Well, I ran my second WFRP session on friday night, and it all went well. The players got into the story and I had a lot of fun creating voices and personalities for the numerous NPCs. I even printed up a nice full-colour map of Grunewald manor and grounds, so that the players could see all of the possible locations and systematically visit each to learn what they could of the local mystery. And…they visited about half. And none of the locations containing critical clues.

They managed to get Korgan's hammer and identified that some of the manor's inhabitants are worried about some of the other inhabitants. They discovered the prevalence of drugging, but I decided to be fairly upfront about this as it was clearly being used for medicinal benefits. And that's about it.Now dinner has taken place, one of the PCs succumbed to drugged wine (I changed a few of the plot details around a bit) and another didn't succumb but managed to bring proceedings to a halt by projectile vomiting over the table (2 successes and a chaos star).

The gamist in me says carry on the plot as writ, horrible nasty things happen and the PCs just have to deal with them as best they can.

The narrativist in me realises they've missed out on so much content, I will never run this adventure again (probably) and what is the point of having all those lovely clues and hooks and possibilities if the players just breeze right past them.

I'm in a quandry. I also realised over the weekend that I may well be part of the problem, as I never established a time table or any sense of urgency, so I think they probably used their time to just ingratiate themselves with one or two NPCs and get a general lie of the land, not realising that evil was nigh.

So I'm thinking that I may delay things just a little, so that the chaosy stuff happens perhaps at or just before dawn. The PCs retire to bed, the Initiate of Morr have a premonition of the chaos moon in full wax cracking open like an egg and birthing a demon the minute the first rays of dawn strike it, looking out of the window to see that the chaos moon is indeed full tonight, and thus hopefully kick the PCs into exploring a bit further. Not because I want to give the players a break, but because I want more of the story!

Is this a reasonable middle ground?
How would you approach this issue?
WWSigmarD?!

Sounds reasonable to me. The only thing I might do differently is have the PCs find a clue 'on their way to bed' rather than have a premonition. Premonitions and visions are possible in WFRP, but it does feel a bit Deus ex Machina. Better to have the PCs overhear baddies arguing about not feeding the leftovers to the dogs because they'll be needed throughout the night's 'proceedings' (hint, hint). Or one saying to the other he hopes he's ready for a long and dangerous night ahead of them - just enough to make the players realise something is going on.

I agree with not using supernatural stuff. Late night shenanigans can be fun. Get them back on track with bumps and noises in the night.

While looking for something to settle your stomach, wondering if one of those servant girls would be a bed warmer for you (players may not go after that way but if they were roleplaying well the sort of old world characters one finds they might etc)

For example when I ran it, a PC of mine saw two servants (cultists) carrying an unconscious one (the sacrifice) and questioned them to be told, "had too much to drink, something got to him", which was believed briefly but fed into suspicion.

Great suggestions. I only went with the omen idea because Signs of Faith spent a lot of time stressing how omens were common place and how integral faith was to everything in Warhammer World. Personally I, too, would be more inclined to go with the sorts of things suggested. So I'll give them til dawn, and if they still haven't developed a sense of urgency, well, I did tell them it was probably 50/50 as to whether one or more PCs wouldn't make it…

This said, if you make the Omen less obvious and maybe not only a dream (ie the priest has a dream, sleepwalks to the courtyard, wakes under the full chaos star than gets to make an Observation check to see the doctor picking Schlaff in the garden…), I think it would make the night surnatural, the kind of night where anything can happen…

In DnD, Gods never do anything, I find it very Warhammery to have the Gods intervene once in a while… And the players are usually WOWed too much to notice the Deus Ex Machina.

This said I usually use these after the priest player has taken the initiative, by himself, to pray for guidance or something of the sort… Roll Piety!

A similar thread here has a great answer that solves many player issues with Eye for an Eye. I cant figure out how to link to another page here, but basically, have Lord Aschaffenberg put some heat on them. He hired them, he's paying good money, he expects results. He can call them in and ask about their progress and stuff.