As a GM, I'm challenged regarding party sheets.

I'm not using them. With everything that's going on, I forget about them. Three fortune seems to be plenty each session so I'm not using it to refresh. If I have a dwarf and an elf in the party I'll start them at two, but outside of that I do little with them. Most of my players forget to use the extra talent slots as well.

I'm trying to think of some basic game rules i.e.

Urban, Rural effect settings = 1

Unfamiliar towns = 1

Combat

non lethal human = 1

Humanoids = 1

Basic, Chaos, Undead = 2

I'm not looking to add game rules, but trying to create instances where I don't forget about it.

Anybody having better success, or suggestions?

Being able to slot cards for use by everyone in the party is a pretty big deal. Outside of the mechanical bonuses, the sheets help reinforce the party dynamic. The tension meter is completely arbitrary and acts as a terrific GM tool. I use it to reinforce how stressful situations are, or to make a subtle warning to the players that they are not acting in the best interest of the party. Honestly, I've never seen it rise above 4 or so in my games, but it is a tangible way to convey tension in the game.

Warhammer has always been about small groups of The Common Man coming together and achieving greatness in a world that wants to leave them bleeding and dying in the mud. The Party Sheet really helps reinforce this idea to the players.

We've forgotten about the party sheet 95% of the campaign so far. The elf puts in an initiative bonus talent, otherwise, it just sits there as clutter on the table, waiting for fortune recharge.

I REALLY like your idea. It wakes up the card a little.

I was also thinking of doing up a card specifically for the party sheet with the ability printed on it..and the party can't get it UNTIL they get to the first stress point.

jh

Emirikol said:

That might come off as rewarding characters for bad behavior, but I see where you are coming from.

@Doug - Honestly, I would just make a conscious effort next session to be more mindful of the party sheet. Make some notes in your session outline of places where there is potential for adding tension. What I've found with 3E is that everything flows better when you slow your roll a bit. Take an extra second here and there to make sure the rules are in place. If, at the end of a session or two, it doesn't seem worthwhile then pitch the idea altogether. Most things in this new edition are tools that can be ignored with no ill effect on the game.

I forget all the time myself, however it hasn't mattered so much because my players love the sheet and have really taken charge of it themselves. They constantly move up the tension meter whenever they disagree or even when one of them simply thinks they should be a little "freaked-out". So far I've had PC's adjust the tension for the following reasons:

• A hero utterly failing at a critical task.
• One of the heroes took a major crit.
• One of the heroes was knocked out.
• A hero gained an insanity.
• The members disagreed on a course of action.
• The "gung-ho" scout was getting restless over the others' over-analyzing.
• The former military officer had his plans thrown off by the scout's actions.
• One of the heroes was sick and tired of the rain and wanted to return to the inn.
• The heroes all suddenly realized thay the young girl was in league with the mutants!
• The mercenary said, "A troll does how much damage?!"

Just a few examples. My players love using the party sheet to really assist in roleplaying the interpersonal nature of the group dynamic.

RenoDM said:

I like the idea of letting the players control it, RenoDM. In my group we are all DMs, so we are all in to helping out. I'll give this a try and see if they respond to it. Thanks!

Thanks everyone. I had a session this past weekend that the players and I did a better job paying attention to the party sheet, primarily because there was a nice passive talent that allowed everyone to add a misfortune to opposing rolls.

Even though I've run multiple sessions, I still feel that the game lags primarily because of dice pooling, so I likely tend to speed things up in an attempt to move things along quickly, but I will take your advice on slowing things down. I do a lot to add to the grim nature of the world adding tension would be of benefit.

We've actually found that dice pooling takes even less time in this game than rolling numeric dice and calculating end results; that might just be us however. We have enough dice that whenever someone's turn cmes up their pool is usually 90% ready and they just ask "anything else?" Sometimes they even have a few extra fortune/misfortune dice on the side ready to state their case for the dice's inclusion.

For us it might be the fact that we're playing in a smaller group then usual (GM + 3 players), but combat moves quickly and we've experienced very little lag time or combat drag. Although I've also got in the habit of throwing a progress tracker out on every combat encounter. I use it for different things but even if I don't really know what it's for (I don't tell the players that), it seems to motivate the heroes into action and force them to be decisive.

Both my groups are GM +6, so that's likely the delay. I started having the players only focus on the good dice, and the bad dice associated with an action and I roll any misfortune and challenge dice. That's helped recently.