Hi, I've had a copy of WFRPG 3rd since it was launched, but I've only just got round to having time to play it. Since the base set is for 3 players and the GM, which one of the expansions should I get so I can add more players? Should I be looking at the Player's Vault or the Adventurer's Toolkit?

Once I get my game going, what other expansions would you recommend? I'm not so keen on pre made adventures. I prefer to make my own.

Thank you

First of all, get the Adventurers Toolkit. It has equipment for adding another player plus some more careers that should have been in the Core set.

Then, you should get the GM toolkit probably. It is a nice addition that rounds out and completes the Core set.

Then, start looking at the four major expansion boxes and buy whichever you feel is most relevant for you players, gaming style and adventure themes:
Winds Of Magic: More mage rules and rules for Mutations and Corruption.
Signs Of Faith: More priest rules and rules for Diseases.
Omens Of War: More combat rules, rules for mounts and rules for permanent injuries (severed limbs etc)
Lure Of Power: More social rules, rules for organisations and rules for social tiers.

Thanks, that's really helpful.

So, next question: Do the advances you get in character gen count towards the career advances? I'm referring to the ones you get from the Wealth chart.

Deathlyphil said:

No, they don't.

(I back the advice on the Adventurer’s Toolkit - but beware that some careers like the Ironbreaker might be overpowered for a starting career. You might want to think about offering these as rank 2 / intermediate careers that characters can transition to.)

How can you add more players? Your players will be more participatory if they have something to look at. Our group prefers the PLAYERS GUIDE. We keep an extra copy at the table and everyone has the PDF (do they still sell that?). It has all the careers, rules and action card definitions in it that the players could want (including adventurer's toolkit ones).

Advances? HOUSE RULE: supposedly if you start with your skills trained, you don't get the free specializations when you "complete your first career." We always thought that rule was ill-thought (retarded actually) and only designed to force people to buy another core set (before we had the option of /not/ always using cards), so we ditched it.

Other comments:

I highly recommend that you look at the complete set of Pre-Generated characters in Liber Fanatica 7. LIbar Fanatica 8 has an expanded equipment list (and this other document hass expanded even further). The official basic actions summary sheet eliminates the need for a whole lot of extra crap for larger groups (we universally use this sheet or it's equal summary instead of having yet another stack of cards).

Extra dice (about 4 packs and/or the iphone app), expanded equipment list, and the Players Guide have been the most important things to expanding the game for our group (if I had to choose) AND REDUCE TABLE SPACE. These things don't require a bunch of house ruling either and you can expand your GM's-side of the screen by picking up the other boxed sets (or GM's Guide)

jh

You can play this game without cards (I know, hard to conceive , but that's why FFG put out the Guides and the "write your stuff down" pages. Of course they went overboard on their character sheet, but it's a start once you're ready to put some of your "lose-able" stuff back in the box. On that same topic, we keep our "loose" cards in card-album-sheets (since you're either in conservative or reckless stance anyways flipping doesn't matter).

jh

Just want to point out that the core set really allows for as many players as you want as long as you have a photocopy machine available. I mean the difference between holding a card in your hand and having a copy of all your cards lined up on a piece of paper doesn't alter the mechanic and some even prefer it as it keeps them nice and neat in front of them.

In terms of things that are great for speeding up the game and or making it easier to run as a GM and/or player I found the following things extremely useful.

1. Creature Vault: The ability to construct encounters with a deck of cards is extremely useful to me. I find that when Im preparing my games I get it done in half the time compared to just using the book which coincidently is quite good for the lore and descriptions, but as a reference for creating encounters its absolutly awful. I have a love hate relationship with that book because I find the information about monsters extremely useful, but its organizations of powers/abilities and stats absolutly atrocious. The monster vault combined with the creature guide book however make for an extremely useful combination.

2. I found the players guide to be extremly useful. While the core book covers all the important rules, its nice to have a book that covers all the extended stuff rather than looking it the the scattered rules acorss the various expansion specific books.

3. I personally find the GM Guide to be very useful as well at least in terms of "getting your head around" how the design wants you to play the game. I had to throw out a lot of pre-conceptions out the door when I started playing this game.

The one thing I find difficult about running WFRP is table organization when running combat encounters. While I have tried various apps like Map Tools and Fantasy Grounds to help organize it electronically, ultimatly I decided to write my own application. In particular I find tracking the various recharges of action cards of my monsters, their health and other stats very unwieldy with the components, in particular in bigger fights. I will probobly release my application when its done.