And so we come to the first post in the anticipated attempt to present a write-up of what’s been going on in my current campaign, set in Altdorf. I’ve just wrapped up a seven session bout, which The Altdorf Truth probably would describe as filled with “SCANDALS! IMPROPER BEHAVIOUR! VIOLENCE!!! FRATERNISATION WITH CRIMINALS!! MOB WARS!!! HAUNTINGS!!!!! BAD POETRY! RAMPANT DEBAUCHERY!!! BAD PUNS! INSULTS BANDIED ABOUT!!! NIEDERHAFEN PIKE EATS MAN!!!” … and so on so forth.

Although the campaign lacks a title per se, I’ve come to think of it as My Altdorf, with the subtitle “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”. This perfectly sums up who the PC’s most dangerous opponents are; themselves and their near suicidal tendencies to get into trouble.

This seems to be a strong motivating factor when it comes to WFRP. The players want to get into all kinds of messes, many of them not combat related but rather social in nature. They relish blunders, and we have even considered taking away or revising the concept of Fortune Points, so as to make the game more unpredictable. We have a few other house rules that I’ll get back to at the opportune moment.

The other day, when driving home from the latest sessions, one player remarked that he felt as if he is now starting to know Altdorf a lot better, and that it is starting to be a more important part of the play experience that the campaign is set in one city. It makes it markedly different from our dungeon delves, and the occasional Call of Cthulhu adventure, where we don’t really know anything about the surroundings, and don’t really care what happens to them after we’ve been there.

In this campaign, the players get to know new faces all the time, but they also get to bump into old acquaintances and forge more long-term relationships with the NPCs, for good and for worse. The option of just killing everyone who opposes you doesn’t really exist (although it has been tried a few times), and it’s equally impossible just to ignore enemies. They’re always up to something bad!

And thus endeth the first post of this ongoing series! Stay tuned for more!

/Magnus