It always rains in Nuln

As an avid roleplayer a lot of things that I do in life are connected with my hobby. That said, I would have never imagined that my friends would organise me a... Hunter-themed bachelor party! Oh yeah, it happened. Last year, during late Autumn I got married. Before the ceremony my closest friends decided to threw me a bachelor party that I'd never forget. It was a tricky task, since I'm not into clubbing, strippers (obviously my wife is reading this), not even racing or gambling! So these absolute madmen gathered together one day, and decided that Hunter: The Reckoning-themed bachelor party is the right way to go. Oh boy, do these boys know me well! Survive your bachelor party, inherit the Earth! Simply put - it was awesome. Those of you who follow my blog for some time, know that I'm a huge Classic World of Darkness fan. In fact my favorite CWoD splat is the underdog of this whole line - Hunter: The Reckoning, a game from 1999. I will write a comprehensive review/love let...

Today was supposed to be James Purefoy day, but to be honest I didn't had time to fully watch "Ironclad". Too much things going on at once! That said, I did finally managed to read "A Brutal Finish", the official adventure from "Realms of Sorcery". I've been running various scenarios for the 4th edition of Warhammer Fantasy roleplay for some time now. Most of them have been adapted from the 2nd edition, and before we jump into "Rough Nights & Hard Days", I wanted to run "A Brutal Finish", the scenario from 2nd edition's "Realms of Sorcery" book. Is it worth checking out? You may want to pour yourself something to drink first... Taking place in Averheim, shortly after the death of Marius Leitdorf, the "Mad Count of Averland", the adventure is centred around a series of mysterious deaths. Apparently the capital of the province has been plagued by a series of mysterious spontaneous combustions. People fr...

A few days ago I've posted a rather controversial tweet about sandbox games, and why I think they're infinitely less appealing than those "on the rails". I also made a terrible mistake of forgetting about how much people get offended these days. My meme-based tweet twisted a lot of panties, fortunately most of the people interacting with it were reasonable and understood its tongue-in-cheek nature. To those people I say: thank you. Now back to topic. I dislike sandbox games a lot. They're boring, sluggish and only offer the guise of freedom. Shit, I almost forgot - this is of course only mine opinion, even if I present it as a revealed truth. Introducing the meme that started it all! Anyway, sandbox games - they're boring. Every single sandbox that I was playing or running was suffering from that problem. Even the ones that I watched on YouTube were horribly boring. The main problem here is that sandbox only works if the players have a clear goal for both thei...

Yeah, about that official adventure review - it ain't gonna happen. At least right now. For you see, I've finally read "There are no Such Things as Skaven" by Sami Uusitalo, and have fallen in love with that scenario. Metaphorically speaking, of course! This 2nd edition scenario is probably in my personal top 3 WFRP modules of all time, and the fact that I haven't GMed it yet is a travesty. Fortunately that will change in 2 days, as I'm about to unleash this masterpiece on my unsuspecting players who've just entered Averheim (the change in location is the only alteration I'll make here). Anyway, what is this scenario about, exactly? Skaven! Skaven, and all of their vile schemes! A prosperous town of Ashendorf, near the great city of Nuln, was visited by the evil ratmen some 150 years ago. The mythical beasts brought with them a horrible plague that decimated the populace of the city, and its ruling elite decided to make a devil's bargain. In order ...

The "Beat the boredom!" series is slowly coming to an end. I've enjoyed it immensely, but it's time to return to my usual writing schedule. Plus I want to write about other things than scenarios! That said, today I will review another WFRP adventure - "Blood Is Thicker"! Written by two authors, it takes place in a small village of Neubühl, which normally isn't even present on any map. Yup, it's that small. Just a tiny hamlet, somewhere in one of the deep forests of the Empire. Lately there's been something going on with the villagers living within its premises. They've begun to act strangely and hostile. Once Neubühl was a welcoming site to any traveler, but now it's full of unpleasant people who don't like strangers and are generally unwelcome to almost everyone. That's not all, however, as more and more citizens of this village go missing, and there is talk of rampant mutations amongst the populace of the town... The PCs find a ...

You know what I really love? Cheese. Hard, soft, blue, cottage - doesn't matter. I am a dairy man through and through, and so when I've stumbled upon the "Strange Harvests" scenario, I knew that I had to GM it! Professor Eggburger, the author of "Strange Harvests", tells a very interesting tale with with this adventure. It takes place in the south of the Empire, where the sun is always worm, the fields are always green, and the rich, healthy climate allows for the people living there to experience a modicum of joy and peace. No wonder that no one likes Averlanders, eh? They just have it too easy! Anyway, the party visits the idyllic and rich city of Edelpilzen, where a trial is taking place. A beloved noblewoman has been murdered in the most brutal way imaginable, and the two suspects are awaiting the final verdict of the judges - all of whom are the ruling members of the town, as well as masters of the Cheese Makers guild. The party can partake in the trial...

Welcome to another episode of my weekly WFRP scenario review! This time I'll be taking a short look at the timless classic - "The Oldenhaller Contract" by Richard Halliwell and Graeme Davis! Let's not mince words - most Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay enthusiasts have played this adventure at least once in their lives. It is an introductory scenario for the 1st edition of the game. I still remember reading it back in the days of elementary school and being freaked out by the creepy fly guy at the end. Mind you, back then I've mainly played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in a weekly club, organised by one of my school friends' older brother. Warhammer was something completely new to me, and at first I... didn't liked it that much. Yeah, it was too dark and gritty, and back then I was mainly playing heroic elves in a forgotten realm of the classic fantasy world, created by Gary Gygax. It was great fun, but a couple years later I've finally managed to catch t...

This week's scenario is a real treat for any horror fans out there. I kid you not, this one is genuinely creepy... and it has zombies! Before we begin - I don't really know who wrote this adventure. In the credits at the end of the PDF there's a mail, from which I've gathered that the man's name is "Bob", but that's it. So Bob - if you read this, give me a call. Oh, and you've written one, damn fine scenario! "The Madness of Baron Von Richter", written for the 2nd edition of WFRP, takes place in a small village in Todesburg, somewhere in the Empire. The PC's travelled for a long time and they're obviously tired, hungry and thirsty - not necessarily in that order. They will surely decide to visit the "Long Rifle" inn, where they can eat a hot meal and rest their weary bones. What they don't know is that very soon they'll have to defend this place from a huge horde of shambling dead. You see, our heroes have arrive...

Last week Cubicle 7 dropped a bunch of info about their future WFRP releases. It's quite impressive, and it actually made me rethink a lot of things about the current edition of the game. Yeah, no scenario review this week, sorry. You see, on the 30th of April we've been given a long and impressive list of upcoming 4th edition titles from the developers at C7. You can find it here . Among these we have a bestiary of sorts, a book about magic, both human, elvish and dwarf (in the form of runes, naturally), more parts of the "Enemy Within" remaster and a bunch of other sourcebooks. All in all, that's pretty impressive. Is it finally time for the 4th edition to pick up the pace a bit? Yeah, I'm not even kidding. That is genuienly impressive stuff. Mind you, I don't believe that we'll see any of these titles this year, but kudos to the C7 team for giving us a long and easy to read list of books which we might see... someday. Perhaps. You see...

For this week's "Beat the boredom!" episode I'll be writing about a favorite classic of mine - the WFRP 2nd edition starter adventure, called "Pretty Things"! It was included in the GM's Pack, which was sold with the GM's screen. I still have both of these products, even though they're quite battered. After all, I've been using them for almost 12 years now. Anyway, this scenario was written by Alfred Nuñez Jr., who's one of the WFRP veterans and is still active in the fandom. You can find his website here , and it is definitely worth checking out! As for the adventure itself - it's a perfect introduction to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, as it details the PCs quest to reunite a small, frightened girl with her father. On a lonely, Talabecland road, our heroes encounter a scene of utter carnage and promise a dying woman to rescue Bianka von Radische, a little girl kidnapped by vile bandits. Little do they know, that these hoodlums will ...

Welcome to the second episode of "Beat the boredom!". Today we'll be looking at a 4th edition scenario which takes place in the frozen reaches of eastern Kislev! "Cold Comfort at the Tasrina's Gate" won the first WFRP Game Masters Facebook group, scenario writing competition. Together with my fellow admins, Jim and Elie, we've decided that Philip Davies, the author, made a fantastic job writing this piece, and I definitely think that it's worth playing. Given that a lot of us have more time on their hands, why not try this one out? But let me tell you more about the "Cold Comfort at the Tsarina's Gate". The adventure takes place in the far-eastern parts of Kislev, in the World Edge Mountains, in fact! The PCs are on their way to a small dwarven hold of Kazid Irkulaz, where they hope to score some sweet merchant deals. Their earlier trip to the legendary Slayer Keep of Karak Kadrin ended in a disaster, and this gig is their last c...

Welcome to the brand new RPG series - Beat the boredom! What is it about, exactly? Well, stick around and I'll tell ya! Since most of us are currently hunkered down, waiting for that whole COVID-19 shite to pass, boredom became a very real issue. One of the best ways to beat it is to engage in some fin TTRPG experience with your friends. Naturally I'm talking about playing exclusively online. Roll20, Digital Playground, Skype and Discord - these are some of the perfect tools, one might need to organize a web RPG game. But there's also the issuse of WHAT to run. To this question I only have one answer - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay! I've been on a huge WFRP drive lately. I'm reading everything about the new edition, running two Roll20 games simultaneously, and can't enough of the Old World! I've figured that starting a new series, focused on easy to run scenarios (and maybe even short campaigns) would be a decent idea. That's how "Beat the bored...

This is it, the final chapter of my favorite character series. I'm not gonna lie, these posts were a joy to write, and this particular one is especially dear to me. Of all the Classic World of Darkness games, Hunter: The Reckoning is my personal favorite. Yeah, I know it's an underdog and the red-headed stepchild of the whole setting, but to me it's one of my favorite RPGs of all time. One day I will write a full review of this title, but for now let me just tell you that some of my best role-playing memories came from playing Hunter with my close friends years ago. The chronicle, the atmosphere, the props that we were using during our games, and finally... the characters. The characters were simply epic, and since HTR was the game in which we've played a single, longest campaign of all, they took a lot of time to develop, mature and evolve. Seeing their progress, their journey - it was pure joy. As much as I love WFRP, it is Hunter: The Reckoning with which I have, ...