Some news for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fans. I’m pleased to announce that the Game Master’s Toolkit is starting to ship to distributors – so keep an eye out for it at your favorite retailer.

The Game Master’s Toolkit is being made available earlier than originally scheduled, as we have encountered unexpected delays with The Gathering Storm. The initial shipment did not meet our high quality standards; portions of The Gathering Storm are being reprinted to ensure FFG continues to deliver the best possible products to our customers and fans. We hope the delays are minimal. Stay tuned to the website for more information about the status of The Gathering Storm as it becomes available.

Boooo

... and Woot!

Doc, the Weasel said:

Just woot from me... I prefer that they make a quality product instead of releasing some half arsed campaign. After all they have something to live up to since many fans have already played The Enemy Within.

Gallows said:

I agree, I too would rather see them send it back to the printer so that we end up with a better final product. That doesn't mean I'm not disappointed.

Doc, the Weasel said:

I know what you mean. I too would like to have the campaign as soon as possible. They should have been ready with the game masters kit and the first campaign box right after release (a week or two), instead of players having to wait. That would have created a more finished total product for us to buy and use.

Yeah I was looking forward to the GM kit more then the campaign guide.

Hey, look at the bright side, this changes the release schedule to what it probably should have been in the first place.

keltheos said:

Yep it makes sense releasing the GM kit first.

Gallows said:

Well the page count is gonna be way less than the Enemy Within campaign. They have described as a complete campaign haven't they? Enemy Within was something like 6 books of adventure and 1 further book describing Middenheim. I am not saying it gonna be crap just I that I can't see it being as big

any stores at your knwoledge have already received the GM toolkit ? (not in France at least )

As far as I know, no stores in Europe has recieved it yet. Still, we will have to wait till april I think.

I just bought the Game Master Toolkit at Pegasus Games in Madison, WI. Luckily they still had a couple on the shelves.

Going over it there's a lot of stuff on setting up encounters following the 3 act series. Some helpful rules and clarifications on the mechanics and application of rules. I would have preferred more of the latter than the former. But still quite entertaining and useful.

The GM screen is quite thick and of good quality, however the rules summary left me underwhelmed. FFG should have taken Headless Hollow's excellent reference sheets and used those instead. They condense much more information with less space. They also used up precious space for a rules reference index. I'd like to avoid having to consult the book by using a GM Screen... But as it stands the GM Screen can help newbie GM's, it's just not that useful for GM's with a better handle of the rules.

I did like the embedded progress tracker and NPC groups on the left side for tracking A/C/E, nice touch.

Anyways, it's a useful product (especially for new GM's) with excellent production values as always.

Lex,

Thanks for the coverage on the GM Toolkit, i'll look forward to picking mine up.

-Gitzman

Hm. I'm now on the fence.

I was really hoping for a useful GM Screen most out of the package. The book sounds decent, but the screen's contents sound underhwelming for the reasons Lex described. I already have one I can create inserts for and am now thinknig that'll be more useful than this one. Hmmm...

I'll have to see what the screen looks like first. That'll be the deciding factor for me.

What about the Stands? Are there additional or duplicate Adversary Stands? Are there also additional location cards, items, actions, etc? I think is the main reason I would pick up a copy of this box.

I'll have to see what the screen looks like first. That'll be the deciding factor for me.

The player facing side of the screen is beautiful. The center panel features the cover of the WFRP rulebook basically, those two armoured characters fighting it out. The side panels contain 4 pictures of villains.

The reference on the gm side is adequate. It's not that it's sub-par, it's just that I've seen much better summaries. The only bit that really put me off was the Rules Reference section on the left side. That was wasted space in my opinion, but it would be invaluable for a starting group, where you could just read off the page number the player needs to reference when they ask a question. ("Look it up in p. 14"). But I have the living index pdf, so I can use that to much better effect, since I also keep my laptop handy while GM'ing.

I'll probably just sticky the reference sheets I want over the parts I don't like, and no harm done. That's much easier and less costly than having the screen printed on thick cardboard

There are additional cards: location and item cards, most of which were quite useful.

There are also Nemesis cards, also pretty neat, like Party Cards but for NPC's. There's already a few of them that I want to integrate into my current campaign.

There are several cutouts. Several really big ones for Daemons and Skaven type monsters (biggest ones released so far). Also new tracking tokens that are green and have a distinctive symbol on them. Perfect for tracking NPC's and the like, making them very distinctive to the other chits. I really liked this, as often my tracking bits would get confused. There's also a permanent progress tracker (Event, 2 green, event, 2 red, event), that's one whole piece so it won't come apart on you. Pretty useful to have a generic tracker already built for you.

I'd like them to have included a 10-step permanent init tracker instead, but that's pretty nice.

I'll give it a look. The other materials may be worth the cost and I'll just create my own screen.

Just pre-ordered The Gathering Storm from Amazon uk (shipping to Oz). WOOHOO!

Unfortunately the estimated delivery date is after the 14th of May. woohoo! This storm will have gathered more dust than moisture by the time I get my hands on it.

I've said all along that I was more interested in the supplemental material than the GM Screen since I'm already quite content with HedgeWizard's GM Screens loaded in my 3-panel customizable GM Screen. They have all the material I need to reference during a game, which is what a good GM Screen should have. A GM Screen is supposed to help you avoid having to reference the rule book(s) during play. Having page references on a GM Screen kind of defeats the purpose. OTOH, I'm really interested in the Nemesis rules. Everything else I'm really kind of "meh" about. More examples of locations are always nice, but not something I can't live without and I don't use the standups, so those are wasted cardboard AFAIC. More (and different) tracking tokens is always nice, but it's a problem I've already addressed with other tokens.

The Gathering Storm is a product that was needed when the game was released. As more time goes by, my interest in this product is waning since the reality of ever actually running the adventure is growing slimmer as more time goes by. If this had been available when the game was released, I would have no doubt run it. Since we started playing rather than wait for it, it's now of less value to me. The group I'm playing in is more interested in more advanced careers, not setting aside our current characters and creating new ones to be able to play through this adventure. I'm currently running another group through The Enemy Within. Again, it's unlikely that my group would be interested in stopping that to start over with new characters in TGS. Trying to make TGS suitable for more advanced characters is an option, but not ideal if it is designed for starting characters. Where TGS is still important is as an example of the mechanics, especially the concept of encounters being comprised of 3 Acts, which is something that is integral to the design, but unfortunately gets too little coverage in the core rules. Also, more examples of social encounters will be helpful. TGS as an illustration of the concepts in practice that the game designers felt where important and that are defining features of the game will still be useful, but as just that, an example, rather than as an actual adventure to be played through. So while I'll still buy it, I'm less excited about it now than when it was first announced.

I'm now more interested in what's next for the game and when we'll see it than either of these two products.

Hey everyone, just thought I'd pass on that I posted a ton of pictures of the contents for the GM's Toolkit at The Hopeless Gamer. Find the pictures and my review here .

Amazon finally has this up for pre-order, but with a delivery estimate of June 5. WTF?!? At 34% off, I'm willing to wait, but seriously wouldn't be surprised to see that date slip since FFG stuff seems to get out to normal FLGS distributors first and Amazon gets it only after those orders are filled. If the first print run sells out through normal distro channels, we could be waiting on a second printing. Happened to me with the BSG boardgame and a couple other items.

It also wouldn't surprise me if the 5/4 date for TGS gets bumped for the same reason.

I'm still waiting for the Game Master Toolkit to appear on the shelves in Austria - can't wait to get one!

Thanks for the courage to delay Gathering Storm for the sake of quality - in times of permanent beta versions this is has become rare!

I just like to say Hire Shane Hensley that worked on this product to do a vampire wars campaign or a mordhiem campaign box set.

Thanks!

Sinister said:

A MORDHEIM box set would be great if not one of the best supplements for WFRP ever made.

ffgfan said:

I happened to talk to Shane about doing the GM toolkit and he said he's LOVE to write a vampire wars or mordhiem box set. (conversation over facebook). I hope Jay is reading this....and I get a free copy for the idea.

So sound off and show your support.