Whether you want to use pregenerated professional adventures or make your own is up to you. Generally it is better to start with pregenerated adventures. Even if you are an experienced game master, these adventure help you a lot to get a feel for the world. Pregenerated adventures however have some disadvantages: First of all, you must transport an idea that was thought out by someone else and probably you do not find it 100% convincing. (more…)

Game mastering could be so much fun, if it weren’t for the players. In a worst case scenario they can ruin everything you have planned and plotted in many sleepless nights. They of course come in many flavours, so you may have good luck with your players.

Many people try to categorise the types of players (e.g. the rules lawyer, the munchkin, etc.). Although such categories have a certain entertaining value, they are of little use in my view. Reality is more complex than categorising theory. Most players will show one trait or the other, very much depending on the circumstances. Therefore I have only detailed certain characteristics and I have restricted to the negative ones, that may cause you problems. (more…)

During a trip to Prague I was lucky to film this musketeers on the Old Town Square. I thought it is worth sharing the film with you

Starting a session should begin with repeating what happened last time. This is vital, if you do not play regularly. But I always thought that it is the best starter into the scenario. The repeat can be done by you or the players. In my view the best is that the GM starts with some basic information like “after you have left the village two days ago, your way took you higher into the mountains…”. (more…)

This is some kind of OT but I thought I’ll share with you.  When reading stuff like that I really ask myself how nuts fanboys (in this case WoW) can go:

http://www.shipmentoffail.com/fails/2008/08/naming-fail/

Very difficult issue. Honestly I cheat whenever possible. Either as a gamer or as a GM. You give me a dice I will do whatever is necessary to manipulate the result (if you pretend to have problems with arithmetic it helps a lot). I guess most, if not all, GMs have manipulated results in one way or the other. Your powerful necromancer awaits the PCs and his first attack is a really bad fumble to which the rulebook says that the NPC has dislocated his arm and went unconscious. This rarely happens. Your archvillian should appear as an archvillian and not as a member of the Marx Brothers.
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Coat of arms are used by the Knights of the Old world to identify themselves. One man in armour looks a lot like another, so the coat of arms is used to identify knights in a battle. In a society where few people are able to read and write, pictures are very important. Therefore a coat of arms is more like a label for instant identification than it is a painting. From the Bretonnian Knights and the Imperial Knightly Orders as well as various Imperial noble houses to the rich Merchant-families of Marienburg and Tilea,
the coat of arms are an important instrument of identification in the Old World. Even primitive races like Orks and Goblins use symbols to show their membership of a warband. The origins of the coat of arms are not clear, many scholars believe that the use of signs has its sources in the old civilisations of the Dwarfs and High Elves to identify the troops in battle. The early human barbarians copied the banners and signs of the elder races and over the years they created new signs and symbols. (more…)

There are new downloads in the download-section.

Finally I found some time to write a few words about TimCon. As every year I enjoyed the con a lot. For me it is like coming to a family union every year. You meet people you haven’t seen for a year, chat with them, learn what has changed in their lives and also enjoy playing a few games with them. As there are also always new attendees to TimCon every year so the number of WFRPers from all over the world I know personally grows each year. (more…)

All you need to roleplay is a pen, a sheet of paper and a number of dices. How often have you heard this? I guess quite often. It is of course true, there is nothing else (well except for the rulebook). However most groups use a variety of other tools. The most obvious are miniatures and a cd-player, but believe me there are many many more. What you personally prefer is up to you, the only thing you may want to remember is that people fiddle around with things when they are present. Some like to throw a pen up in the air all the time (like I do), others try to build large miniature pyramids. So much as there tools can help you, so much can they distract the players from playing. (more…)