I'm going to be running a Dark Heresy campaign for the first time and wanted some feedback for the first mission. Here's what I have so far.

The acolytes are being sent to a planet to investigate the death of the imperial commanders heir. He was killed in the basement of the commander's palace in what appears to be a chaos ritual where he was the sacrifice. What the acolytes do not know is that the heir was the leader of chaos cult and was murdered by his younger brother who is part of a rival chaos cult. The murders left evidence to implicate the heir's cult in the killing. Both cults have members filling key roles in the planet's administration and it will be the acolytes task to uncover and eliminate both cults.

The current ideas I have are that the acolytes arrive on the planet and are assisted by a member of the rival cult who controls part of the local enforcers. The rival cult uses the acolytes to eliminate members of the former heir's cult and give them support by allowing them use of enforcer kill teams. The twist comes when one way or another the acolytes find evidence leading them to a member of the rival cult. The enforcer cultists send kill teams loyal to them with the acolytes to "assist" them but actually leading them to an ambush. After the acolytes storm into the building with the cult member they find themselves surrounded when the enforcers "backing them up" betray them. The goal here is to get the acolytes captured where they will be resqued by members of the heir's cult. The cult offers to help the acolytes eliminate the rival cult if they are allowed to escape afterwards

Tell me what you think. What I'm stuck on is the making of actual adventures for the acolytes that go along with this idea. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like you have an interesting and twisted plot.

My advice:

Don't plan out to much action. Design the major NPCs, their personalities, motives, goals and current plans. Set them in motion. Introduce the PCs and let them take whatever action they see fit. The results of the PCs actions for the NPCs to adjust their plans or otherwise respond according to their personalities, motives, goals and current plans.

Also, never plan any adventure that includes the concept "at the end of this fight, the PCs get captured." If the PCs win the fight or otherwise outmaneuver you, your plan is in shambles. Just let things happen the way they happen.

Finally, don't make things too confusing. I've been known to come up with some truely complex and twisted plots which my players simply could not unravel. They couldn't figure out or didn't find the clues I left for them and the campaign stalled. Sometimes, blindingly obvious works.

Thanks for the advice. I do like planning out my campaigns in detail. I've already started outlining which organizations and people support each cult. I like giving players lots of freedom so try to come up with a fairly complete background beforehand. I'll use your advice a limit planned adventure and focus on using the cast of characters to further the story.

Maybe when you get near the point where you want the pc's captured have the NPC arbite boss suggest his kill team take snareguns/webbers/mancatchers etc to 'capture' suspects for interrogation rather than killing them all the time. I'm sure they will agree and will allow you to capture them more easily.

Planning intricate details, plots, schemes, details, relationship flowcharts and so on are all GREAT!

Scripting too far in advance is an exercise in frustration, since your players WILL throw you major curves and do the unexpected at... well, unexpected times.

I tend to provide alot of details and descriptions to start things off, some scripted conversations and events and so on. After that I rely more on "winging it" within a set framework of the adventure. I will have a list of events that WILL happen regardless of player interaction, a separate list of events that will happen if player actions cause certain "trigger events" and sometimes a few semi-random encounters waiting at the ready to set scenes and moods, break tension at key moments or otherwise add some fun game-world "window dressing".

I'm thinking create the cast of characters and a time line. The murder of the heir was the start of a plan to take over the planetary government. I can speed it up or slow it down depending on the actions of the players. I'd make sure that there is enough detail so I can wing it if they go to investigate an area that I didnt expect.

Mrpilkington said:

Time lines can be handy but I'd suggest you make more of a "node" system. Your players could very well skip a few steps so it helps if you have effective ways to transition between your scenes if your players don't follow that path. Also, creating multiple paths to lead to an event gives the players more freedom and allows you to adapt more to any curveballs they could throw you.