and GMs won't know about the 'Corruption for extra rerolls' or the Dark Deals. Besides taking a Secret that gives you +3 Corruption in return for 1d10 shillings, this encounter with the cultists is the only interaction the players will have with the corruption rules. It's not terrible, I guess. They'll need to pass an Endurance test to resist the corruption, but even if they fail they shouldn't be at risk of mutating. It's not bad, just boring and very vestigial. After fighting off the cultists, Maurer follows you to the executioner's block while begging you to release him. At this point he's helped you fight off the cultists and his claim that his victims tried to recruit him holds a bit more weight. If they want to release him, they can convince Ilse to let him go or easily beat her in a fight. Otherwise, Ilse leads Maurer to the execution block and stands guard, when... Moment of Truth posted:Maurer prays to Sigmar as he takes his place upon the block and lowers his head. Fassenwütend stands guard beside him. The executioner raises his axe high and says firmly, ‘No. Not, Sigmarthen buries it in Fassenwütend’s skull. The executioner’s eyes flare a brilliant fiery pink through his hood and he roars with laughter as he, along with an amazed Maurer, melt into the ground, executioner’s block and all, the ground warping back into place as if they were never there. Overall, it's not the most exciting adventure I've ever seen and it feels like a real letdown as far as a climax goes, but it's not bad. I wish they had given the Shifting Grasp more space to breathe beyond a single fight, and I'm very disappointed that none of the plot hooks at the beginning of the adventure come to a conclusion here. Additionally, the PCs can do all sorts of investigating and digging into Maurer’s case but it doesn’t actually help them at all beyond letting them know that the obviously suspicious and dangerous job is… dangerous and more than it seems. And this is my problem with the whole adventure. The whole thing feels disconnected and incoherent, and the adventure as presented doesn’t give the characters a lot of ways to influence the story or prepare for encounters ahead of time. Amris, the High Elf Merchant, feels particularly uninvolved in the story, but Molli the Halfling Thief feels underserved as well. There’s no throughline from the beginning of the adventure to the end - your duty on the Watch is something that just happens and then stops happening. Ubersreik and the people who live in it don’t get a lot of characterization, and it’s a real missed opportunity. It’s not a bad adventure, it just isn’t very good either. There’s an idea there. Not the most original ideas, but they exist. But the execution leaves me feeling cold and uninspired. If I ran this adventure, I’d have to re-write it extensively. But at least a new GM isn’t being presented a Warhammer Adventure that consists of entering a mega-dungeon, killing some monsters, and leaving. It’s fine. I’ll start covering the 10 additional scenarios next. Next Time: The worst great adventure idea for a new GM I’ve ever heard. Tibalt fucked around with this message at 19:50 on May 17, 2020 |
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May 6, 2020 18:39
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MonsterEnvy posted:Honestly Tzeentch has been much better in recent years.
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May 6, 2020 23:07
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