Grudges!

[MasterBeard]

Hello!

I recently started GM'ing a group for WFRP 2nd edition. Everyone is really enthusiastic which helps me alot (I have only GM'ed for 6 or so sessions). I also work on a dwarf clan I intend to use as a background for NPCs (and PCs if anyone wants). I have a rough outline of the clans history and movements.
Now I need help with suitable grudges concerning race, hold, clan, family and individual. They doesn't all need to be payed in blood but also gold and/or (humiliating) apologies.

Thanks in advance!

[Knight of the Lady]

If you're having Dwarf characters remember to make the players create a grudge list of their own so that grudges will be remembered and they, or future Dwarf characters, can take revenge or claim recompensation for them and they can be struck out. Or better yet, brooded over endlessly.

[MasterBeard]

Oh, for sure!
They are all very keen to learn more so if one of them decides to play a dwarf I will explain the importance of honour, oaths and grudges.

[Chuck]

This was one of the things I hoped the v1 supplement "Dwarfs: Stone and Steel" would address in detail. But the section on grudges is pretty vague and very, very short.

Some ideas for family or personal grudges: a stolen heirloom, a deceitful tactic in battle leading to a humiliating defeat that should have been a victory, a suitor whose romantic dalliance with a relative went awry, a very public insult whose response was inadequate, a loss in a very close competition for a prestigious job, etc etc etc

[Hyarion]

1) An easy (subjective, I know) to come up with a list of grudges could be to come up with a list of virtues and then come up with examples of how each one failed.

2) One fun thing could be to show off the difference between how an action is perceived vs reality. Imagine if Dwarves A & B were fighting orcs. When suddenly B runs off, A might try to enter a grudge against B for cowardice, but B has to appeal the decision because he saw (or just thought he did?) a comrade about to get ambushed that A didn't see.

[Iltherion]

That's an interesting idea. If Dwarf B runs off to help Dwarf C, and Dwarf A has a grudge against B for cowardice, would C then have a grudge against A as a result of A dishonoring B?

And do the dwarfs have a court of law where all of these grudges can be aired and settled nonviolently?

[Knight of the Lady]

Oh, for sure!
They are all very keen to learn more so if one of them decides to play a dwarf I will explain the importance of honour, oaths and grudges.

Sounds good. Dwarf honor is prickly and they should be ready to bleed, or at least pay some fines after trial, to keep it up.

This was one of the things I hoped the v1 supplement "Dwarfs: Stone and Steel" would address in detail. But the section on grudges is pretty vague and very, very short.

Some ideas for family or personal grudges: a stolen heirloom, a deceitful tactic in battle leading to a humiliating defeat that should have been a victory, a suitor whose romantic dalliance with a relative went awry, a very public insult whose response was inadequate, a loss in a very close competition for a prestigious job, etc etc etc

Those are good but in my opinion, or at least from the experience of gaming with my own group, Dwarfs can be pretty petty when it comes to grudges and can enter grudges for almost anything.

Some examples from my own games are; grudge for forced to pay extra for substandard beer, ambush by a bunch of bandits, GM cheating on behalf of some goblins in an encounter (for this one we claimed recompensation by killing a pet NPC of that GM), one PC hinting that the Dwarf PC was overweight and so on.

And do the dwarfs have a court of law where all of these grudges can be aired and settled nonviolently?

It would make things far to civil and effectively reduce the RP elements of having said grudges nursed and played out if there was a court of law for such things when you consider the Dwarfs traditional deferential attitude to authority.

[MasterBeard]

Some great ideas in here! I tend to forget grudges against other dwarfs because I always pictured dwarfs as extremely united, almost to the point of no individualism at all. If that makes sense.

Some examples from my own games are; grudge for forced to pay extra for substandard beer, ambush by a bunch of bandits, GM cheating on behalf of some goblins in an encounter (for this one we claimed recompensation by killing a pet NPC of that GM), one PC hinting that the Dwarf PC was overweight and so on.

How did you and your players settle those grudges? I can't imagine the innkeeper needed to pay with blood for overpriced beer? That's probably how our groups dwarf player would settle it (He's twelve and wanted to play a dwarven terrorist because dwarfs "are cute" and terrorists "are cool"...).

[Knight of the Lady]

How did you and your players settle those grudges? I can't imagine the innkeeper needed to pay with blood for overpriced beer? That's probably how our groups dwarf player would settle it (He's twelve and wanted to play a dwarven terrorist because dwarfs "are cute" and terrorists "are cool"...).

Of course not everything demands blood. Grudges can be settled by everything from blood to an apology. But the important part is to make note of grudges and not just let it slide or something like that. Lettings it slide and forget about it is how humans and halflings work, not honour-obsessed Dwarfs. And there's a special calling for those Dwarfs who are not obsessed with honour.

In our group we just keep adding grudges way faster than we actually seek to solve any of them. Adding amusing grudges is a kind of running entertainment among us. Pretty much any insult, affront or harm can be made into a grudge and kept to the end of times so that the Dwarfs can brood on the injustices they have suffered.

[Iltherion]

I wonder if the Code Duello (or Lin Manuel's summary thereof in Hamilton, "The Ten Duel Commandments") might be a useful source for how to settle grudges. Not that dwarfs would use guns, I'm sure...

[FatPob]

Read Grudge Bearer by Gave Thorpe. A fantastic book on dwarves and their grudges.

Dwarves hold grudges for ever (until it is settled) in some cases the original "owner" of the grudge is dead and gone, especially if human, but for a dwarf it obviously passes down the line. Perhaps have a century or older grudge come to affect the players/a player, with a dwarf (horde) demanding reparations.

Also petty grudges can be fun. In a recent adventure a player borrowed a dwarfs long rifle, and when he was attacked in melee, used the gun to parry, causing it to be nicked by a blade. The dwarf noted this down in his personal book of grudges, he being well annoyed.

When one of the players killed the dwarfs opponent, when almost certainly he was to be slain by said dwarf they got written into the book of grudges. Again petty, but fun.

Perhaps if the players rest/camp in an old abandoned house/farm a collection of dwarves arrive to demand gold owed to them for defences of their land as it is written in their Book of Grudges. Or perhaps for help they gave when the land was first settled. The dwarves don't care that hundreds of years has passed, a debt is a debt, a grudge a grudge.

[MasterBeard]

Excellent examples of petty grudges! There's a delicate line between great RP challenges and party disbanding situations when the grudges concern other players.