Hi, i was re-reading the fear and frightened condition and wonder now how it should work, how are other people using this?

Here's my issue:

Fear/Terror seems pretty stright forward, when you "confront" something with a Fear or Terror rating, you make a roll, if you fail and generate two or more banes you are frightened.

Now the frightened condition is a dependant condition, and the bit that confuses me is that it is actually mentioned and explained in the rules, that it last as long as the person is engaged with the thing causing fear or terror.... So as soon as you become disengaged with the "thing" you are no lnoger frightened, does that they mean you can engage it again next turn and the frightened condition is simply gone?

On re-reading the rules it now seems it is relatively easy to get rid of the frightened condition (just disengage) and also makes me now wonder at which point you roll for terror/fear in the first place.

In the rules it mentions the word confront, so does this mean "see" or does this mean "engage"?

If you roll for fear the minute you see something (which seems sort of sensible), you are unlikely to be engaged with it, so even if you pick up the firghtened condition, you'll lose is at the end of your turn as you are no longer engaged.

Frightened is the only dependant effect available so far (dont have WoM yet, any in there?) so the intent of dependant effects is al ittle hard to gauge, but it seems a little strange that you only need to be engaged with it for it to cause you to be frightened and as soon as you disengage, the frightening conditino goes.

Initially, my thought on the rules were roll as soon as you seen something, and you remain frightened until the thing that caused it has gone. If you are engaged with it, you take the stance dice hit (as explained on the condition card) but even if not engaged with it, you still take the stress hit (2nd sentence on the card)

What are other peoples' thoughts?

I apply "Frightened" until the creature that caused it is either dead, or no longer a threat of any kind. I will reapply it if you run into that same creature again though.

So if you disengage, and re-engage, or even engage an entirely different creature, you're still frightened, until you deal with the thing that is causing the fear, or run away.

We actually had a situation like this come up. The group ran into some Undead, and two players were afflicted by the frightened condition. The group ended up having to run from the battle when the Wizard miscasted and they had a string of bad rolls, but I kept the frightened condition on the PCs until they had escaped; it made from some interesting scenes as they made thier way through a labyrinth of ancient tunnels and passageways; since they were running, full flight, through unfamiliar territory, I didn't even draw the map out for them. They eventually escaped, but thanks to that situation, one of my players wanted to have her character have a permanent fear of Undead, adding a misfortune to any fear or terror rolls VS Undead.

Removing the Frightened condition just by disengaging would have not only been a mechanical blunder, but it would have removed some of the storytelling opportunities the card represented.

Good, that is certainly the way I had originally read the card and how dependant effcts should be used.

Out of interest did you continue to hit them with the stress effect of the frightened condition while they ran through the labyrinth even though they weren't engaged with any undead?

I certainly think that is the way I will continue to use dependant conditions, as you say, it just makes more mechanical and story telling sense.

Greetings!

I have had some problems with the fear mechanic and the frightened condition with my group as well and I would like to contribute with our approach to it. I must confess we still do not all agree completely one another but that's what we came up with:

Facts:

1) Worst consequences should come after a fear check is not passed (X stress is obtained);

2) the frightened condition can be gained even if the fear check is successful - this is the key point for my whole post ;

3) so the frightened condition on its own cannot be "stronger" (you get what I mean) than a failed fear check;

4) who wrote the game probably thought that fear should be measured mostly by stress points taken when the source of fear is first detected;

5) requisites for a dependant condition are checked at the end of turn, after all players and monsters have acted;

Problems:

1) point 4 above is nowhere written in a clear and precise way. Its wording is - maybe voluntarily - vague;

2) the frightened condition is the only "dependant" and thus no other comparison is possible.

What the frightened condition tries to describe is - I think - the short moment during which a person realizes that something is frightening and going near to it unprepared can be dangerous and scary, unless one decides to wait a second, takes a breath, ponders the situation and then moves in.

Let's try with an example:

Characters A and B are facing a zombie which showed up in a dark alley. Due to the darkness the encounter starts at medium range and as soon as the GM describes the shambling being also calls for a fear check. Both A and B pass the check but B rolls two banes and gets the frightened condition. Initiative is rolled as well and the zombie goes last.

Now A wants to engage and kill the monster; he uses 1 maneuvre to move to close range and burns 1 fatigue to engage it. A then attacks and wounds the zombie.

So, considering the situation, what should B do? He could do as A did, move in and engage the zombie, but if he doesn't kill it he will not get rid of the frightened condition at the end of the turn and he will lose 1 stress at the beginning of the next one. And so on until the zombie dies. Otherways he could wait, stay unengaged and wait for the frightened condition to pass at the end of turn, but what if the zombie seriously wounds char A, or kills him?

Imagine instead that the zombie won the initiative and engaged both A and B, attacking and wounding A. What should B do at his turn? Disengage to lose the frightened condition, but leaving A alone against the undead, or risk his mental sanity to help his friend?

I hope i managed to explain why we - in the end - thought that the frightened condition could still work as written, without being too unbalancing but still useful for some good roleplaying dynamics and narrative contributions. You do not want the stress, you wait. Your heart loses a beat for a second and then you move again, otherways you push yourself to the edge and move towards what frightens you, risking your nerves.

I anyway agree with you that all this could have been better written on the rulebook and that most of encounters do not start at engaged range. Enemies do not usually come out from under the characters' feet!

Let me know what you think and I hope that my english was clear enough, another non native here :-)

@Darrett

The first time my group met some fear causing undead, we played just like you wrote; it definitely worked but re-thinking the situation it made the frightened condition much more powerful than the fear test. What you described seems to me more like a "terrorized condition", or something that should happen only in case of failed fear/terror tests as long as mechanics are involved. Roleplaying fears by the players is totally another matter, that's for sure, and I'm not discussing it at all.

Thanks for you post and the English was excellent!

Your idea of having to step back momentarily to catch your breath, or not advance so that you can get rid of the frightened condition at the end of turn phase, was something i had thought about upon re-reading the rules, before I posted, as to how I could explain the idea of disengaging getting rid of the Frightened condition, but the problem I had with it is exactly as you say, unless the encounter begins in close range the frightened condition is pretty much going to have no effect, the PC won't engage or be engaged by anything scary and so the condition will simply evaporate at the end of turn.

I do like your comment about the stress cost of failing the roll should be the worse of the two things though, and that has shed a new light on the rulings in my mind.

Given that being frightened (condition) could be used to describe that momentary fight or flight response, it is easy to control that response if the scary thing is a long way away, compared to up close, so this could be used to explain why the frightened condition has little impact at range.

It certainly would be good to have some more dependant conditions to compare it against, but i have found up until now that the rules are rarely glaringly incorrect and it is more likely when a rule doesn't make total sense that the nuance of the rule hasn't been clearly described, which on the whole is fine, because i like the way WFRP has hidden mechanics that just let you get on with playing, but sometimes it is good to have those hidden mechanics explained!

I totally agree with your interpretation and it has cleared the underlying intent of the rule in my head, which I was struggling with, at least until we have more dependant effects to compare against!!

Thanks