GM's tools and tips

This page is one of those off-topic pages you can find around the wiki. Here I'll just mention a few GM hints and something about my playing style. I've long ago decided against writing down my campaign in the way that others can play them, because I believe roleplay needs more freedom to be fun.

My Personal GM-style
When playing warhammer I believe it should be gritty. Death should not be taken lightly by players, unless they dislike their characters - and even then, there are other alternatives than trying to kill off your character. Most importantly, all players should play in character. I play roleplay, not hack and slash.

I dislike pre-made adventures and have found the improvised sessions to be the best. There can be some fixed points or single fixed sessions, because the story is important. Be aware that not all players believe the greater story should be as much in focus as I. I can agree that it is fun having complete freedom, but not if it is not very clear what the players can and cannot do. Instead i prefer setting up a scene and a few bound-to-happen problems, and see how my players find their way around it.

Without spoiling too much I can also say that I make use of perceived agency; my players might believe their choices change the things to come, but in fact they will only change very minor things. This is of course not always true, as in my Rogue's Life campaigns, I throw my characters into the adventure of surviving a world that does not want them, and watch them create havoc as they cannot survive without breaking laws and killing innocents. Soon they are forced into becoming criminals and travelling around, and finally they rise from the dust to become something more - or die.

My players also claim that they prefer the small scale stories to the large world ending plots, but to that I say: when you play a high experience character the warhammer setting is no longer fun to play in without something larger going on. A skilled thief will find no challenge in the Empire, unless all her teammates are thieves as well. It is simply too complicated to challenge characters in such specific tasks without crippling part of the party. And when the group was not specifically made for thievery, life as noble or caretakers of a small town, some characters quickly become obsolete. The world ending plots are the only all characters should feel somewhat compelled to parttake in, and where everyone can make their own role without restriction.

GM tips and tricks

 * Give the players a bit of leeway, but be wary of character differences. Mages can quickly escalate in power and should therefore be penalized through the world around them. Remember, the world believes: the only good witch, is a dead witch.
 * Be unclear of what is to happen and who the enemy is. Some players might want to hunt down and kill your antagonist. This is okay, but antagonists should have something that makes this option unattractive, because the antagonist deserves a fitting death. A way of making human antagonists difficult to kill is to grant them Imperial immunity: assaulting them will cause the players to become outlaws. Remember: a vampire lord is a deadly foe, an angry mob even more so.
 * There is no shame in letting an old character survive even though she has no more fate points. And hey, just because they use a fate point doesn't mean you shouldn't penalize them somehow. A lost leg is better than a lost life.
 * Life is not easy. A low XP character should have a difficult time surviving. Use the rules for starvation, disease and such until you are confident the characters have learned their lesson.
 * Through a failed campaign I learned that you should not let the problems and failures of a group pile up. At some point it becomes too much and the campaign ends in a bad way when the feeling of hopelessness decends.
 * Players are strange creatures. They will not do what you want. They do not succeed or fail when you want them to, and the loss of a character can drive them from the campaign faster than you can set up an orc encounter. Be honest with your players about the possibility and chance of death, and if you feel they would not want to play on without their character, give them a GM fatepoint - those fatepoints they cannot see, but are used whenever you fumble with the die rolls. Don't do it obviously without reason however. It is infuriating when death no longer matters because GM is afraid of killing a character.

How to recreate my campaigns?
Don't. You can use my lore, my characters and my playstyle, but make your own stories. Let your players feel the wrath of Azirtiro, the mysteriousness of Noctavigant, the terror of The Chaos Warrior, but let them do so in their own tales.

If you really want to replay my campaigns, jump to my campaign timelines and see if you can follow the trail.

Noctavigant (talk) 22:36, June 7, 2014 (UTC)