The Riddle of Steel is an independent role-playing game published by Driftwood Publishing. It has an excellent web site, complete with online ordering and forums.
I was very excited by TROS' combination of tactical, deadly and real-feeling combat, along with its gritty, dark feeling. While I pondered what to use it for, my eye hit on the copy of The Enemy Within adventure, that has been sitting, unused on my shelves since about 1987. I loved the campaign, but was at best ambivalent about the system. I really disliked GW's "Chaos Death Spiky Bits" approach. Maybe now, I had a marriage made in heaven?
A bit of frantic ebaying later, and I had a complete set of the campaign, down to the Hogshead edition of the Power Behind the Throne with the extra Carrion Up The Reik adventure. (Hint for anyone else contemplating this - you can often buy WFRP books from second hand sites such as Noble Knight Games or Second Chance Games for far less than they go for on eBay, even if you have to pay postage across the pond.)
So now I had the source material, and it was time to start converting! I decided to make life difficult for myself by changing the world to be more of an Old World - Weyerth Hybrid; if you want to know the details they're on this page. This brought its own workload in conversion, but made the Old World feel much better to me.
At first, the hardest work was the background conversion. The player's background was banged out in a few hours, and the first couple of adventures (Mistaken Identity and Shadows Over Bögenhafen) were easy conversions. The next adventure (Death On The Reik) was very hard work, partly due to its length, and partly because it included Goblins, Undead and Sorcerers, all of which needed careful handling in the TROS rules. The Fourth adventure (Carrion Up The Reik) was pretty simple, but the Fifth (Power Behind the Throne) needed careful work again. Partly due to its scope, and partly because the adventure used background elements I'd discarded.
I can't comment on converting the last two parts of the campaign, since after long consideration, I decided to leave them out, and end the campaign after Power Behind the Throne. Something Rotten in Kislev struck me as weak, and it was totally at odds with the revised background; and Empire in Flames seemed utterly linear, and worse, the PCs seemed to be largely irrelevant to the main events. So I decided to revert to what may have been Games Workshop's original plan for the campaign, and end it in Middenheim.
So was it worth the effort? Having run the entire campaign, I think it was. Mistaken Identity and Shadows Over Bögenhafen produced the most intense role playing I've ever run; and the players all gave it their highest praise. They realised how things were when the first fight ended after a single pistol shot - you could see them thinking "Cool!", and then after a minute or two "That could happen to me!". All the fights were fast and brutal. Several player characters got injured, some badly. There were near-deaths, and dramatic duels. The openness of Death on the Reik was also fun, as was the change of pace in Power Behind the Throne. Check the (still incomplete) diary for more details.