WFRP Beginner Game - Initial Thoughts

 

I ran the first half of the starter set adventure last night. It was a significant change compared to what we're used to in our ongoing ACKS game.

My first thought is that the system is very fast. Surprisingly so. Everything is resolved with a single d% roll, with nothing to look up. I fumbled a little with how toughness stats are derived, and I found the beginner sheets to be less useful than the normal character sheets. In the future, I might "rebuild" the starter characters onto a normal sheet so we can easily see how things fit together. As it stands, there are no advanced skills, and the math is mysterious in the beginner set.

I was also a little bothered by the linearity of the adventure; it heavily prescribes and assumes the actions of the characters, with zero room for player agency. I have really good, imaginative players, as we've seen from the last YEAR of play in ACKS. If I were to run WFRP as a campaign, I would make every effort to separate the situations from the game's plot so the players can operate autonomously. I'm just not sure what kind of structure I could use for such a thing. I'll probably look into the Call of Cthulu games for tips on running investigations.

To be fair, the adventure as written has lots of room for side quests and intrigue. Because I only planned to play this adventure for 2 weeks, I had to compress the game somewhat to achieve that goal. If we had 4 weeks, I would be free to use all of the supplemental material from the back of the adventure book.

I was also keenly aware of the cognitive load required to operate the game. Lots of NPCs, plotting and roleplaying, to say nothing of keeping up with a brand new system and answering questions. It felt like old times, and my brain is tired as a result. This doesn't bode well for future play, as there are some weeks that I'm completely exhausted by the time D&D comes around, but I'm still able to play because it doesn't take any planning.

XP Advancement Scheme

I loathe GM fiat for XP determination, so I did some googling and found a post on reddit that had some good ideas. Here's what I'll try:

• 100 exp for just showing up
• 0 - 100 exp for roleplaying and having good ideas
• 0 - 100 exp for completing plot points or doing heroics

TOTAL 100 - 300 experience per session, averaging around 150 per gaming session.