I am having a grand time running a campaign adapting the WHFRP Enemy Within game to be set in the Holy Roman Empire at the dawn of the 30 Years War. The fantasy material works really well in the real early modern Germany. The maps of Johannes Homann are indispensable. It is relatively cheap to print them out full scale at the local print shop.
The players are a collection of a witchfinder, artisans, unemployed mercenaries, friars and a vagabond academic. The only one who has true faith is the one least concerned with doctrinal differences that are set to rip society apart.
They have finished Bogen Haven which I transposed to Schweinfurt on the Mainz. They are now looking to track down the the demonologist Etelka Herzen. This is taking them into the hills of Swabia.
As a rule, I have been conveying Elves and Dwarves as foreign ethnicities, but none consistently. I am greatly reluctant to fix each mapping to one, because I don’t want to fall into racist stereotypes. Even though I am aware that certainly these did exist at the time. It is just that that is not what the game is about.
Similarly, I plan to substitute the Skaven with a hidden population of Neanderthals plotting vengeance against the humans for displacing them from Europe tens of thousands of years ago. I reckon that should work well.
It is a gas. As a GM, I like how the complexity of the game is loaded onto the players. Sure, you have to keep balls in the air while running it, but you don’t spend time prepping stat blocks for NPCs. The game just does not require it. What is their perception? 3 of course, unless they are sharp in which case it is 4 or 5. It is more important to come up with a goal or a belief for each NPC. To quote the great Kurt Vonnegut “Every character has to want something, even if it is just a glass of water”.
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