Hi all,

I have recently got into Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, so apologies if this question has been asked already; I have searched through the forums, read though the rulebooks and FAQs multiple times. but am having trouble finding a concise answer to my question.

My question is: Does a PC's stance revert to neutral after finishing an encounter (I.e. leaving encounter mode and reverting to story mode)? Resulting in the token being placed back on the neutral space of a given track?

The FAQ states that whilst in Story mode, PCs are assumed to be acting in neutral stance, unless there is a narrative reason approved by the GM to warrant a reckless/conservative stance (and convert dice accordingly - up to one stance die in story mode). I get this and also get that PCs are assumed to start encounter mode in neutral stance (as per the FAQ).

The issue I have is, if you shift your stance once in encounter mode at the start of your turn or more than once by taking stress tokens etc. later finish the encounter, complete the subsequent rally step and move your stance towards neutral one space, yet are still several steps within either conservative or reckless, how can you then start a future encounter from neutral (as per the FAQ) unless it's your very first encounter?

Do you just keep the stance track at the position you left it after a rally step and pick up where you left off for future encounters? Or is it reset to neutral upon returning to story mode?

The Player's Guide on pg 71 states that in story mode you essentially ignore the stance track and test all checks from a neutral stance - is this suggesting you do leave the token where it was left off on the track and just ignore how deep it is or does this kind of mean you need to reset your stance?

I'm probably reading too much into it so sorry for going on, but I have found this particularly confusing and frustrating as the rules seem to be going round in circles for me; any advice or direction to a concise answer would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

mpp7mato

Hey! Welcome aboard!

I think your concern is fairly valid. Here's what I would do, apply it as you will.

PC's should be allowed to at least go 1 space into the stance of their choice during story mode. This lets them be a little bit reckless or conservative. If they want to go any further, I would require they spend a point of stress, as there is no way of regulating how long they have been or will be in that stance. Then let them stay in that unless they want to move up or down their stance, which requires another point of stress.

How does that sound?

The intention of the rules is that you return to neutral stance when entering story mode, so you reset your stance tracker. So the next time you go into encounter mode you'd start from neutral stance.

However, many groups (mine included) allow players to be one step into either stance during story mode to represent if they do something recklessly, conservativly or obviously the player can be in neutral stance if he/she wants to. To be able to use reckless/conservative in story mode gives a certain flavour, and can help when coming up with bane and chaos star effects as well, knowing if a player did something in a rush or taking their time. But you still start mode in neutral stance, at least in my group.

Thanks ever so much Crazy Aido and k7e9 for responding so quickly to my query. Your comments have cleared up and confirmed everything for me. I have my first 3rd edition session coming up next weekend and wanted to be as prepared as I can be so as not to stall the game too much checking for clarifications etc!

Thanks again!

(ps: great to see these forums are still active! )

You'll generally find me haunting any boards these days that offer even a sniff of a game I can join.

No problem, do not hesitate to ask if any other questions arise.

I can recommend listening to http://recklessdice.com/ (a podcast), especially the old episodes from the beginning of the pod can give you lots of great information regarding the game. They have also done live play sessions of many of the published adventures, so I as a GM have found it helpful to listen through adventures I am about to run, just to get a sense of how the adventure could play out.

That and try it out, even the likes of "A Day Late, A shilling Short," just go with a short adventure, maybe with one or two players. That will give you an idea of what else you will want more information about.

I strongly recommend playing 'Jurney to Blackfire Pass" or "Day late Shilling short" scenarios with premade characters as an introduction.

The reason is that character creation requires your players to distribute points among characteristics, skills, specialisations (easy and intuitive) but also to choose from hundreds of action cards and talents. The numbers and symbols, if not used earlier, might be confusing... which in turn can discourage someone. While reading card descritpions they will encounter concepts like stress, fatigue, chaos star, party tension, tracking tokens etc etc. which tell nothing at first, since there is simply too much information. Starting with a few, preselected cards is just easier and lets you start gaming with a really short introduction, keeping everyone interested.

+1

A day late a shilling short also goes through most of the possible actions your PC's can take, so there shouldn't be too many curve balls your PC's can throw you, other than "I'm going back to shovelling **** for a living."

For which the response is "A chaos warrior eats you on your home."

I allow folks acting in Narrative mode to be one step into stance (assuming as in Encounter mode that one could shift when acting).

Now if their check is passive, reactive etc. perhaps not.

Passive checks always seemed to get me. Maybe I should be making players roll those in neutral, thanks for that!

Thanks so much for all the helpful suggestions and directions to useful resources all. I really do appreciate it. Will let you know how I get on. Really looking forward to it as I've been a fan of the Warhammer Fantasy setting for over 20 years!

Speaking of usefull resources, check out Gitzmans Gallery (link below). These will help you a LOT. Particularly the character sheets and Reference Guide. I would waste a lot of time looking stuff up in the rulebooks if I did not have the Reference Guide printed out, and the character sheets included in the game box are just terrible once you have been playing for a little while and start having more things to keep track of.

http://www.gitzmansgallery.com/wfrp-resources.html

Thanks so much for all the helpful suggestions and directions to useful resources all. I really do appreciate it. Will let you know how I get on. Really looking forward to it as I've been a fan of the Warhammer Fantasy setting for over 20 years!

You will find it is as gloriously hostile a setting as it as always been.

Well, my first session was a blast! A friend and I used the Mythic GM Emulator so we could both play PCs; was impressed with the unpredictable directions it let us take, and having both collected Warhammer for donkey's years and read countless amounts Old World fluff, we were able to weave a story that was very much in keeping with the gritty fabric of the lore.

Can't wait for our next session!

ps: Very much hope FFG re-print Hero's Call and Lure of Power - these are the last two expansions I've yet to get hold of and finding them is proving troublesome!

I used the Mythic GM Emulator so we could both play PCs;

WHAT WHAT WHAT????

Now I'm interested.

I used the Mythic GM Emulator so we could both play PCs;

WHAT WHAT WHAT????

Now I'm interested.

+1

I am actually in the process of trying this out myself. This could actually work out for me to get my fix for a bit...

Sounds interesting. Let me know how it goes/works.

I tried it out once. It was pretty fun and makes the game into a co-operative storytelling game. It does have a weakness though. I remember that you could easily wind up in a loop of bland, positive outcomes. If that happens, you have to be aware of it and basically do something to force the game back into action and disaster. Basically the game has a mechanic that makes the game spiral into disaster, but if you are successfull, it spirals into success instead. The trick is to avoid having several scenes that have no really hard challange.

You can try it out online if I remember correctly. The Mythic GM Emulator is for sale in PDF and there is an online tool for playing.

Found it, gonna try and give it a whirl at some stage...

Also, I noticed there was a bit of curve there, but rolling chaos stars is a great way of helping put the game back on the right track(!).

Apologies for taking forever to get back to you all...I teach and am back into the swing of things at school!

When my friend and I used the GM emulator, we found it great for answering our yes/no questions - we're not power gamers and have a strong love for the lore which really helped in keeping everything gritty and believable. We also found that the less we prepared before playing, the more spontaneous and unpredictable the story was, which helped in keeping things exciting.

When unsure of how to proceed at times, we simply asked the random event chart and did our best to create a plausible outcome as quickly as possible. As an example, after camping for a night, we weren't sure on what to do in the next scene, so we asked the system what the chances were of us being woken by surprise or waking naturally - given we were off the beaten track and in the woods, we decided it was very likely that we would be awoken by something. We rolled and that was what happened, but we wanted to know, how, what or who had awoken us. So we asked the random event generator and it turned out to be a new npc, which we then rolled a d6 to determine their race, which resulted in a dwarf. A dwarf that we decided on being a stranded merchant etc. etc.

That's just a brief example of how we used it, but it worked well in many situations for us. With a combination of shuffling and drawing location cards, the GM emulator and a love for the lore, we were able to enjoy an adventure that was well in keeping with the Old World.

We also used maps, and some older Warhammer Fantasy roleplay books (from previous editions) to help with navigating and determining populations of settlements etc.

We haven't played since as we live quite a distance apart, but we were taken back by just how much fun we could have with some books and a decent imagination (we're long time, PC/board/card game players), the possibilities are endless and only limited by the scope of your creativity.

Can't wait for the next session.

Happy days!