Fallout WW - RPG questions

Fallout Wasteland Warfare Fallout Wasteland Warfare - RPG Expansion
23

Hi,

The Perks that are not RPG-only are the same in the miniatures game, so the cards for those ones will also be the same.

The FAQ is being laid out at the moment so should be very soon but won’t be before Tuesday. I’ve put some details below for Part One to help guide you on the equipment. The FAQ has a bit of advice on picking NPCs with one point being better to start too easy then too hard as you can add reinforcements if needed, and another point being you don’t necessarily need a broad mixture of NPCs for a satisfying encounter. If you’re new to a rules system and/or GMing, keep it simple so there’s less to remember - a flowing encounter with slightly less variety in NPCs is better than a slow-moving encounter because every NPC is different. I’ve put my suggestion for the first encounter where there is a choice of NPCs in the section below.

I hope you have fun running the scenario.

SPOILERS: IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE A PLAYER OF THE CAMPAIGN, DO NOT READ THE SECTIONS BELOW AS IT CONTAINS SOME INSIGHT INTO WHAT THE CAMPAIGN CONTAINS.

Suggested NPCs

The only encounter to with choice in Part One is the first encounter. I suggest just using Raiders to keep it simple.

Suggested Items

p. 104
Raider: BOLT-ACTION PIPE RIFLE (In the FAQ, it suggests Pipe Rifle but that card is in Wave 2 so isn’t available yet; therefore, the Bolt-Action Pipe Rifle is suggested instead.)

p. 105
Parzival (Mr. Handy): MR. HANDY BUZZSAW
Settler: ASSAULT RIFLE or .44 REVOLVER

p. 107
Radroach Swarm: RADROACH SWARM BITE as described on the Unit card*

p. 107
Radscorpion: RADSCORPION PINCERS AND STING as described on the Unit card*

p. 109
Ghoul: IMPROVISED WEAPON

p. 111
Ghoul Settler: IMPROVISED WEAPON

p. 112
Filora (Settler): LEAD PIPE

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24

Thanks for all your answers James.

In preparing for the session, I noted a couple of things which remain unclear for me, if you have the time to answer I’d be most grateful (spoilers blurred).

1) You said that the immature Radscorpions are not meant to be aggressive, but the adventure states: “The small Radscorpions emit fearsome chitters of alarm before they attack”. I assume this is going to be changed in the errata, so they should just chitter in alarm, summoning the mature Radscorpion, and not attack? I assume if the PCs attack them then they automatically kill them?
2) In the first encounter, you suggested arming the raiders with a ranged weapon only. Should I assume that humanoid NPCs all have the “Improvised Weapon” attack that PCs have, should they need to make a melee attack?

Thanks again!

25

every card which doesn’t have a blank statement of “blah weapon only” has improvised weapon to represent fists etc

26

Thanks! Where is this information found? I’m not seeing it on any of the downloadable cards on the website…

27

1. Apologies - poor choice of words on my part - I meant they wouldn’t figure in the actual combat in terms of attacking. Like you say, they can raise the alarm (and test out how your players will react, i.e. slaughter the young ones or not). If a young Radscorpion is killed then the adult will probably be even more angry so might pursue the PCs for longer, or you might give it a bonus effect dice for its rage, etc. If you have lots of players then you could have the young Radscorpions take part in the combat, by giving them a lower Melee skill and less Health than the adult. All these choices are yours so you can tailor encounters to your players and your own preferences.

2. All characters have Improvised Weapon as an option as this is their fist, claw, boot, broken bottle, etc. In Close Combat, characters can use Improvised Weapon, but they can also use Pistols, Rifles, Thrown and Heavy Weapons in Close Combat at a penalty (see p. 57 of the RPG) which is sometimes a better choice than their Melee weapon - depends on the skills and weapons - sometimes it’s a choice between having a better chance to hit or potentially doing more damage but not both. If you prefer, you could give the Raiders a Melee weapon too.

Your second question makes me realise it’s not stated that all characters have Improvised weapon - it is mentioned on the miniatures game but, in the RPG, it’s only mentioned for PCs (as it is on the character mat). I shall add that all characters have access to the Improvised weapon in the next FAQ.

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28

Great! Thanks again James. Hopefully the game goes well tomorrow. :slight_smile:

29

No problem. I hope you have fun. Let us know how it goes.

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30

So, the session went ok last night. Generally the players enjoyed it (though a couple who prefer lighter systems didn’t like it so much - though I was kind of anticipating that from a heavier system).

Character creation was pretty quick and fun. I made sure I had enough copies of the gifts/scars, perks and equipment tables printed, plus plenty of copies of the item cards (luckily I had a friend with access to a colour printer - I had printed B&W copies first, but realised they would be much harder to use, even with the colour-blind friendly symbols). It took around an hour and a half to create 6 PCs, which is pretty good considering it included a system overview, and sharing 3 copies of the above tables among 6 players.
It would be nice if the character sheet included spaces by the skills to record specialisations, and a space to record luck points (I realise the intent is to use tokens, but from a RPG perspective it is simpler to just track on the character sheet).

The biggest issue was the first fight. With 6 PCs, I ended up using only 4 settlers and a total of 10 raiders (we didn’t have enough miniatures for more). It ended up taking around 2 hours for a single fight! Which is fine for a wargame, but really makes things drag in a RPG…
I did however muck up both initiative (I thought you either readied a model or activated readied models, not both on a turn), and criticals (missing that you scored a CP on a hit), which definitely had an impact on the speed and flow of the game. I also decided to try and mix up the raiders gear a little (I thought it unlikely they would all have pipe rifles, so gave some pistols and melee weapons) but in the end I think it wasn’t worth the added hassle and in future I’d just use all rifles for simplicity.
If I was going to run the adventure again, I’d probably just make this encounter 6 raiders and Mr Parzival, and have the players encounter the settlers as another non-combat encounter - they didn’t add too much to the encounter and slowed it down greatly (as did the extra raiders). The thing to remember in a RPG is that each PC is played by a different player, so that means that any given player has to wait for 19 other characters to act before they get to act again, which can be very frustrating even if the core system is speedy.

I did have some questions about damage and healing:
First, the way the game recommends tracking damage: wouldn’t it make more sense to mark damage from the right (as described) and rads from the left? Like the computer game and other Fallout games I’ve played. E.g. a character with 6 health who had suffered 2 rads and 3 wounds would have boxes 1 & 2 filled in (from rads) and boxes 4/5/6 crossed (from damage). I think it would simplify things greatly. If we move to tracking it this way, what (if any) rules would it affect (other than making things a little deadlier obviously).
Second, I couldn’t find any mention of using Medicine/First Aid for healing, other than possibly treating bleeding. How is this skill meant to be used? Can it be used to heal wounds, or can you only do that via consumables and resting?

Other than the above, the game went pretty smoothly, though due to character creation and the long fight we only had time for the Radscoprion encounter and then arrived at Diamond City. In a fortnight we resume with the players at Diamond City, investigating and on the trail of Kameloth (I think I’ll need to reduce the number of super mutants in the Yarwen encounter(s) too, perhaps using fewer, tougher opponents).

One further question just occurred to me. Given the events above, defeating the raiders, obtaining Mr Parzivals quest and reaching Diamond City, what is a suitable XP award? I have no idea whether 1, 5 or 10 would be appropriate, other than the fact characters start with 5, the number of empty skill boxes on the playmat/character sheet, and the progression in the computer game. Based purely on those factors I’m tempted to be generous and say 5, but I really have no idea of expected rewards/progression.

Grateful for any feedback, and hopefully it isn’t too late to improve the adventure/book… or at least the FAQ.

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31

When I demoed the first scene at UKGE where I had a 1 hour slot to try and get the first act into (All the way to diamond city) I decided to set up about half the raiders next to or on one of my 2 corvega’s to potentially speed up the game

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32

Did you manage to fit it into one hour (with 6 players)?

If so, I’m impressed. Do you have some tips/tricks to speed things up (aside from getting the rules right!)?

33

exploding cars speed up the first part, also if the players manage to sneak and don’t get spotted by the raiders, then allow them to direct the settlers (I also started with the Raiders and settlers already set up so that if the players didn’t get spotted they could set up anywhere outside red)

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34

I see the official release of this was announced today. Among the tidbits was this nugget:

  • 3 free adventures in a linked campaign or for use as one-shot missions to support GM’s

Does this mean the release version contains 2 extra adventures? Awesome… will my pre-order version get updated along with the FAQ?

35

The campaign in the RPG is three adventures linked together. They don’t have to be run together, though they probably make more sense when run together.

36

Oh… I see. I can’t imagine running them separately, as they tell one complete story. More like three scenes within a single adventure (in fact, I’m pretty sure that is how they are titled in the PDF I have).
I suggest you update the marketing in that case.

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37

@WriterJames - radio silence on the questions… any chance of getting an update on recommended XP awards and recommended gear for enemies for part 2 please?
I’m running my second session tonight, and I’d really like some advice/suggestions for this stuff before the game!

38

So I bought the PDF of the RPG system as I wasn’t sure of what to expect. I’m really struggling with putting together an adventure with the meager planning resources provided. I’m looking for a rough idea of the starting character point values and how they compare with the enemies in the game. There has to be some guide or point guide to help the Overseer prepare encounters. I ran a session yesterday and did a rough plan of points and it was woefully unbalanced with an almost too easy win by the players.

39

In my lay opinion, I’d say 1 per hour of play.

40

Yeah. I’m modelling the Handyman as a Brotherhood Knight, but I’d rather use a Brotherhood Knight… But I’m unsure if that would horribly unbalance the game… not that I’m totally convinced all the starting options are balanced.

41

Hello,

I haven’t purchased the RPG book yet mainly because I no longer have a group to play with. I play the tabletop game in solo mode, and i was wondering if it would be possible to add extra RPG elements to the standard campaign or settlement modes. Would it be viable to create a character sheet for each mini, have them level up, etc.? Or is it simply incompatible?

Thanks in advance for your answers.