Hi folks,

I am going to run my first game this coming wednesday so was wondering if there was any advice you fine people could give me? How do I make everything go smoothly? Any player aids etc. I should look at?

What scenario is everyone using to introduce the games to people? The Emperor's Decree one or the one at the back of the GM's guide.

Cheers

Iain

I used a day late and a shilling short (only with orcs instead of beastmen) this led into and eye for an eye, which my players are finishing up tomorrow.

Best advice:

Good idea to have characters made and ready before playing. Set up the table before hand, you don't want to be stuck with the players waiting while you set up. This is my set up (the pic is also posted on another thread):

I made copy's of the monster sheets, and I use nezzir's monster reference guides in sheet protectors so I can write on them with wet erase markers and use them again without the need to reprint them or use tokens. I found it's pretty easy for the GM to go token-less with a wet erase maker, then you can let the players have all the fiddly bits.

I had Klause give the players the eye for and eye handout about looking for work. That's how this story leads into an Eye for and Eye. I also put a river troll encounter in between the characters doing this encounter and when the arrive at Grunewald.

If this is the first time your players have played you got to do the extra work and teach them how to build dice pools. If you are good at teaching them, by the end of the session they will start building their own dice pools, and you just have to call out the difficulty dice. Be patient, and go slow, let the players digest all the symbols and what they do.

I like to visualize things so I use a dry erase board for the game. A big table is better than a small space so players don't have to stack cards. This is two 2 1/2 foot x 6 foot tables put together. I also recommend the GM guide that someone made ( I forget the screen name but they are posted on rpggeek.com). Those sheets are great handouts.

Best of luck! Also at the end of the session I would get some large sandwhich bags for the characters and all their "stuff" the boxes don't work so good.

Thanks for the advice. Can you provide a link to the sheets you mentioned?

Cheers

Iain

I can't believe the amount of space that's required. I've said this elsewhere, but when I was gaming regularly, we used to sit on sofas, on beds, on the floor, sometimes all three. We used to be able to play out in the woods. Set-up involved a character sheet and some dice. This looks completely impractical to play without a very large table.

Some people over at StS were very upset that WFRP3 was described as an RPG-boardgame hybrid, but that's what appears to be on that table. And before anyone gets upset, I'm absolutely not, repeat not, saying that's a bad thing, but it's hard to look at those photos and not make that assumption.

Cheers

Sparrow

James Sparrow said:

I'm with you in this. Though having played it once I can safely assure you that the game doesn't take any more space than older editions if you don't want to. Spreading the things around like shown in the pictures is a quick way to learn the game and its elements but after you've played a couple of times you can easily out a lot of the stuff (for example marking fatigue and stress on character sheet instead of playing with tokens and actually keeping the cards in a single deck). We even had five players for the first game around a table that was half of the table in the picture and encountered no problems. It's not the equipment it's how you use them...

/end offtopic

As for the 1st game I would recommend to reserve enough time as explaining the rules and stances and whatnot takes time. Even if you're used to run your games by your own mind play the first session straight by the book. It eases up things and lets your players figure out how the system actually works. After the game I would recommend a small debrief about what worked and what didn't. There's a lot of things in WFRP3 and it's not necessary to include everything in every session.

I hate all the space it "normally' takes up. SO, I've done the following:

1. Talent slots go on character sheet (this eliminates the need for the career sheet)

2. Fatigue/stress are tracked with PENCIL/PAPER

3. Write the Career ability (card) down on the character sheet.

4. Photocopy the Basic character actions and write on those instead of using chits. They are about the biggest space waster, and since they are identical on both sides, it doesn't matter if it's black and white.

That gets you down to :

Character sheet, Basic actions (on a sheet), Advanced action cards, Talent cards

It's a lot more satisfying for me that way.

As for an intro scenario, you should run the one that I wrote: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

jh