Making the Lore (Law) Skill Interestingly Useful

This is the third post in what has apparently become a series on how to make skills interesting and useful. This discussion is something I wrote up a long time ago, back in the days of 2e. I thought the three-tiered approach to skill progression introduced there, and now continued by Zweihänder, was interesting because it reflected the medieval guild levels of apprentice, journeyman and master. I felt that some more use could be made of those levels, which I called Mastery, other than just +10% success.

I also felt that in an unjust society like the Empire, skill at Law would not determine the outcome so much as who was doing the judging. I therefore concentrated on the usefulness of the skill in getting a favourable jurisdiction or set of laws. The actual outcome of the trial would be determined by charm, connections, bribes and the like.

I’ve updated the discussion somewhat for 4e, but the basic assumption of three Mastery levels remains. In the case of Lore (Law), this could in the new system be reflected in levels in the Savant (Law) Talent.

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Rogue Trader Humble Bundle

From now and for the next 20 days, the Humble RPG Book Bundle is for the PDFs of Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader, once Fantasy Flight Games but now with Cubicle 7.

While this isn’t strictly to do with WFRP, the lowest contribution of $1 gets you a 20% off coupon for the C7 store. You won’t be able to use it for the first installment of the new Enemy Within campaign, since it doesn’t apply to preorders, but you could use it to get the WFRP 4e stuff that’s already appeared.

Dietary Restrictions and WFRP Religions

So dietary restrictions are a pretty common feature of RL religions, often specifically regarding meat in some or all forms. There’s very little mentioned in official supplements for WFRP religions, so here’s my attempt at some suggestions. Even a single RL religion isn’t always consistent or equally strict for everyone, so I’ll try to list some options in descending order of stringency. Maybe the strictest is only for clerics/monks, or perhaps there are regional or sectarian differences (like between Tilean and Estalian Myrmidians). Note also that restrictions may not apply to pregnant women, small children, the sick, soldiers at war or travellers.

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Rough Night for a Red Wedding

So this was the title of my scenario for TobCon 3. At some point I’ll write it up, but I just want to put my thoughts behind it here, as well as some notes as to how I think it went and what I might do with it, given my experience.

The original idea came from a combination of several which I had brainstormed. I had difficulty working out how any one of them might be developed into a con scenario, and hit upon the idea of using Rough Night at the Three Feathers, which had just been reissued for 4e, as a structure. In that scenario, a whole bunch of separate storylines come together over a fixed period of time. There’s a Keystone Cops quality of escalating problems that I rather like. I figured that by putting the PCs in a limited space and hitting them with a bunch of different storylines over a limited time period, I could combine plotting and PC choice in a one-off that could be done in four hours.

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