Kriegshacker II

(I know.)

This is part two of a modification of Gregor Vuga's excellent sort-of-WFRP Kriegsmesser. You will need a copy of Kriegsmesser.

Part one covered general rules. Part two is all about Sorcery!

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Sorcery!

Sorcery! -- yes, the exclamation point is essential -- is a special skill that does anything the player wants it to do. It can open doors, cause blindness, hit orcs with bolts of energy, cause the dead to speak. It is general purpose and very powerful. Sorcerers are however distrusted at best and hunted and exterminated at worst. Also, sorcery! can go wrong.

Sorcery! rolls are made as normal Kriegsmesser skill rolls. LUCK and Corruption dice can be added as normal. If any dice results match, whether the roll succeeds or not, then a Chaotic Manifestation occurs!

If there is a double it is a Minor Manifestation, if it is a triple it is a Major Manifestation, and if it is a quadruple -- or worse! -- it is a Catastrophic Manifestation. The sorcerer takes a point of Corruption and then rolls on the relevant table, below.

Sorcerous Careers

Of the existing Kriegsmesser careers, Alchemist, Initiate, and Witch may have a point of Sorcery! in place of one of their normal skills.

But let's also add an Apprentice Wizard. This can be an extra career, perhaps one that can only be entered by choice rather than a random roll, or you could replace one of the random Kriegsmesser careers; I suggest replacing one of the double results, as that's a nice thematic tie in with the Chaotic Manifestation rules.

Apprentice Wizard
Skills

• Sorcery! 2
• Sense Sorcery! 2
• Read/Write 2
• Sleight of Hand 2
• Flee! 1
• Notice 1

Possessions

• Staff
• Pouch
• "Spellbook" (more a collection of scribbled formulas and notes, really.)
• Some minor prop for illusions. Cups and ball, a pack of cards, a set of rings, that sort of thing.

Chaotic Manifestation Tables!

(Most effect durations are given as real-world, rather than in-game, times because it feels like magic should break the "rules" somehow. Feel free to swap them for in-game times if you prefer.)

2d6	Minor Manifestation
2	You got away with it! Except for the Corruption point, obviously.
3	A flash of sorcerous energy shoots through your body, giving you a nasty shock and a Wound.
4	Food in the immediate area spoils, milk curdles, and so on.
5	You get a terrible nosebleed that just won't stop. At least for a real world hour.
6-8	A cold and mysterious wind blows through the local area.
9	Spectral voices whisper in everyone's ears.
10	All animals in the local area flee from you in terror. Characters with animal handling skills may be able to keep them at heel.
11	Your hair stands on end and crackles with magical energy. If you had no hair, you do now.
12	Roll on the Major Manifestation table!

2d6	Major Manifestation
2	You got lucky! Roll on the Minor Manifestation table.
3	You are burned by sorcerous flames! Take a Terrible Injury (see part one).
4	Your bones twist and pop. Take two Wounds (see part one).
5	Some sort of minor daemon pops into existence and tries to eat your face. You will probably have to fight it.
6	Your eyes turn into little glowing balls of flame. You can still see as normal, but it looks very odd. They return to normal at dawn. Dawn in the real world.
7	You are drained of vitality and are left enfeebled! -1d to all rolls for the next real world hour.
8	Your tongue vanishes. After a real world hour it returns, but it doesn't just reappear. No, it grows back over a few icky moments.
9	Terrifying Chaotic visions assail you. You gain +1 Chaos Lore as a new skill.
10	You are shocked and numbed as the power travels through you. You are at -1d to all rolls for 24 real world hours.
11	You are possessed by a Chaotic spirit for the next five real world minutes. Your character is controlled by the Referee until then. I hope you bought them pizza!
12	Oh dear. Roll on the Catastrophic Manifestation table.

2d6	Catastrophic Manifestation
2	You got really lucky. Roll on the Major Manifestation table, and thank your ancestors.
3	Your sorcery almost tears you apart! You are Maimed (see part one).
4	Your sorcery blows back and gives you a Terrible Injury (see part one).
5	Everyone in the immediate area, friends and foes, takes a Wound (see part one) as your magical energies burst out like a post-2005 Doctor Who regeneration.
6-8	You are utterly drained of all sorcerous power. Your Sorcery! drops to 0 -- and Corruption and LUCK cannot be used either -- but returns at one point per full real world day.
9	You receive a Mark of Chaos, which is quite visible, difficult to disguise, and impossible to remove. It also counts as a Terrible Injury. If you receive a certain number of Marks, a Chaos God comes to claim you as its Champion; make a Corruption test (Kriegsmesser p29) and if this is a "failure" you are claimed, probably to return as a villain later on. Slaanesh claims characters with six Marks, Nurgle claims those with seven, Khorne those with eight, and Tzeentch claims characters with nine. Characters with ten or more Marks go on to be generic non-denominational Chaos Warriors. If the Horned Rat existed, he would claim those with 13 Marks, but he doesn't so he doesn't.
10	Every time you close your eyes you see visions of the Realms of Chaos. Sleeping is difficult. +1 Dark Lore.
11	You are blasted by your own out-of-control powers and are knocked unconscious for an in-game hour. Mundane medicine cannot wake you but maybe magical healing can. Maybe.
12	With a sucking, popping sound, you are sucked into the Realm of Chaos, never to be seen again, probably.

---

I may expand this at some point to include the Colleges of Magic, dwarf, elf, and goblin magic, hedge wizards, and so on. This will do for now.

Kriegshacker I

(I know.)

This is a two-part modification of Gregor Vuga's excellent sort-of-WFRP Kriegsmesser. You will need a copy of Kriegsmesser.

Part one covers general rules. Part two will cover Sorcery!

(Also note: Kriegsmesser is itself a hack of Troika! but does also come with its own basic standalone system. Kriegshacker is a hack of this standalone system.)

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Players Roll Everything

I think this is sort of implied by Kriegsmesser anyway, but let's state it for Kriegshacker: players make all rolls, even if a non-player-character or monster or other hazard is acting against them; in these cases the players will roll to "resist" the action.

Fighting

Players can use any appropriate skill in a combat situation. This need not be an actual fighting skill. A character could Flee! to escape the fight, Sneak to hide until the coast is clear, or even Provoke to cause infighting amongst the opponents. As long as it makes sense, it can be used. If no skill applies, then the player can use LUCK as normal.

All players involved in the fight roll dice. If anyone gets a success (4+) then the fight is avoided or won or otherwise resolved in the players' favour, although there may be complications. Anyone who fails (1-3) or succeeds with a complication (4-5) suffers those consequences, even if the fight is won.

If no player rolls higher than a 3 then the fight is not resolved, and may even continue, if the Referee decides.

Difficult Fights

The Referee may decide that some fights are more challenging, perhaps because of tougher opposition, an environmental effect, non-combatants getting in the way, and so on. In these cases all involved players have a -1 dice (-1d) or higher penalty.

Generous Referees may allow players to receive a +1d bonus for superior equipment, numbers, position, tactics, and so on. This seems very un-WFRPish, but it's your game.

Damage

Anyone who rolls 4-5 as their highest dice takes a Wound. Mark this on the character sheet in pencil so it can be erased later. For each wound, the player has a -1d penalty. If a player receives a third Wound, then they also take a Terrible Injury (see below).

Anyone who rolls 1-3 as their highest dice takes a Terrible Injury; they should roll on the tables on Kriegsmesser pp30-31. They also suffer a Wound. Terrible Injuries should be noted in ink as they are permanent. If a player takes a sixth Terrible Injury then they are Maimed and take a permanent -1d penalty. Write "Maimed!" on the character sheet, in big red letters if you can. If they are Maimed again, they take an additional -1d permanent penalty, and so on. I recommend adding an extra exclamation point for every Maimed result.

Healing

One wound is healed after a rest period, which should probably be at least a day. When a Wound is healed, the -1d penalty is removed.

Terrible Injuries and Maiming probably shouldn't be able to be healed, except perhaps by sorcery, and in that case I'd probably say that the injuries are hidden rather than healed. Seems more WFRPish.

---

Kriegsmesser is very robust and elegant as is, so these are just tweaks to make it more to my liking. Next: Sorcery!

Vintage Bugman's

Blood Bowl and Warhammer enthusiasts will know well the name Bugman. The leader of a mercenary band one day, a Blood Bowl player-coach another day, and the seldom-seen proprietor of an out of the way Nottingham pub, Bugman and his brews have been part of Games Workshop from the earliest of days.

They've also been part of Dungeons & Dragons, sort of, as can be seen in 1985's White Dwarf #67.

That's from "A Murder at Flaxton", an adventure for AD&D1, by Michael Heaton. I'm fairly sure the art is by the legendary -- and recently retired -- John Blanche.

Is the adventure set in the Warhammer World? Beyond the picture there's nothing else to suggest it is, but there's nothing that rules it out either. If you choose to believe that it is, then this may be the earliest Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (sort of) adventure in print.

Hashtag and Eggs

Oh okay then, let's have a look.

I'm not going to do one a day; no one wants to see that. Let's bash through the whole lot in one fat hit.

Here we go!

1. What published rpg do you wish you were playing right now?

What, right this moment? I'm okay thanks. I like games but I don't want to be playing every moment of every day, like some sort of...

Oh.

I want to play Mutant Year Zero. It's been sitting in my reading pile for a year or so but I haven't got it to the table yet.

2. What is an rpg you would like to see published?

I may write a longer blog post about this but I think it's fascinating that computer rpg series like Final Fantasy spit out a complete ruleset and setting every couple of years and then move on; would anyone buy or play these games if they were released as tabletop rpgs? I would be interested, at least.

3. How do you find out about new rpgs?

I don't follow any news sites or anything like that, so I tend to pick up on new releases when people get excited about them on Google+.

4. Which rpg have you played the most since August 2016?

I am a sad loser and I have logged everything I've played and because these things are true I can tell you that it was the Frankenstein patchwork d100 game I used to run The Dracula Dossier. Thirteen sessions in all.

5. Which rpg cover best captures the spirit of the game?

That's a great question. I can think of lots of covers I like but do they capture the spirit of the game? Fifth edition Call of Cthulhu has a wonderful cover but I don't think it's indicative of how the game plays, as such.

Of the games I own, I'm going to go with the second edition of Shadowrun; it's not the best image in the world -- the composition is a bit flat and that drain is given so much prominence that you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a main character -- but does a great job of showing what the game is about.

6. You can game every day for a week. Describe what you'd do!

Assuming I've done all the preparation and I'm ready to go, I'd probably try out a bunch of games and play a different one each day. Maybe two a day, one after lunch and one after dinner.

I know. Rock and roll.

7. What was your most impactful rpg session?

"Impactful" is a horrible word. Eurgh. Stop it.

Anyway, probably the most influential -- much better, see? -- session was the first time I played Call of Cthulhu. I'd played other rpgs before that, and it was Shadowrun that probably got me hooked, but that first CoC session was a profound and enlightening experience.

8. What is a good rpg to play for sessions of 2hrs or less?

"2hrs"?

Good gravy.

(Mental note: stop being an arse.)

Anyway, two hours doesn't seem long enough to get going, once you've taken into account making the tea and moaning about what the Tories have done this week, but I'd go for something quick and easy, like Fighting Fantasy. I imagine you could rattle through a lot of content in two hours with that game.

9. What is a good rpg to play for about 10 sessions?

Most campaigns I run last about ten to twelve sessions, so the easy answer is "any of them" but that's not very helpful.

There's a suggestion in 13th Age to run a campaign in which everyone gains a level with each session and characters have ten levels in that, so you get this focussed and neat sort of "zero to hero" thing. I don't know if that means 13th Age is a good rpg to play for about ten sessions, but I'd like to give it a try some time.

10. Where do you go for rpg reviews?

Reviews from R'lyeh is good, as is tenfootpole. Ramanan Sivaranjan knows what he's talking about, and I will always pay attention to what Patrick Stuart or Zak Smithsabbath like, although our tastes can often vary.

11. Which "dead game" would you like to see reborn?

TSR's Saga System -- the one with the cards -- was ahead of its time and had a lot going for it, but died when TSR did. I'd love to see a new version.

12. Which rpg has the most inspiring interior art?

Death is the New Pink or Troika! because Jeremy Duncan is a genius. So are Jez Gordon and Zak Sabbathsmith, but I don't think there's a published rpg out that features their work. Yet.

(I also have some pictures in DitNP but if you're looking at my stuff instead of JD's then You Are Doing It Wrong.)

13. Describe a game experience that changed how you play.

I was going to blog about this. Maybe I did. I'm old and can't remember everything. Hrm. It was when I was running The Enemy Within II: The Enemy Within and the Temple of Doom and I noticed that WFRP2 sort of expects you to build non-player-characters according to the same rules as player-characters and I remember thinking "no, I'm just going to do what I like" and made up the statistics.

It's sort of obvious and everyone else has probably been doing it for years but it had never occurred to me before and now I do it all the time.

14. Which rpg do you prefer for open-ended campaign play?

I'm not sure how to answer this one because every open-ended game I've played has fallen apart at some point. I would imagine that the best sort of rpg for this kind of campaign would be something where characters don't change much in terms of power level; perhaps something like basic D&D, the Chaosium d100 rules, or Traveller.

15. Which rpg do you enjoy adapting the most?

I don't understand the question. Is this asking if I enjoy hacking games? If so, then I don't do it often because if I have to change a ruleset in order to run something then there's a good chance that there's already a different ruleset that's better suited to what I want to do.

That said, I am a big fan of the Chaosium d100 rules and I find them easy to tweak and modify, so maybe that's my answer.

16. Which rpg do you enjoy using as is?

See above. I'll drop rules if they make no sense or slow things down but for the most part I'm not much of a hacker. Fighting Fantasy and WFRP2 are both games that I run without changing much, if anything.

17. Which rpg have you owned the longest but not played?

Probably Lacuna Part 1: The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl from Blue City. I've had it since 2009 and I've never got around to playing it. I find it interesting and I'm excited to play it but I also find it a bit intimidating and all I can imagine is making a right mess of running it.

18. Which rpg have you played most in your life?

Ooh, crikey. I've played a lot of Pathfinder in recent years, and I played a stupid amount of Shadowrun when I was but a wee sprogling, but I reckon it's probably Call of Cthulhu. I've run three big-ish campaigns and have played double figure one-shots.

It may be Pathfinder because that takes ages to play, but I don't like it nearly as much as I like adore Call of Cthulhu and I would be sad if I have played it more often.

19. Which rpg features the best writing?

Small but Vicious Dog.

20. What is the best source for out of print rpgs?

I get mine from eBay because all the shops that used to sell ancient rpg books have closed down around here.

In the brief time during which I lived in Minnesota, the local Half Price Books was like a treasure trove of old rpg stuff, but I wasn't gaming at the time so I didn't pick anything up. Tsk.

21. Which rpg does the most with the least words?

Probably one of these twenty-four hour games or two-hundred word rpgs but I don't think I've read any of them.

Troika! is quite lean but also good. Let's go with that.

22. Which rpgs are the easiest for you to run?

I have no patience for fiddly games any more so I only run games that are easy to run. This is one reason I like 13th Age; for the players it's like AD&D in terms of complexity and options but for the GM it's more like Basic D&D.

The easiest for me is probably Call of Cthulhu because the d100 system is super simple to use, and almost everything is on the character sheet.

Then they ruined it by Pathfindering the seventh edition but I've already moaned about that.

23. Which rpg has the most jaw-dropping layout?

Rifts.

Oh, did you mean jaw-dropping in a good way?

24. Share a PWYW publisher that should be charging more.

I don't know of any PWYW publishers off the top of my head. Lamentations of the Flame Princess sometimes does it but it seems to work for James, so what do I know?

25. What is the best way to thank your GM?

I think it depends on the GM. I always appreciate it when the players tell me they enjoyed the game and would like to play more.

Alas, they tend to tell me this either (a) after the final session of the campaign, or (b) years after the game dribbled away into nothing because of -- I thought -- a lack of interest.

Fist-shaking bitterness and tearful self-doubt aside, it never hurts to just say "thank you, I had fun".

26. Which rpg provides the most useful resources?

What?

Does this mean the core rules, or anything published for it?

I use the d1000 mutation tables from Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness whenever I can, but that's not an rpg.

27. What are your essential tools for good gaming?

Whahuh? These are getting vague and weird now.

A game and some people to play it. Anything else is optional. I mean, it doesn't even have to be a good game as long as you have good people.

I keep thinking of when I played Mutant Chronicles when I was seventeen and it was terrible so we drank whisky as we played and I was sick in a bush.

28. What film/series is the biggest source of quotes for your group?

We don't do quotes. Stupid comedy accents, on the other hand, we do a lot. Comedy German is a popular one.

(Sorry, Germany.)

29. What has been the best-run rpg Kickstarter that you have backed?

The standard for rpg Kickstarters seems to be set so low that "deliver what was promised and on time" is considered some sort of achievement, rather than basic competence. That said, the Mutant Year Zero people know what they are doing and the Hubris Kickstarter was run well.

30. What is an rpg genre-mashup you would most like to see?

I'm not a singer as I lack both the ability and the confidence, and it would probably be insufferable torture to watch in action, like a thousand Frozen Youtube videos in one, but I reckon there's potential in an rpg in which singing is used as some sort of resolution mechanic.

31. What do you anticipate most for gaming in 2018?

That's a bit odd. Why not "the next twelve months" so it ties in with the next time everyone does this?

(Mental note: remember the first mental note.)

Anyway, the thing I'm most excited about is that there will be not one but two new editions of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay coming out soon. One will be based on the first and second editions and the other will be based on the absurd high fantasy of Age of Sigmar; I'm keen to see both. I have no idea if they will be out in 2018 but let's say they will be just to end this on a positive note.

Not So Grim and Perilous

Comics writer and professional Gavin Norman impersonator Kieron Gillen rambles here about the aesthetic of Warhammer, how the original Warhammer setting is probably racist, and how Games Workshop may not be the Evil Empire it is often portrayed as, and -- to be fair -- was for a good number of years.

It's worth reading, but the first bit jumped out at me because it's something I've been saying for years: yes, the Warhammer games are all about the GrimDark™ but that this is supposed to be funny, because, by gosh, how could it not be? It's so over the top that I cannot understand how anyone takes it seriously.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay characters are rat catchers and students pushed into fighting the legions of Chaos by bad luck and poor judgement. Is that not self-evidently funny? Both Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy Age Battle of Sigmar are full of puns and ridiculous names; one of the Space Marine primarchs -- the most super duper of the super duper genetic soldiers -- is called Lionel. You can stick a random 80's trash fantasy novel apostrophe in there but it's still not a name that evokes the image of a hardened killer of alien scum.

The other, more famous, KG sort of blames the Americans, which I don't think is quite fair, but the obfuscation of the essential joke at the heart of the Warhammers does seem to have gone hand in hand with Games Workshop's global success. I don't begrudge the world these less comedic versions of the franchises -- and as Coop says here, Games Workshop has done its fair share to move away from the humour -- because if what you like about 40K is that everything is festooned with skulls, then good for you.




I don't think I'm trying to make a point. What I'm not saying is that anyone is doing Warhammer wrong. I think what I am saying is that to me there's an essential humour at the heart of the game lines -- even more so in some of the spin-offs like Blood Bowl and WFRP -- and it always baffled me that few people seemed to recognise it, so it is good to see someone of Gillen's profile also pick up on it. It's simple validation, I suppose.

My Top 10 Role-playing Games Ever (in 2014) #2

If you've been reading this series since the start you may have been wondering when this game would be coming up; after all I've already expressed my love for Fighting Fantasy and mentioned my dalliances with Games Workshop, so there was a certain inevitability about the appearance in the top ten of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

WFRP is a bit of an orphan. Games Workshop had a great deal of early success selling role-playing games but almost all were reprints -- albeit handsome ones -- of existing products. I'm sure someone will pop up in the comments and tell me about something I've forgotten -- I know both Inquisitor and Warhammer Quest have rpg elements, and more on the latter in the new year -- but as I recall the only home grown rpgs GW produced were Judge Dredd and WFRP; both got a couple of years in the sun but the latter was released just as the company was moving over to miniature-based war games and not even the Warhammer name was enough to save it from cancellation. WFRP retained a healthy and enthusiastic fanbase and popped up again at the now-defunct Hogshead, then a second edition was again published by Games Workshop before again being axed. Fantasy Flight Games released a third edition with a different ruleset but also produced a big pile of Warhammer 40,000 rpgs that used the same system as the second edition. At the time of writing the game is once again in limbo. It's all a confusing mess and it's a wonder that I managed to play the thing at all.

I had been reading White Dwarf since 1991 so I knew about WFRP from the occasional article -- even then they were becoming more sporadic -- but I didn't get to play it for the first time until around 1997. I remember being intimidate by the size of the rulebook -- larger than anything else I'd seen at the time -- and the dense and teeny tiny text. My friend Chris took the challenge of running the game and we made it through some of The Enemy Within before we stopped, I think through a combination of the group splitting -- university beckoned -- and the rest of the campaign being out of print at the time. Still, it was good fun and it set the tone for how I see the game to this day.

WFRP is often characterised as either horror-fantasy or -- more often -- as grim and dark and po-faced but I don't think either is true. Yes characters can be fragile, and yes it is possible to die of an infected stab wound, and yes it seems as if everything in the world is out to kill the player-characters, but a bit of murder and demon daemon summoning in the first chapter of the game's iconic campaign -- er, SPOILER -- has given the wrong impression of what is to my eye a comedy game.

Almost every name in the game is a pun or joke based on poor German translation; the dwarves have mohawks; the orcs are the Hulk as played by Ray Winstone; almost all of the player-characters are going to be working class oiks and if any of them are nobles they are probably idiots or drunks or both; any scheme, for good or ill, is bound to fail due to someone's incompetence; and in a fight no one can hit anything but if they do the damage will probably multiply so when they try to knock out the watchman in Bogenhafen they instead end up splattering him across the sewer wall. Oops.

What it is, you see, is Blackadder does D&D. How anyone can think it's supposed to be a serious game I don't know.

My favourite version of the game in terms of mechanics is the second edition; in polishing some of the rough edges of the first edition some of the game's unique personality is also lost but I do think it is the better game and as I tend to run it based on my own jumbled conception of the setting circa 1988 it all balances out. As should not be a huge shock to anyone at this point I like the simplicity of the system; it's based on percentile rolls against the characters' attributes, with skills and abilities modifying the rolls rather than having values of their own. There is a bit of wonky design in that one has to remember what Strike Mighty Blow -- for example -- does in terms of actual numbers but whenever I run the game I cheat and use simplified non-player-character statistics with all that stuff built in so it's not an issue from my end, and the idea at least is an elegant one.

The magic system is great fun; wizards have to roll dice to generate the energy they need to cast spells but as it is WFRP there is always a chance of something going wrong, from all milk in the locality curdling to a daemon crawling out of the caster's ears and laying waste to everything in sight. Spellcasters feel as dangerous to play as the superstitious folk of the setting believe them to be and with that danger comes a thrill, although it is perhaps best suited to the more reckless player. I was lucky enough to have just such a player when I ran the updated-but-not-really-related Enemy Within and his character ended up with a flaming skull head, umpteen fingers on each hand, and a long, skeletal trunk. As you do.

In stark contrast to most of the games on the top ten so far I do play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay quite often; it's one of those games that everyone -- both in my group and the larger world -- seems to like so it's a surprise and shame that no one seems to be able to keep it in print. I hope to be playing it again in 2015, following the player-characters of The Enemy Within II as they enter the world of Imperial politics, because what could go wrong for a noble with a burning skull face?

Next: loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. Or something.

Rogues' Gallery

I have had a couple of requests for the non-player-character portraits I mentioned in my post about running Fantasy Flight's version of The Enemy Within so here are the pieces I drew for my game.

The Enemy Within II - NPC Portraits (600kb)

Each piece was drawn at about 10cm by 15cm and scanned at 300dpi. Aside from Robertus von Oppenheim and Olaf "One-Eye" these are all based on existing pieces of art in the Enemy Within II boxed set and are not of my own devising. I present them here as an aid for players of the campaign and I claim no ownership over them; in the case of Oppenheim and Olaf, I donate them to the community.

The Enemy Revisited

I was asked about Fantasy Flight Games' version of The Enemy Within on G+ a few days ago and I remembered that I was going to write a post about my experiences of running the campaign but never got around to it. This is me getting around to it. Sorry.

If you're going to play the campaign do not read on as there will be spoilers. I mean it; there's a central mystery at the heart of the plot and it will be ruined if you know about it, so bog off if you're a player. Go and read Goblin Punch or something.

Game Masters, read on.

It's Not What You Think It Is

The Enemy Within II is not a remake of the original campaign, nor does it have much to do with the earlier adventures. To be fair this is explained in the introduction, but Fantasy Flight could have done a better job of advertising the fact -- it's the question I get asked most often -- although then the title would come across as an exploitative cash-in and we wouldn't want that, would we?

The new campaign does share some ideas-- it concerns a conspiracy to undermine the Empire -- and some locations with the earlier version, and the cult of the Purple Hand makes a cameo appearance, but otherwise it has no real connection with the original. It is set about twenty years later but also follows the timeline of the wargame and I'm sure there is a message board somewhere about how canon has been violated one way or another.

The campaign is written for the third edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay but is light on actual game mechanics so is easy enough to convert to another version of the game, or even an unrelated system. I noticed that beneath all the cards and funky dice a WFRP3 character is not that different to a WFRP2 character and I posted my conversion notes -- and they are little more than notes, because it's that easy! -- here.

That said, I did bump up the Black Hood's statistics a tad as he was a bit weak for a villainous mastermind. I regret nothing.

This Is a Bit Familiar

It's not a remake of the original campaign but neither is everything brand new. I was out of gaming for most of the life span of WFRP2 so I'm not familiar with everything released for it but I did notice that a fair bit of Ashes of Middenheim is reused -- sometimes amended, sometimes verbatim -- and I wouldn't be surprised if other stuff is recycled too; you may need to work on those parts if you have players familiar with the earlier material.

Rogues' Gallery

There are lots of non-player-characters in The Enemy Within II and a key part of the campaign is keeping track of who everyone is, where they are, and what they're doing. I don't mean for the GM either -- although it is important that the GM knows all this stuff -- because it's the player-characters who are going to have to pursue the Black Hood and counter her or his schemes.

In my first draft of this post I wrote that character portraits would be "handy" but I think "essential" is more apt. The campaign comes with character cards -- it is for WFRP3 after all -- but I thought these would be difficult to see at a distance so I created some larger images -- see left -- based on the original art and pinned them to my GM screen. I can make the images available if there's interest.

The Black Hood

This villain is behind most of the obstacles the player-characters will face and the mystery of her or his true identity is one of the key threads in the campaign. The writers introduce three key NPCs who could be the Hood -- and each of the NPCs plays a major role even if they aren't the villain -- and provide plenty of advice on how to modify the plot to fit the GM's choice of blackguard; there are even some brief notes on how to use some different NPCs in the role if the main three don't appeal.

The book also suggests that the GM doesn't choose the identity of the Black Hood until later on, so that the players don't guess too early. I think this is a little unfair -- ogrish even -- and I suggest choosing before the campaign begins and sticking to that choice; all that said I did ponder the possibility of two of the NPCs working together -- spoilers for Scream there, sorry -- and there's no reason why all three couldn't be in on it! I also considered using one of the NPCs as the villain and have one of the others also turn to evil but have no connection to the conspiracy, as a sort of double-bluff.

When I ran the campaign there were enough suspicious NPCs -- it helps that the Skaven all scurry about in black cloaks -- that the player-characters were never sure who the Black Hood was until the end, although their first guess turned out to be correct.

In the Beginning

The WFRP3 background mechanic is not used in earlier editions but if you are playing the campaign with an older version of the game I suggest making use of the cards -- it is WFRP3 after all -- to tie the player-characters into the plot and to each other. It can be difficult to get the player-characters involved at first and the suggested backgrounds help give them reasons to do so.

On that subject, the player-characters don't get drawn into the main plot of the campaign until a couple of game days have passed and so you may need to give the players a nudge to get them to stay in Averheim -- the starting location -- until then. You could also skip those first few days and jump right in but I think there's enough good material in there that it would be a shame to lose it; if nothing else the player-characters have a chance to build relationships that add depth to later events.

Whatever you decide, it's worth paying close attention to the start of the campaign and working out good reasons for the player-characters to hang around the Averheim docks looking for missing vagrants.

Bonus Content and Deleted Scenes

The campaign is structured much like Neverwinter Nights -- for those old enough to remember it -- in that most of the action is confined to three locations and there's not much in the way of connecting detail. You do get what are more or less random encounter tables -- converted to WFRP2 here --but that's it. You could just skip straight to the next location but my group was in no rush to finish the campaign so I put some effort into expanding the in-between bits.

If I had more time I would have come up with a secondary campaign that would play out in the gaps in the main plot but as it was I came up with a number of self-contained bits and bobs:

The barrow wights were used to give the player-characters something to do on the way to Middenheim and also introduced a plot element that came into play later on but wasn't explored in full; I hope more will come of it if and when we reconvene for the sequel.

The campaign has the player-characters stop in Delberz for a night on their way to Altdorf but as written nothing much happens, so I expanded a line from the WFRP2 supplement Sigmar's Heirs about unsolved killings in the town into a fullish adventure.

Also on the way to Altdorf the players-characters have a chance of running into a river troll. I wanted more than just a fight with a monster so I created the village of Mistheim and gave the player-characters a reason to stop and explore. I kept the river troll anyway because it seemed like fun.

The Beast of Krankendorf was my invention; there are a few lines in the book about a monster attacking the village but no further details are given; I can't decide if this "plot seed" is half-arsed or inspirational but I took it as the latter.

Some of the central plot points are light on specifics too; in Middenheim, the player-characters will be asked to go and obtain some ingredients for an important ritual and the campaign as written only gives brief notes on what could happen so it's worth fleshing this part out in advance. I added giants and beastmen in an attempt to make it a bit more interesting than a simple fetch quest.

As you can see there is plenty of room to add extra opportunities for adventure but there's also a bit of flab here and there and I did prune some of the text. I cut out three quarters of the -- optional -- fourth chapter of the campaign as it seemed a bit much to visit areas devoted to each of the four Chaos gods and then to play through four similar "are we in an illusion or are we home?" episodes on the return journey. Instead I skipped straight to the flying tower of Tzeentch and only put the player-characters through the illusion once; they almost fell for it too.

The players also missed a major subplot in Middenheim and as a result an innocent man was executed and a Chaos cult prospered, but I believe that player choices should matter, even if it means a major plot is skipped or a campaign finishes earlier than it should.

That's a Big Un

It took my group about six months of weekly three-hour sessions to run through the campaign. There were a number of gaps in which we missed a session for one reason or another or played a different game that week, so it was probably closer to four months. As mentioned above I expanded the campaign in a number of spots so if played as written I reckon it would take my lot about three months -- or twelve three-hour sessions -- to play from start to finish; even if you don't put in any extra work you'll get your money's worth from the adventure. Unless you stole it.

The Enemy Concluded

There you go. That's my briefish guide to running The Enemy Within II: Enemy Withiner. We had good fun with it and it's probably the most successful campaign I've run, even if it's not as good as the original; that said, it does have a better ending. I hope it's been helpful; if anyone has any further questions then post them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.

The Enemy Complete

Last time the party uncovered the true identity of the Black Hood, the nefarious conspirator who had been causing all sorts of trouble across the Empire, revealing him to be Marcus Baerfaust, war hero and captain of the Averheim Greatswords regiment. Baerfaust claimed to be a hero of the common man, and that his goal was to eject the corrupt aristocracy and put a more democratic system in place; the player-characters decided this was all bobbins and killed him, or would have if some weird blue energy squid hadn't sucked Baerfaust into a magical portal first.

The portal was still open, explained the somewhat erratic wizard Konrad Mauer, and would remain so while Baerfaust remained alive on the other side. The player-characters' mission was to enter the portal, find Baerfaust, and either bring him back or kill him; it was also explained that if any of the party were left behind then the same problem would occur and the same solutions would apply. This did not fill them with enthusiasm.

Luminary Mauer gave them an enchanted gem that would transport the party back to Altdorf when their mission was complete and Friedrich von Kaufman sent along one of his employees, a mysterious halfling who called himself "Harry the Tinker". Mauer used his magic to widen the portal to allow the player-characters to step through and for an agonising moment they felt like they were being pulled in all directions at once. Then with a flash of light they tumbled out on to the cold stone floor of a parapet part of the way up the side of a strange castle constructed from a silverish metal and stones of every colour; a quick peek over the edge revealed that the castle was flying high above a wasteland of jagged black rocks. It appeared that they were no longer in the Empire.

The castle's interior was even stranger, a knot of staircases and passageways that twisted and turned in impossible angles in no way at all like Jareth's castle in Labyrinth. As they fought off vertigo and searched for Baerfaust they found a prison cell containing a blue-haired man who claimed to know them -- thinking he was Tzeentch himself in disguise they left him to rot -- and got trapped for a while in an infinite library in which Harry was attacked by flying books and was told off by a spectral librarian nothing at all like the one from Ghostbusters.

After a good deal more wandering but with fewer 1980's film references the party heard an unsettling mix of agonised screaming and high-pitched giggling; the source of the odd cacophony was a small and windowless stone room in which a group of the horrific pink daemons the party had faced in the temple of Sigmar seemed to be operating on or torturing -- or both -- Marcus Baerfaust, slicing parts of his flesh away, reshaping them, then reattaching them to his squirming, screaming form.

The daemons did not last long against a liberal application of steel and spell but Baerfaust's predicament was more of a puzzle. It seemed that he could not be killed while chained to the crude operating table -- Harry tested this by setting fire to the good captain -- but Magnar was reluctant to free him, suspecting that he would prove to be a threat if they did so. As they pondered the problem the castle exploded.

The player-characters woke to find themselves floating in a blue void, surrounded by the remains of the castle also hanging in space. Nearby was Marcus Baerfaust, freed from his bonds but unconscious, but before anyone could grab him an inhuman and deafening screech filled the party with dread and a huge winged form swooped down amongst them.

I don't have a Lord of Change miniature -- and at £36 I'm not going to be buying one! -- and for some reason Fantasy Flight neglected to include a cardboard figure in the campaign box, even though there's one for Ludwig Schwarzhelm and he plays no significant part in the campaign. So I made my own. Yeah, DIY D&D! Except Warhammer. Or something.

The party thought they had no chance against the greater daemon of Tzeentch so attempted to gather around Magnar -- who held the magic gem they needed to return home in one hand and had the other around Baerfaust's neck -- but the lack of gravity made even the most basic of movements tricky, let alone a panicked rout in the face of superior opposition. Somehow they managed to all tumble into more or less the right space, all except their faithful friend Poddo the halfling surgeon. He was dazed and immobile some distance away with the daemon between him and the party; unwilling to risk leaving the portal open with a the Lord of Change on the other side, Aelric the elven mutant elven wizard unleashed a lightning bolt -- boosted in power due to their location -- and the loyal retainer exploded into wet bloody chunks.

Magnar activated the gem and the party were whisked back to Altdorf before they could be pecked to death by a giant vulture monster. They arrived to a hero's welcome as the cheering crowd carried them to the palace of the Emperor, where they discovered that his condition had deteriorated and he was near death; Mauer and von Kaufman suggested that one of the party end the Emperor's suffering and take control of the government. They promised the support and resources of the nobility and the wizards and Aelric and Magnar were almost swayed by the offer but some in the party had suspicions that all was not as it seemed; Aelric concentrated for a moment, saw magic all around them, and concluded that they were trapped in some sort of illusion.

With that realisation, Tzeentch's final trick was revealed and the party were transported once more to Altdorf, this time the real thing as far as they could tell. Magnar executed Baerfaust before any more eldritch shenanigans could occur and while no adoring crowd greeted the returning heroes this time, a couple of Sigmarite priests ushered them towards the Emperor's palace. This version of Karl Franz was as well as could be expected for a man who had been at death's door a week or so before but he was strong enough to receive the player-characters' reports on what they had seen and done. Pleased with their efforts the Emperor rewarded them with wealth and titles -- and for Magnar a promise to put in a personal word on the disgraced dwarf's behalf with the dwarven holds -- and made them an offer. Theodosius von Tuchtenhagen had been killed in the incident at the temple of Sigmar and so there was a vacancy in the ranks of the nobility; how would Aelric like to be the lord of Black Fire Pass?

So ended The Enemy Within II: The Secret of the Ooze. It took a while for the campaign to get going but I think we all had fun with it, and a big part of that is because Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a great game; if you ever get the chance to play it then grab it with every hand you have. I think we will return to it soon -- as the last paragraph above suggests, I have some ideas for a follow-up -- but for now we'll take a bit of a rest from WFRP and celebrate finishing another campaign. Expect some more WFRP content here before the sequel happens, as I am planning a post about the campaign as a whole and my experiences of running it using the wrong ruleset.

Oh, and there was cake, because what's the end of a campaign without cake?

For Whom the Bell Tolls (Aelric Shadowstar, Apparently)

We're almost at the end of The Enemy Within II: Lost in New York so here's an update on the party.

Rudiger Adler, by this time having moved on to vampire hunting as a career, despite the lack of vampires in Altdorf.

Drandruel, the wood elf warrior who seems to have triple-backflipped out of a wuxia film.

Magnar, a lump of steel with a dwarf inside. Somewhere.

Aelric Shadowstar, high elf mutant wizard.

Thorek the Mighty, suicidal slayer looking for a daemon of note to kill.

Having filled themselves with tea and toast at the town house of Gravin Clothilde von Alptraum the party rushed to the temple of Sigmar where despite the early hour a large crowd had already gathered to watch the great and the good of the Empire arrive for the service; Aelric's fine robes and decorative face mask drew some speculation that he was Balthasar Gelt, the supreme patriarch of the colleges of magic.

As it turned out Gelt had arrived earlier, along with a number of other luminaries, including, er, Luminary Mauer, Friedrich von Kaufman, and more than a few of the Empire's Elector Counts, the nobles who held the power to decide the identity of the next Emperor. I cannot imagine why the players thought that some sort of dramatic event might occur at the service.

Colthilde von Alptraum did arrive, and Captain Marcus Baerfaust also seemed to be absent, although some of his Averheim Greatswords were in attendance in full dress uniform. Before the player-characters could get too suspicious, a couple of them spotted the witch hunter Adele Ketzenblum in the crowd and tried to push their way through the assembled nobility to reach her; Drandruel found herself face to face with some sort of Sigmarite zealot, all wrapped in chains and little iron prayer boxes, showing clear signs of attempted self-immolation, and who seemed keen that everyone should REPENT OR DIE, while the rest of the party got tied up talking to a pleasant but somewhat doddery priestess of Shallya. By the time they could get away Ketzenblum -- if it was her -- had disappeared.

The service began and so the player-characters had to choose between taking their seats -- near the back of the temple with the other less important guests -- or making a scene; they chose the former and sat on their hands, eager to burst into action, as the Grand Theogonist -- Volkmar the Grim, also an Elector -- began his long and pious sermon. At the appointed time the temple's great bell rang but instead of the expected clear peal the sound was a sickening warped rumble, a sound that forced people to their knees, clutching their hands to their ears as their balance failed and their stomachs emptied.

The odd zealot Drandruel had met earlier sprinted down the central aisle of the temple, spewing blue and purple smoke as he ran and soon he, the great altar, and the Theogenist were all lost in a noxious cloud. As the bell continued to ring the player-characters leaped into action but found the panicking crowd an obstacle; worse, the zealot's tiny prayer boxes flew out of the smoke and disgorged their impossible contents, a stream of bright pink daemons of the sort the party had seen before.

A desperate running battle followed as the player-characters fought their way through the daemons in an attempt to reach the bell tower, a task made more difficult as the bell's ringing filled some of them with terror and sent them fleeing in the opposite direction. Rudiger was first to the tower and discovered a group of soldiers in the belfry, accompanied by a scarred woman and a figure clad in dark robes and an ebony mask; the Black Hood himself!

Rudiger decided to wait for backup and soon Drandruel and Magnar arrived to even the odds a little. Thorek and Aelric remained below, unable to pull free of the daemonic mêlée; the bell's ringing had an odd effect on the elf's mutant physiology and with each tolling his body warped and changed until he became some sort of tentacled giant, as terrifying as any of the daemons he was fighting. As the former elf staggered up the stairs to the belfry where some sort of magic shielded his companions from the bell's effects, one final peal twisted his body and he hunched over in agony. When Aelric stood once more he found that he had been returned to his former (s)elf, with all mutations gone.

Thorek was not as lucky. Swarmed by daemons and all out of Fate Points the dwarf's, er, fate was inevitable and he was torn to pieces by the giggling, dancing things. All agreed that it was what he would have wanted.

Up in the belfry the surviving members of the party confronted the Black Hood, who was revealed as Marcus Baerfaust. The soldier's attempt to win the party over with his grand scheme to destroy the nobility and bring democracy and to the Empire failed to convince them and they charged him and his minions. They managed to halt the ringing of the bell before it shook the temple to bits but Baerfaust was a little more resilient, his impressive combat abilities boosted by some sort of unseen magic. In the end he too fell but before he could be captured a hole appeared in the air and blue tendrils of energy dragged him screaming into some other realm.

The player-characters were heroes!



There were some casualties in the temple below but the movers and shakers of the Imperial political system had all survived so the dread spectre of democracy was beaten back once more. The player-characters were rewarded with big bags of cash and free room and board in the apartments attached to the Imperial Palace, and the Emperor Karl Franz himself, much recovered now that Baerfaust's influence was gone, met them in person to thank them for their great deeds.

Everyone lived happily ever after.

Oh. No. Wait.

A week later, von Kaufman and Luminary Mauer met the player-characters in secret and told them that the portal in the belfry was not quite as closed as everyone thought and that the Empire needed some brave heroes to go through and bring Baerfaust back, dead or alive.

Bloody Chunks of Frazzled Thugs (or, Never Trust a Tilean With a Spider)

(You'd best make a cup of tea; this is a long one, as the actress said to the bishop.)

It was a hot and foggy morning in the Imperial capital as the player-characters set out to clear their backlog of tasks and jobs. Keen as they were to keep in Clothilde von Alptraum's good books they went to the Temple of Drama first to investigate the cancellation of the play that Clothilde was so eager to see. It turned out that the company was missing both a vital prop and their lead man; the former was a giant spider, and that little fact suggested a possible reason for the latter's disappearance. The player-characters ran into Carlo Spinezzi, a furtive and jealous understudy, and convinced -- they are getting quite good at threatening people -- him to admit that he had murdered the lead actor Nikolai di Fortessi and had freed the spider as a cover.

The spider was found stuffed into a box -- and quite angry -- in a store room beneath the theatre; also discovered were three barrels of gunpowder, enough to flatten half the building. Spinezzi claimed to know nothing about the explosives and while the player-characters were certain that the goal was to kill Clothilde they couldn't work out how cancelling the play, er, played into that. Still, they had the matter of a kidnapped elf to investigate and it was almost time for lunch so they took the gunpowder -- as "evidence" -- and dragged Spinezzi to the local watch house.

On the way back they spotted Frederick Grosz ambling down the street towards them, oblivious to their presence. This was notable not only because Grosz was supposed to be in Nuln but also that he'd been named on the Mysterious Note™ that had tipped them off about the kidnapping; they were convinced of his complicity when he spotted them and then legged it down an alley. Even with a couple of stumpy dwarves in the party Grosz couldn't outrun the player-characters and soon they began persuading him -- see above -- to tell them what he'd been up to since they last saw him.

(In hindsight this encounter looks a little too convenient but it was a genuine coincidence; this section of the adventure is based on a strict timeline and had the player-characters taken a little longer at the theatre or watch house they would have missed Grosz and their chance to rescue the kidnapped elf.)

Grosz revealed that he had been working for the Black Hood -- shock, gasp, etcetera -- and that he had indeed organised the kidnap of Eothlir. His associates were lurking on a riverboat named the Restless Spirit waiting for Grosz to return; they had been told to take Eothlir to Carroburg and wait for further instructions from the Hood. Grosz could give no clues as to the Hood's identity as the mysterious villain had been clad in, er, a black hood, but he did tell them where he'd met the Hood-- an establishment known as the Holy Hammer of Sigmar -- and promised to take the party to the Restless Spirit.

An unusual and brutal fight then followed as everyone got into a bit of a scrum around the boat's small cabin door and Aelric tossed lightning bolts into the tiny space behind; soon the cabin was packed full of bloody chunks of frazzled thugs and a small number of terrified survivors, all of whom were keen to surrender as soon as possible. Also present was Eothlir, tied and gagged in a corner and staring in wide-eyed terror at Aelric, whose head was engulfed in eldritch flame once more.

More persuasion -- see above -- followed as Magnar and Aelric were convinced that Eothlir knew why he had been kidnapped and that Grosz knew who the Black Hood really was and that both were being evasive on purpose. Neither belief turned out to be accurate and Grosz's cooperation was rewarded with a trip to the bottom of the river; there was some debate over whether the elf should also take a swim -- something something something dark side something something something complete -- but in the end he was allowed to live. As he hopped off the boat, Eothlir mentioned that he had an appointment with Friedrich von Kaufman to discuss an expedition to the Southlands that he had sponsored; as a long-forgotten plotline screeched into view the player-characters blinked at each other for a moment then pursued him to find out more.

The elf had been the captain on the voyage to the Southlands that had resulted in the discovery of -- among other things -- the jade mask that had later been stolen by skaven and melted down to make the tainted bell clapper that had been causing so much trouble. Eothlir thought there was something dodgy about the mask and wanted to warn von Kaufman of the danger; with their two major tasks for the morning completed the player-characters decided to accompany the elf to his meeting.

Along the way they couldn't help but notice a commotion at the theatre. Upon investigation it transpired that the performance had gone ahead as a result of their efforts earlier in the day but during the play Clothilde von Alptraum had been stabbed by two assailants, employees of the theatre company; the Gravin had survived and was recovering at her town house and the would-be murderers were in custody at the watch house.

Somehow the player-characters managed to convince the guards that they had the right to see the prisoners and recognised them as two members of support staff for the Tilean actors. After more persuasion -- see above -- the player-characters not only had confirmation that the Hood wanted Clothilde dead -- the stabbing was improvised after the discovery of the gunpowder scuppered the original plan -- but that the Hood was indeed based at the Holy Hammer of Sigmar. They were rather more surprised to discover that the Hood was -- according to the failed assassins anyway -- a woman, information that if true threw all their theories of the villain's identity out the window.

Upon meeting with von Kaufman at last they learned nothing new about the mask -- indeed, it was the noble who learned the most as they'd been too paranoid to tell him about the skaven and the bell clapper back in Averheim -- but they did note that von Kaufman had done very well out of the recent war with the Chaos marauders and that he had become a bit of a rising star in Altdorf; as such he was due to attend a special service at the temple of Sigmar the next day alongside a number of other muckety-mucks, and he invited the player-characters to attend as his guests. The players know a set piece encounter when they see one so the characters were enthusiastic in their agreement.

They also took the opportunity to report back to an exhausted Marcus Baerfaust on their less-than-successful mission to find out what Adele Ketzenblum knew about the Black Hood, and then visited an addled Konrad Mauer to deliver the purified bell clapper and report the death of his friend Robertus von Oppenheim; both Averlanders seemed worse for wear as a result of their duties at the ailing Emperor's bedside and neither seemed to relish being the heroes of the day.

Having done their rounds of the prominent non-player-characters and being no closer to pinning down the Black Hood's identity -- frontrunners at this point were Baerfaust, von Apltraum, and Ketzenblum -- the party decided to investigate the Holy Hammer of Sigmar and see if they could catch the Hood. Waiting until nightfall -- and with the Chaos moon Morrslieb high and full in the sky -- they gained entry to the insalubrious establishment but found that the Hood and his or her henchmen had scarpered earlier in the day leaving behind no clues other than a forgotten piece of plate armour of good quality. The staff were persuaded -- see above -- to reveal that a woman with a scar on her face had left in the company of a number of burly, militaristic-looking men that afternoon. Could this scarred woman have been the Hood?

The next day the party rose early and went to visit Clothilde von Alptraum. While weak she was pleased to see them and didn't seem to mind when they insisted on examining each of her maids and servants for scars. As the breakfast meeting came to a close, the Gravin expressed her intention to recover enough to attend the service at the temple of Sigmar later that day, causing a suspicious Rudiger to proclaim upon leaving the town house that "If she doesn't turn up, then she's clearly the Hood, and we should kill her."

March Madness 31 Day Obscure Game Blogging Challenge Ex Plus Alpha

I didn't get involved in the February Dungeons and Dragons blog event meme thing because I didn't want to clog up the blog -- blogclog? -- with half-hearted recollections of a game with which I have little connection. Then someone pointed out Tedenkhamen's non-D&D version and so here we are.

You're getting it in one big chunk because I don't think you need me wittering on at you every day for a month.

1 What was the first roleplaying game other than D&D you played? Was it before or after you had played D&D? 

The first role-playing game I played was the multiplayer version of Fighting Fantasy. I remember my friend Gareth introducing me to the book and I think we ran through a fight using the rules but I don't know if we got any further than that. I didn't play Dungeons and Dragons for the first time until a good five or six years after that, although I was aware of the game.

2 In what system was the first character you played in an RPG other than D&D? How was playing it different from playing a D&D character?

I'm pretty sure we used the sample characters from the example of play -- Armstrong, Bigneck and Crystal -- in that first FF not-game so I'm not sure that counts. If not then the first character I created would have been Mister Majeika, an ork street samurai in Shadowrun. At the time I still hadn't played D&D but Majeika was an ork on a motorbike and he had a submachine gun so I like to think that I had some sort of nascent awareness of the differences.

3 Which game had the least or most enjoyable character generation?

I did not like Traveller: The New Era at all but I enjoyed the way characters entered the game complete with this little biography telling the player where they'd been and what they'd done. I haven't played any other versions of Traveller -- not because TNE put me off but because no one I know plays it -- but I understand that they all take a similar approach.

4 What other roleplaying author besides Gygax impressed you with their writing?

I'm not that impressed with Gygax's writing to be honest but perhaps I've not read enough of the classics to appreciate his prose. +Chris Hogan's Small But Vicious Dog is a delight to read and I'd love to see more role-playing books follow his lead and move away from the technical manual style that seems to dominate the hobby.

5 What other old school game should have become as big as D&D but didn’t? Why do you think so?

This is a tricky one but given the fact that Star Wars turned up at around the same time as the role-playing hobby was taking off I'm surprised that Traveller didn't become more popular. It is popular, I know that, but it seems like it should have been able to capitalise somehow on Star Wars and so rival D&D in popularity.

6 What non-D&D monster do you think is as iconic as D&D ones like hook horrors or flumphs, and why do you think so?

It may be a bit of a cheat but I'm going with Cthulhu and I'd say he's more iconic than most D&D monsters. More so than the flumph anyway.

7 What fantasy RPG other than D&D have you enjoyed most? Why?

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I like the simplicity of the system and the wonderful career-based character development, but it's the sense of humour that I like the most. I know a lot of people consider it to be dark fantasy or even horror but I see it as a comedic game, sort of Blackadder does D&D.

8 What spy RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details. 

I haven't played any spy games, at least not in the strictest sense. I enjoyed aspects of the first edition of Conspiracy X but I'm not sure that counts. Cold City and Hot War are excellent games that both involve espionage to a certain extent but I don't think they could be called spy games either. I really want to play Night's Black Agents.

9 What superhero RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

My superhero gaming experience consists of one session of the 1980's Marvel rpg so I suppose by default that's my answer. In fairness it was good fun; I played Death's Head in a team with Deadpool, Cable, and the Human Torch and we nuked St. Petersburg. It was an accident. Sort of.

10 What science fiction RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

I enjoyed running Rogue Trader even if the campaign spluttered to a halt. I had great fun playing Shadowrun in my teens -- see 2 -- if the presence of magic, elves, and dragons doesn't discount it. That said, Rogue Trader has elves, orcs, and magic too.

11 What post-apocalyptic RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

I know it's one of the classic genres but I don't think I've ever played a post-apocalyptic role-playing game. I did play Twilight 2000 a couple of times but the GM was using the rules to run an X-Files pastiche so that probably doesn't count.

12 What humorous RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

See 7.

13 What horror RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

I love Call of Cthulhu more than any other role-playing game. I first played it some time after being introduced to Shadowrun and Star Wars and it was so different; we were playing normal people with no special abilities -- beyond an aptitude for accounting or natural history -- investigating a haunted house. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of the hobby and to this day it's the only game that's scared me and the only game with which I've scared players. I also consider it to be one of the most heroic rpgs; you play librarians pitting themselves against nigh-omnipotent alien space gods that they cannot hope to defeat but they try anyway.

14 What historical or cultural RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

I can't say that I've played any such game. Call of Cthulhu is historical but the alien space gods probably disqualify it.

15 What pseudo or alternate history RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?

Again, I'm not sure I've played one of these unless Call of Cthulhu counts. This exercise is making it look like I've only ever played about five games in my entire life.

16 Which RPG besides D&D has the best magic system? Give details.

I wouldn't say D&D has a good magic system, let alone "the best" but that's not an answer. I like the way that magic in WFRP2 is so unpredictable and even the smallest spell has a chance of going wrong and causing a mutation or summoning a major daemon; it's also a nice simple spellcasting system based on rolling a small pool of dice and adding up the numbers. Easy.

My favourite magic system though is probably that of Shadowrun circa the second edition. I like the little details; spellcasting is limited by the caster's toughness and so a mage can be exhausted or even killed if she pushes herself too far.; spells leave a trace in the astral plane so can be tracked back to their casters; urban shamans can conjure spirits made out of rubbish; it's packed full of fun ideas but they've all been thought out and make sense within the context, or as much as magic can make sense anyway.

17 Which RPG has the best high tech rules? Why?

Technology in rpgs tends to translate to "stuff to buy" in my experience and I don't really care about equipment lists. I will say that if a game has construction rules -- for starships, vehicles, robots, and so on -- then it has an above average chance of winning me over.

18 What is the crunchiest RPG you have played? Was it enjoyable?

Traveller: The New Era had rules for calculating the effect the gravity of various planets would have on the range and damage of bullets fired upon said planets. An admirable attention to detail but in no way enjoyable.

19 What is the fluffiest RPG you have played? Was it enjoyable?

I assume this means the rpg with the most setting and fewest rules. Fighting Fantasy uses 2d6 for everything and has a wealth of setting information if you count the fifty-odd gamebooks. Was it enjoyable? Read on, Macduff.

20 Which setting have you enjoyed most? Why?

This is tricky. My favourite rpgs each have their own settings -- Call of Cthulhu has umpteen -- but I can't say that I have any particular attachment to them divorced from their associated rulesets. That said, Cthulhu Invictus is amazing but who doesn't like Romans?



If I do have a favourite setting then it is probably Titan, the world of the Fighting Fantasy books; I haven't played a game set in Jackson and Livingstone's jumbled patchwork world in many years now, but I spent many happy hours bashing GOBLINS there and I'd love to return one day.

21 What is the narrowest genre RPG you have ever played? How was it?

I'm not sure what this question is getting at. What's a narrow genre? I suppose it's referring to something like Pendragon where you all play male, English knights in Arthurian Britain and there's not a lot of wiggle room; the game doesn't support Sir Cedric of Slough going dungeon crawling or getting in a boat and sailing off to discover America, or of being Lady Cedric instead.

If that is what the question is getting at then Pendragon -- despite its narrow focus, or perhaps because of it -- is an excellent game and is in my top five rpgs.

22 What is the most gonzo kitchen sink RPG you ever played? How was it?

One of my great regrets is that I've never played Rifts, a game which must be near the pinnacle of gonzo gaming. I have played Feng Shui though, and that's not only bonkers but also a great deal of fun.

23 What is the most broken game that you tried and were unable to play?

I recall trying to play the Mutant Chronicles rpg once. We gave up and drank cheap whiskey instead.

24 What is the most broken game that you tried and loved to play, warts and all?

It is clear that the first edition of Advanced Fighting Fantasy had almost no playtesting whatsoever but even so I remember running and playing a long campaign using the rules that was bonkers and brilliant and only stopped when the rules couldn't support it any more.

25 Which game has the sleekest, most modern engine?

I think this may be two questions masquerading as one. I find Chaosium's d100 system to be quite sleek as it's intuitive and light and gets out of the way but it also originates in the late 1970's so is not in any way modern.

26 What IP (=Intellectual Property, be it book, movie or comic) that doesn’t have an RPG deserves it? Why?

I am astounded -- astounded, I say -- that there isn't a series of Final Fantasy tabletop rpgs. It seems like such an obvious thing to do. I'm no fan of the franchise but I'm also surprised that there's no Harry Potter game.

27 What RPG based on an IP did you enjoy most? Give details.

See 7.

28 What free RPG did you enjoy most? Give details.

I don't think I've played a free rpg. I've got a few and they're stacked on the shelf ready to be played but the opportunity has never arisen. When it does I'd like to give Lady Blackbird a try.

29 What OSR product have you enjoyed most? Explain how.

This is an odd question. I'm not supposed to be talking about D&D in these answers -- it's the whole point of the exercise after all -- but the OSR is dominated by D&D so I'm not sure what to say here. If people in the OSR are producing swathes of material for WFRP, Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, and Pendragon, they haven't told me, the blackguards.

30 Which non-D&D supplemental product should everyone know about? Give details.

I really want to say Vornheim here because it's one of the most useful and innovative rpg products I've ever seen but it is sort of D&D focused. Instead I will go for the d1000 random mutation tables from either the old Realms of Chaos books or the more recent Tome of Corruption; both are for Warhammer but can be used with any game with just a bit of work and they're so much fun to use.

31 What out-of-print RPG would you most like to see back in publication? Why?

This is perhaps a bit of a cheat as it's D&D-derived but Dragonlance: Fifth Age was a fun and promising game that got sucked into the demise of TSR and I would love to see a new edition with the Dragonlance stuff left behind.