So I've GMed 2 sessions for my crew so far. We've had a lot of questions but most have been solved with some searching of the rules and forums. Much obliged.

We started off with the characters waking up from vivid nightmares (which I wrote out individually beforehand for each player.) Upon waking they found themselves in a jail cell of sorts chained to the wall with no memory of how they got there, their past or even who they were. This is where we did character creation. We ended up with a Dwarf Gambler, Human Apprentice Mage, Human Watchman and a Human Coachman. We then started a flashback: "As you guys talk and think back, you realise everything started to go strange during your first adventure together, the day you met one Kastor Liebrung" (For those of you who know TEW campaign the name will be familure, I'm stealing a bunch of stuff from it and folding it into my own campaign.) They find him, of course, on the side of the road and he bares a striking resemblence to....well....you know how it goes.

Anyhow, we ran into some troubles that I could use some help with.

1. Speeding up the game in general and especially in combat. This is my big thing in all games. I love a game that moves smoothly with little down time. If I can save 30 seconds everytime it is someones turn well after 20 turns I've just saved us 10 minutes of game time that could be spent roleplaying or investigating. How do you guys speed up game play? Demand everyone have their own dice? Use the party tension meter lots? (I'm avoiding this as we're still figuring out the rules). Any suggestions, no matter how trivial, are welcome. I love customising my set up in between sessions. I'd glady spend an hour of my time to save 5 minutes of game time.

2. The transition from encounter mode to story mode. I've read the game modes PDF and some other suggestions out there but it still only sort of works for me. The players use the Strong Will talent on the party talent socket. They come out of encounter mode and there are three recharge tokens on it. When do I take them off?

3. NPC's. Tracking them is a pain. Too many actions, too many cards. I'm going to make index cards for each beasty with spaces for available actions, ACE and tick marks or tokens so I can track them independantly. A few other people have done this. Good idea. Any other suggestions?

4. Are all NPC's considered unarmed unless I arm them? Why no "typical trappings" for the NPC's?

5. Social NPC's. Innkeepers and shopkeepers. I don't want to just use the Basic NPC template for everyone and adjust abilities with ACE. I'd rather have a whole list of premade NPC's of various types (farmer, watchman, shopkeep etc) with stats and skills as opposed to what is provided in the rule book. Has anyone come across something like this?

6. I posted this question on rpggeek but got no reply. When I GMed the Star Wars RPG I used the star wars text crawl creator on www.starwars.com to do a session intro that I would email out the day before our game session. It got people excited and set the tone a little bit. Is anyone aware of something like this for a fantasy setting?

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I have yet to PLAY WFRP 3rd edition. I've only GMed. If anyone in the Edmonton area needs a player drop me a line.

1. Can't help you there other than get to know the rules real well.

2. Not sure.

3. Do you own the creature's vault? It should make it easier as they more or less already come with index card. You could attach a post it to a creature card I guess.

4. The base damage of NPCs is abstract. You can narrate that they use a club, axe or whatever but if you want them to actually be equipped with a certain weapon you exchange their damage rating for the weapons damage rating.

5. No. You'll have to make one up. Probably easier to just base everyone of the basic template and then add specific actions or bonuses for certain folks.

6. Nope though Strange Eons can be used to good effect for handouts.

I hoped that helped a little.

Derryk said:

1. Extra dice help because people can assemble their dice pool during other peoples turns. The iphone dice app is 3 bucks and honestly could use a lot of improvement but it is a way to get extra dice more cheaply.

2. i reserve encounter mode for combat only. i know the book suggests social combat and "skill challenges" be resolved in encounter mode but i find this leads my players to a place where they are more concerned with beating a "mini game" than roleplaying their characters. If the party drops from encounter mode to story mode i think everything refreshes but if you are running social combat and skill challenges in encounter mode in rapid fire succession then maybe you just have a rally step in between each and in that case one token is removed from each recharging card.

3. if you have extra normal rpg dice you can use 6-10 sided dice to track ACE. no ace score goes over 10. The creature vault does help in this regard because you can set the dice on the creature card. generally i keep things simple by only have the big baddies use ACE to its fullest. If you have an ipad or iphone you can look into note taking and database apps to track things.

4. the number in parentheses next to the str is the creatures " weapon".

5. What are you trying to accomplish with specialized stat blocks for minor NPCs ? i use the normal townsfolk temple for nearly every minor npc. if an innkeeper was a soldier i use the soldier or specialist template. ive always followed the line of thinking that if a commoner has a lot of special stats and ablities they wouldn't be a commoner

6. setting up a wordpress blog or a google page is fairly easy. You can set one up for your campaign, post an intro and give your players permission to post.

1. Speeding up the game in general and especially in combat. This is my big thing in all games. I love a game that moves smoothly with little down time. If I can save 30 seconds everytime it is someones turn well after 20 turns I've just saved us 10 minutes of game time that could be spent roleplaying or investigating. How do you guys speed up game play? Demand everyone have their own dice? Use the party tension meter lots? (I'm avoiding this as we're still figuring out the rules). Any suggestions, no matter how trivial, are welcome. I love customising my set up in between sessions. I'd glady spend an hour of my time to save 5 minutes of game time.

MY SOLUTIONS:

* Lots of dice. I have a dice box between players and own several extra sets of dice. It wouldn't hurt for people to donate extra dice to the game. Since they all look the same, if they want them back, just fish out equivalent dice. They don't need to be marked or anything like that.
* Have the next player start rolling while the first is still figuring out his stuff. Deny that players get to sit there and contemplate their turn after another's like it's some kind of miniatures battles game. This is especially the case when two players have the same initiative. I do this for all my game systems.
* Always keep players on their toes: you stand up and point to players and tell the next two players to get ready.
* Skip some details once in a while. Honestly, the movement system in this game is kind of a waste of time. Either you're in combat or out of it. Don't sit there and count squares. This aint' D&D.
* ALL PLAYERS: Before you start your next game tell all of your players to calculate and write the following on their character sheet: TOTAL SOAK, TOTAL DAMAGE (for each weapon)
* Set all exhaust talents to recharge only at rally and end of encounter. No more counting.

2. The transition from encounter mode to story mode. I've read the game modes PDF and some other suggestions out there but it still only sort of works for me. The players use the Strong Will talent on the party talent socket. They come out of encounter mode and there are three recharge tokens on it. When do I take them off?

SOLUTION: Story mode counts as ONE encounter, even if it's 17 hours long. I have a limit of 1 day however. If they don't get rid of their before the next encounter, then tough noogie! They carry over. Each story mode has a couple skill checks and a FINAL PHASE. During the final phase, I allow people to do one last action unless it develops directly into an encounter.

3. NPC's. Tracking them is a pain. Too many actions, too many cards. I'm going to make index cards for each beasty with spaces for available actions, ACE and tick marks or tokens so I can track them independantly. A few other people have done this. Good idea. Any other suggestions?

SOLUTION: Wing your ACE dice. Monsters only live a round or two anyways.
SOLUTION2: I've stopped bothering with most monster action cards and went with BASIC actions. If they get a comet on their attack, then I trigger something special. I personally don't care for the monster cards, but if I used them, I suppose I'd put a sticky on the monster card.

4. Are all NPC's considered unarmed unless I arm them? Why no "typical trappings" for the NPC's?
ANSWER: You should consider them having a hand weapon at least (rake, shovel, club, mace, sword). FFG chose not to include trappings for the NPCs unfortunately.

5. Social NPC's. Innkeepers and shopkeepers. I don't want to just use the Basic NPC template for everyone and adjust abilities with ACE. I'd rather have a whole list of premade NPC's of various types (farmer, watchman, shopkeep etc) with stats and skills as opposed to what is provided in the rule book. Has anyone come across something like this?
SOLUTION: You really need to see the pregens: www.liberfanatica.net/LF7download.html . If my work-sanity check succeeds this year, I was planning on doing up more NPCs.

6. I posted this question on rpggeek but got no reply. When I GMed the Star Wars RPG I used the star wars text crawl creator on www.starwars.com to do a session intro that I would email out the day before our game session. It got people excited and set the tone a little bit. Is anyone aware of something like this for a fantasy setting?

SOLUTION: Interesting. I just use our local MEETUP.COM to post for new players, YAHOOGROUPS.COM to have group emails and whatnot, DROPBOX.com to store downloadable large files for the group, and Obsidian Portal for a free campaign website. Mostly we use the yahoogroups for sending out emails giving each other crap and to remind everyone to come to the game.

jay h

5. Social NPC's. Innkeepers and shopkeepers. I don't want to just use the Basic NPC template for everyone and adjust abilities with ACE. I'd rather have a whole list of premade NPC's of various types (farmer, watchman, shopkeep etc) with stats and skills as opposed to what is provided in the rule book. Has anyone come across something like this?

For Social NPCs, I generally use player career cards, assuming a stat line of 2s (+1 to career stats, +1 to racial stats). Assume training in each class skill. I then give PCs bonus white to social if they share career traits with the NPC. This entices the normally non-social Soldier player to talk to the Captain, but doesn't punish anyone if he does not.