Yeah, my wife came up with this one during our last session so I thought I should share it with the community. We were playing and at some point someone called me the game master as a joke as I was passing out all kinds of chits, she said, he is not a game master anymore, more like a Chit Master. The rest of the night, I was the CM (chit master).

Total joke of course, we love the game, but I do seem to manage a whole lot of chits and mini-cards and chits that go on mini cards and big cards, and character sheets.

Hope you guys enjoy the new title as much as I did.

That’s ok. The same thing happened when D&D 4E came out. Our DM laid out the map and minis and dropped the RPGA module on the table and said, “Knock yourselves out. You don’t need me. Just don’t cheat.” And he went out to get something to eat and have a cigarette. And he was right. We didn’t need him. Everything was all spelled out for us. So 4E came to be known to us as DM-less roll-playing.

After travelling a distance (WFRP 3E isn’t carried where I am) I finally had the opportunity to thumb through the main rulebook and play somewhat. Wow! What a disappointment that was. There was just so much missing. During play we spent more time worrying about our characters getting tired than anything else. Once someone said, “Can I just swing my f**king sword without passing out?” the game was over. But everything did look pretty.

calibur1 said:

Not what I meant at all and maybe its how it came across, which I totally did not mean. For us, it was a joke, nothing more. I figured the term Chit Master might be taken as an insult to the game given how touchy of a subject this can be about the game (which is absurd if you ask me) but it was not intended to be. The GM has a ton of function in the game if the players want it to go that way, the dice make them especially important. Mostly, its a reflection on the drastic change to the game and the inclusion of the chits and that added level of emphasis. If used properly, there are elements to the chits that can add a great deal of flavor to the story itself (such as giving stress when you enter into a chaos pit that does not remove until you leave). In that capacity, the chits actually add a great deal of story without overtly interfering with rolls and fiddling with tons of modifiers. Games use to fiddle with modifiers, this game fiddles with chits (yes, I include how the difficulty dice are used in this game as nothing more than another form of chit - which is fine). For years RPGs have come up with different names for the Game Master, Keeper, Storyteller, Narrator (Storyteller is still my favorite), Fun Boss. Then this one came along and Chit Master came up and it sort of stuck as funny as the rest of the titles are - Game Master, IMO is just as hilarious as Chit Master, since the job rarely entails mastery of anything - besides the occassional GM who has mastered being a total ****** to his players.

Sorry you had a bad first experience with the game. Fatigue can be overhanded in the system but is actually easy to ignore. As a matter of a fact we dont use Stress for moving our stance meter and find it works fine (and in ways better) without it. We just let the dice contribute all the effects they roll so the penalty of doing something hugely reckless is you may gain some fatigue or on the other side, be massively delayed. The stance meter simply represents how high you can go on a check for us. Fatigue is brutal and pushes an agenda of high Toughness, I agree with that whole heartedly, but with a few modifications it can work out way, way better. It does sound like your group missed something though because Fatigue is not that bad in the system at all. I also do not get why you guys missed other than crummy rolls. The system as it stands and if done right favors a constant hit stream with little chances to actually miss at all as long as you have at least 3 Strength. Maybe you were all playing a party of Elf Envoys, I do not know, but I honestly have played the system now roughly over a dozen times and rarely have a huge margin of missed shots (no more than first level dnd to be sure). Oh well, sorry it did not work out for you, but I think if you sat down and read the rules, with a few minor tweaks, you would find it is a great system.

Commoner.

That said, having done swordfighting and worn armour at the same time I can tell you... You get tired real fast, real, real fast.

I don't think I minded the chits at all, I was having to much fun NOT looking up rules and staying focused on the story!!!

commoner said:

Well, you are the GAME master, so it's natural you will do stuff with game elements. This is, where the difference is between Dungeon Master, Game Master, Storyteller, Referee and Judge.

Still, jokes aside, if those chits make your life easier, then it's okay. I'm a bit old-school, but I got used to the thought of using them, thanks to positive reviews. We alredy used cards in D&D4e for conditions and powers, and we used cheat sheets and screens before, so there's nothing new under the sun, just the form is this different this time.

UncleArkie said:

That is so true.

While I was a little out of shape back then (not that im particularly "fit" now either) I can tell ya that when I trained kendo and we got to wear armour for the first time I had to take a time out after sparring for awhile because I almost passed out.

And you're not even wearing a "real" armour in kendo, just a helmet with a thick facemask, a curiass and a pair of thickly insulated gloves. But by god, the rapid pace you have to keep up with and also shout warcries with each thrust and swing of the sword added to the fact that the armour is usually a handmedown that stinks so you don't fancy breathing inside it too much, you will quickly feel the tiring effects of it all.

commoner said:

When I said, “missing” I didn’t mean “in combat”. I meant there was a lot of material missing from the game itself. There were fewer careers, more restrictions placed upon us by cards and stances, and the selection of magic was pretty weak sauce. We were admittedly bedazzled by the components, but when we actually sat down to play we couldn’t believe how lacking this all was. There was way too much emphasis on fatigue, and the dice take too long to decipher. We did have fun flicking chits at each other while the GM tried to look up stuff in the rulebook. It took us all an hour-and-a-half to realize that this must have been the demo or prototype version of the game (it was the store’s copy). So I will reserve judgment until the full version is released.