Reading – Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Game Master’s Toolkit

NOTE: This review was written and posted in 2008. I have moved it here as part of my efforts to get my online writings into a single location.

In 2005, when the latest edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay* was published, Black Industries released the Game Master’s Pack, a four-panel (landscape) GM screen and 32-page supplement that included a short adventure (“Pretty Things”) as well as a few brief sections covering buildings (including maps), some forms, and a few other play aids.

This is not a review of that product.

In 2006, the year after the game’s initial launch and well after several thousand players had time to use the screen found in the Game Master’s Pack*, Black Industries published the Game Master’s Toolkit*, a product that includes a heavy screen and a 32-page booklet. The screen in the Toolkit is considered by many players to be an improvement over the one that appeared in the Pack, while the booklet contains completely different material, making it possible that most GMs will want to own both products. What follows are my thoughts on the Game Master’s Toolkit*. Knowing the way I think, and I like to pretend that I know how my mind works, there’s a very good chance that I’ll review the Game Master’s Pack at some point in the future. We’re not at that day yet.

The Screen

Like the Dark Heresy Games Master’s Kit, which I’ve already reviewed, the screen included with this Toolkit* is very heavy and should withstand most (normal) punishment it’s likely to encounter during a game session. The outside of the screen is decorated with two B&W illustrations and the center two panels show a large map of the Empire. Not exactly exciting, but useful during a game session when a player wants to know where the party is at in relation to their destination.

Inside, for the GM, the screen is covered in several tables, including:

• An actions summary.
• Combat Difficulty.
• Critical Hits and Effects Tables.
• Listings of Talents and Skills, including page references to the main rulebook.
• Falling Damage.

Plus several more tables, many of which should prove useful during most game sessions (even though a few – such as the various name tables – have limited value and I doubt many GMs would have cried if they had been scrapped in favor of other tables). This is a decent, functional screen printed on a very heavy stock. Overall, an acceptable job and a tool that most GMs – at least, those who actually use screens – will find useful.

The Booklet

Printed in B&W on heavy, glossy stock, the 32-page booklet included in the Game Master’s Toolkit* will prove useful only to those GMs who have a love of random tables for generating events and encounters (the booklet includes eight such tables, all of which are between 2 and 3-pages in length). The booklet is divided into three broad sections, each of which is subdivided into a number of random tables and essays.

Part 1: Cities of the Empire

Buildings and Establishments (Random Table). This two-page, d100 table, with 20 entries, describes a variety of locations that may be found in a city, including houses, shops, stables, a warehouse, and more. Each entry is a paragraph description intended to spur the GM’s imagination. For example, consider the Old Gate: “Left over from old city walls, long since knocked down to allow the town or city to grow, these gates can become important landmarks or outposts for the City Watch. Old city gates also make common meeting places for lovers and thieves alike.” If the players ever go off course in a city, the GM can use this table to define random buildings that the players decide to “investigate.”

We Don’t Go Into the Sewers (Essay). This single page essay (actually, only a half-page of text) gives GMs a short description of typical city sewers and offers suggestions for who may use the sewers. Unfortunately, though the idea is good, this essay isn’t particularly detailed or informative but is, instead, rather pedestrian. It’s worth a read, but not something that a GM will refer to again and again.

Street Encounters (Random Table). Another d100 table, with 20 entries, this particular table will come in handy when the players (again) wander off in the city and start running off of the planned adventure. Each entry is a brief encounter – some of which require Skill Tests – that helps to add flavor to the session. The encounters range from fairly mild – children playing in water – to possibly dangerous scenes – move out of the way before that wagon runs you down!

Thieves and Beggars (Essay). This very short essay provides the GM with rules for throwing pickpockets and beggars at the player characters.

Inns of the Empire (Random Table). Covering three-pages, this d100 table names and describes twenty different inns that the GM can choose from when it’s time for the player characters to turn in for the night. Although not exhaustively detailed, there should be enough information on each inn that a GM can toss the players into the location and easily run a small roleplaying encounter. Each inn description also includes the owner’s name and some distinguishing feature that will help make the inn feel special during the game. (Fishes, for example, is owned by Veeble Meetsnik who is convinced that the oddly-shaped inn – it has been designed to look like a wooden whale – is possessed by a spirit that is “intent on his demise.”)

Bugman’s Pub Rules (Essay). This single-page essay presents rules for the “games” that the player characters can take part in when in an inn or tavern.

Part 2: The Great Wilds

Roads, Forests and Farms (Random Table). A two-page, d100 table, these random encounters are used during overland travel, whenever the GM feels like it’s time to throw something at the players but he isn’t quite sure of what to throw at them. The entries range from encounters with abandoned ruins – such as a sacked village and an ancient Elf ruin – to active, lived in locations – like a farmstead or a coaching inn (right about this time the Game Master’s Pack* would come in handy, since it includes a description and map for a coaching inn). Again, these (short) paragraph descriptions provide the GM with just enough information to inspire him. For example, the entry for the Lightning-Struck Tree reads: “A massive tree stands by the road, cloven in twain by lightning and bleached white by the elements. Part of the tree has fallen across the road, and will need to be moved before wagons or large vehicles can pass, making this a likely spot for an ambush.”

Natural Hazards (Essay). Consisting of suggestions (and some Skill Test ideas) for making travel more difficult (if not dangerous), this one-page essay deals specifically with the trouble of traversing rough terrain and the very real danger of getting lost during an outdoor session. There’s nothing here that’s great, but it is useful and should be at least skimmed over.

Wilderness Encounters (Random Table). Just like the Street Encounters table provided the GM with ideas for what to do when the players wander in a city, this d100 table gives the GM a set of ideas for brief encounters on the road or out on the countryside. These are encounters with characters or just odd sites – one of the encounters is with the corpse of an unusual beast – and GMs will find them useful during sessions in which the creativity just isn’t flowing.

Outlaws and Animals (Essay). This two-page essay, the longest single essay in the booklet, provides the GM with suggestions on how to run encounters with wild beasts or bandits and outlaws who are encountered in the wild. The section includes possible reasons why an animal will attack the players and some tips on using bandits to wear down the players (“Clever bandits will often try and wear down their victims as they travel through a lawless region with hit and run attacks, nipping away at the travellers until they are too wounded and exhausted to resist.”). It’s right about this point, when first reading through the booklet, that I decided that the essays were my least favorite part of the material in the booklet.

Villages, Towns and Settlements (Random Table). Similar in nature to the Inns of the Empire table, this d100 table describes 20 different settled locations, each including the name of a citizen of importance to the location. A creative GM should be able to use any one of these locations to launch a side-diversion to the campaign’s current storyline.

Something Strange (Essay). Okay, maybe I spoke too soon when to comes to the quality of the essays in the booklet. This essay, covering possible secrets that a town or village may be attempting to hide from the player characters, is truly inspirational and I would have been happy if it had been twice as long (as it is, the single page describes ten different secrets, just enough to keep a GM going for several sessions, since every town can’t have a terrible secret). The described secrets include:

• The village is run by thieves.
• A monster is hiding amongst the citizens of the village or town.
• A secret slave trade operation runs through the area.
• Twisted experiments are being conducted in the town.

Overall, a great set of ideas and suggestions that a GM can turn to when he wants to throw something unexpected at the players.

Part 3: Personas and Plots

Personas (Random Table). A three-page, d100 table presented names and descriptions for 50 NPCs, each one of which is waiting to jump in front of the player characters and cause trouble. Though fairly basic descriptions, these will prove very useful when the players bump into a random stranger on the street (just be sure to check off each NPC as you use them). This is exactly the sort of material that can save a GM when he’s caught off guard, and I’d like to see more of this in future Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay* products. (Or, just maybe, Fantasy Flight will create something like this as a support article on their website.)

Plot Hooks (Random Table). 50 plot ideas that can be cannibalized when you find yourself stuck for an idea, this three-page table is another one that I would like to see expanded on in the future. The plot ideas run from the very brief and vague – “A notice has been nailed to the doors of Altdorf’s Imperial zoo: ‘Wanted, gryphon and dragon eggs, highest prices paid.’” – to longer, slightly more detailed pieces – “A rumour has been heard about a convocation of hedge wizards and other magical misfits occurring sometime soon. If this meeting is allowed to happen there could be dire consequences for the local villages as even a single hedge wizard is enough to cause mayhem and madness.” Every single one of these is a priceless treasure when your mind is running dry and your personal creativity well is empty.

A Rat Catcher, a Noble and a Norse Berserker Walk into a Bar (Essay). A half-page essay that helps the GM to rationalize why characters from such drastically different backgrounds would bother to work together, this is something that you’ll only read once. The Something Strange essay managed to get my hopes up but, unfortunately, this essay returns to the moderately useful territory that the other essays in the book inhabit.

Final Words

In a word: Excellent. Despite my feelings regarding the various essays in the booklet, the various random tables included in the Game Master’s Toolkit* are powerful tools that can help a GM to quickly flesh out an area or deal with keeping the story moving when the players ditch the adventure and set their own course. I greatly prefer the type of content provided in this booklet over the usual adventure that most screens include, and I hope more game publishers consider dropping similar material in their own game screen products in the future.

The screen – the piece that will see the most use – is durable and useful, and many GMs will find it alone worth the price of admission. This is a great supplement and one that any Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay* GM should consider grabbing if he plans to run more than one or two sessions of the game.