We started Edge of Night during last night's session, and I've been thinking since then that us WFRP3 GMs really need some good new adventure material. I suspect my players are getting a bit jaded with the same old WFRP tropes. For example, one of them heard the rumour that someone had been seen lurking around the brewery and immediately asked "is the beer being served at the masquerade ball? They're going to spike the beer". Bam - main plot point burst. Another heard a rumour about rats in the sewers and said "we're in a city in the Empire, we'll definitely be going into the sewers to fight skaven at some stage".

I've already replaced the skaven with Nurgle cultists to link the adventure to Horror at Hugeldal, and the warpstone drink spiking to Green Pox spiking, but still, it's obviously tough surprising these jaded old gamers.

I find Edge of Night a very disappointing adventure that needs lots and lots of work to run. The block of pages of rumours and information gathering is just lazy adventure writing, there are essential things missing (eg an encounter to introduce Holzenauer to the players), the motivations are very sketchy, and in general it really needed another layer of polish, in my opinion.

To conclude this somewhat whingy post after an exhausting evening of GMing, WFRP is way, way overdue for some new idea injections. Cultists, demon summoning, and skaven in the sewers have been done to absolute death. New ideas, more fresh, surprising, exciting adventure material, please FFG!!

Yes I know many of you will say "come up with it yourself", but I just don't have the time these days; that's why I use published adventures.

I tend to agree, the basic Empire themes are pretty well worn.

I think if I manage to scare up some players, I'll use an alternate location of the Old World, so while the Empire stuff is there, it's not the main and 'known' thing.

I've told the people I play with to not guess, outside of character (and the character has to have a good reason to guess), anything that could happen. They may think the dinner is poisoned. But when invited to dinner, they should not blurt out "I bet the food is poisoned" or "I but one of the people at the table are cultists" it just steals the thunder out of anything when they do that.

I intentionally changed the main cultist in 'eye for an eye' to NOT have bandages on his head, because one of the players was already suspecting the bandages on the hand of the man who hired them.

For people who know the world too well, they need to play their character ignorant of such things, and not spoil the mood by blurting it out.

I'm glad your players can do that, but that just wouldn't work in our game. Whether he blurts it out or not, he knows it and it'll effect his behaviour - anyway, I can't see any reason why the dwarf wouldn't come to that conclusion in character anyway; he knows the big ball is coming up, he hears someone was messing around at the brewery - it doesn't take a big leap of logic. Anyway, just illustrating how tired the themes and unoriginal and obvious the plots are.

I really liked the adventure in Lure for Power. Yes it's a well used theme but the approach and the setting make it rather unique compared to "Your a cultist lets fight" mentality. The witches song I liked, while essentially relatively linear the setting, the enemy and the characters make it my favourite published 3rd edition scenario I have read. Von Schnell is worth every feather on his fat little head.

Omen's of war campaign looks great as well, a slight break from the enemy within theme.

I would like to see more diversity in the adventures and if they choose to stick with theme, at least embellish the setting a bit more like what they did with the Curshed Marshes and Faugilmere in the Witch's Song.

UniversalHead said:

I like the edge of night rumour pages and ball, I also like the fact that the players have something to watch out for straight away once they get to the party. I also like it when they leave specific details out, I find it hard to remember the little things but with a high level approach it allows the busy body GM to work in his own charms.

Then again unlike yourself I have buckets of time and can easily plan these things because of it, for the time strapped GM the edge of night can be a death trap and I agree with your point.

UniversalHead said:

Don't worry Universalhead, you are not the only one in the same situation. I have no time to invent my own adventures (I don't want to even consider about developing a whole campaing) and me and my players have been playing through WFRP 1st, 2nd and now 3rd edition. The number of adventures we have played is countless, and for me it is every time harder and harder to adapt /modify the existing escenarios to present to my players with new challenges.

If you have not played them, you can try Lure of the Liche Lord (adapt it from second edition), which is mainly a dungeon crawl and you can easely put as many traps and creatures as you want; and the Doomstones campaing from 1st edition.

But I do agree, some GM (as I) need more premade adventures and campaigns, an orc theme based adventure?, an undead based one?, an adventure where the players have to deal with the Elves, their politics, culture, magic, dark elves...? A campaing dealing with darven clans that ends up in a dungeon crawl in the depths of an old abandoned Dwarven hold?

I'd love to find the time to convert Chaosium's Tatters of the King to Wfrp. Now that's a story of madness and cults worth telling. UH, Chaosium's Cthulhu Invictus (Roman) and Cthulhu Dark Ages era stuff might be an easier conversion though.

UniversalHead said:

Meta gaming can easily spoil the fun. BUT they may not be right. Just to throw them off, spike the food/wine instead and let the beer be harmless. Instead of Skaven you insert general a secret society using. Just like you describe... there isn't really more you can do if you want to run edge of night. I have however put all the official 4rd ed. scenarios into my campaign. The campaign has a bigger plot that is behind the scene and then the player driven plot involving them getting property in the oberslect area, rebuilding and advancing their standing, makiing money etc. Then the focus of the players change... they aren't just in it to solve the riddle, but have their own motives.

There are some base stories that most stories are based on, and these will often be recognized. It's just like watching a movie... it's also very hard for me to be surprised by a movie. I can still enjoy it though.

My players often predicts what will happen with this and that (it's a trap, he's to nice to be good, etc...), but luckily they role-play differently.

I suggest, in lack of much better, that people use the multiple (and often free) scenarios/campaigns out there. I play TEW, and have had very very little trouble converting it directly to 3rd edition. Biggest issue has been 3rd edition lack of Fate-points, so if the players fail, they die... no waking up outside Bögenhaffen, they simply die.

Consider me in your camp..and the lack of FFG participation on these forums, and the abandonment of the success of the past scenario contests just goes to show that they're being lazy with this game. My guess is that WFRP is an afterthought to FFG as it's not their prized goat (40k). A sensible business plan to be sure, but that doesn't really help us

Your best bet is to get a hold of the scenario contest entries from the old Black Industries days..

jh

Honestly Universal, it seems like you are suffering from GM burnout from this and your other posts. You may want to consider taking a breather to get your creative juices flowing. As for Meta-Gaming its important to impress upon your players to keep it to themselves. It really can detract from the game quickly when your players are using knowledge that thier character would have no way of knowing.

As for a twist, I am currently putting my players through nine kinds of hell by having an insane and paranoid witch-hunter announcing what equates to martial law over the town they are in. The quandry they have is that of course there are chaos cultists somewhere in the city but when he starts burning the local surgeons for "necromantic expiriments", beheading the local herb gatherer for "chaotic substances", hanging the blacksmith for his horse throwing a shoe "an attempt on his life". They start to worry over; A: who is next, B: what if it is someone they actually need (not having a doktor already stinks), C: is it worth it for the one or two chaos cultist he has found.

In the above case if they start metagaming have the witch-hunter put a tail on them who is reporting back to him on "these adventurers who seem to know too much". From there get into the mindset of Paranioa, if they mention in game about "someone spiked the ale" have him not only investigate it himself but, arrest the brewer for "attempting to kill his social betters out of envy for thier betters". Then have him further declare that no drinking is allowed in town (dwarfs excepted) as an "effort to rein in social disorder and prevent chaos from influencing weak minds". If anyone objects "Why would you object to something that is for the best in society?" "What was your name again?" "Your line of work?" ect.

Then find a new subject and repeat ad infinium if you really wish. In the mean time the only person who could over ride a witch hunter and not be afraid of being next on the pyre would be; A: Some powerful noble connected to the church of sigmar. B: High ranking Sigmarite priest C: An "accident". Honestly this setup doesn't really require that much work other than getting into the right frame of mind and being willing to depopulate a town. And if they leave town the natural question in your witch-hunters head is: "What could they be hiding that they need to leave town in such a hurry?". Ideally this setup works best in a town they care deeply for.

For an Undead based adventure its not too hard if you want something quick and easy. Have a sorcerer who has escaped them get his revenge in the best way possible COLD.

He trails behind them and watches from a safe distance and slowly over a month or two enacts his plan. To raise each and every opponent they have ever fought into zombies! One night as they rest they are attacked by a zombie horde that swarms the inn/campsite. Have them actually recognize some of them, great way to remind them of where they have been and how far they have come. If you want you could even give some of the zombies something special like an action card of their former life.

Then when they finally hack the last zombie down the sorcerer enraged by his revenge being foiled looses his cool and attacks directly! Bonus points if you put innocents like an inn-keeper, other guests ect. in danger so they feel partially responsible. Note: do not give them any more warning than maybe a "Morrslieb is full tonight".

-Hope this helps, Best wishes and happy gaming!

I agree about Edge Of Night. There is an excellent concept there as centerpiece, nice elements and cards of npcs. Then it seems like how pcs are placed in the event is tacked on.

I had to rework the whole introduction section. For example, creating leading events that would cause players to want to make the checks that reveal rumours.

In this case I think they should have been upfront - we have a set piece and gms we will give you a cook book to create a lead in to it.

This was the worst one in my view. I putter and revise by nature but this was the one where I felt it was compulsory.

More generally, I agree a line needs prepublished adventures. Even if many write their own, the prewritten ones are useful. Of course we all want this edition to have a Enemy Within epic.

I do not mind using classic foes and situations, that is Warhammer. Mixing it up a bit is good. No RPG should simply have a "cult plans sacrifice at midnight" scenario without changing up some things and in Warhammer case making it sing Old World. I want to look at the adventure and feel "that it so warhammer."

Slysher said:

You may be completely right Slysher, I'm not denying it. Your ideas are great and your game sounds fun, but you obviously have the time, or the very free-form GMing style, to prepare and run a completely different adventure than the one written In EoN. I just don't have the time, and have to rely on the published adventures - and I have to say I stand by my assertion that they could be a lot better and more interesting.

Whether players pretend that they haven't heard of skaven in the sewers or daemon summing by the cultists or not is immaterial - they'll still feel like the basic tropes are repeated over and over in WFRP. In the wide world of Warhammer I'm hoping we can get some new concepts in the published adventures, and more thought behind them so GMs can get as much help as possible running them (eg. not scattering vital information in four places throughout the book, making sure that vital encounters that set up essential information are actually written - that kind of thing).

Agreed UH. I don't pay for published adventures that are half-assed finished. There's a reason why we had to, AS FANS, do half the work for some of this stuff.

They need to have better presentation and organization. You can paint a turd to make it look like a banana, but it still doesn't taste like one.

jh

I will like that FFG launches a fan scenario contest in a similar way that existed with the 2nd ed.

valvorik said:

Yeah EoN needs some sort of clear goal to make the players participate. I structured my campaign so the players really need that invitation and really need to make an impression for their own good.

Instead of waiting for FFG to put out new adventures, why not start a thread offering the homegrown adventures that folks have come up with on their own? Granted, you couldn't type in or add 40 pages worth of notes, descriptions and maps, but you could put down major plot points and ideas surrounding them. It could help out folks with little to no time to come up with their own adventures.

Absolutely, Liber Fanatica would be a great site to host such documents. I have offered to send Jay such of mine, whether a 3rd edition conversion of an earlier fan one or a homebrew 3rd. Unprotected PDF doc a good format for printing, with handouts etc. at end of doc, with any house rule dependent elements clearly marked.

As with all fan things, including mine, quality will vary wildly but there will be grist to use and adapt, and gems requiring no work to use.

Emirikol said:

I have to agree with Jay on this one. I suspect that they have been disappointed with the take up of their expensive new brainchild, and have reverted to the tried and tested format of the 40K universe. They obviously put some serious thought and resources into creating 3rd edition, but I suspect the business plan has severely limited their options.

Perhaps we should hold the 3rd edition scenario competition at Liber Fanatica instead. I will put the idea to Jude!

Has anyone adapted adventures for other games into the Warhammer world?

I've had good experience with Ravenloft scenarios. U1 sinister secret of the saltmarsh is a fun one.

jh

Nothing really formally, but as a very long time Star Wars D6 and Shadowrun player/GM, I've reused plot ideas in many systems, including WFRP. I mean, almost everything but the high concept of the modules have to be recreated, but it gives you a starting place for the main idea, then you can Old Worlderize it.

Not too mention the dozens of WFRP fan-created modules out there for download, which can be tweaked into something that fits with whatever kind of game you have going.

Romus said:

I am working on some Call of Cthulhu scenarios. I think they fit right in. I don't know if it will be run as one shots, where the players are ordinary townspeople or if I'll use it in our campaign at some points

I really like CoC scenarios and campaign because of their investigative nature. I have all the released material and some of the CoC campaign we have played have been truly epic. It's a bit of an undertaking changing my favorite campaign though, because the number of handouts is intimidating. But I believe it's very possible to create a superb investigation campaign in the old world using CoC material.

Emirikol said:

Great idea! That module is a classic. We still laugh about the player who, in our first session, ran up to a NPC, grabbed him, and shouted "WHAT'S YOUR SINISTER SECRET?!"

The other players quickly stepped in with "don't worry about him, he's just a half-orc."