Just wanted to post some basic info GMs who may not have run this might find of interest. I'll write in generalities.

We had a High Elf Scout, a Grey Wizard Apprentice, and Dwarf Mercenary.

The players were not challenged by the first set of baddies, in fact they took no wounds and the reserve baddies never made it into the fight.

Between the INT 5, Observation trained elf and wizard, along with a helpful action card, they had the cause of problems figured out before they entered the main building.

Again, high INT and some trained skills (along with a couple Grey spells) and the players were getting Positive Identification on several baddies, and eliminating suspects in no time. They roleplayed and investigated really well, but I can not stress enough how powerful it was having two characters with INT 5.

Once around the grounds and they easily found all the stuff, and got PID on several more baddies.

They were thorough, so enough time had passed so they needed to eat. They knew what to do there, and a confrontation occured that moved things along quickly.

WARNING to this point I think I've been vague enough to keep ruining the encounter for anyone player foolish enough to read an entry marked SPOILER in the GM forum. I will have to get into a little more detail from this point on.

The baddies got into the room to allow vertical movement and bolted the door. The characters armed up, which wasted some time, but might have been neccessary; tough call.

The internal baddies were successful in what they were trying to do, but the characters met the threat and beat it without too many wounds.

The external threat was getting out of control at this point, and that ended up putting the dwarf unconscious (one more critical and he'd have died), and the Wizard took as many wounds as he could while staying conscious (fortunately no criticals). What was bad was the wizard took all his damage from a single blow but the the elf took out the last threat so it turned out okay.

Cool, and I actually understood everything you said. Although, I think if you label a thread clearly in the GM forum, anyone getting spoiled can only really blame themselves.

Yeah, 5 stat characters are very competent. I GM a 5 Ag wood elf Hunter -> Waywatcher, who can be a pain sometimes.

What was the game like in general? smooth, fun, interesting, etc? Or otherwise?

Would a house rule at chargen help? No 5 scores?

jh

The game ran very, VERY smoothly. This makes the sixth session of either demo or campaign play I've been in where NO PLAYER EVER CRACKED A BOOK TO SEE WHAT HE COULD OR COULD NOT DO, OR HOW TO DO IT.

My only complaint is the amount of time it takes to pick up and put away, but I think we'll get better at that as time goes by. Overall it was one hour of setting up and packing the game, total.

I'd hate to houserule the characters, but that's up to the GM's. I know in 1st and 2nd edition you could not start with a 50 in any characteristic (okay, it was possible in 1st edition, but that was rare and pretty broken when it happened), which is what a 5 here equates to. Include a yellow die for training and you've got a freakin' powerful, adventure changing character. Add a second and it's nearly out of control. I mean, I could have bumped all the searches up in difficulty, but those players are paying for the high INT with low ST or TO; don't see making things easier for them where those are considered in order to 'balance' things.

I really don't have a solution on this. The combat did prove nearly too much for them. If they each had a decade less roleplaying and game playing experience then they may not have pulled it out.

By the way, all my rolls are on the table, and I didn't fudge characteristics or any other aspect of the NPC's. As I'm still getting my feet wet with this system I ran it straight out of the book, with no house rules.

How did PC interaction with NPCs go? Did they spend much time talking to folk or were they concentrating on digging out clues?

Dave Allen said:

These players have been playing RPGs and games in general for a very long time (all over the age of 40), so they were going straight for the kill. They did get in some good roleplaying/interaction with the priestess and Olver. They especially took a liking to Olver.

We are left with three adventure hooks. One to return the valuable family heirloom, and one to become agents or troubleshooters for the noble family. They are very interested in returning the heirloom, so I'm getting a wilderness adventure put together (already have lots of material on this).

Also, some of the minor cultists escaped. This should be easy for you to do because things really get rolling quickly in the final act, and they simply don't have time to run down every fleeing cultist AND destroy the big baddie. Just have some of the minor cultist make a break for it while the characters are occupied and you'll have some recurring bad guys to throw in later in the campaign. In fact, the Wiz Apprentice was sent to get info on whether or not these guys were operating in this area, so he has a reason to keep looking for them.

Overall, the only problem I had with the way the scenario was written, is that Grunwald had a village between it and the main town. I like to have a village be a full day from the nearest town, but had to put the whole distance traveled as much less than this so they would arrive at Grunwald with most of a day left to get everything done.

In hindsight, you might want to have them arrive at nightfall, and not really start things until the next morning (say, have them meet the noble at a breakfast in his room).

Also, the timing of when the blacksmith goes nutty. You want to be sure it's placed after the attack that happened a week before the PCs arrive, since there were weapons and armor in his forge that were in various states of repair. Multiple, easy fixes for the timing here, just want to be careful you don't inadvertantly put the players on the trail of a red-herring.

Very minor points. Overall an excellent intro adventure that highlights the coolest aspects of warhammer (investigation, conspiracy), with a seemingly insurmountable battle at the finish. Plenty of open plotlines to explore and easily created adventure hooks that could have your players traveling to whatever part of the Reikland or even part of the Grey Mountains you (or they) wish to.

It's great to hear you liked it. I did some of the development of the adventure so it's nice to know it works as planned (give or take depending on the sort of group that undertakes the task, of course).

I wanted the manor sort of close to a village that had already been placed in the Reikland - so that WFRP old timers could plonk the location into their campaign world, but it shouldn't be too difficult to rationalise a day's journey to the manor. Just have the external threat (as you have nicely euphemised) knock down some trees that have to be cleared from the path (and this undertaking can be the signal that sends a scout running for the rest - perhaps).

Or perhaps a storm heading in a WSW direction could drench the track and make the journey very difficult.

Cool, Dave. Glad you got to read some feedback. Also glad it was positive!

Just to let everyone know, I just got done with another group - got through the meeting with the noble before we had to call it a night.

This group is younger (my kids) ages 11, 11, and 15. Consists of a Dwarf Mercenary, Gray Wizard, and Wood Elf Envoy. Very nearly the exact same as my other group as far as careers/races go, but totally different in age and experiance of the players.

This group did not negotiate better pay, and the elf got hurt fairly badly by the beastmen. They know some of the guards are "under a spell, or something" but suspect everything from poor nutrition to an ancient curse. So far, no one suspects poisoning (two of them chose the venison, should be interesting).

There is only one player with a 5 INT, and trained observation; the Wiz has a 4 INT and does not have observation trained. The dwarf is, well, a dwarf: "Details, details. . . smash 'em all, just to be sure!" I don't see them having such an easy time on figuring out the plot.

What's this mean to someone about to run this? Well, hard to say. For now it looks like if your party does not contain very, very experienced roleplayers/gamers, and you don't have a couple 5 INT, Observation Trained characters, the mystery should pose a good challenge for them. The combat results look like they will vary greatly, as these two groups with similar combat capabilities had very different results with the first beastmen encounter.

I'm running this one on monday.

A couple of notes already:

1. There needs to be more npcs pics. I added a bunch for flavor. And so I can reinforce who's who.

2. I'm adding a bit with Andreas. I felt his story went by the way side once the adventure begins. So his face will be the reflection in the eye and the characters will be able to make the connection with a painting of him in the gallery.

Boris Hochloff said:

Yes, thanks again, it really is appreciated.

Boris Hochloff said:

I did set out to try and create a scenario that would reward investigative style play by having the investigation mitigate some of the danger, whilst parties made of combat hungry warrior types could forego the investigation and have a few fights without too much trouble. However I do think that the party will soon perish if they simply try to take on all opponents set against them unaided and unprepared - I don't think it'd represent Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay properly if it didn't.

However, if the party are risking taking a lambs to the slaughter approach I would probably press one or two of the more helpful NPCs into providing a nudge or two. I sometimes think inexperienced roleplayers can be surprised to find that talking to NPCs can actually help matters.

Dave Allen said:

I didn't realize that you were still involved with WFRP Dave. For some reason, I was under the impression that you had distanced yourself from this new version. But I am glad to have you contributing still; loved all of your prior work, particularly in fleshing out careers and such.

Knowing that you're involved eases my mind in the setting department; though I am totally hooked on this new version and don't envision myself going back. I will probably poach and convert old material though to bring it into this new system.