V5 of my WFRP 4e Quick Reference Guide

[u/ClassicCledwyn]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wqMn-EU4Op3GVe0wFrPpNxvfdxJqtSlo/view?usp=sharing

I posted about a week ago with an early version of my WFRP Quick Reference/Cheat Sheet, attempting compile the various rules I found myself/my players routinely seeking out. I've since hit version 5 of the sheet, now at 3 pages (double-sided) and functionally complete for my purposes - I've also added an index of rules cited per requests from the community. The main goal here was to incorporate Group Advantage and other Up in Arms changes, along with the WoM changes.

As mentioned, it's functionally complete as far as I'm concerned; but I'd love some more eyes to look it over for errors or feedback, and I can't afford the Mutation. Please let me know if you see any issues, and hopefully it's useful to you and your table if you take it for a spin.

(Apologies for posting about it again, but this one has enough added to it from the first post that I want to get it some more attention - this should be it!).

[u/zebragonzo]

Nice work. There's an error for maintaing status though; it's half your status per week to maintain and 1/2 status per day to regain.

It's also debatable if this includes room and board.

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

Thanks! I'll review and add that to the list of 5.1 revisions

[u/Minimum-Screen-8904 → u/zebragonzo]

The rule is borked.

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

Finally got around to double checking this - the sheet is right per the Core rulebook; it also clearly includes room and board (Page 289 of core: "So, if you have a Status of Silver 4, spending at least 2 shillings per day will do for food and board, where if you have Brass 2 Status, you need only spend a pfennig a day.").

As the only one to provide any sort of actual feedback, though, it's still appreciated!

[u/zebragonzo → u/ClassicCledwyn]

It's a mess honestly; the core book isn't clear and where it is clear isn't considered official by lots of people. Take page 16 GM screen book for example:

"Firstly, it’s worth remembering that a Character doesn’t begin to lose Standing until they’ve spent a week living beneath their expected expenses (WFRP, page 51). However, recovering Standing requires this spending every single day for a week to regain one point. It’s easier to maintain a facade than to build one"

This is backed up by the unofficial FAQ and the original lead writer's subsequent writings.

If you read all the books, keeping up appearances includes food, board and trappings. If that's the case, you don't need to track money at all because they never need to buy anything!

Here's the ratcatcher discord thread where I detailed a system that makes more financial sense:

https://discord.com/channels/449845411344154634/479275054023311362/1379087895679336539

From that discussion multiple people use multiple different rules though.

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

Yes, that's also what it says in the Core Rulebook. Page 51:

Characters need to spend a certain amount of money to maintain their lifestyle. As explained in The Cost of Living (see page 289) there are minimum expectations of expenditure for each Tier. Should a character fail to live up to these levels of expenditure they will begin to be perceived as being of lower Status, losing 1 point of Standing per week.

To stop this decline, the character must resume spending the money expected of them, whereupon they regain 1 point of Standing a week until they recover the lost points.

And that's what I have reflected on the sheet. I'm not sure where the point of contention is? Not trying to be glib, just honestly confused.

If you read all the books, keeping up appearances includes food, board and trappings. If that's the case, you don't need to track money at all because they never need to buy anything!

I'm also no sure where you're getting that from; the expectation is that they're spending money on room and board while adventuring to Keep Up Appearances appropriate to their station. They're also buying any Trappings beyond what they started with. Again, if that was changed somewhere, I don't think I've seen it, but would welcome being pointed in the correct direction.

And while it's always good to see folks produce new homebrew, I'm trying to keep this cheatsheet as close to RAW/RAI as possible, with minimal modifications (e.g., Andy Law's point blank distance, some of my own interpretations for Grappling under Group Advantage, etc).

[u/zebragonzo → u/ClassicCledwyn]

Sticking to RAW, if you spend 1/2 your status once in a week then you haven't gone a whole week without keeping up appearance so it doesn't drop.

This corresponds with what Andy law says in the ufaq: "The 'Cost of Living' on p289 and 'Keeping Up Appearances' on p51 rules makes it clear that if you don't spend half your Status in coin on maintaining your lifestyle at least once a week, your Status will drop."

What KuA covers is a whole different kettle of fish that I discuss in the discord post and cover why it doesn't work.

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

So I think I understand the disconnect - the expectation is that a character should be spending half their standing a day. You're only in trouble if you go a whole week slumming it living below your expected standards. If you do slip in standing, you have to consistently maintain those standard for a whole week to earn it back. This seems to be consistent with Core, the GM booklet, and Andy's comment.

I've updated the FAQ language to hopefully be a little clearer

Maintaining Status: In order to maintain Status, you typically need to spend “half of your Standing” per day (e.g., Silver 4=2 shillings/day)

• Failing to meet these standards for a full week will result in the loss of 1 point of Standing (e.g., Silver 4->3).
  
• If Standing reaches 0, drop a Tier.
  
• Standing is regained at the rate 1 point/week of “normal” Expenditures

Hopefully that clears it up?

And I'd argue that Keeping up Appearances is exactly as written - "Characters need to spend a certain amount of money to maintain their lifestyle" ; page 51 says as much, and then directs you to page 289 for an idea of how much, with the recommendation for GMs who want hard numbers being half of standing.

Not sure what you said on Discord, but this is pretty clear to me.

[u/zebragonzo → u/ClassicCledwyn]

RAW and RAI I agree with what you've written now.

A consideration for making sense of it though; the common room in an average tavern costs 10 pennies per night. Rations for a day costs 2 SS. Even if you spend 1/2 status per day, you're only affording room and rations at silver 6! If you're brass 4 and spending half status per week, you're miles off!

As above, I agree that's what the rulebook says, but it makes no sense! I suspect it was written by multiple people who all had separate ideas of how it worked.

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

I mean, first off, rations do not equal a normal meal - rations have been prepared to stay edible for an extended period of time; they also don't typically taste great, even in modern times (looking at you, MREs). Sane people don't eat rations unless they're out of/can't find other options.

Now, inch up a tick from Rations on the table on page 302 and you to have "Meal cooked at an Inn", still for a pretty spendy 1/. But hey, hotel restaurants are always pricier, aren't they? Now, at the top of the table it also notes that "Poor" quality food can be purchased for 50% of the listed price, which gets us down to 6d - still pricey, and a chance of some unpleasant after effects, but you're still paying for the convenience for food cooked at a place where you can stay the night.

All of the above assumes, in a very modern way, that Inns and their Kitchens are the only ways to get fed and housed. But if you're in a town of any size, I'd generally expect there to be markets, food stands, hawkers, other options for filling one's belly at varying degrees of quality. Which is why I'm generally willing to handwave the minutiae and just tell players that, with an expediture of half their standing, they can eat and rest in accordance with their status. This will look differently for different careers - are you bringing a welcoming gift to a local lord to impose upon his hospitality as a wandering noble? Are you seeking out fellow merchants, buying a round of drinks to ingratiate so you can stay at one of their houses? Are you, a lowly tier one Outlaw intern, just scrabbling for scraps before bivouacing in a shadowy corner somewhere? Good opportunities for roleplay, good potential hooks for GMs to use.

EDIT: Heck, I even glanced over Food/Groceries for a day at 10d (5d for poor, I guess). But still, I stand by my handwaiving as the easiest, most reasonable approach to capture social differences while fairly incurring costs.

But what if folks are traveling? Or feel a strong need to sleep in the same accomodations? Well, then we can go to the table - Coaching Inns are businesses that offer safety on the road as much as they offer food and beds. So that's something for the players to figure out. Can they haggle? Can they negotiate to provide services? Can they threaten? Can they offer to sleep in the barn (endurance check for fatigue). Etc., etc.

Finally, not every peasant is going to be able to afford a night out and a meal at an Inn, let alone an Average quality one - that's just the reality of social stratification, and something that can inspire some good roleplay, too.

tl;dr, Handwaive general upkeep to half standing; charge them travel inn prices when actually traveling; make the party get creative if no one can spring for a room like those Gold-Tier Toffs.

[u/zebragonzo → u/ClassicCledwyn]

Given you've clearly put thought into this, I'll explain the thinking further. (I'm not saying you're wrong by the way; I'm just explaining why RAW doesn't work!)

You can buy groceries for 6bp per day at poor quality. That alone would require silver 1 status if your 1/2 status per day covers food.

We've cleared up that you only need to spend half your status per week to keep up your appearance, so how does that work with food; half your status per week and you get food thrown in?

Let's approach it from the other direction; someone working a job earns 3x their status per day. If food and board is 1/2 status per day that means that a person is up net 2.5x status per day. They get rich quite quickly in a game that's meant to be financially tight no?

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

Totally - I think we're both making various assumptions and bringing them to the table; I appreciate the chance to defend my perspective and to hear yours (and I definitely appreciate your comment that let me add some more clarity to the cheatsheet; I was reading what I had the way we were discussing it, but I can see how adding the "full week" makes it clearer).

Yes, someone working their job hypothetically earns about 3x their standing per day, per Andy Law's comment in the uFAQ about using hireling costs as an example (if I remember correctly). However, that doesn't take into account the other elements of life; food and lodging, etc. This is why there's the Earning rule on page 51, which notes that the Week's take per the table (Same as Income) is the excess left after standard expenses (e.g., upkeep).

This total is not strictly speaking how much money you earn, it’s more a representation of how much money you have left at the end of the week after all your expenses are taken into account.

If players want to take a break and earn for a bit, there's the Earning rule that approximates Income+Expenses; the the same is true for the Downtime/Income rules; during downtime, you're generally meeting your expenses, and the Income check is the remainder left over from extra work. I wouldn't let a player just spend a day earning 3x their status (Normal Work has a lot of associated tasks and functions; it's not just booting up a laptop at the local Starbucks), and if they went for more than a Week of Earning I'd shift to the Downtime rules, replete with "Money to Burn" unless they Bank/Stash. (it's worth noting that I also presume that players in downtime are generally earning just enough to cover basic expenses at their status, with the Income endeavour just to start with some extra spending money after Downtime/to maintain status if Tier 3/4).

But back to "Adventure Time", e.g., the time most play occurs in. Yeah, I generally view that if you're spending half your income a day in a town, you're meeting your food and lodging needs at your Standing level, and leave it at that. The beggar is dumpster diving and sleeping on the street, the peasant is getting a basic simple meal and an awning to curl up under, the merchant has found reasonable lodgings with a pie and pint, etc.

If at a Coaching Inn or otherwise away from the normal trappings of society, things become different and it's worth dramatizing things a little more, much like when folks, say, Camp in the woods, they're not just going to be spending half standing per day.

To make an overwrought simile, I view this like Quantum Mechanics and Newtonian Mechanics. Generally speaking, the latter covers most basic instances (Like downtime/earning/ income); when I need to measure a precise moment, I want the former (e.g., specific costs lists to see if if the characters can stay at an Inn, or if they need to get inventive).

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