80 pages? That's not a very impressive campaign to start out with. Currently running Thousand Thrones. It's not the longest campaign, but still it's over 250 pages long and fairly condensed without a lot of fluff info. Eye for an Eye was 26 pages long, so what we get in this grand campaign is just three connected scenarios with the lenght of Eye for an Eye. Fits well with their 3 act idea, but if you ask me it's a pretty weak campaign. Even as a mini campaign it doesn't really fit the bill when you consider their own definitions: "A mini-campaign is a self-contained storry usually consisting of up to 10 adventures or play sessions". Eye for an eye is finished in one play sessions or perhaps two if you have shorter sessions. But since they don't even call this box a mini-campaign I expected a bigger campaign that three times the intro adventure from ToA. In fact they alternate between calling it a campaign and an adventure, so it may just be... very short.

Considering the description says that there will be info on the adventure hub (Stromdorf) as well I think that of the 80 pages, perhaps only 60 of them is the actual campaign.

Apparently Jay has stated that the GS runs for between 8 and 16 sessions.

I think it makes a bit more sense to wait and see what's actually there before judging it. If a campaign is written with a sandbox-style massive city right in the middle of it, it's going to take lots of pages to give you all the possible fluff. If the campaign is written in a smaller city and/or takes you through specific encounters, then it needn't take that much space to write it elegantly and still get all the flavor and stats you need. The second gaming style may not be to your taste, but you run that risk with any pre-made campaign.

(Besides, as a GM whose real job often takes up nights and weekends, I'm grateful that they've kept it relatively brief!)

Llanwyre said:

I was comparing it to an earlier campaign (thousand thrones) that has no fluff... just the pure adventure facts needed to run the campaign. And it's over 250 pages long. Done in about 15 sessions. I don't beliebe 80 pages can last 10 sessions. That's 8 pages a session. The GM has to fill in a lot of blanks if that's true.

I think that I prefer a 80 page book that is worth every page of it and is not loss in too much background and linear adventuring than en 200 page book with so much I'm not able to deliver it to my player with quality. I tried the doomstone campaing and it was just too long, the players decided to let it down, so I was stuck with unusable books. Same thing with the campaing that first was published by Black Industries, the player loved the middenheim part, but let the adventure down in the second part of aldorf saying that it was already enough. I hope that this campaing will keep them interested and will not seem too big and too long.

80 page of good and interesting stuff will be just what I ask for.

As I said earlier. Take a look at the thousand thrones campaign. It's 250 pages divided into 9 chapters. Each chapter is about 25 pages long. You don't even need to read the entire book, just the chapter(s) you're going to run. It has a bit of background information, but not a lot. It's enough tu understand the history behind the campaign though which is perfect. In light of the warhammer campaign history with The Enemy Within, Thousand Thrones and Path of the Damned... 80 pages just seems a bit short to call it a real WFRP campaign. Those 80 pages are less than one of the books in The enemy within or Paths of the Damned. Those three campaigns are quality AND long.

I'll buy it of course, but I'm certain there will be a lot of work for me if I want it to be more than just a long adventure in three parts.

Gallows said:

Really? That gives me a heart attack. How much crunch can you need? I'll have to check this thing out.

I guess a lot of it has to do with your gaming group. My crew can spend an entire day on one or two encounters, and they LOVE to RP, which tends to slow things down. I could easily see 80 pages taking them 15 sessions without any filling in on my part (and I will, of course, be filling things in because I just can't resist.) Also, because of our jobs, we only play about once a month, so those 10-15 sessions will take us a year or so to complete. I could see that if you play every week and have players that zoom through things because they're so familiar with each other that this all might be a bit of a letdown. Point taken.

Gallows said:

For us, it lasted a bit longer than 10 sessions. I didn't add anything significant and we missed a couple of bits out.

monkeylite said:

Is that Thousand Thrones or the Gathering Storm?

But everyone who hasn't run them should check out Thousand Thrones and Paths of the Damned. They are both on the RPG-PDF shop where you can buy the rule books. Unfortunately TEW isn't there.

Gathering Storm. I haven't run TTT.

monkeylite said:

Hmm ok. 10 sessions would be alright. But is it heavy on encounters then? TTT for instance is quite varied. In Chapter 2 there is just one encounter at the very end unless the PCs decide otherwise, but it's 90% investigation.

I don't think 80 pages is all that bad but I guess I wasn't expecting an epic either since we already knew the price of it. Its about half the cost of The Paths of the Damned campaign plus there's the various components on top of the written material. I know your concern wasn't about the play time to cost ratio, just saying that perhaps that's why I wasn't surprised to hear the "campaign" length. Yeah, if it can go 10 sessions that would be a lot of the calendar year for us taken up by the campaign.

donbaloo said:

Yeah you're right. In terms of price versus play time (plus all the components) I agree that it's a fair deal. I had just hoped for an epic to kick off this new edition.

Something to remember is what's on the pages for the page count. How big is the font? How much art, how much froo-froo layout space is taken up with background artwork, etc. 80 pages of tightly-packed font is a lot more detail than 80 pages of widely-spaced, larger heading font with wide margins (as the four WHRP rulebooks are).

That said, looking forward on seeing what GS has to offer. It is coming with cards, right? they'll supplement some of the stuff missing from the book.

I think Like with the core game some of the rules are written on cards which are not counted into the 80 pages. And how many pages of the 250 in thousand thrones is filled with rules? Remember this a very rules light RPG system so perhaps alot of the pages are fluff and advise on how to run the campaign. Then 80 pages is a lot. its a small novel if the book is same size as rulebooks.

I'll judge it when its between my eager fingers. I'm a sucker for this system its no secret. I've already bought every future release for it.

I think 10 sessions is fine. I'd rather see more medium size campaigns than fewer huge campaigns anyway.

But, the important question is...will there be Skaven?

keltheos said:

I ask that question at least thirteen times a day.

10 sessions is barely enough to go up one rank. Assuming a few bonus XP for completion of major goals, you can squeeze in the dedication bonus for completing your starting career and be ready to change careers with enough points to do it. I don't know that I'd classify that as a campaign. The first part of a campaign sure, but not an entire campaign. Even at 16 sessions, I wouldn't call it a campaign. OTOH, the days of me running 4 year long campaigns seem to have long past me by. Between gamer ADD and other real life commitments, 10 sessions these days would be a good run. I'm also assuming as they release stuff for higher rank characters, they'll release a "campaign" for that level play with hooks for those that have played through The Gathering Storm.

Shadowspawn said:

I'd rather have undead.

Sinister said:

I think there'll be Beastmen and greenskin since those were cards previewed in the latest article.

My Skaven pun must not have been funny

I noticed it but only laughed a little. Not like LOL, more like a little grunt or similar

Shadowspawn said:

I rolled my eyes, if that's any consolation.

Lucas Adorn said:

The answer to that question is none. The Thousand Thrones campaign is pure campaign. A few pages of background info in the start of the book, but it's all pure campaign stuff.