Topic says it all! Just got the game as a pressie, and going to run it (the included little scenario) with some mates on Saturday.

Advice?

I am very familiar with the setting, and have run many campaigns in the previous versions of the game.

Things I got wrong in my first session....

1 - All basic combat actions start with 1 challenge (Purple) dice.

2 - Defense adds misfortune (Black) not challenge (Purple) dice to attack difficulty.

3 - Groups of npc's use the same action cards so if you have 3 goblins in the same group only 1 can dodge until the card recharges.

I guess a little dry-run of the combat rules is a good idea.

Which adventure is best as a starter?

A Day Late, A Shilling Short? Eye for an Eye?

My group will want to genereate characters, not to use pregens. So I guess we'll not have plenty of time for the adventure once we're done. However, if the adventure is just a "dungeon crawl" I think we'll give it a miss.

I would recommend 'A Day Late, A Shiling Short' - Its a nice short encounter which features a little combat and a little social sparring as well. Its a good introduction for both new players and GMs, and allows you to try out some of the 3rd edition features such as progress trackers, location cards, etc.

If you guys need some tips or just some healthy discussion of WFRP3, i encourage you to check out the Reckless Dice podacst at www.reckelssdice.com.

Also, consider checking out Gitzmans Gallery at www.GitzmansGallery.com for WFRP3 resources and maps.

We set up a character creation episode which you may find useful.

I'd suggest as a starting one session adventure, do A Day Late, A Shilling Short. You can just as easily substitue your new characters for the pregens that it suggets. (we recorded a live session of this for Reckless Dice too)

Alternativly, The Journey to Black Fire Pass (which is also geared as an intro adventure) has a LOT MORE meat on its bones and was a bit more fun. Its heavily dwarf centered, but i foudn that it can be humans just as easily with a bit of tweaking, or if there is at least one dwarf in the party. (we recorded a live session of this a few weeks ago for Reckless Dice)

Hope this helps!

Gitzman

I think you'll be surprised that it's pretty much the same as previous editions in regards to feel and it's easier because you can throw in world flavor.

My advice (in addition to all the other good stuff above):

* Don't stress the rules. Until you've played a couple times there will be some things that you might not instantly remember the rule to and it might not be easy to look up. Don't be afraid to wing it in the player's favor until you get used to it.
* Print out a copy of the Living Index so you have that handy during the game in case you need a player to look something up for you.
* Use skill checks liberally. These are the easiest to play out and gives you the most freedom.

Just run it like every other WFRP game you've played. This is just a game system, the world and the Gm make the game great.

jh

Emirikol said:

Aye. Once you peel back the layers of *bright, colorful, flashy mechanics*, you realize that it can absolutely tell the same fantastic quality of stories as version 1 or 2. Yeah, some careers haven't made the transition yet and yeah there's some new ways things (like Critical Wounds, money and magic) are handled but it is still very supportive of the setting we all love. Case-in-point, I've run "The Oldenhaller Contract" and am currently running "The Enemy Within" campaign and things are going great.

the misconceptions about warhammer 3 are crazy. i was in my FLGS yesterday leafing through dark heresy and rogue trader and am engaged by a dark heresy enthusiast. We chat dark heresy - get into a technical discussion about dodging full automatic gunfire - and i mention in passing i just got into warhammer 3rd. i got a speech from the enthusiast about how Warhammer 3rd was just Descent and i needed to track down a copy of 2nd edition ASAP in order to play warhammer as intended by sigmar. I do end up buying the Dark Heresy rulebook and as im leafing through it at home all i can think about is how feasible a conversion to 3rd edition mechanics would be. The Dark heresy rules are largely fine but after playing 3rd edition they feel very crunchy and i was imagining all the -10s and +10s as fortune and misfortune dice.

There are few aspects of 3rd that feel a little off to me though. The socketing of talents on the party sheet was hard for me to wrap my head around in a roleplaying sense. The whole term socketing instantly made me think of world of warcraft or diablo jewelcrafting. The recharge/ cooldowns definitely have a video game tinge though they do make a little more sense to me with advance rule letting you burn fatigue or stress to make them recharge faster. i didnt care for the stance meter conceptually until i thought of it more as calculating vs frenzied or legolas vs gimli. The careers are ok. i would like a better sense of progression for the careers. a lot of them are fine starting points for beginning adventurers but they don't really have the feel of the troll slayer or the wizards who have a very distinct and appealing path of progression.

regardless story is what matters and warhammer 3rd mechanics make it easy to tell good stories which is all i really care about in the end.

Emirikol said:

This. WFRP3 has a speed bump rather than a learning curve. Sweating on every detail right from the start can put some people off, imo. And it can appear very complex. But once you get going, the game is actually surprisingly light and fluffy.

If you have the time, try playing the 'day late, shilling short' adventure through on your own - with you playing the pregen PCs as well as the GM. This way you get to test the rules and have some practice at interpreting the die rolls in a 'real' adventure setting, rather than an abstract nothingness. You may also think up some great results that you can then use in the actual game and which will give you more confidence in the system.

If you don't have time, then I'd at least run a combat so you're not completely floundering along with the players.

Definitely download some of the guides from Gitzman's gallery. You'll have the option to save space and clutter by using the basic action summary cards (if you want) and more helpful walkthroughs of important mechanics that are much easier to follow than dense text in a rulebook.

Have fun!

Oh, an be sure to come and post here afterwards to let us know how it went, and provide any tips you wish you'd been given by us before hand!

I will!

Thanks for all the advice. Provided I can get at leat 2 of the boys to turn up, we'll run a Day Late on Saturday. Looking forward to it

As an early edition vet, I had to convert my skeptical group when we started with v3. I had to take some of the more daunting portions of 3rd edition (mostly character generation) and remove that from the equation for the maiden voyage. I also provided two of my players with a "lite" version of the rules (character sheets on ample peices of good old fashioned 8.5x11 paper) to use instead of "all the crap." We started out and when the "lite" players saw how much easier a time I was having keeping up with tracking and the other "mechanics" of the game they started to switch over (first adding counters, then trackers, and then action cards and finally the character sheet and talent cards, etc).

We have had a total blast with v3. Just take your group apart based on their needs or misconceptions about the game and then slowly corrupt them to v3 like the dark lord of chaos that you are :-)

I would also recommend taking your GM'ing experience into account and look at all the stuff and simply ditch the stuff you don't think will add to your ease of running the system. For example I don't always use trackers or counters for every one of my NPCs and every situation and resort to hatch marks on a post-it for some tracking on the fly. I also don't dole out wound cards for every hit and we keep track of that via post-it scribbles or counters and then lay out wound cards for crits only. Obviously every GM is going to do things a bit differently and v3 Warhammer is no different from other games you own (some stuff seems dumb, and some stuff is brilliant...modify it to make you happy!). The House-Rules, Gamemasters forum and Rules Questions forums are also full of cool situational information and examples of how other people have picked apart the system.

Happy Gaming D.S.!

Finally got around to it the other day, and overall we had a good time and found the new system fun.

After finally getting all lads in place, kids in bed, coffe and beer on the table there wasn’t all that much time to actually play, and making 3 characters in parallel with just 1 copy of the rules was time consuming. But one Initiate of Sigmar, on elven Soldier and a Reiklander hunter later, we started A day late, a shilling short. Some chit-chat on the road, then combat with beastmen.

I must have done a lot wrong, because the poor gors were slaughtered without much issue, only the Initiate having received a few wounds and some fatigue. We had to leave it after the Rally step as it was already getting quite late.

At first all the cards, actions, talent and different dice and symbols seemed a bit daunting, but it very quickly made sense. We loved the dice mechanics. We agreed it was simple and fun, adding bonus/penalty dice on the fly is a breeze. And best of all: no math! As Dark Heresy and WFRP v1/2 players it was refreshing not having to add a bunch of modifiers and then subtract dice result from a target sum to calculate Degrees of Success. Just remove results that cancel out, and see what you’re left with. Beautiful!

I think I like the Henchmen rules, but I was frantically switching back and forth between sections in rulebooks that aren’t all that great with regards to organization and layout, so the jury is still out

I have now been pointed at some more sensibly formatted rules summaries, so I hope to be better prepared next time. And there will be a next time!

Good to hear! As you play the game and begin to understand its ins and outs, you'll likely find areas of "fat" that can be trimmed away to make your games run more smoothly. It helps that the game is so modular at times because it means, as a GM, you are a bit more free to use your instincts to handle complicated circumstances rather than have to consult complex charts and tables. But, like any game, the more you play, the more of the game you'll be able to commit to memory which will make both you and your players more comfortable and confident.

Bloody hell but that summary is amazing. Definitely will be using it myself, especially that range chart.

Looking back, I wish that I'd have had:

Pregenerated characters to compare to (now in Liber fanatica 7)

Some examples (now in the player's guide)

A traditional equipment list with prices (now in LF 8)

All those problems are solved

jh