I have put up a draft copy of the first chapter in the campaign I am writing over at Hammerzeit (here). While in draft form, it is more or less complete (still a little fleshing out to do on the village), but it could use some proofreading. Plus, i figured the community might enjoy some of the things we've done with the progress tracker, encounters, etc.

The first chapter has the PCs in a middle-of-nowhere village called Upfenbrunnen, just as a witch hunter is condemning a young "witch" to the pyre. Encounters include: social encounters, greenskins, beastmen. As an intro for my players (two new to the setting, one new to role playing), it is very linear and is meant as a hook into the larger campaign.

Since this was my first exposure and running of this new WFRP iteration, I am still finding the right encounter balance (which as we all know for WFRP is more art than science anyway). As a GM, scale your encounters accordingly!

Comments are very welcome!

Notes from my play:

The PCs hadn't meant at the time of the intro. I used this adventure to slowly introduce concepts and teach rules. For instance, since they hadn't met yet, they didn't select a party card. Once they elected to travel out to the farm to encounter the greenskins did they "become" a party. They selected their sheet, which came pre-loaded with a little party stress since they were all new to working with each other.

We had a wizard apprentice in the party, who because of the presence of the witch hunter, was under some personal stress as well.

Very nice. Your work is appreciated. I am using some similar elements in my document as well. We have a pretty solid player community shaping up with some excellent work. I especially like the ideas to use the trackers, as those seem to be core to the game.

Only half way through reading this but fantastic job so far. From the layout, visuals (font, map), writing stylevery good so far.

Out of curiousity what program did you use to distil the document into PDF? None of mine allow me to use the Antiqua font OR the warhammer symbols, so I'm sticking mainly in Times New Roman, which does not make me happy.

I work on a mac, which has a native print to pdf functionality (everything is composed in Word 2008).

In prior days, I used CutePDF writer which seemed to do fine, though I never used it in conjunction with this symbol font.

Thanks for the info. I am using Word 2003. I found PrimoPDF for free on the web which appears to work just fine with other weird fonts I have, I will check it out with the symbols tonight and hope it works with Antiqua and the Hammer font.

The way you layout your document is very nice by the way. Very easy to read, you include graphics at the appropriate time, and the information is laid out in a way that makes things very accessible.

LordBael said:

Firstly; thanks for the feedback. I do plan on putting a few more maps (hopefully to better resolution), but word of warning: I am not a good maker of maps... I used to make maps in Dundjinni, but using that application is no long sustainable for me, and every map I make keeps me from writing. Still, I want to add a few more. I also plan on fleshing out the village more.

I am working on converging on a 'template' of sorts so that all of my adventures have a consistent flow. By the way, I used the Dominican font for the headers/dialogue, etc. Times for base content, and the symbols font for symbols.

Thank you for the technical information. I like the fonts you used. I may follow suit with mine. I was using Antiqua but my current distiller would convert it to an Arial font. So currently I'm all Times. However with PrimoPDF I may look at using something else, and fingers crossed the symbols worked.

I use Campaign Cartographer for my maps. I've been map designing for a while so they aren't as much a hassle for me. CC3 is a solid set of map making tools!

I use photoshop for my graphics, which are mainly lifted from the web and then photoshopped to look like something else =) I also plan on including cards in mine for locations, item, and new spell lore (Amethyst). Your layouts have provided me some inspiration so I hope to return the favor.

Look forward to seeing further work.

Also after I put out my adventure next week if you like my maps, if you would be interested in cross collaborating I'd be open to working with you and doing up some maps and content.

LordBael said:

I have been looking at CC (particularly the city component) for a month or so; they don't have a native mac version which means booting over to windows, and more hassle means less likely to do it. But given how much fun I had turning our first few sessions into a publicly available module, I may end up going for it anyway. I was able to work up some really nice campaign maps using dundjinni, which was a bear since it was designed to do more intimate/encounter based maps. The downside was it took forever.

As for graphics; I debated included some (I have a ton of GW art downloaded for inspiration and player handouts) but I wasn't comfortable including some else's copyrighted art in my work. Still, it would add a nice touch I think.

I am about to get killed at work, to say nothing of having a kid at home, so my writing time is about to narrow for a while (hence the push for a draft out now), but I would definitely be up for some collaboration down the line!

Looking forward to seeing your stuff on or about the 15th!

Hedge

I was looking for an encounter for my pcs to meet a witch hunter before returning to altdorf, I think I'm going to your adventure into my campaign on monday.

Thanks!

Really cool! I love the fake Witch Hunter; he impresses on the PCs the utter power that they have, given that the villagers don't really even try to fight him. I also really like the painterly quality of your maps. The big battle seems really fun, too. This is going in my book of 'to-run' adventures.

One (and only one) writing tweak: in the synopsis, you don't tell us that the fake Witch Hunter is Bischof, so when you mention him by name at the end of the synopsis, it's a bit confusing. That being said, the rest of the piece is beautifully written. I can't wait to see more!

Nice work, and thanks for sharing.

I really like how you did the social tracker for negotiation with orcs on page 6; I've been looking for examples of that sort of thing to use.

One question, I assume the successes represent successful use of social skills meaning thus Charm checks opposed against Discipline (Willpower for Monsters essentially) if being persuasive, Guile vs Intuition if promising things that won't be delivered (player has to be honest with GM about PC intentions), Intimidation (rules don't say what that's against, Discipline makes sense to me). So good Fellowship check with one success = one space shift.

What if someone uses as Social Action they have that on single success also does one space shift? It seems to me that the basic outcomes you have for various success, boon, bane actions etc. (which I like quite a bit in principle) are better than the outcomes in some social action cards (I don't know if you baselined against the various social actions, if you did and can share that great). Any ideas about how to handle that? One way would be to say the PC has choice of where to spend their boons, successes etc. (e.g., if the card says you can get a fortune die on all checks for encounter use that instead of the baseline of just for next action).

Rob

Good work so far. Hope to have specific comments for you soon.

Jay H

Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback so far. I ran through another proofreading session last night and will update the adventure for spelling, grammar, clarity and some of the suggestions I've received here and elsewhere.

valvorik said:

That is correct, that is the intent.

valvorik said:

Yeah, social abilities are a little hard to accommodate, in large part because you want and need a way for the party to progress even if there are no characters with social actions in the party. I did go through the cards though while I was building the results. As the encounter is designed, any card triggers dealing with successes are in lieu of the encounter results, while boons and banes are in addition-to So if the PC wants to lay out a logical argument I would run a standard Fel vs. Discipline check (since it isn't charm per se), they roll and results are gauged as outlined in the encounter (including the spending of boons, banes, etc.)

If the PC wants to use Steely Gaze, they may do so, and explicit in the cards is if you succeed on your check, you may also influence your target (which moves the token one closer to agreement in this case). They may then spend the boons per the card OR the encounter, or both if they have enough. Likewise, the GM may Bane effects from either the card or the encounter, depending on which make more sense, are more fun, etc.

The action cards all have very different effects, and a good many boon powers allow a participant to gain bonuses for the length of the encounter or over multiple rounds, which the encounter effects are all targeted to the next round. Also, many of the social cards give party benefits (i.e. they are in support of the party to persuade the target). So the more socially geared player could beneficially support the PCs who are less social, thereby potentially giving the party more successes per round than the target.

I hope that answers your excellent questions!

One question, which I don't answer in the encounter is: how many participants are on the greenskin side? I am inclined to suggest the snotlings don't add anything but "yeah, that's right boss! You tell 'em!", while the goblins (as an entire unit) might get an action to argue on Splitmaw's behalf as well. Meanwhile, the Orcs will just support (aid manoeuvers adding a bonus fortune die).

Lastly, I geared the encounter to work towards agreement. Both parties are interested in securing a deal, so it's very likely the encounter will go quickly. The key is letting the players know that through skillful planning/social engagements, they can secure concessions.

HedgeWizard said:

I don't have a copy of the rules, but I think I get the gist of this mechanism.

However, if someone wanted to go down the "just roleplay" it route, could you replace dice or successes with clever conversational gambits, convicning threats, well-argued points, sound advice or evidence, and so on?

Cheers

Sparrow

James Sparrow said:

Yes, I think so. You could definitely just role play the whole encounter should the GM and players choose.

I want to also add, with respect to the action cards and their strengths, the social encounters in this first chapter were designed with a few points in mind:

• Splitmaw isn't stupid, but he isn't a strong negotiator (except by force of arms).
• The villagers are likewise not strong at social negotiations.

I have since designed a few more social encounters that occur down the campaign line, and those typically do not provide an Influence change with one success. Rather one success gives you a fortune on your next check, and multiple successes are required to Influence the target. With tougher, more savvy NPCs, this extends the scene, and more importantly, it allows PCs with those social action cards to shine since many provide an effect + influence on only one success.

HedgeWizard said:

You see, my normal inclination is the say just roleplay the whole thing, listen to what a PC has to say and respond based on what I know of the NPC's personality and goals and so on. I'd only bother with a roll if I felt it could go either way or I really couldn't say how the NPC would respond.

However, looking at this tracker business, I'm wondering if it can be used as an actual incentive for players to roleplay and come up with convincing arguments and so on, rather than rely on dice. I don't have anything against dice, but when it comes to social activitites I think this where the roleplaying part of RPGs should be enouraged to flourish.

(One argument against this is that some people are better roleplayers than others, but my response is, well, practice then and the roleplaying will improve.)

Cheers

Sparrow

I couldn't agree with you more, Sparrow, about the practicing roleplaying bit!

I think the system ideally could be used as a nice hybrid and might, as you say, encourage RP. In a "rolled" negotiation, good RP (clever ideas) are rewarded with more fortune dice, which gives PCs an immediate and visible reward for that RP. Bad ideas are punished immediately. It's an easy way for the GM to use a mechanic to prod players into quality RP. The main downside is that too many rolls can split up a conversation too much, so I think the main trick is to roll just the right amount for your particular players' inclinations.

My main problem in the demo was that my players kept failing negotiation checks. Their ideas were great, but the dice came out crappy, and after awhile, the scene just fizzled and everyone got grumpy. I'm sure I'll come up with a better way to make their failures feel 'genuine' but still keep the story moving, but at the moment, I'm not great at it because I've always just done the "just RP it" route. (Suggestions would be welcome!)

The advantage that the social action card + dice mechanic offers is that it allows a player who may be new or not good at roleplaying to play a socially strong character. It also prevents the socially capable player who is running a thuggish fighter who wouldn't be good at social situations to run the encounter just because they are good at roleplaying social encounters. I don't think it is appropriate for a GM deny a player the opportunity to be effective at something because the player themself needs to get better at roleplaying (according to the GM's POV).

I don't see any reason why there you can't fashion a hybrid model, and thus I think it is an ideal solution to the problem where the player is new/not-great at RPGs but you want to award clever play. For myself, what I do is if the player offers their argument or what they want to say, and if it's particularly compelling I award bonus fortune dice to their role. For suggestions that are good, but maybe not persuasive to the NPC, I award a fortune point to the player sheet, so the player is ALWAYS rewarded for clever roleplaying.

The other thing that is important, which you both highlighted, is if the social encounter is constructed such that the possibility for failure can be regularly high (the PCs constantly fail their rolls and fail to influence), the GM needs to think about lowering the threshold for success when applicable. Thematically there might be times when the PCs can't socially influence an NPC (say a lower class peasant trying to influence a high noble).

Good discussion.

HedgeWizard said:

I think roleplaying is a reward in itself. Also, there's no inherent reason why good roleplaying (always a subjective term) should be rewarded by mechanical success - someone can roleplay a fierce argument brilliantly, but if the GM knows that his NPC had a good reason to ignore even sound, passionately given advice, then that's the way it goes. Roleplay should be encouraged because it's a fundamental and defining part of what roleplaying games are all about, not because it might get the player/PC what they want.

When we run combats, we use dice because it's simply not practical for us to start hitting one another. Same goes for picking a lock or doing research in a library that does not exist. Roleplaying, getting into character, understanding our characters, knowing how they might respond to the behaviour and arguments of other, on the other hand, that's something we can do without using dice. Also, it can still be done without speaking in character, which is often the hardest thing for new or shy gamers.

Based on my limited understanding, I think that the tracker would still have use in for, well, tracking a social encounter. However, instead of moving forward a step because of a good roll, you'd move forward because the player said the PC says something complimentary about the NPC's clothes and the GM knows the NPC is narcisistic (and he could have hinted at this when describing the NPC attire at the start of encounter, or has dropped hints when the PC was asking around).

And so on. Essentially, the GM is looking for verbal or descriptive cues to advance (or, I presume, reverse) the tracker, rather than dice results

Cheers

Sparrow

HedgeWizard said:

I'd never thought of it quite this way. Very interesting. I've been mulling it over, though, and I think I disagree. We 'punish' our players on a regular basis for not being good at strategy; almost every battle encounter includes ways that the PCs could help themselves or harm themselves, including hiding behind cover, being careful about sneaking in or not, using skills wisely or not, and so on. Most DMs wouldn't think twice about denying a player the opportunity to do something in battle because he isn't a tactical thinker (although if we're kind GMs, we will try not to punish our PCs too severely for their mistakes.) Why would we treat RP any differently?

(I'm not sure I'm sold on my own argument here. I'm just floating it out there and seeing what happens. I really like a hybrid system myself, since it allows new players to feel active without having to rival the great actors of the last 150 years, but if I had my way, I'd push all of my players to RP spectacularly.)

Good thread!

I personally am not a big fan of combined resolution. The classic examples to me are mental problems. RP'ers (at least most of the ones I know) tend to be well above average smarts. We don't all pay the points for it on our character sheets tho. So if I hand you a sheet with a couple numbers on it and just say wow... its a code and the answer is X while 'roleplaying' a character with the IQ of a melon... thats not really right. It's horrible roleplaying on your part... but people seem to be almost unable to help themselves from throwing out an answer or idea. I think it is as impossible for a really smart person to 'roleplay' being a melon as it is for a person who isn't very smart to roleplay having a brain - see any MTVreality show for an example of dumb people trying to be smart!

The same problem crops up with social challenges. I know some people with a Warhammer 5 in Fellowship themselves... should that mean that any character they play always gets 3 free fortune dice on social checks? By definition if they are roleplaying someone with a fellowship of 1 they SHOULD NOT know the right thing to say... if they did they wouldn't be the tool with the fellowship of one. Anyone with horrible social skills trying to 'be smooth' should get slapped with a bad roleplaying penalty!

Thats why I kind of like sticking to dice. If you aren't the sharpest tool in the box, but want to play a rocket scientist... then you can still be the one who has a good roll to solve the problem. In a combat situation we don't let someone stand up and show just how he'd karate chop someone to get bonus dice on an attack do we? Real combat skills don't = free bonuses, real social/smarts skills should not = free bonus dice.

One really old, really fun RPG from way back in the day didn't have any non physical stats for that very reason. You can't roleplay smart/charming if you aren't (or you'd really be!) and its just as impossible to roleplay dumb/sociallyretarded. I've seen people try to do it and it comes off at best as funny which might not be the mood you are going for but never contributes to good serious RPing.

Just my 2 pesos.

I think there is a sufficient difference, and it sounds as though you might suspect it as well. I only "punish" my players (via assigning misfortune dice) when their characters are trying something foolhardy, while at the same time, I might also be awarding the party fortune points for trying something clever. Case in point, a player wants to jump from a tree onto a moving coach. The difficulty of actually leaping from the tree isn't high, but there are a lot of external factors that will contribute to failure: height of the tree, speed of the coach, narrow landing, uneven landing (baggage on the roof, etc). I assign the misfortune dice, and throw a fortune point onto the party sheet and away we go. I don't see that as punishing them for making a choice. Do you?

Doing something like that isn't the same, to my mind, as punishing a player for not coming to the table ready to perform theatre or do improv, or being able to think quickly in a social engagement, which seems to be suggested. The punishment seems to be, if you aren't comfortable role playing, then your engagements will be less effective or will fail until you get better at it. That hardly strikes me as good motivation to keep playing.

Being "in character" to me means making decisions as that character which can be fairly easy, and should be rewarded. But some of what seems to be suggested here in terms of handling social encounters is that players need to be capable of roleplaying through a conversation when in fact that may not be the actual player's strong suits. And as I mentioned before, you may have someone who is quick on their feet thinking wise and comes up with wonderful roleplaying performances, yet their character's have a fellowship of 2. Players like that tend to railroad social encounters merely because they themselves are good at it, whereas if you provide a mechanical system that allows players who control CHARACTERS who are good at social encounters, it allows them to play the character they want (which may be out of type for the player) and contribute accordingly.

I think we can all agree a blended approach is good, and here is where the action cards are wonderful prompts. Perhaps the player does know the NPC is narcissitic, but they aren't so good at coming up with things to say on the fly or don't have a clue which tact to take per se. They can start using the action cards as prompts and say, "Using honeyed words, I try to butter him up." Likewise, another player may offer a full accounting of what he wants his character to say and might be awarded fortune dice for that creativity.

I am not saying that pure storytelling systems are bad, or that running your social encounters this way is bad. I personally try to use these new mechanics to aid me in the larger social encounters (most are mundane and require no or perhaps one check at most to resolve). For these larger encounters, the mechanics allow me to setup a system by which characters can reliably resolve the encounter completely within the domain of the character and not the player. Good roleplaying may net you a bonus, but I am not going to punish my one player who has never done this before by making their social attempts less effective or more prone to failure because they aren't as good as the other players.

Of course, practicing role playing will lead to improvement (and hopefully more fun) and I hope everyone encourages that. But I am against suggestions that players be penalized or marginalized in some way for not meeting those expectations.

HedgeWizard said:

Perhaps 'punish' is the wrong word, but yes, that's the kind of thing that I was thinking of when I was talking above. Leaping from a tree to a moving coach is something that would be...challenging at best, stupid at worst. If a player has thought it through and can pull of such an action because of his skills/abilities, he's probably rewarded with a decent dice pool; if not, he's going to fail miserably. Although most of us, as RPers, probably have a good guess at whether or not we're going to get a decent dice pool based on skills and abilities, keeping all those details in our heads when we make a decision IS a kind of knack or talent that we have, isn't it? I'd argue that being able to keep the details of rules in our heads is a skill somewhat akin to RPing. I'm not a spatial battle person, and I've certainly sat down and played some games where the rules were so counterintuitive to me that I really couldn't tell whether or not I was doing something stupid, and was punished accordingly. (Needless to say, I didn't play many of those sorts of games for long.)

I like what you're saying about fortune points balancing that out, though. That sounds sensible and interesting.

HedgeWizard said:

I think you're absolutely right. I started this thread thinking you were just right, and I end it thinking so, too. As someone who has most recently tabletopped with LARPers and people with quite a bit of real-time MMO RP experience, I've not recently run across a player who wasn't extremely practiced at doing the kind of off-the-cuff, think-on-your-feet acting that we're discussing. It's nice to get some perspective, especially since my party won't consist of those types this time. Thanks for the thoughtful reply.