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| Sir 'not appearing in this gaming session' |
Wanted
Gorgor the dwarf decided reinforcements where called for. She went to the guardhouse to use her rank. On arrival the desk sergeant issued her with a 'wanted' poster featuring two villainous interpretations of her friends Barnard and Drett. Both gentlemen where wanted for theft, grifting and assorted major misdemeanors. The posters where also being pasted up along the city streets.
High art
Ronja the wizard decided to use her innate artistic ability to help her friend Barnard hide. She drew a very convincing mustache on a wanted poster. Looking around, she realized the printing press ensured multiple copies of the posters. She gave up a pointless attempt to draw mustaches on all of them, took out some charcoal and drew a mustache on Barnard.
The end is nigh...
The witch Tillman went to the Teufeltal Gate first. He planned to scout around as he waited for midnight. He spoke to the local beggars and then decided to settle around a group of flagellants to discuss how nigh the end was.
A pimply romance
Barnard and Ronja arrived as the night was already getting on. They took there place on a bench outside a tavern and managed to order cheap wine at the last call. As they started talking, they realized that without Drett in the party only Gorgor had transcended adolescence. At that point a city guard, wanted-poster in hand, started approaching their bench. Ronja realized a black coal mustache on a blonde nineteen year old priest might not fool anyone. To cover his face, she quickly kissed Barnard. Hormones acted up, and the rattling of the god's dice implied missed willpower rolls. The guard decided to walk away, knowing full well that breaking up a slobbering, pimply romance was no joy to anyone.
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| The useless city guard recruits should've joined a cannon crew instead. |
Gorgor entered the guardhouse again and used her rank to gather four of the worst recruits available. She marched them toward the Teufeltal Gate, hoping to use one of them to create a ruckus from a distance. Unfortunately her recruits turned out to be afraid to walk the dark streets of Ubersreik alone. If only they had been dwarves...After some rather brutal shouting Gorgor convinced a duo of recruits to perform the set taks together.
Scum
Tillman allowed himself to be put out of the city with the rest of the scum (beggars and flagellants) as midnight approached. He spent some time listening to a flagellant's joyous rambling about saying goodbye to a luxurious mansion, staff and all other amenities. Convincing the flagellants to try sleeping in thorn bushes, Tillman joined the beggars and after a failed pickpocket attempt inexplicably led to romance ended his day with crabs.
Dead guards
Within the city walls Gorgor sighed in disgust at her teammates' oblivious slobbering. She took up position at the head of an alley, two guards behind her and a view of the city gate ahead. As she looked at the city gate she saw the two guards there had fallen to the ground. She turned around to order her recruits to check it out. Unfortunately those two where dead on the ground behind her.
Skaven Assassin
Instead of the recruits she looked a black clad Skaven assassin in the (beady) eyes. The ratman had a mechnical left hand. No surprise there as its real hand had been cut to pieces during the ambush at the Triple Square Inn. The creature started ranting. It alternated begging and threats, demanding Gorgor hand over the Plaque of Quots. The party couldn't use this artifact. It was powerful Lustrian magic. The Skaven would kill her and all her friends. They could never control the Plaque.
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| A Skaven assassin photographed in its natural habitat (the display case). |
Gorgor took a good look at the Skaven en hit it full on with her axe. Saying hi to the Skaven in a typical dwarven fashion. The assassin screamed in pain and fear, squirted a stream of what looked like urine against the wall and threw a smoke bomb. They alleyway was suddenly very quiet.
Murder most foul and heinous
Barnard, Ronja and Gorgor returned to Rosalinde's apartments. Once again the front door was ajar and the place had been ransacked. Rosalinde herself was lying face down on her desk with a Skaven dagger in her back. A note read 'give us the plaque or else...'.
Precious magical gear
Ronja quickly searched the late Rosalinde's possessions to secure any precious magical gear that might have been left by the Skaven. The rest of the group wondered about a slightly more important subject: 'Where is Drett?' The up-and-coming lawyer had been in his sickbed when the group left and now he was missing. Had the Skaven kidnapped him?
Skaven attack
Gorgor decided to stop thinking about the problem and start drinking. Pretty soon the dwarf was stretched out under the table, dreaming. She dreamt she had whiskers and was surrounded by Skaven in disgusting robes. They skittered through an underground room with a large pool at its center. Walking down a hallway carved with square rune like symbols they entered a smaller room. Multiple golden plaques where hanging from the walls. Skaven-Gorgor walked up to one, stretched out her claws and took it. An alarm sounded. Lizardmen rose from the pool, took arms from the walls and started fighting Skaven. Gorgor-Skaven stepped over the bodies of her henchman as she ran for her escape tunnel.
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| Here is a random picture of a Skaven packmaster to hide the fact that this text is way too long to read. |
Ronja and Barnard decided they didn't want to spend another night in Rosalinde's apartments. They managed to drag the drunken dwarf to the temple of Sigmar. After smooth talking a patrol of nightwatchmen they even got help. At the temple Barnard managed to use his rank and influence to use a monk's cell for the night. Gorgor slept on the ground as Ronja and Barnard used the single person sleeping pallet to continue their pimply avances. Tillman was still vast asleep in the bushes outside the city gates.
Barnard becomes Frederik
The group used the next day to gather information on the streets. Barnard used a different name: Frederik, hoping to avoid drawing attention to the posters. During their round gossiping, searching the streets and talking to contacts they discovered building materials had gone missing around the Teufeltal Gate. Dark shapes had been seen dragging stones, wood, copper and even whole doors towards the sewers. The group followed these hints until they found one of the larger access points at the docks. A saw had been used to open a hole in its grate.
Stolen door
Walking through the grate, following drag marks left behind by building materials the group entered the sewer. As they left the last light behind a smelly Skaven Plague Monk appeared out of the darkness. It was quickly slain, its body dropping into the sewage. A bit further along the group found a door roughly placed into a hole in the wall. A quick examination revealed the lock on the door was trapped with a dart. Luckily Tillman had a petty spell to safely open locked (and trapped) doors.
Entering the Skaven hive
The group entered the Skaven hive and found a crudely dug cavern containing stacks of stolen building materials. Two plague monks attacked the group as they entered. During the fight a hidden Gutter Runner ambushed Barnard, who made rather short work of the furry assassin. As the last Plague Monk dropped to the ground an eerie silence settled on the room. Everybody took a deep breath wondering which way to go to safe Drett and the high elf Delsoton Maedando....
GM's perspective
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| Mental note: shoot more general rpg photos to illustrate these rambling texts. |
A busy night
A lot happened during this session. As we meet about once a month to play I make these reports to read them to the group at the start of the evening, helping everyone keep track of the story (and occasionally sneaking an extra hint in). I got a bit behind with this one, which didn't help. My report had to be extensively corrected by the group :). I was even later translating and adding these online. I'm not quite sure if anyone outside the group reads these here, but it is rather fun to get a chance to blab about roleplaying in between the wargaming and maybe someone has some use for these notes on GM'ing as I enjoy it.
The GM's job part one: situations
I think one of the most important tasks as a GM is to give your players a free reign on what to do. As a GM you have a two-part job. Part one is thinking up a story, I prefer thinking up a linked group of situations that lead to some resolution. For a GM it is important never to think of solutions or ways to go about these. Just think up situations (a robber jumps from the trees), settings (an abandoned fortress at night) and puzzles (they need to see the baron, but the baron won't see commoners), then loose them on the group and see what happens.
The GM's job part two: feedback
The second part is feedback. Your group will trample all over your precious situation, have a few laughs, mangle an NPC's name and hopefully resolve it along the way. Now their actions need to have results in the world. They shouldn't just get the audience with the baron. Other commoners will respond to the rumors they managed to get an audience. The owner of the abandoned castle should look them up and complain about damages caused by fighting supposed undead. The owner of the inn just down the road might be the cousin of the robber. He might very well wonder why one of the group is wearing his cousin's well know embroidered cloak.
The GM's job in practice: wanted posters
To put this theory into practice I developed the Von Bruner mansion with its family as a situation. The group really wanted to get a book out of this. As GM I prepared the Von Bruner family and servants as NPC's (mostly short notes about their jobs, disposition and relationships towards one another. I made a map of the house and planned out the rooms and their contents. It was up to the group to decide if they wanted the book bad enough and whether to go for fast talk, breaking and entering, purchase, etc. The group decided to go for a combination of fast talk and outright theft. Now there are consequences (feedback) to this action. First of two members of the group are know by face by the robbed chief magistrate of a major city. Second there are wanted posters around town complicating everything else they do. It is great fun to add an unexpected (for me as GM) extra layer to the story and it gives the player a sense that what they do has real consequences to the story. As you will see in the next session this situation will continue to evolve/escalate (did I mention I'm behind translating these reports for my blog?).
NPC development
Another important aspect to keep a campaign entertaining is to have NPC's develop. It is quite tempting to follow the Jaws approach to villains, i.e. keeping the monster hidden for a large part of the story to make the reveal extra impressive. This might work if you throw in a lot of hints along the way. But the opposite is to have the villains show up early and often. The group will fight, rob and best them in various ways. In response have the villain adapt and develop.
Continuous victim of PC handiwork
Did the group cut your bandit leader down with a succession of criticals? Have him reappear wrapped with nasty looking bandages, a wooden leg and a glowing glass eye. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is gritty, but it also has a fate point system that should work for major villains. Get your imagination flowing if your NPC seems to be dead beyond raising and restore him anyway. Have him complain about his stolen boots on the next encounter or give him a pair of glasses (and a +15% BS bonus) if he keeps missing with his bow. Your players will start recognizing the continuous victim of their handiwork and love/hate him for it.
Magic items and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay,
The Warhammer Fantasy world is supposed to be a low magic one (just ask the grognards). This might seem odd as it features wizard's colleges, the chaos waste, high-elves in Ulthuan maintaining a magic vortex and Slann in Lustria working on a the geomantic web. I think low magic means that, as opposed to a world like the Forgotten Realms, magic items are not common. There are no magic shops, +1 swords of slightly less mediocrity and the like. In other words as a Warhammer Fantasy Game Master you should avoid letting your characters purchase (powerful) magic equipment from the tables in a book. Finding an odd curiosity store selling a suspicious but deadly sword makes for a nice story/situation anyway and gives the +1 sword a bit more value to the one holding it.
The more magic items, the merrier
Not having players buy their magic items does not mean they should not have access to them. My take is: the more the merrier. Just make very sure the items do not act predictably. Have a player with a magic sword take the occasional corruption test after use. Also make sure previous owners try to reacquire their lost artifacts. These things have value and a history after all. I enjoy giving my group some odd orc potions (they get used as deus-ex potions with nasty side effects). Handing over a few untrustworthy magic blades, a set of black and gold armor, a complete 'make your own familiar' set and (this will happen in the next installment) a few chaos tomes just adds character (and corruption) to the world. Interpreting the Old World as a place where magic items are never found robs you of a lot of story opportunities and added fun. It also makes all those corruption and magic expansions (of previous editions) rather redundant to own. So I say: the more the merrier, just add unexpected results.
Fighting in Warhammer Fantasy 4th
A last bit of my take on the Warhammer 4th rules so far. Combat is fun. The opposed system makes amateurs hitting each other by accident more likely and advantage shortens down combat significantly. The only house rule in regards to that I've been running is that a fumble is determined by your skill unmodified by advantage. So if your WS is 40 and your advantage is - say - an impressive +100% you will still fumble if you roll a 44, 55, 66, 77, 88 or 99. Your attack will of course hit with SL determined by your roll but after the hit you lose your advantage. This adds just enough randomness to keep combat interesting. All in all I've never had as much combat as in the previous and current campaign and in large part this is made possible by the rules that allow combat to be fast and that give quite a lot of room for creative skill use, making it interesting for the more academically inclined characters as well.
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