Drives and WHFRP

Digging around I saw a post (can’t remember where or if it was even on this forum) about using the investigation model in Gumshoe for WHFRP. While the mechanic itself won’t function with the WH rules I did come up with some nuggets I’ll be posting when I’ve worked through the idea. In the meantime, the Trail of Cthulhu Gumshoe setting also covers the concept of Drives, basically the WHY your Investigator does what they do with an in-game effect. I was thinking something like that would be fun for WH characters, providing a driving force behind why the character’s wandering around outside of just good story (sometimes a player needs a carrot).

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

DRIVE
Players must choose a drive for their character during creation. This is the character’s motivation for getting out there and regularly confronting the perils the Old World has to offer.

The following is the list of drives available to characters along with a brief description of the drive and what careers it best fits. The descriptions are meant as suggestions only, each can be interpreted broadly and fit the character concept. For example, a player may want their character to be the champion of the downtrodden and be the one who sticks up for the “little man”, so he may choose Crusade as his Drive. Another player may want his Agitator to be working toward bringing down corrupt nobles and powerful entities while raising up the plight of the commoner so he chooses Crusade as well. Same Drive, different motivations. I left the 'appropriate for: (career)' portions that appear in Trail off these as the WH characters will be shifting through different careers as time progresses, but their Drives should stay relatively static (there is information on how to shift up Drives - such as when a Follower PC loses whomever they're following could change to Revenge as a Drive, but I chose not to duplicate it here). The summaries are my paraphrasings of Trail's descriptions, while Crusade is new.

Adventure
Antiquarianism
Arrogance
Artistic Sensitivity
Bad Luck
Crusade
Curiosity
Duty
Follower
In the Blood
Revenge
Scholarship
Sudden Shock
Thirst for Knowledge

Adventure
The wind against your face, the thrill of new experiences, daring escapes, action! These are what you crave most. “Playing it safe” is exactly the opposite of what you’re looking for in life.

Antiquarianism
The Old World is an ancient place; nothing is more electrifying than learning its histories. Holding the past in your hands and unlocking the secrets of long dead civilizations, or even discovering unknown links to your peoples’ past is your goal. Those who ignore their past do so at their own peril.

Arrogance
You know what’s best for you and don’t need another’s permission to act on it. Your successes will vindicate your actions and the opinions of smaller-minded folk are no better than the buzzing of flies in your ears.

Bad Luck
Wrong place, wrong time sums up your life experiences. Nothing ever seems to go your way, but you’ll try to push on through regardless.

Crusade
Someone has to push back at the darkness. That someone is you. There are people to protect, evils to expose, the wrong to punish. You will mete out justice whenever the opportunity arises.

Curiosity
If it’s a mystery you need to solve it, if it’s a clue you need to follow up on it. If not it will nag at you and consume your every waking thought, you can’t help it, you MUST KNOW!

Duty/Oath
Your word is your bond. It may be foolish, risky, or even suicidal, but you swore an oath and will see it through, after all, if you don’t who will?

Follower
Someone, somewhere, important to you needs your help. It might be an obligation, you feel responsible, love, loyalty, or simply they can’t take care of themselves, but it’s up to you to keep them safe whether you like it or not.

In the Blood
You’re not sure why you can’t keep trekking across the Old World, exploring tombs and digging up ancient artifacts even with a pack of slavering ghouls on your tail. But it runs in the family, for better or worse.

Revenge
The Old World’s full of things that can hurt or kill you. One of those things out there hurt you or someone you care for. For that, it must be tracked down and destroyed. The trail may be long and winding, but no obstacle will stand in your way.

Scholarship
Learning about the world is a scholar’s calling. It is why you pour over dusty tomes, investigate rumors of heretofore unknown cultures, and travel to far off locales in search of nuggets of wisdom. You might be seeking the approval of your peers, the innate reward of the knowledge itself, or be seeking some deeper meaning in it all – perhaps the purpose of life – but whatever the goal, you know seeking it will never cease.

Sudden Shock
The veil’s been pulled back and you realize now that all the tales you heard growing up, the half imagined sights in the forest at night, and the preachings of every crazy cleric who wandered through you village claiming the end was nigh were true…Might as well dig in now, find out how deep the hole goes and maybe…just maybe…do something about it.

Thirst for Knowledge
You want to know. Not for academia’s sake, not to illuminate others, but for yourself. Knowledge is power, even more so than the deepest coffers or mightiest crown and it is what you crave most. Why else would so many try to keep it from you?

Using Drives
In play, drives serve to move the storyline along as well as to mitigate metagaming character actions and motivations. Two types of drive situations exist: (hard and soft). Hard drives are those points in the story when it is all but impossible for the character to resist their natural inclinations, and doing so exhausts them mentally. Soft drives occur in situations where the character could be tempted, but have less difficulty resisting the pull.

Hard Drives
When a character is put into a hard drive situation the GM notifies them as such and it is up to the player if they would like to resist it. If they do, they must make a WP check with a difficulty of 2 challenge. The results are as follows (H=success, B=Boon, N=Bane, C=Chaos Star):

H: The character resists the impulse to act on their drive. The character suffers 1 stress.
HH: The character resists the impulse to act on their drive. The character suffers 1 stress.
B: The character suffers no stress on a success.
BB: The character suffers no stress on a success. Reduce the party tension by 1.
N: The character suffers 1 stress.
NN: The character suffers 1 stress.
C: Increase the party tension by 1.
CC: Remove one success from the total. The character suffers 1 stress.

Soft Drives
When a character is put into a soft drive situation the GM notifies them as such and it is up to the player if they would like to resist it. If they do, they must make a WP check with a difficulty of 1 challenge. The results are as follows:

H: The character resists the impulse to act on their drive. The character suffers 1 stress.
B: The character suffers no stress on a success.
BB: The character suffers no stress on a success. Reduce the party tension by 1.
N: The character suffers 1 stress.
C: Increase the party tension by 1.

We got a "advantage" and "disadvantage" list for character creation. I (actually GM, but sometimes I have the pleasure to be a player) play gambler. My PC has the "bet addiction" disadvantage. This means everytime someone suggest gambling or "serves a bet" to my PC he has to pass a Willpower Test, difficulty depends how attractive the bet is, to resist to accept the bet. If he fails he has to accept it or take a additional stress for some days. If the dice show a chaos star he cannot say no.

This flaw gave me 2 additional character points from the beginning. I also had the possibility to trade it with a 2-point advantage.

Nice.

Woops forgot to add the carrots onto the above!

For Hard Drives, if the player gives into the Drive, the character recovers:

Two stress, or the party tension track is reduced by one and recovers one stress, player's choice.

For Soft Drives, recover one stress or reduce the tension track down one.

Toying with the idea of adding one to the fortune pool if the player RP's out how he gives into the drive.

Also, adding another Drive:

Exploration

There is so much to see in the Old World, you wonder why anyone would be satisfied never traveling further than the horizon. The thrill of encountering new peoples and places or being somewhere nobody else has been is what drives you most.

Your Drive rules are really good to combine with the Party Sheet !

Yeah, one thing I wanted to make better use of was the party sheet with this. It seems to be one of the lesser-utilized items in our games and was thinking giving some direct attention to it with the drives would remind the players it was there.