(The old thread on this topic is buried, so I thought I'd post a new one to share our extremely entertaining experience with the demo adventure.)
WARNING!!! SPOILERS AHEAD!!
My Dark Heresy campaign is going on hiatus for a while to play some Rogue Trader. We spent our last 2 sessions playing Forsaken Bounty for everyone to get a feel for the game before they make real characters and decide if they like it. (They did.)
It was a very different feel for me as a GM, and it was interesting to find my GM style changing to adapt to the game. I was much more likely to let a crazy dice roll truly ruin (or shortcut) a segment or even the adventure. Much more free-wheeling, appropriate to the nature of the game. I hope the way the demo went is indicative of things to come.
We spent the entire first session on material I added. I started the game out in Port Wander with them trying to acquire the salvage equipment and crew they needed. I wanted to give everyone a feel for how the characters felt walking around in a social setting, and how Profit and Acquisition works. Then I threw in a random pirate encounter at the Battleground, so they could understand how their skills related to ship combat. We pretty much ended the night with them chasing the ship off.
Next session they headed for the Bounty. They decided to take 2 other Guncutters full of mercenaries (acquired at Port Wander) and salvage teams. This is where things got interesting. Dom utterly bombed his piloting test and all re-rolls. So they struck an unexploded shell which destroyed the cargo area of their ship (sucking out all their mercenary passengers) and started bleeding air. They were just barely able to be rescued by one of their other shuttles. (The third of which also exploded.)
So, they reached the ship in the last guncutter. Leaving the NPCs with the craft, they made straight for the bridge. I changed a few things about Orden, Instead of the force field, he had a teleport/dodge ability that meant he just escaped after the first shot. The tech priest made a fantastic knowledge roll that allowed him to recognize the Halo Device for what it was. He said those 2 words, and you could see Trask salivate. They were all for fighting zombies all day long.. until the air started being vented and they realized the zombies might go down easy, but they were numerous and HURT when they hit.
Then they decide to retreat. Unfortunately on the way back to check on their remaining crew, they discovered the guncutter's occupants were now all warp puppets. About this time Erart showed up. They asked a few questions, and it looked for a time like they might try some sort of trick with their own Gellar Field, but ultimately decided to try turning the field back on in the Bounty's core. I changed the Cogitator to a text interface, which we had great fun with, as I typed out all of its responses. We were tickled by the equivalent of a log on being "who are you?" an the user if being the captain's name. They went through a series of clever exchanges before finally asking it to bring the Gellar Field up, and discovering it required a "safety protocol override reason code" to activate it in real space. They cleverly responded by asking it to list the reason codes.
So it obliged: "01- Test; 02- Preparing for Transition; 03- Warp Infestation" We all got a good laugh out of the fact it was totally appropriate to have 03 as a reason in 40k, and they gleefully punched it in. They did a few other clever things through the Core (including confirming Orden had returned to the Bridge), before Trask got the idea to see if the Explorator could just overload some of the delicate systems in the Bridge and get it off "his ship" from where they were. He gave it a try with a tech use roll. He failed, spent a fate point to re-roll.. and rolled a 99. Activating the ship's self destruct and frying the terminal. Uh oh.. looks like the mission parameters just changed! The Explorator was at least able to determine how long they had left.
The Missionary refused to leave the Bounty's survivors behind, and went to recover them even though he wasn't sure they could get out in time. Trask couldn't leave a man behind, so he went too. The other PC's made it back to their guncutter, killed a few warp puppets in the way, and waited anxiously to see if their captain would return. With about two minutes to spare, the Explorator suddenly asked "how far away do we need to get to avoid being caught in the blast?" A quick logic test indicated.. he needed to have left about 2 minutes ago! Saying a quick prayer for their comrades' souls.. they booked it out.
Meanwhile, Trask and the Missionary reached the survivors, and realized they could take the Bounty's guncutters off. (It had come up previously that the craft were still functional, the refugees just had nowhere to go with their low fuel supplies.) So they rushed everyone onto 2 ships (Trask piloting one and a refugee the other) and launched.
Meanwhile, the other PC's were rushing to escape the imminent explosion. Huge chunks of debris hurtled towards them from the blast. It wasn't a good night for Dom and he failed another piloting check. Just as they were about to be destroyed by a chunk of engine, a vehicular laser blast shattered the deadly object, and Trask's guncutter full of refugees flew into view through the dying blaze. "A bit late to the party aren't you?" he quipped over the vox.
And so none the more Profited, but at least alive.. they returned to their ship.
Surely Orden and the Worm couldn't have survived that explosion...