idea of two outlooks inter-
were all Cidarin citizens and after their town crimes, lynchings, and vandalism are ram-
acting. They aren’t there to
was wiped out by Nilfgaardians, they band- pant in backwater towns. Even in the capi-
show your players how they
ed together to hunt down and kill the gen- tals of the Northern Kingdoms mass purges
should act. If you push it too
eral who ordered the attack. Maybe one of are not unheard of. The Witcher TRPG rep-
far, the players will kill the
your players was cursed by a sorceress and resents this through your social standing, a character and leave them in
has hired the other players to escort them status that you get at birth with your race.
a ditch.
as they look for a way to undo the curse. If This explains how the average human popu-
you want high stakes, tie your plot to a king- lace of a settlement will deal with you.
dom or the war. Your players could be an-
Barring strange circumstances,
archists or even Scoia’tael who are plotting dwarves are tolerated, which means that the assassination of a northern monarch, or humans will general y stomach your pres-maybe working as spies for Nilfgaard. No ence; it only becomes a problem if you cause
matter what plot you pick for your game, a disturbance or are in the wrong place at
remember that The Witcher is not The Lord the wrong time.
217
Witchers are feared, which means towns-
The world of The Witcher can be,
folk will actively avoid them— anyone who messy, difficult, and bloody. Never let your
is forced to deal with them will try to cut players get off with an obvious answer to a
their dealings short quickly. Elves, however, difficult question. Make them compromise.
having been less than friendly in the years If your whole party gets caught up discuss-
before the Nilfgaardian War, are hated. ing the ethical ramifications of what they’re Most people view elves as lesser beings. In about to do then you’ve done a good job.
most places, the risk of hate crimes nearly
doubles; in backwaters it’s wisest to hide
your heritage.
Nothing Is Ever As It Seems
Witcher stories are rarely as simple as they
first appear. Most times you will get halfway
through a story thinking one thing before a
plot twist sends you in exactly the opposite
direction. A mission to wipe out a group of
bandits plaguing a town may turn out to be
a death sentence for a band of war refugees
who refused to pay a toll to the town alder-
man.
In a good Witcher game your play-
ers should go in with one concept and leave
with another. Nothing is black and white.
Always look for twists and mysteries that
will make your players question if they’re
on the right side. Keep your players on their
toes. Send them out with a basic mission
that unravels into a grand mystery as they
travel (or kill) their way across the country-
side. You can tempt your players by putting
especial y good loot or something they re-
al y want at the end of the trail of clues and
leaving hints along the path. Later in this
section we’ll go into how to set up a good
mystery so you can keep it all straight and
keep your players guessing.
No Question Is Easily
Answered
The Witcher world is not a nice neat little
world where the right answer is obviously
apparent the minute the question is asked.
In many cases there isn’t even a “right” an-
swer. Players must often choose between
two answers that both seem equal y “right”
or “wrong”. They may make mistakes that
haunt them for the rest of their lives.
218
Life’s Hard. Enjoy it!
As a GM it’s important to remem-
By now you’ve probably noticed that the ber that while the world of The Witcher is a Witcher TRPG is fairly ruthless. Gear is dark, grim, and deadly place, achieving hap-expensive and life is cheap. That’s because piness is possible. Players can find someone
that’s what The Witcher is. It’s deadly and to love, settle down, and have a happy fami-unforgiving. The economy is such that a ly. But it doesn’t come without a price. Hap-
simple throwing knife costs you an arm and piness should always be out there for your
a leg, and you may lose an arm and a leg get- players to reach for, and if they get it that ting the money to buy that throwing knife. doesn’t mean that the game ends and noth-The world is hard-edged and rough, but this ing more can be done. Once you’ve achieved
makes the happy moments all the sweeter. happiness you have to protect it. You have to
After a long day of death and destruction, defend everything you care about from the
an almost normal home or a genuinely lov- ravages of this war-torn world. Even if your
ing embrace can be the greatest reward in players discover happiness, make them fight
the world. The brightest of the few shining for it. Have monsters attack their homes,
lights in The Witcher are friendship and soldiers try to take their families. Make it love. These two things make the grim slog clear that they can have a happy life but it
through life worth it.
won’t be without cost.
Healing, Or Got Any Twos?
Not only is the Witcher TRPG more gran-
ularly brutal with the introduction of crit-
ical damage, but healing is handled more
realistical y. While there are potions to heal
Health Points, either temporarily or perma-
nently, the natural healing process (espe-
cial y of critical wounds) goes fairly slowly.
It’s good to remember two things
when running a Witcher game. First off, try
to make sure that your players are always
within at most a day of a doctor or a mage.
This way if they screw up horribly and get a
punctured lung, they have a chance. How-
ever, if your players knowingly venture far
from anyone who could help them, then it’s
more or less on their own heads. Secondly,
remember to make room for healing. In the
Witcher books, Geralt spends a fair amount
of time healing—extended periods in a
temple doing nothing but healing. If your
players all sustain internal organ damage
or have broken limbs, give them some time
to heal so they aren’t crippled for the rest of
their adventure. You can either “time skip”
(“Wel , you guys spend a few weeks heal-
ing”) or you can actively play out some of
that time, allowing players to bond, plan, or
perhaps seduce their caretaker.
219
Encounters
When setting up an encounter in the threat categories: Easy, Medium, and Hard.
Witcher TRPG always remember: more
Parties With No
Each category is split into Simple, Com-
is better. Rarely will you ever be attacked plex, and Difficult to show just where on Witcher
by one monster. Usually they swarm. If the spectrum the beasts are. For most par-
You may be running a party
you’re lucky you’ll only be attacked by ties you can play it like this:
t
hat doesn’t have a witcher.
three monsters, but most times it’s five
For every medium monster you
In this case you may want
or six. So here’s an equation to remember put into your encounter take out three easy to start with 1 monster per
when sending enemies (monster, human- monsters.
player to gauge how your
oid, or otherwise) after your players:
Unless your players are proven ba-
players do. Monsters have
dasses, don’t put a hard monster in with any
resistance to steel weap-
Number of Monsters =
other monsters. A party of five or fewer can
ons which means your
Players + 2
take one hard monster.
non-magical players will be
You can scale monster encounters
doing half damage no mat-
Plan on at least one monster per person in more using the complex or difficult monter what. This also applies
your party. If you’re running an encounter sters from each threat category.
to parties that are less com-
with one person, put in at least three mon-
bat-oriented. If you have a
sters. This number of monsters will gen- For Example: My three players (Joe, Felicia,
bard, a merchant and two
eral y be good for your players until they and Mark) walk into a crypt in Temeria and
priests you may want to start
get stronger. Eventual y, your players will are set upon by ghouls! There are three of
with 1 monster per player to
get relic weapons and they’ll be throwing them, so 5 ghouls lunge out of the shadows!
gauge how well they do be-
around enough dice to one-shot small mon- That’s 1 per person plus 2, and assuming they
fore throwing the full horde
sters. At that point you can raise the num- have silver weapons it shouldn’t be that tough at them.
ber per person, and chances are your players for them. However, after resting up a bit they will love it. What’s more badass than three travel deeper into the crypt and find another heroes taking down 20 enemies? Not a lot.
group of monsters! This time they are facing
You may want to throw large mon- a grave hag! Once again, this shouldn’t be too
sters into your game, and that works just hard if the players are relatively skil ed and fine, but not using the same numbers. If you have silver weapons. But seeing as the grave throw eight fiends at four starting players, hag will take more of their focus, there will they are gonna be toast in no time. In the only be two ghouls there as well, rather than Witcher TRPG, monsters are split into three a horde.
220
Monster Ratings
One more thing to remember when setting
up a Witcher encounter: monsters are not
Easy
very good at working together. If your
Simple
Complex
Dif icult
players stumble into a nest of nekkers while
Bandits
Scoia’tael Archers
Wraiths
being chased by wolves, the nekkers and
Drowners
Nekkers
Ghouls
wolves will not team up to fight the players
Wolves
Sirens
Endrega
together. In general, whenever you have
two different types of monsters in the same
Medium
encounter with players, the battle turns
Simple
Complex
Dif icult
into a free-for-al . Each turn, any monster
Mages
Grave hags
Noonwraiths
not being attacked or actively attacking will
attack the closest thing to them. The only
Werewolves
Rock trolls
exception to this is intelligent monsters,
who will attack whatever set them off or
Hard
looks most dangerous.
Simple
Complex
Dif icult
Golems
Grif ins
Fiends
Wyverns
Arachasae
Katakans
221
Rewards
Recipes
Diagrams & Formulae can
be realy great loot for a
You have to face it, loot is a big part of Recipes
large party or a party with a
any game. Treasure and the looting of Among the best things you can find when
craftsman. One recipe for a
dead bodies for money, armor, weapons, sacking a bandit lair or looting a dead mer-
powerful weapon or a useful
and magic items is the benign obsession chant on the road are diagrams and formu-
item like a bomb or trap can
of most gamers, both tabletop and video. lae. Take the right materials to a crafter and open up a lot of doors for the
And never fear, there is still loot in the they can make you some real y awesome
party. Now they can prepare
world of The Witcher! But it’s a bit differ- stuff. If you have a crafter in your party, they the whole party with pow-ent.
can use them nearly on the fly if they have
erful weapons, armor, and
the tools. Just like magic items, however,
Gold, i.e. Crowns
gear which can turn the tide
powerful diagrams should be doled out over
in dangerous bat les.
This may be where you get a bit sad. Crowns, time.
the coin of the day, are not common. The
rich are rich and the poor are poor—pain- Interesting Items
ful y so. This means looting a group of With intelligent enemies, you’ll find a lot of
bandits you and your party just killed may personal items on whoever you are looting.
net only 70 crowns, tops. When the cheap- This stuff doesn’t have to be important, but
est longsword costs 160 crowns, 70 is not it should be interesting. After al , think about much. While you may find some cash, loot what would happen if somebody killed you
in the world of The Witcher means items. right now and rifled through all your pock-You may find 5 crowns on a guy, but also a ets.
great sword or a couple of potent alchemical
In my case, my assassin would find
items.
$4.91 in change, my wallet, two phones, a
pen, a jack knife, some keys with dog tags
Magic Items & Relics
from other people, a public transit card,
Witcher magic items range from pretty good movie ticket stubs, and dice of all shapes to truly insane. It’s always a good idea to and sizes. Not much money (and only one
study the statistics of each item before you usable weapon) but a lot of interesting items
give it to your players. If you decide to hand with story. If they went through my wallet,
your players the legendary sword Cleaver it’d get even more interesting as they found Hood for killing a bandit on the road to Te- a library card, a science center membership meria, that better be a plot-related item be- card, some I.D. info, an All United States
cause it’s way too much power to give some- Kendo Federation card, more movie stubs,
one for killing a lone bandit.
and a punch card to a piroshky restaurant.
Dole out magic items over time. You gotta admit, I’d be a pretty intriguing
Unlike many other fantasy games, magic corpse.
and relic weapons are not commonplace.
Despite the fact that you creat-
You usual y can’t
buy them at a marketplace; ed them for a purpose in the game world,
they require adventure and effort to get. But every body your players loot is a person.
once you get them it’s very worth it. Not They had a life. It’s always cool to have some
only do people take notice, but 24 points of indicators of what they were like, and it’ll
average damage, Stamina regeneration, and give your players a sense that the world has
a 20% bleeding chance isn’t bad either.
depth. If you want varied possessions, use
the Random Possessions table on pg.223.
222
Monster Bits & Twine
Looting Monsters: On solitary monsters,
Last but not least, your players will collect you’re most likely to only find parts of the
a lot of components and ingredients, oth- monster or small bits of loot mentioned in
erwise known as ‘monster bits and twine’. its bestiary entry. However, that changes for
Almost every monster you can kill in The intelligent monsters and monster dens.
Witcher can be used for something, be it in-
fused dust for a bomb or a delicious bowl Intelligent Monsters: Besides the usual
of drowner brain soup. When players kill a useful monster bits, it’s good to put a few
monster you can refer to its bestiary page trinkets and favorite objects of the monster
to see what useful parts you can cut, gouge, on or around it. For most monsters, though,
or tear from its corpse. It’s a gruesome job, there won’t be many. Roll 1d6 to see how
but somebody’s gotta do it and you’ll be glad many items the monster owns, then roll on
you did.
the Random Possessions table to see what
Monster parts are helpful to craft a they are (or decide). Even intelligent mon-
lot of potions. It’s best not to tear humans sters don’t usual y carry crowns, armor, or
and elderfolk apart for alchemical materials. weapons. They might have diagrams.
Nothing on a person is real y all that use-
ful for alchemy, however they do often have Monster Dens: In a monster den you have a twine, cloth, and other crafting materials bit more room to experiment. The monsters
on them. Tearing down even cheap clothes themselves may not carry items on them,
gives you stuff you can use.
but they often have the bodies of travellers
or adventurers in their caves. Roll 1d6 for
The Witcher Pen & Paper RPG Page 48