Liking the campaign so far! We're moving along at a good clip which is nice.
I personally like the randomness and crazyiness that criticals and bring to a game, but I'll defer to the majority.
I am definitely enjoying the campaign so far, and I'd love to play The Enemy Within, having heard good things about it for years!
I'm not in favour of critical hits and fumbles outside of combat but fine with majority vote, whichever way.
Liking the campaign! I put down some background elements for Adelaida in my last post.
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One of the interesting ideas in Warhammer Fantasy RPG is to give XP points for role-playing your character well. You all are doing a great job with your characters so everyone gets +10 XP for role-playing excellence.
Another way to get XP is to have fun playing the game. It seems like everyone is having fun and I know I'm having a blast running the game for ya'll. So everyone gets +25 XP for having fun
Yay! Landolf never quite made it as far as getting XP during his last game. XP recorded and spent!
If anyone cares to look, I've made an XP detail spoiler on Landolf's character sheet to help me keep everything straight. I imagine as things go on it will be really hard to correct any errors.
For our GM: Landolf is missing some Wounds. Did we 'rest' sufficiently in prison for him to make a recovery check?
Also, he spent one Fortune earlier. The rulebook says that Fortune is recorded at the beginning of each game session, but we don't really have game sessions here. How are we going to handle that?
Woo!
Spending 25xp on +1 Str. Hits the all important Str40!
spending 75 XP for +3 Toughness (38 total)
Excellent!
With 55xp, I'll spend 50xp for +2 to Toughness (now 39).
150xp spent
5xp left
I updated my Wounds to reflect Talther's attributes increasing during character creation. He now has 12.
Just to confirm, is there any noble house that would make for an especially plot-helpful or plot-unhelpful choice for Talther's former employer?
Yay! Landolf never quite made it as far as getting XP during his last game. XP recorded and spent!
If anyone cares to look, I've made an XP detail spoiler on Landolf's character sheet to help me keep everything straight. I imagine as things go on it will be really hard to correct any errors.
For our GM: Landolf is missing some Wounds. Did we 'rest' sufficiently in prison for him to make a recovery check?
Also, he spent one Fortune earlier. The rulebook says that Fortune is recorded at the beginning of each game session, but we don't really have game sessions here. How are we going to handle that?
Rest in the cell would have been difficult considering how many people were packed together.
Normally, without medical attention, you can attempt an Average (+20) Endurance Test after a good sleep once a day. You Heal Wounds equal to the SL + your Toughness Bonus. For each day you spend taking it easy, you also heal an extra number of Wounds equal to your Toughness Bonus.
Considering the circumstances, attempt a Challenging (+0) Endurance Test.
I do think it's very reasonable to assume that the riot and it's immediate aftermath would be a gaming session so go ahead and reset your Fortune points.
Excellent!
With 55xp, I'll spend 50xp for +2 to Toughness (now 39).
150xp spent
5xp leftI updated my Wounds to reflect Talther's attributes increasing during character creation. He now has 12.
** spoiler omitted **
The current graf, Brynich Aschaffenberg, is an ambitious man with many heirs. In recent years he has secured for his eldest son, Tobias, the prestigious position of Margrave of the Grey Lady Pass. He also negotiated a marriage between his second son, Rickard, and Ludmilla von Bruner, Graf Steirlich’s only daughter. This planned union is an impressive feat given the historic tensions between the two noble households. Not long ago, Byrnich returned to the duchy from his manor in Ubersreik after the Emperor removed his erstwhile allies, the Jungfreuds, from power.
Aschaffenberg works for me!
Talther quit but on reasonably decent terms. No vendettas, that he knows of.
So do we get the watch starting gear?
Lol yeah. Hoping that we don't have to take up guard duty with clothes and a dagger for equipment.
The sergeant will take care of getting you all set up with Watch equipment. I wanted to give Adelaida a chance to respond to the Captain before introducing the sergeant to the group.
I've been looking at various career options for Landolf, and I think I've settled down to a manageable number of options:
* Seaman: I'm fairly satisfied with Seaman overall, but there are two caveats. First, I'm not sure that the skills will be very germane to this campaign. Seaman spends a lot of real estate on ship stuff, and if we're going to barely look at boats then it doesn't make too much sense to stay in it. The second consideration has to do with this Watch business. I'm not sure the campaign is meant to have involvement in the Watch twist all of our career paths around, but it doesn't seem like Landolf can expect to continue training as a Seaman the way things are going right now.
* Noble: this option seems like it has to stay on the table just because Landolf is noble blooded, and not everyone can say that. It shares a Watch problem with Seaman, however. Especially with Captain Pfeffer's attitude toward nobility among the Watch, training in this career doesn't seem viable at the moment.
* Duellist: if I need to look for something more Watch-like for longer term use, Duellist seems like a way to become stay Noble-adjacent while still working within the system. I think Landolf would do very well here.
* Spy: going this route would depend a lot on the direction of the campaign going forward, and especially if I moved into Spy right after Landsman, it would leave Landolf at a very poor level of combat efficiency for a long time. It looks like a cool enough career path though.
Fortunately, we have a bit of time to make decisions on this stuff. And from a meta perspective, the story might allow us to start working on clearing our names and resuming a normal non-Watch career progression pretty soon. This is the general outline of what I'm thinking though.
For the GM: one thing that the rulebook didn't seem to cover directly was the prospect of returning to a Career that you had left at one point. If Landolf completed Landsman, for instance, went to Duelist for a while and then decided to go back to the Seaman career path...would he have to start over at Landsman? I guess it wouldn't take very long to progress since he had finished that career level once before.
Do I understand this correctly...
You currently have the Class Riverfolk, the Career Seaman and Level 1 of the Career Path of Landsman and considering changing both Class and Career. Changing to Class Courtier, Career Duelist, Level Fencer would cost 200 XP because of the change in Class.
I do think if Landolf wanted to throw off his attempt of living an average life and embrace his noble heritage it shouldn't cost the extra 100 XP typical of a Class change since you're embracing what you already are.
Once you've completed Fencer if you want to change Class again back to Seaman I think you should only have to pay 100 XP and would have a choice of going back to Landsman or going to Level 2 Seaman (which is confusingly also called Seaman so I guess you'd be Seaman Seaman).
If you finish Fencer and now want to become a Witch Hunter that'd be 200 XP again and you'd have to start at Level 1 of Witch Hunter.
Does that make any sense?
To see if I got this: our leather jack doesn’t add any armor, and we can have 2 weapons?
Valghaz will take a club and a hammer. The former for “peaceful arrests” and the latter for trips to Morr.
I misunderstood what a Leather Jack was. It is in fact armor as some of you pointed out.. Sorry about that. It provides 1 Armor Point (AP) to arms and body.
For my career planning, I wouldn't call anything an actual plan yet. I'm waiting to see how things shake out.
As far as XP costs go, if we're planning to use the Endeavor subsystem there's a Change Career Endeavor that could help.
It's time to start thinking about Motivation (if you haven't already). Remember all characters should choose a Motivation. It represents your Character’s core essence, a word or phrase that sums up what you live for. In addition to the obvious roleplaying benefits for portraying your character, Motivation is used to help you regain Resolve points. When considering your Motivation, think of something that is fundamental to your character’s nature. Also try to make your Motivation something fun to roleplay, and something that will work well with the other PCs and their motivations.
Example: Clotilda, a Reiksguard Knight, has ‘Protect the weak’ as her Motivation. She is driven to stand up to bullies and braggarts, risking life and limb to save the Reikland’s citizenry. Clotilda will regain her Resolve whenever she rescues others, or puts herself in harm’s way to protect another.
Example: Ebba is a ‘Rebellious’ apprentice wizard studying at the Light College. She loves to break the rules of the College, flaunting her master’s authority, and poking her nose into books best left undisturbed. She regains Resolve whenever she breaks the rules set for her by superiors.
Other examples of potential motivations include: a ‘Perfectionist’, who loves to plan meticulously and draws energy from flawless execution of schemes; a ‘Nurturer’, who gains strength from caring for others, or rescuing them from difficult situations; a ‘Penitent Martyr’, who revels in hardship to atone for past misdeeds; or a ‘Shining Wit’, who’s ever engaging in witty badinage and banter to lighten the mood.
Motivation is different than Ambitions (which is the next topic)
Would "ambitious" be a good Motivation? Talther wants to make something of himself, become a Man of Importance.
For a more specific take, it could be that he is "relentlessly ambitious", always seeking ways to improve his standing and situation.
Would "ambitious" be a good Motivation? Talther wants to make something of himself, become a Man of Importance.
For a more specific take, it could be that he is "relentlessly ambitious", always seeking ways to improve his standing and situation.
I think Ambitious is a very good motivation. It'd drive Talther to be recognized and promoted by his boss for example.
AmbitionsAubster's note to the group: I think this is a concept that Warhammer did really well.
Ambitions are a Character’s goals in life – what they want to achieve. All characters have both a Short-Term and Long-Term Ambition. Aubster's note to the group: Short-term Ambitions should be something doable considering your current circumstances. This may require a different Short-term Ambition than what you originally had. Achieving these gives you XP so there is a real benefit in picking something doable. The same is true of party Ambitions, decide as a group what a good party ambition would be...extra XP for everyone when it's achieved!
Short-term Ambitions
Short-term Ambitions represent your immediate goals. They are outcomes you wish to achieve within days and weeks, possibly sooner. Under normal circumstances, a short-term Ambition should take at least two or three sessions to complete.
Example short-term Ambitions include:
• Ruining the reputation of a romantic rival.
• Avenging a fallen comrade.
• Befriending a reclusive scholar.
Long-term Ambitions
Long-term Ambitions are goals you will need to work on for months or years to complete, and may never be achieved at all, perhaps taken more as a description of a primary motivation in your life than a realistic outcome.
Examples of long-term Ambitions include:
• Owning your own coaching inn.
• Building your village into a thriving town.
• Ridding the Colleges of Magic of Elven influence.
Achieving Your Ambitions
If you achieve your short-term Ambition, you will receive a bonus of +50 XP, and can choose a new short-term Ambition at the end of the session. If you achieve your long-term Ambition, you may either:
• Receive a bonus of +500 XP and choose a new long-term Ambition at the end of the session.
• Retire your Character — who becomes an NPC under your GM’s control — and gain a bonus of half your earned XP of your current character to spend on your next character.
Party Ambitions
All players in your group should also discuss what your collective goals are, and then choose a short-term and long-term party Ambition. Much like your personal Ambitions, party Ambitions can be changed between sessions.
Short-term Party Ambitions
Short-term party Ambitions have the same scope as your personal short-term Ambitions but are for the whole group. Your personal Ambitions should never be the same as your party Ambitions, but there is no reason they can’t complement each other.
Examples of short-term party Ambitions include:
• Outwitting a rival group, securing a job at their loss.
• Hunting down the killer of a lost party member.
• Impressing your patron by completely succeeding in an appointed task.
Long-term Party Ambitions
Much like short-term party Ambitions, long-term Party Ambitions work like your personal Ambitions, and can be just as wide in scope, but are for your entire group.
Examples of long-term Party Ambitions include:
• Eradicate an Empire-wide Chaos Cult.
• Build a castle.
• Become Heroes of the Empire, each earning an Imperial Cross for bravery, pinned on your chests by the Emperor himself!
Achieving your Party Ambitions
If your party achieves its short-term Ambition, each member receives +50 XP, and you can all select a new Ambition for the party at the end of the session.
If your party achieves its long-term Party Ambition:
• All players receive a bonus of +500 XP, and the party chooses a new long-term Ambition at the end of the session.
• As many players as wish to do so can retire their Characters — who become NPCs under the GM’s control; those who do gain a bonus of half the XP of their current Character to spend on their next Character.
Valghaz is fairly traditional. He wants to social standing and respect back home in his Karak. It is his dream to get married, settle down, and eventually be a long-bearded elder respected for his skill and craft.
According to Stone and Steel, dwarfs have a population imbalance where there are more women that men, and not all women marry. This means that many Dwarven men never marry. And for those who do, it can be polygamous, where one woman has more than one husband (most common in warrior clans where an early death is likely).
Thus for him to achieve this dream, he has to return home with enough gold to be respected. And he has to come back with enough honor for his clan to be proud of him, so that the elders can help arrange a suitable marriage. The section on marriage in Stone and Steel makes it clear that marriages aren’t purely arranged as the woman has the final say, but to even be a suitor you need Clan backing.
So, to answer both questions. His motivation is tradition, as it is through that light that he builds his self-image and sense of worth. And his goals are explained above.
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Valghaz is fairly traditional. He wants to social standing and respect back home in his Karak. It is his dream to get married, settle down, and eventually be a long-bearded elder respected for his skill and craft.
According to Stone and Steel, dwarfs have a population imbalance where there are more women that men, and not all women marry. This means that many Dwarven men never marry. And for those who do, it can be polygamous, where one woman has more than one husband (most common in warrior clans where an early death is likely).
Thus for him to achieve this dream, he has to return home with enough gold to be respected. And he has to come back with enough honor for his clan to be proud of him, so that the elders can help arrange a suitable marriage. The section on marriage in Stone and Steel makes it clear that marriages aren’t purely arranged as the woman has the final say, but to even be a suitor you need Clan backing.
So, to answer both questions. His motivation is tradition, as it is through that light that he builds his self-image and sense of worth. And his goals are explained above.
I do love Fiddler!
I get your Motivation...Tradition (which is another great song from Fiddler). So when you do something in the best Tradition of the Dwarfs you regain Resolve.
I get your long term Ambition - get gold, win respect, get married and that makes a lot of sense.
I don't know what your short term Ambition is though. Something that can be accomplished soon. A suggestion is to get released from the Watch obligation since that's standing in the way of your long term ambition and it's definitely not a traditional Dwarven thing...if fact, Valghaz may be the first dwarf watchman in Ubersreik history.
I see that you too are a man of culture.
Your post ninja’d mine. But I like your idea on the short term goal, and will add it to my profile.
I see that you too are a man of culture.
Your post ninja’d mine. But I like your idea on the short term goal, and will add it to my profile.
Is Stone and Steel that you mentioned the Warhammer Chronicles Omnibus? If so, it's my next book to read after I finish the Thanquol and Boneripper Omnibus. The cranky dwarf on the cover of Stone and Steel is staring at me as I type this :) - probably quite annoyed that I am reading a Skaven book first.
I had a notion for Talther avenging a fallen friend but it isn't gelling for me.
How about this for a short-term ambition: use his stint in the watch to propel him to greater status?
Stone and Steel was a supplement for WFRP 1st edition. A lot of it is out dated, but it is is the fullest description of Dwarven culture and society every released by GW
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I had a notion for Talther avenging a fallen friend but it isn't gelling for me.
How about this for a short-term ambition: use his stint in the watch to propel him to greater status?
That’ll work. If the campaign goes as expected Talther could have an opportunity to move up in the world.
It's a change from my prior writeup of Landolf, but I'd like to pick Discover for his motivation, including going to new locales as well as learning surprising new things.
His long-term ambition would be to get a ship of his own.
It sort of messes with possible short term ambitions for characters, but I'd suggest a Party short term ambition of clearing our names. Or can we have ambitions that are shared between character & party?
I don't think we know each other well enough yet to choose a Party long term ambition.
It's a change from my prior writeup of Landolf, but I'd like to pick Discover for his motivation, including going to new locales as well as learning surprising new things.
His long-term ambition would be to get a ship of his own.
It sort of messes with possible short term ambitions for characters, but I'd suggest a Party short term ambition of clearing our names. Or can we have ambitions that are shared between character & party?
I don't think we know each other well enough yet to choose a Party long term ambition.
Discover is a good motivation.
From the giant wall of text above:
Short-term party Ambitions have the same scope as your personal short-term Ambitions but are for the whole group. Your personal Ambitions should never be the same as your party Ambitions, but there is no reason they can’t complement each other.
There’s no reason why 1 ambition couldn’t be clear your names by exposing who was behind the whole thing and the second be find and arrest the crossbow shooter.
Real life will be interfering with gaming tomorrow so it’ll likely be tomorrow night before I can respond to anything.
Could these two works?
Short term ambition: Becoming Sergeant of the guard (or "visiting her mom's tomb once a month")
Long term ambition: defend the town from a major threat (internal or external)
Motivation: loyalty to the Empire
Aubren is absent for most of today, but we can probably still carry on some discussion about Party ambitions.
I'm liking "Clear our Names" as a short-term party ambition. Does anyone have objections or alternate ideas?
I don't have any ideas yet for a long-term party ambition, so if anyone can think of one, let us know!
I think "clear our name" is an obvious but worthwhile party ambition.
Long term ambition..."Bringing peace to the town"? (or "peace in the world"? ^^)
Ok , how about
short-term ambition: Survive a week in the Watch!
long-term ambition: Obtain recognition from superiors for abilities.
Long Term Goal: Free Arianka, the goddess of order, from her prison beneath Praag. That seems doable, right?
All joking aside, I think it is too early for a long term goal. Instead as a short term, I think getting the watch to decide that we don’t need a babysitter is good enough. It means earning some trust, and is a concrete step on the road to bigger goals.
"Gain the trust of the Watch" sounds like a good short-term party goal. It's more immediate & something we can obviously work toward. Clearing our names isn't the sort of thing we can just choose to make progress on without help from the scenario/plot.
Is everone OK with that?
I think that obtaining recognition is more like a short-term goal than long. I was initially dismissive of the 'bringing peace to the city' idea, but if we read that as resolving the tensions with Altdorf, that would make sense. I'm not sure that all of our characters would care about that ambition yet, but maybe it is OK if (as players) we are confident that our characters will come to care about it.
Excellent!
Talther's short-term ambition: use his stint in the watch to propel him to greater status.
I'm in favour of the party short-term ambition being "Gain the Trust of the Watch". It's a challenge but for a group of our talents, it should surely be doable.
Could these two works?
Short term ambition: Becoming Sergeant of the guard (or "visiting her mom's tomb once a month")
Long term ambition: defend the town from a major threat (internal or external)
Motivation: loyalty to the Empire
I think that making a trip to Altdorf to visit her mom's tomb is probably a better short term ambition, as in more doable in the short term.
Long term ambition is good
Motivation is great and really seems to define Adelaida.
Ok , how about
short-term ambition: Survive a week in the Watch!
long-term ambition: Obtain recognition from superiors for abilities.
I think that short term goal maybe a bit too easy. How about serve your first week without picking up a permanent scar?
Long term how about obtaining recognition and promotion to Captain of the Watch? The long term goal should be something big enough that your character could consider his career goal fulfilled and retire?
Let me know if I missed ayone's ambitions? I'm completely brain-dead. The best thing about being a semi-retired consultant is being mostly retired and the worse thing is that sometimes people hire you to do consulting work. I've been stuck in meetings all day :(
I'm happy enough with the personal ambitions I mentioned earlier for Landolf: clearing his name for short term and getting a ship of his own for long term.
Entered on the character sheet.
I'm happy enough with the personal ambitions I mentioned earlier for Landolf: clearing his name for short term and getting a ship of his own for long term.
Entered on the character sheet.
That’s perfect. You’ll have to remind me when you complete an Ambition so you can get those tasty XPs.
GM. I know that dwarfs only get base 10 Fel. But could I petition a +10 bonus when speaking to other dwarfs? It seems to me that dawi should have average Fel when communicating within the confines of their own culture. But when speaking with anyone else, their gruff nature and intransigence would cause the lower Fel.
For me, Adelaida's mom died and is buried in Ubersreik.
With cold eyes glaring with a fiery anger, Adelaida answers
I was on a leave to bury my dead mother, judge, and today was my first day back on my unit. I'm sure my superiors will corroborate this fact. Hence my longer hair than authorised by the army's rule. It is the custom of my mother's people, back in Brittania, to let you hair grow while you mourn, and to cut them short when they die. So I was going back to my barracks, slowly, wandering a little in my ol" mom favorites streets. I knew she loved the joyous MarkPlatz, so that's why I was there. She took all the risks to bring me into the Empire, when I was just a baby, to assure I could do whatever I wanted to, instead of being a subservient citizen for all my life. I couldn't have become a soldier in Brittania, judge, just because I am a woman. And because I am a soldier, because I'm proud to wear the Altdorf uniform, because I swore to protect the lands, people WHATEVER THEIR POLITICAL OPINIONS MAY BE OR HOW STUPID THEY MIGHT BE, and the buildings, belongings and properties of the Empire, I joined the fight to protect my fellows soldiers, and I used reasonable force against those who attacked me, never drawing my sword.
That's another incentive for her to protect the town.