Saturday, March 5, 2011
Abbernoth Campaign Setting
Realizing that this was initially going to focus on WHFRP 3rd Edition I was going to avoid posting about things of a non-WHFRP nature but since I have been focused on getting my own campaign setting written I figured I would make mention here. So the Abbernoth Campaign Setting is no available over at http://www.dragonsfoot.org/cc/ and I hope you all decide to take a peek and let me know what you think!
Friday, October 8, 2010
The Story Thus Far and Cunning Plans
Hello! There has been a great deal of goings on in the real world the last month of so, starting a new job, being very sick, and of course miniatures getting in the way. However as of last week my WHFRP 3rd Ed campaign has officially begun on a weekly basis with three of my demo game players returning with their characters Odwin, Adel, and Burgrin as well as a newcomer as of tonight playing Gerner Bieber, a Reiklander Hunter from Auerswald on his way south to Stromdorf to inform his half-brother Franz of their father's death after months of battling with the red pox.
As for the Eye for an Eye adventure the characters managed to foil Gregor Pierson's plans to summon the deamon from the painting and managed to keep Lord Aschafenberg and a few key members of his staff alive. After the horrifying events that took place at the climax of An Eye for an Eye the characters decided to stay on at Grunwald Lodge for a number of weeks with Odwin taking over the training of Lord Aschafenberg's newly hired guards out of Ubersreik while Burgrin picked up the slack left by Korden, the Lodge's former dwarf smith falling into the embrace of madness, and Adel helping the servants put the place back into order.
Three weeks later, on Aubentag Vern Hendrick returned to the Lodge with some newly hired servants and supplies as well as an unexpected guest who met up with them in the Reikwald, a grim and battle worn warrior priest of Sigmar, none other than the infamous Luthor Huss who had urgent buisness with Lord Aschafenberg.
Huss had discovered a mutant on the road while traveling toward Altdorf who bore Lord Aschafenberg's signet and the warrior priest decided to bring the beast's severed head to Grunwald Lodge to get some answers as to why a spawn of chaos had seemingly been one of Aschafenberg's servants. After a curt and truly terrifying encounter with an enraged Huss, which Adel might have eavesdropped on, Aschafenberg summoned the PC's to his chambers where he offered them 20 silver shillings to hunt down the other unaccounted member of his staff, the former physician Stefan Sieger.
The next morning the PC's left Grunwald Lodge with a small cart laden with basic provisions and traveled westward toward where Huss had discovered the mutated form of the Lodge's former gardener. The days travel went uneventfully and they arrived at a coaching inn located where the road to the lodge intersects the road connecting Ubersreik to Stromdorf, a small affair protected by a low stone wall known as the Thrice-Felled-Troll.
The PC's settled into the Inn quickly enough, taking some time over some steins of watered down ale and a meal of soup and bratwurst to figure out how to go about locating Sieger. After the meal Adel approached a traveling minstrel who had been performing at the Inn while staying the night to see what he might have heard. The minstrel took her up on a few free drinks, chatted away about this and that, filled the PC's in on some of the back story of Gregor Pierson and Andreas Von Bruener that the PC's hadn't uncovered during An Eye for an Eye, but had little to offer in regards to uncovering Sieger's location.
Not about to give up Adel and Odwin decided it was time to speak with the Troll's proprietor, the motherly and rather homely Helga who quickly warmed up to Adel's winning smile and natural social ease. Helga had remembered Sieger coming through a few weeks back but hadn't seen him since, apparently Sieger used to come to the Troll often enough in the years he was the Lodge's physician when he would travel to Stromdorf or Ubersreik for supplies or to visit friends. Though Helga wasnt able to help more, fortune was smiling on Odwin and Adel (a comet on an expertise die to be precise) and an old and grizzled bounty hunter who had been sitting at the bar happened to over hear their conversation with Helga and he knew of a young back alley surgeon from Altdorf by the name of Sieger who he had been hired to hunt down years ago after a number of young nobles were found dead in alleyways after his "ministrations". The bounty hunter, called Otto, hadn't heard much of the charlatan's whereabouts for years and no longer really cared but he did impart the name of one of Sieger's closest acquaintances during his years in Altdorf, an eccentric noble from Stromdorf called Lazerous Mourn....
Anyway that's the short and rather hastily written account of what has happened in our story since my last posting. It has been fun to see what my player's are enjoying about the system and the kind of play style that is developing among us. One of the biggest things my players have commented on his how much they enjoy interpreting their dice pools themselves and then describing the action.
What I have been doing is basically having the players roll their pool we go through quickly and pick out the results and what factors caused their actions success of failure and then the player will describe the action and its results for better or worse. Its been a great deal of fun as a GM to establish the setting and the characters involved and let the dice and my players tell me how things work out and my players claim that its dramatically improving their roleplaying skills as well.
One lesson that I have learned as a GM of WHFRP 3rd Ed is that the system is a lot easier to simply "wing it" where necessary than I first thought it would be, the dice pool is a real blessing with the wealth of information a simple roll provides. For example our last session was kinda thrown at me last minute, I had the beginnings of what became bronchitis, and started work at a new job and simply had no time whatsoever to prep for the game. I came up with a rough idea how to transition the PC's from An Eye for an Eye to The Gathering Storm via the suggestion in TGS adventure hooks (finding cultists that might have escaped) and when we started the players told me what their characters had been up to for a few weeks at Grunwald Lodge and I looked down at The Tome of Blessings and kinda decided that well why not? From there the players actions and their descriptions of the dice pool results really shaped the story entirely all I had to do was have a few names ready and improv a few NPC personalities here and there. So basically if you are new to this system and concerned about having to "wing it" just breath and react the system itself works impressively for providing inspiration along the way.
Now tonight I have to address a very difficult situation, after this session the Odwin's player is changing to second shift and will be an hourish late to every session from here on in. There are obviously a few ways to deal with absent players, simply having them be in the background being the easiest but not necessarily the most creative or compelling work around so I have decided to do something drawn from the archives of the 1980's era fantasy films .... more details to come after the session just in case he decides to read this before the session, I don't want to ruin the surprise for him.
As for the Eye for an Eye adventure the characters managed to foil Gregor Pierson's plans to summon the deamon from the painting and managed to keep Lord Aschafenberg and a few key members of his staff alive. After the horrifying events that took place at the climax of An Eye for an Eye the characters decided to stay on at Grunwald Lodge for a number of weeks with Odwin taking over the training of Lord Aschafenberg's newly hired guards out of Ubersreik while Burgrin picked up the slack left by Korden, the Lodge's former dwarf smith falling into the embrace of madness, and Adel helping the servants put the place back into order.
Three weeks later, on Aubentag Vern Hendrick returned to the Lodge with some newly hired servants and supplies as well as an unexpected guest who met up with them in the Reikwald, a grim and battle worn warrior priest of Sigmar, none other than the infamous Luthor Huss who had urgent buisness with Lord Aschafenberg.
Huss had discovered a mutant on the road while traveling toward Altdorf who bore Lord Aschafenberg's signet and the warrior priest decided to bring the beast's severed head to Grunwald Lodge to get some answers as to why a spawn of chaos had seemingly been one of Aschafenberg's servants. After a curt and truly terrifying encounter with an enraged Huss, which Adel might have eavesdropped on, Aschafenberg summoned the PC's to his chambers where he offered them 20 silver shillings to hunt down the other unaccounted member of his staff, the former physician Stefan Sieger.
The next morning the PC's left Grunwald Lodge with a small cart laden with basic provisions and traveled westward toward where Huss had discovered the mutated form of the Lodge's former gardener. The days travel went uneventfully and they arrived at a coaching inn located where the road to the lodge intersects the road connecting Ubersreik to Stromdorf, a small affair protected by a low stone wall known as the Thrice-Felled-Troll.
The PC's settled into the Inn quickly enough, taking some time over some steins of watered down ale and a meal of soup and bratwurst to figure out how to go about locating Sieger. After the meal Adel approached a traveling minstrel who had been performing at the Inn while staying the night to see what he might have heard. The minstrel took her up on a few free drinks, chatted away about this and that, filled the PC's in on some of the back story of Gregor Pierson and Andreas Von Bruener that the PC's hadn't uncovered during An Eye for an Eye, but had little to offer in regards to uncovering Sieger's location.
Not about to give up Adel and Odwin decided it was time to speak with the Troll's proprietor, the motherly and rather homely Helga who quickly warmed up to Adel's winning smile and natural social ease. Helga had remembered Sieger coming through a few weeks back but hadn't seen him since, apparently Sieger used to come to the Troll often enough in the years he was the Lodge's physician when he would travel to Stromdorf or Ubersreik for supplies or to visit friends. Though Helga wasnt able to help more, fortune was smiling on Odwin and Adel (a comet on an expertise die to be precise) and an old and grizzled bounty hunter who had been sitting at the bar happened to over hear their conversation with Helga and he knew of a young back alley surgeon from Altdorf by the name of Sieger who he had been hired to hunt down years ago after a number of young nobles were found dead in alleyways after his "ministrations". The bounty hunter, called Otto, hadn't heard much of the charlatan's whereabouts for years and no longer really cared but he did impart the name of one of Sieger's closest acquaintances during his years in Altdorf, an eccentric noble from Stromdorf called Lazerous Mourn....
Anyway that's the short and rather hastily written account of what has happened in our story since my last posting. It has been fun to see what my player's are enjoying about the system and the kind of play style that is developing among us. One of the biggest things my players have commented on his how much they enjoy interpreting their dice pools themselves and then describing the action.
What I have been doing is basically having the players roll their pool we go through quickly and pick out the results and what factors caused their actions success of failure and then the player will describe the action and its results for better or worse. Its been a great deal of fun as a GM to establish the setting and the characters involved and let the dice and my players tell me how things work out and my players claim that its dramatically improving their roleplaying skills as well.
One lesson that I have learned as a GM of WHFRP 3rd Ed is that the system is a lot easier to simply "wing it" where necessary than I first thought it would be, the dice pool is a real blessing with the wealth of information a simple roll provides. For example our last session was kinda thrown at me last minute, I had the beginnings of what became bronchitis, and started work at a new job and simply had no time whatsoever to prep for the game. I came up with a rough idea how to transition the PC's from An Eye for an Eye to The Gathering Storm via the suggestion in TGS adventure hooks (finding cultists that might have escaped) and when we started the players told me what their characters had been up to for a few weeks at Grunwald Lodge and I looked down at The Tome of Blessings and kinda decided that well why not? From there the players actions and their descriptions of the dice pool results really shaped the story entirely all I had to do was have a few names ready and improv a few NPC personalities here and there. So basically if you are new to this system and concerned about having to "wing it" just breath and react the system itself works impressively for providing inspiration along the way.
Now tonight I have to address a very difficult situation, after this session the Odwin's player is changing to second shift and will be an hourish late to every session from here on in. There are obviously a few ways to deal with absent players, simply having them be in the background being the easiest but not necessarily the most creative or compelling work around so I have decided to do something drawn from the archives of the 1980's era fantasy films .... more details to come after the session just in case he decides to read this before the session, I don't want to ruin the surprise for him.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
No Plan Ever Survives First Contact with the PC's...
We just wrapped up the first session of playing through An Eye for an Eye and all I can say is wow, this system is something truly special. Firstly for anyone who has been concerned that combat has been dumbed down and is less deadly than it has been in the past, let me tell you that is so far from the truth. Combat is fast, dirty, narrative, and most of all far deadlier than any of the previous versions of WHFRP. The second thing that I immediately noticed is that the components are really fantastic to work with and by the end of our session all of my players had really begun to get comfortable with the basics of the system. The core mechanic works incredibly well (fortune and misfortune dice make the work of a GM a delight in modifying things, and best of all I found that narrating the reasons behind these additions really added a lot to an action, and because of that my players were very receptive of the modifiers and felt that actions were being adjudicated fairly.
However as the title implies there were a few unexpected twists and roadblocks I hit as a GM tonight, that luckily can be cleared up before our next session Saturday. First off I read the rules thoroughly two times cover to cover and taking notes as I went, and another time skimming the sections I thought I needed to go over again. This was nowhere near enough study time before running the session. My player's claim I did very well however the amount of times "ummm let me check that" or "we'll do this for now and I’ll get back to you"' came out of my mouth was far more than I had anticipated. These were mostly combat questions, and fatigue and stress questions that simply slipped from my mind when I was pushing to get the adventure prepped and ready, although there were some simple questions that, under pressure had simply oozed out my ears when the game began. Encounters 0-2 filled an entire session and the theoretically simple combat in encounter 2 can get all kinds of messy fast when PC's get a hold of it. I will post a narrative play by play of the action so far in another post but sufficed to say, when an axel snaps on an overladen wagon being pushed to a gallop a few hundred yards from the Gatehouse (well out of the crossbow range of the guards) the encounter gets interesting.
The entire session was approximately 3 hours in length and took us up to the Act 3: The Retreat in Encounter 2: The Attack. At the end of the beastmen ambush (which lasted 3 turns and since it was our first time out with combat, took an hour to resolve) 1 Gor was killed and 4 Ungor henchmen were murdered to a man, Valdrid was wounded 6 times with 2 critical wounds ( aggravated wound, and minor trauma), Odwin was wounded 2 times with 1 critical (ringing blow), while Burgrin was struck a number of times to no effect (parry and a toughness 5 + being a troll-slayer helped here), and Adel managed to get hit and run (using nimble strike on wounded ungor) down fast. Before the beastmen's moral wavered and they fled the second Gor had taken an accurate shot for a total of 7 wounds as well. Now what is so shocking to me is that all this was dealt out in 3 turns.
What the players had to say so far is that the game system for them was very intuitive and they all seemed to find the components were useful and really liked how the core mechanic facilitated roleplaying. They all seemed to have had a great time and decided themselves it was necessary to play again this Saturday to get through the adventure... now I just have to figure out how this will work with 2 critically wounded pc's and Lord Aschaffenberg's possessions strewn across the road a few hundred yards from the gatehouse.
However as the title implies there were a few unexpected twists and roadblocks I hit as a GM tonight, that luckily can be cleared up before our next session Saturday. First off I read the rules thoroughly two times cover to cover and taking notes as I went, and another time skimming the sections I thought I needed to go over again. This was nowhere near enough study time before running the session. My player's claim I did very well however the amount of times "ummm let me check that" or "we'll do this for now and I’ll get back to you"' came out of my mouth was far more than I had anticipated. These were mostly combat questions, and fatigue and stress questions that simply slipped from my mind when I was pushing to get the adventure prepped and ready, although there were some simple questions that, under pressure had simply oozed out my ears when the game began. Encounters 0-2 filled an entire session and the theoretically simple combat in encounter 2 can get all kinds of messy fast when PC's get a hold of it. I will post a narrative play by play of the action so far in another post but sufficed to say, when an axel snaps on an overladen wagon being pushed to a gallop a few hundred yards from the Gatehouse (well out of the crossbow range of the guards) the encounter gets interesting.
The entire session was approximately 3 hours in length and took us up to the Act 3: The Retreat in Encounter 2: The Attack. At the end of the beastmen ambush (which lasted 3 turns and since it was our first time out with combat, took an hour to resolve) 1 Gor was killed and 4 Ungor henchmen were murdered to a man, Valdrid was wounded 6 times with 2 critical wounds ( aggravated wound, and minor trauma), Odwin was wounded 2 times with 1 critical (ringing blow), while Burgrin was struck a number of times to no effect (parry and a toughness 5 + being a troll-slayer helped here), and Adel managed to get hit and run (using nimble strike on wounded ungor) down fast. Before the beastmen's moral wavered and they fled the second Gor had taken an accurate shot for a total of 7 wounds as well. Now what is so shocking to me is that all this was dealt out in 3 turns.
What the players had to say so far is that the game system for them was very intuitive and they all seemed to find the components were useful and really liked how the core mechanic facilitated roleplaying. They all seemed to have had a great time and decided themselves it was necessary to play again this Saturday to get through the adventure... now I just have to figure out how this will work with 2 critically wounded pc's and Lord Aschaffenberg's possessions strewn across the road a few hundred yards from the gatehouse.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Heretics and a Night of Hectic Preperation!
You ever have those weeks when for days you had plenty of time on your hands, and plan to take your time on a project (since you have it and all), then suddenly life catches up and the time you thought you had suddenly meets a rather unpleasant and unexpected end? Well that has been my last few days and now I find that I have an entire act and a half of the Eye for an Eye scenario to prepare in less than 3 hours!
So the point of this post is to go through how I prepared for this scenario that I didn’t write myself and why they feel like they are twice as hard to run at the best of times. So let us begin at the beginning as it were.
As I said in an earlier post I am going to be running the 3rd edition of WHFRP for the first time on Wednesday night with a group of players with little to no experience with the Old World as a setting and absolutely no experience with the game mechanics. So for this first go out my task has been two fold; learn the rules solidly, and by that I mean making sure I can teach 4 other players accurately, as well as learn the adventure An Eye for an Eye from the Tome of Adventure. After finding players and setting a date, I immediately went about a frantic reading of the Rulebook and Tome of Adventure cover to cover thoroughly. I spent a few hours rolling dice and working on quickly reading the results and what the dice mean, e.g. an action that succeeds mainly on characteristic dice means that a PC's characteristics made the difference, or success on an expertise die would point to skill and training. From there I have spent some time trying to get passable at narrating the action using evocative language (Valdrid's sword slices the goblin just won’t do for a game whose mechanic has such huge potential, more like as the goblin attempts to lash out with another sloppy blow, Valdrid skillfully parries and in one fluid motion his sword slides through leather and sinew leaving a terrible gash across the creatures throat. The idea of really being able to determine exactly how an action occurred and the factors accounting for success or failure is really the crowning achievement of WHFRP 3rd Edition in my opinion at least and I want to be darn sure I am able to show that to my players tomorrow.
Once I got the rules down and any questions or clarity issues I had cleared up (the GM's forum at Fantasy Flight Games was really useful for this), I set about reading through An Eye for an Eye and determining what rules are introduced in the adventure, what rules I needed to explain before the session began, and what rules I didn’t need to introduce at all, such as magick and advancement, in the first session. What I have decided to go over with them before the session is really the core mechanic, the party sheet (I am giving them a choice between 4 different sheets to let them decide the kind of party they feel fits their characters best), fortune points, characteristics, a quick over view of action cards, and basic and advanced skills. Combat, insanity, wounds, etc. are all introduced fairly well in the scenario itself and I will wait until the appropriate times to go into detail on those things.
After figuring out how, when, and what rules I need to explain in the first session I asked each of them to choose a career simply based on the descriptions on the cards (exempting magick-users) and to give me a rough personality of the character they'd like to play. At this point I gave them a very basic overview of what they were looking at but didn’t get into any real mechanical details. After I had the careers they wanted to play and the general personalities I went about penning the back stories posted earlier this week. I wanted to give each character a firm footing in the setting and some strong details for the players to work with, while leaving many details, like appearance, age, mannerisms, etc. for each player to decide themselves. Along with their back stories I sent them each a number of questions to answer (taken from the proverbial 10 questions that has been used by WHFRP GM's since the game was first published in 1986) I wrote out a few things to think about when considering each question but left the decisions for them to make. I've posted the questions I sent to the player running Odwin below as an example
Questions to answer for yourself:
1) How religious are you? Odwin would likely have Sigmar as his patron deity but does he blame the gods for the way things have gone or does he hold to the very common notion among folks of the Empire that the gods are responsible for everything and nothing is left to coincidence?
2) Who do are you loyal to? Burgrin is likely a character that Odwin has grown at least some sense of loyalty towards but in broader terms what concepts is this character loyal to? What makes him put it all on the line?
3) Who/what do you love/hate? Does Odwin hold feelings for Bella, Vigo’s widow perhaps or is the guilt too much for him to even think about her these days? You might hold seeded hatred for the creatures that killed him or perhaps you have grown distrustful of the aristocracy and their motives from you experiences with the roadwardens. Only thing to keep in mind on this one is Odwin’s father’s last words “It’s a rum do this lot of ours, but never give up boy, fight the good ol’ fight for your ol’ da, it’s the men like us who make this world of ours a bit brighter…”
With my player's and their characters fleshed out a bit I went through and did the character creation process for each of them trying to choose talents, skills, action cards, etc. that would fit well with the background of the character and at the same time would be genuinely useful during the game. For example the two reputation talents Adel possesses are Stiff Upper Lip, and Outgoing, while her action cards are mostly social with the exception of possessing Nimble Strike.
Now that everything was in place the next step is to really get this gosh darn adventure under my belt. When tackling a pre written adventure that’s not crap I try my best to give the author the respect due and run it as true to the story written as I can while at the same time making it run as smoothly as an adventure I had cooked up myself... that’s the where things get tricky. Now with an adventure you write yourself you know it pretty well from the get go, its written in a way you really understand since after all you wrote and designed it, but in the case of an adventure like An Eye for an Eye where things get kind of complex due to its non-linear nature as a GM you really need to have this thing down solidly or else you run the risk of making a mess of it at the gaming table. Since its also my first time with the system I needed to know it better twice as well since I will be dealing with remembering rules and seeing things play out for the first time. So I set about reading it carefully cover to cover, once a day. This in theory seems great and should be no problem really... until life strikes and its tonight and I have gotten 3 readings, and that’s being kind, in the last few days. I have the core down but then I remembered that I hadn’t dealt at all with the aspects that aren’t clearly defined by the author.
Normally I will make a single page of notes for each act or set of major encounters, that give me a thought out plan of how I want to describe things, people, etc. and for this adventure where there are so many NPC's to consider (whose descriptions don’t really fall where I want them to in the text) I wanted to have flash cards for each ready and prepped as well as a map of Grunewald Lodge prepped to track where everyone is at a given time (using tracking tokens). As I sit here right now, those things are simply in my head and not done at all... yet. Tonight will be a long late night, I want to get the map and NPC cards written up, put some notes on the rules with relevant encounters, do some last minute touch ups on the gaming space, and maybe sleep and have dinner... anyway wish me luck, and Ill post how things turn out (there's a chance there might even be a video with my player's general reactions to the session.... I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. Anyway got to get this darn session ready!
So the point of this post is to go through how I prepared for this scenario that I didn’t write myself and why they feel like they are twice as hard to run at the best of times. So let us begin at the beginning as it were.
As I said in an earlier post I am going to be running the 3rd edition of WHFRP for the first time on Wednesday night with a group of players with little to no experience with the Old World as a setting and absolutely no experience with the game mechanics. So for this first go out my task has been two fold; learn the rules solidly, and by that I mean making sure I can teach 4 other players accurately, as well as learn the adventure An Eye for an Eye from the Tome of Adventure. After finding players and setting a date, I immediately went about a frantic reading of the Rulebook and Tome of Adventure cover to cover thoroughly. I spent a few hours rolling dice and working on quickly reading the results and what the dice mean, e.g. an action that succeeds mainly on characteristic dice means that a PC's characteristics made the difference, or success on an expertise die would point to skill and training. From there I have spent some time trying to get passable at narrating the action using evocative language (Valdrid's sword slices the goblin just won’t do for a game whose mechanic has such huge potential, more like as the goblin attempts to lash out with another sloppy blow, Valdrid skillfully parries and in one fluid motion his sword slides through leather and sinew leaving a terrible gash across the creatures throat. The idea of really being able to determine exactly how an action occurred and the factors accounting for success or failure is really the crowning achievement of WHFRP 3rd Edition in my opinion at least and I want to be darn sure I am able to show that to my players tomorrow.
Once I got the rules down and any questions or clarity issues I had cleared up (the GM's forum at Fantasy Flight Games was really useful for this), I set about reading through An Eye for an Eye and determining what rules are introduced in the adventure, what rules I needed to explain before the session began, and what rules I didn’t need to introduce at all, such as magick and advancement, in the first session. What I have decided to go over with them before the session is really the core mechanic, the party sheet (I am giving them a choice between 4 different sheets to let them decide the kind of party they feel fits their characters best), fortune points, characteristics, a quick over view of action cards, and basic and advanced skills. Combat, insanity, wounds, etc. are all introduced fairly well in the scenario itself and I will wait until the appropriate times to go into detail on those things.
After figuring out how, when, and what rules I need to explain in the first session I asked each of them to choose a career simply based on the descriptions on the cards (exempting magick-users) and to give me a rough personality of the character they'd like to play. At this point I gave them a very basic overview of what they were looking at but didn’t get into any real mechanical details. After I had the careers they wanted to play and the general personalities I went about penning the back stories posted earlier this week. I wanted to give each character a firm footing in the setting and some strong details for the players to work with, while leaving many details, like appearance, age, mannerisms, etc. for each player to decide themselves. Along with their back stories I sent them each a number of questions to answer (taken from the proverbial 10 questions that has been used by WHFRP GM's since the game was first published in 1986) I wrote out a few things to think about when considering each question but left the decisions for them to make. I've posted the questions I sent to the player running Odwin below as an example
Questions to answer for yourself:
1) How religious are you? Odwin would likely have Sigmar as his patron deity but does he blame the gods for the way things have gone or does he hold to the very common notion among folks of the Empire that the gods are responsible for everything and nothing is left to coincidence?
2) Who do are you loyal to? Burgrin is likely a character that Odwin has grown at least some sense of loyalty towards but in broader terms what concepts is this character loyal to? What makes him put it all on the line?
3) Who/what do you love/hate? Does Odwin hold feelings for Bella, Vigo’s widow perhaps or is the guilt too much for him to even think about her these days? You might hold seeded hatred for the creatures that killed him or perhaps you have grown distrustful of the aristocracy and their motives from you experiences with the roadwardens. Only thing to keep in mind on this one is Odwin’s father’s last words “It’s a rum do this lot of ours, but never give up boy, fight the good ol’ fight for your ol’ da, it’s the men like us who make this world of ours a bit brighter…”
With my player's and their characters fleshed out a bit I went through and did the character creation process for each of them trying to choose talents, skills, action cards, etc. that would fit well with the background of the character and at the same time would be genuinely useful during the game. For example the two reputation talents Adel possesses are Stiff Upper Lip, and Outgoing, while her action cards are mostly social with the exception of possessing Nimble Strike.
Now that everything was in place the next step is to really get this gosh darn adventure under my belt. When tackling a pre written adventure that’s not crap I try my best to give the author the respect due and run it as true to the story written as I can while at the same time making it run as smoothly as an adventure I had cooked up myself... that’s the where things get tricky. Now with an adventure you write yourself you know it pretty well from the get go, its written in a way you really understand since after all you wrote and designed it, but in the case of an adventure like An Eye for an Eye where things get kind of complex due to its non-linear nature as a GM you really need to have this thing down solidly or else you run the risk of making a mess of it at the gaming table. Since its also my first time with the system I needed to know it better twice as well since I will be dealing with remembering rules and seeing things play out for the first time. So I set about reading it carefully cover to cover, once a day. This in theory seems great and should be no problem really... until life strikes and its tonight and I have gotten 3 readings, and that’s being kind, in the last few days. I have the core down but then I remembered that I hadn’t dealt at all with the aspects that aren’t clearly defined by the author.
Normally I will make a single page of notes for each act or set of major encounters, that give me a thought out plan of how I want to describe things, people, etc. and for this adventure where there are so many NPC's to consider (whose descriptions don’t really fall where I want them to in the text) I wanted to have flash cards for each ready and prepped as well as a map of Grunewald Lodge prepped to track where everyone is at a given time (using tracking tokens). As I sit here right now, those things are simply in my head and not done at all... yet. Tonight will be a long late night, I want to get the map and NPC cards written up, put some notes on the rules with relevant encounters, do some last minute touch ups on the gaming space, and maybe sleep and have dinner... anyway wish me luck, and Ill post how things turn out (there's a chance there might even be a video with my player's general reactions to the session.... I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. Anyway got to get this darn session ready!
Monday, August 23, 2010
Table Etiquette and My Thoughts Behind How I Run a Session
As anyone who has ever played any form of roleplaying game knows all too well, distractions, off topic conversation and avoidable interruptions can wreak havoc on a gaming session, to try and combat this as well as to make the most out of the time we have, and to help maintain the integrity of the story being told I have always maintained a few guidelines for my players. I like to clearly define how I run a game to my players, my expectations of them, and what they can expect from me as their GM. I refer to these guidelines with my groups as Table Etiquette. So what I have done here is more or less compiled my Table Etiquette guidelines here as updated for the 3rd edition of WHFRP.
Character actions should be described narratively in the 3rd person perspective e.g. Odwin readies his pistol takes a deep breath, takes aim at the oncoming Gor and pulls the trigger. - In my experience using a homogenous 3rd person perspective tends to be smoother than 1st person. It also helps delineate between in character and out of character dialogue between the players and the GM, and I've found that players tend to describe their characters more dramatically, adding in a lot of detail to their individual roleplaying.
players will make all of their own dice rolls and describe the outcome of their dice pool results for themselves where appropriate.- My thinking behind this is that the story is more interesting when everyone is actively apart of describing the action at hand. As a GM I will happily help them decide the basics of what the dice mean but leave it up to them to describe how the action plays out. When the action teeters on factors outside the scope of their character however I as the GM will describe the outcomes, like failing a resilience check when poisoned or during social encounters with an NPC.
The GM will not "fudge" the results of his rolls. - this is personal preference really, but I like to make a promise to my players that they can trust my rolls even if they are done behind the GM screen when the situation warrants it.
If a rule is unclear the GM will always interpret it in the best light for the players until an official ruling can be settled on. -This is here to clarify more than anything else.
Off topic comments and conversations are limited to before or after the session, or during a rally step. -This one is a no brainer, going off topic during the session wastes time and more often than not detracts from the overall enjoyment of the game, and with the natural pause afforded by a rally step it’s a good time to chat for a second. I like to simply state my expectation on this one so everyone is on the same page.
During story mode play players may interrupt another player where appropriate, during encounter mode players should refrain from speaking out of turn. - Another no brainer, simple courtesy that just needs to be said for everyone to be on the same page.
When the GM is narrating descriptions, no one else is talking. - I don't like repeating descriptions, and most of the time if I, as a GM, am describing the scene or anything else, chances are very good that it’s important. If a player interrupts the other players miss something important.
No food at the gaming table, feel free to eat during breaks, before or after a session. -This one is a new one specifically for WHFRP 3rd Edition. There is a good deal of expensive components that I don't want to become stained and greasy.
Beverages are perfectly okay but be mindful of them and try and keep them in sealable containers. - Same reasoning as above, a dropped coke could utterly ruin a core sets worth of components.
So thats the basics anyway of the Table Etiquette I use when GMing a sesson and the reasons I choose to do things my way. I would really like to hear what other folks do, I am always looking for ways to improve the games I run!
Character actions should be described narratively in the 3rd person perspective e.g. Odwin readies his pistol takes a deep breath, takes aim at the oncoming Gor and pulls the trigger. - In my experience using a homogenous 3rd person perspective tends to be smoother than 1st person. It also helps delineate between in character and out of character dialogue between the players and the GM, and I've found that players tend to describe their characters more dramatically, adding in a lot of detail to their individual roleplaying.
players will make all of their own dice rolls and describe the outcome of their dice pool results for themselves where appropriate.- My thinking behind this is that the story is more interesting when everyone is actively apart of describing the action at hand. As a GM I will happily help them decide the basics of what the dice mean but leave it up to them to describe how the action plays out. When the action teeters on factors outside the scope of their character however I as the GM will describe the outcomes, like failing a resilience check when poisoned or during social encounters with an NPC.
The GM will not "fudge" the results of his rolls. - this is personal preference really, but I like to make a promise to my players that they can trust my rolls even if they are done behind the GM screen when the situation warrants it.
If a rule is unclear the GM will always interpret it in the best light for the players until an official ruling can be settled on. -This is here to clarify more than anything else.
Off topic comments and conversations are limited to before or after the session, or during a rally step. -This one is a no brainer, going off topic during the session wastes time and more often than not detracts from the overall enjoyment of the game, and with the natural pause afforded by a rally step it’s a good time to chat for a second. I like to simply state my expectation on this one so everyone is on the same page.
During story mode play players may interrupt another player where appropriate, during encounter mode players should refrain from speaking out of turn. - Another no brainer, simple courtesy that just needs to be said for everyone to be on the same page.
When the GM is narrating descriptions, no one else is talking. - I don't like repeating descriptions, and most of the time if I, as a GM, am describing the scene or anything else, chances are very good that it’s important. If a player interrupts the other players miss something important.
No food at the gaming table, feel free to eat during breaks, before or after a session. -This one is a new one specifically for WHFRP 3rd Edition. There is a good deal of expensive components that I don't want to become stained and greasy.
Beverages are perfectly okay but be mindful of them and try and keep them in sealable containers. - Same reasoning as above, a dropped coke could utterly ruin a core sets worth of components.
So thats the basics anyway of the Table Etiquette I use when GMing a sesson and the reasons I choose to do things my way. I would really like to hear what other folks do, I am always looking for ways to improve the games I run!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Adel Tolzen, Reiklander Agitator
WHFRP 3rd Edition Character Backstories:
Adel Tolzen, Reiklander Agitator:
You are an orphan who grew up in the care of an eccentric old codger called Aldous Randulf Mourn; apparently he was an old acquaintance of your grandfather Leo Tolzen, best known for a series of treatise he had written during his days as a dilatant at the University of Altdorf entitled Faith and Politics and Why the Two Shant Meet, which was a well written and in your opinion, fairly logical look into the mess that giving the churches of Sigmar and Ulric an Electoral Vote has proven to be, citing, very smartly, various examples throughout the disaster that was the Time of Three Emperors. Needless to say the theologians and witch hunters didn’t think so highly of the work and it was banned within a month of publication. Apparently he and his younger brother Lazarus were from a minor noble family from southern Reikland but he was never one for talking about his relations. What his families former station meant to you was that despite your common birth you received a very well rounded and thorough education, learning to read, write, and do arithmetic from an early age, and later going on to study some history (though somewhat tainted by “Uncle” Aldous’s renditions of what might have “really” happened), and most importantly you were taught the basics of economics, politics, and law which would prove to be the very subjects you would go on to make your career from.
When Uncle Aldous passed away last year his entire estate, which in all fairness was on the meager side, was taken by the Von Jungfreud family in order to pay off significant debts he owed to local moneylenders as well as a hefty sum in back taxes Uncle Aldous refused to pay due to the criminal nature of the institution of taxation. Despite the Graf having the lawful right to collect recompense for back taxes and for him to order a sum of the estate go toward the repayment of loans, you took this as the high and mighty aristocracy squelching the rights of the lesser folk (utterly ignoring the fact that Uncle Aldous was an aristocrat, albeit a very minor one, himself).
After the estate was sold and you were evicted, you decided that enough was enough and it was high time someone made a stand against the oppression of the lower class, against the corruption inherit in the church, and most of all against unfair taxation. To this end you have drafted pamphlets in opposition of innumerable taxes, laws, and the societal structure of the Empire as a whole, going so far as to promote the idea of giving the common folk a voice in government, an idea that got you stabbed on two separate occasions, and one of those times it was by a commoner who thought you needed to be “put back in you place”.
Most recently you have led the crusade against the newest tax to be levied on the people of Reikland, the so-called “Feather Tax” which states that a man must pay a number of shillings annually for the length of feather worn in his cap. This of course is the most gross example of the aristocracy abusing their power imaginable and it was your new calling to get the “Feather Tax” repealed. In the end your vehemence, though impressive, managed to start a fist fight between a burgher and a rat catcher, and ended up with you locked in the stocks for four days with a 20 shilling fine for your release. Which of course wasn’t half as bad as the 4 weeks you spent in jail last Sigmarzeit for tax evasion, or the time you got purposely got caught stealing a nobles purse only to dump it out on the Marketstrasse simply to prove the average noble carries with him more coins than any twelve good honest common folk see in a years’ time, though admittedly worse than the time during last Sonnstill day when you painted in large bold, red letters “The Feather Tax is Foul” upon the façade of the excise office doors. After all that only cost you 10 shillings. This time however the cost of the fine alone took you down to your last few pfennigs.
During your most recent visit to the stocks you met a very grim looking fellow with kind eyes who had been looking for you. This Valdrid Jaeger told you of your father’s fate at some battle on the northern edge of the province of Ostermark not much longer than a year ago, and gave you a silver ring engraved with your mother’s name Ludmilla as proof of his story. What Valdrid clearly expected to be ill news was for you one of the most heartwarming moments of your life. For years you had assumed your father Otto had died while serving in the army but really all these years you realized you hadn’t been alone at all and he was out there thinking of you, and wishing he could come home to you. So after an almost reflexive response regarding the way the aristocracy paves their way on the backs of the common folk who lay down their lives in senseless war, you came to your senses, you and Valdrid had a few drinks, you sincerely thanked the man for traveling all this way to bring word and you parted ways presumably not to see each other again.
Soon after you and Valdrid parted ways the realization that this last passionate protest and the fees associated with it has left you more or less destitute. Perhaps it might be time to find some work that pays better than inciting the masses against the dominant paradigm for a while…
Adel Tolzen, Reiklander Agitator:
You are an orphan who grew up in the care of an eccentric old codger called Aldous Randulf Mourn; apparently he was an old acquaintance of your grandfather Leo Tolzen, best known for a series of treatise he had written during his days as a dilatant at the University of Altdorf entitled Faith and Politics and Why the Two Shant Meet, which was a well written and in your opinion, fairly logical look into the mess that giving the churches of Sigmar and Ulric an Electoral Vote has proven to be, citing, very smartly, various examples throughout the disaster that was the Time of Three Emperors. Needless to say the theologians and witch hunters didn’t think so highly of the work and it was banned within a month of publication. Apparently he and his younger brother Lazarus were from a minor noble family from southern Reikland but he was never one for talking about his relations. What his families former station meant to you was that despite your common birth you received a very well rounded and thorough education, learning to read, write, and do arithmetic from an early age, and later going on to study some history (though somewhat tainted by “Uncle” Aldous’s renditions of what might have “really” happened), and most importantly you were taught the basics of economics, politics, and law which would prove to be the very subjects you would go on to make your career from.
When Uncle Aldous passed away last year his entire estate, which in all fairness was on the meager side, was taken by the Von Jungfreud family in order to pay off significant debts he owed to local moneylenders as well as a hefty sum in back taxes Uncle Aldous refused to pay due to the criminal nature of the institution of taxation. Despite the Graf having the lawful right to collect recompense for back taxes and for him to order a sum of the estate go toward the repayment of loans, you took this as the high and mighty aristocracy squelching the rights of the lesser folk (utterly ignoring the fact that Uncle Aldous was an aristocrat, albeit a very minor one, himself).
After the estate was sold and you were evicted, you decided that enough was enough and it was high time someone made a stand against the oppression of the lower class, against the corruption inherit in the church, and most of all against unfair taxation. To this end you have drafted pamphlets in opposition of innumerable taxes, laws, and the societal structure of the Empire as a whole, going so far as to promote the idea of giving the common folk a voice in government, an idea that got you stabbed on two separate occasions, and one of those times it was by a commoner who thought you needed to be “put back in you place”.
Most recently you have led the crusade against the newest tax to be levied on the people of Reikland, the so-called “Feather Tax” which states that a man must pay a number of shillings annually for the length of feather worn in his cap. This of course is the most gross example of the aristocracy abusing their power imaginable and it was your new calling to get the “Feather Tax” repealed. In the end your vehemence, though impressive, managed to start a fist fight between a burgher and a rat catcher, and ended up with you locked in the stocks for four days with a 20 shilling fine for your release. Which of course wasn’t half as bad as the 4 weeks you spent in jail last Sigmarzeit for tax evasion, or the time you got purposely got caught stealing a nobles purse only to dump it out on the Marketstrasse simply to prove the average noble carries with him more coins than any twelve good honest common folk see in a years’ time, though admittedly worse than the time during last Sonnstill day when you painted in large bold, red letters “The Feather Tax is Foul” upon the façade of the excise office doors. After all that only cost you 10 shillings. This time however the cost of the fine alone took you down to your last few pfennigs.
During your most recent visit to the stocks you met a very grim looking fellow with kind eyes who had been looking for you. This Valdrid Jaeger told you of your father’s fate at some battle on the northern edge of the province of Ostermark not much longer than a year ago, and gave you a silver ring engraved with your mother’s name Ludmilla as proof of his story. What Valdrid clearly expected to be ill news was for you one of the most heartwarming moments of your life. For years you had assumed your father Otto had died while serving in the army but really all these years you realized you hadn’t been alone at all and he was out there thinking of you, and wishing he could come home to you. So after an almost reflexive response regarding the way the aristocracy paves their way on the backs of the common folk who lay down their lives in senseless war, you came to your senses, you and Valdrid had a few drinks, you sincerely thanked the man for traveling all this way to bring word and you parted ways presumably not to see each other again.
Soon after you and Valdrid parted ways the realization that this last passionate protest and the fees associated with it has left you more or less destitute. Perhaps it might be time to find some work that pays better than inciting the masses against the dominant paradigm for a while…
Valdrid Jaeger, Reiklander Scout
WHFRP 3rd Edition Character Backstories:
Valdrid Jaeger, Reiklander Scout:
You grew up in the town of Stormdorf, most famous for being a rain-lashed backwater in the south of Reikland just north of the town of Ubersreik. You are the oldest of two boys born into a modest but secure life as the children of a local innkeeper, Boris Jaeger. You and your younger brother Vigo spent the better part of you early years working in the families coaching Inn just north of town called the Three Feathers which had been purchased at a steal by your grandfather a few decades back, though nice enough the cellar has always bothered you as a child but you never could put your finger on why. Your mother Gertrude acted as the Inn’s cook and housekeeper, and your best memories involve her guarding the larder like some Greatsword in the service of a Graf from you and Vigo’s sordid attempts to get your grubby paws on cakes or some other sweet. Right up until the day she died not once to your memory did either of you ever make it within 10 feet of that larder without her soupspoon finding your hand, or you took a cuffing you never had a chance to see coming.
When you were 17 the Graf Von Jungfreud called for men to serve Sigmar and the Empire in the Northern provinces and being that you were of age, it was your duty to your god and country to answer the Graf’s call to arms. The morning you left for Ubersreik was the last time you would see your brother alive.
During your time as a scout in the Emperor’s Army you witnessed things no man was meant to see, the only way you’ve kept you wits about you in the face of the horrors of war and the terrible northmen was by taking things a day at a time, and as an extension of that you learned to look at even the most terrible situations analytically. In the last weeks of the fighting you and five other scouts were sent north of the main camp for reconnaissance. On the fourth night you came upon the enemy who had occupied the village of Vitebsk and had enslaved the settlements population. What you and your comrades witnessed that night was too horrifying for words, so much so that two of your fellows ended up killing themselves two days later rather than live another day after witnessing the debased violence the northmen inflicted upon their poor captives. Even to this day you aren’t entirely sure how you managed to put the sight of the mutilated corpses out of your mind, but you did, and you survived the last battle which occurred on the Ostermark border three days later, one of only a handful that did.
During the aftermath of what would become known as the Battle of Vitebsk Ford you met a dying soldier wearing the distinct blue and crimson of an Altdorf regiment, a fellow Reiklander whose leg had been cleaved through to the bone. The man was older than you but not by much, his scarred face covered by a thick black beard. He called himself Otto Tolzen and his last wish was that you bring word of his death to his wife and daughter in Ubersreik. Naturally you agreed to do as he asked and he gave you a small silver ring, his wedding band to act as proof of your story.
The return trip south to Reikland was relatively swift, you caught a riverboat in Krugenheim which sailed south down the River Stir into Altdorf, capital of Reikland, and all the Empire. From there it was a simple matter of a few days on foot to the taproom of the Three Feathers. You spent a month at home with your father and your new-found sister-in-law Bella. It was then that you discovered that your brother Vigo had joined the roadwardens a year after you had left and was killed in duty two years ago.
It was only once you arrived home that the true toll of your time in the north caught up with you. With all those years learning to cope with the hardships of war, you couldn’t simply slip back into your old life, and with the news of your brother’s death the Three Feathers just wasn’t home any longer, nowhere is for men like you who have seen too much. So it was that you decided it was time to fulfill the promise you made to a dying soldier in the cold wastes on the edge of civilization, and so you set off south with your bow on your back and your old sword at your side to let a woman know she was a widow and a daughter know that she would grow up fatherless, but at least he died valiantly protecting them from the horrors of the northmen. Closer is something after all even if it’s only just that.
When you arrived in Ubersreik it turned out to be fairly easy to find the fallen soldiers family, his wife Ludmilla had died during childbirth just after Otto departed leaving his oldest daughter alone in the world. Luckily for you the young firebrand Adel Tolzen had made quite a little name for herself as an agitator and disturber of the peace. Her most recent and by all accounts vehement display of activism in opposing the so called “Feather Tax” had earned her four days in the stocks and a fine of 20 silver shillings, this of course being her fifth offense in the last year, prior to which she had spent a total of 4 weeks jailed for tax evasion, one day in the stocks for petty theft which she claims was to prove a point about the disparity between the classes, and been fined the grand sum of 10 silver shillings for damages caused when she painted “The Feather Tax is Foul” upon the façade of the excise office doors last Sonnstill day. Upon being released you told her about her father and how he died, Adel took his death as yet another way the aristocracy walks on the backs of the common folk but soon the news sunk in, not so much that he had died as after a few years without word she assumed he was dead, but rather that she had actually had a father all this time thinking about her, someone who cared. After a few drinks the two of you parted ways, expecting not to see each other again…
Valdrid Jaeger, Reiklander Scout:
You grew up in the town of Stormdorf, most famous for being a rain-lashed backwater in the south of Reikland just north of the town of Ubersreik. You are the oldest of two boys born into a modest but secure life as the children of a local innkeeper, Boris Jaeger. You and your younger brother Vigo spent the better part of you early years working in the families coaching Inn just north of town called the Three Feathers which had been purchased at a steal by your grandfather a few decades back, though nice enough the cellar has always bothered you as a child but you never could put your finger on why. Your mother Gertrude acted as the Inn’s cook and housekeeper, and your best memories involve her guarding the larder like some Greatsword in the service of a Graf from you and Vigo’s sordid attempts to get your grubby paws on cakes or some other sweet. Right up until the day she died not once to your memory did either of you ever make it within 10 feet of that larder without her soupspoon finding your hand, or you took a cuffing you never had a chance to see coming.
When you were 17 the Graf Von Jungfreud called for men to serve Sigmar and the Empire in the Northern provinces and being that you were of age, it was your duty to your god and country to answer the Graf’s call to arms. The morning you left for Ubersreik was the last time you would see your brother alive.
During your time as a scout in the Emperor’s Army you witnessed things no man was meant to see, the only way you’ve kept you wits about you in the face of the horrors of war and the terrible northmen was by taking things a day at a time, and as an extension of that you learned to look at even the most terrible situations analytically. In the last weeks of the fighting you and five other scouts were sent north of the main camp for reconnaissance. On the fourth night you came upon the enemy who had occupied the village of Vitebsk and had enslaved the settlements population. What you and your comrades witnessed that night was too horrifying for words, so much so that two of your fellows ended up killing themselves two days later rather than live another day after witnessing the debased violence the northmen inflicted upon their poor captives. Even to this day you aren’t entirely sure how you managed to put the sight of the mutilated corpses out of your mind, but you did, and you survived the last battle which occurred on the Ostermark border three days later, one of only a handful that did.
During the aftermath of what would become known as the Battle of Vitebsk Ford you met a dying soldier wearing the distinct blue and crimson of an Altdorf regiment, a fellow Reiklander whose leg had been cleaved through to the bone. The man was older than you but not by much, his scarred face covered by a thick black beard. He called himself Otto Tolzen and his last wish was that you bring word of his death to his wife and daughter in Ubersreik. Naturally you agreed to do as he asked and he gave you a small silver ring, his wedding band to act as proof of your story.
The return trip south to Reikland was relatively swift, you caught a riverboat in Krugenheim which sailed south down the River Stir into Altdorf, capital of Reikland, and all the Empire. From there it was a simple matter of a few days on foot to the taproom of the Three Feathers. You spent a month at home with your father and your new-found sister-in-law Bella. It was then that you discovered that your brother Vigo had joined the roadwardens a year after you had left and was killed in duty two years ago.
It was only once you arrived home that the true toll of your time in the north caught up with you. With all those years learning to cope with the hardships of war, you couldn’t simply slip back into your old life, and with the news of your brother’s death the Three Feathers just wasn’t home any longer, nowhere is for men like you who have seen too much. So it was that you decided it was time to fulfill the promise you made to a dying soldier in the cold wastes on the edge of civilization, and so you set off south with your bow on your back and your old sword at your side to let a woman know she was a widow and a daughter know that she would grow up fatherless, but at least he died valiantly protecting them from the horrors of the northmen. Closer is something after all even if it’s only just that.
When you arrived in Ubersreik it turned out to be fairly easy to find the fallen soldiers family, his wife Ludmilla had died during childbirth just after Otto departed leaving his oldest daughter alone in the world. Luckily for you the young firebrand Adel Tolzen had made quite a little name for herself as an agitator and disturber of the peace. Her most recent and by all accounts vehement display of activism in opposing the so called “Feather Tax” had earned her four days in the stocks and a fine of 20 silver shillings, this of course being her fifth offense in the last year, prior to which she had spent a total of 4 weeks jailed for tax evasion, one day in the stocks for petty theft which she claims was to prove a point about the disparity between the classes, and been fined the grand sum of 10 silver shillings for damages caused when she painted “The Feather Tax is Foul” upon the façade of the excise office doors last Sonnstill day. Upon being released you told her about her father and how he died, Adel took his death as yet another way the aristocracy walks on the backs of the common folk but soon the news sunk in, not so much that he had died as after a few years without word she assumed he was dead, but rather that she had actually had a father all this time thinking about her, someone who cared. After a few drinks the two of you parted ways, expecting not to see each other again…
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