Hello guys, I have for most of my adult life have been a player of these games and it was only until recently that my group of friends started to bug me about running a game. I eventually gave in and now I am running a game of Deathwatch. I know about the Lore and I know the system but I don't know how to write a decent story that will make my players feel..... good.

We have a white scar, a red scorpion, some off-shot of the Imperial Fist and two other chapters that people have not decided on.

So any help on how to run a Deathwatch Campaign, any at all would be greatly appreciated

Really it's all about practice. Your first sessions should be simple to make sure you have the system from the GM side down.

Make sure you understand your marines background, see if they'd have any reason to maybe not like another character due to their chapter and include situations that play to the particular marines strengths.

Players will always break your best laid plans.

Players will always ask questions you might not have thought of answers for.

Players might do stupid things to make your life difficult and come up with the most outlandish idea.

Basically players are horrible. Avoid them where possible!

Never be afraid to say no though when they do something stupid. The best answer when a player says "Hi, can I try and grapple with that carnifex by myself and punch him in the face with a grenade?" is:

"You can try but there may be consequences".

Some other stuff that was entertaining...

Never be afraid to say no though when they do something stupid. The best answer when a player says "Hi, can I try and grapple with that carnifex by myself and punch him in the face with a grenade?" is:

"You can try but there may be consequences".

I allow this type of thing to work at times...but it almost always involves burning a fate point.

Start with some pre generated missions. Then talk to your players and find out what kind of game they want. Are they looking for something episodic and disconnected, like a beer and pretzels style mass genocide of Xenos? Perhaps they want a sweeping epic that spans a sector? Find out what level of freedom the team wants to pick their missions. There are a lot of ways to run deathwatch. You can do as much or as little as you want to. But my main advice would be this "Don't set the standards for your missions so high that you burn out." Each week I keep it simple and write up maybe 2-4 pages of information to get me through the session so I make sure I have a good grasp of some of the things the players might do. It will still turn to ash as soon as the first dice is thrown...but it makes me feel better having tried to prepare!

Just go with the flow, its probably the best way. However when it comes to writing adventures I write waaayyy too much. However it works with my group though maybe not with yours.