Mordheim RPG

I'm thinking about implementing Mordheim in my group's next RPG
campaign, and was wondering if anyone had any experience with this sort
of thing. You see, I'm not just using Mordheim as a setting, but
actually plan to combine the role playing elements of
social/intellectual stats (bluff, intimidate, scrying magic, etc.) with
Mordheim combat.

My basic premise is to start with 2-3 hours of RP before throwing my
players into the ruins. Depending on what triggers they find during the
RP different effects will come up in the wargame. They burn down a
cheese shop, thus granting enemy Skaven models hatred; the warrior
priest has issues of faith and so can't cast for a game; the players
help a little old lady in need, and now for some reason it's raining
fish on their enemies; etc.

That's the idea in general, but here's where I'm looking for advice:

1. How do I build characters? I was thinking of using the one-shot game Mordheim rules and 3.5 D&D rules
and simply converting skill points into gold crowns or vice versa. What
would a skill rank be worth in GC though? How many gold crowns would a
starting level character receive to equip one character?

2. Should my players each have a warband or should they simply form the
core of heroes in a single warband? I'm sure they'll want to play dark
elves side-by-side with dwarves and Kislevites, so there's a fluff
issue in here as well.

3. How do I resolve combat outside of the minis game? It seems silly to
have a separate method of combat during the RP portion, but Mordheim
can be so randomly deadly even to seasoned heroes that I hate to let an
OoA and a D66 role kill off a PC. Should I modify the D66 table? Should
I treat an OoA as a single role on the "multiple wounds" result? Should
I run it as a deathless system?

If you haven't already, I think you should start by looking at Warhamemr Roleplay! They characters could easily be converted into Mordheim.

Having tabletop elements in a RPG session is certainly a good idea. In
fact, many RPG groups use miniatures to aid the storytelling and
visualise their character's positions.

DRD1812 wrote:

if anyone had any experience with this sort

Unless there are any Warhammer RPG players here, I doubt that.

DRD1812 wrote:

1. How do I build characters? I was thinking of using the one-shot game Mordheim rules and 3.5 D&D rules

That sounds a little complicated. Have you considered using the DnD
tabletop game rules? These should integrate more seamlessly with your
DnD RPG rules.

DRD1812 wrote:

and simply converting skill points into gold crowns or vice versa.

I doubt that this will be "simple". Quite to the contrary. Building a converter between two completely different game systems (not to mention that each is designed to emulate different happenings at different scales) seems like a tour de force.

I am sure it can be done, but it will take a LOT of time, if you want to do this properly.

I wouldn't recommend it. Why not go for the lower hanging fruits and use the DnD tabletop system?

DRD1812 wrote:

What would a skill rank be worth in GC though?

I am not sure if this answers the question, but there is a list in the
Mordheim rulebook that states the price in gold crowns for stat
increases for one-off games. You can "buy" profile points (to increase
your model's strength for example). I don't have the rulebook with me
atm so I cannot check unfortunately.

Again, I wouldn't recommend it, but maybe you can establish a ratio
between Mordheim gold crowns and DnD money and thus "buy" whole
profiles for your NPCs and/or PCs.

It will require a lot of guessing though.

DRD1812 wrote:

2. Should my players each have a warband or should they simply form the
core of heroes in a single warband? I'm sure they'll want to play dark
elves side-by-side with dwarves and Kislevites, so there's a fluff
issue in here as well.

It's entirely up to you how you want to handle this. I am in principle not
a huge fan of race segregation (as it is done in the Warhammer
universe) and prefer my adventuring parties to be multi-cultural, with
alignments being race-UNspecific, but since the GW universe forbids
that (except for the occasional elf ranger/dwarf joining humans) I play
along.
Nothing prevents you from mixing races however, if your players are good role players.
"Have fun" is the premise.

DRD1812 wrote:

3. How do I resolve combat outside of the minis game?

With the RPG rules that you will find in the RPG book you are using to play with your friends. Didn't you say you played DnD?

DRD1812 wrote:

It seems silly to
have a separate method of combat during the RP portion, but Mordheim
can be so randomly deadly even to seasoned heroes that I hate to let an
OoA and a D66 role kill off a PC. Should I modify the D66 table? Should
I treat an OoA as a single role on the "multiple wounds" result? Should
I run it as a deathless system?

There you go. This is exactly what I meant when I said:

Quote :

I doubt that this will be "simple". Quite to the contrary. Building a converter between two completely different game systems [...] seems like a tour de force.

Thanks for the point-by-point breakdown, Tom. My big motivation for this project lies in scheduling conflicts. I'm the only nine to fiver of my group with the rest of the ladz getting off at crazy times. As such, short bursts of Mordheim proved a great solution, since not everyone has to be there every time like you'd prefer in an RPG. Of course, the group sorely misses getting in an RP now and again, thus the attempted compromise.

I'm envisioning a nearly diceless system for the RP. My thoughts on implementing 3.5 D&D were my attempt at providing a semblance of structure to the proceedings, but things can just as easily work on an fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants basis. What I'm really trying to describe here is system for role playing the buildup to a Mordheim scenario, and then actually playing a game of Mordheim to represent it. My post boils down to "how would you do that?"

I don't roleplay but over the years a few role-players have visited my weekly Mordheim campaign. The DnDers said oh-ah and took the plot of Mordheim home to play DnD & DnD minis with. The Warhammer Roleplay folks said oh-ah and took the plot of Mordheim and built a Warhammer Roleplay campaign around it.

In a perfect world I'd suggest splitting your players into good and evil groups depending on scheduling with the roleplaying sessions focused on dark plots and internecine backstabbing among group leaders. Skirmish games could simulate the larger conflict between leaders' minions. I wouldn't recommend attempting to crossover between systems. If you play DnD just use the plot and general scenario outlines for your games.

I think, like Tom said, that mashing two completely different systems together is going to be really, really tough. I think it would be easier to instead decide if you want to turn an RPG into Mordheim, or turn Mordheim into an RPG. Start with an existing set of rules, and tweak it as you see fit to achieve what you want.

If you want to maintain the basic game mechanics of Mordheim, just use that as the combat engine and role-play between encounters as you would normally. I would also play "loosely" and grant a little more flexibility within the rules than Mordheim allows, since players often want to do things in an RPG that wouldn't be covered by the rules of a tabletop game. Since the high mortality rate is a concern, why not convert wounds into hit dice? You could say that each wound is representative of d4+2 hit points or something, and then say that the amount of damage caused is dependent on the attacker's strength (1-2, d4; 3-4, d6; 5-7, d8; 8+, d10).
You would probably be doing away with the post-game sequence, so you may also want to place wyrdstone counters on the board here and there or make fallen opponents lootable so that the players have a source of income. I would roll advances and injuries on the spot when they happen.

In terms of one-off game character creation, I would recommend setting the limit fairly low since a central point in any RPG is to build the character, not just start off the bat with a tank.

Lastly, I know that on the Specialist Games Forum there was some discussion of doing something very similar, so you might take a look over there. I believe StyrofoamKing was heading that mini-project.

I've never played Warhammer Roleplay, but that may also fill the niche you're looking for.

We play D&D every friday - have done for years. Our most recent campaign had run about two-and-a-half years when I sucked our mid-level (10th-11th) characters into a war. Now, as anyone who has played D&D (any addition) knows, D&D doesn't lend itself to this kind of campaign because the PCs are so much better than everyman that a small group of heroes can hack their way through whole regiments of the opposition - unless you level-up the NPC troops to provide a challenge, which causes mechanical problems (even smallish skirmishes can take forever to play) as well as story problems (an entire platoon of enemy troops and they are all 7th level or above??).

My solution:

(1) I created a set of tables that converted D&D stats to Mordheim stats, gave everybody one basic magic item (a sword with +1 attack, etc.) and a couple of skills that captured the flavor of the D&D version of the character, and used these Mordheimized versions of the PCs for skirmish games.

(2) I modified the Morheimized PCs again to make Warhammer versions. Mostly, the stats stayed the same, but the special abilities dropped and the magic increased - but only slightly. This version of the PCs we used for big battles using the warhammer rules. The army the PCs help is a bit screwy in that it has too many heroes, but you can tinker with the rules for the opposition force and balance that to a large extent.

Both variations proved quite popular with the players (and sneakily let me scratch my Mordheim and Warhammer itches with a bunch of D&Ders, most of whom hadn't played the GW games before). It went pretty smoothly for a first effort, and everyone seems to have enjoyed it. The only complaint really was from my wife, who grew frustrated during the WH games when the six players on the PC side had to exhaustively debate the options for every unit before moving it. But we quickly found a simple solution for that: at the beginning of the Good Guys' turn they had five minutes to discuss what the army as a whole needed to do, and then each player moved the units assigned to them w/o further discussion.

I hear nothing but good things about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, although I've never played. The stats are basically the same, with the addition of stuff like bravery and willpower to break up the cumbersome LD stat into it's component parts.

If you use WFR, Mordheim, and WFB as your 3 levels of escalation, Mweaver's excellent idea of converting PCs from one system to the other for larger and larger battles, would be a snap.

WFR has all the monsters and magic you would need for the warhammer world, where i would assume a D&D world would work better with D&D rules.