Hi, new here, first post, so please be gentle. :-)

Anyway, I've been reading a few existing threads and I find the concerns about how much roleplay Deathwatch will allow for not allayed.

It's easy to claim that there will be lots of roleplaying opportunities but I'd like to hear some concrete examples how people think it will play out.

Being a veteran gamer I have some experience with similar situations, for example the Recon (Vietnam War) RPG. Very much geared towards combat and all but still, thanks to the draft, you had ordinary citizens coming from all kinds of different walks of life together (not to mention pacifists vs the psychotic). Space Marines in comparison seem to be somewhat one-dimensional .

What do Space Marines talk about while in transit? That little prostitute from that village on the last patrol? ;-) Probably not.

It seems as if, them being super-specialized, almost all of their talk will revolve around their work. Even my band of mercenaries in Twilight 2000 had quite a private life between jobs...

So I'd like to hear from those who claim that there will be more than enough role-playing opportunities and that it won't be just a more detailled, small-scale tabletop who they think it will actually play out on a lasting basis . Because when it comes down to demeanour, usually after the first session it's quite clear where everybody stands and how everybody ticks and then it tends to become stale quickly.

Perhaps it would be a good occasion for an FFG representative to make another sales pitch here because AFAICS this seems to be the main sticking point and I guess not just for me.

Alex

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=179&efcid=3&efidt=291377

As you can see, we went over it for quite a while

I posted about the rp possibilites here http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=179&efcid=3&efidt=349314

Like I said there, simply because it is a combat game, and players are very similar there is more opportunity for Player - Player interaction.

Specifically in the game I ran Brother Octavius took the lead at certain times, specifically when dealing with NPCs - he made a Vow on the dropship that "The Planetary Governor must be saved" and dealt very well on meeting the Governor gaining them easy access to the astropath.

He personally fended off Genestealers from getting to the Governor. In the follow-up OE, he ensured that the governor was with him at all times until he could be secured.

When it came to the Brood Lord, Brother Elyas forced the Brood lord from the rafters where he was annihlated by Brother Octavius (6 10's in a row via Fury), and they have argued over the validity of the kill ever since.

So much so, that despite successfully escaping the planet in OE, they are at odds over the tactics used at the Space dock.

It really comes down to the palyers in all honesty, and if they are fired up for the character, then the game will play really well.

I read all of that before starting this thread. In fact, the conversations were the foundation for my asking this. The claim that there will be enough role-playing opportunities on a lasting basis isn't convincing without some concrete examples of what people have in mind when they claim that.

And the "from the Haughty Prideful Glory knight to the humble chivalrous knight" thing is what tends to get somewhat stale quickly also. PCs can become fairly predictable fairly quickly.

Actually demeanors (both personal and chapter) as in final sanction go not deeper than the dispositions of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphelo Donatello in TMNT. Sure it's just an introductory advanture but...

I think it would have made sense for FFG to address this specific issue the most (not just which chapters are included and all) pre-release. And I don't see how how given a glimpse at it now could do any harm harm, given that the release date doesn't seem to be far off.

Did anyone else besides me notice that the Devastators description actually went on and on about the weaponry of the marines? Now that's what I call a bad omen . I know all these weapons and for those that don't, they should be able to read about it in the Gear section. Apparently not much to be said about Devastators otherwise. Not a good sign regarding roleplay.

Alex

ak-73 said:

The chapters philosophies, the Imperium itself. 40k is a dark world, never let the player assume anything. It's going to well, they work together all the time? make one a mutant and see them tear each other appart to know what to do (keep him or kill him).

This game will either be Rp intensive or not at all UIMO. it will dpend on the players and the GM

crisaron said:

I've been thinking about it and to say that SM are one-dimensional is too far-fetched. But being superman with having few human faults makes them less dimensional than your average PC. And that affects of course the roleplay.

I tthink it requires more effort to squeeze meaningful roleplay out of it because the SM themselves must be fairly specialist if not single-minded people; that comes with the trade.

Good luck with this thread, ak-73.

Kage

I think 1st off, yo have to flesh your world very well.

- Describe the serf or servitors

- build initial bounds between some team members.

- Explain in details the twist and turn of the Imperium, this impossibly gigantic Empire as it's dark side and it's darker side.

- Do some research on the daily task of a Space Marine and then add the complication them beign to far away from their chapter. Explain the feeling of lost they should have and the bound and hate they should create with the deathwatch members. Not all Space marines are as regular in their routine and some may loose their structure all together becoming complasant or even openly rebellious because they had their eyes open to wide to the ugly truth of the Imperium.

- Plain the double side of the medal all the time. There should always be a choice and the choice should not always be to save the innocent. but evacuate only the evil governor before the exterminatus. While the Sm rescue him they find out he is a monster that tortures and does all kind of despicable but still is within "Imperial Creed" (i.e. xeno slaves, willing fanatics, etc). They have to protect someone they may not like and this could create tension within the team.

- Have them consider doing "independent" intervention, to then have a simpatetical radical inquisitor help them and thank them for doing the "right" thing. The lure of corruption is never far or was it the good thing to do.

- Remember SM may be more then humans but they still have a human psychi burried deep under their indoctrination. Sometimes after too long left on their own they will revert back to their human side a bit or momentarily loose it.

- have a long time seen battle brother debark from a player's chapter, asking for is return to help stop corruption within a chapter while keeping it undercover. Will the kill team help? Call for an Inquisitor? Kill the Sm wanting to cover up the corruption?

crisaron said:

Analoguous situations can also be created for Acolytes in Dark Heresy. However love affairs, undercover operations, etc, etc cannot be roleplayed for SM.

Roleplaying-wise the role of SM seems to be more limited and demeanours carry the danger of becoming cheap cliches quickly.

Btw, another bad omen in Final Sanction was the Space Marines all having more or less the same stats. Where's the retarded/punch-drunk SM? Or the SM with Fellowship 20?

Because of the limitations on character of SMs it seems to me that roleplaying should be possible but much more challenging for the players and the GM.

I wonder why FFG hasn't devoted to put some time to lift all concerns wrt that. Without this issue, Deathwatch might be bought blindly. With the concern lingering a more critical look will have to be cast on the rulebook after release. I assume that just doesn't go for me.

Alex

Interesting thread. I personally think it would theoretically be possible to have a (true) rpg based around a squad of space marines ... but it is always going to be a difficult thing to do for the reasons AK has stated.

Before there were really any DDs here, Dark Reign had a thread about how it might be done well, and several people pitched the idea that having an essential internal struggle going on in each marine's psyche between his inate (though very suppressed) humanity and his marine training and conditioning might make for an interesting dynamic. The idea was that there might be some kind of sliding scale, and if you go too far one way or the other it can start affecting your marine's actions. Done well I think that could have worked.

It's a personal point, but I worry that the very structure of the DW, rather than encouraging variety, will probably just encourage people to 'play their Chapter'. If every marine could theoretically be from the same Chapter I think that would have had to be addressed and stopped.

As to how to make DW a fully rounded rpg in practise ... until I see it I can't say for sure, but I suspect some mechanism that adds greater potential variety to marines beyond one or two 'demeanours and traits' might help. A detailed setting is also as essential here as in any other rpg, the more there is to interact with in the way of setting and npcs the better. No more 'unremarkable agriworlds' (as in the sample), the more colour, non-combat challenges, interesting people and places, the more time that won't be spent making repetitive combat rolls.

However, I do believe this is a tough call and most GMs will probably drift into repetitive combat missions pretty quick, which probably won't last long campaign wise.

Btw AK, nice to see a fellow Recon and Twilight 2000 hand. You're right, those games were nowhere near as tricky in real terms to make rounded, as the pcs were normal human beings, they had recognisable human emotions, desires, instincts (self-preservation or cowardice for example), relationships, etc etc. Done wrong playing a marine in contrast could be like playing the Twilight 2000 party's hummer.

ak-73 said:

I couldn't resist.

There have been several Designer's Diaries touching upon the roleplaying potential of Space Marines. Furthermore, the contributors to this forum have also put forward a substantial number of words on how this is the case. One point that was made that might be appropriate, though I forget who originally said it, is that "roleplaying" doesn't only encompass acting, but also the game itself. Thus, making tactical decisions in the mind-set of the character, planning the next stage of the "quest," or whatever, are as much roleplaying as the thespian engaged in fully method-acted oration.

With that said I was disappointed with Final Sanction because it selected not to emphasise the non-combat parts of the game. It has been argued, however, that it was meant to illustrate the general combat game mechanics and not the fine detailed information that would be more readily part of a campaign than a "one shot" demo adventure. You'll have to make up your own mind as to where you fall with those particularly points.

One thing that should be mentioned, while Kage-verse Marines are a bit more "cloned" (in the personality sense) than I would imagine the Deathwatch Marines are going to be, much of the literature on Space Marines focuses on how, more or less, they have the same kind of foibles as regular humans. Not saying that I agree with it, but if you check out things like the Horus Heresy novels, rarely do you come away with the impression that they are "inhuman" or some such.

It will be interesting to see how the final product handles this side of playing a Space Marine. Only a couple of months to go now... I'm tempted to, once I get hold of this, do a "First Blush Review" of the product over at Dark Reign, something that I was not tempted to do with the previous systems in the franchise.

Adam France said >>>

Before there were really any DDs here, Dark Reign had a thread about how it might be done well, and several people pitched the idea that having an essential internal struggle going on in each marine's psyche between his inate (though very suppressed) humanity and his marine training and conditioning might make for an interesting dynamic.

The "Shameless Speculation: Deathwatch" thread? If so, aye. There were some definite interesting perspectives in there that offered to bridge the gap between the "psychopathic" and "noble knight" interpretation of the Marines. Or, at least, I felt so. I must admit, though, the "Humanity" scale ala WoD or the "Trait" scheme from Pendragon were not my most favoured method of representing Marine psychology, but as always YMMV, so take with a pinch (or mountain) of salt.

Adam France said >>>

It's a personal point, but I worry that the very structure of the DW, rather than encouraging variety, will probably just encourage people to 'play their Chapter'. If every marine could theoretically be from the same Chapter I think that would have had to be addressed and stopped.

Well, the Chapter is going to be one of the most significant contributors to the psychology and experiences of the Space Marine in question. Perhaps one of the forum-members that ran a larger group through the Final Sanction demo adventure would be willing to offer some perspectives on how two Marines from the same Chapter worked out from both a mechanical and a roleplaying side. I'm guessing that while the mechanics might have been very similar given the limited information in the demo, that the roleplaying experience would have varied so... Not sure. Again, I would have to see how they handled it in the final game.

Adam France said >>>

As to how to make DW a fully rounded rpg in practise ... until I see it I can't say for sure, but I suspect some mechanism that adds greater potential variety to marines beyond one or two 'demeanours and traits' might help.

I'm personally looking forward to any innovation in terms of "rewards" for playing, be it a combination of experience to buff your skills/abilities, glory/honour (ala Pendragon , again), and how all of that relates together. Should be interesting to see.

Adam France said >>>

However, I do believe this is a tough call and most GMs will probably drift into repetitive combat missions pretty quick, which probably won't last long campaign wise.

On the bright side, I'm fairly sure that you'll see some decent advice articles cropping up fairly quickly on this forum or other fan forums.

Adam France said >>>

Done wrong playing a marine in contrast could be like playing the Twilight 2000 party's hummer

Remember, though, that for some interpretations of Space Marines in the 40k universe, roleplaying the hummer would be a better simulation than the "human" Marines represented in the various novels.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

That's a word game. If you want to define roleplay that way, no problem. But then please tell me which label X you would assign to part of RPGs that deal the actual roles, their ambitions and hopes and fears and goals and hatreds. For in that case I will say that role-playing SMs seems to be limited X-wise. :-)

Why do I consider X important in RPGs? Immersion-wise. Identification with the role.

Kage2020 said:

Ahem, my cousin's twin daughters have very different personalities. Don't link genes and personality too much. ;-)

Alex

By its nature Deathwatch will be very combat oriented. There are plenty of people that emjoy the combat / tactical components of RPG's. This game probably won't appeal to people who don't.

ak-73 said >>>

That's a word game. If you want to define roleplay that way, no problem. But then please tell me which label X you would assign to part of RPGs that deal the actual roles, their ambitions and hopes and fears and goals and hatreds. For in that case I will say that role-playing SMs seems to be limited X-wise. :-)

Why do I consider X important in RPGs? Immersion-wise. Identification with the role.

Semantics or different definitions. Note, however, that it is not my argument but the one that has been applied previously as a counter-argument to the idea of "roleplaying" and Deathwatch .

ak-73 said >>>

Ahem, my cousin's twin daughters have very different personalities. Don't link genes and personality too much. ;-)

Err, to be fair I didn't. The use of "cloned (in the personality sense)" was there to suggest that, for reasons of training, indoctrination etc., that Marines are more likely to have a similar personality than not. Thus, nurture here, not nature.

Edit: Sounds like I'm being argumentative. Apologies. I'm merely trying to clarify my previous statements.

Kage

Truth be told... I wonder how many of the Target Fanbase (Especially those who aren't interested in hanging out on a message board of a game not yet released!) will even care much... Most gamers I've ever met care most about Combat and are hard to even get to actually do much more than ask about other stuff. Rarely going "In Character" in dialog even when you try to hit them over the head with a clue by four.

Let's face it, a lot of people are more interested in cool combats than elaborate social exchanges. And this holds true for even some of the more RP intense groups I've been in.

That kind of begs the question as to what the "Target Fanbase is."

As someone that is forced by dint of location to exclusively deal with online RP, the social side of things is the meat-and-veg of it all. Combat, at least as moderated by many GMs, just takes so dang long.

Kage

Funny. The more I think about Deathwatch, the more it appears like it has a lot in common with Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Both games feature a diverse group of superhuman protagonists set apart from humanity while protecting it (well, the world in general in the case of W:tA) in a crapsack 'verse where it's uncertain whether there's any hope remaining at all. Swap "pack" for "Deathwatch kill-team", "tribe" for "chapter" and you're nearly there. Both games' race equivalents (tribes and chapters) have very large stereotypes - and yet, you can certainly have interesting characters in Werewolf if you're prepared to deviate from "Me Get of Fenris! Me smash stuff while making vague references to nazi-related concepts!".

In the same way, it may already form an interesting part of a character if you just think about how your marine relates to the chapter stereotype. Let's say he's an Ultramarine. Does he believe in the Codex Astartes? Would he follow its procedures if a more unorthodox method of problem solving would present itself? Would he reprimand others for doing so? Does he perhaps only follow it because he is expected to and is quite willing to break it if unobserved? Why?

To answer some of your questions ak-73, I would defer to the Space Marine novels that I have read (and I'm currently reading), the Ultramarines Series.

Uriel Ventris and Pasanius would often sit together and drink wine with each other, reminiscing about the past and their training on Macragge and Ventris's home world of Calth.

They would often reflect on the coming battles, take jabs at each other (typical camaraderie in a military unit), talk of the current situation, discuss old friends long gone. The usual things that you might find Imperial Guardsmen doing... except for things such as relationships relating to companionship, etc. Space Marines are wholly dedicated to their work, and their companionship comes from each other.

Imagine for moment that you have 100 brothers that you live, eat, sleep, and train with every day for hours and hours. You also go to war with these same brothers and slowly but surely, you lose some. They are replaced with new faces, but a lot of the old faces are still there... now you have to get to know the new guys like you used to know the old guys... it's a constantly evolving situation. You start to instinctively know when something is troubling your fellow battle brother... his aim is a little off, his confidence isn't where it used to be, he complains much more than before, etc.

Now, imagine that you are taken away from the comfort of your brothers, and must now get to know completely new faces with new problems, new solutions, new takes on life, and NONE of the old faces that you were used to knowing. This is an amazing chance for fireworks to happen, explosions of personality to seep through to the surface, and a long list of troubles to be laid bare to people that you don't even know... for all of this is required to be an effective fighting unit, for you must know the man next to you better than you even know yourself.

All of these things are great role-playing opportunities to flesh out a story inside the main story; a story about honor, courage, and overcoming differences; a story about gaining the trust of your piers and becoming brothers in the fires of warfare; a story where death is around every corner and the sooner you can die with a clear conscience, the easier it is to accept your inevitable fate; a story about Space Marines.

Dulahan said:

Well, it seems I got the other kind.

Of course, DW doesn't exactly target the WoD crowd (or the Indie crowd, for that matter) but maybe more could be done to ease the fears of gamers who are more in the 'role' part. After all, if the game is about killing stuff and tactics, Space Hulk can probably do it faster and better.

So I can understand ak-73's concern. After all, SM aren't known for their dramatic potential...

Kyorou said:

This I would disagree with. If you are referring to "dramatic" as being a good thespian on a stage, or one of those LifeTime movie channel original movies, then in that sense they aren't THAT kind of dramatic. Drama takes many forms.

Every heroic charge, battle-cry, defiant last stand, inspiring speech, gun-salute to a fallen comrade, are all dramatic.

SpawnoChaos said:

If you're into that kind of things, yes. But some of my players would find that kind of things much too crude for their taste (the other part firmly believe honour, patriotism and heroism are all concepts invented by bastards to have morons die for their ambitions, so they would see it as dark comedy, not drama).

Kyorou said:

Well they are space opera personage so it's moslty all about sacrifices and stuff which is pretty dramatic maybe too much.

SpawnoChaos said:

Role-playing isn't so much about being a good thespian; it's about identification/immersion. Without it, the PCs are just stats. If they die, it's "Too bad I had just managed to get to Rank 4". With it, it's "****, I really like to play this PC, he was really fun to play".

I doubt FFG is targetting only the Wargamer-Light crowd. They want an audience as broad as possible.

Plus, regarding what you ealier said... it only shows what I have been saying. Space Marines are limited. Not one-dimensional but they offer a limited spectrum.

The closest thing to it I believe I've ever run was the Colonial Marines from Aliens. But these were not super-humans; they had plenty of faults and human weaknesses.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Was it just the "in space" bit that made them closer to Space Marines, or were they for some reason tweaked? I only really read the Aliens RPG and then many years ago, but it would seem that on the face of things there would be little difference between, say, running a campaign of Twilight 2000 and one focused around Colonial Marines...

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Can't disagree myself, I'm in a reasonably similar situation most of the time. Of course, that's what I loved about, say, Exalted, because things like Stunting ended up making even combat a pretty crazy RP experience! The way Demeanors work and such with Deathwatch may well do a similar thing I'm hoping.