From White Dwarf #88, April 1987

Transcribed by Cat-Twister (mcssenct@dct.ac.uk) Feb 1994

----------------------------------------------------------------------

                           Hand of Destiny

              Fate Points in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

                           by Graeme Davis


Fate Points are an important part of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
rules, allowing characters to cheat death and live to fight another
day.  They are, however, given very little space in the rule book.
The following notes are intended to clarify Fate Points and their use,
and deal with any uncertainties which may arise from their previously
scanty treatment.


                        What Are Fate Points?


The function of Fate Points in WFRP is threefold:

First, they allow Our Heroes to make miraculous escapes, as in all the
best adventure stories.  WFRP adventurers can dodge falling stone
blocks by a whicker, survive slipping off a cliff by landing in
convenient patch of bushes, run unscathed through a hail of arrows and
so on.  With hairs-breadth escapes and twists of fate, players are
willing to risk their characters, making for a faster and more
exciting game than would otherwise be the case.

Secondly, Fate Points reflect the idea that Our Heroes have destiny
which sets them above the rest of the world.  Just as in films John
Wayne can make it to the machine-gun nest with marines being cut down
around him, so WFRP adventurers can take great risks - and get away
with them.

Lastly, combat in WFRP is more dangerous than in other RPG's.  This is
partly because combat is dangerous in real life, and partly because if
combat is always the easy way out, players will be less inclined to
try something a little more subtle, like thinking!  Obviously, there
will be some occasions when fighting is the only course of action, and
even in the ordinary run of things, characyers get killed very easilly
if the players don't learn caution.  Fate Points can give the rash
player a second chance and the unlucky player an even break.  Of
course, if the players insist on rushing into every situation waving
swords about they will quickly run out of Fate Points, and permanent
death will follow with grim inevitability.  Most players will get the
idea fairly quickly, and realise that a gung-ho approach is not
necessarily the best.


                       When To Use Fate Points


Basically a Fate Point can be expended whenever a character is about
to die - in combat, through traps or accidents, as a results of poison
or disease, or in any other circumstances.  Instead of dying, the
character expends a Fate Point and them the GM has to devise some way
of ensuring that the character survives.


                        How To GM Fate Points


When a character expends a Fate Point, it is up to the GM to come up
with something that will prevent the character dying.  No doubt the
player in question will be full of helpful suggestions, but you should
be careful to ensure that the character is not too much better off as
a result of expending a Fate Point.  Fate Points are powerful, but not
as pwerful as, say D&D/AD&D wishes.  The character should survive the
situation, but that is it.  It can sometimes be difficult to come up
with a suitably tailored deus ex machina on the spur of the moment, so
here are some ideas.


                                Combat


Here is an example of the wrong way to deal with Fate Points in
combat:

        Clem Shirestock is in a hard fight with a band of Chaos
Mutants.  He has been reduced to 0 Wounds, and a critical hit result
indicates that he is about to have his head removed by a neatly-swung
axe.  Clem's player spends a Fate Point.  The GM ignores the critical
effect, but Clem is still on 0 Wounds, so the next hit Clem takes is
another critical, Clem's player spends another Fate Point...

At this rate, Clem will get through his three Fate Points in as many
rounds; their only effect will be that he will die three rounds later
than he would have done otherwise.

Let's try that again...

        Clem takes a hit which takes him below 0 Wounds.  It is a hit
to the body, and the critical result indicates that he will be
disembowelled and die immediately.  Clem's player spends a Fate Point,
and is told by the GM that everything goes black.  While the player is
wondering what has happened, the GM makes a note that Clem has been
struck by the flat of the blade and flung against the wall, hitting
his head and knocking himself unconscious.  He may wake up several
hours later (still on 0 Wounds) to find himself -
        being tended by his victorious comrades;
        imprisoned in the mutants' lair with his defeated comrades;
        left for dead, stripped of all equipment and valuables, and
        all alone.

The trick is to use you imagination.  This can also provide an
opportunity to direct things if the players have gone a little off the
track.  You, the GM, control when and where characters wake up, and
you can use this to your advantage.  If, for example, the adventurers
have missed a vital clue about the lair of the evil Necromancer, they
may wake up in a small village, having been found left for dead in the
forest.  As their wounds are tended, the villagers will tell them
about the black tower beyond the wood, where hideous screams are heard
at night, and about the recently-dug graves which have been found torn
open, apparently from the inside...

There are also some things you will have to watch.  Remember, the
players know that the character who expended a Fate Point isn't dead,
but their characters don't.  You must make sure that the players act
accordingly.  You should avoid being vindictive yourself - if a
character appears to be dead, an Orc or mutant will leave him/her and
move on to another foe; they won't generally have another few stabs
'just to make sure'.


                         Traps And Accidents


When a character expends a Fate Point to avoid being killed by a trap
or by some other mischance, there are two possible approaches to what
happens next:

The Indiana Jones Method - The spikes, spears, falling blocks or
whatever, miss by a whisker, grazing the character's armour, possibly
destroying a backpack or some other item of equipment, but leaving the
character unscathed.

The Tom And Jerry Method - The character is spiked, or speared, or
flattened, or whatever, but he walks away.  Wounds may be reduced to
zero, and some or all of the character's equipment may be destroyed,
but the character is still just about alive.


                          Poison And Disease


When a character expends a Fate Point to avoid death from poison or
disease, the effects of the poison or disease miraculously stop when
the character is on the point of death, and normal recovery
('enhanced' as usual by medical attention can begin immediately.  For
example:

        Clem Shirestock is bitten in the leg by a Giant Rat in the
course of an adventure and the GM rolls D100 to see if the bite
carries the Black Plague.  It does, and Clem must make a Disease test,
rolling his Toughness x 10 or less on D100 in order to avoid the
infection.  Clem's Toughness is 3, and the player rolls 98 - a
failure.  A week or so later, Clem is struck down with the Plague, and
becomes progressively worse over the next few days.  After five days,
his Strength and Toughness reach zero, and the player expends a Fate
Point to prevent Clem from dying.
        Clem lapses into a come, and for two days he hovers on the
brink of death.  On the third day, he opens his eyes and asks for food
- he has begun to recover.


                   How Characters Gain Fate Points


Fate Points are an undeniably valuable commodity in WFRP.  The next
question is, of course, how does a character get any more?  There are
four ways in which a character can acquire Fate Points:

Character Generation - Every PC acquires Fate Points at the generation
stage.  This is explained on pp15-16 of the WFRP rule book.

Divine Favour 1 - Clerics and Druids may gain Fate Points as a result
of a particularly successful roll on the Cleric Advance Table (p150)
or the Druid Advance Table (p152).

Divine Favour 2 - At the GM's option, a deity may give a character a
Fate Point instead of a blessing (see pp193-4).  As with all
blessings, the character in question must be genuinely deserving, and
must have done the deity a great service, such as performing some
quest (not a Trial) at the deity's behest.  As with the advance
tables, only one Fate Point is awarded.

Adventuring - If a character successds in staving off a great, world-
shaking menace of divine origin (such as the machinations of a Chaos
God), a Fate Point may be awarded along with the usual Experience
Points.  The menace must be comparable in scale to the situation in
Shadows Over Bogenhafen, and it must be apparent that but for the
character's action an appalling disaster would have taken place.
Don't let fast-talking players convince you that wiping out a couple
of dozen cultists is the same thing.


                How Characters Do Not Gain Fate Points


Characters may not buy Fate Points with Experience Points under any
circumstances.  Never, never, never.  No how, no way.


                   How Characters Lose Fate Points


Just as characters gain Fate Points through divine favour, so they can
lose them through divine disfavour.  A bad roll on the Cleric/Druid
Advance Tables can have this effect, and Fate Points can also be lost
as the reverse of a blessing. If a character does a deity a great
disservice, the deity may strip the character of a Fate Point until
suitable reparation is made.

A character who sells out to Chaos and becomes a Chaos Warrior or a
Chaos Sorcerer exchanges all his/her Fate Points for Chaos Gifts and
an easy road to power.  This will be more fully explained in Realm of
Chaos.


                         NPCs And Fate Points


As a rule, NPCs do not have Fate Points - part of their function, as
explained above, is to distinguish the PCs from the rest of the world.

However you may allow an NPC to have Fate Points under special
circumstances.  Say you are developing an NPC who is going to be the
bane of the characters' lives for a long time to come : a mega-baddie
of the stature of Fu Manchu or Professor Moriarty.  The players may
think that their enemy has been defeated, but by using Fate Points the
villain lives on to fight another day.  After enough time to recover,
re-equip and recruit new henchmen he/she reappears at an opportune
moment to take a devastating revenge.

        Dracula, for example, must have got through a heck of a lot of
Fate Points in the cycle of Hammer films between 1958 and 1973.
Despite being staked, burnt, blasted to ash by sunlight, doused in
running water and heaven knows what else, he always found a way of
coming back to unlife at the start of the next picture.

You should keep this sort of treatment for special occasions, however.
It will be easy to demoralise the players if every minor villain they
encounter develops the habit of coming back to get them after being
'killed' three or four times.  However, if you give a few Fate Points
to the one leading baddie in you campaign, and have him or her pop up
a couple of times to get one back on Our Heroes it can keep them on
their toes.  Be careful not to let the players cotton onto what's
happening, though, or they will take to dismembering and burning every
body they can 'just to be sure', and that isn't part of WFRP.

So there you are - that's what Fate Points are all about.  In
conclusion, there are two main points to be stressed.

Firstly, be imaginative when GMing the use of Fate Points, as it can
add a lot to the tension and enjoyment of the game.  Secondly, be mean
in handing them out.  Each Fate Point effectively gives a character an
extra life, and that makes them very powerful and very prescious
things indeed.  Spreading too many of them about will lead players to
adopt the Rambo attitude every time, which devalues both the concept
of Fate Points and the game itself.

--------------------------------------------------
Cat-Twister mcssenct@dct.ac.uk      Scotland
This .sig will self destruct... ...tic, tic BOOM!"
--------------------------------------------------