Greetings Everyone, It's my first time Gming in DH(in general i dont have too much experience in other rpgs as a gm) and i choose edge of darkness for my first adventure.I would like to hear your experiences while running this adventure, suggestions in some parts and ultimately if you recommend this for a first adventure.Thanks In advance

[spoilerWARNING!!!!]

Greetings,

finished it last week and found it a shame that no map was provided... and no entries for the secound floor! So, I made my own and changed it to the GROUNDLEVEL; FIRST FLOOR; SECOND FLOOR;. Here is a link to the map (rapdi share)

http://rapidshare.com/files/238904414/Armenhaus_V02.bmp.html

Problem / surprising approachs of my party

They refused to stay in the Coscarla Hotel. First, they tried to rent some of the empty rooms in the Habblocks (!) and as this was not possible ("buerocrazy" is a fine thing to delay everythinig to the point of uselessness!) they just decided to sleep in an empty hab quarter, already "broken up" and looted.

Asking around wasn´t that big of them, fortunately they went straight to the Hab and found Lilly soon:

The fact that the magistrate men were "into it" scared them that bad that after the look down (which occured after they killed one of the "RedEyes" in the first night, leaving light on in Lily´s old room to build a trap for the people whom are after her) and fight with magistrate men (they killed them) they decided to flee the area. They stole a magistrat hover vehicle, but if this would have been impossible, they had just WALKED the whole way out of Southcoscarla to the next point out...

It was fun aftewards, what soever. They got new pc (the old ones got dimissed for "not proofing fit for purpose") and were sent in as part of an Arbites Raid on the magistrate station, the "Union" and the "Almshouse" (stole the ID-Keys from the Almshouse from one of the magistratemen. I ruled that the =I= was able to match this with key-protocals they were able to "aquiere" from the Tantalus Combine..in order to spur thingson).

SPOILER

My players didn't bother with the investigation much at all, skipped over the dead mans sister, ruling that she may be dead already. Instead, they asked about, throwing money and food at the folk for info, eventually they learnt that "The stalkers" resided around the Alms house.
Cue a somehow survived raid which involved collapsing a load-bearing wall in the Alms House, rummaging through the wreckage to find the Churgeon, shooting her for good measure, rummaging more for any information of note, then moving on.

Utterly unexpected. Seriouslly.

cyclocius said:

Well, you are not alone: my group totally managed to leave the floors rather unchecked, only locked into rooms that were empty..and did not even tried to have a look at the ground floor. The just interrupted the Churgeon enough to make her overcharge the plasma plant. All evidents buried in a collapsed buiding. In that case, it was me that decided that the fleeing Churgeon would "self-destruct" (similiar to an explosive collar) after being caught. At last, they are without any information in the follow up... and in the end they have LEARNED that their approached didn´t gathered any info about anything.

cyclocius said:

Glorious. This is why I have such high regard for Edge of Darkness. It can be tackled in many different ways. Spoilers ahead, of course.

I've been involved in two runs of it, once as a GM and once as a player. For the former the acolytes did some investigation (after making their presence known to the Enforcers due to the feral guardsman intervening to save a woman who'd lost her son from getting a beating for disturbing the peace), met Lili and camped out in her room overnight. They got jumped by two body snatchers, defeated them and got some sleep. The Logician elements figured that something was up and locked down the district, the Enforcers cordoning off the rail station. The acolytes then snuck into the Enforcer Station and discovered a sleeping, hungover Locan and made some amazing Intimidation rolls, causing him to spill his guts. Unfortunately they'd been spotted entering and Enforcers began to roll, guns blazing. A running battle left half them dead and most of the acolytes injured badly, the latter managing to escape and seek refuge at the Church. Deciding that they needed to raid the Alms House the psyker sauntered over to the Worker's Union, managed to persuade Luntz to give them some help while trying to gain access to a vox unit to send a message uphive (the crime lord was all too happy to be rid of the crazed heretek). What followed next was a hell of alot of shooting, several dead gangers and Enforcers, a hostage situation and the final confrontation in the upstairs laboratory ending in the place being rigged to blow by the fleeing Churgeon who found herself dying at the bottom of an elevator shaft a few rounds later as a crazed, 60 year old man ripped half her wiring out before shooting her leg off.

The group I played it, meanwhile, was far more subtle. We gathered our intelligence well, had a run in with some body snatchers in the street late at night, and snuck into the Alms House the following evening, having forced a confession from Locan and had him and the local disillusioned priest stage a distraction at the Enforcer Station while we breaking in. Any opposition we found was quietly and quickly put down and the Churgeon herself, once discovered, was quickly neutralised by repeated applications of a Death Light lasgun to her torso. A stray shot cooked off half the laboratory, unfortunately, but all in all it was a much more surgical operation than the game I GMed.

It was creative on their half I'll admit, nowhere near as annoying as the Fear the Wúrst session I ran for WFRP though :@

Hmm. I'm currently 3/4 of the way through running Edge Of Darkness for my first time.

EoD benefits from the scene being set correctly. I made sure there were a few of the handouts to go round and there is a map of Coscarla available on the internet (Dark Reign I think) which doesn't have the key to all the adventure locations which helps the visualisation.

Take time to encourage them to explore their surroundings, nudge them towards the NPCs but do not force anything down their throats.

As it was the first time playing (like me running) I threw in a ganger fight in the market just to get everyone "warmed up" to the combat system. This meant when they were jumped by 5(!) bodysnatchers we all had an idea of how the system worked (nasty fight, but the party is 7 in size, heavy on the combat characters).

Sometimes you will have to point out the obvious, I had to remind a character with experience of soup kitchens that it would be possible to have a look in the Alms House during food service periods.

However my PC's like every other set of PCs have done stuff that isn't covered by the adventure (they were climbing all over the sector trying to track the source of the BodySnatchers using their radio signals). You need to run with it and flow with it.

Have fun! It is a great adventure, very freeform. Let the players dictate the route through it and you nudge the NPCs in their direction if appropiate.

Baldrick said:

I am so awarding extra xp for such ideas! One of my players had a good one, too.

They used the "Coblast-Cover", but as Lilly asked them -why- they were searching for her brother, they were a little buffled. They haven´t thought about it. It was a void-commerica adept (which I had ruled to be a formaly tantalus employee) that used his info from the hand out to "forge" the following reason.

"As you might know, Tantalus have been selling a lot of work contracts these day. Some of them to Coblast. Your brother was one of them. He did not turn up, so we where send to look after him."

As soon as they learned that more people where missing, they "admitted" that Coblast is missing some more "bought and paid for" unskilled labour and Coblast has send them to investigate the where-abouts of the "missing investments".

I just ran it last Weekend and had a real blast with it. The very first thing they did was look at Sauls room and of course they found his sister. After first trying to intimidate her (the Guardsman simply pointed his Shotgun at her and said SAUL!?) which of course did not make her cooperative. Even more funny that he failed the check.

Still the Techpriest (???) got her to cooperate and she gave all her Info and even told them about Luntz. After escorting her to the train (they even got the address of her next work, or so they thought because she did not trust them that much) they visited him. And the Assassin even got a meeting. Luntz tells him about Evard, Sikes and hints at a lot more ("come back when you know more, we will talk again"; exact wording I used). The hints never get noticed by that player and he forgets about Sikes.

Since it is getting dark they decide to find shelter for the night in Lilys Hab. And shortly after midnight the techpriest hears something suspicious, leaves the hab to enter the pitch black corridor and goes to listen in the staircase. Of course the snatcher beat him like a drum however he screams loud and the rest kill one snatcher while teh other escapes grievously harmed. Cue lockdown.

So far it looked good but after this they got nervous. Even mor so after a talk with Zed. So they decide to talk with Locan. And after ringing at the Ministrorum the agent on the intercom asks what they want:"We killed one of those Redeyes and need to talk with the Headwarden"

The two enforcers at the market patrol into point blank range and open fire on full auto. Players retaliate and start running. Then they get the idea to seek shelter in the Templum sneak there but only the techie gets in as the Agents staged a ambush by hiding in between the little market stands.

Now the techie gets the idea to contact Interrogator Sand by kludging all their Vox's together with an energiepack from a lasgun and rolls 6 degrees of success.....

It takes an hour for the first arbites to arrive. By that time Locan was executed, the Almshouse blown, Luntz vanished, Sikes cut his losses and even the corpse of the snatcher disappeared with the surviving false agents....

That was it as they say....

Spoilers ahoy!

I ran this second, after Illumination. The extra xp they got in Illumination helped them a bit, but not much.

My group started out hitting the open air market, trying to pick up rumors. I had a mother looking for her vanished son. After talking to Lilly it was late, they set up an ambush in her room, figuring she was next. I hit them with the body snatchers. Since they had the door sighted, I let them get off one shot before rolling for Fear tests. The massive fear failure was almost a TPK. I've since looked on this site for house rules to try to avoid players sitting around doing nothing while the Sorritas saves the day. (See the PDF Scrivner's Star in my sig, and scroll down to the bottom for my "optional" (house) rules on fear.)

Two of my players walked into the stationhouse to talk to the Enforcers. I role played them as very oily and menacing, and had the big blast door behind the two start to shut. They took the hint and backed out. If I had caught them I planned on disposing of them, their bodies dropped outside in some industrial ruins. That's what fate points are for.

They never did talk to the junk yard guy. They had a lot of fun roleplaying with the narco gang and were only too happy to be offered extra Thrones for dealing with the Churgon. They figured out the Alms House was the place to go, and hit it at night, with a key from the gangers. I used some maps I found on this site, since the adventure has no maps of the Alms House.

With a bunch of good rolls (Emperor's Fury!) by the party, I had to fudge the Churgon a bit just to keep her alive and make it exciting.

W00KY said:

That final part is Ingenious

My players just took the direct route and blew up The Alms House :/ Seriouslly, what happened to the dramatic showdown at the end?!?!

Spoilers, obviously.

I'm currently running Edge for my group, and they're enjoying it so far. After arriving, they headed straight to the market and asked directions to Saul's residence. Found the sister and got some info before she ran off, and then a couple of the players headed to the Worker's Union looking for Zed. No luck, but they found lots of unfriendly gangers! Since nobody had bothered to ask about accomodations, they decided to camp out in Saul's room. As luck would have it, the attempt to turn on the ceiling light resulted in a busted bulb, so they were stuck with nothing but their glow-lamps during night cycle. I introduced them to two body snatchers, which they defeated.... with one ending up falling out of the 6th-story window in it's death throes, and spattering on the concrete down below.

That led to a relocation to another empty hab-apartment in the same building, and the next day they set out only to find the district locked down. They get some more hints about the body snatchers and the enforcers from the local folk, and eventually end up renting rooms at the Hostel for the night. They find Zed, and from him learn about the Alms house. The cleric goes in for the free lunch, but doesn't have much luck exploring anything other than the first floor. That night, they stake out the Alms House, and have the sense to use the tech-priest's dataslate to record video of the body snatchers leaving the house, as well as the mysterious lights on the top floor.

That's where they're at after two gaming sessions, and the next one will be the finale, I have the feeling. They ended the last session arguing about how to assault the Alms House, and the assassin came up with the smartest plan - wait for the snatchers to leave on their nightly excursions, then hit the Alms house with every bit of firepower they've got. Now if only he can talk that sense into the rest of the party... The mystery of the enforcers also has them highly spooked - they're not sure yet if they're working for the Alms House, or if they're bribed extremely well to stay out of the way, but they're worried...

I'm having a blast running the game for my group - I've only GMed a few times before, never with much success, but so far I'm finding it relatively easy to run the adventure. A lot of it consists of providing your players with the right information/set-up, and then setting them loose to investigate and get themselves in trouble. My job as GM is more to act as a moderator and to fill in details as they come across them.

Edit to add: So far, the group has no idea who/what is behind the alterations and the surgeries and the missing persons - all they know is that it's coming from the Alms House, and it's bad news and must be stopped. I'm really liking for open and freeform the adventure is, because it really does depend entirely on what your players do. And the things they come up with sometimes.....

Talking "surgery":

One member of my group is still kinda puzzled about that "smuggling opening" poor Saul Arbest had instead of a left lungs wing.

Really puzzled. Since he is the thinker (and keeps repeating it every session) I gonna have to make something up....