Good evening folks. I bought the WFRP3 box set about a week ago, and had the chance to GM my first real adventure this weekend. I played with two of my close friends. The party is a dwarven thug with hand-to-hand specialisation and strength 5, and a human soldier also with hth spec. I decided to use the "Eye for an Eye" story. I wanted to share my experience with you in order to help solicit your advice on several issues I had (what with being a first time GM and WHFRP n00b).

The party began in the main town. Taking inspiration from someone else on the forums, I decided to include a red herring regarding peasant discontent. I began the session with the PCs witnessing the exectution of a peasant 'malcontent' by the city forces. Both being slightly strange characters, they both heartily approved of the execution. They then solicited the work from Heinrich.

On the trip to Grunewald lodge they both failed the initial observation check, and then failed to keep any sort of watch whatsoever despite the horns/braying/figures in the forest that I was hinting at, and so they were jumped by two ungors and a gor just outside the gates. This created the problem of how to allow the beastment to engage the PCs, given that they were both inside a carriage. In the end both of the PCs exited the carriage to engage, but I don't know how I would have RPed it if they had decided to cower inside the carriage.

Once in combat, it became clear that the dwarf was very strong in combat. He has Strength 5 and the hth specialisation. He also has the thug special ability which allows you to roll an extra fortune if you are stronger than your foe. That meant that he had five characteristic dice, an expertise dice and a fortune dice every time he attacked. Admittedly I wasn't keeping a close watch on ACE points from the ungors, but with that many dice it wouldn't have mattered much. (This problem only became worse once he discovered the warhammer later on). I also had troubles sorting out the beastmen that begin at long range. I forgot that on a road they can move much faster, and so were never able to engage the PCs. I didn't really know how to sort things out once the PCs had killed all of the first beastman band, so I just said that they hurried in through the open gates.

Once the investigation began, I realised that perhaps this type of scenario wasn't going to suit either the PCs or the players. The human soldier wandered around the upstairs a little bit, but didn't attempt to search any of the locked servants quarters, nor did he have a look around Lord Ashaffenburg's room (and so didn't get a chance to try and find the secret passageway there). He did come across Todd and the other (cultist) servant, and I decided to give him the goose note. However rather than look at it, he simply passed it back to the cultist! He was very keen to talk to all of the NPCs, but most of them were listed either as drugged or non-cooperative, so I had great difficulties RPing this entire scenario.

In the library they didn't inspect the bookshelves or fiddle around with the rug. They also didn't get anything out of the librarian. I don't think the players knew how to compel the mechanics of the game to present themselves (IE what do I have to do in order to be able to be allowed to take an observation check?). Both being Int 2 and illiterate they failed almost all of the observation tests, and I had to use a pictographic goose is good note (I was so frustrated with their progress that I gave it to them again, and they did look at it the second time). They did sense some sort of smell on the doctor, but couldn't figure out what it was (even when they smelt the same thing in the herb garden). They did start to draw a line between the doctor and the fatigue, but I don't think they had figured out anything concrete by the time dinner came around. After they found the painting in the living room they then proceeded to tell the coachman cultist that they had found it, and asked if he knew anything about it!

At dinner they decided that one of them should have the goose and one should have the venison (despite being fairly sure one of them was drugged). They were then taken by Dr Sieger to a mess room, where he plied them with alcohol. The human soldier was very fatigued due to Schlaf, and the dwarf wanted to attempt to heal his wounds by sleeping, so they both decided to fall asleep!

At this point I was faced with a dilemma. They were about to sleep through the demon summoning ritual and the beastman attack. With most of the guards drugged, the beastmen were going to rampage. I decided to have the PCs woken up by a scurrying cultist, who they followed to the chaos temple. They then proceeded to butcher all of the cultists (I don't think I used the correct stats for the cultists here. They went down in droves as I stupidly used the henchmen rules. They managed to kill Piersson before he was ready to go to the roof. The dwarfs insane damage output really helped him out here.

After that they decided to go and take on the beastmen. I had been using the system that someone on the forums made up to roll the combat, but I realised that both the PCs were seriously bloodied up and there were no NPCs to help them out. I decided to allow them to engage in a duel with the Wargor, with the rest of the raiding party fleeing upon seeing their leader cut down. They did manage to kill the wargor, but in the process of dying the Wargor knocked out the dwarf, leaving only the human soldier still alive with three wounds remaining.

So my questions are several:

- Are we playing the dwarf's attacks correctly?

- What could I have done to increase the immersion for the PCs as they were wandering around failing to get anything out of the NPCs? How far is it permissible to go to lead them by the nose to plot points?

- Was I right to wake them up in the night? Would you have had your PCs awake to a band of cultists, a demon and around a dozen beastmen?

- Is the GM's toolkit worth it, or should I wait for the new GM vault/guide? I've heard that there is lots of good GM advice in there, and I feel like I need it.

I learned that I really need to do more preparation on the encounters. I wasn't prepared to run the cultist encounter properly since the PCs butchered them so quickly.

I'd appreciate your feedback and thoughts on these topics, and any else that my ramblings provoke you to share.

Illustrious said:

1. I'm not clear on what the dwarf has stat-wise. Is he using his fists? Does he have Weapon Skill trained, with a hand to hand specialty?

2. This one is really up to the personal tastes of the GM and players. Some people want to play a game that goes from premade scene to premade scene, and others want to wander around a sandbox and have the world respond to them.

My group is more the latter, and when I ran the scenario they almost missed a bunch also. They only found the cultists because Sigmar smiled down at them (comet roll) when they were looking for one sneaking around. Otherwise, they probably would have missed the cult, become caught up in the beastman fight and then have the demon descend down on them.

3. I would just let them miss stuff, and then have events unfold. When I was reading what happened my first instinct was to have the beastman fight wake them up, and then either push the ritual to the end, or just say it was successful and have them deal with the consequences. I personally like to have the player's mistakes cost them rather than adjusting everything to give them the same result as if they did everything right.

4. The GM vault is different from the Toolkit. You may have heard mixed things about hte Toolkit. For experienced GM's its is not as valuable, but it for you it may be worth a look. There is some good stuff in there.

The dwarf is equipped with a dagger and has hand to hand trained. He is strength 5.