The players: A Sigmarite priest, a dwarf pitfighter, and a human hunter.

The evening of the trial the Dwarf gets the idea to check out the Garden of Morr thanks to Lector Gott-whatever’s dreams. I was able to encourage him to let the other players know so that they would all head out together. Thus, they skipped the zombie attack on Stromdorf, which, you know, more power to them. Unfortunately, I hadn’t reread the section on the Garden, thinking that the attack in town would take up the bulk of the session. (We can only play a few hours a week.)

So they get to the temple and trigger the zombies in the alcoves. I (still not used to the system, I guess) see that the zombie card has 0 armor and forget to subtract their toughness from the damage done so the Rank 1 (7 advances) characters make short work of the zombies with only a little stress or fatigue.

They break down the Black Gate and make it into the cemetery proper. They’ve noticed the lightning rod and want to grab the stone they assume is over there and get the hell out.
I quickly read the “How to run the encounter” section and think this sounds really cool. But I think I blew it. I get confused between henchmen and minions. I run them as minions (I think the text said they should be henchmen). I forget that as minions they should get an assistance bonus. I forget that at the end of the round to clear the damage as the special rules say.

That’s probably okay because the zombies wreck the party. The players aren’t able to get through the first group in the first round. The zombie attack cards (and I do love the Creature Vault) inflict critical wounds on just about everyone. The second round ends with the players clearing the first group of henchmen. So as the scenario says two more groups pop up.

It goes even worse for the players. They’re not able to clear any of the groups in one round so their progress tracker isn’t moving forward. But I also haven’t clearly explained the special rules or what’s happening to the players so they’re not describing their actions as pushing forward. In fact, the priest keeps trying to get the others to retreat.

When the next group of zombies pop up I put them at range because the characters are getting really beat up. A few poor rolls from the priest give us a break as we look up the rules on temporary insanities. He keeps trying to bolt to escape (as his fatigue and stress are majorly redlining). The hunter is almost out of arrows and has switched to melee. The round ends with no zombies on the board, but according to the way I’ve been running the tracker four groups should pop up.

The players can not take 12 more zombies, even minions. I give them a rally step and tell them to make notes on their conditions and cards for next week.

I’m feeling a little frustrated. I’m frustrated that I couldn’t get the scenario to run like it was presented. I’m frustrated that I can’t keep the rules straight. (Things like healing, henchmen/minions keeps escaping me.) Fortunately, I tried the trick of using stance rings to track the number of minions in a group, and used the purple corruption tokens to track the wounds on the individual groups and that worked so much better than whatever I was trying to do when we had the beastmen battle.

But I’m not really sure what I should do next. It would make sense to let the players withdraw and heal up, because they really are pretty beat up. The hunter is two wounds away from his threshold with at least one critical; the dwarf soaked a bunch of damage but two or three of the one minimum damage that sneaked through were critical. The priest assessed the situation right before the rally step so his fatigue and stress are down a bit, but he’s got the Yellow Streak insanity (I think that’s the name) with a tracking token already on it.

I’ll have to reread the rest of the section, but I can’t imagine they can go up against Lazarus Mourn as is. Hell, I even gave them two advances and am allowing them to spend them between this session and the next. But I also have no idea what would happen if they just headed back to town at this point. I think their inclination at this point is to let the town collapse to the forces of evil. Actually, their mood may be dark enough to burn the town to the ground on their own. (Their party type is Servants of Justice, but they’re really playing a Band of Thugs.)

Huh. This was longer than I meant it to be. I can’t help thinking that I did something horribly, horribly wrong. Other battles had the players worried, but I thought they were just being babies, and knew that they were going to make it through with no problem. This one, I’m tempted to yank it short and let them go.

Being a GM is an art really and it's harder to teach than just telling you how I do it. You need to find your own style. Have you read through the GM sections with details on how to run a session?

Preparing for the session is very important. You should know the adventure by heart and even have a few thoughts on possible side tracks and ideas up your sleeve. It seems your group needs a chat as well, as it sounds like it's not so much of a role playing game, but more of a beat the "mission" kind of style your group is running.

I always prepare way too much for each session and always prepare with the general principle in mind that I have absolutely no idea what the players will do.

I don't want to go so far as saying GMing is work, but to do it well (for me) requires around two hours of reviewing the NPCs, their abilities, what they might do in different situations, what the players might do, and what problems happen with those player choices, etc.

GullyFoyle said:

There is work involved, but I do it because I like it and that's important. Often I spend 5 hours total preparing for a 10 hour session. I like to think things through, know the scenario by heart and have all NPCs ready (either on a NPC sheet or by using the CV cards).

Gallows said:

That sounds about right ... my sessions are usually about 4–5hrs every week.

Don't know how experienced you are as a GM, but if you are relatively inexperienced, a piece of advice I can give is 'never under-estimate the power of a GM screen and a fudged dice roll or what have you'. You are not the PCs opponent, you are the facilitator of the story the PCs are embroiled in (which you seem to know). Therefore, tweaking things on the fly, having someone miss when the dice say otherwise, having something die when it actually had a few wounds left - these are all tricks you can employ to give the PCs an easier time if things start to go south.

And if things get really sh*tty, don't be afraid to have them find an old stash of healing draughts... After all, if all your PCs die, that's the game basically done. Character death should be a threat, but not a regular occurance - and not certainly something that disrupts your game...

Sausageman said:

Yeah... characters should mainly die if they do stupid stuff. Yes, it's surposed to be gritty, but nothing wrecks up a campaign than constant character replacement.

First of all, give yourself a break! No matter how experienced we are as GMs, we all have bad (and frustrating) sessions and have times when we forget a crucial rule or make a bad call. No matter how badly it went, the players probably don't know it's your "fault"-they probably think they're the ones who are screwing up.

All the advice given here is great. I spend several hours preparing for each session, and I go back and look over the rules before each game. If you look the rules up every time, they begin to stick. Make your own cheat sheets or notes that highlight only the things you need for that particular session. I have also printed the PDFs of the part of the adventure I'm about to run and highlighted things I think I'll forget. Find the system that works best for you.

Three other things: first, don't be afraid to "retrain" your players before a session. If you see behavior you hate or love, start before the next session by pointing it out. Not long ago, I asked my own players to add a bit of splash and variety when narrating their combat moves. We talked about why it added to the game and how I would reward them if they did it. In your case, you might ask them to be more specific about how they're moving around in the space. Ask for one thing at a time; if you ask for too many changes at once, they won't happen. After a few sessions, though, you'll have them where you want them.

Second, if they're really floundering, you can push them by asking for a check. Choose a player who seems in a good position to notice something and ask for an observation, an intelligence, a combat knowledge, etc. check. Make it easy enough that they're likely to pass, but not so easy that it's an obvious give-away. Use it to give them a hint: "It seems like you might be able to make it to the building just behind you if you focus on cutting your way through the bodies." How much of a crutch you give them is up to you, and some GMs hate this technique, but I sometimes use this technique when they just can't figure out what to do and I can't think of any other way to help them.

Finally, don't forget that if you want to give them something like a stash of potions without just giving them away, you can always add a room onto the building and design some kind of puzzle or encounter to get them to it...

Heh... must have given the wrong impression. I've been GMing off and on for, oh what is it now? 25 years? Crap. I'm old.

But for most of that I don't run pre-published adventures. Hell, most of the time I don't run adventures at all these days, I'm more into sandbox games where the players wander around and cause trouble. But all the trickets that come with the WFRP adventures are just so... shiny and attractive, really. I'm just frustrated that I can't get the bits and bobs to work the way they authors seem to think they will. I'm wondering if there are some assumptions that just aren't happening at our table or something.

RARodger said:

I've done that as well, but I found that as the campaign evolves into "sandbox" games, the more the players (and GM) start to become lazy. The GM will improvise every session, which usually means there's no "red thread" throughout the whole campaign, it becomes like a sitcom, where each episode ends without loose ends. The lack of a goal (or several goals), causes the players to stop roleplaying their chars, and become themselves.

Of course I generalize here, but I've yet to see a campaign set up like this that continues to be highly interesting, and thus people don't mind missing a session or three. Not saying it wont be nice to play, but likely more for the socializing, rather than the campaign. And a good campaign should be something a player will drag himself to attend every session, and not miss "because I don't feel like it today".

So for a minimum, I make a major plot, and notes "milestones" in the plot, and for each milestone I note how the players should reach it (travel to Nuln, and uncover that their old friend didn't die in an accident, but was found with 5 tenctacles sprouting from his back... etc...). I set a number of sessions for each milestone to be reached, and while this will likely vary greatly from how it's played, I still try'n make a guesstimate.

So with this, I have an expected end date for the campaign. When we're nearing the end, I ask my players if they would like A) For me to find a way to expand the campaign, but warn them that high "level" campaigning can be awkward (what the (/%¤/ is the Wizard Lord, Panther Knight and Wealthiest Merchant in Kemperbad doing together???), or B) Roll new chars, and start on my newest campaign. Most of the time, they chose the later, and I'll (for fun) let them meet themselves, and even be assigned tasks from their previous chars.

So usually my campaigns will last for roughly 25 sessions (100-150 hours play). This also gives the players some time, after the campaign, to look forward to the next campaign, and not grow tired of playing every xx week for 4 years. So 10 months play, 2 months break, and then begin next campaign etc...

With this latest group I've purposefully structured it around briefer campaigns largely to get around our 'gamer ADD,' where games would end unexpectedly because some other game has caught our attention. My current goal has been to run games with a clear narrative end point so we can play out one complete story and then move onto something else, coming back to a setting or system as the group desires. That's another reason why we're using the Gather Storm as a campaign. It looked to be long enough to get characters onto their second careeers (although I'm being generous with advances to ensure it), but will have a completion at some point allowing us to move on to the next game.

For the sandbox-ness of games, I definitely like some of the newer 'indie' style games like Burning Wheel and the FATE games. They make it easy for the game to be player-led, so you get the sandbox feel but if the characters are set up right you have a strong narrative thread that flows natively through the system. Burning Wheel, for instance, has character goals (or "beliefs") tied right into the mechanics, so players should never be at a loss for what to do next. The GM is able to improvise while the players and the mechanics keep the story on track.