I would like to get your own opinion on the following thing, which might pertain to any tabletop RPG, as well.

+++SPOILER ALERT BELOW on Purge the Unclean+++

Particularly, I refer to the climax of Shades on Twilight where Mr.Agamorr gets to help the PCs in their final bloody fight with Dark Eldar.

Would you prefer to run the combat as usual, in accordance with the given stats of each NPC involved, or sacrifice the game mechanics and narrate something along the lines:

"Slamming your last clip into your autogun, aiming at the dark, vicious-looking yet strangely elegant silhouettes of the dimly lit cargo hold, you almost feel like you are looking into the eyes of your own doom. As they approach in a fluid and bewildering manner towards your line of fire, suddenly you hear a deep voice echoing against the hold's walls like thunder: "Fur Kaiser und Vaterland!" accompanied by the distinctive deafening roar of heavy fire. You turn your head, and see brother Agamorr blasting at the xenos from the hip, with a bolt pistol, with a loudener attached to it... two silhouettes have exploded in a bloody pulp already, but was that blood, really? ... And soon they were rallied. Happy end. blah-blah.".

Basically, in the first case (if we use stats and roll the dice) the Space Marine (who is the deus ex machina in this case) may roll 00 and fail, thus ruining the dramatic moment. He may as well miss, or hit a friendly taget, or have his weapon jammed, etc. However, this is realistic.

In the second case, the Space Marine is sure to act as needed, but the verisimilitude of the situation will inevitably be impaired.

What would be your personal preference?

I go for a little of Column A and a little of Column B...

Brother Agamorr breaks into the room, sighting the Xenos Scum besieging the party he yells "For the Emperor" and raises his Boltpistol.

Roll a BS check (100) **** its a Jam hmm... time to fudge the roll

Agamorr sights in on the Dark Eldar and pulls the trigger "Click" Briefly glancing at the jammed gun and muttering something about Wargear rites he tosses the pistol aside, grips his Thunder Hammer in two hands and leaps into the fray.

I tend to roll dice when I can, its a good indicator of what should randomly happen, but whenever I rethink my roll I know its time to fudge in the PC's favour. I also apply this to NPC's, it helps to cover up the Hand of the God-Emperor and make the party think even the backup can fail. I almost NEVER apply a roll for an NPC I make as it specifically states on the Dice. Thats how a party suddenly finds the adventure ending really quickly.

- Raith

I tend to avoid too much NPC vs NPC rolling - its not much fun for the players .

If I am using a NPC as a narrative conveniance as you describe I would not bother at all - just describe his actions as the players continue to fight for their lives (I might roll roll a few dice for show as the combat continued). Iw ould try and keep the players involved int he fight as much as possible to maintain the feeling that their actions matter, but use the SM to tip the odds.

I see that - an NPC vs. NPC combat could be easily faked in the players' eyes, of course. But in these circumstances, in this particular scenario, there are:

- PCs,

- numerous acolytes from a fellow/rival inquistor band,

- Agamorr.

and all of them bent on fighting each other.

We might end up with too much arbitrariness here, if we don't resolve the NPC/NPC combat, as per the rules. And that might actually mean the difference between life and death. So, there's no way to escape the detailed NPC/NPC fight here (although I hate it, too).

As for Agamorr, however, I'm not sure. That might or not be narrative, I just don't know, what's better.

For NPC vs NPC combat, I don't roll dice. I adjudicate as I see fit. From the PCs perspective, it's boring and it makes them redundant. What happens if the good Brother Sergeant rolls in, fires off his bolter, and ends up scoring a few Emperor's Wraths on the DE leader? That's even worse, in my opinion, than if he rolled in and fumbled.

The combat in that situation should revolve around the PC's plans that they cooked up during their prep time, their strategy, and the like. Sitting around while you roll dice and check tables and stats and roll down more dice and jot down notes is exactly the opposite of the climactic ending that you should be going for. If you really, really, really, really want to do it by the numbers, I would recommend rolling out hits and the like for the NPCs before game, so you can simply say, "Oh, well, he missed," and scratch off that result. Cuts down on the downtime for the PCs.

But really, the fight should come down to what the PCs do, not how the NPCs roll. Otherwise, if the NPCs can handle things all by themselves, why should your players pay attention or care?

Honest to Tzeentch I'd roll the dice just to give my players the impression they're not in a "cutscene", but completely ignore the dice roll so that the scripted event happens exactly as planned anyway. After Agamorr's dramatic entrance, I'd just have the combat proceed as "normal" with Agamorr auto pulping one or two dark eldar per round(you can automatically adjust how he does to ensure he's not winning it for the PC's, but neither are they making a Deathwatch sergeant look like a buffoon), with the dice rolls providing the illusion that the situation is anything but scripted.

Magua, Locque,

Thanks, I believe faking the dice rolls while handling the NPC is the easiest way out.

So, in the massive NPC-NPC combat we vote for the narrative.

I haven't quite gotten to the part in that module yet (just began RFYAT), but I typically narrate large NPC combats or dramatic "cavalry rescues" etc.

In the case of a single NPC that aids the party I'd probably roll. In the case of said Space Marine, I would probably roll, and if he's supposed to succeed than I might award him a fate Point for that purpose as the Emperor smiles on him.

I usually much prefer to let the NPC fail completely and be horribly mangled by the enemy to scare the players, but in the case of an experienced Astartes that may be a long shot so I'd think he should be able to kill a few Eldars without a problem. I might rather engineer the story so that said Astartes is hindered in a way so that the Acolytes actually matter.

This would be a pretty funny turn of events:

Agamorr is in close combat with Dark Eldar.

Player decides to help out the Space Marine. He fires at the Dark Eldar.

Whoops! He missed and he's firing into close combat. Looks like he hit Agamorr instead.

What''s that? A 10 on the damage roll; why that's Righteous Fury. Let's roll anouther d10. OMG! Another Righteous Fury. And so forth.

Agamorr dies. Player has shot one of the Emperor's Finest in the back and killed him. What do the other players do?

bogi_khaosa said:

They try to kill the Dark Eldar before they all die... and if they survive prey for Agamorr whos time was obviously up... when a Space Marine cannot survive a mere shot in the back then it must be the Emperors will