Hey y'all,

I'm going to start GMing WFRP3 tomorrow night. I was wondering, for those of you who are already playing, what's the one thing I need to know? (I'm just running the demo adventure to get everyone acquainted with the rules; the real campaign will start after Christmas.) So, if you had to give one piece of advice about GMing with this rules set, what would it be? (I've been GMing various games since the mid-1980s, so I'm not really looking for "how to GM" advice, just advice on how to GM this game.) Please feel free to share a mistake I could avoid, a rule that's often overlooked, or a trick that makes everything go smoothly. Thanks,

Bercilak

As the rulebooks suggest: say "yes" to your players. If they come up with a crazy or out-of-box idea, tell them sure while letting them know how hard the action will be and what the repercussions for failure are (by adding fair challenge dice and appropriate misfortune dice).

And, just as in any other game: know the system. You don't have to know what every card does, but you should have a good sense of what they can do, how powerful those actions are, etc. Know how to build dice pools and what the results mean.

The game is easier to GM than it might appear to be. A lot of things just seem to fall into place naturally.

If a player asks you for a white dice for something remotely reasonable, then give it to them. And try to be consistent about challenge levels; if in doubt say 'average.' Use foes Yellow dice wisely. And give ic reasons when you add A/C/Es.

monkeylite said:

Many "crunchy" systems have you focusing on the rules. Knowing what each thing does, how they interact, etc... This game is about narrative. Teach the players early on how to build a dice pool, go over it again and again, by the end of your first adventure you should be able just to call out the negative dice like

"1 challenge, 1 misfortune" while they build the rest of their dice poll. That's when your job becomes very easy.

I think the biggest mistake I made was letting the character stay neutral in most of their stances. Not only did they have bad dice rolling, but the neutral stance just isn't as good as going deep into conservative or reckless. That's the key to heroes succeeding.

How do you manage the logistical nightmare (as a GM) of managing enemies in battle?

By that I mean; juggling recharge tokens, aggressive dice (etc.), strain, wounds etc.

Enemy Actions only recharge for that whole enemy group, so you only have one recharge per action to keep track of, just like PCs. Enemy don't get strained, fatigue and stress go straight to their wounds. Enemy don't change stance, they stick with the one marked on their stat line. And keep track of wounds just like you would any enemy in any other game (or use the wound cards or tokens).

monkeylite said:

I know thats how it works RAW but im not sure I like that, I may give each monster its own set of actions.

Kaptain O said:

Just be aware that doing so may overwhelm the PCs and you may have to substantially cut back on the number of foes you use with this approach.

Kaptain O said:

One way of doing it, which avoids the need for mass chit counting and makes the foe unpredictable, but also offers the chance of many special Actions, is to just work out your desired chance of each monster's special action for any given turn and then roll for it randomly.

I guess I just don't understand why an encounter with 3 different monsters should be handled differently than an encounter with 3 of the same monster.

Not sure what ima do, maybe the abstract way is better, I will probably try both ways it just seems... weird.

It's only weird from the GM side of things. If you don't point out that it's happening, your players will never notice.

No doubt - I think I'm going to try both ways and see how it goes. I'll probably end up sticking with the RAW way of doing things, although I may fudge it a little.

Clarification about "enemy actions", it's only the "special actions" are treated as used by whole group of similar monsters, so the "special attack" feature is not felt repeatedly. I can understand the balance of that and also the "keep it special" narrative aspect.

Basic actions aren't treated that way, a bunch of goblins can each shoot their bows every round. TOA p.47 at bottom is farily clear about this, the "collective" approach only applying to the special "creature/NPC action" not "basic action".

Well ranged shot/melee strike wouldnt matter since they recharge 0, the only ones affected would be the block/dodge/parry - I'll check that page ref you gave and maybe that resolves my issue!