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silentarcher00

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Posts posted by silentarcher00

  1. Posted

    Krisstoff said:

    As for the main campaign, I will be running it with 2nd tier characters who have already completed a couple of adventures one of my pc is a preistess of Verena and I see her as being particulary tricky to avoid spoiling the suspense.

    Any advice on how to ensure the pc still enjoys their character without nerfing her abilities too much?

     

     

    My players started to try and investigate the criminal underworld conections to the dissapearences. Maybe a sub plot where they try and infiltrate the new criminal empire for information, that will eventually lead them to the name 'Black Cowl'? This will give them something to investigate, but also not everyone knows the full picture. Getting a small amount of info from a part time theif might lead to the Upright Pig, which might lead to a name and rumors, which might lead to the bandits outside town, which will lead to the garison etc. That way the priest can use the abilities and advance the game, but not jump ahead.

    One of the things my players did was to pay off Beatrice Knox and then shadow her till she gave the money to someone at the Upright Pig, then followed them. It's initiative like that players will bring to an investigation.

  2. Posted

    It was all going so well… and then I tried to run the garden party with hardly any preparation as my friends refused to go home and it was our third day straight of gaming without me having a chance to really plan anything and I was tired so I ended up just talking for most of it and boring my players so they didn't really want to interfere with stuff happening between NPCs or investigating and seemed to get a little frustrated when the scaven just ran past them!

    So my first point is don't do that!

    However the adventure had gone pretty well up to this point, this being our 4th session. The PCs were suspicious at the amount of disappearances that were going on. They had also seen a cloaked figure late one night, and thinking it might be the Black Cowl had tried to follow it, but lost it on the river's banks. They paid off Beatrice Knox's debts at the last minute, and followed her to the Upright Pig, where she handed the money over to an individual who then slipped through a door into the cellar of the inn. However when they tried to follow they were met by several thugs at the door, and after a long  stand off decided they didn't have any evidence that the disappearances were to do with them and they would probably get murdered if they tried to fight their way inside.

    But then we came to the part I hadn't been expecting to reach until next week!

    So in hindsight, this is what I think I should have been trying to include during the party:

    Information about the current political climate. With all the nobles around this has to be the main topic of chat. The reason the Black Cowl may consider Clothilde Von Alptraum a threat could be worked into this part. This could either contrast with the power struggle in the docks or reflect it, in a more civilised way.

    Rumours about Kislev having to fend off more marauder raids than usual and that they might be assembling an army for an invasion would be good to fit in here, otherwise the war that breaks out a few days later might seem like it's come out of the blue.

    More ways for the PCs to be involved. I've not done a scene like this before and it ended up with the players just listening to me as I waffled on about what they saw. Maybe writing out a few events that can happen, like at the ball in 'Edge of Night' would help anyone planning on running this part. I know this might not be much of a problem for some GMs, I've been in games where all the players just make any scene their own, which can be a great time for mischief and mayhem. However my party consists of two players that I lost the attentions of early on in the session.   :(

    So the action for this bit is designed to be confusing to the PCs. They don't know exactly what is going on. Screams are coming from the hedge maze which one of them may have seen a large creature shamble into. Anyone who stays within the tent may have to deal with panicked nobles as well as the smoke bomb going off. (This was what happened to the Witch Hunter, who was expecting someone to try and steal the jade face, so stayed in the tent and tried to clear everyone out of it by firing his pistol. Chaos star caused the crowd to panic and rush past him, forcing him outside.)

    The trouble is it can get very confusing for the GM and the players too! So here are a few tips of things I would do different next time.

    1) MAKE A LARGE PRINT OF THE HEDGE MAZE THAT YOU CAN DRAW ON!! Can't stress how useful this would have been.

    2) A sketch of the grounds layout would be good. Struggled to picture how it was supposed to be layed out, and how far things were apart (i.e. the tent from the demigryph cage and the cage to the maze, the distance from the front of the tent to the back and maybe even how many manoeuvers it takes to circumvent the tent. The distance from the tent to the hedge the scaven makes a bolt for). These would be very handy to have written down for quick reference. Also think about how many entrances the tent has, and what you can see from looking out of them. In my opinion the PCs shouldn't be able to see the demigryph cage or the entrance to the hedge maze just from the tent entrance, and would need to move closer to discover what is happening.

    3) Moving around in the tent after the smoke bomb has gone off should be very difficult. No only can you not see but there are probably plenty of other people who are trying to escape, tables and chairs and other hazards that need to be taken into account. Either a location card like the 'Bandit camp' or a skill check needs to be used to find the PCs way to the exhibits. The sudden sound of breaking glass or the groans of the bodyguard that gets stabbed could help.

    4) Any characters who do succeed in passing the Toughness test to stay in the tent, or do what one of my players did and run around the outside, discovering the hole in the canvas as they go should be given the chance to 'stop' the theft. I was thinking of adding an accomplice to Skrabb, just a normal gutter runner. The 'Smoke bomb' action card will help Skrabb escape and it doesn't matter if the gutter runner is killed and the PCs recover whatever unimportant item it was trying to steal at the time. Of course it's body dissolves before any of the NPCs in the area get a chance to see it, and it just occurred to me that this could implement the PC in the theft of the item! Ha-ha!

    5) The Demigryph is a tough opponent. Without the whole part there it would be hard to take down. If the Party happens to be combat orientated then this could turn into a fun monster hunt. If the party is not all there, or not particularly combat orientated then it would be interesting to watch the PC's trying to distract it from eating people while not getting disembowlled in the process until the Greatsword guards arrive to help out. (I like the suggestion of Amalie using wax ear plugs, might make the PCs realise she is in danger and try and find her before the demigryph does).

    6) If players don't feel like charging into the maze after a large beast then this could partly turn into a social encounter as they try and calm down the crowd and organise runners to be sent to fetch a healer and the Greatsword guards… atleast until the scaven strike. As I mentioned the Witch Hunter attempted to make everyone leave, slightly disastrously (if he'd failed the check someone would probably have tackled him.)

    Anyway, those are my sugestions. I don't know if anyone else has run this bit yet but if not this seems to be the first bit of the campaign that really needs a little more extra work from the GM (unless your players have done something off the rails, like mine almost did trying to demand entry to the Upright Pig cellar). Am interested in anyone else's thoughs to running this bit.

  3. Posted

    My two player's characters are:

    Battlescarred Zelot (i.e. witch hunter apprentice) - Was part of a body guard for a bright wizard at Third Black Fire who misscast and killed several soldiers, wounding the PC. He blames the wizard for what happened and now has a hatred for all magic users. Recently he heard the wizard had been seen in Averheim, and that a witch hunter was also in the city.

     

    Outcast Wood Elf Wardancer - In self exile searching for anything or anyone who can help fight off the beastmen pushing harder into the woods.

     

    I quite like the background cards as the players both have their own personal quests and backgrounds that can tie nicley into the story line.

  4. Posted

    Thanks, there are some good ideas here. I especially like the 'monster in the water' red hearing, might hint at that a little bit. My players have already done the witch's song and always seem to expect the dark elf to appear around a corner riding a flying giant bog octopus! So this might get them thinking about that. Am going to use the clock too, however have just read through book 3 of the campaign and it fits an awful lot of stuff into one day so a little worried it might clash a litte with them doing less per day at the begining of the adventure. Oh well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

    I also didn't think about the dockers constantly brawling with each other after the first day, will have to add that in a bit more.

  5. Posted

    Hey.

    So my friends bought me this for Christmas and wanted me to start running it the very next day (typical). We did character creation which actually set up the adventure very well with the back grounds. The trouble I sort of foresaw was going to be getting the players to investigate all the aspects of the first chapter, not just focusing on the missing fisherman (who saved the woodelf outcast's life as he was traveling to Averheim). Now I'm not sure how to proceed. The adventure is written not expecting the players to find the scaven until after the party/theft, but doesn't give enough ideas on how to run an investigation to keep the players interested and not feeling like they are being railroaded or distracted by me trying to get them to do other things. Valvorik mentioned a sort of winds of change scenario, which would be great if I hadn't just run that   :S   They also refused to help the dockers look for thier missing man, though I don't think this is a huge problem, but makes me a little concerened about them getting tunnel vision. As it is their plans for day 2 include trying to get an audience with the wizard (introduce the Southlands exhibition) and try and find a place that Jurgen Klinkski may have gone to get fire wood. This is obviously a good place to start an investigation but all I can think of doing is making it a bit of a dead end (which might anoy my players).

    Can anyone give me some advice? All I can think now is that I have 2 days to fill before all the coach trip stuff takes them out of town. I do have a side plot with the Witch-hunter character looking for a wizard he blames for his regiment being slaughtered at 3rd Black Fire (an 'accidental' misscast I'm going to tie in with the conspiracy) but the missing people are going to draw my players attention the most. And my player size is 2, so only so many personal quests to distract them.

    That said, the rest of the adventure looks like it's going to be awesome!

  10. Posted

    I've just done part of this bit of the adventure, next week is going to be all the investigations into the town by Krieger (Mutant revealed was the last part of the last session). My players put together the healing potions and corruption after one of them suffered corruption after drinking a drugged one (two chaos stars on resilience check to over come sleep). They are thinking with Krieger on the 'whole town are possibly mutants' and the dwarf is holding a grudge against Saska. I'm really not sure which way they will end up going through the next bit. These reports are helpful for planning for different outcomes ;)

  11. Posted

    Question: Has anyone thought of allowing players to declare a delay on their action on their turn, and have that action turn into a 'reaction' trait card?

    i.e. PC's turn he aims his crossbow at the enemy and declares he wants to use his Ranged Shot card if the enemy tries to run. The card gets put down but the roll isn't made.

    NPC's go, the Cultist tries he luck and dives for cover. Agility check, possibly opposed to the PC. Depending on how well he does adds misfortune/fortune to the PC's Ranged Shot, which gets played as a 'reaction' card when the cultist moves.

    I know the way initiative in this game works tries to account for things like this but my players get a little annoyed when enemies do stuff that they wanted them not to.

  12. Posted

    I've been thinking about this for a little while. Some RPGs I've been playing, mainly World of Darkness games, don't have 'money' as such, instead having a resources score which gives an abstract value of wealth. Has anyone thought about introducing this into WFRP? Obviously you need to take into account that the adventurers are wandering around in the wilderness at times but there are obviously points where if they tried they would be able to earn a steady wage. I think this game would be able to work with a system like this, especially with the way wealth is determined at character creation and the 'social tiers' aspect in the game. I've also just today got the Black Fire Pass set and quickly glancing at the rules for runesmithing see it has a cost (though can be negated). I haven't been handing out large amounts of cash to my players (We are doing the Witch's Song adventure and there isn't a great deal of money in Fauligmere) and though the dwarf player seemed interested in runesmith as a career he was a little put off by the cost. I think a resources stat could over come something like this, and just limit how often he could do it. Has anyone else thought about something like this?

    (note; not a very experienced GM)

  13. Posted

    Nice, I've just run this bit but was far to tired to really do it and mucked it up so much the witch got captured... looks like I need to organize an escape attempt in the middle of the night. Luckly the PCs are happily gulping down health potions so they may be falling asleep and waking up to cut ropes and a missing village healer along with their prize. Suspicion on Saska ought to provide some material for next session tomorrow anyway

  14. Posted

    Ok so still no finished writing my campaign yet, we've missed the last two weeks because I've had some issues with my job (grrr) and then a player was busy etc. Now I've had time to do most of it so decided to post the concept and first chapter.

    So:

    3 months ago a passageway in a lead mine a few miles south of Ubersreik collapsed. Several miners were killed though a few made it out. The shaft was closed off. Unbeknownst to the miners, the collapse uncovered a large amount of buried warpstone, the 'radiation' of which had been shielded by the lead vein. Some of the strange stones were sent back to the city, but mysteriously disappeared.

    What happened with the warpstone that was taken back to town was that one of the merchants, Gus Kaufman, who had dealings with the mine saw it and believed it could be valuable, not knowing exactly what it was. He took it back to his home. A few days later there was a late night knocking at the door. It opened on an odd stranger. He asked if he could come in and to excuse the lateness of his visit. The man did not reveal who he was, or who had sent him. All he did was make the merchant an offer; he would pay a great deal of money for the mysterious stones, and a great deal more if any more could be acquired and smuggled up to Altdorf. The merchant agreed. Within a week he had managed to get one of the miners to begin digging up warpstone from the closed off shaft and smuggle it back to the town in the ore carts. The merchant also made contact with Captian Kristof, a man who had been a smuggler along the Reik for several years.

    Meanwhile, the miners who had escaped when the shaft collapsed had disappeared. Being exposed to the warpstone caused mutations, and knowing what would happen if they were exposed as mutants, they fled. But a couple of months later they re-emerged with a gang of bandits and began to raid carts and travellers along the mining road. One of these raids targeted the ore carts that the warpstone was being smuggled to town in. Recognising the stones the mutant miners/bandits took them back to their camp.

    Of course, how can such a large and hitherto unknown stash of warpstone go unnoticed by the scaven?

    Set up:
    The way I was going to run this was as an investigation as to where the warpstone was going, eventually leading to the mysterious stranger (and possibly more adventures such as Winds of Change).

    The first step to get players interested is the bandits raiding along the mining road. I pretty much ran this as a straight combat because I didn't have much of a clue where I was going with this and my friends didn't give me much warning about wanting to play.
    Hooks I used: Bounty on the bandits by the city watch, man who had been on his way to the mine delivering construction materials returned injured asking for help.
    Essentially the party found the last place the bandits had been and tracked them from there. They then got attacked by the mutants and found the warpstone. I added a few hints about the fact the mutants used to be miners and that the warpstone may have been on a raided cart coming from the mine.

    The next 2 parts of the adventure could be played in either order. Essentially the players should have been given clues through out that something is going on in the mine (mutated ex-miners and warpstone). If they don't piece that together they could be asked to check it out or if they are more interested in doing jobs for money the customs house could be looking for people to look into corruption in the ranks and smugglers. Either way eventually the PCs discover the smuggling ring, both from the mine and the boatmen at the docks in Ubersreik. This should give them clues to the merchant and the mysterious stranger.

    The mine.
    Clues should lead to a miner named Dominik Jung, the man who is mining the warpstone and smuggling it back to town. There is also a scaven encounter.

    As the PCs approach the small mining town on the mountainside there is a crowd around a post where a man is being whipped. If they ask why they are told that earlier that morning the shaft that the man was in charge of collapsed, and with the collapse of the shaft 3 months earlier the miners were demanding someone get punished. His name is Bernhard Eisenberg, and if the PCs try to persuade the miners to release him his is very thankful and promises to help them with anything they need (even if they fail to help he's still grateful).
    Interesting clues:
    3 months ago a shaft collapsed, killing some miners. Others escaped.
    The mutant bandits were some of the miners who escaped.
    This morning another shaft collapsed, Bernhard was in charge of the safety.
    Dominik Jung has lost his mining pick.
    Some odd gems were found in the mine a few months ago.
    etc.

    The next bit is set in the actual mine. In play should be the 'Abandoned mine' location card, though not yet sure how many tokens it should take till the mine begins to collapse (thinking around 8). If asked nicely one of the miners may offer to show the PCs around (Bernhard is happy if they helped him)
    The shaft that collapsed earlier that day looks as though it collapsed into another shaft below it (this was a tunnel dug by the scaven to reach the warpstone). Someone may notice that the length of the shaft points out of the mountain towards Ubersreik.
    The old shaft that collapsed is a little further into the mine. There is essentially an impassable mound of earth and rubble ahead, except there is a small crawl hole at the bottom (this was dug by Dominik). It's only big enough for one person at a time to go through but there is a large chamber on the other side. (1d) co-ordination check to get through the hole (remember the abandoned mine location card). There is a very small tunnel that is hard to see, where a scaven slaver party who were hunting miners to take away as slaves are watching the PCs.
    Clues:
    An abandoned miners pick lies near a wall (this is Dominik's lost pick)
    A few warpstone fragments
    A really good search finds the entrance to a scaven tunnel, if so the scaven leap out immediately and don't get any ambush bonuses.

    If the scaven tunnel is not discovered then they will wait until the players start leaving and attack. If Bernhard or another miner is with the party they let the PCs leave first. Then there are screams as the scaven attack. If not, they jump on the last player, leaving all the other players trying to scramble back in through the crawl hole (co-ordination check not to get stuck and of course ever chaos star could cause the mine to collapse.)
    The set up I was thinking for the scaven hunting pack was a couple of beastmasters and some clan rats. Instead of a straight fight I was thinking of using the tight space, spreading out the party and the instability of the mine to add difficulties for the players. The fight ends when the scaven are dead or the mine finally begins to collapse (in which case the scaven scream and dash away).
    The last act is escaping the mine. Best done with a progress tracker and a series of events. I'm thinking 6 spaces with event on the 3rd and 6th spaces. One counter for each player and a counter for tracking the collapsing mine. Advance the mine collapse counter at the end of each turn and the player's counters each time they pass the appropriate check. If its failed leave the counter where it is and move it one space at the end of the next turn.
    Checks:
    (1d) co-ordination check to squeeze back out through the crawl hole (If anyone is outside the crawl hole then start them on space 2).
    (2d) athletics check to leg it down the shaft.
    (2d) athletics check to climb over a fallen pile of rubble or (3d) co-ordination check to squeeze through.
    (2d) intelligence check to choose the right path out of the mine
    (3d) athletics check to run the last stretch out of the mine as earth and rock comes down around them.

    When the mine collapse counter reaches the 6th space the mine collapses. Any players who haven't made it to the 6th space are at risk of being crushed. Roll environmental effects damage, the dice number depending on how many spaces away from the end the players are (5th space 1 challenge die etc.)

    Of course, having caused the mine to collapse the PCs are probably not going to be welcome in the mining town much longer, and therefore all social actions now get a penalty, and any chaos stars resulting in the miners deciding to run them out.

    Dominik:
    If the players decide to question Dominik, having found his pick in the mine, he will deny everything unless given incentive to talk. He doesn't know what it is he has been mining, believing the warpstone to simply be some precious stones. If confronted with the truth he'll confess everything. Despite his prolonged exposure to the warpstone he hasn't actually started showing any signs of mutation (yet).
    All he knows is that he was asked to mine the stones by a man named Gus Kaufman, who he believes may be a merchant. He smuggled the stones to town in the mining carts and left the boxes in a warehouse at the docks.
    If the PCs follow up on the warehouse they find it empty (the warpstone has already been taken to the boat).

    That's the mining chapter. The next chapter set around the customs house and docks is less structured, I just need to finish writing it up.

  15. Posted

    I like the idea of them having to get into the ball, one of my ideas was that an influential merchant was part of the ring of smugglers getting to warpstone out of the city. That could quite well fit in though would have to do a bit of tweaking with the ball at the end and not sure if that part might just get a little too complicated, what with the scaven plots and everything. Still it sounds good and may have to keep that in mind for any other stories

  16. Posted

    I've just started writing an adventure to run alongside the edge of night. It is the first I've ever done so not going to be fantastic and not finished yet but I sort of know where I'm going to go with it. The Basics are that there are a few mines outside of the town, including a lead mine. About 3 months previous a section of the mine collapsed, exposing a chunk of warpstone, possible a meteor that hit the ground and was burried a long time ago. The lead in the ground had shielded the miners from the warpstones mutating effects, but after the shaft collapsed some of the miners who survived began to mutate. They fled the area.

    The warpstone attracted Scaven, this is obviously where the edge of night comes in.

    As well as that a powerful dark wizard in Altdorf with spies in the town hears rumors of miners turning up strange stones in a mine and has sent his apprentice to investigate and procure some of the stones if they are, as he suspects, warpstone. The apprentice makes contacts and soon sets up a smuggling network to get the warpstone upriver.

    Meanwhile the miners who were exposed to warpstone in the mine and mutated have returned and started raiding the wagons going to and from the mines. They intercepted one of the smugglers taking the stones recently dug up from the mine and recognised them. I ran this as the opening encounter yesterday (most of the story I've only worked on today). A woodsman taking construction materials to a mine was attacked and staggered back to where one of the PCs were. The bandits had a bounty on them and the PC's went to find the camp. After a fight they found the warpstone. Hopefully they will now be interested in the mine, and a few clues from people like the head customs officer about some smuggling going on.

    Clues pointing towards scaven:

    -an encounter with them at the mine

    -beggers the PC's may come across while looking for the smugglers are going missing, taken as slaves

    thats about as far as I've got i just need to put it all together with the clues to tracking down the smuggling ring, which should get the PC's enough favor for an invite.

    The Idea of the story is to give the players some stuff to do, which will attract the attention of the nobles, while playing the fact that sinister stuff is going on with the ratmen. As I said I've only just run the first part of this but am doing a write up I can post if you want.

  19. Posted

    I'm a fairly inexperianced GM doing a new campaign with a slightly revised group to what I had for the last one. Characters have been made and I was writing up a bit of an encounter where a poison-maddened priest attacks them and hoping that they subdue him rather than kill him at this point. The thing is none of them have taken real fatigue/subdual damage action cards and was wondering if anyone had house rules on over powering enemys?

  20. Posted

    I was thinking along the lines of  if you want to move one range increment per round it'll take 1 maneuver but moving more than 2 range increments in the same round will gain fatigue equal to the amount you moved showing the exertion needed to move that distance quickly. Either way I'm going to rethink this and thanks

  21. Posted

    Hi everyone, games are going well so far but have a question on how people handle distance maneuvers. If some thing is at extream range to the party it would take a total of 6 maneuvers to move over to extream range. What I'm having trouble getting is the two things moving towards each other. If someone uses 1 maneuver to move to medium range from the party is he now at long range from the thing he's moving too? If so his next turn it would take only 3 maneuvers to reach this target. Or is it that the place that distance is measured from stays the same. If the PC moves from the party is he at medium range from them but the target is still at extream range? In that case it would still take another 5 maneuvers to reach the target. If both things are moving to each other is where it is getting complicated. Say a group of Beastmen are moving towards them from extream range (this is from act 1 of and eye for an eye btw) the book says moving slowly. How many maneuvers would they need to get to the party? This is one of the main things that has confused me.

  22. Posted

    I'm not entirely sure how to handle fear with NPCs. One of the players in my group is an amethyst wizard with the 'Deaths messenger' card, one of the things he can do is cause fear 1 or 2. If using the same rules for fear as for PCs if the enemy fails the Discipline check it can gain stress, which using the rules for normal enemies mean they lose wounds. This happened and killed a Gor the PCs were fighting by the wizard pulling a scary face and I was wondering if there was a better way of handling this?

  23. Posted

    Well after several hours play I think it went much better than I expected. The only in the fun was trying to get the first beastman combat right but with luck I think it will improve. Main trouble is I don't think one of the players is really interested in the role play side and hasn't done much, so while the others started chatting up the serving girls, befriended the guards and stole any slightly incriminating looking book from the library he searched one room, came up empty and decided to do nothing else for the rest of the session which was a bit disapointing and he looked pretty bored by the end. Kind of tricky when I want to do more role play than straight fighting but all in all it was a success thanks for people who replied

  25. Posted

    Hi i'm just about to start GMing this game with 4 people (did it with my boyfriend and one of his friends for a practice) and am going to start with an eye for an eye. My group is interested in the social investigation side of the game and I just wanted to ask for some opinions on handling some situations i think i'll come across.

    First a lot of NPCs will probably be lying to them, I was wondering about how to get the PC's to take an intuition check without going ' this guy could be lying, roll a check.' I was thinking of two ways to do this. Make the NPC to make a guile check against the highest intuition check in the group, and if they fail tell the PCs that they may suspect the NPC of lying. With this I wasn't sure if the success/fail rate of doing it this way round was the same as getting the PC to take an intuition check. My other idea was based on the fact that intuition checks weren't just to detect lies, and to get PCs to take them every now and then when engaging NPCs in conversation. I was planning on hiding the challenge dice from the PCs when doing this so they didn't know if they had passed or failed when I gave them the info, or the difficulty level.

    (Also wanted to do this with Obv when going into a room, 'roll a daunting obv check' when the PC's enter seems to be a bit too much of a hint that there is something important there)

     

    Right I know there was other stuff I wanted to ask about but i've forgotten right now... I may post here again ^^

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