I'm about to run this campaign.

I've heard anecdotes of PCs totally missing the mark or avoiding/killing off key NPCs.

Also, I've heard that motivation for the PCs to get involved can be an issue.

Any advice/tips on running this campaign?

I'm not far into it, a key for me so far is to keep eye on the key encounters. I think the key to making use of the material and following the overall story without railroading is to keep eye on "hard points" - the things that must absolutely happen for rest of campaign to flow - while otherwise letting it be as much a sandbox as players want.

At root, it's that PC's encounter/obtain the fragments of mapstone and see "other pieces of puzzle" - this is the key to the overaching story. Stepping back a bit, there's a big fight/set piece nice to use around that. Players I GM, for example, avoided the Holtz family and ended up going into Oberslecht without meeting them. That was fine, you can see the report of how that wove back and forth and ended up back on track. There was no Argument in Farmyard scene but otherwise it's playing out pretty much as expected.

Rob

Heading for the Gathering Storm with my group as well as soon as the summer holidays end. Lets make this a treasure trove - thread of information and possible pitfalls of the campaign. I found Valvorik's summary really helpful and entertaining, but still there are things that just don't make sense to me.

1. The group is heading to the swamp. Why on earth they would take a cart, a cart that is supposed to be pulled with a pony, with them??? And how on earth are they supposed to manage to outrun the beastmen while pulling the cart, beastmen that are by nature faster than humans and also probably more proficient on traveling on the swamp than the player characters. I could understand this if there was a good road leading to and from the herdstone AND if one of the PCs is a centaur. But as it is, it's just ridiculous. At least here in Finland the swamps are extremely rough terrain to move even without trying to pull/push/carry a wagon or cart of some sort...

2. How did the other GM's handle the zombie fight in the Garden of Morr? I mean did you explain the new rules of the conflict to your group or did you just run it without explaining? All and all do you normally explain how to move the tracks when building them or do you let the players "find out" how the track works this time?

Mordjinn said:

I really wonder about this too!

The only real reason they would bother taking the cart into the swamp is if they have encountered FoalDeath and agree to go in after the stone (He describes it to the players, likely including an estimate of its size and weight, and the fact that it is constantly being struck by lightning...) Otherwise, the players will either have to trudge back for it (bad idea) or make something out of whatever they can find in the swamp to drag that stone out.

Brother Bart said:

Yes, I can understand this. My main problem however is moving the cart around in the swamp (superhard) and especially outrunning the beastmen with it. I don't know if you've ever been in the swamp, but I definitely wouldn't want to pull a cart there. I think this idea of only being able to transport the stone with a cart is a design flaw or the designer had a compeletely different idea of a swamp than what I do.

Just imagine trying to move the cart in the landscape below, especially with a heavy stone on it. (these are different types of swamps, couldn't find a prime example of Southern German swamp which Oberslecht probably is).

It's not impossible to pull a cart through a swamp. It depends on the swamp and in what part of the swamp you are located. But yeah, how do you outrun beastmen with a cart on any type of field for that matter...

Last session, my group raised this very question, "take a cart into a marshland?"

I tried to justify it by the size of the stone (not sure if Encumbrance 9 does it), and an explanation that a "solid route" is described by Foaldeath, and have already desribed the Oberslecht as a mix of bog, woods, dry land, morasses etc. Echoes of Samwise and Frodo's path through the Dead Marshes (I've toyed with idea of making the Oberslecht a bit of an homage to the Dead Marshes, with in this case it being a great army of dwarves and elves having clashed there in the age when the watchtower for the waystone was lost, and fought virtually to point of each other's annihilation).

Really the cart is not essential to adventure but if my group is typical, most are pretty near their Encumbrance limit with armour and gear and splitting 9 between two (say they're both carrying it) still adds what of black dice to the Str checks. Not good condition to be surprised in etc.

In terms of the "escape story", the beastmen need to be dispersed in the marsh and the escape is avoiding them etc. The "story" is that normally they are, one reason not a major threat, only Izka or another wargor leader with the Ligthning Stone behind them is able to unify them. Narratively, I think it needs to be really clear that Izka's death alone doesn't stop the threat.

The part of TGS that I struggled with, in story terms, was A Time To Mourn. Without any foreshadowing it just seemed to be very random and therefore hard to get people to engage with.

I had a plan to introduce the background of Lazarus Mourn in a pre campaign adventure (one of my characters knows that her family has some dark secret but does not know what it is exactly. The idea was that when she turns up in Stormdorf to meet "uncle" Lazarus and find out that he had already been burnt at the stake it would both introduce the concept of undead in stormdorf and continue her story. I was going to add in a little 'explore the ruins of thee necromancerss house' type adventure. However I had a limited number of sessions, 9, in which to play all of TGS so I dropped the advance for fear that it would take up too much time.

I also have a bit of an issue with the balance of the campaign. If you use the Florian the missing merchant hook then it starts off with some investigation which is good as I have always viewed that as the basic warhammer adventure. Then The Lesser Evil, Time to Mourn and When Night Falls are all likely to become fairly big fights. This is great if your group likes big fights but mine doesn't. I would therefore consider, if I would ever to run this again, trying to replace A Time To Mourn with something which is both better foreshadowed and less based on combat. Not sure exactly what though. Maybe something along the lines of a Haunted House story - lots of suspense and threats to sanity but less violence?

Captain Fluffy said:

These are all excellent points, and precisely the kinds of issues that I was worried about.

Combat seems to take forever, regardless of game system. My player group tries its best to keep it interesting and cinematic, but sometimes that can be a challenge. Especially when the encounter is: fight zombies until the tracker fills up.

I would much rather take some of these chapters and tweak them to be a bit more suspenseful and threatening, as you suggested. I wonder how that could be done?

Necrozius said:

Just finished reading Time to Mourn and I wholeheartedly agree with tweaking the adventure to something more interesting than just the "dungeon" crawl that it is. Maybe there can be ghosts at the graveyard who hate Lazarus and point the characters to a direction of a powerful relic that can be used to destroy the necromancer. Maybe this relic is protected with a riddle...

I guess the thing to remember is that inly only thing that needs to happen for the rest of the campaign to work is the characters need to get hold of the last bit of map stone. If you want to use the map stone item card theen this stone needs to have been Olaus Stichelms headstone. Other than that everything else is up for grabs. Lazarus Mourn doesn't need to be dead, it doesn't need to be set in the garden of Morr, and if you are more interested in suspense and investigation thaan combat it does't need to involve dozens of undead. So maybe during the trial of Keila Cobblepot she tries to distract attention from herself by pointing a figure at a prominent local who she claims is a necromancer. However the night before the trial, when she would puublicly renounce Lazarus, she dies in the cells of an unknown cause. With no evidence Burgomeister Adler asks the characters to investigate.

Since I really like the zombie-movie setting of the whole Garden of Morr episode, but don’t want to become involved in a looong fight, I am thinking to let them make general weapon skill, athletics etc. checks to advance their progress tracker. However, now that I write this, I am not yet sure how I should go about dealing damage to them. Hmm…

Wow, Mordjinn those pick are great. Perfect for session, my players will want to see this. Thanks

valvorik said:

My group ended up getting through the first session without a single combat related encounter. Which kinda bummed out one of the players who's first WFRP 3rd adventure experience was that very night. Still, it being my very first GM experience, I think I did an ok job with the pace (not having to pause too many times to find the right place in the book, etc).

I was struggling with trying to give enough clues, because the party were sort of asking all the wrong questions...finally, they ended up over at the Stewpot and caught Ms Cobblepot in a bald-face lie when asked about Florian. The thief in the party snuck around and found her trying to bury the signet ring in the back garden...and then they all finally knew he wasnt still wandering around with his white pony and cart. They then set off to find the burning farm, etc.

My group hasn't actually seen the cart yet, I managed to forget to mention its appearance while describing the burning ruins of the Eigel farm. They managed to talk down Tristan from stabbing Fritz, but when I mentioned that the mother leads Tristan into another room and ties him up, the players call foul (Oops, was I not supposed to read that?). Marie and Otto manage to talk the party into helping them and going to meet Foaldeath....which is where we left off.

Really, the main problem with the herdstone piece, is that it is constantly being struck by lightning. So, even if the players manage to carry it (without a cart or sled) they are going to die from the lightning...

If the stone is moved, then the lightning strikes where it last was, according to the adventure.

I ruled that once moved, in fact it stops attracting lightning until it's in same place for some time.

Did just have my first PC death in fight with Izka (then again Player acted foolishly) - will post in the thread where I'm summarizing the play of campaign.

Mordjinn said:

Time to Mourn isn't a dungeon crawl, it's a horror story. The idea is to create a certain atmosphere. The temple before the Garden is purely there to ratchet up the tension - it's dark, mysterious and has a couple of zombies in it to scare the PCs and hint that the graveyard itself is probably going to be unpleasant. Then you get the zombie horde fight, which should be a tense desperate struggle for survival, before the final battle, where the PCs try to overcome their enemies before it's too late.

The key to running this adventure correctly is to understand the mood the writer is going for. It isn't just a series of combat encounters (though that's what it looks like on the surface), it's an escalating tension session, designed to make the players more desperate and afraid with each encounter. Throwing in an investigative or social encounter in the middle of that will break the mood, allowing the players to recover before the next stage.

Yep - that was how I was going to play a Time to Mourn - ratchet up the tension, create atmosphere.

Then the party decided to forego the setup entrances and climb the wall right near the Ossuary... I made it really hard for them, but due to the Zombie attack in town they were paranoid about entering the Garden and decided to go for the climb (using the spikes to attach a rope), and then a quick run over a short distance to the door.

So, they dodged the zombies. The skeletons and darkness did amp up the atmosphere, but when they came across Mourn the archer did a Sniper Shot through combat at the door (I allowed this making it a exceptionally hard shot, and warning that a choas star would mean hitting the melee), got a fantastic shot in, and Mourn was at 1 hp.

The baddies retaliated and took the archer down (unconscious), but the next round a Shadow Bolt hit Mourn and that was that - all a bit of an anticlimax really...

Munchkin said:

Got two questions. One regarding mechanics in the above situation and one regarding the lightning stone in the previous chapter.

1. How did the baddies get the archer? This is my main difficulty while dealing with archers. Usually they shoot from long range distance. Baddies can't get to them fast enough, unless they get wounds for extra manoeuvers.

2. Lightning stone: The rules state that anyone engaged with the stone while lightning strucks is hit for 1 stress, 1 wound and 1 fatigue. Also there is a more severe rule, for a DIRECT hit. But no where is it stated when a character get a direct hit. Is it different than in the first case where they are simply engaged with the stone? And how can the GM 'target' a PC for a direct hit?

My other concern involves the inbred rednecks in the first part.

A major part of the story depends on how zealous the PCs are. In most groups I've played with, the general opinion is: "mutant? cultist? chaos? BURN THEM" , regardless of context.

So my question is this: if the PCs distrust the weird, inbred families or outright kill Foaldeath on sight, can they complete the story? What would be some clever ways to get them to the stone?

I don't want this to happen, 'cause it will essentially be a "kill everything" quest.

Necrozius said:

Just having lightning hit consistently a single part of the swamp would be enough of a hint. If they ignore it for now, the PCs are bound to come back to it, once they realise they need more bits.

When the archer asked if he could take the shot, I ruled that the only way for him to get a line on Mourn was to get really close to the combat at the door. Close enough so that he was well within reach of the great sword, one hit from that and a spell from Mourn and the archer was down...

Direct lightening hits on players would be rare - I guess that rule is there just in case they were doing something silly - like dancing on the stone. In saying that, if two characters were carrying the stone between them and one of them was encased in metal armour... walking lightening rod.. zap!

As for if the Rednecks are killed - I was worried about this so I planted the idea back at Sigmar's temple that the lightening was holy, and a tool of Sigmar himself. If I needed to get them into the swamp some other way I was intending to set it up so that they might see the continual strikes as a message from Sigmar - enemies of the empire here! kind of thing.... does that make sense?

I'm not worried about motivations for getting the PCs to the various key locations, but what I was wondering is the general concensus on whether or not to keep the Storm Tracker hidden or in plain view of the players.

I can see how it could work either way. I'm just trying to see if any GMs had it out and what the results were...

On how open to be with Storm Card.

After showing the full First Card Storm Tracker, I am now showing only the progress not the results of hitting the key points (I have it in clear stand up such as is used in stores etc. for holding flyers vertical). You will find out what happens at 5 etc. when you reach it.

Rob

Thanks Valvorik!

That's an interesting way to do it. I like it a lot as it provides visual input that something is going on, but doesn't give away details.

Any of you other GMs have any suggestions?