How are you dealing with taking off corruption points for doing "good" deeds?

Cleansing a chaos temple or destroying a herd stone for example.

Winds of Magic is quite wage about it. I have an idea, but like to here from you about yours.

As a GM you want Corruption to serve the story.

Personally I tend to burn off corruption points as purple dice in key battles. This allows you to fine tune the difficulty of key battles.

When working on the rules I had a very interesting talk with another WFRP fan about the possibility of redemption and how it was a generally overlooked theme in Warhammer (for some obvious reasons - it is a grim world after all).

There were a few different takes on the issue, for example in the short story "Ignorant Armies" by Kim Newman a corrupted young noble is essentially cleansed by the sacrifice of his retainer, and even quite severe mutations vanish leaving him as he was before his corruption.

On the other side of things people afflicted by mutations bear them whether or not they are decent or civilised or make sacrifices, and other stories have hinted that once a person devotes himself to chaos there is no turning back.

So it is a little vague because there is no real "recipie" for ridding oneself of corruption. Cleansing a chaos temple might well help - but what if the person doing the cleansing is unworthy for some other reason (for an extreme example - a Nurgle cultist 'cleansing' the temple of a Tzeentchian rival or something).

So it's up to the GM to take a sort of metaphysical look at the actions of the corrupted individual and ask "all things considered - is he worthy or not"?

The only thing I would say is that ridding oneself of corruption should be tricky - perhaps forming the basis of a quest in itself. Dropping a pfennig in the poor box at the local Shallyan institution does not count.

Corruption points are another threat hanging over that PCs. They are a great motivator to get the PCs to oppose Chaos. As a GM though I think a PC actually gaining a mutation would be problematic. Either it would lead to PC retirement or a severe compromise to the party's character concepts.

The rules seem to assume PCs can gain a mutation and continue as PCs. In my opinion this is problematic in the setting. WFRP encourages players to play zealots/fanatics. If a PC gains an obvious mutation (most are) there are a number of likihoods:

1. The character kills himself
2. The other PCs hand the mutant over to the authorities
3. The PCs kill the mutant
4. The mutant runs away
5. The PCs hide the mutant and help him redeam.

Imo 5) is perhaps the rarest. It could involve all the party PCs breaking with their character concept. As a GM I wouldn't ask players to have their Zealots, Witchhunters, Slayers, and Priests allow the mutation to life. Practically, mutation = PC retirement. Given this the GM needs manage the risk of mutation in the same way he manages PC death.

Fresnel said:

No more than it encourages them to play soldiers, wizards or rat catchers. Plenty of characters may try to carry on if they developed a mutation they could conceal, and perhaps search for some sort of magical or surgical cure.

But yes - a mutation isn't be handed out lightly, nor lightly dealt with by the sufferer.

True - not every character has a career that depends on being religious. However, a ratcatcher can still be devote. The larger the party the more chance of at least one devote/fanatic within it. The higher the rank the greater the chance that someone has taken a devote/fanatic career.

In any case, aiding a mutant is a capital offence. So even in the unlikely event that none of the party feels morally obligated to slay the mutant - they need to decide between personal loyalty and (potentially) the gallows...

Part of the fun of the WFRP for me is the exploration of alternative moralities. As a Sigmarite, strangling a newborn mutant and putting the family who hid it to the sword is the morally right action. For a Witchhunter, burning the scholar who questions the historical truth of scripture is morally right.

The theme of redemption is one that has a lot of potential. However, in a WFRP setting it could involve an initially liberal character learning the error of his ways.

My idea was based upon the way the PCs played out Eye for an Eye.

They cleansed the Chaos Temple with fire and holy anger, gave the forbidden items to the authorities and tracked down the beast men and tipped over and spoiled the Herd Stone.

Since the rules says that its an averege resilience check (2d) to be messing with the chaos temple and the herd stone, there must be, in my opinion, a similiar pay off to get rid of the corrupting source were you might have attracted the points in the first place.

So failing that check would give you 2 corruption points and max 2 for chaos stars. So between 0 and 4 points.

I thought to give the players 2 fortune dices for cleansing the temple. - 1 corrpution point per sucess and - 2 per boon. So between 0 and - 4 points for doing something heroic and noble etc.

So the degree of difficuly on the resilience check would be granted in fortune dices to purge yourself. Hard test (3d) = 3 fortune dice.

I like my players to be on the "good" side during the following campaigns and will use the corruption points to hammer them down, in crucial moments according too their personal goals/hooks.

Mutation can be fun to play around with, but in the Sigmarite Reikland, most people would purge the unclean on site and the group would fall upon itself instantly.

So if someone in the group have gotten a mutation, then all must have one, else I feel that it would be unbelievable for them to continue, without the tension meter pinging out all the time.

Ofcoarse they can feel pity and all that, but in the longrun, nay...

from france

i recall a scenario where a priest of shayla could cure minor mutation. i don't know if ti is only in the scenarion or in the rules (first editions) but maybe it s a good start.

They party I'm running will out and kill anyone that mutated, so I'm being careful to never let any of them hit that level, but I can't let them know that or they will not fear the little purple chits, which I want to be scary (since it adds to the ambiance of the setting). A couple of games ago a player blew a couple corruption rolls. I created a monster that could heal itself by "pulling corrupted blood" out of people, doing a lot of damage in the process. It worked well for the scene.

I admit that I will have corruption reduced for "Good Deeds" very rarely. It will really represent something impressive and impressive in a "opposed Chaos" way. I'm also not keen on it being simply a feel of "reward" or "the gods help you". How able are the gods really to help - I want that a big vague. So the cures have to have more mechanical explanations - you helped reseat/repair a Waystone that was leaking tainted chaos winds into world and mutating people - the flash of energy that passes as it's reseated may burn off some corruption.

I will burn it off as challenge dice only when the PC's are facing a situation where one or more ruinous powers would want them to fail more than want to seem them corrupted (e.g., never when facing bandits, necromancer raising undead etc. but in Eye for an Eye vs Daemon yes absolutely) or there is some raw chaos energy floating around (warpstone etc.).

Ironically this means, the same situations in which you face sources of corruption are often those where it may be burned off and it's thus a "bit of a race" to see if you burn them or mutate etc.

All "I wills" of course really mean "plan at this point, subject to change".

Rob

I remember back in the days of WFRP1 that my GM let me grow fangs.
Well... the Solkan priest of the party immediately ordered my execution.
So, yes, having a chaos marked player in the middle of the group can be tricky, but still, I wouldn't say I'm against mutations.
The world is grim, let the tainted one die!

Fresnel said:

That's a great idea. I'll only use it for epic battles, but it should work very well.

Fresnel said:

I don't think 5 would be rare at all, assuming the characters had been together for a long time, and the mutant hadn't obviously decided to start worshiping Chaos. It's one thing if you come across random mutants, but it's another if your friends, family, and closest companions begin to suffer these effects. Even in the warhammer world it's unlikely most family members would turn over their siblings to the authorities if they were a mutant...at least not without giving their family members a head start. Assuming the players have worked together for a while I think 5 is the most likely. Of course if your group actually has a witch hunter or zealot in it...this might not be the case, but even a witch hunter will find himself shaken if somene he knows for certain is not a follower of chaos, and has been his close companion starts to mutate...though in the end the witch hunter is still most likely to put them down in order to purify them...