Warband information is public or private

[zorikweke]

Hello everybody,

I'm totally a newbie in Frostgrave, actually this evening is my first game xD And I have a question that I looked for it everywhere but didn't find it. Sorry if it's already here:

The warband information is public or private?

And with this I mean mainly the wizard spells. Do the rest of the players each other's spells or they have to wait until others cast them?

Thank you in advance!

[Daniel36]

Not sure if it is in the rules. I don't think so actually, so whichever way you prefer.

What IS in the rules, is that you should enjoy the game any way you want.

That said, I would advise playing with the cards on the table, so to speak, for your first game, so you can learn how to play a bit better than if you are going to play with secret spells.

[zorikweke]

Great, that's what I thought. But I wanted to know if there was a kind of standard hehe

Thank you very much for your reply!

[Daniel36]

No problem.

I don't think Frostgrave really has many standards. As with all tabletop games, it really boils down to how you want to play it.

Unfortunately, for some very strange reason it seems like many people, especially those who grew up on Warhammer, feel that they NEED to play a very specific way or otherwise they are doing it "wrong".

I am glad Joseph took the time to sternly advise players of Frostgrave to just play how you want. It seems so ingrained in the gaming community...

Oh well. I hope you enjoy yoru first game!

[JohnDSD2]

Like Daniel36 said as long as all concerned are happy then play how you like.

By way of example our group keeps spells secret, although once you've played a couple of games, you'll remember which spells, a wizard has cast that hurt you!

We generally, run through our warbands identifying which soldier is which and answer questions such as' 'Which ones your Treasure Hunter?'. Rationalising it, I guess the tougher soldiers look, well, tougher!

Carried items are generally secret, you can't tell whose carrying a potion and who isn't.

Hope that helps.

[zorikweke]

Yeah, I'm agree with you. Thank you both for the tips. I really come from roleplaying games like ad&d, shadowrun, call of Cthulhu... And as dungeon/game master we do the same with our games, changing rules and all that jazz just to keep the games playable and funny so... This is quite the same.

Actually I was planning to create some monsters just to use minis I have painted that don't really match the wandering monsters so yeah, thank you for your comments!

[Darkson71]

Unfortunately, for some very strange reason it seems like many people, especially those who grew up on Warhammer, feel that they NEED to play a very specific way or otherwise they are doing it "wrong".

I am glad Joseph took the time to sternly advise players of Frostgrave to just play how you want. It seems so ingrained in the gaming community...

This, so much this. Once I/we got over the initial "are we doing it wrong" feeling it was so refreshing to play a game that encouraged you to change the way it was played to suit the players involved.

[giles the zog]

Generally we keep things secret.

We make sure that if figures are not WYSIWYG then this is pointed out at the start of the game.

Their actual kit, the spells the wizard knows etc is secret.

I keep a private rule that treasure hunters are carrying lanterns, and most of my opponents know this. This is for my own purposes as much as revealing what they are.

Mostof us come armed with print outs of spreadsheets or documents anyway so if people are called out on rules bending then they can argue their case.

I think it is good if you turn up unsure of what your opponent does and does not have. In fact, several of us regularly forget what we have anyway ! :-)

We quite often exchange e-mails after games commenting on how badly/how well we did on the treasure and survival charts.

We do share the levels of our wizards to ensure its a comparatively fair fight.

[Ogrob]

Really surprised. We play complete open information. On fact I have not played a game without open information for such a long time that never even considered the possibility.

[fastolfrus]

You'll find out what spells the wizard has fairly quickly when he casts them, although you may only see a couple getting used - probably just casting the ones with the best success chance. My wizard has a couple of spells that he has never cast. And probably never will. But most games he casts "Leap" repeatedly (low success score needed and he moves faster than he could with his damaged leg) and "Wizard Eye" (quite handy because my usual opponent generally covers the table with "Wall of Fog" and if I can get the Eye in place before the table is fogbound it gives me another vantage point for "elemental bolt")

[Darkson71]

My wizard has a couple of spells that he has never cast. And probably never will.

We had a home-brew XP system for just that reason, where a wizard got bonus XP for casting different spells, and bonus XP based on the difficulty.
But we're setting it aside to try the ones Joe put in the latest supplement.