I know there are a lot of folks that post up their reports but I really just wanted a thread to bring up my own person musing with regards to my experiences in the system as I get to try the reigns at GMing something new.

I finally got a game going beyond just testing and going over rules and such. My players, in typical fashion for them, do all they can to push the limits of what I am trying to run. I have the power gamer, who, in D&D fashion, wants the biggest sword/axe and armor he can get. I have the "pervert" who's only goal is to get drunk, and get laid, and provide comic breaks. I have a roleplayer that is interested in the game and world. And I have my newbie. I have a two more decent roleplayers but they were unable to make the session.

I may need to point out a few of the house rules that I implemented. They all rolled up completely random characters. Race & Career. Being used to Pathfinder, there was some hesitation but once I explained that this game is more about the role than the tactical element, they gave me some slack and eased up on their hostile grumblings. This was further enhanced by nobody actually rolling up something like commoner. Most in fact were pleased with the results of the random rolls. I also explained up front, that I wanted to really push the grim and gritty side of the setting. I was looking to embrace the horrible aspects of life in the setting, the gruesome deaths, plague, disease, war, famine, etc. I also was looking to create a story based on their actions that spanned beyond the lives of these few initial characters. It would be a story that involved much death. I wanted to say this up front so that they would understand that the dead stay dead and so they wouldn't be upset when their characters did kick the bucket. After the extended character creation process, they seemed to get what I was going for and were responding to it well.

We are also playing via Fantasy Grounds 2 so part of learning the game involved learning that program. I had convinced many people to get Fantasy Grounds for two reasons. It had the ability to play Warhammer. It had the ability to play Pathfinder. In total, we purchased 4 GM licenses and 4 player licenses due to different levels of interest in playing and GMing

So, my initial thoughts after session 1.

I'm not used to playing, or more specifically GMing, over voice chat. It took longer to explain the system than I expected but by the end of the first session, They were starting to "role" things and add some of their own descriptions. I was used to playing but not gming. I had to refresh myself on how many challenge die to use in combat. What do you do with the extra banes and boons when there is only 1.. I still need to look up if you have double the successes to meet a critical hit, does that grant additional critical hits? How the hell do you get initiative to work in FG2?

Explaining the dice and the abstract nature of the system took some time. Keep in mind, we have been playing Pathfinder and 3.5 almost exclusively since release. We delved into some other settings but besides a couple of one shots, that was it. They were used to a grid even though prior to 3.0 when never used a grid at all. To be honest, it surprised me how much that aspect of the game had ingrained itself into them. Regardless, they did remember the days before, it just took some time to bring it back out of them.

Each character had 5 less character creation points.

I threw out party sheets. Honestly, just seemed like too much work to explain them and I wanted to get started.

I wanted to use location cards, but not having any of them ready and not wanting to slow the game to review, I opted to skip them for the time being.

I couldn't figure out an easy way to create an NPC on the spot in FG. This is mostly because I havent manually entered any of that type of data but I ended up just modifying the stuff from the demo module to get by.

I began with Eye for an Eye and we made it to dinner by the time the first session ended. At session end, they were all convinced of different people being involved, from the Lord himself, to the kennel master, to the doctor, to the servants, to the butler. It was great.

After the session I got to thinking about some things but wanted to see what you expert forum folks thought as well.

I offered incentive to players to invest in the game. As I consider Sigmar's Heirs one of the best warhammer fantasy gazateers out there, I offered two permanent xp to any player that purchased a copy. This gives them some incentive to read up on the setting itself and allows them to have the first two xp for free for all future characters. Two players ordered it after the session. Given that I also want to increase the sales of this system, I am considering doing the same for the Player's Guide the next time we play. One of them has already ordered the Guide but doesn't know that yet. Another was planning to but had to wait a couple weeks. The other two wanted to play again before they committed. In the meantime they were using that cheat sheet for which we don't speak.

I am curious what others feel about offering in game bonuses like that to help bring new players into the warhammer world.

I'm sure there is more that I have forgotten but that is enough random thoughts for now.

well not knowing anything about Fantasy grounds how does one use NPC's in the system? Do they need to be properly displayed as stats and all or could you get away with an onscreen blank representation of one? Like when I drop in a goblin card on maptools and say it's a priest of sigmar or whatever.

The party sheet is not a bad idea but I find it doesn't work all that great online in our maptool campaign. The party sheet is a visual tool and when you don't have visual awareness of it you fast forget about it and it loses it's purpose.

Sigmar' s Heirs is a fantastic resource and my favourite by far (hence why I named our campaign after it!). Offering it as an experience incentive is a good idea if your players would actually read it. One of my guys barely reads anything no matter if you give it too him for free, the only people who would buy it would be people who truly care about the lore or are highly digging your sessions, otherwise your power gamer mate buys it just so he can get that two free exp points (power gamers are weird, too much maths, not enough English, or relevant subject relative to country, at school).

Success lines to my knowledge don't stack, if you roll 4 boons and your weapon CR is 2 you only deal one critical, the other could go towards a fatigue relief or something else.

I have a pervert in my home campaign and let me say his characters are hysterical! Luckily I have no munchkins.

Ah yet another person dumping party sheets. I dunno, I kinda feel that if party sheets are going to get dumped then you need to alter the way talents work overall, plus I think they hold the party together rather well. That said, I don't move the party tension meter enough with my group, in the Sigmar's Heirs group I think I move it just fast enough, but I like that Dan put one of the players in charge(Namely me). I might make it a round robin thing with our group and see how that works. In short, I don't want to get rid of party sheets because they help me, as a GM, tie the group together and get an idea of what their goals are.