Varnias Tybalt said:

My philosophy for character customization is this: You can have whatever you want as long as it doesnt give any advantages. Any advantages (small or large) should be counteracted with a disadvantage. You can have bionic stuff, they will be of average quality and for the most part wont affect gameplay or make you stronger in any way (unless you want to pay XP for it). Sure the bionics would be subject to EMP but you would feel somewhat less pain from damage to the bionic. It balances out. If you want something that does other things, like say... detatch, then there's a penalty. In this case I would NOT go with your idea of how high tech and nice it was unless he paid XP for the privledge of having those advantages. I said 'sure it can be detatchable' but the downside being that it's little better than a gyro operated peg leg. No damage sensors or fine motor skills since it's not hooked up to his system (should that ever come up, but really, I dont expect that to come up any more often than the need to detatch it so it seems fair), I dont see it providing much in the way of bonus or penalty except in certain curcumstances. It's somewhat balanced and I'm letting the player define his own character. I think that's fair. I also suspect that they would find some way to abuse it, but I reward thinking outside the box. I also electrocute them while swiming

I must say that reading this made me laugh alot. I just wish my players where this inventive with the things they do.

Dalnor Surloc said:

Thanks, these are some good ideas. I dont see the 'limited resources' thing working out too well since the ship itself is already a tremendous resource. But the others make a lot of sense and I could do that next time. Wouldnt have saved me once we started, cause by the time I realized what trouble I made it was too late, I couldnt just say 'no wait, on second thought you guys dont own the ship, you're hired help and you've been told to do it yourself'.

This could be very helpful next time. and dispite how badly it broke the first time, I do think this was a well writen and thought out game demo (certainly more than the DH one 'shatered hope' which I almost cried for how bad it was. different rant altogether)

Varnias Tybalt said:

Are you kidding? Eisenhorn had the best ending ever, I cant think of anything more suiting. Sure he lived to adventure another day, but it makes the whole story of a 'how he got to this point' kind of feel... It's been a few years so I cant remember the specifics so maybe you're talking about the final showdown, or something else. But overall I found it very satisfying. If you want to argue your case you'll need to refresh my memory a little bit and tell me exactly what you found to be anti climactic.

And about the bionics, while asking about wether he had them ... that was pretty much my first reply. If he doesnt have it we can give him one quickly enough. the tech priests would only be too happy to cut bits off of ya. *buzzing saw noise* 'One step closer to the Omnisia my lord!' We all had a good laugh.

In the end I said that the burocratic red tape would be more trouble than it was worth and got him to board the ship, for all the good it would do.

Omnicrazzy said:

Well to be honest im kind of in the same situation (was a few monthes or perhaps years ago since I read it). But the bit i felt was anti climactic was the fact that there never was a real conclusion of the story. It was just a: "...Meh! Eisenhorn is left to his fate. The End..."

I got the feeling that Dan Abnett just didn't manage to come up with an intersting enough conclusion so he just snipped the story short and called it quits. So it was a bit disappointing even if I acknowledge the fact that writers cramp can happen to anyone, and my a few of my friends who also read it felt the same way I did.

But we all agreed that the trilogy was a really good one, with an interesting story and plenty of cool characters. And in fact I don't really care about what the older WH40K players say about Abnett and that his stories contain too many "non-canon" elements. He has got a really good grip on the 40K world, and I consider his works being a lot more canon, than any second edition rulebook (with all their ridiculous mentions of Squats and Zoats and what not).

The 40K universe through the eyes of Dan Abnett and Sandy Mitchell and the other authors of the Black Library collection is a lot better than the crap written in the first edition of 40K when it was known as Rogue Trader. It's a big ass galaxy, and if a warmaster wants to give the rank of colonel to a Commissar then so be it. It's cool, and it has provided a truckload of really good novels.

I know that many beak-marine fans in their forties would want to throw rocks at me for saying such blasphemies, but I stick too it, even if the sun should be blotted out by hurled rocks coming my direction! I'll just put on a helmet!

Omnicrazzy said:

Uhm, "quickly enough"? Let's see here, sawing off someones foot and making sure that the patient survives, plus attaching a metallic socket to the stump, along with wiring a few parts of the nervous system to a fiber optic converter compatible with a bionic implant, while later fabricating said bionic (liek I said, prosthesis has to be custom made to fit the wearer), installing the implant and calibrating to optimum preformance. I'd say that it would take a few weeks. In my book that does not deserve to be called "quickly enough", but that's just me.

Varnias Tybalt said:

While off-topic, I've noticed that complaint floating around on the Dawn of War boards as well. Dan being governed by "rule by the cool" is an accusation I find funny as the entire 40k universe is "rule by the cool." Gigantic mega-mechs, genetically engineered knights who are made so post-human that nothing in the universe seems scary when you step into the metal boots of one, demons from the realm of hyperspace; they're all cool so it's all made to fit in some way.

Psion said:

"The rule of cool" should be the rule of thumb in my opinion. And while some authors (like Dan Abnett) do take some liberties with the fictional world in question, they don't do it with selfish control-freak reasons in mind, but rather in order to create an interesting story.

So while the first editions of the rulebooks and codexes might not have mentioned it to be possible for a commissar to hold the rank of colonel in the Imperial Guard at the same time, Dan Abnett's initiative to this idea only had good results not bad ones. While I do respect boundries in canon, the boundries has to have reason to them, and an interesting reason to boot.

I can't find any interesting reasons to why it should be forbidden for commissars to be colonels as well, no matter how hard I look. On the other hand I can find plenty of interesting reasons why it should be possible (the Gaunt's Ghosts series being my primary reason of course).

Without colonel commissars, we wouldn't have Gaunt's Ghosts. And since the Gaunt's Ghosts stories are cool, the rule of cool which permanates the entire 40K fluff comes into effect. Making the idea of colonel commissars completely fine by me, regardless of what previous editions of the rulebooks and codexes said. And the fact that Games Workshop seems to agree with this (I mean, they did draw up stats for players to be able to use Gaunt and his Tanith Ghosts in the TT wargame!), I think that the "rule of cool"- accusers on any messageboards should just shut their traps. Nobody cares if you've read the first edition of WH40K (aka Rogue Trader) or what was written in it. It has been retconned now, into a much better fluff than before. Accept it and be happy about it like the rest of us!

Varnias Tybalt said:

While I agree with your assessment of the Dan's grip on the universe myself, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the ending choice. I thought that leaving him to his fate was fitting, and gave you room for your imagination to go to town with what happens next. Sometimes what's left unsaid is just as interesting as what gets told. On the other hand sometimes it seems lazy. I liked it, but if you didn't then I hope ravenor ends better (I'm reading that now)

Thou talking about the leg? Come on, now you're sounding like my players that's the kind of nit picking over details that ether dont mater or are just wrong for this setting (thou now that I think of it... 2 weeks seems a little high, I would say a week, but even that isnt really far enough off to invalidate your dismisal of 'close enough', I suppose I never though of it because as a joke I never expected to have it really come to that). That's the only thing that really frustrated me was that they would argue about the plausibility, technological theory and everything else rather than just letting me tell them what's going on. They arent really that familiar with the setting ether.

Varnias Tybalt said:

I never found demons to be very cool or interesting. I have friends that disagree, telling Brandon that the demons were kinda like what you get in Doom 3 (Essentially they use Hell to get around the galaxy) was a major interest point to him. For me that's a far cry sillier. I prefer the ability for chaos to explain just about any horror story phenomia (I would like to do Silent Hill with my DH inquisitors ) and short stories with the chaos influence being a haunted ink bottle just make things much more interesting. The whole 'anything can happen' attitude.

I figure that the galaxy is VERY big and there's enough room for things to happen that arent normal. Not all demons are going to be bloodthirsters and nurglings. Some demons are going to be minor demons and cant manage to possess anything more than an ink bottle and or give a few people scary dreams.

I've always found Dan's books to fit the setting very well, and if there's any failing of his works I would just say that it doesnt really give the scope of everything. That the imperium is and has been crumbling for a long time. That everything teeters on the brink. That bad things happens and nobody gets around to investigating it. Worlds burn as a mater of coarse. Eisenhorn seems to be in a rather peaceful section of the galaxy, by necesity, when the world gets invaded you stop needing an investigator and intrepid heroes you start needing armies. The Gaunt's Ghost books seem to focus on smaller less titanic battles, by necesity, displaying how much of a meat grinder some of the wars end up by tossing the ghosts into that just means you dont have anyone left over for a sequil. Though the ... um... last one? next to last? It had them invading the world they went to in 'traitor general'. That book did a good job of showing another face of it, most of the people in that army died because only 2 characters were essential to the story. The Sabat World Crusade put the atypical adventures of the heroes into perspective very well.

I can see a good reason why commisars cant be colonels - they aren't allowed (under normal conditions) to hold any rank because they are outside the command structure. Which essentially just means that they outrank everyone else anyways, but spreads them over the whole guard. They are trained in all levels of command, but dont have the imperative to take command unless necisary. (this might also make them less specialized and skilled than people trained and promoted to that post. Or it might make them more qualified for their wide range of knowledge. not sure. Cain seems rather skilled.) They are like overseers. Letting them hold rank would remove their ability to move around the command chain so well. There ARE reasons not to do it.

There is however a good reason to do it. Because it makes a good story. And while they arent permited to hold rank under normal condition, a warmaster's whim is hardly normal. In the books it mentions that it's been done before, but rarely.

You're far too generous with what you let your players have, I think. I'd have not allowed them to invent a device (on the spot no less) that pushes asteroids away, and definitely wouldn't have gtiven and robot dragonflies or what have you. Vanishing redshirt teams can rapidly return and begin the undead assault on the boarding passageway, ESPECIALLY if the pc's aren't there at the time to defend it. Also, if the opportunity presents itself, make **** sure that the players find out that they murdered a ton of survivors through their calousness and have them pay for it. I think the cowardly rogue trader is definitely looking at a duel/some serious insubordination for being such a coward about setting foot on the vessel, never mind his unnecessary mass murder.

I'll insert some notes/thoughts on things that happened. This might bit a bit long, sorry.

They get their tech priests to make some inane magnetic repulsor by grinding magnets and sending them out from the ship to push other things away... I dont even know. It made quite a bit of sense in theory, but I'm just not up on the practicality of it. So they took the ship into the feild (took some damage, but I judged less than if they had tried without -5 profit).

A cruiser is huge. Where did they get enough magnets to do this? And, enough magnets large enough to affect the hulks of ships, some of which bigger than the Venture itself. There are giant pieces of debris, as well as unexploded ordnance. Some pieces won't be affected by the magnets, some magnets might be destroyed by ordnance explosions. Also, how did they keep the magnets in position to their ship? Some of the wrecks are xenos vessels/ordnance, so who knows how their hulls will react to magnets.

Then they used their ship to grapple onto the bounty and pull it out (+3 profit).

Hmm... I don't see any listing for tow-hooks. So, I'd say they can attach the two ships together (hull-to hull, like for boarding actions), but no way they could maneuver. Also, what about the magnets?

the contract said the captain had to be the first to set foot on the vesel. "I've got a mechanical leg! lets toss that at the ship!" one airlock space toss and foot retrieval later I have the crew argue the semantics of it 'they mean board the ship'.

I agree with an earlier poster. This will hurt the RT's reputation., both for being cowardly as well as kind of a laughingstock. Can you imagine the reactions of rival RTs when they hear this story?

So they dock the ships together, Captain Ken walks over sniffs the air, and turns back. 'Send in the red shirts'. Heck, they even know what to call the expendable cannon fodder. I cant see any reason why they shouldn't so in they go. Salvage stops a few hours later with missing crew. So the PCs decide to turn off the life support (and argued that there should be an off switch for the life support near all the major exits... like turning off lights when you leave.

Life support to the entire ship is basically controlled in only 2 places. The bridge, or the cogitator core. They can't turn off life support from anywhere else. They probably also need special codes/passwords to do so. After all, for safety reasons you couldn't just let anyone from anywhere turn off life support to the entire ship, could you?

So they get their red shirts to go to the bridge and rip into the life support system (in a more computer savy and less ripping way). 3 days later the ship is now dead dead dead, they turn the life support back on and wait another 2 days for it to heat back up.

And Navigator that is on the bridge kills the redshirts that go to the bridge, stopping the turning off of the life-support and adding to the number of his puppets. Or, letting them turn off the life-support, then killing them. Life support means nothing to the worm and the puppets.

Well the ship should now be dead. But they arent about to board themselves 'Send in more red shirts'. I'm assuming they were armed or whatever, but they were really just testing the waters for the PCs. They get lost too, so the PCs send a third batch to the bridge to check the video logs, now the ship wouldnt be wired up for watching people any more than most cities are. But there should be enough for them to find a few vid feeds of what happened. I described the scene of the dead getting up and killing everyone.

The booklet says that basically everything on the ship, other than the bridge and engines, are on minimal power and terminals aren't operational. So, no I wouldn't have any video feeds, unless they get it from the core cogitator or the bridge (the only two places really operational on the ship). Also, communications inside the ship are broken, distorted, or downright blocked. The PCs will just keep losing red-shirts mysteriously until they go in person.

Besides which ... the puppets are dead bodies, and the Navigator is basically dead too and is protected from everything by the worm. It doesn't care whether there is life support on the ship or not, really. In fact, when attacked on the bridge the adventure says specificially it vents all the atmosphere out. The only reason it has life support on, really, is to lure another, operational, ship to it that it can take over that ship.

So after finding that undead roamed the ship (or mostly lie around till people pass by) the 3rd group of red shirts get eaten in plain veiw of the PCs (assuming they have some visual sensors trained on the bridge). They decide to find someone, accuse him of treason, and perform experiments on him such as 'lets see if its airborn. send bob on, yank him back, then we'll kill him. if he comes back to life then we're screwed.'

Just because they can see out from the bridge, doesn't mean they are really windows and you can see in. It is perfectly reasonable to have them as '1-way' glass type ports. Also, I think such heavy-handed actions of the officers would greatly affect crew morale. Their friends and co-workers would generally find it difficult to accept such spurious accusations, and subsequent cold-blooded 'experiements'. Word of this will get passed around... another drop in Profit and a hard time finding replacements for all those red-shirts he's losing.

It's not airborn, so they want to send snake bots through the ship to explore. I try to explain a little bit about 'bots' and forbiden technology. They settle for servo skulls, which agitate the bodies, but dont really awaken them like people do. They send in 'remote controll dragonflies' I'm not sure what kind of stuff they would or wouldn't necisarily have, but there's a good chance they could have something similar, so I let them do that (since the purely mechanical dragonflies arent pestering the undead.) They find the navigator, or an NPC does because their tech guy was rolling so badly that by the end of the game they just gave him an echa sketch so he could pretend to help while NPCs did the scanning. (since I figured there would be dozens of them, and my players are in no hurry to do things themselves). Anyways. Navigator... with the halo worm in his third eye. They fit a plasma gun (the ship's prety big, they might have a few) onto a remote controlled car (or something similar, seems another thing you would find in a city sized spacebound comunity), and blasted the thing off his noggin. then they have their red shirts burn the bodies just to be safe.

How does it open the doorways/hatches to get to the bridge? Many of them are locked, and most servo skulls are mono-task and can't manipulate doorways. Regardless, the worm is sentient. As long as the Bounty's Gellar field is off, it can easily protect the Navigator from the plasma pistol mounted on the skull. Also, again, communications is messed up on the ship (due to a variety of things... debris static, the worm's psychic powers, etc). So, I wouldn't have any video feed nor remote control ability work inside the Bounty.

They now want to not just salvage the ship, but fix it up and take it with them. I rolled some dice. got their tech priests to spend several months finding spare parts from the battlegrounds, another few months fixing the ship to warp capable. (I was never sure how badly damaged the thing was, surely it must have been in bad shape, but if there is still air in most of the ship surely there's enough of it left to make spaceworthy again)

I would expect that fixing the engines would require drydock facilities, and the Venture just doesn't have the number of technicians, materials, nor equipment for such extensive repairs. Still, taking months is reasonable. There are a lot of things that can happen in a few months when out in that dangerous portion of space. A pirate raid while repairs are taking place (in space, no less) could easily kill a few dozen technicians that are in their spacesuits, leaving the Venture woefully understaffed of engineers.

-I think one of the main problems you had was no giving the worm enough intelligence. Remember, the worm *is* intelligent and has a plan/motivation. The worm wants to get to a populated planet, and to do so it needs a working ship. The Bounty's crew scuttled the ship so the worm couldn't use it to go anywhere. It would be quite conceivable for this situation to have happened:
The PCs dock the Venture directly to the Bounty. The worm sees this, and abandons the Bounty. It sends some puppets to distract the PCs while it (with Navigator) sneaks on board the Venture. It hides out in the Black Holds of the Venture, kidnapping/killing crew by the score and building an army, before it then makes a surprise attack (from inside) on the Venture while they are spending the time and effort to repair the Bounty. Quite a plausible event.
-Also, the worm isn't as easily removed from the Navigator's head, and a single plasma shot (even ignoring the psychic shield) won't be enough to 'kill' the Navigator and force the worm off.
-Lastly, I would have limited the PC's knowledge of what was happening on the Bounty. No (or broken) communications. Red shirts go in, but don't come out and the PCs have no idea why. Dead red-shirts just equal more forces for the worm, so the PCs can send all they want. If they want to turn off the life-support on the Bounty? Well, I wouldn't make it easy, but heck, it doesn't affect the worm or his minions one single bit. In fact, it gave him more troops to use (the remaining crew) as they are now dead too and can be animated into puppets. Heck, with enough redshirts and technicians from the Venture, the worm might just have enough troops to make a direct assault into the Venture. As enemies (NPC crewmen) fall during combat, he psychically animates them back up to fight for his side and so grows stronger as combat goes on.

All this is my opinion, and of course, hindsight and all that stuff. I know it can be hard to roll with the punches, as it were.

Speaking of life support and the Bounty, since the core cogitator is essentially an advanced servitor and, as such, a living thing, wouldn't shutting down the life support kill or at least damage the cogitator and possibly prevent life support from being re-engaged?

Graver said:

I think it's more like forcing it into "mind-lock" - maybe using drugs to induce some sort of coma?

There's also the possibility of simply disconnecting the "brain" from the system.

That's how I'd imagine it, anyway.

Omnicrazzy said:

Yes, sometimes what's left unsaid is just as interesting as what gets told, I agree. But in Eisenhorn particularly I didn't get overwhelmed by that feeling, and it left me disappointed with the ending. It's hard to explain exactly why, since the reason is a combination of several factors picked up from the story leading up to the ending.

About the nitpicking, it comes from the fact that I am pretty familiar with the setting. But you're right that they maybe should just let you tell them whats going on. However, I find it that the players appriciate if you do some detailed nitpicking on beforehand when writing/reading the adventure you're supposed to GM. So use this experience as a warning example, that if you let your players get bionics (or other equipment) too easy, they might try to shaft the entire scenario in the rear end with similar shennanigans.

Of course, you can't prepare for everything, but you score lots of points for trying, right?

Omnicrazzy said:

Demons being silly? Tell me, have you played Doom 3? I don't know about the rest of you, but when I sat in front of my computer in my really really dark room, subwoofer enhanced speakers turned up to just the correct volume in the middle of the night, I didn't find the demons or the hell-based levels to be silly at all.

However, I don't portray Chaos as being Hell and Daemons and nothing more. That definition is too simple and too clear cut. Im more interested in how the warp is actually a reflection of feelings of the psychic races in the material realm and that Chaos gods and daemons are actually manifestations of humanity's own impulses and nightmares.

Im also a big fan of Silent Hill, it's what I draw inspiration from pretty much everytime when I design a horror story (because while Doom 3 was a really good game and did give me some scares, Silent Hill is what has scared me to the core of my being, it can actually become physically uncomfortable to play it for too long). And I guess that when I describe what Chaos daemons look like, I give them a bit of a Silent Hill touch. Most of the illustrations of daemons look a little too 1980:s for my taste, and that's why I try to keep the general feel of each daemon (disease and sickness from Nurgle, blood and violence from Khorne, warped sexuality and depravity of Slaanesh and chaotic, incomperhensible and almost Lovecraftian feel for Tzeentch) I describe them as looking a bit different from the illustrations.

But most of the details of exactly which Chaos diety is responsible for any situation or phenomena is only for me to know. The players and player characters will most likely not know anything about it or only have the slightest hint of what's at work. Making chaos the "haunted inkbottle" you speak of, at least in my games.

Omnicrazzy said:

The way I see it, if warmaster Slaydo saw fit to promote Gaunt, then there really wasn't anything anyone could have said or done to stop it. You do not countermand the final orders of a dying warmaster. Making his promotion perfectly legal and canon, although extremely rare of course (but then again, that's the whole point). And I don't think that even the Commissariat would be able to do anything about it either, since when a warmaster is appointed he usually has the backing of the commissariat along with the High Lords of Terra themselves. It's not like the commissariat can say: "well although we do stand behind most of his orders, that last one he gave is too inappropriate so we won't allow it."

Agreed, a warmaster has virtually unlimited (possibly unlimited unless the inquisitin were to man up to the table) athority in his area.

If he promoted a commisar to colonel it would stick. It would be treated as an oddity, but no one would dare countermand it especially after if was confirmed by the next warmaster.

Honestly the hostility he got in the books was way overblown as with the death of Slaydo he no longer had a patron in the upper ranks so his career was bound to wither on the vine. Making him no threat to the careers of others.

Locque said:

well, both situations have precident in stories, nether are invented and 'on the spot' was several days of grinding up magnets and dumping them in space. Which given the way time flies when you're not doing anything in an RPG is really nothing. The idea that there would be airborn scouts has been used in the eisenhorn, cain, inquisition war, and several other stories I'm sure. granted one of them (where the actual dragonfly idea came from) was highly classified reverse enginered xenos tech, but something bigger and less effective would be in civilian hands for those who are wealthy *coughroguetradercough* enough.

that they didnt get undead climing onto their ship was my fault because I was too busy trying to find awnsers to a dozen other questions that bogged things down to think of what was going to be happening. Since they never really met the navigator till they knew what they were looking for I never got around to having the undead coming after them, and by the time I reminded myself of his motives I wasnt looking for his actions anymore I was looking for how much damage a halo device could stand.

Graver said:

Um... Maybe... ? I think that cogitators may be purely mechanical. while AI is a forbiden tech, they wouldnt even necisarily know that they were building an AI it would just be 'the machine spirit'. and if you had it doing enough processes it might sorta... evolve?

Complicated.

llsoth said:

Precisely. And seriously, the Inquisition is way to busy with hunting down heretic's, xenos and daemons to even care the slightest that some commissar on som far flung crusade got promoted to be a colonel as well. In fact, I think an Inquisitor would shoot the person who brought the matter to his/her desk. It would be like calling one of the higher ups within the CIA in the middle of the night, asking them to investigate the issue about a stolen bicycle.

So a can honestly NOT see what all the fuss is about from these Abnett/Gaunt haters out there.

(sorry for the side-tracking)

LMAO im sorry this post has made my day. Infact i think I shall steal the whole concept of the bionic leg! It was clever and downright comical along to lead to things like mutiny and cowardice and all sorts of fun fun things. I shall shamelessly steal that plot point and use it in my official game for my antagonist to use as a plot device to regain his ship and hten lose it once more! Along with people using the line "Don't throw your leg at me please", or "what are you oging to do?, Huh? Throw your bloody leg at me, you Grox brained coward!" Oh good times I will have.

For the record the anatgonist in my game is pseudo Jack Sparrow but way more incompotent and lucky.

Omnicrazzy said:

I think, though could be wrong, that a lot of cogitators incorporate bits of nervous tissue and brain matter from animals and humans though that's not what i was refering to. Would a vacuum affect such a system if left in said vacuum for a few days? Still, when I mentioned the whole life support thing, I was referring to the specific core cogitator on the Bounty which is made up in part of several servitors, the main cogitator interface being the torso and head of a servitor. Since using technology to animate the dead (we won't look to hard at servo-skulls) is heresy, a servitor must be alive.

Of course, if this is the case for the Bounty's cogitator set up (and a good way around the whole AI thing) similar setups for other massive cogitation systems might be something of a norm (if not, it's gonna be in my game 'cause, visually speaking, it's pretty damned cool). Either way, it just made me think, if the core cogitator is partially composed of living servitors and life support to the entire sip is completely cut, then the servitors would more then likely die for good or at least be end up highly damaged. This could spell major problems for the core cogitator on the whole, not to mention that the interface for said cogitator core would be lost and, as such, life support would not be able to be re-engaged or done so with extreme hardship as the core cogitator will no longer function in a meanigful way for the crew.

It was something that occurred to me while others were talking of the feasibility of shutting a ships life support down completely in all areas... it may be impossible to do such as it might actually damage the core systems of said ship. In the end, despite odd and usually superficial similarities, 40k tech is way different then 2k tech. They take a completely different approach to designing it, building it, and maintaining it then we do. Don't let your players try to argue real world tech in 40k. They've had 38 thousand years to forget how we do things and find a completely different way of going about it.

Agreed. It is the responsibility of the DM to make sure the group is haivng fun. Not arguing over semantics, physics, theology, etc. If they throw a curveball at you, just deus ex machina and state nope not going to happen.

Like for example i ran my twice as long as it was intended (i made them play to gain the information about the beacon and allowing rhem to figure out their roles first before starting the real quest) and during this period they allowed Severian Tollak (protaganist for future endevours) to board their ship and argue who rightfully owned the wright of claim. To cut matters short they diplomatically comandeered his vessel and now had two ships.

I went on to say as Jim Dandy fun it was to have a second ship it mysteriously cripples itself when attempting to warp and must head back to port wander for repairs, apaprently Tollak was neglecting his ship and squandering his money on booze and women instead. "Hey chief why didn't ya gas up at the station eh?"

In anycase you could, if they really try to argue real life mechanics with you, remind them casually that they are playing a game of magic and sorcery with warp travel in the 41st millenium. You know I just don't think reality and warp travel ever belong together in the same sentance. God forbid they suspend their disbelief to play a science FICTION game!

With an intelligent NPC i usually try to "be in their shoes". I roleplay the character in my mind. How would the NPC react to this situation? Will the NPC try to get the events in his control? What information does the NPC have to work with? If I'm a bit indecisive about which way the NPC would go, I dice it either by pure luck or some stat of the NPC.

The fun in playing an intelligent villain in your mind is that sometimes the campaign becomes a cat and a mouse (and a sledgehammer) game where you really try to out maneuver the players with the recources you think the NPC would have at his disposal. For me this means that sometimes I spend a couple of minutes in utter silence as I try to work all the plot lines (my players are used to this) and actions to work "realistic". Sometimes I work things out as players debate their actions. Sometimes the players themselves gives you the correct action while they debate what might happen if they do this or that. Then you just work the angle and that player will have the warm feeling of "told you so" to the other players. It's actually quite a good tactic when going through "uncharted territory". In a way you throw the storytelling ball to the players and pick up the best play.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Yeah, I played Doom 3. Loved it. except for the whole 'demons from hell' thing. So silly. Some of them even looked stupid. But at least they jumped out of the dark appropriatly. The final boss was really hard to take seriously. So yeah, I liked the first half better. On a side note, God of war's 'go to hell' level sucked more than just about any other hell level. Like a 4th grader made that place. Silent hill is a much better hell, at least untill they start making the walls out of meat. I guess that might just be me.

Most of my dreams that people would consider a 'nightmare' I love. being chased by bloodthirsty aliens or hiding in a shallow cave while the river rises (the river water is usualy made out of babies, or electricity, or more aliens). My 'nightmare' ... my worst dream ever was too realistic. That's part of what was scary about it. Amanda is a friend of mine and she was pregnant with her first kid at the time, my dream had her giving birth but it came out a stillborn, which is sad, and I said 'well on the plus side...' before she strangled me. The scary part was that I could see myself becoming flustered from the shock of the situation and might actually say something like that. Other scary dreams have me in court (i'm innocent of coarse) and just unable to take the whole situation seriously and pissing off the judge by doing things like refusing to testify in my behalf just to prolong the trial cause it's a big joke to me.

The haunted inkbottle was one of the eisenhorn short stories (it wasnt called that, but that was the villan of the story). Just so you know I'm not being metaphoricle about it or even creative.

My take on the Gaunt situation is about as you sum it up, yeah. Still doesnt mean the other guard commanders are going to like it, just they wont be able to do much about it.

Omnicrazzy said: