Jump to content

Veteres

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    27

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Veteres

  1. Posted

    I have finished reading through the campaign book. It took me a while, but what a treat -that is the full 400 pages! Reading the campaign finale gave me goosebumps.

     

    On thinking over the WFRP (3ed) conversion only one or two aspects of the campaign seem troublesome:

     

    SPOILERS   ETERNAL LIES SPOILERS   ETERNAL LIES SPOILERS

     

     

     

    1. Not the locale of M.C. itself poses a problem ... but the local cult's anomalous veneration of the god-being does. 

    The cult wants to convert/influence parts of humanity by means of music distribution -gramophone records with the voice of the god-being, instead of distributing the Nectar drug. What would be a good early renaissance alternative for this? Perhaps Leticia de la Luz can be introduced as an opera singer and the cult wants to influence groups of citizen in the Bilbali opera houses?

     

    2. If players in a Eternal Lies campaign want to economically follow up trails from Los Angeles, most likely they will start in Mexico, then go to Malta and Ethiopia and finish in Bangkok (with the PC consistently choosing the nearest destination to investigate).

    My first idea would be to convert LA in Altdorf, Mexico in Bilbali, Merida and Yucatan in the New World/Lustria, Malta in Miragliano or Saratosa, Ethiopia in New Coast/Southlands and Bangkok in Marienburg. Obviously above mentioned logic will stumble over this conversion. Does anybody know if this would pose a problem?

    Applying the same logic in WFRP the PC's would first go to Marienburg, then to Bilbali and Saratosa. One could wonder if they would ever want to go to Lustria. Just visiting all locales once would take the PC 3 to 5 years using early modern traveling techniques ... and EL implies that Investigators might see the need to visit different locales more than once. Wouldn't it be better to convert all EL locales within the Empire or the Old World in order to reduce the in-game time course? 

  2. Posted

    After another disappointing lecture of a Warhammer Grand Campaign (TEW2) I have turned to the Cthulhu products line.

    SPOILERS

    Again, that is. I love the WH setting but the stories are a bit ... ah.

    For some 10 years I've wandered if somrthing as a grand as Masks of Nyarlathotep could be converted to Warhammer. I never came to it as I envisioned it to be to much of work and because some of my players were to a level familiar with the Masks storyline.

    Then 2 weeks ago... in my dispair ... I stumbled upon Trail of Cthulhu: Eternal Lies.

    more than halfway through the 400 pages campaign and what a revelation!

    SPOILERS!

    All WH chaos gods themes are present as the story of hideous drugabuse, abismal fornication, primeaveal cagefights and blasphemous demon invocation is narrated. In an impressive synoptic format the pc are encouraged to research a terrible family secret. This is the rather innocent hook that will send the pc all over the globe; a metropolis (Altdorf?), 2 big coastal cities/harbours (Marienburg and Miragliano?), a colony on a dessertcoast (Southlands/araby?), jungle (Lustria?)...

    Anybody out there also contemplating this same conversion?

    k7e9 reacted to this

  3. Posted

    TEW in Bruges got delayed before it even started. Hence the silence.

    20th December the campaign eventually kicked off. In a way...

     

    I opted to run the 1ed scenario With a Little Help from my Friends as a prologue to the new TEW campaign as I had to buy some time to allow for my fourth player to join the game. I threw out the Bretonian gnome (Hercules with the silly Belgian accent) and introduced luminary Mauer as plot trigger.

     

    Mauer is helping his acquaintance Ludwig Orteli to retrieve his young son who was kidnapped by Claudio Carbonetti (the scenario's Tilean connections fit just right in with the Averheim demography as described by Chris Wraight in Swords of the Empire (good stuff i.m.o.)). Still have to decide if this is genuine philanthropy on the part of Mauer or just the BC striking out against competing crime groups and expanding his leverage by means of the player characters.

     

    There is Reiner Rumlinger-Ensenberger (preferably addressed by his humanist name 'Pecalion'). An Averlander by birth, once a promising philosophy student at the Altdorf university but drawn to the winds of magic and currently apprentice to the great luminary Mauer in Averheim of all places (I totally agree with you Grandmartoni ;) big thanks).

    Pecalion initially got the assignment to observe the kidnappers hide-out. As all was happening in the disreputable Larswald District he decided to get some back-up from his local friend Heinrich Fleicher (LF7-premade roadwarden pc -another big thanks here). Mauer himself suggested to involve one frau Nemdahl, messenger from the Ostermark League who arrived in town some two days ago and who is at the luminair's disposal for the time being. The anonymous agent would certainly be an asset to the operation.

     

    Last night's session ended with Heinrich climbing onto the roof of the kidnappers hideout at Wendenbahn 17 at night and sneaking into the attic by means of a broken skylight. (Syrinscape's On the Creaky Porch soundscape (part of the Deserted House Set) -was really appreciated by the players tiptoeing around the hideout :) ). Heinrich managed to finish of the two guards who were sleeping in the first floor bedroom but couldn't help rousing the kidnappers on the ground floor. Now Pecalion and Nemdahl are readying themselves to enter and hopefully rescue the Ortelli child... 

     

    We took two sessions to get to this point (6 hours in all) -yes we are taking our time. And why not -it's been great fun. Also, I've dropped the 4 hours play/1 advance rule. I prefer experience (xp) to be plot/achievement based, like in former editions. For finishing the prologue I planned to give the participating players one advance. If they manage to get little Ortelli out ... hmm another one?

    Now that I ponder on this I think I prefer to stick with the old directives: 10-100 xp each for quality of planning, 15 xp for each villain incapacitated (105 xp maximum), capturing Claudio alive and handing him over to authorities are worth an extra 20 xp and rescuing the child more or less intact 30 xp each. Every 100 xp so earned would warrant one 3ed advance. But of course, how to consistently reward xp during the rest of the campaign? I hope to consult this fine community on this subject in the future.

     

    Veteres.

    Bruges, 30th December.

  4. Posted

    Great and large amounts of  knowledge has amassed on this forum.

    But allas!!! Apparently no handy search function to scan the different topics? 

     

    Well aware that these questions might have surfaced before:

     

    1. cantrips: would a wizard apprentice have access to unlimited number of cantrip variants or would he be limited to one cantrip (e.g. only light candle) or one cantrip per rank (e.g. rank 1: access to light candle, on becoming rank 2: access to a second cantrip besides light candle)?

    My Light Order wizard apprentice is quiet inventive and came up with some 4 cantrip variants in a 4 hour play session the other night...

    2. more cantrips -would you agree to my ruling?:

    a) would a wizard of the Light Order be able to change his facial hair growth and maintain this whilst traveling in disguise through a city district? (sounds more Grey Order to me) -I ruled yes: but with 2 challenge dice: 1 for non Light Order cantrip and 1 extra for prolongued effect. 

    b) would he be able to light a small object and make it levitate above a roof in order to examine possibilities of entering a house?  -I ruled yes: but with 1 challenge die for the not very Light Orderish levitation trick. 

     

    3. the 'Foresight' focus talent is slotted in the party sheet and is having quiet the impact on Initiative rolls of all party members.

    a) apparently this is a permanent effect, no need to exhaust. Could this be an erratum? 

    b) "'boon' Add 'hammer' to the result pool" would mean that every boon rolled results in a further hammer on initiative checks. Is this correct? 

     

    Veteres

  5. Posted

    another reason for adding misfortune dice instead of challenge dice:

    star wars purple D8 difficulty dice only results in potential failure and threat...no dispair here. I am not that familiar with the star wars game but isnt threat a bit like bane and dispair like chaos star?

    warhammer D8 purples are far worse ...with potential chaos stars.

    as such the best warhammer equivalent of the starwars purple in combat would probably be the black misfortune die?

    so wy not go for following range moddifiers:

    short - 1 purple

    medium - 1 purple, 1 misfortune

    long - 1 purple, 2 misfortune

    extreme - 1 purple, 3 misfortune

    the absence of any possitive effects on warhammer D6 visavis star wars purple D8 should give the grittyness we al long for :)

    one might ask if it would be usefull to adopt this conversion also outside of combat

  9. Posted

    Jackdays. Haven't come around sending you my handmade sketch of Averheim. I've been too distracted by my search for appropriate Averheim vistas on the net. Apologies.

    But look what I found:

    http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/historic_cities.html

    epecially check the maps of Georg Braun, they are just wonderfull

    Been scrolling through them and found that the cities of Maastricht and Liege/Luttich resp. in Holland and Belgium really have Averheim qualities.

    Planning on checking the German and Austrian city maps. These should be mostwarhammeresque, i.e. 15-16rh century Habsburg cities. Guess what: Braun drew his maps in the 16th century.

    The vistas beurifully illustrate the anatomy of Empire cities, slums, docks, countryside, etc. i think.

  10. Posted

    Could you send me the map? I also have a sketch of the city to share. Pm me and I'll send it. I prefer to depict it as the large city it is. Altough earlier fan made maps are beautifull they somehow fail to show a cityscape of one of the largest cities in the Empire (I have only seen Gitzmans map i have to admit).True Averheim is no Middenheim, Nuln or Talabheim but it is a big city (i tend to read the number of inhabitants given in Sigmars Heirs as the number of households, as this gives a more realistic demography-Averheim having 9000 househoulds, i.e. 35.000 -40.000 inhabitants) -it is the biggest city in Averland. Forgive the sketchyness but I am totechnically impaired to produce beautifull pieces like Gitz' map.

  12. Posted

    starting TEW this Friday with my Bruges based rpg group. Five of us will be playing biweekly in the 16th century house of one of the players in the centre of medieval Bruges. An apropriate setting.

    I deliberately waited (almost) a full year after the campaign release before starting, as I knew the communtiy would pimp the story to its full potential.

    As such I feel it is my debt to the communtiy to post sessionreports and musings on the campaign and gameplay in general. A special thanks to Valvorik for his great campaign material is in order, as well as a special thanks to the Reckless crew for their inspiring podcasts.

    Introducing the players: a noble pistollier, a criminal roadwarden (wrongfully accused it seems), a battlescarred gravewarden and an apprentice light wizard -all of the pcs were created ad random. Fiday we'll start with a background spin session and will probably play through day 1.

    The biggest challenge I think will be the creation of the wizard background. As a member of the Sun Society and the Light Order we'll need to find an acceptable relationship with Mauer. Perhaps the pc travelled to Averheim seeking apprenticeship with Mauer and Mauer refusing to take the pc on. A healthy distance should be kept between the pc and Mauer in my opinion. Further spin is welcome as it'll be difficult to work it out with the player without giving away too much.

    As for Averheim: why Mos Shuta and not Averheim?! Last week I bought the Star Wars beginners game to play with my kids and to my astonishment a beautifull full color map of Mosh Shuta was included. Not only the Tatoine town was strikingly drawn, but also maps of the most important adventure locations. Oh I wished TEW designers had done the same. The wfrp 3ed team (if still in existence) should copy the concept in future products.

  15. Posted

    I've started my 'Ubersreik campaign' mid January 2013 and wondered myself how to best order the published 3ed material.

    My PC's recently finished an Eye for an Eye. They unmasked the cultists. Piersson got away but had to abandon everything. One of the PC's, Periconius, is a young apothecary, newly arrived in Ubersreik and eager for an introduction with the town's aptohecary/alchemist community. Ashaffenberg, impressed with the PC's after Grunewald, instructs Vern Hendrick to arrange a meeting with Johann Brass, the current master of the Metalworker's Guild. 

    Johann is willing to support a new apothecary shoppe in town… but is currently preoccupied with the dissappearance of his nephew and guildmember, Florian Wechsler. Florian vanished in Stromdorf two weeks ago… -here I hope the PC's start The Lesser Evil (TGS, part 1). Florian is also the target of a Ostlander bountyhunter -a new PC, whom the other PC's will meet en route to Stromdorf. Very curious how the conflicting/analogue PC motives will play out…

    I am very reluctant to run TGS part 2 -A Time to Mourn, though some of the themes and NPC's are top quality (burgomeister Adler's affaire, etc.) I do hesitate to have silly zombies and skelleton's overrun a Reikland town (especially this early in a campaign). Somehow it would conflict with my gritty low fantasy reading of the WFRP world.

    At the time I am still uncertain what to do with the rest of TGS. I might skip all parts 2-4.

    Gradually the PC's are bound (?) to make a reputation for themselves as investigators. From this point on linking the published scenario's seems quiet easy. I do not think that the order of the scenario's do matter that much. 

    After The Lesser Evil my plans are still vague:

    Perhaps Aschaffenberg asks the PC's to intervene in to the embarassing affair of his nephew Maximillian -upon which The Mirror of Desire starts. Uncertain at the moment how to integrate Horror of Hugeldal.  Somehow  I think of the Edge of Night as an apotheosis for the Ubersreik Campaign. The Art if Waaagh seems like a good epilogue.

     

  16. Posted

    WFRP inspired or inspiring movies have been listed, as well as WFRP agreable music. 

    But how about books -how about nonfiction books !?

     

    I 've found this book most informative and inspiring and would advocate it to all GM's trying to evoke a genuinely and historically consistent WFRP world:

    The Beggar and the Professor: a Sixteenth-Century Family Saga by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (I've found great details on late medieval/early renaissance social mobility, domestic live, educational system, warfare, citizen martiality, diseases, traveling, street theatre, and soo much more)

     

    Any other non ficiton books worth the read?  

     

  17. Posted

    Asking the PC's what their plans are, indeed gives you something to focus your prep. Thanks for the tip Jericho!

    My prep time for Eye for an Eye (now 2 sessions played, Dinner planned for next session) has amounted up to an average of a staggering average 10 hrs a session… amazing to hear people running sessions on just an hour prep time.

    I really do need to deconstruct the FFG texts to set the building blocks for the adventure. Which takes a lot of time. Would be happy to share my prep notes (distilled npc notes, scenario path and anotated maps). Would be interested to get some feedback.

  18. Posted

    I like wfrp 3ed stuff immensely. BUT I do find the scenario's (and to be true, basically all the publications) -to put it mildly -a bit chaotically structured (perhaps intentionally -pun) -therefore painting your copies definitely seems inefficient to me, as it will just add to the maelstrom

    For a over year I have been experimenting with different methods of preparing a good wfrp 3ed session (although introduced to wfrp in the 80ies, I had never truely GM'ed, plus I had a 15 yrs rpg break.  So one could say I restarted as a noob GM/rpger)

    I tried different approaches. Some of them failed miserably. Other's just didn't seem to evoke the magic I was expecting. Recently things seem to improve … a combination of treads on this forum (forgot which ones) gave me a puch in the right direction.

    Nowadays as a preperation I make up the following:

    - a chronology (all dates relevant for the scenario and campaign setting)

    - npc cards (how does the npc look? in 4 max 5 words + tier indication + carreer (helas, not on the fancy Strange Eons cards, as I am totally uncapable  working with the program -I just print and cut up a word file as handouts for the players)

    - npc description (for GM): including npc card info (reduced up to 3 words) and surmising npc's relevant world views, behaviour in different situations, sometimes skill rolls related to that npc (e.g. pc's meet Asschafenberg, roll D2 folklore/education for what you know on the noble family)

    -location description (for GM): 3-4 words of description, related skill rolls (e.g. Grunewald defences: D3 athlectics to cross in min. 3 manoeuvres), names of npc associated with location

    -scenario path: a bullet point list describing a logical (expected) series of events/acts crossrefering to npc's and locations

    AND all this I extract/puzzle from the publications. Truely a labour intensive approach. But an approach that works for me. An approach that deconstructs the written scenario in individual building stones and leaves the construction for the rpgsession with GM and the player's.

     

  19. Posted

    Ceffyl,

    My groups just started Eye for an Eye last Monday. I'm planning to use it as a jump off point for an "Ubersreik campaign" (combining/mixing Mirror, A little help of a friend, Storm, Edge of Night, Hugeldal, Art of Whaagh etc.). The party has just spent their first night at the lodge and met some of the (*****) inhabitants…

    Next session planned coming Monday and busy exploring potential storythreads -so I am very interested in your alternatives/expansions of the feast and chase scenes.

    Just a short session report for flavor: After spending the summer in the Altenblum infirmary, the investigative pharmacist Periconius is once again set for adventure. With his companions, Reinhardt, the mercenary-entrepreneur and Hodge (RPD ;)), the Halfling performer-extraordinaire, he’s bound for the Grunewald Lodge. For something is amiss at the lodge…
    Disguised as house-movers the brash young adventurers are to infiltrate the lodge’s servant’s staff. Lord Rickard Aschaffenberg, the new owner of the lodge, suspects the servants of the former lord, to be a an uncooperative and subversive lot. 
    Upon arrival Periconius & co. learn of the former lord, Andreas von Bruner and his sudden disappearance from the lodge, just a year ago. They also learn of last week’s beastman assault on the lodge and have a midnight meeting with a blind Sigmarite sister and a dwarf in nightgown and nightcap, who is suffering terrible nightmares. 
    Undisturbed, Hodge muses on his evening foraging in the lodge’s kitchen and above all… tomorrow evening’s Mittherbst dinner. Goose AND venison -delicious!

    I'm not an experienced GM and did find the pc's asking darn difficult questions, for example they wanted Aschaff. to elaborate on the subversive behaviour of the lodge staff -and I did find it difficult to improvise in a consistent way … for what kind off servant's behaviour is percieved by a noble as a bit subversive but not bad enough for corporal punishment (a bit of didactic flogging), dismissal or just to turn them over to the law (in a late 15th/16th century based setting, Aschaff. would be probably be empowered to hang any rebelious brass tier brat)…

    Also during preparation some of the following questions struck me (where possible I put in my solutions) -happy for any feedback:

     1. How to explain the painting in the Sitting Room? Surely the chill will not have kept Asschaffenberg out of the room during his two-three weeks stay before pc's arrival? Surely he would have ordered to light the fireplace, seat himself in the only cushioned chair in the room and …

    Perhaps painting was removed by cultists upon arrival of their new lord some 3 weeks ago? Still a strange chill lingers 

     2. How to explain the torture of a wounded Korden after the beastmen attack? Surely Asschaffenberg would notice screams coming from sitting room at night…

    Perhaps Korden was interrogated as to the hammer’s location before Aschaffenberg’ s arrival. But then, how would he end up wounded during last week’s assault?

     3. Why would there be a dozen unmarked gravestones in the orchard? Surely not a dozen casualties are temporary buried and waiting for transport to Geisbach’s Garden of Morr? Are some of them old graves? A small, old, private Morr’s Garden to service the von Bruners would probably have been emptied and cleansed upon abandonment?

                    Perhaps better go with two temporary graves (2 guards died in last week’s assault)

    Hope my musings are helpfull. I do know that your musings on this forum have been a BIG help and inspiration to me! ;)

  22. Posted

     

    thanks soo much or the props Valvorik!

    great quality. 

    the npc card deck is awesome. a great tool for an immersing description to give te pc's -brief, but to the point: one line to typecast a npc -I think I will standardise this approach in future games (btw where would I find the warhammeresque templates you used on the menagerie npc's? -would like to use it on the dock npcs)

    time track: I do like the idea of four 'storytime' actions a day but…

     -would a rallyphase not be appropriate after each and not only at night?

     -would darkness rules also not be appropriately placed on the track?

     -aren't 'tiring effects' not a bit harsh? as a person with a regular 6hrs night sleep I would tend to move all effects up 1 step (but then again that's personal preference -the mechanism is quiet genial and give the pc's a neat time framework -something that in my opinion will enhance the rpg experience and make for a more real world)

    Rambrecht's pamphlets: great stuff -how would you part them to the pc's? you wouldn't happen to know how pamphlet distribution was organised in late 15th cent? I guess Rambrecht stuffing all four pamphlets in their hands for a silver wouldn't work for me. Perhaps let the players find some of the documents whilst searching through npc houses or just laying (between a stack of old magazines) in an inn etc. Again I would opt for a slow built up.

    Averheim table aid: again very usefull -giving the pc's a concise framework to play in and helping GM and PC's to focus on more relevant interactions -I am wondering if perhaps a little culling of some information might improve the table aid (a lot of PC's tend to give up when they have to read to much…)

    It would be sooo great if the Averheim table aid would feature a map of the city -anybody happens to know if such a map was ever produced in earlier editions?

     

  23. Posted

     

    I'm interested at having a peek at Valvorik's agitator pamphlet. Valvorik could you please send it to dieterdemey@hotmail.com?

     

    Basically ANY extra's and props would help…  as I find TEW2 (just) a bit lacking…. This thread though has been most inspirational in 'pimping' the long awaited campaign (e.g. Valvorik's winds of change initiative clock).

     I've only read through the Intro and Book1. I do like a lot of what I've read but I am missing some fundamentals:

    -Averheim gazetteer/citymap: would there be a 1ed or 2ed scenario with more details on the city or a published citymap? 

    -the PC backgrounds are nicely done but the presented pc's motivations for investigating the docks disappearances are a bit meager ('Getting started' pg 29):

    why would a gently-born (i.e. affluent) pc or a foreign messenger bother with 30shillings for info on Rolf Haller? ok it's quiet a bit of money (5 days of pay for a skilled artisan) but come one, why all the fuss over a missing docker.

    Alsoo: Graf Friederich, Lum Mauer or Cpt Baerfaust asking the PC's to look into the matter basically rules them out as the BC. For why would they ever attract attention to their own shadowy business?

    By that same logic the PC's commission with the Red Arrow rules Graf Friederich out as the BC, as well as any engagement in the plot of silver or gold tier PC's

    … and excluding wealthier PC's from TEW result in a new problem: why would the noble Clothilde ever bother to intimately interact with low born characters -as proposed during the coach ride and at the menagerie… 

    A more organic introduction of the PC's into the noble's circles would work much better in my opinion. E.g. the scenario's set around Ubersreik hinted at just such an approach (PC's getting a noble patron). As it is presented in TEW it seems a bit artificial/brusque. Perhaps integrating elements of Edge of Night, Eye for an Eye and Mirror of Desire into TEW might be worthwhile. 

     

     

×
×
  • Create New...