I'm starting WFRP Karak Azgal--any advice?

[lukelightning]

My suggestions for any Warhammer game:

Resist the temptation to allow PCs to choose their starting career. I think the surprise and randomness is fun, and you can always spend 200xp to switch to a basic career you want. Plus there are some surpisingly good options from some of the careers; camp follower can easily become a spy, etc.

Also, don't try to mess with the magic system to make it even more difficult (by adding in a mana system, etc.). It's already pleny hazardous.

 

[scourger]

My name is Bill and I am the author of the book. I am glad to hear that you like it and thought I would offer a few suggestions of my own.

Thanks for the advice, Bill. I really enjoyed reading the book. Frankly, it sold me on WFRP--before I bought 7 read it I had put the game on the shelf of games to sell/trade. WFRP has many good aspects, but it just wasn't right there for me to run. But, I've always liked dwarfen (dwarven in other games) material; so I bought Karak Azgal at my FLGS. After a couple weeks reading & pondering, I decided that I have to try it.

The book presents a great campaign setting. Any more might have been overwhelming. I've started all the characters in Karak Azgal--they will probably start in holdfast. I hoped they would be a party of all dwarves, in which case I would have immediately inducte them into the brotherhood fo the forked beard. But, they wanted to play a hodgepodge of races. I think it will still work well. I think they will advance rapidly since I plan to give random d100 experience bonuses for roleplaying. My window of opportunity on this game is probably only about 3 months since the player most interested will likely be leaving our group at that time (real life beckons). My hope is that in that time they can uncover the dark forces at work in the ruins of Karak Izril and work to defeat them. I think it presents a neat story, anyway.

If it gets too deadly, one of my ideas is to make most of the common foes subject to sudden death critical hits immediately. I've just come from running a great Savage Worlds game, so I'm looking for ways to streamline any other game. I don't really feel like I need to track the wounds of every skaven clanrat out there, but I'll try it at first to see how it works. Any thoughts?

 

[scourger]

I have advice -- invite me over so that I can play...

Florida is porbably too far a commute, but we have a player from Alabama.

 

[scourger]

Resist the temptation to allow PCs to choose their starting career. I think the surprise and randomness is fun, and you can always spend 200xp to switch to a basic career you want. Plus there are some surpisingly good options from some of the careers; camp follower can easily become a spy, etc.

Also, don't try to mess with the magic system to make it even more difficult (by adding in a mana system, etc.). It's already pleny hazardous.

Yes, they rolled for their starting careers. Just giving the 2 rolls & choose from the book gave the min/maxer fits of choices. But, he enjoys it so.

Magic seemed just fine to me. I am glad not to have any PCs magic users, though.

 

[lukelightning]

Are there any dwarf PCs? Karak Azgal may seem like a dwarf's playground at first (as in "woo hoo, I'm a dwarf in a city of dwarfs, we rule this place! In your face humans!"). However given the various political factions this might not be so great for a dwarf; if they are affiliated with any of the clans or other power groups then they may have more obligations and enemies. And if they are unaffiliated with any of the local clans they may encounter distrust, or, as "outsider dwarfs" a clan or other group may see them as perfect recruits or cats-paws (more trustworth than a human, but without other local ties...).

 

[Theron]

I read about this, but I don't know why it is.

It's just one of those things about WFRP. Nothing good ever lasts. Horses die. Goblins eat your family. Barges sink.

Then you get killed. Probably in some horribly, comically violent manner. And other people laugh about it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's just one of those things about WFRP. Nothing good ever lasts. Horses die. Goblins eat your family. Barges sink.

Then you get killed. Probably in some horribly, comically violent manner. And other people laugh about it.

Sometimes, one of these people can't stop laughing, and ends up in an asylum.
Where he escape after a goblin attack, to go on a brutal killing spree, eating the family of a young adventurer... to be continued ...

 

[Theron]

Sometimes, one of these people can't stop laughing, and ends up in an asylum.
Where he escape after a goblin attack, to go on a brutal killing spree, eating the family of a young adventurer... to be continued ...

And after that, things really start going downhill.

 

[scourger]

Are there any dwarf PCs?

There's one dwarf so far. He's a toll collector. So, he'll have some good, basic knowledge of the taxes.

Otherwise, I'm thinking of reducing all the mooks' wounds to 0 (or to 0 automatically after the first non-fatal blow). I really don't want to track wounds any more than I want to account for hit points (one of the reasons I'm not running D&D), and I think this method might make the common foes less threatening while keeping the uncommon foes (mostly the ones with names or big ones) more dangerous. This method seems to me to be more like Savage Worlds with its division between extras and wilds cards, which I really like. I also think the PCs will still be in very mortal peril in combat.

 

[Thraim]

Karak Azgal

If it gets too deadly, one of my ideas is to make most of the common foes subject to sudden death critical hits immediately. I've just come from running a great Savage Worlds game, so I'm looking for ways to streamline any other game. I don't really feel like I need to track the wounds of every skaven clanrat out there, but I'll try it at first to see how it works. Any thoughts?

I have to admit that the combat in Warhammer seems to have gotten much more time consuming than the first edition of the rules. I think subjecting all of the monsters to sudden death criticals immediately is a but too unbalancing though. I have no problem with making all monsters subject to the sudden death chart once they are reduced to 0 wounds however. It is not too difficult to keep track of the wounds for monsters. I usually write their toughness above their wounds and subtract accordingly.

Also, make sure the players learn to use Fortune Points and all the defensive manuevers like Parry, shields, defensive stance etc. I hope you enjoy the setting.