[WFRP 1st Edn] CSI Altdorf
Gregor Hutton:
Jen is playing an Alchemist's Assistant and Dirk & Cal (the Bounty Hunters) get her to analyse clues they find while trailing criminals.
This week Dirk took the "cremated remains" of his brother Werner to Astrid (Jen's character now has a name!) to find out (a) if it is Werner and (b) if there were any clues to how he died and who killed him. Astrid has the Chemistry skill and access to a lab at the Alchemist's shop, which is the CSI part. As it turned out, though, she was able to tell Dirk that Werner wasn't dead quite easily. He'd faked his own death and had been hiding out in Astrid's attic apartment.
Astrid has also analysed the death threat Dirk got in Week 2, she's sure it was on some sort of magical parchment. Which is half right, it's parchment that's been in close proximity to warpstone. This has caused Dirk to buy a magical protection off Astrid (a pickled newt on a necklace, which while interesting isn't actually any help). The charred remains of that letter also match up with the material at the bottom of the bucket in (the cultist) Wolfgang's room.
Astrid has also (fortunately or unfortunately) mis-prepared a load of gunpowder for a bunch of cultists/anarchists. No good will come of this!
The characters have done a good job in identifying friends and foes, themselves. Their relationship with the City Watch is quite complicated too: Dirk & Cal are basically hated by middle ranked Watchmen, but get on pretty well with the ordinary Watch. They also get on well with the demanding head of the Watch Viktor Roet, though they each make the other's life a misery at times!
I think Wolfgang and his cultists are going to be at odds with the (generally) law-abiding PCs, and at least one of the Noble houses (Middenheim) is going to want them dead after Werner's interference in an arranged noble marriage.
They do have some support though: the Thieves Guild and low-level watchfolk will look out for them, and Bruno at the palace has hooked his success on Werner's potential career as a Minstrel or minor noble.
Gregor Hutton:
And I'm another week behind in catching up with this.
The good news is that we had everyone at the game this week and there were no problems. It was fun. The players who were rubbing each other up the wrong way aren't doing so anymore. It was a social solution rather than anything "game" or "design" wise -- i.e. they voiced their points in the last few weeks to each other and just buckled up when playing the game.
We summarised the last few weeks at the start of the session to get everyone back up to speed, and that did well at getting us all "back in the fiction" and on the same page. It was led by me but others chipped in and explained stuff.
This week I killed off the NPC Alchemist who Jenn's character Astrid works for. I wondered if she would choose Alchemist as her next career, but she has decided to take a break from Alchemy and be a Charlatan at the end of the session.
Of course, it was Skaven who killed the Alchemist after they (mostly off screen, with an occasional flash to them doing stuff under the city) got their not fully effective gunpowder that Astrid poorly made a few sessions ago. They also used it to blow Wolfgang out of the Thieves' Guild and get their Eldritch Tome back. The City Watch Chief now has the Bounty Hunters on a retainer to investigate the sewers.
And the Bounty Hunters have switched careers to Assassins too. They've got the gear and are keeping "Bounty Hunting" as a cover story. They are looking to more lucrative (and dangerous) work. They'll have their work cut out, as they got badly beaten up while seeing off a bunch of Outlaws at the end of the session. They won, but it was a hefty price (and Dirk's Wounds are at 0 at the moment.)
The Outlaw attack was as a result of Werner's continued busking and his meddling with the nobles. He's also got an Outlaw girlfriend these days, Karoline, who wishes to be a Highwayman. (They met when her boss kidnapped Werner.)
So the "party" has quite identifiable characters within it now (we all sort of know what each character will do in a situation) and the "opposition" to them all is lining up nicely too (the Middenheim noble house, the Skaven/Warpstone cultists, some of the City Watch).
Gregor Hutton:
Real brief update (sorry have to run).
After a week off while I was in Dublin (more on that later) we were back yesterday. At the last minute the venue changed owing to the university being awkward. Anyway, it meant Cal missed the game. D'oh.
Highlights this week were the party facing up to a swarm of rats and 5 Skaven in a sewer at the end of the session. They polished off the Skaven pretty handily and Dirk caught one, alive, in a net. An etxra 100 XP to everyone.
Oh, and earlier on his brother Werner was a willing accomplice to a theft at an expensive gun shop -- so Werner the minstrel and his prospective-Highway girlfriend both now have duelling pistols.
Ron Edwards:
Hey Gregor,
What are your thoughts on the combat system? Particularly if you put aside all nostalgia and associations based on long-ago reading and play of the game. Given a cold, hard, analytical view from today, what does it do and how well does it work?
Best, Ron
Gregor Hutton:
Damn, where did the last ten days go.
Just to say that I have a (growing) text file on my desktop going through Combat in WFRP and I'll get around to putting it up soon.
Short version (as I was relating to Joe Prince this week over a cup of tea) is: the combat system is really a problem. No opposed rolls. Too wide a range of damage coming from the D6 damage roll. Crits tip quickly into Death. Big whiff factor for even competent combatants. That's partially "fixed" by increasing the number of attacks, but that brings in its own problems. Difficult for the GM to have a balanced or nuanced threat. It's a crap shoot unless you overload the enemies to ensure a clear advantage. Fate points feel great except that you only seem to use them when the GM accidentally smashes your brains in.
We had some more fights this week (on purpose) and our first Fate Points got used. I cranked up the opposition and kept pouring it on. The Alchemist/Charlatan and the Elf Bounty Hunter/Assassin both got chopped up and had to use Fate Points. The former from a Demagogue with an axe and the latter from 3 Skaven in a hole.
The Initiate/Burglar and Agitator/Demagogue fled the scene, while the Human Bounty Hunter/Assassin got lucky with his rolls and beat a hasty retreat leaving the Elf to his fate.
The saving grace is the colour of the world and the careers/advance scheme. They keep the goodwill up.
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