Did my 1st GM do the right thing?
I've been thinking about the 1st RPG Campaign I ever did and I've had a thought. Did The GM in my 1st ever RPG Campaign do the right thing?. Here's all I know
The GM was A Veteran but all 6 of the players were novices, he knew that 1st edition WFRP, which at the time was the only edition, could be and often was brutal
That's why from the start he decided that the best thing to do was break enough rules to ensure our characters were powerful enough to have a very good chance of winning whilst still being weak enough that the bad guys would also have a very good chance of winning. Here's the 1's I remember
The GM made it clear that if needed he would make the enemies more powerful and/or more numerous, and he did, several times
1 example is The GM upgrading Teugen to A 2nd Level Wizard/2nd level Demonologist, giving him The Spell Deamonic Steed and giving him A Magic Ring that gives the wearer 2 points of Armor on every location but doesn't effect his/her Spellcasting
Another example is upgrading Margritte Von Wittgenstein to A 2nd level Wizard/2nd level Necromancer that has 1 bottle of Potion of Healing and also has A Spell Ring that holds enough MP's for 3 castings of The Spell Fireball and he decided he'd give her A 2nd, unnamed, Skeleton Minor Hero
The GM's thinking was that Margaritte didn't know if she could control her creation, but she isn't a fool, insane yes but not foolish, and The GM decided that Margaritte decided that having A 2nd, unnamed, Skeleton Minor Hero that spend all its time in the lab would be a very wise precaution
When rolling for stats all 6 Pcs made rolls each for M, S, T and W and each time you take the highest and for The percentage stats you roll 1D10 3 times and discard the lowest. That's why my Elven Female Wizards Apprentice ended up starting with M 5, WS 46, BS 36, S 4, T 4, W 6, I 66, A 1, DEX 45, LD 45, INT 60, CL 53, WP 46 and FEL 45
Their will be 6 Pcs, at least 3 must be Humans, at least 1 and no more then 2 can be Elves, their can't be A Dwarf and if theirs A Halfling they must be Male and at least 1 and no more then 3 of them can be female
When determining their initial career every player makes 3 rolls and choose's 1.of them. This netted us 1 Male Halfling Physicians Student, 1 Female Elven Wizards Apprentice, 1 Human Male Seamen, 1 Human Male Noble, 1 Human Male General Thief and 1 Elven Female Minstrel
Regardless of when you acquire Magic Points you roll 1 dice, regardless of type, more then normal and discard the lowest. For example A Illusionist would make 5 1D4 rolls and take the 4 highest
That's why my Elven Female Wizards Apprentice gained 8 Magic Points as A Wizards Apprentice, gained 15 Magic Points as A 1st level Wizard, gained 12 Magic Points as A 2nd Level Elementalist and gained 14 Magic Points as A 3rd Level Elementalist
Annoyingly I can't remember what Magic Points she gained in later careers or even what other magical careers she entered, but I do remember she entered other magical careers
When using The Rules for Social Class and Standing when rolling for the Standing you roll twice and take the highest. 1 example is that starting out she was A Wizards Apprentice with 2D4 points of Standing, the rolls were 5 and 7, so she had 7 points of standing
Another example is that by the time she became A 1st level Wizard she had accomplished 2 notable deeds, so she had 7D4 points of Standing, the rolls were 7, even after almost 27 years I still can't believe that all 7 rolls came up A 1, and 21, The 7 rolls were 3 3's, 2 4's and 2 2's, sadly even after almost 27 years I've never had that much luck with 1 character, not even so had 21 points of standing
When determining Skills rather then randomly choose from 1 of 3 Skills none Humans choose from 1 of 3 and for the other Skills you generate 2 more then normal then choose 2 to not take. For example The Human Male Seamen ended up with 5 Skills, he generated 7 Skills and choose which 5 he kept
My Elven Female Wizards Apprentice was 135, this means she has 1D4+2 or 3+2 or 5 Skills, she automatically got Excellent Vision, I have to choose between Dance, Musicianship and Public Speaking and I choose Public Speaking
The 3+2 or 5 random rolls, of which I get to choose 3 to keep and must discard the other 2, were 19(Blather), 73(Ride), 30(Dance), 88(Sixth Sense) and 53(Heraldry) and I choose The 73(Ride), The 30(Dance) and The 88(Sixth Sense)
Whenever either we needed trappings to change careers we stole them and whenever we spend, ate, drank, sold, used up, exchanged or otherwise no longer had something my Elven Wizards Apprentice and The General Thief worked together to either steal them back or steal back a identical replacement
Over the campaign we acquired several dozen Npc Followers and we paid them by having my Elven Wizards Apprentice and The General Thief steal the money that we paid them with
The GM made it possible to buy Minor Magical Items and Potions and even though it was very expensive it was possible
Creating Player Character Background Table's specifically designed to give all 6 Pcs a background that would be very useful and in the right situations could save The lives of The Entire Party but it wouldn't make the campaign so easy that we couldn't lose
Another benefit is that if a situation was very bad but we had time to send a message we could get enough help to turn a fight that we were guaranteed to lose into a fight that we had a chance to win. See below for 1 example of how I obeyed The Wording but not The Intent of that ruling
My Elven Wizards Apprentice is The much younger Sister, at the start of the my character was 133 and her sister was 159, of The Wife of A Elven Crime Lord in Boghafen, trust me being The Guidmasters Sister-In-Law of The Boghafen Thieves Guild comes with a lot of perks that were very useful during Shadows over Boghafen
The 5 that I remember were getting The Thieves Guild to leave us alone, getting them to offer free, to The Pcs but The Guildmaster did pay for us, minor favors, hints, tips and advise, being able to swarm the docks with enough Thieves, corrupt Watchmen, Footpads and Protagonists to ensure the ritual didn't even start, this also gave us dozens of witness's that could testify about what Teugen was up to and it ensured that after saving Boghafen our reward was bigger then the 1 that we'd normally get
Rules for making money by investing money in stocks, shares and investments, by buying business's and by buying land and/or property and renting them out. By sheer coincidence even though the campaign ended roughly 6.3 years before I 1st read The Old World Armory The Rules The GM made were almost identical to those in The Old World Armory
To ensure that we were strong enough to survive fighting the foes you face during The Last 3 Adventures in The Enemy Within before we started The Enemy Within The GM let us get a lot of XP, a lot of treasure, a few magical and several useful and/or powerful allies by doing The Restless Dead Campaign
We also did A Judgement in Stone from Deaths Dark Shadows and in order for us to gain a very powerful magic item after we learnt that The Warpstone was in Castle Wittgenstein but before we went to Castle Wittgenstein The GM had us do Fire In The Mountains/Doomstones Book 1
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Comments
When rolling for initial Gold we each rolled twice and took the highest roll and that applies to extra Gold and/or valuables and/or other stuff, for example Hangers on, that we start with
Sadly The GM made it clear that that would never happen with trappings needed for later careers, but we got round that by arranging it so that everytime A Pc changed career my Wizard and The Thief stole double the stuff we needed and if it had a random minimum amount they stole double the normal maximum random figure
My character was the only 1 whose character ended up starting with 18 Gold, none of The other 5 Player Characters started with less then 10 Gold, how anyone could roll 3D6 twice and somehow manage for the 1st set of rolls to be 2 2's and 1 6, and the 2nd roll to be 1 5, 1 4 and 1 1 never knew and because this happened almost 27 years ago I will never know
Only 2 of our characters started with less then 12 Gold and the other players 1st set of 3 1D6 rolls came up as 1 6, 1 2 and 1 1 and The 2nd came up as 1 6, 1 4 and 1 2, all in all not bad but it also wasn't great
The player that made the 2nd lot of rolls was, to me, all of the following. My 1st colored friend, my only colored friend that was born in the same year as me, 1 of the 5 best female friends I had whilst I was a child, the smallest of the 5 best female friends I had whilst I was a child and the only 1 of the 11 best friends I had whilst I was a child that didn't like swimming
Strangely enough she was a good swimmer and if she'd tried she could have easily become a very good swimmer, she was living proof that you can be good at something you don't like doing
1 example of that that applies to me is that I was and still am good at math's but I used to hate it, but that's mostly down to the fact that I was unlucky enough to have had several nasty math's teachers but now that those days are long gone I love math's
Sadly she's also the only 1 of the 11 best friends I had whilst I was a child that I know is dead, saying that though I will admit even though I'm not sure whether or not heaven exists, but I will admit that if someone acquires undeniable proof that heaven exists then I'll be 1 of the 1st converts, I am sure that if it does exist then she went their
The Pc that is/was A Noble got 10D6 Gold Coins worth of Jewelry, he rolled A 43 and A 26 and ended up with 43 Gold Coins worth of Jewelry, he got 5D6 Gold Coins worth of cash, he rolled A 15, The Player actually rolled 2 2''s, 1 5, 1 3 and 1 1, and A 23, and ended up with 23 Gold Coins
He also got 1D4 Hangers-on, he rolled A 1 and A 3, so he got 3 Hangers-on, The GM foolishly let the player choose his hangers-on, with very few limits but at least their were some, and The Human Male Noble ended up with A Combat Trained Human Servant, A Combat Trained Elven Herbalist and A Dwarfern Bodyguard
In case anyone's wondering The GM justified this by pointing out that The Background to The Mission The Pcs want to take part in during Mistaken Identity says no Dwarfs, but it doesn't say no Dwarfern Employees, which is why The GM decided that anyone, meaning not just A Pc, could, and to be honest likely did, bring along A Dwarfern Employee and/or Underling
Even more foolish is that The GM even allowed The Player that controlled The Human Male Noble Pc to pay his 3, initially but later on he had a lot more then 3, Hangers-On with money my Elven Wizards Apprentice and The General Thief stole