Hi there FFG forums, my name is James and I have just created my FFG forum account today.

My love and passion for RPG's and board games has been in my blood since I was knee high and my dad read me The Hobbit when he put me to bed.

I have recently persuaded a group of my friends to branch out from their video games and try some pen and paper fun.

I purchased the core box of Warhammer Fantasy RP and have read all four books cover to cover more than twice and I am eagerly awaiting my first session as a GM this Saturday.

Two of my friends and my self included regularly listen to podcasts on our commutes each day and I have searched far and wide for a good 3rd edition WFRP pod cast, I have onyl really found two in the form of : A fistful of Misanthropes and Dice of doom.

I am wondering if anyone has found any hidden gems out there and willing to share.

Also any hints and tips to my first session would be very much appreciated, as several people have already hinted at me printing reference sheets and such to help me.

Finally any recommendations as to where I should expand next with my purchases, which campaign would you recommend after the starter?

Which expansions should I focus on in regards to mechanics? (e.g mounted combat, extra careers)

Thank you very much, and If any one has any links to good information or anything of the like I would be extremely thankful.

James

Highly recommend "Reckless Dice Podcast". It is a podcast dedicated specifically to WFRP3.

http://recklessdice.rorschach.net/

If you haven't been to Gitzman's yet - go to Gitzman's

Awesome maps, fillable PDF character sheets, and the game aids I was in the middle of making until I found them on his site.

If you only game in person, his Map Tools stuff won't interest you. If you ever game online with Skype, Gitzman's MapTools files are jaw droppingly awesome.

Expansions:

If you don't have the creature vault, buy the creature vault. Having a slew of stand up creatures will make you happy.
Having your monsters in card form will make you happier.

I think buying a Player's Guide was worth it, having a list of all the careers, talents, actions for the core set, and the faith and magic expansions is a very good thing. The first time you spill your cards all over the floor while trying to find a particular card, you will wish you had a list in a book.

I bought the Magic and Faith expansions and was pleased with the amount of bits and rules. In a perfect world, they would be part of the core set, but gaming companies have to eat. But if you still have money after getting the creature vault and the Player's Guide, I'd get these

And if you're still cash flush, you can move on to Omens of War.

Omens of war added critical wounds (which IMO is a solid add to the game).

It provides rules for mounted combat and for horses. They are great rules, but they're literally about 3 pages of content. If all you want are the rules, buy the PDF. If you must have the cards buy the set. The bulk of the pages were ho-hum backstory and descriptions of battles and armies that don't translate well to a gaming session with a party of 4 players.

The books are attractive and well made, but if there was a boxed set that had the cards and a pamphlet with the rules for half the price, I'd be a much happier consumer.

I bought Black Fire Pass - and I have to say I was underwhelmed. The Rune Magic is a great set of rules, and there are multiple adventures inside, but the invention rules did not interest me at all (that's just me) and the rest of the backstory text was blahblah text.

That's just my personal taste, but as a gamer - I can say this is an expansion that ranks as a nice to have, rather than the By-Sigmar-I-Must-Have-This quality of the Creature Vault.

people have already mentioned reckless dice which is pretty much the only dedicated 3rd edition podcast. misanthropes is good but the audio on a few of their casts is corrupted at two of the most pivotal moments of the campaign.

you might get something from these second edition casts.

http://warhammer-enemy-within.blogspot.com/

i just started this one and the characters creation section is an awesome tutorial on how to integrate players into the campaign.

http://www.rpgmp3.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3177

thousand thrones. entertaining but the PCs get beaten down by the setting and railroady nature of TTT and the campaign breaks down, does make me wish 3rd ed had halfings. in DnD i never really liked halflings but i feel they are necessary in warhammer just for some comic relief in all the darkness.

Hints and tips would be look toward 4E D&D skill challenges for some idea's on using the players skills more actively in the game and for a bit more narrative in certain area's.

The Skill Challenge system ( and even better is Star Wars Galaxies of Intrigue which outlines a more flexible system) asks the players to detail how they are dealing with a challenge, the GM assigns an appropriate skill and the players RP depth can help make things easier. For Warhammer, it's got so many more interesting variables that 4th Ed D&D, it's quite mind blowing.

For example, a street chase, where the group is trying to catch a thug:-

Athletics: You run headlong through the streets, pushing yourself to keep up and even gain on the guy.

Coordination: Unfortunately with the people, carts, dogs and everything else blocking your path you must weave with agility through them. This could be replaced with Intimidate as you bellow at the people in the way.

Folklore: Thinking about it, there are a couple of shortcuts that you can use to reduce the distance between you.

Resiliance: to maintain the pace.

Set the number of success's needed (base of 6) and failures (3 maybe), set the effect of a failure, the failed Athletics means that the guys gained some ground (extra success required), failed co-ordination check, you smash into a local and may end up in a fight with them at a later date and a Fatigue level. Failed Folklore means nothing bad, just no gains, failed resiliance is a stress level as the person has a stitch.

You can either have an individual take the lead with each skill( 1 of the team take a the lead generally -Athletics, another player gets stuck among the pervading street people -Coordination, a group member indicates good directions to cut the guy off -Folklore, all group members must make a resiliance check. Or you could do this as a group check and as long as at least half of the group succeed this is a success at the task. Often you mix these up between group and individual checks. 3 Failures means the guy gets a way and the group must consider a different way to find the guy and may be confronted by angry townsfolk who's carts were knocked over by the group( combat encounter where the group may have to be careful not to kill the people). Success means they catch the little sod, though you might have the PC corner him and then have a group of his mates corner them and a Combat( or roleplay) encounter ensues as the PC try to talkintimidate the thugs to back off( the thug offers them money to help him).

Another example, social encounter where the group must convince a lord to help the group deal with marauding creature:-

The lord doesn't want to pay the group to hunt the creature(s) down or give them troops to defend the farms.

Player1: My lord whilst I agree that the deployment of a number of guards will diminish your forces in the town, we will need there eyes to watch over the farms and spot signs of the creatures (using charm).

Player2: I've already heard that some of your farmers are talking about leaving for safer climates, this won't reflect well on you sir (guile).

Player3: If memory serves your ancester was in fact a simple farmer himself but raised to a knight when he roused the other people to stand firm against an encroaching orc warband...surely his simple background should be respected in these troubled days and the farmers defended (History-Folklore or Education)

Player4: The creature will hunt in the forest, which will force other predators into the farms, such as wolves, foxes. These will cause a lot of damage to the livestock (Nature Lore)

Player5: I'll remain quiet and watch the lords reactions to my collegues words and whisper advice on area's that he seems more receptive to (Intuition)

Player6: My lord should you fail you act, this monster will rend and tear your people, the fear and terror will spread like a plague until you end up with tons of refugee farmers in your town begging for food, this inaction will be extremely damaging!!!" (Intimidate)

If you do decide to check out the Reckless Dice Podcast, i thought i'd drop a couple hints/tips for you.

• You can subscribe to it on iTunes if you like.
• iTunes only holds the last 10 episodes, so if you want to go back to the begining (which is suggest you do) you'll need to grab the episodes from the Reckless Dice Website or Gitzmans Gallery RDP page.
• Also, submit questions or comments to the show ([email protected], or @RecklessDice), and we will address them on-air.

Gitzman

to the OP ... the Reckless Dice podcasts are pretty awesome. I just discovered the resource on Monday and I've listened to the first four (a little less than an hour apiece). Kudos to the guys who are doing them.

-smythe

Great advice people, I'd liek to thank each of you and commend a mature community.

Well between myself and my gaming group we all chucked in some money and bought the coreset, 1x extra dice, gm's vault, adventurers toolkit, creature vault, the gathering storm and the omens of war.

I cannot wait to get the delivery in a few days

Great suggestion with the reckless dice it certainly helped me on this weeks commutes and I played my first session at my FLGS which had a public copy which we sat down with and play tested a bar fight with a chase down an ally-way much like therion suggested.

We fell in love with the system and we placed our order with said FLGS.

The store manager suggested that the players should but a guide or toolkit, but we shall see what we need after our first few sessions.

I have a question about dice.

The manager of the store thought that some expansions contain extra dice could anyone confirm this?

Thanks again for the great reply's and have a nice weekend

James

Spoofy said:

Agreed- this is a great mature community.

I'm not sure what you need the GM's vault for- almost all of the contents just duplicate what is in the core set- if you can change your mind- I strongly recommend you do. Unless you mean the GM's Toolkit, in which case that is quite a solid prioduct and does not duplicate anything you've already got.

The other things you have bought are all good choices.

The players may find a Players guide helpful, but it is far from essential- the PG contains all of the players info up to Signs of Faith, but the products relased since then are not included ( they are Witch's Song, Omens of War and Black Fire Pass) and to be honest I bought a PG thinking it would be good for reference and have hardly used it. It does contain better examples of play than the players book in the core set and is a little better laid out, but is gfar from essential. The Vaults (with the exception of the Creature Vault) simply duplicate material found in the core set (and a small number of items from Winds of Magic) and if you have the core set and much of the other stuff you do not need the vaults. I might suggest you consider the Creature Guide at some point as it compliments the CV very well- the CV contains standups and action cards, but the CG contains lots of background info and other information impractical to fit on the cards.

The only other product aside from the core set and the dice packs which contain dice is the GMs vault, which contains (IIRC) the same dice as one dice pack. No other products contain dice, and the core set is BY FAR the best way top get a bunch of dice (unless you have an iphone in which case the app is kinda cool, but I prefer the physical dice, YMMV)

Tomba