Warhammer and WH40K RPGs II: Burning Witches, Heretics, and Fate

[blacklight101]

My players captured a shipyard/drydock in spess. What are some good ways to mess with them other than having those still loyal to the old regime on board or the usual mechanical miahaps?

[bluntpencil]

My players captured a shipyard/drydock in spess. What are some good ways to mess with them other than having those still loyal to the old regime on board or the usual mechanical miahaps?

Depending on where they are...

Genestealers! Orks!

Event Horizon/Daemon shenanigans!

Xeno-tech! Archaeotech! Tech-heresy!

People wanting to buy it! People claiming they own it!

Enemies trying to steal it!

[The Glyphstone]

Depending on where they are...

Genestealers! Orks!

Event Horizon/Daemon shenanigans!

Xeno-tech! Archaeotech! Tech-heresy!

People wanting to buy it! People claiming they own it!

Enemies trying to steal it!

All of the above. At the same time.

[blacklight101]

And some of their shenanigans earned some of it, certainly. 'Stealer hybrids, some good ol' tech heresy, and people trying to reclaim it are probably best.

Should I have the first hybrids able to over-rotate their necks a little too much? Just some hints that things are a little off, then OMG, PURESTRAINS! RUN!!!

Man, I may have to combine this with my wife's idea too. They might lose the shipyard if they arent careful now. I like it.

Thanks!

[Zakerst]

Never discount the possibility of pirates or eldar or eldar pirates.

[Caimheul]

Or Necrons, the mutants living in the underdecks attempting to take over, a chaos cult attempting to plunge the shipyard into a warp storm, human pirates, Rogue Traders, the Inquisition, the Imperial Navy, etc etc etc.

[comicshorse]

A Rogue Trader question for more experienced players. A friend who has been threatening to run Rogue Trader for ages tried a first session today to test the rules and everything seemed to go ok apart from the gunfight.
In a fight between two P.C.s and a Cyberskull and two bad guys over 25 shots were fired and no-one was even slightly hurt ! The armour I understand and the cover I got ( and we were actually unlucky) but its the Dodge skill I'm not sure we got right.
Anybody hit gets a Dodge to avoid the first shot, even if they are already behind cover, even if the weapon is firing las bolts at stupendous speed, they still get to Dodge them. Is that correct or did we mess up, cause y'know 25 shots without a wound seems a bit..........off

[The Glyphstone]

Were they only getting one Dodge per turn? If so, that's not unreasonable if your dice are particularly bad. Starting-level Rogue Trader PCs are almost entirely dependent on their gear/starting Acquisitions to pump their stat checks, with basic/bad gear they're not much above Dark Heresy Acolytes (whose stats suck). So between low BS scores to hit, nobody firing on Full Auto (that +20 is huge when your BS is in the 30's), and then Dodge training (assuming everyone was trained, that is not guaranteed for all classes), then you can go for a slog like that.

Hitting in RT is about stacking modifiers. Inspirational bonuses from your Trader, firing on Full Auto, Good or Best-quality weapons, Red-dot sights, appropriate bionics - you can get some crazy to-hit modifiers going, and you can get some crazy Dodge modifiers as well. I remember playing a Kroot Mercenary character once, his Dodge score was in the 90's, and could get over 100 in low light conditions. Not very high ranked either - had the +10 Dodge training boost, but most of his bonuses were from cherry-picking super-valuable gear with my starting purchases.

[Destro_Yersul]

A Rogue Trader question for more experienced players. A friend who has been threatening to run Rogue Trader for ages tried a first session today to test the rules and everything seemed to go ok apart from the gunfight.
In a fight between two P.C.s and a Cyberskull and two bad guys over 25 shots were fired and no-one was even slightly hurt ! The armour I understand and the cover I got ( and we were actually unlucky) but its the Dodge skill I'm not sure we got right.
Anybody hit gets a Dodge to avoid the first shot, even if they are already behind cover, even if the weapon is firing las bolts at stupendous speed, they still get to Dodge them. Is that correct or did we mess up, cause y'know 25 shots without a wound seems a bit..........off

Yes, that's right. One dodge per person per round. It's an abstraction, and if the weapon is firing multiple rounds because full auto or something, it might not get rid of all of them. If everyone's trading single-shot fire around, though, it's entirely possible for the dodges to land that way, though somewhat unlikely.

[Caimheul]

That's also why the characters should try to focus fire on targets that have already expended their Dodge for the round.

[JellyPooga]

OK, just for clarity, I've never actually played a 40k RPG; I own a copy of DH2 (beautiful, beautiful book), but I keep looking at the rules and thinking "I'm going to enjoy playing this, but it's going to be despite the rules, not because of them". I think the 40k setting is an awesome one to RP in, even more so than Fantasy (which I've played a fair bit of and loved), but the DH2 rules (which I much prefer to DH1) are just a bit too clunky, not focused on investigation nearly enough for the style of game I think DH should be and there's a fair few holes.

So, I've been thinking of other RP-systems that could capture the feel of 40k and do it justice. One I've kind of settled on is "The One Ring", the Lord of the Rings RPG. It's narratively focused, has a corruption mechanic, a social encounter system that is both diverse and easy to use and an abstract combat system that is quick and intuitive (perfect for not taking the focus away from the "investigation" aspect of the game). All it needs is a new 'skin' to reflavour it from LotR to 40k.

I was wondering if anyone here that is familiar with both systems had any suggestions as to how I might go about this. I've some ideas of my own already, but I like to take any and all suggestions before positing my own.

[comicshorse]

Thanks to everybody who answered, I'm glad to know we didn't get the rules wrong. (Of course we might alter them anyway but we will see how the Dodge rule works in less unlucky fights first)


Also isn't it time 'for name the new thread'

[The Glyphstone]

Warhammer and WH40K RPGs III: Heretic Tested, Inqusition Approved

[LeSwordfish]

I much prefer "With friends like these, who needs heresies?". A little more friendly to the WFRP side. Considering that the thread name discussion passed without consensus a few pages back before everything went quiet, I was planning to start a new thread with that name any day now.

[The Glyphstone]

That implies anyone actually plays the Fantasy RPG.

[blacklight101]

I much prefer "With friends like these, who needs heresies?". A little more friendly to the WFRP side. Considering that the thread name discussion passed without consensus a few pages back before everything went quiet, I was planning to start a new thread with that name any day now.

I like it for the same reasons. Fantasy's just such a great system for creating characters. It's definitely given me some of my better ideas for characters, or at least their backgrounds. The 40k stuff is good and crunchy and I like it, but there's something about that WFRP 2E that I really enjoy more than other systems.

[JellyPooga]

...there's something about that WFRP 2E that I really enjoy more than other systems.

I dunno, there was something about 2E that didn't quite gel for me. I came from years of playing 1E, so maybe I'm just coloured by my love of the first edition, but 2E was just felt a bit too...pandering? I'm not sure that's the right word, but for me WHFRP has always been about being the underdog, the not-so-impressive-or-important and where 2E goes wrong is by introducing those "special" Careers that are just troop-types from the wargame. I know 1E had the Trollslayer and such, but 2E has a whole bunch of them.

Don't get me wrong, the 2E rules are much neater and technically that makes it a "better" game, but part of the charm of 1E for me, was that the rules didn't quite mesh, that they were a little clunky/quirky/unbalanced.

[comicshorse]

That implies anyone actually plays the Fantasy RPG.

Actually just started playing in a WFRP 2nd Ed campaign.
( Two sessions in and my Hobbit has nearly got his head caved in a by Beastman already )

[Tychris1]

I dunno, there was something about 2E that didn't quite gel for me. I came from years of playing 1E, so maybe I'm just coloured by my love of the first edition, but 2E was just felt a bit too...pandering? I'm not sure that's the right word, but for me WHFRP has always been about being the underdog, the not-so-impressive-or-important and where 2E goes wrong is by introducing those "special" Careers that are just troop-types from the wargame. I know 1E had the Trollslayer and such, but 2E has a whole bunch of them.

Don't get me wrong, the 2E rules are much neater and technically that makes it a "better" game, but part of the charm of 1E for me, was that the rules didn't quite mesh, that they were a little clunky/quirky/unbalanced.

So you enjoy 1E because it's clunky, but dislike Dark Heresy 2 because it's clunky?

[JellyPooga]

So you enjoy 1E because it's clunky, but dislike Dark Heresy 2 because it's clunky?

Heh, yeah I guess. Call it incongruous if you will but 1E has a nostalgia value working for it. When something new comes out, however, I expect it to be an improvement over previous iterations. 1E WHFRP was the first iteration of the series that has most recently produced DH2, so I can forgive it its eccentricities. DH2 on the other hand, whilst better than DH1, is still a clunky game and after however many editions of WHFRP and the whole series of 40k RPG's (DH1, Rogue Trader, etc.) I'd expect it to have ironed out a few more wrinkles than it has.

[The Glyphstone]

It's a pity GW just killed the Fantasy license for all intents and purposes. I might have liked a Fantasy RPG built on the DH/RT/DW game engine.

[LeSwordfish]

I would be unsurprised by WFRP 4E set in the Age Of Sigmar or whatever they're calling the new universe.

Anyway! Here is a new thread, since we will be hitting page 51 pretty soon.

[Shoggy]

Despite an absolutely glacial writing pace, the next chapter of the All Guardsmen Party is finally up!

We head out to catch a cool bug for our boss. Cells are repaired, an incredibly hostile system is visited, Space Marines are met, communications breakdown repeatedly, and a journey is started.

Here's the HTML, archive, and imgur links to The All Guardsmen Party: Tyranid Acquisition Experts:
https://googledrive.com/host/0B3Z9sX...dFWXM/agp.html
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/40747009
http://imgur.com/gallery/iVHrS//

[LeSwordfish]

Despite an absolutely glacial writing pace, the next chapter of the All Guardsmen Party is finally up!

We head out to catch a cool bug for our boss. Cells are repaired, an incredibly hostile system is visited, Space Marines are met, communications breakdown repeatedly, and a journey is started.

Here's the HTML, archive, and imgur links to The All Guardsmen Party: Tyranid Acquisition Experts:
https://googledrive.com/host/0B3Z9sX...dFWXM/agp.html
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/40747009
http://imgur.com/gallery/iVHrS//

I think you've missed our new thread! I've copied this across though - thanks for keeping us posted. You have no idea how much i'm looking forward to seeing Nubby meet a loyalist marine.