So, I have a player that has voiced interest in a solo campaign (a game where he is the only player) due to a combination of scheduling and conflicts with other players.

This player has an interest in Black Crusade, and has also been interested in playing a lich in D&D for a long time. After kicking around some ideas, the two concepts seemed to merge together pretty well in the idea of an ancient Thousand Sons sorcerer, some psychic powers that are lich-like or vampire-like, and Rubric marines are pretty close to undead minions anyway (for the record, this is no worse than the vampire theme that Blood Angels already have, so we're not really screwing with fluff here, just building to a theme).

As such, the PC party is just the lone Sorcerer with his entourage of silent Rubric marines - not a lot of opportunity for character interaction there. I'll have to make some NPCs or whatever, I've run and played solo games before so I know that interesting people to interact with are what makes a solo game live or die. On the other hand, this doesn't exactly sound like the sort of character that will want a bunch of people with him that aren't directly under his thumb.

The part I'm having trouble with, is what to have this sorcerer do. He hasn't built the character yet, but when I pressed the player, he mainly fell back to his interest in having a lich (or similar) as a PC, not what that sort of PC would actually be doing in play. Searching for ancient lore or artefacts seems fitting, but that lends itself to a play style like a Metroid game. Now I love Metroid, but I don't see that being terribly fulfilling in a tabletop RPG.

I have all of the Black Crusade books (pretty much all of the books for all of the 40k lines actually), and I've read through them for adventure ideas, but nothing seems to stick. I've run Broken Chains multiple times and Rivals for Glory twice with different groups, but Black Crusade never seems to really take root - the players follow the hooks presented to get those modules going, but as soon as the rails stop, the game stops. Now, this may be partly my fault (or even all my fault), since I have a tough time getting my head around sandbox games, and I'm probably failing to provide interesting hooks to get people interested. But then, when people aren't really invested, I find it difficult to craft hooks for them, so it's a Catch 22.

This might be the heart of my issue with trying to get a Black Crusade game to keep running - what exactly are the player characters supposed to be doing in game? Lots of other games have a sort of blueprint for a typical adventure built in, but some don't. In D&D, you meet a guy in a tavern who points you at some old dungeon filled with monsters, traps, and riches, and offers to buy a specific item recovered from that dungeon - it's a simple, example game session, even if none of your D&D games even involve this setup. In Shadowrun, you get a job from a fixer, meet the Johnson, haggle, do legwork, perform the job, deal with the complications, and hope that you were professional enough that the Johnson decides that it's a better option to pay up rather than kill all of you. That's another built-in example of play that works well. Heck, even Dark Heresy has the hook of 'Inquisitor gives you a lead, investigate the heresy, narrow down all the bad guys involved, then capture/kill them all, potentially interrogating them to find hooks for further investigations. I've even run Dark Heresy quite successfully for years, handing off between a couple of GMs in our group between missions, playing from rank 1 all the way up to around 70k xp and well past the end of Ascension with a variety of characters.

But what about games that are open-ended like Black Crusade, Rogue Trader, or Vampire? Games that don't lend themselves to mission-based on-the-rails play? I've played in probably a dozen Rogue Trader games, and they always seem to be collections of Special Snowflakes that don't (or can't) get along. Within 2 sessions, they always dissolve, usually involving PvP violence, terrible decisions, and a total lack of direction outside of that. I've probably played in and run around 50 different games of Vampire (and other World of Darkness) that have all done much the same thing. Sadly, I've yet to play in Black Crusade, since games seem to be quite rare for it.

What exactly are Black Crusade player characters supposed to be doing during typical sessions? I know, people often say 'anything they want,' but that's not a useful answer when I'm having problems with players not seeming to want anything outside of what the railroad says they should want. Legionnaires also present the additional hurdle of being unable to blend into Imperial society at all, which makes most ideas for infiltration unworkable. Lots of heretics seem to have the motivation of wanting to lead a Black Crusade against the Imperium, but none of them seem to have any idea how to get to that point (and to be honest, I really don't either). The BC books seem to just present it as 'by the time you hit 100 Infamy, you should already have the resources to make this happen', but there seems to be a disconnect as to what having such a high infamy even means (apart from making it easier to conjure rare weapons out of thin air, since nobody seems to have any interest in how acquisitions actually work). And what about the heretics that don't give a toss about attacking the Imperium and just want to revel in their chosen vices?

I have an existing Black Crusade game that I'm running via Roll20 and TeamSpeak. The group is about halfway through Broken Chains, consists of two Night Lords, a Noisemarine, a Slaaneshi Psyker, a Pirate Prince, and an eldar that got hooked into a dark pact to learn about She-Who-Thirsts and has now spiraled to the point that apotheosis seems the only viable way to avoid being eaten by her pact. Yes, this means that the group is almost entirely Slaanesh with only the two Night Lords as unaligned. I'll admit that I'm a little worried that the group is going to finish Broken Chains and wander around the Vortex for a session or so before getting bored and wandering away the same way other groups have. I'm kinda hoping any advice I get might be applied to both campaigns, but that isn't strictly necessary. I've tried talking to my players (the guy with the Sorcerer concept is the same player as the Noisemarine), but nobody seems to have more than the most vague of suggestions.

TL;DR

So, back to the original idea. Here's a solo player in a Black Crusade game, playing Thousand Sons sorcerer and his retinue of Rubric marines (NPCs optional). They're here in the Screaming Vortex, I guess, on... some planet... doing... something? BC seems like such an interesting setting, but as a GM what do I actually do with it?

Or, second idea, here's a mixed group of heretics that are being set loose in the Vortex after breaking out of a derelict Inquisition prison ship and limping that ship into the vortex before crashing it. No idea what planet to even dump them on, or what they should be doing once dumped on whatever planet. Pretty much the same question again.

Well nothing actually says that your heratiks are 100 percent on there own. it is completely fitting for someone else to be giving out orders, at least for a while. For your sorcerer you could even flavor it, that certain entities he has bargained with to achieve his current status are now calling in some favors. Or you could use that book of profices from the intro adventure to "guide" his character along.

it is a lot easier in BC to do this sort of thing than in say rouge trader, mostly because they are not a group of super special snowflakes with there own space ship who are above the law. in the vortex they are just another resource to be used by someone else to achieve their own goals, at least until they can grasp power, or more likely die trying.

As an example, the GM in my current game of BC started it off by having the party summoned via ritual to a an imperial world by a wannabe cult leader. As we are all legionaries, 2 khorn and 2 slannesh, The overall goal is to escape the planet and and sacrifice it's population to the warp. How we do this has been left for us to decide, but we are still obeying someone else s orders.

Hope that helps

Huh. I never considered having an NPC patron issuing orders to them, but then that seems rather counter to me. I thought Black Crusade was supposed to be about individuals who wanted their freedom, not just slaves of a different colour. Of course, none of the books seem to setup characters that are more powerful than typical heretics in any position other than adversaries. Greater daemons and daemon princes aren't setup as being the masterminds behind any sort of plots, just really dangerous critters for the PCs to fight. In fact, the bad guys in Broken Chains and Rivals to Glory come across as terribly naive, and not credible threats at all. I know there are the 14 guys on Q'Sal that decide policy within one of their cities, but it seems like there is a terrible lack of personalities in the Screaming Vortex, just hell-worlds with petty warlords ruling over little bands, no more savvy than heretics that are fresh off the boat.

Of course, this suggestion only seems to move the problem from the players to me. Assuming a patron holds their leash, then instead of the players having no idea where to go and not enough investment to make that decision, now that decision is left to me. Of course, since if I were a player in BC I wouldn't know where to go either, so that leaves me with an NPC telling them where to go, but me (the GM) not knowing that the NPC would order/want/ask/demand.

So I could just refluff the question - Solo PC Thousand Sons Sorcerer plus Rubric marine minion retinue, NPC is daemonic patron that gifted him with arcane lore in exchange for.... what? What does the NPC want him do to? PC is likely new to the Vortex, and has someone pulling his strings, but what interests would the patron have in the Vortex? Still having a lack of investment and a lack of understanding here.

Maybe it's just a result of having run/played in so many bad games over the years, but I've looked at all of the modules in the various BC splats (except Binding Contracts, can't find a copy of that) and every one of them I've been faced with 'Well why would the PCs bother to get involved in this obvious mess that's more likely to kill them than to yield anything useful?' At least in Rogue Trader I can understand a group looking at a planet rich in some rare mineral but infested by dangerous locals and thinking 'I can totally sell this and get rich,' but in Black Crusade, I have a hard time with the idea of a heretic looking at a planet made entirely of rotting flesh and worms and coming up with anything useful to do with it. If I were to present my players with that, their responses would be 'Huh, well, that's kinda cool I guess. Where are we going next?' and just move on to the next planet. Unless the PCs are faced with an unavoidable threat to survival, most of the published material for BC doesn't seem like fun ways to increase infamy, but stupid risks to get you killed.

The vortex is a horrible place to stick around, especially if you're a tzeenchan. Basically, you have a few broken DMPCs written into the setting in your own faction who will always outshine you. As long as he's in the vortex, he'll be taking orders from someone higher up than him, and as a player, I would find being the errand boy of a horrendous Mary Sue like Sekthoth intolerable. I recommend seriously toning him down, and not letting him do things even primarchs could not . Or, as you are, using another patron entirely. That may not stick well with him, though.

In other words, if he doesn't like taking orders from other Thousand Sons, his first goal should be to leave the place where he'll always be some bigger fish's b***. After that, it really depends entirely on his goals. I'm guessing, since he's a DnD lich, he may be interested in hunting down a few relics here and there, or making more rubric marines or daemon engines. That can happen literally anywhere, and anywhere out of the eyes of big shot chaos lordlings is a good way to give him his own agency.

If he does, and you're wondering what a tzeenchan would want to do in the vortex, I do have to say: Not much. It's pretty much their home turf. There are easy tasks, of course, like curbstomping the sorry remnants of Khorne and Nurgle left in the place, and difficult agendas, like ousting the ridiculously overpowered slaaneshis. Then there's the forge worlds which make no sense whatsoever for Dark Mechanicum, and are, as written, a seriously easy target (we gave them titan legions, like any other DM stronghold, because seriously...). All that though, doesn't really improve the Tzeenchan agenda. They likely more or less have their fingers in there anyway. There is a lot more to be gained by picking another spot in the galaxy and, say, building up your power base properly on the fringes of the Imperium. Other, more subtle tasks a Thousand Son Sorcerer is really not suited for, so you're basically stuck with questing for loot or building an army, possibly a combination of both.

That sounds... very limiting. Sadly, I'm not surprised.

This brings to fore a more broad version of the same question - what is there for anyone to do in the Screaming Vortex, not just this Thousand Sons Sorcerer? It doesn't seem like any of the Ruinous Powers really have any agenda to pursue in the Vortex, but rather that the Vortex is a sort of 'home turf' for all of them, and none of them really care if they break their toys or pick up afterward. The problem is that this doesn't seem to make the Vortex a useful place to set the game at all, and thus wastes a couple hundred pages of setting information across different books on a place that no PC will ever really want to be in. Apart from a few exceptions like Q'Sal where you would want to obtain daemon engines and exotic weapons, the rest of the worlds in the Vortex aren't all that useful for recruiting, obtaining ancient lore, perfecting psychic powers, training against anything; it's just a few dozen blasted wastelands that exist as window dressing.

Unfortunately, outside of the Vortex, there's a division between heretics that can blend into Imperial society and legionnaires who can't, and it gets worse as you get higher level because you're more and more likely to get a gift that clearly marks you as a heretic. A legionnaire such as this Thousand Sons Sorcerer ends up unable to do much in locales other than the Vortex outside of doing violence upon the hated Imperium, and even then he's limited to a sadly small scale. This seems to put a lot of characters in Black Crusade into a poor position as playable characters, since the Vortex is a terrible setting to do anything in, and the sectors outside of it are only really workable when you can pretend to be human, and even then only until you roll a couple gifts. Any party involving legionnaires operating in Koronus or Calixis or even Jericho would degrade into a combat grind fest worse than the worst Only War games until the Inquisition finally requisitions a hammer large enough to get rid of you. It's not like a group of heretics are going to conquer a world in the Koronus Expanse, even if they do somehow manage to obtain a fleet of raiders and a million feral thugs from Xurunt to do it.

It just seems like there's nothing you would ever want to do inside of the Vortex, and nothing you can do outside of it. As a result, I'm having a hard time coming up with things for characters to do, and my players are fumbling around just as badly. If I don't have appropriate hooks within a couple weeks, I'm expecting this Black Crusade game to die like all of the others, just due to lack of direction and player investment.

You could always go for xenos-space. We had a recent excursion into Tau Space with our heretics, for example, where we were looking for data on tyranids that imperial and chaos channels couldn't provide us with. Another option is porting remnants of the xenos empires that the Emperor's crusade crushed somewhere on the fringes. The IoM does not encompass the entire galaxy, and as a chaos marine, your thousand son buddy isn't exactly bound by the astronomicon's light either. There's no reason there can't be humans out there, either. Mankind spread far pre-Imperium, and might even have its own isolated pocket provinces somewhere out in the void. Basically, create places he can go where his behaviour determines how he's received.

Well as an idea you could have him be introduced to some necron lords and assist in there struggle to regain their souls back, then using this knowledge start a quest line to obtain a necron body while still retaining his connection to the warp. Bout as close to a lich as i can imagine in this setting, well besides going daemon prince.

As far as the vortex is considered, think of it as a giant testing ground for potential warlords, and as they spiral down they either pass the tests and are rewarded great power, or die. It is a meat grinder on a truly intergalactic scale and it truly is a place for the chaos gods to play with new toys until they break.

If you need some inspiration for the character before your player has put him together, ask if he will roll up the section about motivations real fast, sometimes having what drives a charter can help you come up with things for them to do. And don't be afraid to have motivations that make no logical sense, this is chaos and madness made real. If one of his life's goals is to take over a planet because one of the mountain ranges makes a smiley face, then that is a perfectly valid reason to do so.

Also don't be afraid to come up with your own locations in the vortex, there are planets that come and go all the time.

Xenos space certainly has an appeal. I could set this somewhere around Arach-Cyn on the edge of the Eye of Terror. Eldar raid the Crone Worlds as their only source of Waystones, and it is known that Craftworlds Ulthwe, Altansar, and Iybraesil are all very close to the Eye. The Thousand Sons have always clashed with the Eldar regarding the Black Library and other sources of arcane lore.

Actually... that gives me an idea.

The Crone Worlds aren't all in the Eye of Terror, but also in many other locations of Warp/Realspace overlap, such as the Maelstrom. I can leave the Vortex as it is (since it's at least familiar to some players), and just work on one addition. Perhaps this Crone World has been here the entire time but only recently emerged from the thickest of warpstorms. Perhaps it used to be within the Eye of Terror but was mystically transported to emerge in the Vortex. Such a world may not be a blasted hellscape yet, but the denizens of the Vortex would certainly fall upon it with abandon.

But what if the Eldar forsaw this? Kaelor spins through the Calixis sector every millennia or so, and a Crone World in the Vortex is a notable enough event to justify trying to protect it long enough to loot the hell out of it. With extensive use of Farseers, most followers of the Ruinous Powers would be relatively easy to counter except for Tzeentch, so it would be oddly appropriate for a Sorcerer to sneak onto the planet to make off with anything he could.

And for an extra layer of 'Just as planned,' what if I make him the one responsible for the warp disturbance that brings this Crone World into the Vortex...

Yeah, now I'm going to be up all night brainstorming.

Thanks guys, that got me started, but I certainly won't turn down other ideas if people post them.

It occurs to me that I just came up with a railroady plot instead of just allowing the player the chance to come up with his own, thereby invalidating the point of the sandbox setting.

Oh well. We'll roll with it.

I would not see that if somebody stays in the vortex that he/she/it has to take orders from somebody higher up. This would mean one would be part of a hierachy, a structure. We are talking CHAOS here. While there ARE structures and hierachies, there should be plenty of opportunity to life outside of one (until one gets to big for not being noted/bothered with in one way or the other).

How about a kind of "barony play"? Give your solo player a power base. Let´s say his (cheesy) tower and perhaps a village or three to reign over. Have some city states that are not easy to travell to (but reachable), some chaotic wilderness... you know, akin to a fantasy setting. Mix in as much or as less tech as you feel right. The villages are under his reign because they FEAR him. They give him tribute (mostly food and perhaps some coin or whatever you use for currency on that world). He is not technically OWNING them. By now.

Then..set things in motion in his surrounding. These things might not exactly be AIMED at him, but they influence what happens to him or with him. Hack, you could start out with somebody coming to HIM asking for a deed to be done and offering something in exchange! (slaves, tech, coin, artefacts, texts, whatever). Slowly, establish more and more of the surrounding, the power groups. Do not have him come into contact with the leaders of such powergroups. Use messengers and heralds.

We're also talking a still relatively organised legion like the Thousand Sons. If it were some random Tzeenchan it would be easier, but the Sons still have a chain of command established. Hence why I was saying to get out of Thousand Sons core territory, where he can be the legion's only operative in the area, and thus left to, entirely, his own devices. Funny thing is, he'd be better off directly under Magnus than under a nut job like Sekthoth.

Ask him what his character's ambitions and dreams are.

Build from there.

Being a door/rock/lich/whatever for the sake of being one sure sounds like a dull existence.

The default goal for both the average Black Crusade group and the average lich is world domination. The Screaming Vortex is a series of warlords on blasted hellscapes, and their purpose is to be conquered and subsequently used as fuel in a black crusade to take over the Koronous Expanse/Calixis Sector/Segmentum Obscurus/the entire galaxy.

Black Crusade is about freedom.

But Freedom is only worth a **** if you can actually do something with it. You cant without power. Power is not given for free, so you have to do something for it. Being someones subordinate is most often the easiest and savest way.

On the other side he can be free, attack some Khorne world and watch for himself how far his rubic marines get him. Little hint: Not far.

If you realy wanna do a solo campaign everything is about that solo player. You can prepare the most awesome campaign ever but if he does not like it, it simply does not work.

So what are his ambitions beside full fulling some power fantasy of being some magical entity? Conquest? Good. Knowledge is power. How to gain knowledge? Take a visits to the Eldar to loot some library on one of their ships. First adventure done. Maybe include an adventure seed like he tries to reach the black library for Ahriman but instead giving the hints to his overlord keeping all to himself. Making him more powerfull but someone easily more powerfull quite pissed if he ever finds out - and he will.

There are a thousand possibilities but walking into some village to ask for a job in a tavern is none if you play a maybe 10.000+ years old sorcerer of a traitor legion, clad in ancient power armor and with the powers of the warp at his disposal.

He has to aim for something great that is what chaos is about. And ultimately it is quite likely that he will fail. That is also what chaos is about. But as long as there is the tiny chance to succeed people will take the risk and that is what makes BC quite hilarious. Because you simply aim for a task that may be impossible.

It helps to ask what his end state goal is (demon prince/black crusade/spawndom/other legendary accomplishment) Then after he learns that he only has 7-10 missions to complete his task before hitting that magic 100 corruption, he'll start telling you what he wants. Oh crap i need a fleet and pronto. Hey check out this pirate palace over here. I need more muscles for henchmen. How about a trip to curse?

If your players want to launch a black crusade - then let them. But get them to sit down and figure out what that actually means; then shape compacts in the intervening game space to get them.

The Tome of Decay outlines the requirements for different types of crusade in broad brushstrokes like fleets and troops; getting those troops, and the ability to supply them, can easily be a compact.

You need warships capable of carrying your fleet to its destination. So that means you need the support of the Heretek Magi of the Hollows (if you want them to build them), or the Ragged Helix or Sacgrave (to recruit a fleet from Covenant X or similar pirate groups). Q'Sal is probably a bad idea unless you want you fleet to explode the moment you exit into the Maw.

So, what do you need to persuade these people to give you ships? Either you need to buy them, do a favour, take them by force or steal them.

Equally you need troops. That means recruiting cultists, or challenging and killing the leaders of existing warbands or conquering and impressing worlds.

Regardless, it's probably good to have an overall campaign in mind for the game. If it's going to be a black crusade, decide that from early on - you don't need to whilst doing Broken Chains, because the only objective is 'escape!' - the intro adventure is a good one, because you find out that you are 'important in a prophecy' - as noted, that's a good opportunity to explain what said prophecy actually is!