If they fixed the errors, I'd buy it again. Hurray for to much disposable income

imo, it's all about using the different dice roll. 2 boons + chaos star, tell the pc's they could likely sell the pistol to the garrison, for them to use some of it as spare parts, with accusations of theft follow it. 2 banes, let one of the pc's try to use the pistol and have the trigger lock on his thumb, then have Clothilde ask what happened to the poor lad, then she gives the clue. Same works for the tracks, have a pc trip, lose his pouch in the mud, but see the tracks. I'd never allow a dice roll to deny players important clues, but I will let them decide how they find the clues.

The best wording I ever heard, was someone who said: "A living Troll-Slayer, is a failed Troll-Slayer". But at the same time, being a slayer is a very thin line to walk. It's about not fearing death, but at the same time not commiting suicide, and how to interprit that is very very hard. Is it suicide to charge 10 orcs solo? Is it fearing death not to try'n see if you can actually kill most or all of them? Is it fearing death to use cover in a fight (or wear armor), or is it suicide to stand in the open and fight? That said, I think slayer career puts a HUGE demand on both the player (to make it appear as if he tries to die with honor) and the GM to not put the slayer in hopeless situations where he (the player) must chose between getting his character killed for sure, or be a coward. I read somewhere on these, or the old boards, that a group with a slayer all had tons of fun to make sure the slayer didn't die. So they'd knock him KO'd and drag him away from a fight, after which the slayer would be even more ashamed and try to drown his shame in strong beer. I was once against ever letting a slayer in to my group, but I really think it's more based on my fears of failing as a GM, than the slayer ruining things. To make a long story short… No armor/shields for a slayer in my group, but on the other hand, as GM, to model the campaign/scenes so the player wouldn't lose his character any faster than the other players characters.

So far I also like it more than the 1st edition one, which I have played through several times. One of my players noted that it was refreshing that the npc's they were surposed to talk to, were all accesable (this is pretty huge for me, and is one of my biggest frustrations with 1st edition) and not Magister this and Guild Master that. Pretty much every time I've GM'd SoB, my players has startet trying to devise a plan on how to kill Teugen/Steinhäger, as they were certain they were evil, just had no real proof. Only plot (tju tju plot train here I come!!!) moving forward interrupted this. And yes, 1st edition had a ton of information, but I can't remember much of it, and to be honest most of it was useless fluff imo. They spend tons of pages on encounters that does nothing to move plot. And add to that, it was soooo unstructured, pretty much all of them, and needed much GM improvising to keep things on track. I liked 1st edition and good campaigns are far and between, but so far this one delivers to me and my group. PbtT was what looked most promising when we launched it, but I think it's a huge mess of a book, with information spread out on a bazzilion pages. You have every single important npc with story, description etc… but no freaking page for the Graf??? Yes he's ill, but he's not in a coma! Who attends to him, does he ever leave his room? Who does he speak to, maybe a list of the npc's on when they talk to him? And the whole vote system is just confusing, only information you need is that the Graf got persuaded to sign the laws, and who helped persuade him. So what if his daughter has 3 votes, the laws wont be pulled back untill the showdown anyway, and the players have no way in hell to find out who have votes and how many. And the festival… allmost every day is a cardboard copy of the previous one, and in the huge book of information, no page is dedicated to describing what happens the different days, and where. But we do need a couple of pages with an inn being attacked by chaos, where the players find a note saying "help me"… What are they to do, do a house search? In the new edition the garden fest is so much more structured, info on all present, but not 10 pages to plow through, just enough to help the GM improvise the rest, and a short consise set of events. Could use more maps, I agree. But I've never really used maps anyway. When I played SoB/PbtT I drew up a sketch of the city, saying "Here people are poor, here people are rich, here is your inn". My players then usually say they take a short tour around the city, and I plot in notable sites (Major Temples, jousting arenas market places etc…). And in combat I draw a quick sketch on a whiteboard and plot in the chars. I can't see myself using the last book, as I don't really want to explore the Chaos Wastes, but might change my mind once we get there.

Def. Baerfaust, in every way is he most suited for it. First of all Players (mine anyway) are likely to suspect him the least, but more importantly for the Lord of Change having a major War Hero, the pillar of the Empire's to be a chaos worshipper is in every way most fun. Tze can laugh at Khorne for not persuading a warrior to join him, and it's one thing for people to suspect every wizard and nobleman to be in liege with the Ruinous Powers, but if their war legends also joins them, the world is surely comming to an end! I'm playing my Baerfaust as a brusque short of words clean-cut warrior. I want the players to view him as very cross, but in time of danger make him like a pillar of rocks vs. the rising tides. This ensures the players will view him as the least likely to be a villian. Kaufman will be the most helpful, offering advices and all, this will put him in the seat of villian-hood (gotta love trying to out-wit your players in regards of them not guessing who is evil and who's not…). Mauer will be played fairly neutral, which to my players will also make him very suspect…

Played 1½ session so far (6 hours), and the party has now reached day 2 having saved the barge from fire. I have the following hints/comments: - Do your homework! I've yet to run a campaign where every page needs to be memorised (or written down as "quick-notes") this much. Every single page so far has held a huge amount of important details. In parts this is a good thing, I'm beginning to understand how come this book can span a campaign that takes the party to epic career ranks. But I also think some sort of look-up sections would have been appropriate… My players are asking a TON of questions, many which I was not prepared to answer, and so had to improvise greatly. Like where did Rolf Haller live? No clue… - Pre-made chars: I wish I had made 6 pre-made chars, linked to the backgrounds, and let the players pick. This would have given a better backgroundstory, in regards to their knowledge of the npc's. For example the Foreign Messengers letters, what's in them? What instruction did his master give him? - Pacing: I was stunned at our pace so far, a little more than 1 day has passed, spending 6 hours playing. I like it… think my players wants to speed things up a bit though. - Black Cowl: My players are all over this, the first evening they began staking out the Upright Pig, of signs of his thugs, himself etc… Imo, it's my fault for making him to "sudden". I should gradually have built it up, starting with "Frederick says there's a new upstart leader among thugs at the docks, wouldn't give him to much thought yet", and after a few days "Mathilda looks nervous at you, are you working for him now?". Instead I made him sound dangerous to begin with, but am lacking any real evidence, such as "that group of thugs all works for him now".

These rumours have been going on for roughly 3 years now, eventually I guess one of them will hit home and be true, as 95% of succesfull games are being made into a new edition in time. Maybe make a macro that posts these threads every 3 months?

Delwyn said: Yeah, I also had the opinion that the Foreign Messenger was the weakest of the backgrounds and ended up excluding it. The other five have much closer ties to Averheim and some of its residents I should have done the same. If he plays his character to the letter, what he does is try to hand over his letters asap, which gives him pretty much no reason to hang around near the docks. Only background that makes him go there, is the letter to another player, and after delivering that he should be moving. A better background would have been if his patron had instructed him to observe and befriend either of two of the other backgrounds, due to some reason. Could be the academic has written some interesting, or dangerous thesis, or the gently's family has a vote in the upcomming distribution of trade rights, or that the outlaw did something to anger the patron, etc…

So we kicked of. Random careers looks good so far. I have a dwarf outlaw (he shot a wizards apprentice by mistake at 3rd Black Fire, causing a minor diplomatic problem) Bounty Hunter (he wanted to play dwarf, don't think career meant much to him). A criminal human gambler, he really wanted something different, and so far he's liking it. A battle-hardened human scout, also one he wanted to play. Finally a foreign messenger (from Reikland, didn't want to play non-human, and don't know much about other nations) minstrel… He did not envision this, and might take some time to come to terms with this I must also say, that of the 4 backgrounds we've tried, the foreign messenger comes of weakest in terms of motivation. I've made the letters as a complicated string. One is for Luminous Mauer, one for Kaufman, one for the PC scout and one for the Verena priest. It all starts with the letter to the scout which signs the scout up to protect the minstrel for things to come (the minstrels patron/lord had a son at 3rd Black Fire which the scout protected through the fight). Then he wants to buy some of the items Kaufman brought home, which is why he picked the minstrel due to his taste/knowledge of culture. Then he wants Mauer to testify the items are not of some demonic origin (can't have wicked stuff brought back, would be fun, but also ruin his standing in important circles etc…), finally he wants the Verena church to handle the legal documents… All will though be halted at Kaufman, as he wont sell, but he does propose another offer to the PC.

I am going to use the backgrounds, with each of my 4 players picking one background. After this they keep drawing cards till they have 3 matching. Quite simple. I've now run 2 (or is it 3?) campaigns where they had free choice, I'd like to shake them about a bit, and have them play something they might not inititally have prefered. So I think I'm entitled to be a bit old-fashion GM.

Lot of great ideas here. The one I really dig was some hints of theater showing how people who do slightly evil things, eventually falls completely from grace. I decided to have each book start with the party wieving a theater troup entertain the crowd with a play which relates to what the BC is doing in the book. So as a "prelude" to Book One, the party (who have just arrived to the town) will all be watching the theater troup perform "Lucious Favre, the Greedy Farmer". Will portray Lucious being unhappy with his Liege. Lucious really leads a happy life, with a loving wife and 5 strong kids, and a large glass flask which portrays his soul (being a good man). Lucious then get the idea that if he amazes enough wealth he can be rid of the control his liege has, due to high taxes and all (this mirrors the BC being unhappy of how the Emperor can control all by levying taxes or troops). Lucious quickly finds, that the fastest way to accumulate wealth is by becomming master of others, and have them pay him. So he forces out other farmers, by bribing officials, threats etc… and then lets them rent their old land, now paying tithe to him. In the play, each time a farmer pays Lucious gold, we see Lucious give a animal faced horned figure a small glass flask which portrays part of his soul, each time making the water level of the large flask smaller. The play ends with Lucious being rich, sitting in a gold throne. Next to him is the now empty flask. Opposite stands the horned figure, with his family in chains (indicating Lucious lost them to greed as well). The curtain falls as a farmer approaches Lucious to beg for his taxes being delayed. Now the play does come near what is really happening, but shows the three main themes: 1) BC is unhappy with the Goverment, and sees them as oppressive. 2) BC goes about gathering powet to overthrow said goverment. 3) In the process BC becomes what he despises, both oppressive and, if he succeeds, his own form of goverment.

Emirikol said: First: Yes, keep it down to one check (maybe one check per side rather than the opposed rule) Second: mounted combat: good idea on the wind. make it a specific circumstance and possibly link it to a skill specialization of ride (if you specialize in that, you can use your wind as bonus dice during a charge). jh Great idea! Ride training rules how many wind you can convert. I thought further, and will rule that each wind used will become a Reckless dice (it is reckless to charge). But also that close can only become 1 converted, medium can be 2, and long can be 3. Also each ride training will stack with weapon skill in how many "excess" success' can be converted to damage.

Emirikol said: Kill them. Kill them all. I have a feeling the laws in our countries differ slightly…

I forced a Fel check every time my stat dumping wizard opens his mouth. I thought about removing all cards from my binders, every little tiny bit of action card, talent, dice, tokens, and just dump it all in one big pile in the bag I carry my stuff around in (maybe shake it a bit to, to really get it mixed up). Then maybe my players will start appreciating that I keep it tidy, and start helping me tidy up after each session where I have 20+ cards I have to stuff back into my binders…

Considering that the OP has visited the forums (strike), and under the assumption that he can read, and considering his username here, I'd say that the post was not meant as a question, but more a subtle hint-hint-hinte-ti-hint-hint to others that Twei-hander was around