I noticed Story Mode mechanics were coming up a lot in other threads. Instead of responding in those threads, I decided it might be best to start up a comprehensive thread to discuss this fully as a community. I figure we can shoot out how we handle the various game effects outside of encounter mode. Sure FFG may give us more information in the Hardbacks, but we aren't sure they will and why sit around on our butts until they do. These are the methods my two groups use to navigate these problems:

1. Card Recharge.

2. Stress/Fatigue/Conditions.

1. Card Recharge: This is obviously a problem during story mode since there is absolutely no way to track Card Recharge without an initiative based mechanics. If you really think about it a token is removed from a card each time a player "acts" during encounter mode. Therefore, when looking at how best to apply outside of encounter mode, we remove a token each time a player acts. Examples:

Cards Like "Call of the Wild:" Call of the Wild type cards give bonus white dice to certain checks while the card is recharging. We assume that each time a player acts - i.e. uses the benefit of the card, such as tracking footprints or building a shelter - we remove one recharge token from the card. This is exactly how it would play out in encounter mode as well. We go one step further to assume the conclusion of a "round" in story mode happens at each rally step. It is the closest equivalent there is in the game mechanics. Therefore, at the beginning of each Rally Step, one token is removed from the card. Yes, this does mean some cards may last the whole session, but the benefit is - the player does not have to keep spam-rolling "Call of the Wild," which they will as long as they are in the wild or can benefit from the card.

Cards Like "Honeyed Words:" These are a bit trickier, because it is hard to gauge how often Honeyed Words would come into effect since a lot of the encounter "action" during a social scene is people talking at each other. Here we gauge an encounter action, as when a character makes their point, they remove a recharge token, even if no dice were rolled. Basically, if you view it as making a point is the same as attacking someone with a sword - regardless if it is successful or not - they are equivalent. One is trying to actually kill their opponent, the other is they are trying to defeat their opponent to sway them to their side. Now, if rolls are used in the social situation, then after the roll is made, a token is removed. Again, a Rally Step removes a recharge token from a card.

Talent Cards/condition cards: Just like other cards players can remove one token each time the player "acts," just like a standard action cards. Our House Rule, however, is a talent, exhausted during story mode, refreshes at the next Rally Step. That's it, period. Brief condition cards, usually dissipate at the next Rally Step or in the case of Frightened conditions, if they leave the chaos spawning pit, it is removed.

2. Stress/Fatigue/Conditions: Some of this will come down to how you play, but we deal a lot with stress and fatigue during story mode. Have you been walking forever, without taking time to rest...take a fatigue. Did you get defeated in a social encounter, take a stress. The tunnel is damp, musky, and deep below ground, take a Fatigue as you gasp for air. These events add a mechanical "suggestion" and tension to the game. Players know, if they stay in the dark, damp tunnel, they face going unconscious. It allows the surroundings, story, and roleplay choices to have a direct, mechanical representation on the character. This is not a house rule, it's actually in the RAW. But the question becomes how do you lose it? Well, that comes down to a lot of GM decisions and can influence roleplay choices. Lets say they are all stressed out because a friend got captured. That night, they found out where he was taken, remove a stress. Or if they are stressed out about what they are doing, but sit down to a friendly game of dice, recover a stress. If they stop and rest, Resilience checks can be made to regain stress/fatigue. It's really up to what the GM allows and how they want to run it. We also, automatically recover 1 stress or fatigue at a rally step.

In general though, Assess the situation in story mode should not be allowed. Otherwise, there is absolutely no point in Stress/Fatigue outside of encounter mode. A player can simply regain whatever they lost. Assess the situation we actually do not use in either of our two groups as we see the card as pointless, when other stats (resilience/willpower) already exist to deal with this in another way. Assess the situation is a nice guideline on how to manage these effects, but as a card goes, it's a bit overhanded IMGO (in my group's opinion).

Anyway, that's how it goes for us. Your thoughts? Your ideas. Post away.

Happy Gaming,

Commoner

Assess Situation - yup, only in encounter situations. You can't sit down on a rock and Assess endlessly to get rid of stress then get back up and continue on your way. Narratively, it's helpful only when there is a "situation" happening right now (Encounter mode) and mechanincally to balance it's only useful when you're sacrificing doing something active like an attack or social action when time counts.

Cards used in Story Modes and recharge - like Big City Bravado, Honeyed Words etc. Assuming the matter is not one where "really it should be a social encounter", I only allow them to be used once per day or other period. You're in story mode going around town chatting up lots of NPC's in a day, each card used only once. Think of it like the "once a session" elements in rules where "Yes, you are that person with Honeyed Words, you can show that, but it's boring to see it over and over". Usually players aren't in more than 2-4 free flowing situations where dice are rolled in story mode before it's back into encounter mode (at least that's what I find) - so really it's not that big a limit on them.

Other times "story mode" can be made into a "played out slowly" encounter. The rules do state (not obviously) that each round can be as long as you need, seconds, minutes, hours.

For example, in Edge of Night where events roll out one evening in 10-15 minute slots, I'm going to call those each "a round", so exhaust a talent, okay it's not useable again for another 30-45 minutes (3 rounds of actions), similarly that recharging card etc. On the other hand, the card that gives a bonus as long as recharging and has a 6 recharge - that's good for more than an hour of imagined time. I did the same thing for "Rough Night at Three Feathers", and it worked find.

Rob

Card Recharge

Normally i've ruled that each card used during story mode end up on the table whit zero to X tokens. Rally steps remove one token and all card whit no tokens on them are put back in player's hands at the end of the rally. Otherways if an encounter happen, the normal rules are applied, and if a player have some cards still on the table when the encounter begins, he have to wait until fully charged....

When the Slaanesh and Commoners book comes out, I hope they fix all this stuff... (or like I noted in a different thread, I hope they fix it in the upcoming hardcovers).

jh

I hadn't really thought about this issue as a problem, but I can see why some do. My approach is actually similar, and I would say instinctual.

1. Cards recharging outside of 'encounter mode'. I don't really see this as necessary. I just rule as I see appropriate. A player may describe their attempts to spend the day schmoozing the aristocracy, and not go into more detail. They can make a roll, and use an action if they want. They're unlikely to need to use the action more than once unless we enter 'encounter mode'. Likewise, a scout leading a group through the wilderness might make one roll or several, and would be allowed the benefits of their action card each time. Or, if the card was too specific, then I might just assign some bonus dice / reduce the difficulty to represent the wilderness experience they have (as represented by their various skills, actions and talents).

2. Stress / fatigue. If players leave 'encounter mode' with fatigue/stress, then it will stay with them, no rolls to recover, unless and until they do something that might give them the opportunity to recover. If they tell me they're stopping for the night in an inn, after a long day of walking (and nothing nasty happens in the inn!) then they can make a roll to recover. I may simply remove some fatigue/stress tokens without requiring a roll. I may assign new ones. My judgement will be based on what kind of equilibrium I think they will reach after a particular encounter. If we 'fast forward' through weeks of downtime spent (uneventfully) trekking across country, I will likely remove all but a token or two of stress/fatigue. And I may alter this slightly for each player depending on what relevant skills/actions/talents they have.

Having said this, I do think it's a good idea to discuss these issues and give new players and GMs guidelines / suggestions.

One thing I've been doing is simply assigning a different sort of 'round timer' for story mode when needed. Is it by the hour, or discussion during a party, or every street they cross in a chase (although that's probably more an encounter mode thing), and so forth. one thing I tried to take to heart was viewing things like time in encounter vs story modes as elastic just like the dice interpretations and so forth.

So that disguise spell may last for 4 recharges, but 1 recharge = 1 hour instead of 1 round during story mode.

Basically, whatever tells the most engaging story is what I try and go with.

My two cents on the two problems:

1. Card Recharge

The real problem here is Support actions. Combat actions and most spells/blessings will occur during combat, so really it's Support actions that stick out like a sore thumb, but curiously enough, not all of them.

In reviewing them, I've come to the conclusion that they're a mixed bag without consistency in approach. Some, like Improved Guarded Position, Steely Gaze, Devious Manoeuvre, Inspiring Words, Exploit Opening, Fluster and Find Weakness are truly actions that work during combat or at the beginning of combat and don't generally apply during non-combat situations. These are the most appropriate Support action cards and should stay.

The rest of the Support actions shouldn't be action cards. This would simplify things the best. The rest of the Support actions should be removed or altered as they confuse the game more than they add to it.

For example, Informal Carousing, Scrutinize and Splints & Bandages are really results for skill tests. Shrug it Off should be a career ability for Troll Slayers. Winning Smile, Call of the Wild, Honeyed Words, Combat Focus and Big City Bravado are really Talents and should be modified to be such.

This would then solve the issue of recharge during story mode, since there wouldn't really be any action cards to use during story mode, other than the occasional spell or blessing. Otherwise it would be a skill test or use of a characteristic.

2. Stress/Fatigue/Conditions.

I don't have a great solution here other than to say recovery times/effects of conditions change to longer time periods while in story mode, reflecting the adrenaline rush and extreme activity of combat that shortens the duration of the effects during a fight.

Here is my take on Story mode.

Story mode is when, for instance the GM describe the journey you party is undergoing. he might occasionally ask your players what they are doing during the journey. He might than go on to describe small events along the journey, that you are dining with the good captain, (if you are aboard a ship) and might even ask you to roll on Fel to see how good impressions you make with the Captain, all this still in a story mode.

than he proceed on to describe an encounter on your journey. Bandits suddenly assail the coach or the gambler in gamehall (if you are aboard a luxury river liner, like Emperor Luitpold) are caught cheating and draw a gun. Now we enter an encounter thus also encounter mode.

to further confuse us, they sometimes uses the word scene instead of an encounter. And some encounters have a three act structure, if they are long or complicated enough. That is: is this encounter long enough important enough to have a three act structure? if not run it as a simple encounter or scene.

so my understanding of an story mode, is that you describe more than you actively use action cards and/or abilities.
Summary: in Story mode you describe what you do rather than making rolls and using action cards. And sometimes you do make an occasional roll that could lead to an encounter. For instance an observation roll during a dinner onboard the luxury liner, leads to discover some strange behaviour by the reclusive student. this can spring an encounter (thus encounter mode) if players attempt to investigate the odd behaviour.

good gaming

This issues appeared very little in my games till now. I'm glad there is this thread, because if they do, I already have some of your thoughts to get inspiration from.

I think that Story Mode should be kept with minimum regulation. If it is not a step by step situation, the only "step by step" mechanic will be the way the group deal with telling the story: if every player gets his chance to describe something at a time, or if the one wanting to do so do it freely; and if the characters are together, thus it is the same situation to be narrated, or if they are separated.

Every gme mechanic should be ruled by how it fits the story. Tokens can be added just as reference and GM and players alike should remove them anytime they see it fits the description. Here we have the heavier application possibilities of what enchants me about WHFR 3e: to understand every game mechanic as guides to experiencing the story, and not as rulers of the story itself.

When you go into Encounter Mode, what becomes apparent is that having some mechanics rule the story is a lot of help (it would be difficult to rule out when a character hits an enemy and when he doesn't without any mechanics, and we could end like children playing cowboys, when a shoot could always have actually missed) - and, specially, it is ever so fun. That's when you'll want to see chance coming in the storytelling the heaviest. So it makes sense to go into everything the system offers.

As there are situations during a Story Mode when chance would be very welcome as well, there are rolls during this Mode as well. Players could want to use Action Cards to benefit from them etc.

Just try and see what every card and aspect represents in terms of storytelling. What "Honeyd Words" means in this situation? Is it just applyable to the guard to whom you are talking, or it's application could influence all the chats your character have during the whole day? And the spell that makes you invisible, what would be its time limit? Maybe the spellcaster knows it is not a strong enough spell to last through the day, and he'll notice its effects are near to end when running downstairs trying to get out of the manor before the owner notices he has an uninvited guest. Or, if you are describing a whole week in a fast past during Story Mode, perhaps that roll using the spell could actually mean more than one use.

Check this out, FFG's excerp from Player's Handbook hardback about Modes of Play:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wfrp/news/players-guide/WHF11_GameModes.pdf

Well, it seems FFG is making a great job with the hardbacks.

Pedro Lunaris said:

Yeah, i read those a few hours ago. made me re-think my take on the modes of play: safe to assume that I was more uncorrect than right. Glad they finally put those books together, to avoid confusion and misunderstanding. Any good rulebook should contain plenty of examples to avoid mistakes. You are learning FFG, and most important I'm learning as well

Mal Reynolds said:

Yeah I saw that this morning Mal! I was happy to see that I was more "right" than wrong, lol! I am really happy that they did this...as it does directly address this problem.

yeepie ! I was right