so me and my friends are starting up on a new game and we decided to give dark heresy a try. we rolled up some characters and weve got a guardsmen(me) a scum, a tech-priest, a psyker, and a assasin. most of us play the tabletop game, so were mostly familiar with the setting. but my main questions are how lethal is the combat? Is the game mostly combat or roleplaying? and I also have somthing of a unique problem. Now im not gonna sugercoat it,the guy playing the assasin is STUPID. as in DMs worst nightmare im gunning down npcs for no apparent reason stupid. Is this game one that encourages party infighting, as he is also known for stabbing people in the back. he's a cool guy nornally just a jerk at the table.

The games can be as combat heavy or combat light as the GM wishes. I've run the odd session where my group didn't have a single combat encounter, they just had a blast dealing with all the intrigue and double crossing (actually that adventure got to something like a septuple cross before my brain failed and i told the players to get on with it)

Combat does tend to be quite deadly in this, you will learn one valuable thing Cover is your best friend .

Again for interparty fighting and possible repurcussions of gunning down everyone it is pretty much up to the GM. I often let there be interparty fighting as long as the player can explain to me perfectly sound reasons for it, if i am not satisfied then i will either not allow it or will make the action have severe repurcussions.

Really, the answer for everything is "It's all how your GM runs it". When I run, decisions tend to be more dangerous than any combat, but when a friend of mine runs things the choices tend to be clearer and the combat more lethal. I tend towards social manuvering and investigation, while he loves a good sweep and clear. This works well, as we both alternate running the game (our character's end up busy with something else or just become very introspective while we're running, so the party can tap us for our resources, but we don't directly involve them while we're also running).

If the Assassin is causing the acolytes problems in completing their missions ... which it sounds like he would be ... then they need to take his character aside and lay things out for him - he is jeapordizing the interests of the Inquisition which means the Imperium itself and betraying the Emperor of Man - May he Reign Forever, may his Star ever Shine, may the forces of chaose Fall before his Glory. If he wants to pursue some psychopathic desire on his own time, that's between him and the Emperor, but when he puts the party in danger it is unacceptible.

If he refuses to accept this, or worse still - strikes at one of the players - then they need to bring it before their Inquisitor (if they don't simply kill him themselves ... depends on how he reacts) and inform him that the pc's actions are putting their holy mission at risk. The Inquisitor will doubtlessly have something to say about that - possibly giving the man his one and only warning; possibly granting the party carte blanch to kill him if he acts out again; or go so far as to place a warp fed ward upon him which will cause psychic burn and physical agony anytime he endangers the mission. (this latter he will remove once the player turns a new leaf, and of course the pc could possibly make deals with chaose spawn and demons to have it removed, but those possibilities lead in their own directions.) You don't want the pc to feel he has no choices, but you do want him to feel as though big brother is watching and will not tollerate his idiocy.

As for the frequency of combat ... as with any game, it really depends upon the gm. I have run months without combat ever appearing in a game, then I have had sessions which revolved around it ... basically it is a matter of what is most appropriate for the story at the time.

As pointed out above, it's really all in how you chose to run it. That aside, a few generalized answers...

How Lethal is the system? well, that depends on what you're used to. It's more lethal then most out of the box DnD games and Exalted but not as lethal as out of the box Unknown Armies and doesn't hold a candle to the lethality of Call of Cthuluh. It's approach to combat and lethality is closer to an adventure game then a horror game. Healing up after a fight rarely is an instantaneous thing and a few good hits can put a character up in traction for a month of game time. Conversely, each character starts off with at least one get-out-of-death-and-dismemberment-free-card so...

Is the game mostly roleplaying or combat? Out of the box, it's setting likes to focus on investigating things, fact finding, etc. However, it's rules and character powers (talents) focus heavily on combat so it can swing either way. With the rules set up as they are, a lot of players will be expecting combat as half the things they chose for their character are combat oriented and that's before getting into the gun p0rn. Then again, it is the warhammer 40k universe... if there's no violence, you're doing something wrong ;-)

Is party in-fighting encouraged? That one strongly hinges on the GM as, out of the box, all characters will work for an Inquisitor and whether he would tolerate his underlings offing one another left and right is the sol dominion of the GM. In some instances, especially with puritanical groups and psykers, infighting seems common, in others, not so much. In the end, the characters have a boss who is answerable to no law to report to. Take that how ever you will and in what ever direction is best for your game.

Aword about "deadlines":
As long as your GM isn´t introducing any house rules, combat is not deadly at all as long as you have fate points left to burn. Get roasted by a plasmacanon - burn a fate point - survive.

Of course, the pc will be "out of action" till he regenerates himself.. and if his comrades will not carry him home he soon be in a situation where he might threatend with death by something else (since he is unlikely to be able to defend himself).

But

No house rules + fate point left to burn = you cannot die

Graver said:

Lethal? Call of Cthulhu, where Cthulhu only manages to eat 1D3 characters per turn? HAH!

Runner-up for most lethal game ever:

Cyberpunk (and to a lesser extent, cyberpunk 2020). Friday night firefight. It's a combat system compiled from thousands of FBI and police reports on firefights, along with some military statistics. In other words, combat usually happens in the dark, at a distance of less than 30 feet, by untrained participants, missing most of the time, and the first shot usually either kills or incapacitates. In other words, you have maybe 8 hit points, and even the smallest pistols do a D10 of damage. Most pistols will kill in one hit with anything generally more than minimum damage, and any shotgun, rifle, etc will either kill outright, or take you out of the game for weeks ingame with one shot.

And finally, THE most lethal game ever devised:

First Edition Mutant Chronicles. It's possible to have your character DIE IN CHARACTER GENERATION. Or you may get lucky and only become a quadrapalegic. I don't care how lethal your combat system is. When your character can DIE before he is finished generating, the game wins hands down.

I have no clue how deadly the actual combat system in the game is, because the game is poorly written, contains unbelievable printing errors, and is generally unplayable. But we keep the book, as testament to how sadistic some game designers are.

The combat is rather lethal, not as much as Call of Cthulhu I believe, but I never played that (the varying dice and my rulebook missing several pages put me off).

Party infighting, well, that's up to you mostly, if I was playing a game and the GM encouraged me;
"Go on, stab that assassin in the back, go on....." I'd have second thoughts about joining that game honestly

TheFlatline said:

Hmm ... I remember dying in the original Traveller game (the three black books) back in the late 70's ...

At least it's not possible to do that in DH ... yet!

DW

Traveller61 said:

I hated that about Traveller.

Anyways, your GM should provide consequences to killing random civilians. Not only is any low-profile work out of the question, but the high profile killing should:

• Get back to the Inquisitor. Who will not be pleased.
• Eventually kill someone with powerful friends. So add more adversaries until your group is overwhelmed.
• Planetary authorities can't go against known acolytes, but they can kill/arrest/torture them if they are ignorant. Or can feign ignorance.
• If it keeps going, other, rival Inquisitors will find out. A big enough problem becomes a conclave issue. But your GM would have to let your Assassin get way out of hand before that happened.

cool, thanxs for the replys guys. We hade our first session today., and after skimming the rules finally I think maybe I was hunting ghosts when there really wernt any. (I.E all our dice rolls were terrable.) actually I was plesently surprised by most of the rules system really. Ive been playing the legend of the 5 rings rpg where at high levels you are a walking battle tank armed with a 4 foot long magic sword of your dead now. all the classes seem well balanced(at least after a quick glance) and nothing seems outragusly broken(with the exception of shotguns) that scatter rule is nasty. but a good time was had by all, dispite the uncovering of a genestealer cult and many close calls of eviseration.