After running WFRP for a couple years now, I have to admit, I feel weak running the greenskins. They're just one category that seems harder to integrate into my Reikland campaign. Undead, cultist, beasts, etc..no problem. I mean, it's not hard to randomly throw monsters at the PCs, but I don't do that much anymore. Greenskins seem tougher because they are not something that the PCs would normally be "talking to."

Any of you have a weakness?

jh

I have the opposite problem--I can't run the "serious" enemies nearly as well as the silly ones. Greenskins I can handle; I love having them trip over things, get distracted, attack one another, and just generally do wacky stuff during battle. Serious cultists, though? I sometimes have a hard time keeping them quite as serious as they should be. You might find a teddy bear on a big bad cultist's corpse once in awhile because I just can't resist the temptation to juxtapose awful and silly. (It's odd, though. I have no problem running serious NPC pickups or allies.)

Rules-wise, it's numbers of NPCs in the encounter for me. A simple fight of a few big baddies I can do, or a big fight of a bunch of henchman I can do. Mix them together, though, and I tend to get lost, and then we have NPCs falling when it's most dramatic rather than entirely based on RAW.

I struggle to use Skaven because based on everything I've read the idea of Skaven even showing themselves seems unlikely to me, I like to use them but every time I do I'm just not convinced that they would even bother, if secrecy is their best weapon why squander it. At the end of the day we don't really care but there are somethings like that which really get me.

I actually make Greenskins the most chatty of the beast races (I do an excellent ork accent), of course not all of them will want to talk to you (or even speak Reikspiel) but you can always reason with an orc or a goblin it just better be a good one, discover what it wants and it will listen. For example dialogue to an Orc warboss as you meet it out on the field. "I say Orc, why would you want to attack this village here, it's only filled with mere women and children, you'll get a much better fight if you attack a patrol of soldiers" or "I say Orc. Your after a battle are you not?, Why not you and I go about it and leave this village out. If I win your warband leaves, if you win you've had your fight, leave this village and plunder somewhere else".

Almost all of my creatures can be reasoned with if you know what their after, regardless of race.

I try and avoid Chaos Cults wherever I can in my own home made scenarios as I find them to be cliche and boring. In one over a year of once a week playing I have only ever made one scenario with traditional cultists in it. Most of my games actually have no real chaos or fantasy attachments to them, most are about people being cruel to other people. I believe peope can just be evil without the excuse and necessity of the Chaos gods. Players always suspect hidden motives and chaotic connections to evil actions, what if an antagonist is just a real arsehole, can't someone let someone be a **** for the sake of being a ****.

I also love super natural ghosts and undead used in tension mounting scenarios rather than sword fodder, I take great inspiration from various Call of Cthulhu podcasts I've heard about the net.

Creatures that I have no trouble at all running and would dearly love to except I can't due to geological reasons are Orcs (as goblins are easy to put anywhere) or Dark Elves. In one year of play my regular group has never been anywhere near the mountains (Orcs) or nowhere near the coast (dark elves). however now I have a second group they have the fortune of spending their adventures at the foot of the grey mountains given me plenty of chances to use my beloved Orky accent...

Dude, Orcs are everywhere... The Drakwald is crawling with them, same with the forest of shadows, the grey hills, the marshes...

Honestly, if it's been abandoned for longer than a week, you can bet some of fantasy's favourite football hooligans have pitched up.

I have a thing for recurring villains. If I have a nice drawn out fight, I'd like the bad guy to both survive and come back to fight another day. It builds up a nice bit of tension. Then there's those lovely moments when there he is, standing in front of them, and there isn't a fart they can do about it. Hi-friking-larious.

"Random" encounters. No. Not having fun there. Kinda seems a bit... jaded. I appreciate I need to wound and wear out the groups that are fighting, but an extended combat with a rally phase or two should really do the job.

I enjoy cultists, do it right and the PC's know the bad guys are cultists, but they can't do anything about it...Yet. Leave off the robes and wavey daggers till the last moment and suddenly there's the eery feeling that everyone is worshiping the dark gods. Nice. Beastmen are my badguy for wandering about in the wilderness, nothing like a brayhorn to make everyone shift it into second gear. Not enough experience running undead that aren't vampires, but I do love a good vampire. Again, sorry, his lordship isn't available during the day, business don't you know. Perhaps come back this evening? Smiles, praise, BAM-blood drain. Skaven are my silly accents and sneakiness. I have a recurring pair of assassins, Rik and Tik, they kidnap, confuse and cause mayhem, but your never really sure what they actually want.

Beasts and greenskins are probably my weakpoint, haven't really run them in... a while? Although if the new races in hero's call has anything to do with spiders you can bet your ass they will be-literally-crawling all over my PC's.

Finally, there is nothing, not one single thing, that is quite as much fun as having a Khornate warrior come charging out of the smoke with a chainsword. that moment when you scream "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!" Then your PC's start reaching for their healing potions? Glorious.

Fenderstat said:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way! They have become hypercliche and made worse by the release schedule that 4 boxed sets were essentially devoted to cults as well as the intro scenario. I'm excited that once slaanesh is done, maybe we can get some depth to the world!

I personally like running Beastmen. I have them recite dark poetry (unlike greenskins who have poor grammar..in the states, we call that po'white'trash-spiel Beware me, for I am the demon's pawn. Alone among God's primates,I kill for sport or lust and greed. Yea, I will murder my brother to possess his brother's land. Let me not breed, for I will make a desert of your homeland. Shun me, for I am the harbinger of death. (modified from poem I found online). there are also some awesome, poetic lines in the Beastman WFB supplement. I like the term "Skrinde your bones!" in a lot of their phrases..alas, one of our PCs had his bones skrinded!

I agree on the ghosts. They can be used to add a lot of tension without ever even being revealed. The "rumor" of haunt, is more powerful than the actual manifestation sometimes.

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