Its happening again, just like before...

About 2 years ago I had to give up running my Warhammer campaign because I was ill. I got so ill by the end of the Campaign that Shevy took over for me and ran the final 2 sessions. She did a fantastic job and I will never be able to thank her and the players enough for the ending they gave that campaign.

See I ran WFRP on sundays at GEAS for years. In fact since the first sunday I turned up when I mentioned to Janet Pashley that I had a copy of the rule book if anyone was looking for a game. That was the sunday of my first freshers week back in 1994. I had 6 players in under 5 minutes. I should have realised then what game I would be running for the next 12 years...

So when I had to give it up for the sake of my health (running a shop 6 days a week and a game for 8 hours on the seventh is a bit of a strain with a chronic illness) it was a bit of a blow. Well I say a bit but it was a hell of a blow. Thats when I realised it had got the better of me.

Anyway, when the campaign ended I swore that was it. I was off the Warhammer for good. I could kick the habit. It was like anything else. Just live without it for a while and you'll find something new instead. Easy.

Damn. I'm running it again.

See thats the problem with a really good game like WFRP. Its harder to kick the habit than you think. Especially when there are so many good pre-written campaigns for it. The Enemy Within, Death on the Reik, The Restless Dead, Dying of the Light and most importantly (for this column anyway) the Doomstones campaign.

You try to give it up but then it sits there staring at you as you try to watch the telly. You're really getting into the whole fighting styles in Ong-Bak but out of the corner of you're eye they're sitting there calling out to you...

Liam... Run us... You know you want too... We're so pretty and you know us all so well... Go on, just pick us up and look at us... It won't hurt...

See how scary they are. They're like some kind of evil alien life form that burrows into your brain and starts taking control of you. So given that, who was I to resist the call of the Warhammer! Doomstones won out in the end.

Its my first attempt at running a game again since I quit so I had to get my priorities straight. See you knew there would be a point to all the rambling ;)

Firstly I wanted a system that I knew well and where necessary I could wing it. I always hated running new systems with a group of fresh players because someone always asks a question that you don't know the answer too and I like to know the answers or be able to reliably make an educated guess. So that ruled out 90% of my gaming collection for now.

Secondly I wanted something that had a prewritten campaign that I could just pick up, read and run. I have so little time at the moment that it had to be something easy that I could pick up and play. That ruled out a whole other bunch of stuff as I'd never read it, or in some cases even taken it out of the shrinkwrap (I should really do something about that).

Thirdly and finally, it had to be something that I could confidently run and that I had some experience of from both sides, player and GM. So basically that left the Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu or Doomstones for WFRP.

Oddly I actually felt some compassion for my players this time round. I must be getting old. I chose the Doomstones campaign and part of the reason why, though it galls me to say so, was that the body count would be less.

I feel dirty for saying that.

So there it was. One quick email looking for players later and I had a group. Most notably it is also a group of people who've never played anything I've run before.

The fools...

I shall keep you all updated as to how things go and the shennanigans they get up to. This should be fun :D

- Liam