We played WFRP for the first time yesterday with the demo adventure "A day late, a shilling short" and had a great time!

It went relatively well, although there is more rule explaining/investigation then playing the first time. It was a bit odd to use cards and stands for the first time, as we have always played RPG´s that only uses character sheets and the cards almost was more time consuming then helping but I feel that will change once we get used to it.

One of the players thought that the use of cards limited the imagination a bit. Is this something you have experienced as well?

We used the pre created PC´s for the adventure but to next time the players will have created there own characters. One of the players wants to play an assassin (he has been playing Assassins Creed to much!). My first thought was that is this really a character that fits in the Warhammer world, but I guess it could. So I want to ask you guys if you have any suggestion on how to do that. I am thinking he would work for the Empire in some way because I think I want to have the players to be good guys…

What career do you think fits most to an assassins? Or maybe there is one…? I own the core rules but I would be happy to buy an expansion if it includes a career more suitable.

Cards can be limiting if you concentrate on them too much. It's better to look at them as special triakcs the characters are extra good at, but they're not charactrer defining. Using the "Perform A Stunt" card, a character can attempt ANYTHING.

And by the way, when it comes to cards being a hassle: Be sure that everyone only got the Basic Action Cards they can use. The player doesn't have a shield? No reason for him to have the Block card. The character has AG2? No reason to have the Dodge card etc. In addition, when I'm a player, I make sure to divide the cards into small stacks or different use. Attacks in one stack, defensive reactions in one stack and attacks in another one. Makes it easier to keep track of.

As for assassin: There actually is an assassin career. But it's an Advanced career, so the player shouldn't expect to just start out as an actual competent assassin. Same as you can't start as a Knight or a Wizard. Thief is probably the most natural place to begin, but being in the employ of the Empire, Agent is a very good fit from a story perspective.

Edit: He could start as a Thief. During the adventures he becomes employed by the Empire/Some Noble and transitions into Agent. Then he could go on to the Assassin career. Or skip Agent and go right to Assassin.

Edit2: Oh, and if you're wondering what expensions you want to get in order to get specific careers etc, refer to this: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/wfrp/support/FAQ-9-2011/WFRP_Component_List_9-8-11.pdf

Actually, the Perform a stunt card came up but we did not really understood how that shall be used? The player wanted to do a cool attack by jumping of a horse and swinging his sword at the ungor. Is the card ment to be used as an action with agility for example and if that is sucessful, another check is made with the Melee card? How would you play out that scene, what actions would you use and what misfortune/fortune dice would you have added.

Thank you very much for the help with the assassin! That is perfect, to start out as a "wannebe" assassins and working him up to a professional

The "Perform A Stunt" card is mostly there to remind players that they can just make something up. In the example you mentioned, it could be done in different ways, but I'd generally reccomend trying to condense everything down to one roll. This allmost allways leads to a smoother game.

One other thing worth mentioning when it comes to doing thing "differently", is to remember to consider the Attribute-Skill connection listed in the rules as SUGGESTIONS, not hard rules. If you look through the Action Cards, you'll find stuff like "Weapon Skill(Fel) VS Target Defense", "Weapon Skill(Ag) vs Target Defense" and "Intimidate(Fel)". Even though both Weapon Skill and Intimidate are listed as STRENGTH skills on the character sheets and rulebooks.
If a character uses a skill in an unusal way (usually a way that's more fitting to his character) consider what Attribute actually fits the skill test instead of what the rules say.
Examples:

*A Student of law that cites laws in order to pressure someone into doing or not doing something: Intimidate(Int) (Add Fortune dice for specialisation in Law)
*A Pit Fighter that pulls off his shirt and does some stretches and poses to show off his physique to some swooning female spectators: Charm(St)
*A Troll Slayer in a bar fight picks up a large table and hurls it at a group of attackers: Ballistic Skill(St)
*A Thief enters a house during the day and hides in a closet until nightfall: Stealth(Wp)
*A character jumps off his horse while attacking an enemy: Weapon Skill(Agility) (Fortune Dice for appropriate Riding specialisations)

These are the sort of things where you can consider using the Perform a Stunt card. Or you can just make it a straight skill test.

andersb25 said:

Thank you very much for the help with the assassin! That is perfect, to start out as a "wannebe" assassins and working him up to a professional

Yeah, Assassins in WFRP seem to be greatly esteemed and respected and so it's definitely the sort of title that someone would aspire to, rather than expect to start out as. This actually doesn't come across in much of the background, but probably has it roots in the first ed. system, where Assassin was the best career you could get (as far as enhancing your combat skills) because of its 4 Attacks.

I love scenarios!!

Ok first is that there is no right or wrong way of doing it, its all about what feels right. Key rule is the rule of YES so the response in this situation should most definitly adhere to that rule.

I find its usually best to break it down into the sum of its part but still come up with a single roll of the dice. Another words, you dont want to make multiple checks because this would make things too complicated and take too long.

First thing to note when using the perform action card as an attack, compare it to the basic melee attack. Its not a coincidence that the the basic melee action card and the perform a stunt card use similiar mechanics, have the same recharge and offer a free manoevre.

So you do want to use the Perform Action Card.

Building the Dice Pool

We use the standard Agility Characteristic for this one, since this is more a test of acrobatics than of strength. For the skill I would use Ride instead of melee attack because the act of riding the horse, controling/cordinating the horse and jumping off the horse have more to do with the attack than their weapon skill. I would require that this attack takes up his free manovere and action as well, hence if he wants to perform additional manoeuvre it would cost fatigue.

The challenge here is 1 for the base and I would say 1 extra for the complex attack (so 2d). I would say because of the fact that he is working with an animal that may throw the gears of fate of the tracks he recieves 1 misfortune for the check to represent the animals potential impact on the situation.

If successful with 1 hit he does normal damage using strength as the base, after all, its still a melee attack it just takes agility to pull off the action.

If he gets 3 hammers/hits its +2 damage as per the melee strike action.

I would use the boons and skulls as written on the perform stunt card, since it makes sense.

If he gets a commet I would probobly create a narrative sitution like "You land your blow with fury, knocking the opponent off his feet, as your horse tramples one of his allies". I would deal an arbitrary amount of damage the horse might do like 5 damage to the henchmen group.

If he gets a chaos star I would cause him 1 wound for a hard landing, if he fails the action I would turn it into a critical wound.

The basic idea here is to play with it.. make it cool but maintain the "single check" idea to keep the game from falling into dreaded tactical combat territory.

andersb25 said:

There's a dichotomy at work in the game where you want players to use their imagination as much as possible and come up with exciting and entertaining stuff, but otoh you must pay for set Actions with hard-earned experience.

Therefore, you don't want to be so generous with improvised actions that players stop wanting to buy the presets, and you don't want to be so strict that they are afraid to try new stuff.

I guess it would depend on the flavour of your game, and how generous you are generally. Also, reasonable players will be able to chat about it and you can decide between you what sort of penalties and bonuses might work, as you go along.

In the above example I'd probably split the move into a move action and a melee action. So make the player roll an Athletics check for the jump at say Difficulty 2, and add white or black dice for other circumstances (is it his horse, is it raining, is it dark, etc). A CS with a failure would probably mean the PC messes it up and falls to the ground and takes a wound or a crit. If he succeeded then I'd let him choose any of his normal melee Actions to hit the Ungor. For any extra successes or pairs of boons the player got with the Athletics roll, I'd let him buy circumstantial advantages (eg, the horse breaks free of his tether so is ready to ride off the next round if the PC needs to), or just convert them straight to white dice for the attack roll (eg, the jump was so cool the player is in the perfect position to land a blow). Similarly, for pairs of banes, I'd make up some circumstances to restrict the player a bit (eg, it was a cool move and the PC landed perfectly on the horse, but is facing the horse's tail!), or give them as black dice to the melee check (eg, he made the jump but is slightly off balance as he swings his weapon).