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lotsa stories and movies, here’s some really famous ones for you: The One Ring, The Arc of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, The Murder of Laura Palmer, The Maltese Falcon, the briefcase from Pulp Fiction, the world’s best Egg Salad Recipe, and of course – Rosebud the Sled. In game terms, the McGuffin is a kind of currency – for buying the things that Gold can’t. Don’t get it twisted, cash is king* but no amount of cash is going to buy you things like happiness, a town named after you, and having your name become part of the legends. * In Freedonia, Cash is literally king. Officially, it’s King Cash VIII, 428 th Monarch of Freedonia, wielder of the dread sword Inflation-bringer and an unparalleled Magic-Usurer. SOME EXAMPLE MCGUFFINS MIGHT GLORY ARCANA WEALTH ROSEBUD Detailed Maps of the Enemy Encampment A Red Door Key The Legendary Hamsterlance Radio Active Crystals, or Heavy Water, or possibly a Meteorite Found in a Volcano A T-Shirt emblazoned with “I Survived Castle Spank” The Ice Queen’s digits The Dread Sword Inflation- Bringer Headpiece of the Staff of Zorbug The Sorcerer’s Gall- Bladder Stone The Tome of Eph VII – the Spell Checker The Coin used to call Cthulhu The Power Nine, including a Mint Beta Black Lettuce A Hotel on Baltic Avenue A turquoise and tourmaline encrusted combination goldfish bowl and teapot set The Maltese Chicken 640 Million in Bearer Bonds The Last Remaining Slice of your Grandmama’s Lemon Meringue Pie A Magical Dresser that has a secret portal to another world Second Place Ribbon and a set of Steak Knives A Smuggler that owes you money encased in a solid block of lead What flavor is that McGuffin? In Warhamster (again, for now – damn tinkering bastards!) there are 5 Flavors of McGuffin*: Might, Arcana, Glory, Wealth, and Rosebud! Since what the McGuffin actually “is” is irrelevant (or it wouldn’t really be a McGuffin), what flavor it is becomes important (to the players at least). Parties can “spend” their accumulated McGuffins at the Fate Shop in town to purchase long term goals (that they will usually settle upon during Party Creation), and each goal has a cost (like 3 Glory and a Rosebud for a statue erected in your honor in the Town Square, etc.). For ease of reference, any McGuffin that could be used as a weapon, or be of real interest to warriors and generals would be Might flavored. Wizardly things, secrets, and ancient prophecies are usually Arcana flavored. Daring rescues of princesses in distress, feats of derring-do and other obviously hazardous goals are Glory flavored. Objet d’art, unfenceable loot, huge tracts of land, and suchlike are Wealth flavored. Rosebud flavor is for deeply personal things that are otherwise meaningless – they are the McGuffin flavored McGuffins (a rare taste treat worthy even of King Torg (ALL HAIL KING TORG!)**. *Secretly we want to eventually have 31 flavors of McGuffin. **9 th Level Apology: Honestly, we couldn’t not slip it in somewhere. Why is there a Conflict? We all know that this can’t end well – you’re building an adventure module by gods! You have a Big Bad. You have a McGuffin. What is the conflict that brings the Party into odds against the villain? It can be simple – like, the party wants it. Greed is a powerful conflict inducer. Or, you can get creative – and see what happens. Let’s say you chose “The King of the Elflingland’s Daughter” as your McGuffin. Your conflict could be rescuing her from the Big Bad that kidnapped her (a Hill Giant bandito), trying to stop her marrying the Big Bad (a potion popping Professional Warhamster Lancer), or keeping her from eating the Big Bad (a Vampiric Ham Sandwich). Some McGuffins have easy built in conflict – Secret Plots need to be foiled, Ancient and Powerful Relics needs to be dug up, and Dragon’s only have scales for forging into Dragonscale armor. Everybody gets the “raid the dungeon, kill the monsters, take their stuff” concept – so you don’t really need an original conflict concept, you players are ready to bash, stab, and incinerate the hordes standing between them and the McGuffin. We have found that coming up with an original concept will drive the players, and keep them interested – even if the conflict is really
idiculous. In fact, ridiculous conflict (or mundane conflict over ridiculous things) often leads to some really fun time around the graph paper map. Where is the Opening Scene? Where is the Climatic Battle? Regardless of what happens in between (usually rapine and murder) every adventure needs a starting point, and an ending point. All of the action is “a dungeon” whether or not you stage the action in an actual subterranean maze of corridors and chambers, or you place the story in a convenience shoppe on the edge of the Town. In quick terms, describe the opening scene. Include the location and any key environmental factors – like, it’s a ruined church covered in rotting pews, tumbled statues, and a giant gaping hole in the floor. Or, the party comes upon a torch lit all-night diner along the dusty road. Hordes of ‘oids gather at small tables to eat lamprey omelets and sharpen their axes. The Climatic Battle is the “scene” where the Party encounters the Big Bad. It can be a room or area, and should include some cool props for the Party and the Villain to interact with. A velvet lined disco-themed crypt the final resting place for the Staying Alive Zombie Dance Crew or an adobe hut on a bald hilltop surrounded by oversized Trojan Piñatas will work equally well. It helps if the locations you select make a semblance of sense with your chosen conflict and McGuffin, and Villain. Nothing will make a group of gamer lose interest faster than utter randomness. There is no joy in beating The Owlbear Overlord after fighting through a toy store and a Frankenstein Laboratory to secure the Deed to Baltic Avenue – but then again, we might be wrong about that, I might really enjoy kicking that Owlbear in his avian/ursine gonads to get me closer to my dreams of a Purple Monopoly. How “Dangerous” is this Adventure? Let’s face it, Adventuring is dangerous. A lot more dangerous than say, being an accountant (unless you work for the Infernal Revenue Service – that’s exciting). Warhamster has a unique scalable adventure danger level – meaning that any Party can attempt any adventure, at anytime. All of the threats in the adventure are scaled to the Party Leader’s level. So, the real question is not “how dangerous is this mission”, but really, “how much more dangerous is this mission, than you know, like the average of all of the dangerous missions we routinely embark on.” When you are creating a mission, you assign a rating of 1 to 3 as the Danger Factor – each step increasing the Danger Level by 1 (i.e. if the Party Leader is Level 4, and he accepts a quest with a Danger Factor of +2, the party is effectively going on a Danger Level 5 adventure, with commensurate danger and rewards.) When a player is creating an adventure using a “contact”, the first mission they accept is Danger Factor 0. Each subsequent mission they get from that contact increases the Danger Factor by 1. Only by using a contact can a Party get “Nuts!” and go for the really really badass missions – which result in 2 McGuffins awarded. Danger Factor Danger Level Reward Dangerous Party Leader’s Level 1 McGuffin + Level (PLL) Reward More Dangerous PLL + 1 1 McGuffin + Level Reward Really Dangerous PLL +2 1 McGuffin + Level Reward Nuts! PLL +3 2 McGuffins + Level Reward What is the Title of This Adventure Module? Now that you have the hard parts done, you need to name this “module”. Partly, you need a name so that you can explain it to the players. More importantly, all good quests have a title that you can reference later when quaffing mead – as in, “Remember the Quest of the Oracular Olives..that was good times.”
Page 2 and 3:
WARHAMSTER! The Massively Multiplay
Page 4 and 5:
An Introduction to Role-Playing (fo
Page 6 and 7: THE WARHMASTER MANIFESTO We hold th
Page 8 and 9: ADVENTURER JOB BOGIE STAT DICE DEFE
Page 10 and 11: Standardized Adventurer Test What w
Page 12 and 13: PARTY GOALS Goal Description Game E
Page 14 and 15: Be all that you can be, assuming al
Page 16 and 17: Elf FormaTivE Action Jobs Feel that
Page 18 and 19: Bogies Bogies are negative abilitie
Page 20 and 21: Powers LiST Power ATHLETE Certifica
Page 22 and 23: Power CHARM IT Certificate MBA PHD
Page 24 and 25: Power GRAZE DEAD Certificate PHD MB
Page 26 and 27: Power KNOW STUFF Certificate ANY St
Page 28 and 29: Power POLYMORPH (S/T/O) Certificate
Page 30 and 31: Power Stat Die All the Time SUMMON
Page 32 and 33: STEP STEP FIVE FIVE Array Your Stat
Page 34 and 35: STEP STEP SIX SIX SIX COMPUTE YOUR
Page 36 and 37: ARMOR Since the desire to “not di
Page 38 and 39: your whining. You may roll for a ne
Page 40 and 41: STEP STEP TEN TEN DING! GRATZ! Did
Page 42 and 43: Adventurer Actions During a player
Page 44 and 45: How to kill things! Adventurers are
Page 46 and 47: House rules! If you need us to expl
Page 48 and 49: The Simplicity of Setting Difficult
Page 50 and 51: This is the tasty part of the game
Page 52 and 53: Getting Skulls in the monster bowl
Page 54 and 55: Mcguffins and quests and contacts,
Page 58 and 59: Example Adventure Courtesy of the M
Page 60 and 61: Each Dungeon should start with at l
Page 62 and 63: Stat Die HA M ST E R Boss Hit Die 6
Page 64 and 65: Stat Die HA M ST E R Boss Hit Die 4
Page 66 and 67: dM Quick Reference Danger Chart Dan
Page 68 and 69: +of Displacement +Poorly Tailored +
Page 70: BONUS ONUS ONUS MATERIALS MATERIALS
Page 73 and 74: MAP MAP 2 hall hall
Page 75 and 76: MAP MAP 4 VAULT VAULT
Page 77 and 78: MAP MAP 6 CHOOSE CHOOSE YOUR YOUR O
Page 79 and 80: MAP MAP 8 GRASS GRASS AND AND WALLS
Page 81: MAP MAP 10 10 DO DO IT IT YOURSELF
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