What kinds of elements are you using from non-warhammer game systems? (for example: rules for psionics, comeliness, percentile rules, etc.)

jh

I'm using Distinctions from Cortex+ (which are similar to Aspects from Fate).

They are three traits that describe your character. Whenever they come into play they can either aid the character by giving a free fortune die, or hinder by adding a misfortune die (and 1 fortune point in the pool). The player invokes it and decides which effect applies (which the table can veto if it doesn't fit).

We had "event cards" in our Norsca campaign. I bought two sets of garden stone, chose the most similar ones and painted the Dark Runes on them. I also gave the players a guide to read the runes. Before each session players could draw one rune stone and weave its effect into the story.

I have taken the basic premise from the GUMSHOE system that ensures that in investigative scenarios the players are never deprived of the crucial clues they need to move the story forward.

With one-off scenarios I sometimes use the question character creation system used in Dread the Game to complement the normal character creation and to make sure the characters are on the same page regarding some things. From Dread I also once took the use of Jenga - the players had to draw a certain amount of blocks without topling the tower to disarm a complex trap.

d6 Evil Men said:

Consider yourself plagiarised!

I LOVE that idea for our party thief.

I might need to look into the gumshoe idea for a new group that I'm doing a oneshot for in a few weeks. The story is nice, but I'm afraid with 2 new players they might get stuck in the investigation otherwise.

Nisses, there are actually a couple of cool things you could do with the tower. If the scene takes place in the dark and you can darken the room where you play, you can have another player hold up a candle to give some little illumination to the thief player while he is trying to pull the blocks in the dark. If you have an hourglass you can also put a time limit on the operation. Just remember to test the tower yourself first, so that the task won't be too easy or too difficult.

I used once the puzzle idea from Mansions of madness using 2xInt moves to exchange and move the pieces. The wizard loved the idea.

Our gang just went into the Altdorf sewers and encountered some ghouls. We went to 5' squares for encounters (engaged was base to base).

jh

Legendary Quests (a free rpg) is always a good source for monster ideas if you want to create your own creatures

http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/

Alp

I will (when I get the chance) incorporate plenty of stuff from 'Unknown Armies'.

- Requiring players to pick an event that marked them out / made them reconsider what they were doing with their lives and decide to take up adventuring.

- Get players to pick an obsession and a phobia.

- Will somehow shoehorn in the insanity rules (too good to not use). This gives characters steadily increasing 'resistance' to things that could make them crazy, but as they become hardened to this stuff, they become more and more detached from normal people.

d6 Evil Men said:

I find this a rather odd idea, because when using Jenga for situations like that, the players' ability to play Jenga ist tested rather than the characters's abitlity to disarm complex traps. I myself am not good at Jenga at all. What if I wanted to play a character who is good at things like Jenga? If I had to solve the problems of my character with playing Jenga myself on the game table, my character would be just as good at doing Jenga as I am, and that's very poor. So farewell to character concept ...

korknadel, what you say is true. That's why I used it in a situation that where is wasn't a typical case of disarming trap, it was a group effort, and none of the characters involved had any particular skills for that sort of thing.

Korknadel:

While I understand the concern, the same holds true for players that take high fellowship and then act completely contrary to it, because in real life they're just not that type of person.

What I plan on doing with the Jenga idea, is link the character's agility/training to the difficulty of the tower.

- 6 agility = 2 block from the top of the tower
- 5 agility = 2 blocks from the top, 2 blocks from the middle
- 4 agility = 2 blocks from the top, 2 blocks from the middle, 2 blocks from the bottom

(This is just off the top of my head, without even thinking of training or specialisation yet)

I'm thinking of taking some of the ideas from the new game, The One Ring, from cubicle 7. It seems that the themes of a WFRP game and LotR would work well together because neither are designed on dungeon crawls and involve more 'above ground' action with NPC interaction. I'll let you guys know how that goes. (I secretly wonder if I'll get sucked into another rpg line of releases

You know what I'm going to say, of course, but I use Beliefs, Goals, and Instincts from Burning Wheel. Characters write Beliefs at character creation to show everyone what that character most wants at this point in his life; Goals are written each session and reveal what a character wants from the mission or task in front of him. Instincts kind of let your GM know what you're likely to do in a particular situation ("Whenever an enemy is near, I draw my sword," or, "Whenever I notice someone looking at me, I stop and strike a pose.") Those let your GM have some fun with the PCs at key times in the story.

In BW, players share these out of character at the beginning of a session, which allows other players to think about how they might interact meaningfully with party members who are friends or foes. (It requires players who can be good about keeping a strict line between what they player knows and what the character knows, but if you're playing with reasonable adults, that's not too much of a problem.) One of the nicest things about the system, though, is that it allows everyone to come back together at the end of the session and appreciate those characters who made significant progress towards their goals, RPed particularly well, or played off of other party members well. For a GM, it also points out to you who isn't getting quite enough spotlight, and reminds you of what they "want" so that you can easily tailor the next session to the players.

I just love those mechanics because they create such awesome party interaction. I can't get enough of them.

I love the Jenga idea, especially with the modified difficulty of the tower to represent the character's stats. Awesome!!

i remember reading about a group that made a player whose character was a dwarf sit on a shorter seat than the other players. sounds like a brilliant way to generate roleplaying interactions

Llanwyre said:

Doh! I actually love those elements. Oftentimes my players end up "playing themselves" which makes many characters the same. This also seems like a great way to break the every-fighter-is-the-same-as-the-next syndrome. I'll be using those thank you very much

We've got Jenga, but it's girl-talk Jenga...so my manly players would be pulling them and saying, "So, which TV Dysney boy do you think is hottest?"

This doesn't really fall under rules per se, it more so has to do with storyline but I've been developing a homebrew campaign that uses a Pathfinder Society type of group for the party to gain employment through. They are in search of ancient secrets that will prove the existence of the fabled Old Ones and the true genesis history of The World of Warhammer. It is being designed to include major adventures all throughout the known world including; Khemri, Lustria, Ind, Norsca, Naggoroth, Albion and the Isle of Blood to name a few. It is heavily flavored by my love of Erich von Daniken and the Ancient Astronaut theory. Its in a skeletal format currently on my Cayra MindMaps program and I think the scope is large enough to take my players characters to a high enough level that they can enjoy the upcoming Hero's Call supplement, assuming they aren't maimed, killed, driven insane, diseased, sucked into the warp or abducted that is .

Other than that I've been staying quite true to the game as it stands, I've not really brought in any other rules elements from any other systems.... yet.

Nisses said:

I don't understand what you mean. If they have high fellowship on the character sheet and dice in their hand, there's a good possibility that they succeed with their fellowship rolls. The same way my characters ofttimes succeed with melee strike rolls although I doubt I myself could even lift a broadsword let alone use it against somebody. But the beauty of it is, that I only have to roll dice. It's the same with fellowship. Even if I am fat and greasy myself, my breathtakingly slender high elf gigolo can seduce the Baron with his high fellowship rating (and if the roll succeeds). So I don't get why my high elf gigolo should act contrary to his fellowship just because my own "fellowship" is lacking.

Therein lies the art of roleplaying: playing something you're not.

I'm not a smart, strong..ok, so I don't have willpower either..but OK, so otherwise correct, your seductive gal elf sounds fun to play..

I think its funny in my WFRP group, most players are afraid to play the ladies. I don't see playing a female character any more difficult than playing a dwarf or ogre for that matter (although that's how I usually play the female characters

jh

I ask my players to roleplay their seduction/interrogation/social interactions as much as possible, for real. I let the dice have their say as well, but they needto actually speak and choose their own words carefully. Which can have disastrous consequences, or work wonders.

Willpower is and always will be abstract, and needs rolls, but Intelligence is fairly easy to test

The same was/is never the case with physical tasks like picking locks and disarming traps. But now I do have an option for that, as far as agility goes.


To me it is a fun way of fleshing out some of the concrete puzzles in a highly visual way.

Oh man, you're not making out with your players are you?

Now that's some SERIOUS roleplaying!

jh

Dedication to the cause!

They're all cosplayers, so I insist they make their armour as well.
I tend to get the stinkeye when doling out mutations for some reason ;-)

It could be the nuke-med seeds that you put under the vinyl of their chairs

jh