We are familiar with the use of Call of Cthulhu or "General Horror" as the usual narrative model for DH. What are some other games which might work as well. I find my players prefer a more active run and gun style of play, so early on, I switched to a more dramatic or heroic mode for the game. I realized that this is not what was intended, but it does work for my group. We retain the Inquisitor/Acolyte pattern, however.

I was looking over my Shadowrun stuff, and it occurs to me that this is also a good model. Each mission is kicked off with a patron who needs something done, and the players are the ones to do it. The patron in question might occasionally be an Inquisitor, but could just as often be a trader captain, noble or some other person with responsibility that needs work done without getting his own mechadendrites dirty.

I'm not sure what one would call this variant... Shadow Heresy or Dark Run or something... Thoughts?

40A Team?

'I love it when a plan comes together...'

Jephkay said:

I tend to approach with a Dark City/City of Lost Children/Bladerunner kind of theme, with some Jack Vance thrown in for fun. I can be almost Burton-esque in the imagery I try to invoke. To translate for those who haven't seen half those movies - I shoot for something dark and disturbingly bizarre with a bit of wit and weirdness for good measure.

I feel like there is definitely a large chunk of Shadowrun that could be applicable to DH (Shadowrun was my first RPG love, back in 1994, and you can use things like: Working for mysterious benefactors, being double crossed by your employers, creating contact networks to use for information, diverse teams of individuals who may or may not know eachother but must work together), but World of Darkness themes (the unseen threat, investigative horror, moral gray areas) and atmospheres (dark places, creepy people, haunted things, and ancient power) also apply, and if you want to use video games as well, there is a certain amount of Doom (alone against an un-ending horde of who knows what from who knows where, terrified of the dark, unsure what's around the corner, and on a path straight to hell) and Fallout (violence, ignorance, desperation and hopelessness prevail, with a well armed, high technology minority enforcing their beliefs while rampaging mutants ravage the populous) present as well.

Jephkay said:

Hmm. Tricky one. Dark Heresy is very heavily themed so taking it out of that is problematic.

Perhaps a sort of Cold War spy thriller style (James Bond, or much better Jason Bourne) might work quite well. Lots of paranoia and double dealing, with political overtones...

Another possible style might be 'film noir', perhaps drawing on the 'black and white' (literally and figuratively) inspirations of the 1940's & 1950's genre (or possibly its modern inheritors - although of course defining film noir is a task in itself...)

Heading out on a limb, perhaps the dark humour, style and tone of something like Judge Dredd (and many other 2000AD titles), might be an interesting approach.

Action. At the heart of 40k, it could be brought into Dark Heresy to run games akin to, well, < insert favourite action movie here >. Die Hard? Heat? Resident Evil?... The key here i think would be ditching the 'grim horror' baggage and going for a full on, non-stop, Hollywood (or Hong Kong) style action-fest. Actually, the whole 'martial arts action' genre might be a quite interesting take...

Before there were "official" Dark Heresy rules, my friends and I used the Fuzion rpg system. It is flexible enough to cover any type of play or setting (someone should invent some sort of Generic Universal Role-Playing System to cover questions like these LOL!). Personally, I have always favored Dream Pod 9's Silhouette system because of its seemless transition between table top models and roleplaying. All and all, I am quite happy with the current rules but with a setting as rich and diverse as 40K, anything that works for you and your group is fair game. RIFTS certainly deserves a nod if you favour a combat based campaign. I forget who (forgive me) but I once read that a fellow poster of ours prefers the d20 Modern Rules. My favorite pre-DH rules 40K homebrew game used the Action Table Rules from the GAMMA WORLD 3rd edition boxed set (pioneered in the Marvel Super Heroes game if I'm not mistaken). If you have $5 to spend, you can get the PDF over at PAIZO's site. It would be worth the money just to see how their critical hit system works: conditions from sprained limbs to comas, infections, and delirium are covered.

At the same time, is this about the constraints of system or play modalities?

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Perhaps both, really. We played Inquisitor using the HERO System just prior to DH's release. And while I looked up one side and down the other, I never did find my GURPS Necromunda rules for you.

My HERO system conversion was only about uncovering ancient evils and blowing them up. It was short lived, and HERO is a very open system, I find that the constraints of DH help me keep a bit of a lid on my players.

I think there is mileage in ripping off white wolfs Vampire et al, the paystyle of which I've heard described as 'Superfriends with Fangs' or 'Lets all dress up and act petty!'

Hmm. Difficult to describe. Slike more of an emphasis on powerful characters and acting like assholes to lesser people.

Jephkay said:

No worries. I appreciate the time and effort that you took in trying to find them. Converting the 40k universe to GURPS isn't too hard, but getting the flavour right is a bit more challenging, especially when one wants to try and cater to many play modalities. And that damned style of writing—all flavour and hyperbole, but usually without saying anything... and everything. Argh!

In short, darned psykers. For some reason I find them the central part of any conversion of the 40k universe, and no system that I have seen – and I include Dark Heresy in this – has even gotten it quite right. Guess I should do what was done with Dark Heresy, or just go with what feels right at the time.

Erm, anyway, again thanks.

Jephkay said:

You see, I don't have a problem of selecting a narrative focus and going with it, but I do have one in having it selected for me. Which is just to say that a focused setting is not necessarily for everyone.

Kage

whisperer in the vault said:

Here, Here. Nice to know there're others who appreciate this system. I was actually thinking of using the more free form 'archtypes' utilised in Heavy Gear to replace the 'Career' system found in DH. Silhoutte is a very nice and light system, that really acomplishes alott of things very elegantly I think. And also as you stated handles a dip from P&P RPG to TT Minis very easily.

My Inquisitor HERO stuff is pretty much without narrative bias.