Hi there,

So I don't play the table top game, but I'm a huge fan of the 40K setting. That has lead me to pick up Deathwatch (I have most of the books released), Dark Heresy 2nd edition (I have all of the book released except the newest one. Plan on getting it soon), Only War (I have the main book and the Enemies of the Imperium book), and Black Crusade (I have everything released.)

I have yet to play or GM any of these books and I'm hoping to start GMing one some time this year. Currently I RPG in a D&D group that contains in addition to myself three veteran RPGers, two newbies, and a veteran game master. I play in this game, and I GMed several games a bunch of years back mostly Deadlands and Palladium Books stuff.

Of my group I'm the one with the strongest knowledge of the 40K setting. Our current D&D GM plays the 40K tabletop game with an Imperial Guard army, but doesn't have a huge knowledge of the fluff, and one of our veteran RPGers has some basic knowledge as well

All the members of my group have expressed interest in giving a 40K RPG a try, but my question for you guys. Is which one do you think would be a good place to start? I'm thinking Black Crusade because I have all the books, one of my players likes morally ambiguous and sometimes out and our villain stories, and I think my group would enjoy the chance to be bad guys after being heroes in D&D. I also think they would like the chance to play a mixed party of human and Space Marine characters.

So what do you think? Am I right? Is Black Crusade a good starting point? Or would I be better off easing them in via a different game like Dark Heresy or Only War?

Thanks for your time and thoughts,

DWR

Black Crusade is a perfectly reasonable starting point for 40K RPGs I love that the whole point is about playing an over-the-top supervillain, where you're not really concerned about some of the more depressing aspects of the setting because you are trying to break them/too crazy to care/not at the bottom of the pile. That said, some things to keep in mind:

• Psykers hit their apex in BC. Be prepared to work with any party psykers to make sure they're not overshadowing people, and in particular to scrutinize any psyker with a Warp Staff. (It lets you cast unfettered without risking Psychic Phenomena.)
• Pyromancy in Tome of Fate is terrible as-written. Just hotswap the pyromancy tree from DH2E and you'll do fine.
• As in any of the 40K RPGs, there's a significant variance in weaponry available. The most powerful ones, IMO, are lascannon/autocannon/power fist/force weapons/Clarion Cannon/Warp Staff/Necron weapons. If your players take any of those, be prepared to increase the challenge.
• In general, gear is very important. Not only can it make or break a PC's capabilities in and out of combat, but minions can also do crazy things with sufficient equipment.
• Marines are generalists, while humans are specialists. Marines start out tougher and stronger than humans, but most of their starting talents are devoted to a set of generic bonuses that don't let them branch out into a role nearly as quickly as humans can. (For instance, Marine psykers start out with Psy Rating 2; human psykers start out with more powers and Psy Rating 3.)
• As noted above, Marines start out tougher and more damaging in melee. Part of this is due to implants, and part of this is gear access. You'll also note that several weapons are different depending on whether they're intended for humans or Marines. Luckily, however, these issues generally smooth themselves out over time. Most of the cool Marine implants can be faked in some way or another by buying the proper cybernetics, and all of the Marine-specific gear is at best mid-tier. (See my comment about the most powerful weapons in the game - none are Marine-specific.)
• Be sure to work out ahead of time if you'll have PvP interactions (this is not limited to combat!) between PCs, and if so how much. The Ruinous Powers generally don't get along too well, and thus their followers don't either. (In the year-long campaign I ran, the only major instance of PvP was a massive betrayal which forced out the backstabbing PCs. Had the players not voted to proceed to the sequel campaign, the players who'd pulled the betrayal would instead have had the opportunity to make new characters. I'm also currently participating as a player in one game as a loyalist Marine; no one else really cares about his allegiance because he's perfectly fine with Chaos alliances in order to fight Tyranids.)
• Hereteks are basically Marines-lite as a result of better gear access. If you have a heretek in your party looking to grab Mechanicus Assimilation, work out how far they can go with it. (I ran a particularly wild game, and thus our party's Heretek got up to Machine 20. The character was tougher than a Chimera when naked, before she put on armor . This is most likely not normal.)
• As with Magic: the Gathering, the only point of Corruption that really matters is the last. Getting points in it does put you closer to either becoming a daemon prince or a chaos spawn, but BC's mutations are basically something your characters should be gunning for.
• Rituals can do some really weird stuff. In particular, the Rite of Fleshmoulding is crazy. And the Rite of Sundering needs some houseruling to make it usable but not devastating (Phenomena every round on all targets? Just one target?) - my group ended up using it as their Chaos Sauna.
• Work out with your group where the PCs will be operating. The Screaming Vortex works perfectly fine for this sort of thing, but it's sufficiently large to allow you to focus on specific subsections.

BC is indeed a very good system to start with and this is because it's relatively free of rules and stipulations. For example, Deathwatch, Dark Heresy and Only War involve the players having to closely comply or follow certain standards to a degree as they are the servants of the Emperors Inquisition and therefore it can be a limiter on player activities (moreso in DW where loyalist marines are supposed to uphold virtue than DH2/OW).

DW/DH/OW are also very much intended as mission or objective based in that you have a function to perform. For DW, it's usually the purging of Xenos, identifying and dealing with the threat to the Imperium using lethal force. Dark Heresy meanwhile, you are tasked with investigating the hidden dangers and hostiles. It's possible to not have this setup but it's not recommended and tends to not work as well...OW finally is pretty much a commissar telling you "Storm this ridgeline or I'll shoot you in the face with a bolt pistol".

Black Crusade has fewer of those stipulations inherent to its genre and can allow you a much greater level of player freedom to do whatever they like. That's not to say you don't have to go down the whole objectives route and that they may be in the services of a powerful Lord and that players have perhaps been given a goal such as "corrupt this world". How they do this though might be left open to interpretation and it's a much easier system to sandbox. Give Black Crusade players a world and you can genuinely tell them to go nuts and enjoy themselves doing whatever they desire.

Mechanically, BC is where the rules started to change for the better. A lot of the weapon damage die seemed to be optimised so no longer are you rolling 2D10 for each heavy bolter hit anywhere up to 10 times (20 dice rolls, sounds like a bloody Tau table top shooting phase) and its been cut down to reduce the number of die you needed to roll. Unnatural characteristics were improved from multiplier to additive, basically things just started to get simpler to understand and work with!

Awesome! Thank you so much for your replies and the helpful info!

Mechanically, BC is where the rules started to change for the better. A lot of the weapon damage die seemed to be optimised so no longer are you rolling 2D10 for each heavy bolter hit anywhere up to 10 times (20 dice rolls, sounds like a bloody Tau table top shooting phase) and its been cut down to reduce the number of die you needed to roll. Unnatural characteristics were improved from multiplier to additive, basically things just started to get simpler to understand and work with!

Things were also balanced out between single shot weapons and full auto, and swift attack/lightning attack simplified a lot.

Even if you want to play with Deathwatch marines, I'd advocate using the Black Crusade/Only War version of the rules.

I would recommend against M Grendel's idea of using the BC rules over Death watch ones if you do play death watch as they are meant to be titanic combatants striding like miniature titans over a battlefield like the fluff portrays , black crusade is a colder nastier realm were frankly i have watched a TPK session one

I would recommend against M Grendel's idea of using the BC rules over Death watch ones if you do play death watch as they are meant to be titanic combatants striding like miniature titans over a battlefield like the fluff portrays , black crusade is a colder nastier realm were frankly i have watched a TPK session one

Disagree, if everything is using the same rules it's all not as bad. Creatures just need to be rescaled so instead of a marine getting x2 Unnatural Strength/Toughness they instead get static +4. Creatures also get the same and they just need to be reduced from multipler to additive.

seem a lot of work to make every NPC and creature fit a different rule set black crusade is different and leave the rules alone for a first time 40k GM

I would recommend against M Grendel's idea of using the BC rules over Death watch ones if you do play death watch as they are meant to be titanic combatants striding like miniature titans over a battlefield like the fluff portrays , black crusade is a colder nastier realm were frankly i have watched a TPK session one

Isn't that principally a question of gear access, though? And even then BC still has its share of properly crazy materiel; the only major thing they're lacking is a decent set of vehicles.

As a long time GM from other systems, the thing that caught me a bit by surprise was just how short the shelf life of a BC character is. Mess up and you get corruption. Do great and also get corruption. The race to get your infamy goal before spawning is a unique dynamic. (my group had 26 sessions before having our first spawn.)

Don't forget though since the last book you can now play the game indefinitely as a Daemon Prince (assuming you make it).

Particularly devious players can also use other players as minions if they should fail and become Chaos spawn.

I do like the new line of games better than the old but we still stick to the rules of whatever line we happen to be playing for sake of ease. For instance I am thoroughly enjoying a Rogue Trader campaign I am playing in and none of us feel the need to modify the rules to the more current versions of the game.

For the OP if your players like a game where the only limit is your imagination and any crazy thing can happen I reckon they will love BC so give it a go and see how you go.

The other unique flavor of BC is that you're starting character is already a big deal with 20-30 infamy. It's not the typical lvl fighter who gets ordered to shovel the horse manure by the lvl 5 fighter who is a mere squire. Then end game of BS is how you are going to be permanently changing the galaxy.