I knew preparing a campaign would be a lot of work. I knew learning a new system like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay would be work. What I didn’t realize was how much reading, learning, and creativity would be involved in pulling everything together.
Boy do I have a lot more appreciation for the work all of the game masters I’ve played with have done.
Here’s to all of the GMs out there whose work might not be as appreciated as you might like. I’ve had hours of fun gaming with some fantastic GMs over the years. Thank you for the inspiration for having the courage to GM my own session in the next few days.
I’m hoping to demo the system soon after giving up hope of trying to find anyone that plays it around here. After starting up, what did you realize you needed? What kind of material prep would have been useful for your players? I’m trying to put together a packet of basic gameplay rules ahead of time.
While this was my first foray into GMing, I’m lucky that two of the players in my group are very experienced GMs. They are an excellent resource. One of the players also co-GMs and runs different parts so I get to play too. It’s a lot of fun to be able to switch off. I’ve learned a lot about how to handle battles.
Probably the best thing we did in my group were run several “optional” sessions where players and GMs had an opportunity to explore specific game mechanics. We focused on taking the time to work through aspects and figure out how the game worked (or our interpretation worked). Players who participated did not receive any experience points. Instead, they were given additional coin or items instead.
Before we played, I wrote up posts of resources and sent them to the players. (See the Warhammer FRP category for links to those posts.)
Have you looked on Gitzman’s Gallery in the Warhammer section? The site has an excellent summary of the rules in a printable PDF: WFRP3 Summary by Count Dimon.