I've got a question for you guys.

Today I GM'd a game with seven players. We're all somewhat new to DH, 4 of us have played a few games before (And are experienced players of other RPGs), while 3 were completely new. It was going pretty well and everyone was having fun, but I have one player who tends to get argumentative. It wasn't a problem until he nearly got himself and another player killed (perhaps even the whole party).

The group was tasked with taking down a hive gang that had connections to heretical artifacts being smuggled into the city. The player in question (a psyker) and a Scum had gotten in close with a few members of the hive-gang and convinced them to talk to the gang leader and let them join. The gangers led these two to the gang hideout and found the leader. The rest of the party followed behind them and set up outside the hideout just in case. The hideout itself is an abandoned office building that's 4 stories tall.

When they entered they were led to the second floor. The first floor had 8 gang members milling about with various weapons, and the second had 9. One of the gang members talked to the leader, they went into another room. The Psyker overheard the leader berating the member, obviously not pleased about a low-level member recruiting random people off the streets and bringing them to their hideout. When he finished the ganger leaves sporting a new black eye and tries to usher the two out of the building.

I expected them to leave with no problem, but the psyker started causing problems. He immediately starts insulting the gang-leader (who is in another room) and the gang members just sitting around (who are armed). The Scum (Who's face was, admittedly, priceless) desperately tries to get the psyker to leave with him, but to no avail. As the psyker continues, the gangers start getting agitated and the psyker decides to make the wonderful decision of using wall-walk to "mess with them". After successfully using it, he hops on a wall. The gangers panic at the sight of witchery and attack. The scum starts asking me if he can burn a fate point to prevent the fight, which I reluctantly declined, as it was the psyker's decision to instigate it. At this point, the entire party starts offering to burn one, and trying to get the psyker to burn one. The psyker stubbornly refuses, stating that "We can take 'em", and refuses to listen to reason that two people armed only with pistols and other concealable weapons have a slim chance against 9 guys packing shotguns and autoguns. He says that the team outside the building will run in to help (they have microbeads and were listening to the whole exchange), but then doesn't realize that it'll take a while for 5 people to go through 8 and get to their floor.

After roughly 5 minutes of shouting, the pskyer finally relented and burned his fate point, and the Emperor pressed rewind.

After that lengthy explanation, my question is this. Should I have let them "take back" his mistake?

If it was just the psyker's ass in the fire, I would've let him die. But the fact that he was dragging the Scum player down with him, and relying on the rest of the party to fight 17+ gangers (not counting the guys on the third and fourth floors) to save him made me really hesitant to let it happen.

Should I have just let it happen as it happened?

The thing about a "Team" is that your are part of it, no matter what happens.

If the psyker-player would have noticed how bad things are after EVERYBODY tells him (by offering burned fate points) that this was a STUPID idea, I might say "okay, he is new to the stuff and his pc would have been smarter them him" and allow it.

But in this case, I say "get the party started". This would have resulted in a psyker and a scum spending a fate point (turning dead to "simply out and left for dead on the floor") while the rest of them would have had an extended fight with the whole gang. But the pskyer player would have learned his lesson ("this will not do the trick").

I will bet that next session, the psyker will do something as stupid again.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Gregorius here. I have a similar "problem-player" who doesn't learn easily. If he acts stupidly, especially if it is not "in-character" for him to do so, then let him take the consequences. If that means the whole party gets wiped out, then maybe the other players will help you "reign him in" in the future. And, maybe he will learn to think before he acts ... maybe.

Was the psyker's player one of the ones who had some experience with other rpgs. I'm guessing he might be, because I can think of a number of rpgs where 2 PCs with small arms and 5 PCs outside would have no problem at all taking down 17+ minions and a single boss. If not and the players only expereince with "rpgs" is computer games than he would legitmately have no doubt whatsoever that they could fight it out no problem.

Frankly, it sounds like the player was A) bored and wanted something exciting to happen and B) unaware of how difficult and dangerous combat in Dark Heresy is.

I would suggest a couple of things. First, give the player back his Fate Point because I don't think this was entirely his fault and he shouldn't be "punished" for it. Second, as soon as you possibly can, give him the combat scenario he so obviously wants... albeit in more survivable circumstances. This should give the player the excitment he craves and the experience with the realities of Dark Heresy combat which he clearly needs. Finally, talk to the players about their expectations from the game. Do they want a combat heavy game? I think you should find out.

BTW, sounds like a great scenario and I am totally envious of you. Keep having fun.

Just as an aside: There would have been a way out if the scum and the other players were cold-blooded enough - the scum fires at the psyker (preferably trying to miss him), not having known his "buddy" was a witch and thus demonstrating his loyalty to the gang. The psyker hopefully retains the common sense to get out of the way as fast as possible. Wall Walking, See Me Not and other visibility/movement powers should help with that.

I've been thinking about this some more and I think, from a certain point of view, your "problem player" had it right.

Think of the situation from the standpoint of your standard action movie: Two of our heroes have successfully inflitrated the gangs hide out. The rest of the team are waiting outside with guns, while listening in on the hidden radios. Our heroes have just confirmed that the villian is in the next room (and the progression of the plot depends on questioning said villian).

What happens next?

Of course, our heroes draw guns, take out the guards, kick in the door and grab the bad guy while the rest of team comes crashing in, guns blazing. Under the cover of said blazing guns, our heroes make their escape, bad guy in tow, and question him back at their HQ. Alternatively, the blazing guns take out all the goons and they can interrogate the villian there in the smoking remains of his hide out. Either way, victory for the good guys and on to the next piece of the puzzle.

If he was going into the scenario with this expection, then your "problem players" actions make perfect sense... trying to force the situation to follow this model and when it doesn't just doing something off the wall (or on the wall as the case may be) out of sheer frustration and mischif. It's you and the rest of the party who were acting totally wrong because you weren't following the script.

Not that I'm saying you were wrong. After all, if this is a drama, horror or even a gritty film noir and not an action movie at all, then your actions are right. I'm just saying, maybe he wasn't wrong either... if he was in an action movie.

Maybe you all need to sit down and agree on what kind of "movie" you're in.

I agree that this scenario sounds like it was the result of miscommunication. The scenario, and particularly the point at which the psyker starts flaunting his powers like that, tell me that this player does not have a full understanding of the system or the background.

Explain things to him a little better, give him back his fate point, as this was a beginner's mistake, and make sure he understands that you won't do so again.

I know what you guys are saying, but the thing is, the psyker player is one of the experienced players. LuciusT was correct in that he plays DnD pretty regularly as well, and maybe expects to be able to waltz through combat. However, he's played a few games of DH with us and has himself been on the receiving end of a few critical woundings, and has even lost a character.

As for the desire to have something exciting happen, the team had already planned to raid the hideout with a team of arbites, but first the psyker and the scum had to make sure the gang leader would be there when it happened. When they overheard the leader shouting, he says that he'll be back later on in the week, thus giving the players a time to commit the raid.

Maybe his overconfidence is my fault though. I'm really hesitant to kill off characters, and it's hard for me to bring myself to really stack the odds against the players.

well the old saying is every group has one...

and personally Im a supporter of no take backs, the situation as it developed was still technically winnable by the players though completely dependant on some lucky die rolls and quick thinking, hell its one of the situations where blather actually becomes quite useful,
to be honest the odds were against them, which is precisely why it would of been awesome if they had won.

but to be frank it does look like a break down in player communication which is entirely not the gms fault, itll take sometime for everyone to be working on the same page..
Some advice for you, you should never be afraid to kill a character (they have fate points and if they don't, as long as its entertaining and memorable) but while staying true to the setting they always deserve a 'chance' , situations should very rarely be hopeless and challenging encounters are often the most memorable and rewarding part of the game, the threat of death should always be there, it adds excitement and risk to the game, if theres never any risk of losing what do you have?
then again I have to admit sometimes the players fail to meet the challenge and they fall short, I've had a couple of sessions one being an end campaign finale where player communication and cohesion has broke down and the end result has been pretty disappointing to be honest (hence I don't run SLA anymore) but nevertheless always stick to your guns, perhaps a player body count is required perhaps not but if they meet the challenge theres a sense of actual accomplishment.

anyway what Im saying its fine to be slightly hesitant to kill off characters, but don't be afraid to do it when its required.

Reverend Hobo said:

I know just how you feel. However, it's one of things I like about Dark Heresy. Fate Points give you a great "get out of death free" card, so you can stack the odds against players and even "kill" the characters without it having to be entirely final. Painful and cause of cybernetic replacement parts, but not final. So, I say if they player seems determined to get his character shot, go ahead and shoot him. He can always burn a fate point to survive.

That said, if his antics mess up the adventure such it detracts from the other players enjoyment of the game, then everyone needs to talk to this player about his attitude. Ultimately, we're not at your gaming table. You have to decide if this is a just a case of a player who wants more action out of the game or someone who is geninuely being disruptive.

The more I've thought about it, the more I feel I should've let it happen.

I didn't really factor in that even if one of the group members got killed by his poor decision, they all have fate points to fall back on.

And now I feel I should've let him put everyone in danger, and let the other players take care of him. Although, there's no guarantee that would've done anything. This player has always been a bit of a hassle to deal with. He argues with me whenever something doesn't go exactly his way, one example being when the group met up with an arms-dealer that would sell them weapons and ammo. He wanted a melee attachment for his shotgun, and the dealer gave the outlandish price of... 15 thrones. He tried haggling, which wasn't a problem, to no avail. He then tried intimidating him. I told him to put a -30 on his check and he started complaining and asking why the experienced arms dealer that deals on a daily basis with surly gangers and other undesirables would be difficult to be intimidated. When I eventually had to throw down the "I'm the GM, shut the hell up" card, he pouted for the next 10 minutes.

He also acts like he's entitled to things. At the beginning of this session, he was 100 xp away from a major psychic power and asked me if he could have it so he could get his power. I told him no, because he hadn't done anything. He then asked me every 30 minutes for the entirety of the session. He later asked me if he could change one of his minor psychic powers to a different one. When I told him no, the game already started, he pouted.

I wouldn't have done the do-over, not when it's the fault of one character's actions. I would have made them fight it out. They always have the option to run/fall back to a better position - and if the psyker wants to try and fight the whole gang alone, let him! His choice, his consequences.

The only time I'd allow a do-over is in a situation that you've set up where the only two results are " They all win " and " They all die ". A few sessions ago I had my players arrested and put through a Kangaroo Court on a Forge World where they were sentenced to death. They were stuck in a room that was a giant machine (a ' Defoliator '), and it was going to reduce them to composite atoms, and the door and walls were shielded. The only thing in the room other than themselves was a single computer terminal. I used the sand-timer from Space Hulk to give them a count-down (should'a seen 'em panic when I put it on the table and went ' Go. ') As they couldn't use force to get out, they had to use their brains.

The computer terminal in the room held no control functions, and was more of a monitoring and data-storage terminal, but at the same time it was networked to the entire Forge World. The Tech-Priest in the group figured out that he had to use the Intrusion Spirit he had (gathered as evidence when they thought they were coming for a Q&A with the Forge World Magos - they didn't know they'd be arrested), and with the Intrusion Spirit break the machine. It was a moral choice for him - go against all he believes and use this piece of Heretek, or sit and die. In the end he used it, and the Intrusion Spirit ravaged the entire Forge World, causing the near-death of the world. He gained a few Insanity Points for that.

But, had the timer run out and they'd all been killed by the Defoliator, that would kinda ruin the campaign, so I would have had them all burn a Fate Point, and then re-start the timer. And rinse/repeat until they either got it right, or ran out of Fate Points. As it turns out, they worked out it, and escaped without 5-10 seconds to spare.

BYE

I myself never allow "ops, lets pretend that didn't happen" or "rewind, play again" except in the very rare situation where due to remembering things wrong something impossible happens (like, player blowing up a melta-bomb and another pointing out that the said melta-bomb was left somewhere else in previous scene). If you jump into the deep end of the pool you can't use fate point to take back the jump. You can use fatepoints to mitigate the consequencies.

A good example is the scene in The Awakening (my current campaign) where four team members decide to go hunt down three daemons inside chaos-infested, ruined city... They should have known that no matter what they do the daemons know the place better and are likely to draw them into an ambush. They should have known that without their Untouchable assassin with them the daemons will be a whole lot tougher to kill. They should have known that without any backup near a few failed WP saves against Slaaneshi daemons could easily cost them lives.

What none of us knew that it would turn out to be one of the most memorable combats in the whole campaign so far. Yes, they were in the brink of doom. Yes, they had to burn fate to survive. But the feeling around the table when everyone (including me) me laughing and cheering our cleric for his ridiculous luck when he dodged daemon attacks round after round, making all his WP saves and basically fighting off two daemons for what felt like eternity armed with just a pistol was well worth it... As was the heroic sacrifice of the guardsman who, wrestling with a daemon, asked if he could detonate the krak grenade between himself and the daemon. Yes, you can... you'll probably have to burn fatepoint to survive it, though.

What about in situations where everyone dies?

BYE

Thats the kind of character that the party should've put down themselves. There aren't enough fate points in the world to save him from my Guardmans plasma pistol againest his head, if he managed to survive the encounter to begin with. Does that cause interparty strife? Sure, from time to time, but do you really need a player like that in your group? it sounds like he wants to be playing D&D a lot more than he wants to play DH and, while i play and enjoy both, they are very different games with very different play styles. Apparently he's as yet to figure this out. I just feel bad for the Scum player who went in with someone he thought he should be able to count on and would've ended up burning a fate point for something that was clearly not his fault.

I've had a similar trouble-rouser in a PC party. Guess what, he was a psyker too. I think they do something to their brains on those Black Ships.

Somewhat mentally unstable to begin with (bullying civilians, burning adeptus medicae alive inside a WC, that sort of things), one session he just went off the hinge and began levelling a tropical island, killing one party member with his own hands, slaughtering nearly a hundred locals (plot-related contact included) and ultimately scorching the whole place down. The cause for the conflict was trivial: he had some minor out-of-character argument with party's cleric (yes, it was that player who got killed) about how best to use psyker powers.

(note to himself: NEVER leave your players alone for 3 minutes to fetch a cup of water, send some of them monkeys to bring one instead)

Anyway, when the dust settled, the island was gone, investigation failed, and surviving PCs fleeing in terror... Mind you, they all had a good fun and not at all complained about it, but the campaign was about to come to a halt due to their antics (and, trust me, it was not the first Psyker - Cleric incident). So, instead of accepting the state of things, I reminded them they just experienced "reality erosion" event during their warp travel (we use the RT warp travel encounters), and so all that transpired was actually not a reality, but a result of some daemonic trickery, and they can still continue with their investigation. However, I simply couldn't let them get out unscathed and encouraged to mess around in the future. SO, psyker got his 2d10 insanity points, and both he and cleric found themselves to be soul-bound. In game terms, it meant from this point forward they shared physical damage, insanity and corruption points equally. The next time psyker started freaking around, cleric threatened to kick himself in the head with a hammer, knocking psyker (as a physically weaker PC) out. You know, it worked... Of course, now psyker is having his sweet revenge for all this bossing around: he purchased a few talents that provide a resistance to corruption points, and is now stuffing once-pious cleric with Chaos taint, while remaining pure and sane himself.

So, my point is: let them fool around as long as it doesn't kills the adventure. And even if it somehow does - you're the GM and you write the rules. Come up with a solution that will keep in game, but (gently) penalized. I.e., you can say something like that: "ok, the psyker starts fooling around. Gangsters are REALLY upset and they come for him in great numbers. Scum gets aways in the confusion, but the psyker himself is captured (yes, he can roll 2d10 to see how many gangsters he killed) and is about to be sold to slavers. Dear players, if you want to prevent that, you must first track him down..."

Psyker gets his "exciting adventure", nobody burns a fate point, and the adventure takes a new turn (those dealing in psyker slaves are bound to be heretics; perhaps they're even the same ones the acolytes are hunting for in the first place).

Well, I talked to the pskyer player and I think it's been resolved.

He knows a little about the 40k universe, but most of his knowledge was based around the warzones and the different races. He didn't really know much about average civilian life in the imperium.

What he thought was that psykers were like mages in DnD, in that they inspire awe and mystery. I explained that psykers are highly distrusted and that the average citizen has had it beaten in their head since birth that the witch is something to be feared and hunted. He said he understood, and I think he'll restrict his power usage to combat and moments where he really needs it.

I can't guarantee that he'll become any less argumentative when things don't go his way, but I got a recording of a crying baby to play whenever he starts complaining.

Error. Ignore this. Sorry.

H.B.M.C. said:

((Assuming H.B.M.C aimed this question for me))

It depends. Generally I feel that there are only a few situations where everyone dies unless GM purposefully wants to kill everyone off. Even if Acolytes walk into an ambush set up by 20 heavily-armed cultists and the odds are heavily stacked against them there is usually a way for them to run off with few casualties unless the acolytes decide to purposefully avoid retreating and pretty much force themselves into a last stand situation. If it really turns out to be like that, then it isn't the result of a single mistake or even a chain of mistakes. It is their decision not to run and live to fight another day, but to die taking as many as they can with them. Can't argue with that.

My playstyle is usually centered around the fact that since I, as a GM, am basically the eyes, ears and senses of the characters it is my responsibility to describe the situation as accurately as possible. It is players responsibility to make the decisions. Sometimes this involves a bit of conversation on possible options. I'll give the "acolytes-go-a-huntin'-daemons" example:

The acolytes did walk into an ambush, but it was not like "roll awareness... fail... okay, roll initiative", it really went like this

• The acolyte tracking daemons failed his tracking test and realized he had lost their track. I made everyone roll awareness to realize that the tracks led into tighter, darker ruins where they would be unlikely to notice the daemons untill the daemons were close.
• Players realized that as long as they couldn't follow clear tracks they were likely to walk into an ambush, but decided to go ahead, just more carefull. I described the options: "The general direction of the tracks before you lost them lead towards a nearby abandoned ruin of a three storey house. The daemons might be inside the house or they might have just passed through it... You can't really know. You can enter the house by any of the doors or by the large blast-hole in the wall. The inside is dark and you can't really make out any detail there, but the roof looks open and judging by the size of the house there is probably only one stairway leading up to the roof. Around the house there are a few tall buildings where you could see on the roof if you want to."
• The players decided to go ahead and investigate the house. Their plan was to sneak inside from the blast-hole, find the stairway and climb to the roof. They concluded that once on the roof they could choose to defend the roof from pretty much all directions and see if there was any movement of daemons in nearby houses. They could then set up a good base of fire (they were carrying one heavy stubber disassembled) and think they plan again or even call for the shuttle evac.
• In the end the daemons weren't stupid either, so they were right there in the first floor, trying to prevent acolytes from getting on the roof and they launched ambush.
• The players immeadeatly responded by calling for shuttle evac. They also decided to try to push through the daemons to the roof and castle up there to wait for evac. This plan changed when one of them was so seriously hurt that he couldn't walk. They decided that since they could not carry him they would make a stand and wait for the shuttle, once the shuttle came close they would basically throw themselves flat and call it to lascannon the house.
• At this point I set a six sided dice on the table, indicating they had six turns untill the shuttle was within line of sight of the house. I also informed them that there was two doors, two blast holes and the stairway leading out of the room... With five escape routes and three daemons it was likely that one or two of them could make a run for it. They decided to try their luck at surviving the six turns and hell... What could I say to that anymore?

I love the use of props on the table to get the players gripping the edges of their seats.

Sand timer - must go purchase one of these as soon as possible.

Dice countdowns - have done similar before.

I once had a situation where i was the GM and my players were piloting a small transport ship whilst undercover as smugglers to investigate a lead on an out of the way planet. Having been dropped in system they slow-boated to the planet and set down, only to be accosted by what could only be described as mud covered mutants.

The PC ship had chains thrown around it and was dragged through a swamp into a large hangar structure.

Time skip a little and the players have broken out and are investigating the structure they are now inside, the Techpriest constantly trying to hack terminals and pick locks. Now i'll admit i had far too many players in that game, but the lone techpriest (well we had another one, but that one didn't have any technical skills for some odd reason) was demanding me as GM to constantly oversee his rolls and wouldn't roll extended tests so i could focus on others.

If i had had the prop i would have just slammed an hsand timer down on the desk and said "You have until the sands run out to get 10 successes on an extended Tech Use test, at -20 difficulty." Alas, twas not meant to be and the campaign fell apart soon after.

Somehow, i still had a lot of players saying they really enjoyed it so i may have to start it up again, but i'm currently PCing in someone elses game. A game that has been running every thursday for 8 months. Ascension time soon!

The thing about RPG is that you and your players are building a story. The characters in the story aren't confined to a script. So really there is no right or wrong. Sure there is clever and stupid, but some things that seem clever are stupid in hindsight, and vice versa. The way I see it a player is the only person in charge of their character and if they want to do something crazy or stupid then that is up to them. It is up to you as a GM to accomodate it. If the guy tries to take on an army all by himself and he gets killed doing it then that is one fate point down and a 'left for dead' character being thrown out with the rubbish.

In this case it sounds like you were in on the plan. You knew what your players were planning and you were thrown when the plan changed, whereas really all you need to do is play the NPCs and respond to what happens. He changes the plan. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't.

Significantly, although your players can act unexpectedly, so can you. Okay so the psyker goes bananas and starts attacking the gangers. That doesn't mean you have to kill the scum character. Take him captive, hose down the psyker and have the gangers set up a hostage situation.

But there is a line and some players cross it. RPG is a group experience and if one player is taking over, hogging the limelight all the time and spoiling it for everyone then you need to have a word with him. Some people don't get RPG, no matter how many times they play. They get a bad roll-up and suddenly their character is picking fights with space marines to try to get himself killed. Maybe the next roll-up will be better. If having a word doesn't work then you need to think about who you really want in the group. Controlling character entry is a part of this. When someones character bites the dust (as this guys character soon enough will, by the look of it) don't let him bring a replacement right in. Let him cool his boots for a few sessions until an 'appropriate moment'. Getting your character killed is not so much fun then.

And finally, seven players! He probably had itchy feet. The more players you have the slower the pace of the game and the less screen-time any one person gets. 5 is my limit and I prefer less. You would be better off running two groups with a GM and 3 players apiece and then swapping players afterwards.

Only 7 players? My personal GM record is 12 for a game of Dark Heresy, but it only last 3 sessions to be honest.

That said, our gaming club's long running campaign ( 120 hours or so now) has gone from an intial 5 to, at it's height about 9 players, and back down to 7 now. It does all depend on the GM though - if you are fine with large scale mechanics and maths, bigger games can be fine. Conversely if you prefer to focus on narrative and character development then 3 to 5 players is usually ideal.

We had another game monday and it went pretty well. After our talk about how psykers are received by the general populace, my player cut way back on the superfluous power use.

I also managed to get over my coddling a bit and had 3 people burn fate points and few spend some. Given, one of the burned points was from the overzealous psyker using firestorm and misjudging just how close he was to the daemonette he casted it on, but I'm glad I finally managed to make combat a life-threatening thing.

The scum also took it upon himself to be our psyker's choke-chain and doesn't hesitate to pull a gun whenever there's some witchin' about.

Reverend Hobo said:

Glad to hear you got it sorted. Also, there's nothing quite as bonding as a group of Acolytes suddenly doubting the sense of having a psyker around them, especially if it's a latent psyker or, worse, a character that has begun to dabble in sorcery.