From my posts in the "Let's all help this game spread!" thread here: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp I've had requests to give more information, so I've moved this to another thread to avoid clogging up a very good thread.

I ran 4 x 3 hour sessions at an RPG convention (SYDCON) in Sydney, Australia recently. Out of 19 players, 14 hadn't played WFRP3 before. I was primarily running the sessions to introduce new players to the wonders of the game and so I was very pleased to have so many newbies! I deliberately designed the scenario to allow me to introduce game concepts to the players in stages.

Here is the initial background to the scenario as published on the SYDCON website:

Witching Stew
Ask a dozen Nuln residents why brave/foolish souls enter the city sewers on Hexensnacht ("Witching Night") and you'll get a dozen different answers: revelry at the turning of another year, avoiding the eerie light cast by both of the full moons, escaping the cold night air, looking to cause a bit of mischief, the list goes on...

In order to protect the influx of visitors into the sewers, the city authorities employ additional temporary members of the sewer watch for the witching period. You are all such temporary sewerjacks - attracted by the higher than normal pay, or other motives known only to yourself, you plan to spend your rostered few nights in the "aromatic" environment of the Dwarfen build sewer system, trying to keep out of trouble and out of the bubbling broth of "the stew"!

Unfortunately, half-way through your watch, the only experienced sewerjack, Sergeant Gant, was dragged into the stew by a hideous tentacled beast and was not seen again! You are now deep within the labyrinthine tunnels, with only a vague idea how to retrace your steps. No obvious leader has stepped up to take the ill fated sergeant's place and a feeling of panic is beginning to set in...

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I'll post more info into this thread - including character backgrounds, secret goals (and how those linked into talents and action cards), etc. over the next couple of days (I don't have all the stuff on my work PC)...

Details from another thread:

So, I ran 4 x 3 hour sessions at an RPG convention in Sydney, Australia this last weekend (Sydcon). Out of 19 players, 4 had played WFRP3 before, 1 had played WFRP2 and 14 hadn’t played any WFRP, but had played RPGs.
I took the first 20-25 minutes to explain the basics:

• Statistics and how they map to characteristic dice.
• Skills and how training maps to expertise dice.
• Challenge dice – 1 = easy, 2 = average, etc.
• Fortune and misfortune dice.
• Making a roll – successes and challenges, boons and banes.
• Stance – conservative vs. reckless vs. neutral. Using the stance tracker.
• Stance dice – plus fatigue, stress and delays.
• Brief overview of action cards – how stance affects which side to use (and how it essentially doesn’t affect basic action cards), recharge.
• Talent cards – very brief overview of needing to have then socketed to be active. I decided to play with talents as I wanted to introduce some custom talents during the end encounter based on each character’s back story. Some people used talents well; some people generally ignored/forgot them.
• I didn’t mention insanity or disease, but would introduce them if needed during the game.
• No PC magic was used at all.
• I had some of the quick reference sections (slimed down a bit) from Court Dimon and Universal Head and these were really useful.

Then I started the scenario. I deliberately designed the first 2 encounters to slowly introduce players to making skill rolls (mostly social, with some physical – jumping across a sewer channel, for example) and we took time to put the dice pool together, describe where all the dice came from, make the roll and expand on the results.

Then, I introduced the idea of fortune points and mentioned that I was tracking party stress on a party sheet – but I didn’t use the fortune pool, I just let fortune “refresh” for the whole group whenever something “cool” happened.

I then threw a simple combat encounter at the players and described initiative, moving stance, manoeuvres, actions, recharge.

Finally, we had a big encounter which lasted 1-1.5 hours. All PCs had a goal that came into play in the final encounter – I handed out 4 new talents and 1 new action card (1 for each player) that directly affected their secret goal. They could then choose when to socket their talent (which usually resulted in them revealing their secret goal) and this proved very popular with the players and got them looking at the other talents they had.

All of the games ran very well and everyone involved thoroughly enjoyed them. Conclusions from the games:

1. People pick up the dice rolling mechanic very quickly. If they’ve played an RPG before, they get it very quickly. Initially everyone was saying “Woah, there’s a lot to take in here” but after 30 minutes of playing were usually putting their dice pool together and analysing it with a minimum of my input.
2. The final encounter ran a bit long. I had 5 players for most sessions and this took a while for everyone to take their turns, put their dice pool together, analyse it, etc., etc…. Also, I really didn’t have enough dice for 5 players – so it was difficult for people to prepare their dice pool ahead of their turn. The final session I ran had only 4 players and this was the first not to run over time – 3 had played before, so that helped move things along. But, in future, I will probably limit the group to 4 players.
3. Prepare everything as much as possible. I set up the player’s area ahead of time – stance meter, character sheet, actions, talents, etc. already setup and ready to go. I had each encounter in its own ziplock bag – creature cards, action cards and stand-up all ready to go. Put them all back in the ziplock bag after the encounter so they’re ready to go for the next session. As I designed the scenario, I knew it inside out and so there were no breaks in the action for me to refer to some notes or anything like that.
4. As this is WFRP3 – the players had everything they needed in front of them (including the quick ref sheer) and it all moved pretty smoothly.
5. I kept the adventure simple – the main entertainment came with some early light hearted social interaction and then the big “pursue your secret goal” target for each player in the final encounter. This allowed us to really explore the system and for me to slowly introduce it to the players and for them to “go nuts” with it all at the end.

Oops, didn't mean to put this under "Rules Questions"...

Anyone know of a way to move it?

Trenloe said:

Contact the support, give them direct link here and explain in detail what you need them to do.

sounds great so far, cant wait to hear some of the details