starting TEW this Friday with my Bruges based rpg group. Five of us will be playing biweekly in the 16th century house of one of the players in the centre of medieval Bruges. An apropriate setting.

I deliberately waited (almost) a full year after the campaign release before starting, as I knew the communtiy would pimp the story to its full potential.

As such I feel it is my debt to the communtiy to post sessionreports and musings on the campaign and gameplay in general. A special thanks to Valvorik for his great campaign material is in order, as well as a special thanks to the Reckless crew for their inspiring podcasts.

Introducing the players: a noble pistollier, a criminal roadwarden (wrongfully accused it seems), a battlescarred gravewarden and an apprentice light wizard -all of the pcs were created ad random. Fiday we'll start with a background spin session and will probably play through day 1.

The biggest challenge I think will be the creation of the wizard background. As a member of the Sun Society and the Light Order we'll need to find an acceptable relationship with Mauer. Perhaps the pc travelled to Averheim seeking apprenticeship with Mauer and Mauer refusing to take the pc on. A healthy distance should be kept between the pc and Mauer in my opinion. Further spin is welcome as it'll be difficult to work it out with the player without giving away too much.

As for Averheim: why Mos Shuta and not Averheim?! Last week I bought the Star Wars beginners game to play with my kids and to my astonishment a beautifull full color map of Mosh Shuta was included. Not only the Tatoine town was strikingly drawn, but also maps of the most important adventure locations. Oh I wished TEW designers had done the same. The wfrp 3ed team (if still in existence) should copy the concept in future products.

There's a good averheim map floating around. Its not perfect, but doesn't have to be.

Enjoy!

@Veteres - I think you *should* have the wizard be Mauer's apprentice! I found that having a player with a close relationship to the 3 major NPCs really helps the module along. For example my battle-scarred was told by Beerfast that he is his "under cover" man on the docks and my gently-born is pretty tight with VonKman. Remember that your players have no idea that one of the 3 are a bad guy! And when they do start getting suspicous, you want some "party tension" on mud slinging like "no it ain't 'my' guy" etc. Having a player with a close relationship really helps "selling" the missions from the different perspectives. You can also use it as different information sources - for example the "Mauer" guy might overhear a conversation about Katrina etc. The "VonKman" guy can focus on the blackpowder and the "Beerfast" guy can really be concerned with the criminal organization on the docks. Just because you are an apprentice doesn't mean you know everything about your master!

Finally, a 16th century house as a base of operations for this module...I'm friggin jealous.

Cheers

TEW in Bruges got delayed before it even started. Hence the silence.

20th December the campaign eventually kicked off. In a way...

I opted to run the 1ed scenario With a Little Help from my Friends as a prologue to the new TEW campaign as I had to buy some time to allow for my fourth player to join the game. I threw out the Bretonian gnome (Hercules with the silly Belgian accent) and introduced luminary Mauer as plot trigger.

Mauer is helping his acquaintance Ludwig Orteli to retrieve his young son who was kidnapped by Claudio Carbonetti (the scenario's Tilean connections fit just right in with the Averheim demography as described by Chris Wraight in Swords of the Empire (good stuff i.m.o.)). Still have to decide if this is genuine philanthropy on the part of Mauer or just the BC striking out against competing crime groups and expanding his leverage by means of the player characters.

There is Reiner Rumlinger-Ensenberger (preferably addressed by his humanist name 'Pecalion'). An Averlander by birth, once a promising philosophy student at the Altdorf university but drawn to the winds of magic and currently apprentice to the great luminary Mauer in Averheim of all places (I totally agree with you Grandmartoni big thanks).

Pecalion initially got the assignment to observe the kidnappers hide-out. As all was happening in the disreputable Larswald District he decided to get some back-up from his local friend Heinrich Fleicher (LF7-premade roadwarden pc -another big thanks here). Mauer himself suggested to involve one frau Nemdahl, messenger from the Ostermark League who arrived in town some two days ago and who is at the luminair's disposal for the time being. The anonymous agent would certainly be an asset to the operation.

Last night's session ended with Heinrich climbing onto the roof of the kidnappers hideout at Wendenbahn 17 at night and sneaking into the attic by means of a broken skylight. (Syrinscape's On the Creaky Porch soundscape (part of the Deserted House Set) -was really appreciated by the players tiptoeing around the hideout ). Heinrich managed to finish of the two guards who were sleeping in the first floor bedroom but couldn't help rousing the kidnappers on the ground floor. Now Pecalion and Nemdahl are readying themselves to enter and hopefully rescue the Ortelli child...

We took two sessions to get to this point (6 hours in all) -yes we are taking our time. And why not -it's been great fun. Also, I've dropped the 4 hours play/1 advance rule. I prefer experience (xp) to be plot/achievement based, like in former editions. For finishing the prologue I planned to give the participating players one advance. If they manage to get little Ortelli out ... hmm another one?

Now that I ponder on this I think I prefer to stick with the old directives: 10-100 xp each for quality of planning, 15 xp for each villain incapacitated (105 xp maximum), capturing Claudio alive and handing him over to authorities are worth an extra 20 xp and rescuing the child more or less intact 30 xp each. Every 100 xp so earned would warrant one 3ed advance. But of course, how to consistently reward xp during the rest of the campaign? I hope to consult this fine community on this subject in the future.

Veteres.

Bruges, 30th December.