Hi all

So far I've run my players through edge of darkness, The Black Sepulchre and now we are nearing the end of church of the damned. I'm thinking of ending the Apostasy gambit series with church of the damned and probably won't run the chaos commandment. To be honest, I haven't read all of the last part but it looks very combat heavy and bland to me. I run prewritten adventures due to lack of prep time and it looks like I'd have to rewrite the last part.

So what's next? Haarlock's legacy? To be honest, I don't like the beginning of Tattered Fates at all, and neither will my players. Can I do part of it? Or maybe I should try Forgotten Gods. Looks ok to convert to 1st edition. But the theme is somewhat the same, no?

Any other suggestions?

I'd give Haarlock a shot. A lot of people here recommend running it in a 2-1-3 order (so, start with Damned Cities). Myself I started with House of Dust and Ash and have just started Tattered Fates as I don't intent to run Damned Cities. It was a little different for my group as I didn't tell them we were going to do the Haarlock legacy, and they only had forewarning about HoDA. What about the beginning is giving you problems? You may be able to work around that

First, I suggest you write your own proper end for the Apostasy Gambit, if you dislike Chaos Commandment.

Then, Haarlock's legacy could be a good choice.

If you don't like Tattered Fate, you can perfectly skip it and play House of Dust and Ash instead.

I'd suggest Haarlock. 2, House of Dust and Ash, 1, 3.

Thanks all for the responses.

First, I suggest you write your own proper end for the Apostasy Gambit, if you dislike Chaos Commandment.

I don't think it will be a problem to have a proper ending of this campaign without the commandmment. I can have the acolytes disrupt ignato and have St.Drusus in the tomb if they succeed. Or have an epic battle the false saint or the dei-phage on stonegarden after they kill Ignato.

What about the beginning is giving you problems? You may be able to work around that

I hate the part where the acolytes are locked up without their gear.

As I read the responses, I guess the idea would be Haarlock without tattered fates.

What exactly about them not having access to their gear is making you iffy about it? The apparent helplessness?

What I've done with my group in Tattered Fates is, they got the opportunity to get some of their gear back. Nothing too powerful, just a side arm or two and a melee weapon (for instance, the Guardsman got his bolt pistol and Fatebringer back along with his sword, the Tech-priest got her Naginata, flametongue and las pistol back, and the psyker got her axe and laspistol), and they got those by rooting around in Vault 13

Tattered Fates is important to the trilogy because it shows what Haarlock was really willing to do to get what he wanted. And it shows that even the most fearsome creatures feared him.

You could just run it without them being in the dungeon by being kidnapped. Have them investigating the disappearance of the Inquisitor there from the top down. It'll require some rearranging of things, but you can get what you need out of that part if you want to work at it.

We played Tattered Fates - and my players hated the beginning. I - on the other hand - enjoyed it to the full. They are very equipment-orientated and it was great fun to see them stripped to the ground. But in the end they got their equipment back. It was still in their appartement back on Scintilla where they were captured at the beginning of the adventure.

But there is a major drawback. They (or better: most of them) will never surrender again after this experience - even if this may cause their death. They will rather fight an overwhelming enemy force than surrender and give up their precious equipment again. That is ... annoying. In the next adventure after Tattered Fates they had the chance to surrender to their foes and gain important information that way. Instead they started shooting - and I had to bend the story to let them find the neccessary clues later.

Maybe it's time to teach them humility and the graciousness of poverty in the service of the God-Emperor again (*insert evil laughter here*).

But: All things considered Tattered Fates is a well written adventure and fun to play. You shouldn't miss it.

All players hate the beginning because players don't like having their stuff taken from them and them being blackbagged into a scenario. It's a guarantee with I'd say 95% of groups because it's too cliche.

Exactly, if they don't want to surrender they die, burn fate and learn a lesson or continue unto permanent death or daemonic pact. Most players are like this. Was the information necessary to the movement of the plot? If not then you could have just kept it from them.

All players hate the beginning because players don't like having their stuff taken from them and them being blackbagged into a scenario. It's a guarantee with I'd say 95% of groups because it's too cliche.

Exactly, if they don't want to surrender they die, burn fate and learn a lesson or continue unto permanent death or daemonic pact. Most players are like this. Was the information necessary to the movement of the plot? If not then you could have just kept it from them.

Burning a fate point to avoid death doesn't usually leave one still combat-capable. So it can be run that way - they stumble into something that puts them all down if they don't surrender. Thus it's not you surrendered so you got screwed (I'm never going to surrender again), you fought and lost and then got screwed - also helpful here is sometimes making surrendering (or at least, peaceably talking, then backing away carefully) the 'right' thing to do, though usually doing this before screwing them for surrendering is a good idea..

One time I was a player for Tattered Fates - but instead of starting us in media res as prisoners, the GM had us investigating a compound on some planet (exact details are kinda fuzzy), but we either tripped the defenses or walked into a three-way fight that started shortly after we showed up (one set of scumbags taking out some of their rivals). We didn't surrender, but the fight incapacitated us all anyways, though some of us took longer than others to go down (the biomancer and the tech-priest), and so while we were incapacitated from the fighting (some of us had gotten hit with big game tranquilizers, others had to burn a fate point to avoid death), we wound up captured and then kept drugged until waking up in the pit where Tattered Fates starts. Surrendering wouldn't really have changed anything, except saving some of us from needing to burn a fate point before waking up naked.