A Day Late, a Shilling Short >> Now Available for Download

By ynnen, in WFRP Archived Announcements

I'm pleased to announce that we've made the Day Late, Shilling Short demo scenario available for download from the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay support page . You can read the article here , or go directly to the support page to download the PDF .

This demo scenario was featured in the recent Emperor's Decree pre-release event. The short demo booklet is designed to make it easy for a first-time GM with access to the Core Set to set up, prepare, and run a short adventure for some friends. The scenario provides a look at several of the key dynamics and components in the game, introducing the core mechanics and concepts through a sample combat, and a social encounter. The booklet includes information on four pre-generated PCs the group can use to start their adventures right away.

/happy dance. Gotta find an unwatched color printer in the building somewhere...

thanks you folks at FFG

you always deliver don`t you. I am ecxited to read the story.

thanks again.

Thanks for this much appreciated.

Can I ask for future adventures to include the stats of the creatures so you don't need to flip between books. Totally understand if this was done to save space in the trial adventure but it would be a big plus for me.

Not seen the stat blocks yet so I don't know how easy it would be.

Thanks again for the hard work and great results so far.

happy.gif

Winter324 said:

/happy dance. Gotta find an unwatched color printer in the building somewhere...

Me too.

Being in work today does not seem as bad as normal. Although productivity may be reduced by a shilling or two...

If I feel this excited about a 16 page pdf. How excited will I be when I get the actual box. Thinking it's on a par with the birth of my first child...

Ditto to much of what has been said above. Thanks for posting this up - should provide an excellent intro once the game arrives.

AJC

Although relatively simple, this demo provides excellent context for the use of the Progress Trackers. This was always something that piqued my curiosity. I really like that feature.

This demo really helped to put a lot of things together that I've read in the Designer Diaries over the past couple of months.

I already knew our GM for the demo did more wrong than right, but still, after reading through the demo myself I feel cheated. The demo has a much better potential to showcase the rules than what I experienced. I think I gleaned more from reading the demo than I did from playing it. I'm grateful to have it since I plan to use it to introduce the system to my players before they create their own. Hopefully I can do a better job with it. :)

Hi

I have read through the demo modul. And to be honest, I was a bit dissapointed. Not by the fact it was short (which I knew), but by the simple construction of the modul. Not that I have anything against simple plain forward modules. Problem is that this modul could be run in almost any fantasy setting. it offered little of what separates warhammer from other fantasy rpgs. I felt it was too generic.

I feel almost bad about complaining about a free modul that FFG generously offers us at no charge. I wouldn`t have said this things if it weren`t for the fact that is was the promo-modul and for some the first experience with the warhammer world.

Its not a big deal really, and by no means think that the promo-modul will set the standard for FFG produced adventures.

Now for the things I liked + some suggestions that I will make when GMing the plot :

1) it had the atmosphere that warhammer is known for. there where grimness and some investigation and mystery.
2) comic relief is a important theme in warhammer but in this case I found the merchant`s role to absurd. I would change him (see threachey below)
3) the pregenerated PCs seemed well enought, some had really good backgrounds. Their names where a bit odd, gotta work on the german names FFG gran_risa.gif

Threachery, or adding a bit of more warhammer like elements to the modul

i would make the merchant Klaus von Rothstein a chaos cultist that had infiltrated whomever the PCs are working for with the agenda on getting the package for themselves. the beastmen attack could or could not have anything to do with the fact that mr Rothstein was a cultist of the ruinous powers. The threachery part would pretty much work as the social encounter that was written for the merchant, but the difference is to learn the fact that he is not what he seems to be. upon advancing on the track the players would learn small bits and pieces that don`t just add up. Von Rothstein`s purpose would be to learn as much as he could about the PCs, if they knew about the contains of the package, who it was for etc? of course he wouldn`t get to know much since the players obviously don`t know anything.

If he won the social encounter, sort of speaking, he might concoct a elaborate plan, saying that there has been a change of plans, that he must hold on to the package and they must accompany him to a new location (obviously the beastmean attack was no coincidence). this could lead them right into the chaos cultist trap. But that is outside the scope of this scenario.
This I thing will be in more traditional warhammer scenario.

this was actually mentioned in the endnotes, but why not include it in the scenario.

again, thanks for the demo-scenario. I gonna used it but with a twist. gran_risa.gif

The demo is a great start to an adventure. It is not an adventure of itself. The point of the demo, is that it only has a short amount of time to show off gameplay. Normally, a demo is designed around only taking 1.5 hours (give or take 30min). Thus, the demo provides both a combat encounter and a social encounter quickly. There was some Warhammer atmosphere, but that was not the focus of the demo. The demo was focused on displaying/teachning the rules, not on displaying the Warhammer world. It can be modified, of course, like you have shown, to add a much richer atmosphere and story and more roleplaying elements. I just think your expectation of a demo adventure (not introductory adventure ... demo) was a bit too high. I do like your suggestions for Klaus, though, and think it's a great start for fleshing out the demo into a full adventure.

Thanks for this demo. It's all I have imagined- easy to play, short but nice and gives the players a look at the mechanics. This could also be a nice intro for some bigger campain.

Hi

I get what you`re meaning. And maybe my expectations where to high. I know the principles of demo-scenario, and I know they had to sacrifice certain elements to make it work within the limits of a demo-scenario.

Beside from clarifying the rules, by producing examples, wouldn`t also be proper for a demo-scenario to introduce the players to the warhammer world? If so I think this was not the best representation of the warhammer world in general. It should have included somehting that is very typical for warhammer and thus untypical for most fantasy rpgs, and still meet the limits of a demo-scenario.

. ..If the players decide to plant an axe in the whining merchant, well thats warhammer for you.. isn`t by fare a convincing warhammer moment.
but again that is just my two cents about the demo-scenario.

And still it was a blast... for most people gran_risa.gif

looking forward for my pre-ordered copy.

I think that's more of a function of the GM, especially in this instance. The demo already gives a bit of fluff about Roadwardens, Troll slayer oaths, Ubersreich, Reikwold forest, Marienburg, and Beastmen. Add in the blakcpowder pistol and blunderbuss, and the action cards plus the PC backgrounds. Admittedly, none of it is in a lot of depth. That's what the GM is for. FFG's primary concern is that players get an undesrtanding of the mechanics. A lot of players will already know the Warhammer World. For those that don't you could spend a lot more time than a single 2-hour demo session trying to learn about the Warhammer world and still not know the majority of it. Between working through the two Encounters, there isn't a lot of time that can be used for Roleplaying and exploring the Warhammer world. I think they added as much as they could while still keeping the focus on the Encounter mechanics. It's also possible they wantd to avoid overloading new players with both mechanics and game-world information. A GM could certainly add additional little touches of Warhammer-ness, and make the plot much more robust, should it be part of an overall campaign, introductory adventure, or even just a longer "demo" session.

thanks dude

jay h

Just wanted to say that this is a great demonstration product! I recently downloaded it after purchasing the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game pack from my local hobby store today (which is a first rate product too, by the way) and wanted to run the adventure for my friends, but before I did i was wondering if anybody knew if the adventure would work with only two players?

It will if you reduce down the enemies. The Wargor, especially, is difficult to take down with other beastmen arriving with him. What you might want to do is to have the Wargor be his own wave of enemies, ie the reinforcements, dropping the 3 Ungors that come with him. I might also one of the regular Ungors from the first wave, or make the Gor a regular Ungor.

Thanks for the advice dvang, I thought the Beastmen might be a little on the troubling side for only two PCs. I was considering letting the characters have more advancement picks to level up the pre-gens to rank 2 or 3 perhaps, to make up for the lack of a third...