Warhammer & 40K RPGs Thread III: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Heresies?

[Malak'ai]

So I'm going to be attempting my first foray into GMing Dark Heresy 2nd Ed, and I have a rough outline of the first couple of missions, but I could use a few more ideas to help flesh things out a bit more.

Spoiler: Mission 1 (Marlowe Stay Out!!!)

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So the first mission starts out with the Acolytes (who have been scooped up from various parts of the galaxy and been confined to a room aboard the Interrogators ship (they haven't actually met him as yet) for a couple of months and finally a small mission that he believes they should be able to accomplish has come in.
They are to investigate the reasons behind why the annual tithes of an Agriworld has been been getting lower and lower over the last few years. The Planetory Administrator has been giving plausible excuses, but It's starting to get frustrating to the Administratum.

The reason they aren't sending the full allotments is because the Administrator is in league with the Tau, and is hoping they'll help the planet to break away from the Imperium.

The Acolytes will have to find proof of this and then advise the Interrorgator who will then take it to his Inquisitor, Adrul la Daravon of the Ordo Xenos.

Now I have a few ideas of how they can find proof, a who heap of produce being kept in a 'disused, ramshackle' old storage facility away from the main port, a secret file on the Administrator's dataslate/cogitator (very hard Tech-Use test) and word of mouth from the farmers and workers.

Now what I'm asking for is a couple more clues and maybe a few suggestions on what to throw at the party.
At the moment I only have 1 confirmed player with a built character, an Outcast Churigion(sp) from a Frontier World. I'm hoping to have at least 3 more players (maybe 4), but no idea what they'll be as yet.

[houlio]

Seems like you have a solid set so far, here are a few ideas I can throw at you:

Spoiler: Campaign Hints

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I always like to start Dark Heresy right at a mission briefing, so I would avoid having them really describe what they are doing in a small room on a spaceship for months and months.

For your mission, a couple things I would keep in mind that you shouldn't reveal anything about the Tau being around. You might possibly consider having hints about something invisible that flies around watching them (stealth suits) to keep them on their toes and build tension.

One thing I would recommend is to give the players several leads to follow and have the baddies try to cover up evidence at one of the other places the players don't get to. For example, maybe you can start the players off by talking to a Rogue Trader attempting to load cargo on the planet, checking out the warehouses where the excess food is all stored, and talking to some of the local farmers. If your players all go talk to the farmers first, then you could have the baddies attempt to hide the excess food or even destroy it. Perhaps give your players one final clue or chance to intervene and check it out (either they are walking back from their first excursion and notice smoke rising in the distance from a warehouse).

I don't recommend throwing in combat immediately or just to have it. The game is super lethal and highly random, so I usually like to give players some warning and a chance to prepare, or I use it as a consequence from bad decisions. For example, your players might get a lot of clues that the local Arbites are secretly working against them to hinder their investigation at a couple key steps, and maybe they are also generally corrupt and evil folks overall. Lay it on really thick. If you show your players a nail, they'll figure out how to use their hammer. On the other hand, if your players royally piss off those farmers they talked to by being players, maybe they wake up one night to an angry mob outside their door.

Essentially, I would say that you should try to have the world react to what the players do, but also give the players a lot of agency to take on events on their own terms.

[Malak'ai]

Seems like you have a solid set so far, here are a few ideas I can throw at you:

Spoiler: Campaign Hints

Show

I always like to start Dark Heresy right at a mission briefing, so I would avoid having them really describe what they are doing in a small room on a spaceship for months and months.

For your mission, a couple things I would keep in mind that you shouldn't reveal anything about the Tau being around. You might possibly consider having hints about something invisible that flies around watching them (stealth suits) to keep them on their toes and build tension.

One thing I would recommend is to give the players several leads to follow and have the baddies try to cover up evidence at one of the other places the players don't get to. For example, maybe you can start the players off by talking to a Rogue Trader attempting to load cargo on the planet, checking out the warehouses where the excess food is all stored, and talking to some of the local farmers. If your players all go talk to the farmers first, then you could have the baddies attempt to hide the excess food or even destroy it. Perhaps give your players one final clue or chance to intervene and check it out (either they are walking back from their first excursion and notice smoke rising in the distance from a warehouse).

I don't recommend throwing in combat immediately or just to have it. The game is super lethal and highly random, so I usually like to give players some warning and a chance to prepare, or I use it as a consequence from bad decisions. For example, your players might get a lot of clues that the local Arbites are secretly working against them to hinder their investigation at a couple key steps, and maybe they are also generally corrupt and evil folks overall. Lay it on really thick. If you show your players a nail, they'll figure out how to use their hammer. On the other hand, if your players royally piss off those farmers they talked to by being players, maybe they wake up one night to an angry mob outside their door.

Essentially, I would say that you should try to have the world react to what the players do, but also give the players a lot of agency to take on events on their own terms.

Spoiler: Comments!

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I'm not planning to throw them into combat straight away, and as they are only rank 1, I was going to avoid things like Stealth Suits.
When/if the time comes for them to confront the Tau, I was thinking about putting them up against a couple of Pathfinders, maybe half a dozen gun drones and their boss, a member of the Tau Water Caste on a sort of person hover scooter with a built-in pulse rifle with a shield drone offering him protection.

All other 'enemies' will be the Administrator's lackeys and will have basic/low tier weaponry, but some ideas for 'who' these people are would be great. I like the idea of maybe some of the farmers, and possibly a few of the Arbities, but who else could I use?

As for what you said about "Giving them lots of clues and leads", that's mainly what I'm looking for.

[houlio]

Spoiler: Comments!

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I'm not planning to throw them into combat straight away, and as they are only rank 1, I was going to avoid things like Stealth Suits.
When/if the time comes for them to confront the Tau, I was thinking about putting them up against a couple of Pathfinders, maybe half a dozen gun drones and their boss, a member of the Tau Water Caste on a sort of person hover scooter with a built-in pulse rifle with a shield drone offering him protection.

All other 'enemies' will be the Administrator's lackeys and will have basic/low tier weaponry, but some ideas for 'who' these people are would be great. I like the idea of maybe some of the farmers, and possibly a few of the Arbities, but who else could I use?

As for what you said about "Giving them lots of clues and leads", that's mainly what I'm looking for.

Spoiler: Reply!

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I can help you come up with a few things here. Your ideas about the amount of Tau forces seems reasonable. Your players shouldn't run into any Xenos until the ruse is up. I was just recommending having a stealth suit occasionally watch players (not attack) as a way to build up tension and paranoia in the group. For example, they finish investigating a suspiciously modified vehicle or a landing shuttle of goods and hear the slightly muted roar in the distance. They don't actually see anything (it's a really hard check to make, and if they do it's only a shimmer against the sky for a moment in a shape most definitely not human). Basically, part of the genre is to have some little thing that the players can't figure out that's keeping things weird. The Tau problematically don't really have something like that. You might get some decent mileage out of playing up the authoritarian nature of the planet as something unusual even for the Imperium. The Tau kinda seem like they want to control every aspect of your life in a way the Imperium mostly doesn't care about too much, so maybe having some of the more horrifying bits of authoritarian regimes might be a good fit here (i.e. prisons, folks who have disappeared, pervasive police forces, omnipresent surveillance, having the characters notice that certain topics are never discussed, etc).

Some kinds of lackeys and whatnot aren't too difficult. You have a few organizations that should be present on the planet: the already mentioned Arbites, the Mechanicum (it's not a forgeworld but somebody's gotta fix the tractors), the PDF (Planetary Defense Force), and Ministrorum (all your Emperor fearing priests and priestesses). My recommendation is to make up 1 NPC for each who leads those, and then otherwise just grab some of the random names in the corebook to use as extras from those groups as needed.

One thing to consider is that these groups don't really form a coherent state. It's much more like a feudal system where different groups are competing with each other over what is going on. It might work to make your game something of a political mystery. Your group might easily find evidence that someone has been working with the Tau, but which powerful figure(s) on the planet won't be obvious and will take a deeper investigation. To add some confusion to it, I recommend adding in multiple conflicting rumors that can be resolved through later clues and evidence gathering. While it might seem misleading, it can clue the players in to the fact that different groups on the planet might be in conflict.

As far as clues and leads go, I'll give you some of my thoughts for one thing. Let's look at the Governor's cogitator filled with all sorts of incriminating files. Maybe the players can get a hold of a copy of some of the files early on while investigating. Looking at it, your players might discover that (1) the files are encrypted (2) that they have been partially and hastily scrubbed of information. Now that they have these files, they next need to find some way to make them useful. Maybe a certain tech-priest or criminal is capable of cracking it. Your group gets them cracked and next finds out that the files are a manifest of goods destined for off-world transport, but the data doesn't name any Imperial world for the goods to eventually reach. Maybe while this is going on, the group gets attacked by some lackeys (scum and other unaffiliated lowlifes are great for this), or the expert who gave them some help buys the farm shortly thereafter. Looking into the attack, your players figure out that a certain gang was behind it, so the players head out to confront them. They arrive only to find that the local Arbites have just coincidentally had the paperwork go through to arrest and execute this gang's leadership. Digging into said paperwork reveals it was pushed through by a certain Administratum clerk, and so on. You usually don't want to go on too far because it really bogs the game down and can get confusing.

There are two key things to draw out from this example. Each scene basically should always give one key clue that moves the group to the next scene, and extra information just lets the players know a little more about what actually happened there. As far as the key clues thing goes, don't be afraid to just tell your players who to talk to, where to go, or what to do next. Otherwise, your players won't figure anything out and will tell you they have no leads. Also, never ever ever ever ever ever ever lock your key clues behind skill checks. Your group will inevitably fail, and you'll need to flub a roll or something to keep the game going.

The other important thing is to think of it like a chain, where each scene only gives one clue that leads to the next scene (not the resolution). If your scene gives two key clues, they should lead to two different scenes (again, not the resolution). I recommend having your chain branch off relatively early on in 2 or 3 directions and only come back together near the end, which should also lend the sense of reconnecting a bunch of disparate threads of information together. As far as figuring out specifics, perhaps think about your initial scene for clues. What will actually be there? Who else was there previously? Why is the scene important or noteworthy for investigation? I usually find that answering those questions will give me something to push the plot forward. Don't include red herrings or dead ends, but occasionally having false information is fine so long as it continues to push the game forward.

[LeSwordfish]

If you can, buy and read the first Ciaphas Cain book. That's set on a very similar world to what you want.

[Malak'ai]

If you can, buy and read the first Ciaphas Cain book. That's set on a very similar world to what you want.

Unfortunately I won't get a chance to before the game starts due to my work hours.

[LeSwordfish]

Unfortunately I won't get a chance to before the game starts due to my work hours.

Ah okay - well, some thoughts.

Spoiler

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The Tau use a culture war first and foremost - if they're trying to claim the planet, there'll be signs of influence of that in the culture. Cryptically pro-tau graffiti, the fashionable hairstyle being a single braid, etc etc.

I like the idea of a single stealth suit watching them - it should have an easy time slipping away.

[Malak'ai]

Ah okay - well, some thoughts.

Spoiler

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The Tau use a culture war first and foremost - if they're trying to claim the planet, there'll be signs of influence of that in the culture. Cryptically pro-tau graffiti, the fashionable hairstyle being a single braid, etc etc.

I like the idea of a single stealth suit watching them - it should have an easy time slipping away.

Spoiler

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How about instead of an actual Stealth Suit, I have a a number of MV5 Stealth Drones that are constanly keeping an eye on the major population centres, and possibly some of the more desireable crops?

I'm wanting to limit the actual number of living Tau so that the party wont somehow "accidentally" run into one and spoil the investigation.

[LeSwordfish]

Spoiler

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I suspect that players will be able to guess it's the Tau from the drones anyway, but yeah, that works. Provides the players with an interesting fight, too, if they can engage.

[Destro_Yersul]

Advice:

Spoiler

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Another thing you can do is come up with a few hooks, and just drop them wherever the players happen to look. As an example specific to you, say you have a corrupt official, subordinate to the actual governor, who is in on the whole Tau succession thing. You could come up with some broad strokes, and then fill in the details based on who the players start to suspect first. Are they really suspicious of the Administratum? Could be the head clerk at the space port. The Mechanicus? Maybe the local techpriests are really interested in acquiring some Tau tech to study. The Arbites? Well, might be a Judge has been rounding up especially vocal Imperial supporters on trumped-up charges. Makes them feel really smart when their suspicions get vindicated. You don't even need different statblocks, just mix up the equipment a little bit.

You can do the same thing with setpieces. Let's say you set up a firefight with some pro-Tau dissenters. They're supposed to ambush the PCs in the barn when they go to investigate why this one set of farms has chronically low output listed on the cargo manifests. But then the PCs miss the manifest clue, and go to dig around in the slums instead, looking for cults. You can re-use the ambush scenario in a warehouse just as well.

[Malak'ai]

Advice:

Spoiler

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Another thing you can do is come up with a few hooks, and just drop them wherever the players happen to look. As an example specific to you, say you have a corrupt official, subordinate to the actual governor, who is in on the whole Tau succession thing. You could come up with some broad strokes, and then fill in the details based on who the players start to suspect first. Are they really suspicious of the Administratum? Could be the head clerk at the space port. The Mechanicus? Maybe the local techpriests are really interested in acquiring some Tau tech to study. The Arbites? Well, might be a Judge has been rounding up especially vocal Imperial supporters on trumped-up charges. Makes them feel really smart when their suspicions get vindicated. You don't even need different statblocks, just mix up the equipment a little bit.

You can do the same thing with setpieces. Let's say you set up a firefight with some pro-Tau dissenters. They're supposed to ambush the PCs in the barn when they go to investigate why this one set of farms has chronically low output listed on the cargo manifests. But then the PCs miss the manifest clue, and go to dig around in the slums instead, looking for cults. You can re-use the ambush scenario in a warehouse just as well.

Spoiler

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OoOo... Might incorporate a couple of these in.

Well I have another confirmed character. An Imperial Guard Desperado hailing from a Forge World. I'm thinking I might talk with the player about re-fluffing him to a Skitarii soldier just to fit his homeworld a bit better, but keep everything else (except his Common Lore: Imperial Guard skill, which would become Common Lore: Skitarii) the same.

[shadow_archmagi]

Spoiler: Your first campaign

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One thing that immediate jumps out to me is that the Tau are one of the more likeable 40k factions. It's very possible one of your players will say "They've got a good thing going here" and be interested in making sure the annexation goes through. There are a lot of different ways to handle this (One option would be to roll with it and just run a game where the PCs become Tau infiltrators posing as inquisitorial acolytes, another option would be to explicitly make the Tau evil, etc) but I'm interested in which one's you're considering.

[Malak'ai]

Spoiler: Your first campaign

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One thing that immediate jumps out to me is that the Tau are one of the more likeable 40k factions. It's very possible one of your players will say "They've got a good thing going here" and be interested in making sure the annexation goes through. There are a lot of different ways to handle this (One option would be to roll with it and just run a game where the PCs become Tau infiltrators posing as inquisitorial acolytes, another option would be to explicitly make the Tau evil, etc) but I'm interested in which one's you're considering.

Spoiler

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I'm planning on playing it straight and just see which way the players go. Only 2 or 3 are really familiar with the 40K universe, and even then It's from back in the late 90's/early 2000's, so not really expecting fanatical love for the Blueberries.

[lightningcat]

Spoiler

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I'm planning on playing it straight and just see which way the players go. Only 2 or 3 are really familiar with the 40K universe, and even then It's from back in the late 90's/early 2000's, so not really expecting fanatical love for the Blueberries.

Spoiler

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Here is an idea if they do go to the Tau side. After they get to know the Water Caste some - I am assume the diplomats are the primary Tau involved - let the PCs see how the Ethereals interact with the Water Caste. Most non-Tau views that I have read is that most Ethereals are as bad or worse then any human noble. Although the Tau never seem to notice this detail...

[Malak'ai]

Spoiler

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Here is an idea if they do go to the Tau side. After they get to know the Water Caste some - I am assume the diplomats are the primary Tau involved - let the PCs see how the Ethereals interact with the Water Caste. Most non-Tau views that I have read is that most Ethereals are as bad or worse then any human noble. Although the Tau never seem to notice this detail...

Spoiler

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If they side with the Tau, they may not come across an Ethereal for quite some time, but if and when they do, I'll be sure to keep this in mind.

[Marlowe]

I shall not ask to redo my character...I shall not ask to redo my character...

[Destro_Yersul]

Be a sorcerer. Do it. You know you want to. Tzeentch commands yoooou.

[Malak'ai]

I shall not ask to redo my character...I shall not ask to redo my character...

You better not have read any of that .

Be a sorcerer. Do it. You know you want to. Tzeentch commands yoooou.

At this stage we're not using Psykers, have to get the basics down first. Psychic powers and Sorcery will be available at a later once we all understand the rules for them though.

[Marlowe]

You better not have read any of that .

Nah, I've just been looking at my affinities and thinking; "wow, she'd be a lot better off as a Voidborn Desperado. She'd be able to have the same Medicae but much have much better options in other areas."

Currently she's set up to progress Medicae, Lores, Trade and not a lot else.

Oh. Currently reading The Journals and Letters of Baroness Frederick Charlotte von Riedesel, being the story of a German woman who decides to take her three young daughters and go follow her husband through Britain and Canada and into the middle of the American war of Independance, gets shot at, tells the British General he sucks at his job, gets captured along with the rest of the army, gets snarky about Slavery, gets exchanged, introduces Christmas tree to North America. You know.

I'm mention because she has a "Chirugeon". And he's useless. Like "removes the wrong tooth" useless.

[Malak'ai]

Remind me what Voidborn would give you?

[Marlowe]

+Intelligence and Willpower, -1 Strength.

Intelligence Affinity.

It has be be Voidborn to get Intelligence. Fieldcraft comes from Desperado and those two together enables Medicae. Outcast can provide Social affinity.

[JellyPooga]

+Intelligence and Willpower, -1 Strength.

Intelligence Affinity.

It has be be Voidborn to get Intelligence. Fieldcraft comes from Desperado and those two together enables Medicae. Outcast can provide Social affinity.

I really like the Voidborn in DH2; something about being a weird, pale, spacefaring creeper who pulls of this majestic transformation into a thing of grace when the artificial gravity gets turned off. I know it doesn't happen often in your average game (and haven't had the opportunity yet myself), but I love the notion of it.

That and Intelligence is key to a lot of very handy skills, allowing you to "play smart" even without taking one of the "nerd" Roles or Backgrounds.

[Marlowe]

It didn't hurt that I rolled significantly better stats second time around, but yes; Voidborn is nice. Too often people forget that a spacefaring civilisation will have people that actually are born and live in space.

Don't worry, I won't be saying "Sieg Zeon".

Well, not all that often anyway.

[Blackhawk748]

It didn't hurt that I rolled significantly better stats second time around, but yes; Voidborn is nice. Too often people forget that a spacefaring civilisation will have people that actually are born and live in space.

Don't worry, I won't be saying "Sieg Zeon".

Well, not all that often anyway.

Yes, you will say "Sieg Imperium", oh who a i kidding its basically the same thing

[Marlowe]

Ironically, after the rerolls she wound up stronger in spite of strength being almost a dump stat.

And "weird, pale creeper?" She's quite tanned thank you very much. I'm guessing she got a lot of UV exposure. Or maybe she's just vaguely Latina like a lot of my PCs.

Serious question: I was just looking through the 2nd ed player handbook and the sample character shown doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. His stats are too high (he's boosted a few, but even discounting that he must have rolled incredibly well AND one of them must have started at 44). And on the other hand his skills seem rather miserable.

I'm guessing the stats are the result of him being a 1st edition character and they didn't bother to update this section.

As for the advanced stats and poor skills; is that a standard way of advancing in this game? To favour advancing your stats over your skills?

[Malak'ai]

Ironically, after the rerolls she wound up stronger in spite of strength being almost a dump stat.

And "weird, pale creeper?" She's quite tanned thank you very much. I'm guessing she got a lot of UV exposure. Or maybe she's just vaguely Latina like a lot of my PCs.

Serious question: I was just looking through the 2nd ed player handbook and the sample character shown doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. His stats are too high (he's boosted a few, but even discounting that he must have rolled incredibly well AND one of them must have started at 44). And on the other hand his skills seem rather miserable.

I'm guessing the stats are the result of him being a 1st edition character and they didn't bother to update this section.

As for the advanced stats and poor skills; is that a standard way of advancing in this game? To favour advancing your stats over your skills?

I can't speak to the example character, you know I tend to ignore those in all systems, but it is (from what I've learned from reading through all these threads) it is suggested reasonably often that early on you should use you're XP to boost your main stats and skills early on, and then start working on branching out from there.
So for you, those would be BS, AG, and Int, Medicae, Stealth and Acrobatics/Athletics (can't remember off the top of my head which one you had).

[Marlowe]

I can't speak to the example character, you know I tend to ignore those in all systems, but it is (from what I've learned from reading through all these threads) it is suggested reasonably often that early on you should use you're XP to boost your main stats and skills early on, and then start working on branching out from there.
So for you, those would be BS, AG, and Int, Medicae, Stealth and Acrobatics/Athletics (can't remember off the top of my head which one you had).

Acrobatics.

Szofiya Maklaran (pronounced Sophia MacLaren) needs a rank in Awareness as well, soon as poss.

Has Duncan named his character?

[Malak'ai]

Acrobatics.

Szofiya Maklaran (pronounced Sophia MacLaren) needs a rank in Awareness as well, soon as poss.

Has Duncan named his character?

No idea. I'm going to go ambush D, B and E tomorrow and make them sit down and make characters... I'm getting sick of texting them to remind them.

[Marlowe]

You know what? Just for that "weird, pale creeper" thing I've decided she looks like Sergeant Topp.


Hopefully she'll live a little longer. Like, longer than one episode.



Yes, Sarge. It was a shame. Don't get sulky.

[Malak'ai]

Well I managed to get D to make a character at least. He's an Outcast Assassin from a Penal Colony.

Found out that E isn't actually all that interested in playing, and B had his new misses over, so wasn't going to force our geeking out on here this early in their relationship .