I am prepping to "launch" a WFRP 3e campaign. Going off the shelf with The Gathering Storm, but from a different starting point.

Half of my team played in a 2-3 session introductory run of Shadows over Bogenhafen. They loved it and wanted to move to a full campaign. I ran Bogenhafen in 3e, which was not that tricky of a conversion. In any case, Bogenhafen's Merchant Guild and the tie into Florian Wechsler also create a nice handshake to The Gathering Storm.

What I was posting for, however, was any good advice, pitfalls, shining moments, etc. from the collective experience of those who have run TGS. I've listened to some podcasts and played in a few sessions of TGS myself. Just trying to be thorough in prep and hoping to pick up a few tips that will help make our run more fun and splendiferous.

Thanks in advance.

You may have to search back a bit for AP reports of Gathering Storm. I posted my play including a fair number of notes about things:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=165&efcid=3&efidt=353836&efpag=0

- there's lots of stuff going on in that town that focusing on the 3 external adventures can miss, the whole murder mystery thing can be played up more;

- Schulmann is villain is a bit obvious, the boxed set does contain some alternative suggestions that I think are better.

- the ending is a bit wonky in a couple of ways and can be fixed (my alternate included making the elf ghost more important, in part to appeal to the player of an elf more).

Taking those comments in stride, all told, I think it's one of the best value boxed adventure sets with more playing hours in it that the others (Edge of Night, Witch's Song).

Thanks, V. This is the sort of input that I'm looking for and hope others will follow suit. Others, please share!

Right now, I'm trying to find the right balance of allowing them to seep in flavor, rumors, etc. in Stromdorf vs. give them the right breadcrumbs to quickly get them to and through The Lesser Evil in a single sitting. As always, I'll sort of drop the players in the sandbox and let them decide. An ideal cliff-hanger ending point for our first session would be coming upon the herdstone.

** SPOILERS **

We launched The Gathering Storm last night and played a 4-hour session. This post is a report on that session for others who may run this campaign in the future.

Here's a quick catch-up on background for the campaign. Prior to launching this campaign, I ran the core trio of party members through the classic Shadows over Bogenhafen adaped to 3e. The party included Cordelia the Acrobat (Performer), Albrecht Mauser (rat catcher, obviously), and Elsa the Initiate of Ranald. The three are all bohemian wanderers who had been connected to Dr. Malthusius and the Shaffenfest in Bogenhafen. After successfully averting chaotic disaster for the town, a miraculously recovering Heinrich Magirius invites the trio to his exquisite dining club The Golden Trout to praise them, to reward them, and to beseech them to help in another matter. Nothing so serious as demon-fighting, mind you, just a simple matter of locating a missing member of the Golden Trout.

Florian Wechsler is a minor merchant in Bogenhafen who lives a bit outside his means. Wechsler runs a simple coal cart down to the struggling town of Stromdorf once per month and carries home casks of the town's famous Thunderwater Ale. The brewmasters guild in Bogenhafen would frown upon this, but fortunately Wechsler smuggles his shipments in and sells only to a few trusted buyers for private consumption. The small profit he turns on this monthly trip affords him just enough to dine at the Golden Trout and pay for the services of his 12-year old daughter's nanny. The trip's 7-10 days each way, and so he spends most of the time in transit driving his cart that is pulled by his remarkable white pony Hieronymus.

Wechsler has not returned from last month's trip and is now two weeks overdue. He is a creature of habit and his absence is causing great concern. As a fellow merchant and member of The Golden Trout, Magirius is concerned about Wechsler's absence. The fate of Wechsler's young daughter lies in the balance, and Magirius asks the trio to travel to Stromdorf to retrieve Florian Wechsler.

With a heavy heart, he admits to the possibility that Wechsler may be the victim of foul play. In such a case, he asks that the team try to locate Wechsler's guild signet ring. With certain knowledgeable commercial parties, this ring could be used to secure lines of credit that the Bogenhafen Merchant's Guild would be honor-bound to back.

The trio readily accepts the assignment when a club servant enters and whispers in the ear of Magirius. A look of surprise flashes in his eyes and he directs the servant to show them in. "Astounding", he says. Two men enter the club, one a Celestial Wizard's Apprentice named Syzygy and another with a more martial look of a Bounty Hunter. The pair thank Magirius for seeing them. They are from Altdorf and are looking for Florian Wechsler of Bogenhafen a member of Magirius' guild.

After a brief conversation, he learns that the duo is actually seeking a runaway apprentice from the Celestial College in Altdorf named Niklaus Schulman. The college has hired the bounty hunter to assist Syzygy to locate Schulman and report on his wellbeing. Syzygy had a vision of a cart pulled by a white pony and cart whose markings the duo traced to Florian Wechsler, coal merchant in Bogenhafen.

Bringing everyone up to speed, the trio and the duo agree to cooperate in their search for Wechsler in Stromdorf. Knowing Stromdorf's reputation for bad weather, the team acquires rain gear. Poverty stricken, the Celestial Wizard predicts he will find himself quite soggy. The other members of the team take pity on him and buy him rain gear.

The band make the long trek down from Bogenhafen, following Wechsler's route precisely. They know his three buyers in Stromdorf to be the local watch, Gerber's tannery, and the Thunderwater Inn.

Approaching Stromdorf, glorious sunshine turns to gloomy thunderclouds and the team trudges through torrential rain across the swelling Teufel and a dilapidated bridge. All make it across without incident, except Syzygy who slips into the river and braves the raging current to swim to the riverbank. As the others on the team mock his clumsiness, he reminds them that the stars had foretold him that he would be soggy.

Entering the town, they see a burned circle in the grass of the local Fields of Verena and take notice of a fierce-looking, polished brass cannon atop the gatehouse. They ask about the burned grass and hear the story of the execution of necromancer Lazarus Mourn. The sight of two dangling sheep rustlers on the gibbet are equally "welcoming".

In town they meet unusual locals like the idiotic turd-gatherer Waltrout, the drunken Estalian Eduardo Castilo Rodrigues, the pathetic troubadour Rooster Reinhard, and passionate agitator Hanko Mucke. Methodically, they note that Wechsler made all his latest deliveries on schedule and has not been seen in town for weeks. The underbelly of society and friends among the watch they make help them piece together that a local farmer named Reiner Holtz had apparently purchased and then resold Wechsler's cart weeks ago. In fact, Holtz is in town now visiting the ultra-exclusive Stewpot Inn, whose illustrious halfling owner cooks up meals none of the locals can afford. So what business does a grubby farmer have in there?

The team also surmises that Golden Trout member Florian Wechsler would be drawn to Keila Cobblespot's cuisine like the proverbial moth to a flame. After spending a few silver for appropriate attire and brass for the bathhouse they visit the Stewpot. Inside the nearly empty establishment, they enjoy a delicious meal and find Keila and Reiner both evasive and telling stories that stretch plausibility. When Reiner leaves, the team physically overwhelms Keila, they bound and interrogate her, while searching her establishment. When Wechsler's ring and a cache of other jewelry and money is discovered in a false cask in the cellar, she confesses that she has been terrorized by the Holtz family to assist them with a kidnapping ring and that they force her to hold these items stolen from the victims. The party is divided as to the extent to which her complicity is forced, whether or not to keep the loot, and how their band, so ill equipped for combat, can possibly mount assault a farmstead of violently dangerous hillbillies.

End of Session 1

Our diary covers the Gathering Storm - starting here.

We have an Obsidian Portal wiki up. Here's the link ot our team's Adventure Log post from our 1st TGS session.

www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/vagabond--vengeance/adventure-log

That's a great write-up, Ghazi! I look forward to hearing more of this adventure in due course.

Just one question so far: what was the reason for adding 2 NPCs to the party? (I'm assuming the bounty hunter and celestial wizard are NPCs.) Is it because they have skills you think your party will need to progress through/survive the adventure? Or are they 2 new players?

Thanks for the kind comments. The Celestial and Bountyhunter were two new players. We have yet another two who will be joining us next session (which is set for next Saturday).

Ah, I see. That's cool. Although it means you'll have a pretty big group to manage... I hope everyone gets on well!

Yes, it's our usual gaming gang. It's a big group for WFRP3 to be sure.

Our last session went really well, everyone seemed to have a pretty good time, and hung around after to chat about the game, etc. for a while despite the late hour, so that was a good thing. The older I get, I must confess, the more the game becomes secondary and I just enjoy hanging out with fun, creative people.

Another of the players posted his in-character account of the action on our Obsidian Portal site (see above).

I changed up the scene at the Holtz farm a little in hopes of creating more of a moral dilemma for the players about whether or not to turn the Holtz's in, kill them, or turn a blind eye. Making them slightly more sympathetic, by essentially cutting their dissembling and fight with the Eigel, did the trick. The party was divided in their moral judgment of the Holtz's . . . but one player unilaterally betrayed them to the watch.

Having played in The Gathering Storm, the brutality of the battle with Izka for the Lightning Stone was something I'd already witnessed. We lost a single party member in the exchange when I'd played and this group that I ran also lost 1 of their number to Izka's charge.

The Celestial wizard in the group used Swiftwing to get to the herdstone and cut the Lighting Stone free while the rest of the party distracted the horde with missile attacks and guerilla tactics. The Bountyhunter died in the conflict.

There were a couple of tricky bits in the adventure that got clunky. Some of this was players being true to their characters and not simply doing what they were supposed to . . . but this could have short-circuited the adventure.

For instance, the initiate of Ranald upon discovering all the belongings of Keila's travelers, she was ready to take the money and abandon any notion of chasing after the Hotz's to find Florian Wechsler. Only her memory of Wechsler's potentially orphaned daughter allowed her to consent to this rather martial expedition. (Well that and the player's husband metagame telling her that she was breaking the prepared story.) Ditching the mission is entirely reasonable for a group not particularly focused on combat. Had the run off with Keila's loot and left her tied behind the bar without turning her over to the authorities and never seen Stromdorf again . . . it would have been time to dustoff Rough Night at the Three Feathers.

Also, a pair within the party had a violent reaction at the end to Schulman's arrogance. In a rather mercenary fashion, this pair was less interested in getting the stone translated than selling it off for a big profit. They basically decided not to allow him access to it, made him an outright antagonist, and want to transport the lightning stone to Nuln or Altdorf to fetch a greater profit for it. This can all be fixed, of course.

It does show that playtesting can never account for all personality quirks and limitless options. As a GM, I embrace going off the beaten path and improving, so it's not a big deal. Sometimes that's where the fun stuff happens, and that a GM's work is never done.

Sounds fun.

Aside from the social-interaction, a key benefit of live table play with a GM is for that spontaneity, "unplanned by programmer" course of action. If the GM acts like a computer "that input not accepted, please choose one of the above options", not fun. I love using modules to save time but treating them as something to "cut apart, mark up, and otherwise just use as grist for the game at " this table ".

That said, it's obligation of players to "play into the story" they are collectively creating. If the other 3 are up for something, "find reason you are too" as the player did thinking of the daughter. Those things can actually flesh out characters and the potential odd-out PC who comes up with interesting reason for going along can turn into the most interesting part of the story and create facts in the fiction to drive future play. I might reward that with something like "here's a thinking of the daughter pool of 3 fortune dice you can use whenever inspired by those thoughts".

Rob

I like the reward idea. I'm a little stingy with Fortune points, and start each session with one less than standard rules allow. I would rather players earn them as merits in the group pool.

In this case, it was not the player herself who reminded her about the daughter that she'd been introduced to in the first session, but a subtle (non-ironic) reminder from her GM to try to help her buy back in.

Ah, I too am stingy but mostly because I'm lost in moment forgetting "oh yeah, point to fortune pool for that".

I too start with only 2 points a session but that's because our sessions are usually 2.5 hours and I feel that's too short, 3-4 hours would be preference and merit 3 fortune points.

Rob

By the way, I wanted to share an update. Our group does not use "all the fiddly bits". In fact, the only fiddly bits we use are poker chips for Stress + Fatigue (because I find it makes these tangible to players) and Wound cards (mainly to keep Crits "exciting"). Everything else is listed on character's sheet and managed there.

The experiment has gone over very well. It's a little more prep work for me to get their sheets in order, but it also makes sure I know their Action Cards, Talents, career abilities, etc. In play, everything has flowed absolutely smoothly and tabletop real estate allows us to run sessions of 6 and 7 players. My preconceived concerns about recharge tracking have vanished now that we are actually playing.

It's worked well with new players to the system and even those of our 3e vets used to the feel of the cards in their hands have not missed them at all with the experiment.

Only those bothering to follow this thread will hear about this report, I'm afraid, but for those looking in . . . I wanted to share this positive report on how things were playing out.