I ran WFRP3 twice at Genghis Con here in Denver, CO. None of the players had ever played WFRP (any edition) but some had experience with the world. It took them about 45 minutes to learn the game. I had spent $36 buying 3 extra dice sets too..which was helpful. Hopefully we have a few new converts

It /really/ would be handy to have some convention support of some kind and a scenario contest.

I used the following two crib sheets to quickly teach the game and have for player reference at the convention.

1. "Quick rules summary"

2. "Sequences"

Both are here: gallery.rptools.net/v/contrib/emirikol7/

I ran my False Pretenses scenario (see GM's forum for discussion on that scenario).

I found that not bothering with the party sheet worked better for the second game, but hopefully in the future I won't be the only person at the convention who knows how to play WFRP3

jh

By the way I ran a modified version of false pretenses for my group last week. They really liked it.

Good to hear. I'm hoping that we'll see more fan scenarios that can be run in a 4 hour period. We've run tons of the wfrp2 scenario contest winners at conventions around here.

jh

Do tell us a bit more; I'm considering running WFRP3 at a convention at some point soon. Any hitches? Anything you wish you'd done differently?

So you played with your house rule that only Toughness counts for Fatigue and Willpower for Distressed?

Convention hitches & Tips? One of the players told me that he wished that I'd have spent a few extra moments going over what's cool about the world. Remember that a lot of players coming to WFRP from D&D need to know that there's something beyond the rules (I neglected to cater to that and was glad that the one player had told me that).

* It was important to ask three questions of the players to get some background to answer the issue above.

1. Have you played WFRP2/WFRP1 or the MMO?
2. Have you played the WARHAMMER WARGAME? If yes, which armies?
3. Have you read any of the novels?

Hitches: I was always afraid that someone was going to lose or accidently walk off with one of my $100 cards. If I do it again, they're getting photocopies only..and that includes cards

Better character backgrounds: I used the generic characters and a boatman. The PC's should have had much deeper backgrounds for the characters. I should have copied the RACE info out of the book and had them read Race, Career Card, and individualized character backgrounds. The key points you can see I'm already getting to are that you're going to be photocopying a lot of stuff out of the book if you want to get your game going in any sort of decent time. If you're handing around the book to 5 players to read individual race or rule info, you're not going to get to your game.

Lackluster Interest: Most players haven't even heard of WFRP. My 2nd game had fewer players and two came in on generic tix. The WFRP2 games that ran by a friend of mine had ZERO TIX SOLD..meaning zero interest, but of course, that game's out of print.

House Rules: Yea, just the two for doing distressed and fatigued. For quick convention play, there just isn' ttime to go into the ambiguous, nit-picky rules. I didn't use party sheets (for the 2nd game..and no players did anything with them in game 1), the "universal 2 bane/boon rule".

Unless you're at a WFRP specific con somewhere in Europe (like TIMCON or something), chances are, you're going to be dealing with all n00bs. That means rules-lite whenever possible.

To keep things moving for QUICK-PLAY, Rank 1, and Rules-Lite, it could be this simple:

1. All checks are: 1 Purple, characteristic blues, 1 Yellow. GM adds black or white if necessary for "roleplay."
2. Forget stance, fatigue, and armor deflection dice (typically piddly anyways). Crits on an uncancelled comet. Tell them the rest is part of the advanced game.
3. Get to Role Playing.

One last thought: some regular convention support of some kind would be a good thing. That would mean: QUICK PLAY RULES, incentives, and some 3.5 hour run-time, fan-scenario encouragement. Honestly, I probably won't go through the trouble to GM WFRP again at a convention, but would happily play..if I didn't have to sit through 45 minutes of the Gm teaching players how to use their imagination and throw some dice.

jh

..

Emirikol said:

Both very, very valuable tips. Great idea about photocopying the cards; I wouldn't have thought of it, but it would save some heartache, wouldn't it? I also didn't think about people not being familiar with Warhammer; even though I haven't played previous incarnations, the great stuff about this particular mythos has always floated around in my purview, so it would never have occurred to me to explain it. Thanks!

You know what would be interesting is going to FFG and asking them to produce a convention kit. This kit would be like 15 bucks, have 6 set pre-made rank 1 character careers with cards.Then you just take the con kit for characters and not feel like someone could walk off with your $100 box set investment.

I tend to think this would be in FFGs benefit, keeping the nice color artwork, and conforming to GW IP icy grip (not wanting photocopies used), while protecting our investments in spreading the game.

IMO such a covention box should be free if you can prove you are doing what you are doing. After all you are helping them a lot with selling their product. A job that they get payed for.

Since this is FFG's game and it's brand new, you'd think THEY'D be mobilizing a group of people to run demos rather than us asking for support to get their game sales boosted.

Man, for a fanman of most FFG products, I've been a less than positive kind of guy on this set of boards.

Heck, I haven't even run the game yet. Mostly been playing WFRP2 and DH (which I LOVE BTW).

Lucas Adorn said:

I can't really argue with you on this. It should be free. I think however, I'd pay cost for it.

Just came back from DundraCon in California. I ran 3 sessions of Warhammer 3e. Each session was four hours long and had four players. I designed the the scenario and provided pre-gens.

In each one of my sessions I had four players who hadn't played the new edition yet. I gave a very brief overview of the most neccessary rules and then dove into the adventure. I designed the adventure so that in each scene I was able to introduce a little more of the game. By the end of the adventure we had covered the entire rule set, including insanities, stress, fatigue, criticals, etc.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the game and two of the 12 players purchased the game from the dealers' room before the end of the con!

Great job. You should upload your scenario (even if it's just parts) to the Hammerzeit website

jh

Did you get a lot of passersby stopping by the table to look at all the toys? I'd imagine that would be a major advantage of WFRP v3 at conventions; even people who aren't playing the game will notice it.

I requested a table in the main hall instead of a private room so, yes, I had tons of walk-ups asking questions, checking out the game, and watching the scenario. I also set up about an hour in advance on all three sessions to answer questions and talk-up the game.

My best moment was with my second session. I had an older gentlemen play who was a 2nd edition fanatic and thought the whole 3rd edition move was "making a great rpg into a boardgame". Anyway his friends talked him into playing and he begrudgingly did. When I explained the abstract nature of ranges and movement, he groaned. When I explained the dice pool, he rolled his eyes. But about 20 minutes in, as his troll-slayer killed four henchmen bandits in a single attack, a smile crept across his face. By the end of the four hours he left the table saying he had a great time. The nest day, while I was running the scenario again, he stopped by to show me that he had purchased the game, an Adventure's Toolkit, and two packs of dice. It was nice to feel like an ambassador for a great game.

When I get a chance I will upload the scenario and the character background over at Hammerzeit!

RenoDM said:

That story cracks me up because so many people just don't want to give it a chance.

RenoDM said:

Good grief! Were these starting PCs, or did you slip him Gotrek Gurnisson for a lark?

Herr Arnulfe said:

We were stuck in a back-room for both runnings, but I always put up the box cover to advertise anyways

jh