The player fulfilling the role of the Game Master – or GM – has a lot of important responsibilities. The GM develops adventures and story hooks for the other players’ characters, manages long-term campaigns and plot development, settles rules conflicts or questions, and helps narrate the outcome of different tasks and actions performed by the story’s participants – both the player characters and non player characters (NPCs) populating the world.

One of the versatile tools provided for GMs in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is the progress tracker, which this diary discusses in more detail .

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=808

This actually would be an interesting thing to have use in a scenario..although it kind of reminds me of the progress tracker in setting up my Facebook account "You're almost finished - 89%"

Anyways, this looks like a nice little toy that might be used in my games to keep the players on task.

jh

This is the first thing that I'm not really thrilled with. It seems unnecessary to me, but I am coming at it from a veteran GM's perspective. I do appreciate the frequency of the previews.

Interesting. While I can definitely see some usefulness in it, I also can't help but feel that it is just one more item to clutter the play area.

Is FFG trying to remove the PnP from table-top RPGs? I'm interested to see how well all these trackers and doo-dads work, but I'm not sure you can really beat the good old fashion Pen 'n Paper for keeping track things. The only real benefit I can see to this is that it is a visual aid for the players. The example given in the pdf of the PCs tracking "Berthold" seems an odd use for this kind of visual aid though. How would the PCs know whether they were close to catching "Berthold" or if he was closer to escaping? That seems very meta-gamey to me.

One thing I always hated about RPG's was arbitrary GM's. Guys who just go off the top of their head on game decisions, which usually are no benefit to the player at all. I know that the GM needs a lot of creative space to move, or it wouldnt be a roleplaying game. but if im playing with a GM and I know he's using something like this progress tracking tool i would feell like the game was a bit more even and consistent. I mean, RPG's have all lived and died by the GM. A good GM can make up for crappy rules, but great rules can't make up for a crappy GM. If FFG wants to develop some tools to make the game consistent then thats great.

The advantage I see with this tool is that it can be very versatile and it can be used secretly by the GM or in the open if the GM wants the players to see their progress.

The example given in the PDF about tracking Berthold would be a good example for a secret use of the tool: why should the PCs know whether Berthold got his stash or how close he is to escaping?

A good example of the tool used openly would be a pursuit in city streets: each PC would use a different token, advancing at different speeds, and the quarry/pursuers would also use one token. Each marker in the progress tracker could come with some small event in the pursuit: a jump between two roofs, someone bumping into a character, a stall blocking the way...

Most times you'll have to supplement this tool with pen+paper because you'll need to assign encounters so, in theory, this tool does not seem to add much to what we already had but... just having this tool available will inspire the GM a lot of uses he would not have thought of, so it can be a great addition, specially if FFG uses it in their published adventures... Only reading this article already gave me a lot of ideas about new ways to manage encounters: maybe I'll use i, maybe I won't, but the possibility is there for us GMs.

First I must say, that I really appreciate frequent diary updates, and time spend to provide them to us.
Thank you for that.

I see the potential in the tools we are given.

Unfortunately the recent diaries do not satisfy my hunger for knowledge (I want moarrrr ).
I feel like fed with bones.
Do not get me wrong, bones are better than nothing, sometimes they are very good, and can be satisfying, thay provide foundations for bigger things, I like them.
But when we get some meat ?

I would like to see some combat, and session example before the game is out.
How the player character attributes changed?
How the GM handles all the monsters during a fight?
How the armors, weapons, parry dodge and wounds work?
Something about magic?
Book previews, a few pages to give us a small glimpse of what their content looks like.
How GM handle all this trackers, dice, symbols, tokens, (chips, beer and pizza ) while keeping the table clean (and how big table I will need to buy to be able to play with all this stuff )?
Some demo adventure like Rogue Trader "Forsaken Bounty" maybe ?

Meat, MEAT, MEEEEAT (and blood for the blood god ).

PS: I know I expect much (perhaps too much), and that it takes time, and not always can be provided, but I'm a very impatient person (I even made an oath to never be patient, and made impatience my way of life - like Zen, or something... )

The tracker itself - the various tokens and pieces - seems unnecessary (you can always just write this stuff on a piece of paper), but the mechanics they represent could be useful.

OK maybe I missed the point competly but how is using a physical tracker any different to just using tokens to subtract from a pile (or even add to it if you prefer) depending on if you need a certain number of whatever, have a diminishing supply or just who does better over a set time frame.

When are the design diarys comming to show it's an RPG? Sure the Gimicks are nice and knowing about the components are good on a side note, but I realy want to know more about how it functions and plays out.

Sunatet hit on alot of the bits I'd like to hear more about, because to me an RPG is more about story and chararacter development (the non mechanical stuff) as well as character advancement (the mechanical tracking of the characters development).

Well, there are not much that can be shown in a story only way, as thats what the GM and players have to do themselves.......
The WHFRP3 only have new tools to make the mechanics in the story.

But again - the dice is the major fiction creating help tool in this new system.

People complaining for complexity should really take a look at Burning Wheel, two fat books of just mechanics and no setting - and have one of the best ways of making a story on the market.

I thought at first view that the tracker was a bit overdone, and then again; It would certainly be worth using when writing/planning encounters in a scenario as a gm.

I stll miss that session video; come on Jay give it!

The tracker system is similar, though by no means identical, to the "chase" system in the Savage Worlds role playing game. In that game you use tokens to signify where the vehicles are in relation to one another and set an end goal for the chase, but they didn't offer any further use of the system. The WFRPG3 system can be applied to any narrative conflict -- debates, negotiations, chases, searches for clues in a fire -- any time where there is something opposing the PCs outside of combat. I really like the use of the shared visual tracker as it can assist newer, and some older, players in visualizing just how desperate the situation is/isn't.

Let's take the PC's finding the book before the fire consumes it example. If the fire is near the first "progress point" the PCs know that they are very close to losing the pages of the book that refer to "where" the dark summoning needs to take place, the second point can represent the burning of the counter ritual.

I can see some good uses for this system.

Christian Lindke said:

very good point!!! and nice example...i was really wondering, as a GM, as to how i could use this...nice example