Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e Solo with Mythic 2e - Introduction

Kicking off Season 3 with one of my favourite RPGs and returning to the most popular Game Master Emulators of them all. Plus introducing Hilda the Entertainer.

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RPG Introduction - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition (WFRP, pronounced "woof-rup") was released in 2005 and for a good few years was my favourite RPG. My first RPG in Season 1 was WFRP 1e, seeing Trasci find the attention of Ulric. There was a WFRP 3e we try not to talk about (a strange-mix with board-game components and precursor to Genesys RPG before the Star Wars games). And the current version of Warhammer 4E from Cubicle 7. 4E is well supported with supplements, the base game adding in more complexity and options to the game.

I'll be using the base Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and one supplement, the Career Compendium.

WFRP 2 streamlines and cleans up the glorious mess of WFRP 1e. It uses d10s and percentile skill system. It adds a working magic system which is still one of my favourites. The careers are kept, but are made more consistent in that they all give some Skills and Talents (in contrast to the poor Roadwarden in 1e with just the Ride skill).

Combat is dangerous and it retains the Critical Hit tables which players seem to love. There are dodges and parries, exploding damage and hit locations, pistols, halberds, sword-breakers, flails and nets.

Other system features are Fate Points to keep characters alive, Fortune Points to give them re-rolls and some agency. Basic Skills which anyone can use, Advanced Skills that need training, a small beastiary. There are Insanities to reflect the strains of the world, a decent starting adventure in Through the Drackwald and magic system mishaps. Plus chapters for Religion & Belief, the Game Master and the Empire (the setting).

Characters have a starting career such as Rat Catcher, Servant, Hedge Witch, Grave Robber and Pit Fighter. Through their lives they'll progress (or fall into) other careers, maybe advancing from Rat Catcher to Cat Burgler, diversifying as a Bone Picker or changing direction as a Hunter. Characters can buy new talents and advance their Attributes depending on their current career.

WFRP 2e leans more into the Warhammer World, at at least the Empire part of it. It's a gritty, dangerous and dark world. And far more developed. 1E was released when the Warhammer World was far less developed, before the Empire Within campaign and the changes to the world from Warhammer Fantasy Battle 4e.

A world of Greenskins, dangerous forests, powerful but dangerous magic and psuedo-european Renaissance in the Old World. With the lurking corruption and seductive power of Chaos in the background, manifesting through mutations, roaming beastmen, tunneling skaven and the Enemy Within, the secret cults of chaos.

Solo Tools - Mythic GME 2e

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I'm returning to Mythic GM Emulator 2E as my oracle for the game. I first used it in Season 1 with Troika! and I've interviewed Mythic creator Tana Pigeon.

Mythic GM Emulator provides a suite of tools to help you run your solo game. Mythic can keep track of your storylines, answer questions, suggest ideas, organise your scenes, provide interruptions and throw in twists.

In addition to Mythic I'll be using some random tables and generators, having a look through WFRP Tools new and old, and rifling through online and physical Tables/PDFs and Generator Tools for Dark Fantasy.

The modular components of Mythic GM Emulator 2e are...

• Fate Questions. The Yes / No oracle rolling on the Fate Chart for results of Yes, No, Extreme Yes and Extreme No. These can trigger Events and you can choose from 9 odds such as 50/50, Nearly Certain and Very Unlikely.
• Chaos Factor. A number that varies from 1 to 9, starting at 5. Lower values result in more No Answers, fewer Events and less Interrupted Scenes, and higher values the opposite.
• Random Events. Random Events are triggered by certain results on a Fate Question or an Interrupt Scene. The Event can be rolled up/chosen using Event Meaning and Event Focus, interpreted by the player in the current context. Default Mythic has a 5% chance of triggering an event on each Fate Question (a roll of 11, 22, 33, 44 or 55 with a Chaos Factor of 5)
• Scenes. The Scenes are a way of organising your solo play. A scene can be as long or short as you want, starting and ending as you see fit. When you want to move on you propose the Expected Scene. This is then tested with a die roll, resulting in your suggested scene, an different Interrupt Scene or an Altered Scene (your suggested scene with a change). Default Mythic has a 50% chance of the Expected Scene, 20% chance of an Interrupt Scene and 30% of an Altered Scene.
• Lists. These organise your story element. The Thread List has ongoing plot threads and unanswered questions. The Characters List has NPCs, factions, objects and any other entity that might figure in your game. These keep track of the elements, update as scenes progress, plots resolve and characters leave the game. I use a variation of these in most solo games I play, Mythic or not.
• Meaning. These are a good number of d100 Tables that can be combined to result in one or more words for inspiration and ideas. Typically two rolls, an example of the iconic Action tables gives "Suppress" and "Time". A stopped clock? A shortened deadline? time-distortion? Lack of free time?
• Variations and Expansions. A critical factor Mythic is the support it receives in the core book, through variations, extensions and supplemental via Mythic Magazines, blog posts and house rules.

This isn't my first time with Mythic 2E, so I'll be customising it a little. These will be having a fixed Chaos Factor of 5 (as I prefer not to keep track of it) and trying out the 2d10 Fate Check (Mythic 2e pg 25) instead of the d100 Fate Chart.

Introducing Brunhilda Mugwort

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I'm starting with one character, the halfling Brunhilda Mugwort, an aspiring entrepreneur...

Brunhilda "Hilda" Mugwort

Halfling female Entertainer. 3'7", 130 lb, corn hair, dark brown eyes, a large mole on her face, four brothers, Star Sign of Wymund the Anchorite (endurance), 50 years old.

Skills - Academic Knowledge (Genealogy/Heraldry), Animal Care, Charm, Common Knowledge (the Empire, Halflings), Gossip +10, Perception, Perform (Comedian, Storyteller), Speak Language (Halfling, Reikspiel +10), Trade (Cook)

Talents - Luck, Mimic, Night Vision, Public Speaking, Resistance to Chaos, Specialist Weapon Group (Sling)

Equipment - common clothes, tattered cloak, leather jerkin, dagger, mace, backpack [costume, tankard, wooden cutlery set, blanket, trade tools (performer)], purse with 10 gold crowns

(Those abbreviations stand for Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness, Agility, Intelligence, Willpower and Fellowship. Plus secondary characteristics of Attacks, Wounds, Strength Bonus, Toughness Bonus, Move, Magic, Insanity Points and Fate / Fortune Points.)

Threads List and Character List

My basic idea is that Hilda's troupe of entertainers split up and now she's returned to her home city of Middenheim, where trouble awaits.

Which I've split down to starting threads and characters of...

Threads

• (1) Find a new animal performer partner
• (2) Consider why her group of entertainers split
• (3) Avoid old trouble in Middenheim

Characters

• (1) Hilda's former entertainer group
• (2) Previous friends and foes in Middenheim

Character Generation for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e

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Character generation in WFRP 2e is random. The eight attributes of the main profile found by rolling 2d10 and adding 10, 20 or 30. All human starting stats are 2d10+20. After rolling you get "Shallya's Mercy", setting one stat to the average.

(I used a custom d10 table for Race of 1-5 Human, 6-7 Dwarf, 8 Elf, 9-10 Halfling, and set Hilda's Intelligence to the average of 31)

You get Racial Features of a set of Skills and Talents, including 2 random talents for Humans and 1 for Halflings.

(Hilda gets the always useful sling as a weapon, the defining Trade (cook), and very useful random talent of Luck, giving an extra fortune point each day)

Then you get some basic equipment and roll (or choose) your career. Your career gives you Skills, Talents and Equipment, and the potential Advances you can take. You also get one Free Advance.

(I'm using the Career Compendium and rolled d1000 twice, with results of "Entertainer" or "Rogue" from the core book. An entertainer seems a great way to get into trouble so started with that. Among the Entertainer skills was "Gossip", increasing it to +1 above base. Hilda took her Free Advance of +5 Fellowship)

Last there's Ten Questions to expand your character and some Background Charts to roll on.

(I skipped the ten questions and went to the random tables. And used the WFRP Halfling Names generator I wrote years ago at Chaos Gen)

Finishing Up

Hilda will be trying to avoid fights but will find all sorts of trouble. I'm not a great fan of hobbits/halflings but for some reason love them in WFRP. They are iconic for me, as are pies thanks to a d10 Pie table and Pie Week.

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