We just started to play, and one question came up while I read the rules on advancements: How do you pick actions and talents? Taken together, there seem to be several hundreds of them, do you know them all by heart (basic use, not the details)? Do you go through them every time you pick a new action/talent?

Related, what is the best way to organize actions, apart from their basic type? Do you just keep a huge pile, or is there a practical way to sort them into smaller groups?

Thanks in advance!

There are a lot of actions/talents, especially if you have most or all of the expansions for the game. But even with only the base game it can be daunting, so organizing is kind of the key, especially with actions.

All my actions are sorted in ultra pro collector binders such as the one in this picture: http://www.adsportscardsetc.com/images/products/detail/CollectorsBlack.png . In one binder I have all magic and blessing actions, further split by Wizard Order/Priesthood. The other binder contain all other actions, split into melee, ranged, support and lastly each "fighting style" (such as diestro, ancestor, twin weapon, slayer etc.) got their own pages. Using binders the players can easily flip through and read on the actions when it's time to pick.

Creature actions I have sorted by creature type (greenskin, chaos, beats etc.), so when I prepare a session I can easily pick actions appropriate to whatever monsters the players will encounter. Please note that you probably should not let the players pick actions that are NPC actions, so sorting them into different binders than the ones for the players is a good idea.

I know that some people use binders for talents as well, with smaller pockets. But I have them sorted in stacks by type (reputation, focus, tactic). For this I use boxes such as this one: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14855200/raaco.JPG . These boxes are made by Racco, and cards fit perfectly in the inserts. Probably there are other brands which work just as well. These can often be found in hardware stores (they are meant for nails, screws and stuff). In the racco boxes I also organize all tokens, standups, wound cards etc. as you can pick out the inserts it's easy to set up for the game.

Well, enough about organizing.

Picking actions/talents will take time in the beginning. I like reading, so I had looked over most actions and talents when my gaming group was starting up. So what I did was recommend a few actions for each character (depending on if they wanted melee, ranged, spells, social or whatever) and let them pick from a limited number of actions (3 or 4). That way, the players were not getting overwhelmed early on. Same for talents, depending on what type of talent they wanted I selected a few for them to choose from. Often I and the players would select actions/talents purely by their name. So a thief character might pick dirty trick or backstab. As most actions/talents are quite useful that worked out well, no need to compare the actions in detail, better to get one with a fitting name that feed off the character concept.

After a while when the players and I had a better handle on the rules and started to pick from them whole range of actions/talent.

Personally I just use rubber bands for storing my cards

To make the action and talent selection easier for my players I did all the legwork for them while preparing for the session. I simply selected the cards I thought fitted them from a rules and flavour perspective. So when they wanted to buy actions, there was a stack of about 20 cards to select from.

PS: Watch out for the actions "Rapid Fire" and "Doubble Strike". They are both overpowered. There is an errata PDF with a fixed version of each card. Either remove them from the stack or print out the fixed version and use those instead.

Thanks for your responses!

Well first of all, I'm not the GM, I'm just the guy living closest to the WFRP sale, so all the stuff is piling up in my flat, and I'm the only one with access at the moment. (In that vein, please send me more warnings about overpowered cards that I can abuse should avoid!)

I don't mind getting a few binders, but I'm reluctant to jump at the first solution that presents itself. I did that with X-Wing a year back, and it turned out that neither the first nor the second solution was that good. (The third is fine though.) So at the moment, I use Ralzar's storage solution. I will look out for something like the Raaco box though, my X-Wing fiddly bits are in a very similar box.

Thanks again!

I have just new players in my group, so when they made their character I made them describe how they imaged their characters. What they wanted their character to be like. For example, good with talking, smart, good with swords, and so on. Then I found the cards I thought fit their characters. In addition, I used a little time to describe why I chose that cards to them, and then found new ones, or let them keep them Based on what their opinions are.

If you have a new group I think it is very important that you let the players feel that it is their character and that its they who made it.

When it comes to organising, I have done a lot like K7E9. I have also used the boxes that follows the expansion set`s and have dices, character cards, and stuff in them.

Good luck!

Oh god you didn't let the players look at all the actions did you?

Christ on a bike you'll be there for aaaaages.