Blog Forum StS@TwitterOn Monday, November 3rd 2008 the site will not be available between 12.00 am - 04.00 pm GMT +1 due to maintenance work on the server. Both the blog and the forum will not be online during this time. We appologize in advance for any inconveniences.
Respect is also important. Treat your world with respect. Do not hesitate to kill a NPC, but try to play them as human beings. I have seen more than once that a NPC that followed the party was used as cannon-fodder. No one does this. Except for absolute fanatics and dumbheads no one is willing to sacrifice his live for someone else. Play the NPCs this way. (more…)
The Anglo-Saxons didn’t know role-playing. They didn’t need to; they still did their swordplay and adventuring for real. But they had something similar: the Scop. This was the Old English ancestor of the Minstrel, an oral poet who would sing or tell heroic tales after dinner in the hall of the local lord. If you know Beowulf, you may remember the Scop in Hrothgar’s hall.
Why am I telling you this? Because we as GMs, the very modest modern versions of oral poets, can learn from the Scop. His most important lesson is this: Don’t memorize your poem. The early medieval oral poets (and their descendents in Kyrgyzstan, for instance) can reproduce an epic of several thousand lines, the singing of which will last a whole night. Yet they don’t learn it by heart. Instead, they are trained by their masters to memorize the story, its sequence and its characters. The actual lines of the poem are improvised, using formulaic metric sequences. Hence the oral poets recreate an epic instead of merely reproducing it.
Sewers are an important part of, it seems, every city in the Old World. They do not only transport human waste but also work as places for numberless adventures beneath the streets of human cities. They are a place where rats (both human and animal form) follow their dark business: from smugglers who are using the sewers to conceal their dirty work, beggars that use this stinking places as sleeping places to thieves that wander the sewers to move around in the city unseen. But sewers are of course a place where even worse things hide in the dark. Chaos cultists use sewers as gathering places and there are stories of large, nearly human-sized rats that walk on two legs. (more…)
There is a reason why most of us prefer WFRP’s combat system to Rolemaster’s. It is simple, quick and deadly. In fact, WFRP is probably the best compromise possible between realism and playability. And yet, as straightforward as it seems, running combat poses certain difficulties for a GM. First of all, combat remains the most time-consuming and rule-heavy part of role-playing, even in WFRP. Lots of characteristics, dice rolls and calculations are involved (just think of the rules for Strike to Stun), as well as keeping track of almost every second of game time and the positions and movement of several PCs and NPCs. Thus running a short skirmish between the PCs and a handful of skaven can easily consume half an hour of your playing time. On the other hand, your players may become bored by the sullen routine of attack rolls, dodges and critical hits, because WFRP’s combat system does not seem to present many options. At worst, combat may become a mere game-within-the-game, consisting of dice rolls, maths and munchkin tactics, which has nothing to do with role-playing any more. As a GM, you want to avoid that. The aim of this article is to give you a few ideas of how to keep your players interested in combat.
Coming to the most important aspect of your game mastering: The world itself. The world with all its inhabitants, being it monsters or civilised people, is your medium to the players. They will judge you very much according to the setting and the reactions of the players.
(more…)
Johan. You know, you couldn’ find a braver man. A true hero he was. Held that bridge ‘gainst the onslaught o’ orcs, givin’ those villagers a chance of gettin’ out. That winter, when we were caught in them mountains an’ we thought we were lost, Johan got us out. That day that skeleton woke up from his grave and went walkabout, an’ everyone else fled, Johan stayed behind an’ smashed that that boneman to splinters. A real hero he was, an’ nobody better than you could have wanted at your side. I suppose that’s what makes the whole thing so sad. You see, Johan, despite his strength an’ courage was a real ugly feller. Ugly. An’ all that heroism couldn’ keep him from jumpin’ off that bridge into them waters. I suppose that was his weakness, for all his strength o’ character, he simply didn’ get the respect he deserved on account o’ his face.
Some of you might remember the forum-post where Hallucyon posted a link to the polish translation of Mad Alfreds/Anthony Ragans “Druids and the Old Faith!”-article. When I saw it I got really envious: two polish artists drew a number of pictures for this article that it looked so great that I didn’t know what to say. As I think we cannot withhold this masterpieces of art I asked Hallucyon if we could use the pictures for a revamped english version. So he asked the artists for permission and sent me the pictures. So I souped up the article for WFRP version 2. You can download it here or in the Download-Section. Hope you like it.
Albion! Mysterious island in the Middle Sea and object to many speculations… No part of the Warhammer World has led to more controversy than the lands of Albion. It has changed its background and face more times during the years of its existence, popped in and out of the official GW-canon and suddenly became the place for the prequel of the Storm of Chaos.
Moracai converted the NPC-stats to 2nd edition. They are available as aditional download for the Rising Shadow Campaign in the download-section.
If you use music as a way to create some atmosphere in your game you might possibly like this one. I recently found Radio Rivendell, a webradio station that broadcasts fantasy soundtracks right for your rpg-session. Perhaps you knew this station already but for those who don’t knew it should really give it a try - its really worth it and its absolutely free.
Sooner or later the adventure will lead to a combat. Combat rules should be fully understood, it is the place where flipping through the rulebook destroys most atmosphere. You should make notes of the combat procedures, copy the relevant tables and charts. When combat involves more than one opponent keep a journal. This should include the relevant skills for all opponents, room for notes (like modifiers) and room for projectiles. The last is especially important, since during combat people tend to forget to write down how many arrows or shots have been fired. The PCs may, after combat, search for fired arrows that are intact, but first of all keep note of this. (more…)
What a relief to finally be able to present the first part of the Gathering Darkness campaign (for WFRP first edition).
The Rising Shadow includes a lot of background information, a short introductory adventure, maps, handouts, and pre-generated PCs. I have placed the campaign in the southern Empire (the old Sudenland province before it reunited wth Wissenland) to avoid running into areas where 2nd edition has situated its adventures.
Update (16/10/08 at 2:05)
I realized late yesterday that I forgot to credit the two who helped edited the manuscipt, so I corrected that oversight in the version I just updated. I also had a Table of Contents added. Sorry about the mess up.
Last sunday we made some kind of experiment by starting a mini-wfrp-campaign using the Savage Worlds system. And though I had some initial doubts that it could work I decided to give it a try. And it run to my surprise quite well. Savage Worlds is a relatively easy to learn system that does a lot of things different than the usual stock-rpg. (more…)
FFG has announced a writing-contest in their designers diary. At the moment I’m unsure if I should contribute as the deadline is very near (1st of December). Though I’m that the stuff can become property of FFG as they state on their site. As far as i know all Warhammer-related fan-fiction is already property of Games Workshop. This is called derivative work as the stuff is based on copyrighted material (Warhammer) already owned by Games Workshop. Correct me if I’m wrong but I wonder what GW has to say here…