cegorach
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Posts posted by cegorach
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So I kind of splurged on the end of line sale and picked up most of the books.
This means I have the core set adventure, Edge of Night, Witch's Song, Gathering Storm and Enemy Within.
I am kind of confused as to how to run these together in terms of power levels.
Assuming I have a group of PCs who start from scratch, is it possible to play all of these in a given sequence and have the adventures keep pace with the power growth of the PCs?
Or will the group get too powerful too quick to run all of them, in which case which ones are most recommended?
Any help appreciated.
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Wow folks! Such awesome advice.
I'm going to print it out and study it.
Thank you all so much
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So I'm more a returned GM than a new one, but I only played briefly at launch so it's all new again for me.
I had my interested sparked recently in playing once more and that coincided with the price drop/end of 3rd ed. So I kind of bought everything (almost).
And this is where I need help.
I have a table covered in STUFF and I almost wept in confusion last night at the immensity of the task in front of me.
I'm looking for help on how to start processing this and getting ready to play, probably kicking off with one of the premade adventures or even the Enemy Within. Looking at 4-5 players, starting from scratch.
I have:
Core set
Adventurer toolkit
Gathering Storm
The Winds of Magic
The Edge of Night
Signs of Faith
The Creature Guide
Creature Vault
The Witch's Song
Omens of War
Lure of Power
Hero's Call
The Enemy Within
and plenty of dice.
I'm looking for guidance as to how to sort things out, just so I have a spread of stuff I can present to the players so they can make their characters and start getting their heads around the system.
And suggestions welcomed! And any tips for things to download/house rules/errata or anything like that would be awesome. I'm slowly making my way through these forums but I figured smart people here may be better able to point me in the right direction.
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I'm glad to see a rebuttal. What is your thinking on knasserl's issue with characters running out of points to spend and then reverting to baseline ability?
If you mean for investigative skills, it makes no difference at all. You always operate at your 'baseline' no matter what - point spends are just optional tools for a GM to offer extra facets of information if they can think of one that's relevant or cool (or run with a player's idea).
If you mean for general skills, the pool system is meant to be another dramatic tool. Minor enemies/issues are meant to require little or no spend - it's the 'big' problems where you need the points. If a player makes truckloads of spends on minor issues and runs out before the 'big boss', that's when you have an evocative dramatic scene to refresh the pool.
The heroes make it to the doors of the castle, bloodied and exhausted. After an inspiring scene in which they connect with their heroic destiny to save the world, they refresh their pools and kick the door down, ready to kill the Evil Overlord.
Again, a narrative tool that in no way limits freedom any more than the following scenario in a 'traditional' RPG -
"make a dex roll to run across the rope bridge to the Evil Overlord's castle!"
"what's that, you all failed? GAME OVER YOU ALL CAN GO HOME NOW CYA."
yeah, no. Just as a 'traditional' RPG is a system that to a greater or lesser degree allows GM control to enable narrative continuity, Gumshoe is fully manipulable by anyone with half a brain.
It's pretty simple. Gumshoe is a system that has a greater than normal emphasis on investigative abilities and has lots of tools to help a GM run investigative scenarios as tightly or loosely as they like. That's what it says on the tin and that's what it does.
If that's not what you want, then unsurprisingly, you probably won't like it. It's a fairly simple and abstracted system, so if you want complexity and crunch, again, you probably won't like it.
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So much bias and misinformation in here.
Newsflash - Gumshoe does not remove the capacity of players or the GM to improvise in the same way you would in a 'traditional' RPG.
That's the central fallacy on which Knasserli bases his bias.
Your players decide to look for a 'clue' which you didn't 'put' there, and it seems like a good idea?
GO FOR IT. Robin Laws will not come to your house and beat you with a 2 x 4.
Want to make that a 'necessary clue' that moves the story forward? Again, no beatings.
All the Gumshoe system does is provide a logical narrative structure you CAN use if you WANT to. If your players want to go off on their own, just like a 'traditional' RPG that's for the GM to decide whether they are comfortable improvising and running with it or want to steer it back onto their own pre-conceived progress of events. It's a simple system and comments above suggesting it's 'hard' to improvise are utter nonsense. You'll take much longer statting things up on the fly in DH than you will in Gumshoe, that's for sure.
You don't need to create a 'detailed map' that must be meticulously followed. You can make your plan just as 'loose' as you want - it's just that if you desire a detailed investigation, it's easier to do that.
In addition, it does remove the ridiculous situation when there's a jacket that could contain a murder weapon, a phone that could have fingerprints, a computer that could have incriminating evidence on it and....
ROLL INVESTIGATION!
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'Oops, critical fail. You spot none of the above. Let's now work out how your highly trained professional managed to do that!'
or
'Well done! You find ALL THE CLUES AT ONCE! Ain't you great!'
Which is fine and all, just rather abstracted and simple when you compare it to the detail most systems put into their combat.
All Gumshoe does is remove the 'oops' factor and allow the player to develop a character who can employ different kinds of skills to derive different results.
Bearing in mind, and this point may have been lost in the drama up-thread - a player still needs to use their brain and EMPLOY a skill at a relevant point. You don't do so, you don't get no clues. Despite what some people may suggest, it's not about 'handing' players clues. Just like real life, you may miss things the first time round, come to a dead end, then need to go back and see what you might have missed, or employ different skills to get different perspectives - as opposed to a magical one size fits all 'investigation' skill.
In the above example, you would need Notice.Forensics and Digital Analysis skills for example, if you wanted to get all the clues. Only have a few, then you get a more limited picture and need to look in other ways. Or you could spend more points, and get more fine-grained or deeper levels of analysis from the clues you do find. And maybe you don't bother spending points, carry on with your investigation and hit a dead end. Go back to that PC hard drive, spend an extra point or two and do a deeper level of analysis that finds hidden patterns in those incriminating emails you found before. Then it's cryptography time.
And here's the accurate version of Knasserli's example above:
My game works like this:
Player: I check his coat to see if it's wet.
Me: Why do you care about that?
Player: Because if it's wet then he was out in the storm last night.
Me: Ooh. Clever. Yes, it is indeed suspiciously damp.
Gumshoe system:
Player: I use my Notice skill and check his coat to see if it's wet.
Me: Why do you care about that?
Player: Because if it's wet then he was out in the storm last night.
Me: Ooh. Clever. Yes, it is indeed suspiciously damp. You notice that there's a small pool of water under his coat where it is dripping.
And then, in both games, you move the investigation on based on this fact that has now been established.
It's simply a narrative toolbox that makes things easier for the GM to build more detailed investigative missions - like it says on the box.
It's not a forcible 'clue dungeon' or anything like that - players have the same level of agency (arguably more) than a 'traditional' RPG.
You may want to do a Google search on 'Dark Heresy Gumshoe' and pick up the 1.1 version. You will need the base Gumshoe books if you want to play but if you read it, it may give you an idea of how it works.
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UncleArkie said:
cegorach said:
Simple answer?
These ARE meant to be elite characters, even 'starting out' they should surpass your average scrub character and no amount of dodgy justifications will cover that.
FFG included them as basic choices as a marketing incentive to entice people who aren't big on lore and just want to look cool.
I find it a little disturbing that people don't want to address this point, gives me that 'was I meant to drink that kool-aid?' feeling.
It's awful, if you care about the lore. In which case you should be bright enough to whip up your own house rules or patient enough to wait for someone who does.
It's fine if you don't care about it. In which case chuck your dice and carry on.
You kind of kill your own point, so I'll use it to make mine again. A character like the sword master is the product of several decades if not a century or more of training, this is rules wise expressed with the special Sword Master only action cards, he can do more, yes it does make him special compared to a soldier. Now if you where to have the SM as an advanced career then any character ranking into it would effectively be removed from your game as the training would take longer to complete than the majority of the groups life expectancy, in other words, the player would, following the lore lose the character. Its not just good marketing sense its also good lore sense if we ever want to see these careers as playable.
Actually, I didn't 'kill' my own point at all and thank you for using your rebuttal to make mine again.
Yes, Sword Masters etc are the result of years of expert training.
Which is why even a 'beginning' Sword Master would have stats somewhat above the scrub level PCs start with.
You know, maybe with a few attribute and skill advances that would be represented by say an ADVANCED CAREER.
But yes, the lore indicates that progression through these kinds of careers would be outside the scope of playing time.
Which is why people are making the very simple point that the lore is being rubbished for the benefit of the hard of thinking.
Really want to play a SM? Start as an advanced character then. Not rocket science.
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Simple answer?
These ARE meant to be elite characters, even 'starting out' they should surpass your average scrub character and no amount of dodgy justifications will cover that.
FFG included them as basic choices as a marketing incentive to entice people who aren't big on lore and just want to look cool.
I find it a little disturbing that people don't want to address this point, gives me that 'was I meant to drink that kool-aid?' feeling.
It's awful, if you care about the lore. In which case you should be bright enough to whip up your own house rules or patient enough to wait for someone who does.
It's fine if you don't care about it. In which case chuck your dice and carry on.
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Just to repeat what Skinny Dragon said, please read carefully (bold and italics to help).
GreyLord said:
. It felt like a strange hybrid of board game and roleplaying game at first, but once the notions of the new mechanics took hold, it felt very natural.He's saying that when he opened the box and saw the contents, he had the same response many other people have had a first glance.
but
Then he played it and discovered this was not the case.
I don't see why people find this hard to grasp.
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Luther said:
What the hell are you talking about Cegorach? Your reply relates to my OP like choclate does to cheese. I haven't played anything other than D&D, have Rose Coloured Glasses and am just joining the caterwauling masses? What the hell are you talking about?
As for the more sensible question 'what did you mean by more Eye Candy than Bookish' I mean exactly that. It is a box filled with stuff not a book on a shelf. And that doesn't mean 'dumbed down' or 'worse' or 'shallow' just a different type of game from the traditional RPG with a different audience, one that is more attracted to a box with lots of cool bits than a boring old book.
And in defense of those who are shocked by the direction the game has taken, just look at what has been previewed. Or course they're going to react negatively. It's a completely different game! It doesn't bother me overmuch because I was one of those playing in the 'WFRP in the Wilderness' years and know, as my post clearly states, that I can play 2E the rest of my life with all the material I have and not really be bothered, but I don't think even FFG staffers are surpised at the reaction it has recieved so far. It is NOT the same game and is marketed to an entirely different demographic. And it is expected that a good portion of the community will complain just as any other customer does when they see something they love come to an end...
I guess you didn't understand, that's fine. I was pointing out you are making claims with little or no substantiation to them. I'm likely as old, if not older, than you but I have a firm grasp of reality and don't claim RPGs have lost their literary or mechanical depth in favour of 'eye candy'. I have dozens of sets on my bookshelf from recent years that easily outstrip the depth of older games AND look great.
It's not that one medium takes a back seat to another in this sector, it's just that developers have clued in to better presentation standards. Indeed, there is a degree of overlap from other mediums such as video games but you actually picked one of the few entertainment mediums that has most strongly resisted recent entertainment shifts.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but there appear to be some very hefty books in the centre of this new system. You seem to be making assertions that the focus is on WYSIWYG in contrast to the 'good old days' but from a casual look at the contents, you seem to see both massive books and other accessories, something that has indeed been done more than once in recent decades.
I'm an old skool gamer and I fit their demographic just fine. As long as they don't mess with the background, all the rest is immaterial. Warhammer is a setting, not a ruleset.
I'd suggest a more positive outlook embraces the best aspects of both yesterday and today, not railing at one in favour of the other.
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Thanks for the report, let's hope soom of the doomsayers come in here when they can drag themselves away from ringing those plague bells
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Sythorn said:
"Far from realistic or balanced" is precisely why I love the original system. Can't say I've ever found it painful at all.That's great, and of course you know the new edition has nothing to do with you using those rules? Some people don't around here apparently.
Sythorn said:
It's not really laziness so much as it's the $100 price tag.Now that's a good concern, and one I wish people would separate from the moaning about 'betrayal' etc. etc.
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Luther said:
I didn't say 'dumbed down.' I said 'more visually and tactile focused.' More 'Eye Candy' than 'bookish.' I am failign to see where people keep finding 'dombed down.'
So you know how many pages of text are in this new edition? Can you share?
Or are you just making things up and joining the caterwauling masses?
The world may have become shallower, but you obviously haven't played recent RPGs outside of D&D and compared them to the 'good old games' if you are making the assertion that RPGs have less to them now.
Go play Reign or TROS then get out your old books and compare.
Rose coloured glasses are great until they cause you to bump into things, like reality for example.
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I can't even remember my twenties, and my thirties are blurry at best. So I'm as veteran as the next person, probably more so.
And I welcome this change.
Honestly, you people are such complainers. I've played Warhammer with Reign, when I wanted something with grand scale mechanics, with Castle Falkenstein when I wanted a quick, narrative-based game, and The Riddle of Steel (which I wrote masses of WH rules for) when I wanted the ultimate in realism.
All different systems, all better than the painful % based WFRPG original (which love as you may, is far from realistic or balanced) and all tailored with minimum effort to give the best playing experience for my group.
If this is fast and flexible, I'm in. The story is more important than buckets of dice, maths and page-flipping.
If it's not, I carry on playing Warhammer however I please. And so can you. There are tens of thousands of pages of Warhammer background online and offline that you can get a hold of very easily. And your imagination *should* have no limits.
At the end of the day, if the doomsayers are correct, FFG will be the only losers. You can all carry on playing 2E while they lose money.
If not, don't let your laziness blind you to what could be a good game.
Help! Which campaigns/adventures to run?
in WFRP Gamemasters
Posted
That's utterly amazing guys! Thank you so much, going to sit down and read through and try and put your suggestions into play.
While I'm here, are there any must-have house rules you recommend?