Your opinion on Thousand Thrones and Restless Dead campaings

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Yepesnopes
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After some trial sessions playing Warhammer 4ed, I would like to embark with my players on a campaign. I am wondering which campaign to run, either The Thousand Thrones from 2nd ed or The Restless Dead + Castle Dranchenfels from 1st ed.

I would like to hear opinions about these to campaigns.
Thankcs
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Orin J.
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i think it's a mess to try and run all the way through (i ran part of it and it inspired my group to go back to L5R of all things for several months) but it's easier to digest for more practically minded players than drachenfels.

going through it beforehand for things they might stumble on and replacing them with something they'd have a better time with (like i should have done with the nurgle bit) would do a world of good i feel.
Theo
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I've only looked very superficially at The Thousand Thrones, but Joseph Manola has a good utility-focused review of it here as part of his (very readable) series on WFRP: http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2018/10/b ... usand.html
Make sure to read the comments too, as the discussion of it continues there.

As for The Restless Dead, I've just started properly reading through it now, with an eye to borrowing a couple of episodes for my The Enemy Within remix. I'll get back with more comments on that as I read on.
Ralph
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I've run the first halves of TEW two times and always inserted the Restless Dead campaign into Death on the Reik, since it makes for such a nice secondary main plot running through by giving the PCs something to do during the long journeys. I don't know about running it as a stand-alone, but I imagine it would be a nice, short campaogn most groups should have fun with. It's essential, though, to keep Johann The Ghost as the connective tissue and to really nail him as a character the players would invest in.

I know nothing about TTT.
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Karanthir
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I've never run TTT myself, but I've read a lot of the discussion about it down the years (and listened to a live-play podcast). The general consensus seems to be that there are some good elements, some bad elements, and some middling elements. And one of the main issues is that the chapters were written individually by different people before being put together as a whole campaign. Basically, it's fine but you should expect to do quite a bit of work to keep the players interested (depending on how willing they are to be railroaded through side-quests, and even more or less losing their free will entirely).

There's a thread in the 2nd ed forum, including insights from one of the writers (our very own Chuck). Worth checking out if you're thinking about running it: http://www.windsofchaos.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6
Knight of the Lady
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Unless you're willing to make some extra work yourself the TTT might be the secondary choice.

When my group played it there were many plot elements that were never developed more than one or two key appearences with little context and some rather wierd parts, not to mention an end game that felt like the GM put us for an adventure actually meant for another group in another campaign. The end didn't feel like a climax of a story as much as a the end of a really wierd movie, and then we came out and wondered what that had to do with everything we've just been doing and how it all came together.

But on the plus side I did get to play a Bretonnian knight and kick some butt. :)

On the downside my first character was a merchant who got eaten by a troll thanks to an idiot guide we hired "its safe in the cave" he hold us... :(
Ralph
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I'm not reading many opinions on The Restless Dead, so let me know if you need more advice on it.
Theo
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Ralph wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:44 am I'm not reading many opinions on The Restless Dead, so let me know if you need more advice on it.
I'd be curious on your thoughts, if nothing else. :) Reading through it myself now. The stringing-together of the originally unrelated scenarios for the mini-campaign seems like classic Sargent - clever, but occasionally hard to follow and with a rather inconsistent tone. (The Enemy Within campaign notes, meanwhile, seem really perfunctory - you can sort of tell his heart wasn't in that.)
Knight of the Lady
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Just a curious question, is there somewhere that you can get hold of the "Restless Dead" campaign in these days? I am wondering because I have a guy who is GMing the "Enemy Within" for our group and who might appreciate to have a look at this campaign? I've never heard about it before and I don't think that he has either.
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Danke Dave
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I am currently running a Thousand Thrones game, and have been for almost a year now. I love the concept of the book, and enjoy the majority of the chapters, but without some work on the GM's part, it cannot be run as written in my own opinion. The main plot piece can be a bit oppressive at time I've felt, but some of my players enjoyed the concept and ran with it to help move along their own characters. Some of the ways that players need to get certain pieces of information is very niche and entire plot points can be missed by bad rolls or unlucky situations as written in the book. That is not to say that I or my players have not enjoyed it, if we were not I wouldn't be running it in the end after, it just takes a lot of work and isn't something that you can read the night before and run the next day. We are only halfway through the campaign to be fair, and I have heard and can see that the later chapter may feel super railroady and difficult to run. I'd give it a 6/10 by itself, but with work you can make it easily 8/10 and beyond.

Castle Drachenfels is a great book and fun place to play in, but it is super deadly. Most of the rooms in the castle have their own flavour to them and the encounters themselves are not all combat. The teleportation doorways that show up later are hilarious and create some great scenes of players running away from monsters and possibly each-other. The book itself has a few different plot hooks to bring players in, and can be run at several different difficulties. I have not read the Restless Dead, but Drachenfels is great, 9/10.
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Totsuzenheni Yukimi
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Knight of the Lady wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:14 pm Just a curious question, is there somewhere that you can get hold of the "Restless Dead" campaign in these days? I am wondering because I have a guy who is GMing the "Enemy Within" for our group and who might appreciate to have a look at this campaign? I've never heard about it before and I don't think that he has either.
You could petition Cubicle 7 to make it the next book they put up on DriveThruRPG.
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Chuck
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Knight of the Lady wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:14 pm Just a curious question, is there somewhere that you can get hold of the "Restless Dead" campaign in these days? I am wondering because I have a guy who is GMing the "Enemy Within" for our group and who might appreciate to have a look at this campaign? I've never heard about it before and I don't think that he has either.
Your best bet is eBay but they're pricey:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... +dead+wfrp
Ralph
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Theo wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:55 am I'd be curious on your thoughts, if nothing else. :) Reading through it myself now. The stringing-together of the originally unrelated scenarios for the mini-campaign seems like classic Sargent - clever, but occasionally hard to follow and with a rather inconsistent tone. (The Enemy Within campaign notes, meanwhile, seem really perfunctory - you can sort of tell his heart wasn't in that.)
As someone who is pretty amazed by the amount of work and thoughts you're putting into your own TEW campaign, I doubt I can add any thoughts of value to you, but I'll try.

First of all, I'm easy to impress. I'm one of those guys who can enjoy almost every book, movie, or TV series because I'm looking for the stuff I like, not searching for stuff that's worthy of critique. I'm investing time into something, so I'd rather enjoy myself than be angry about stuff. Over the years, well, decades, to be honest, this approach has led to some kind of non-analytical thinking by myself. I just lean back and enjoy. That means I will only ever find the biggest of plot holes, and be perfectly content with what the writers throw at me. Call me a sheep, and you would be right. But at least I'm enjoying myself before the wolves get me.

So, why am I telling you this? To begin with, I'm perfectly fine with TEW as it is. I find the Kislev part pretty interesting, and while certain elements in EiF are problematic to handle, I think it's a fantastic ending to the campaign. There are those who rightfully claim that certain plots are never resolved, or that certain elements needed clarification or better presentation. While I agree to that, I've always embraced these unfinished elements, because they gave me (as GM) the opportunity to come up with my own ideas and solutions. Kemperbad, for example, is one of the most important locations in DotR, yet it has what, three pages in the whole book? But these three pages were an opportunity for me to design most elements of the town as I needed them. The NPCs presented have always been a part of that, and radically different each time. I've enjoyed this freedom.

Now, in regards to The Restless Dead, I can see people might find some shortcomings, but I think the editor came up with some pretty nice ideas how to connect the different adventures. In the end, it is, indeed, "just" a collection. But if you play certain things right, it's perfectly suited for everything you want. Just add an NPC here or there to create more consistent and long-running plots as you need them, play what is there to your own and your party's strenghts, and TRD should be immensely enjoyable.

For example, I've made use of Johann as much as I could. I played him as a whining, depressed individual who always turned up at the worst moments, crying about all the pain and sorrow and suffering he endured, but then again giving great advise on embracing life while you can and telling jokes and stories whenever the party was down because of some development in the main plots. So the party became more and more invested in Johann and therefore the plot to help him.

And let's not forget that TRD includes some of the most iconic stand-alone adventures every created for WFRP, including the legendary Rough Night (which is right now developed into a mini campaign itself for 4th Edition). If you don't use the book as a campaign OR as an addendum to another campaign, the more or less loose connections between adventures enable you to take it apart and only use what you want and need. I've always found the intro to these books one of the most interesting features, the fact that they told you how to use a book in connection with other books or campaigns they had created up to that point. You may find these explanations lacking in detail, but I think they provide the general idea what to do with them, and you go from there depending on what your campaign actually looks like.

I think Sargent knew exactly what TRD was and what it was not. It's a collection of WD classic adventures, to be used as you see fit. That's why the campaign hooks are a bit weaker, so you can use them or not. I love most of the adventures in here very much. There are good ones and not so good ones, but let's face it, it's Warhammer. It will always be good enough to provide for a great session. All you need is a greenish moon in the sky and a party who knows they are doomed from the getgo.
Theo
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Ralph wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2019 2:06 am As someone who is pretty amazed by the amount of work and thoughts you're putting into your own TEW campaign, I doubt I can add any thoughts of value to you, but I'll try.
Now I'm feeling a little bad. I probably sounded much harder on TRD than I meant to. :)

Actually I quite agree with your points. There's lots of good stuff in TRD - including but not limited to the iconic Rough Night at the Three Feathers - and I do think Sargent's work on stringing the bits together for the mini-campaign is genuinely clever, especially turning the minor encounter with a ghost into a connecting plot device.
Knight of the Lady
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totsuzenheni wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:30 pm
Knight of the Lady wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:14 pm Just a curious question, is there somewhere that you can get hold of the "Restless Dead" campaign in these days? I am wondering because I have a guy who is GMing the "Enemy Within" for our group and who might appreciate to have a look at this campaign? I've never heard about it before and I don't think that he has either.
You could petition Cubicle 7 to make it the next book they put up on DriveThruRPG.
You can pentition C7 to do that? I wasn't even aware of the possibility that they would listen. My first question to start with is; have this actually been done successfully in the past?
Chuck wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:34 pm
Knight of the Lady wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:14 pm Just a curious question, is there somewhere that you can get hold of the "Restless Dead" campaign in these days? I am wondering because I have a guy who is GMing the "Enemy Within" for our group and who might appreciate to have a look at this campaign? I've never heard about it before and I don't think that he has either.
Your best bet is eBay but they're pricey:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... +dead+wfrp
Ouch! I think my eyes would start to bleed when I saw the price tag. That is really a bit to much for me to spend on a single RPG campaign. :(
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Totsuzenheni Yukimi
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Knight of the Lady wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2019 2:38 pm
totsuzenheni wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:30 pm
You could petition Cubicle 7 to make it the next book they put up on DriveThruRPG.
You can pentition C7 to do that? I wasn't even aware of the possibility that they would listen. My first question to start with is; have this actually been done successfully in the past?
I've no idea how successful any such petitioning has been in the past, though i did ask for Marienburg, and that appeared. It can't hurt to ask.
Ralph
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Theo wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2019 5:55 am Now I'm feeling a little bad. I probably sounded much harder on TRD than I meant to. :)
Nope, I'm just assuming you've got some pretty high standards, based on what you did with TEW, and while I admire that, it would easily explain why some stuff might be a bit too cliché or just not good enough for you.
Actually I quite agree with your points. There's lots of good stuff in TRD - including but not limited to the iconic Rough Night at the Three Feathers - and I do think Sargent's work on stringing the bits together for the mini-campaign is genuinely clever, especially turning the minor encounter with a ghost into a connecting plot device.
Yeah, it's a perfect example of coming up with one or two good NPC who can hook a whole campaign if done right. I'm experiencing it right now with Rudi Klumpenklug from the new Starter Set.
Knight of the Lady
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totsuzenheni wrote: Sat Apr 13, 2019 1:17 am
Knight of the Lady wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2019 2:38 pm
totsuzenheni wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:30 pm
You could petition Cubicle 7 to make it the next book they put up on DriveThruRPG.
You can pentition C7 to do that? I wasn't even aware of the possibility that they would listen. My first question to start with is; have this actually been done successfully in the past?
I've no idea how successful any such petitioning has been in the past, though i did ask for Marienburg, and that appeared. It can't hurt to ask.
I hope you won't mind if I ask for which medium you used to that pentition? Was it on Facebook, sent an email or how did you get in touch with them?
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Totsuzenheni Yukimi
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Knight of the Lady wrote: Sat Apr 13, 2019 10:45 am
totsuzenheni wrote: Sat Apr 13, 2019 1:17 am
Knight of the Lady wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2019 2:38 pm

You can pentition C7 to do that? I wasn't even aware of the possibility that they would listen. My first question to start with is; have this actually been done successfully in the past?
I've no idea how successful any such petitioning has been in the past, though i did ask for Marienburg, and that appeared. It can't hurt to ask.
I hope you won't mind if I ask for which medium you used to that pentition? Was it on Facebook, sent an email or how did you get in touch with them?
Not at all. I emailed them.
Knight of the Lady
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totsuzenheni wrote: Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:50 am
Knight of the Lady wrote: Sat Apr 13, 2019 10:45 am
totsuzenheni wrote: Sat Apr 13, 2019 1:17 am

I've no idea how successful any such petitioning has been in the past, though i did ask for Marienburg, and that appeared. It can't hurt to ask.
I hope you won't mind if I ask for which medium you used to that pentition? Was it on Facebook, sent an email or how did you get in touch with them?
Not at all. I emailed them.
I sent them an email, so we'll see if I get a reply and if so, what that reply will be.
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