Hello.

I'm just trying to get some feedback as to what other gamemasters think about using campaign traits a la Pathfinder. My gaming group has been playing Pathfinder for over a year and we all like how traits help customize our characters with small perks at the start of a campaign. Hopefully soon, we'll be moving into a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game, with myself as the GM.

I was wondering if it would break the game if I were to write up traits in the same vein as Pathfinder traits?

I was thinking originally of having the trait offer an expertise die bonus for some rolls and a misfortune die for another, diametrically different roll (e.g.: an expertise roll for sneaking in city streets, but a misfortune for social rolls against nobility to reflect a character's youth spent on the streets). I then thought that might break the game or lessen the uses of advances used to gain the expert die.

Would just a bonus fortune die vs. a misfortune die be a better use of traits or am I over thinking it?

Thanks for the input.

If you keep the fortune/misfortune bonus very situational and specific, then I don't think you risk ruining the game. And of course not to give any bonuses for combat as then the encounters might become unbalanced if you run the official out of the box adventures.

Then again Warhammer is built quite differently and you should at least try to encourage your players to choose their actions in a way that it supports the story of a character. What we did with my group was that the players wrote a short story and description of their characters and during the game I'm handing out fortune/misfortune according to their background. A grumpy dwarf smith will have misfortune dice in social interaction with humans, except when talking with a craftsman and if talking to a village smith he will get a fortune dice. And so on.

In the end if you think your players and you will have more fun playing with houseruled "perks", then by all means go for it.

I think that's a fantastic idea. Here's a list of all the pathfinder traits (that were legal for play) for your convenience. I know there's a website dedicated to this stuff too.

gallery.rptools.net/v/contrib/emirikol7/

RAdeMorris said:

That actually sounds a lot like the career abilities and talents in 3rd. ed. May be wrong though as I've never played pathfinder.

After looking the PG for the career abilities, I can see where this would be close to breaking the gameexpect the career abilities only add positives (except maybe the re-rolling of the dice pool and keeping the results from the gambler).

I was seeing traits as small ways of detailing the character beyond just Reul's a gambler, for example. More like, Reul's an Atldorf streetwise orphan that uses his luck as a gambler. Using a misfortune/fortune die addition to certain die rolls ( Reul's attitude and upbringing gets him into conflicts with nobility, but those less law-abiding citizens can sense a kindred spirit in Reul when he's looking for information. ) to allow players feel that their choices beyond [race]+[career] add meaning to their characters actions.

(Pathfinder traits add more to the flavor of the character with small bonuses to set die rolls; also allowing players to better describe their characters background { like Reul is an orphaned youth from Magnamar and gets a bonus it stealth checks in urban environments }. I feel characters in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay get more from play as with each experience point they gain an advance, whereas in Pathfinder characters have to wait until the experience meter turns over for the next level to gain meaningful bonuses or increase their skills.)

I think a lot of that comes from players coming up with background stories. I have a player running a Pit Fighter that was wronged by a nobleman in the past, and has a strong distrust of them. I figure I'll plan to give him a bonus white to any intuition or observation checks when directed toward a nobleman, just to reflect his suspicious nature. I suppose I could also give a black die to charm checks on Nobles because of it as well.