zombieneighbours said:

You're right, but my recollections of the Aliens rpg was that it did indeed get a bit samey, a bit quick. It also suffered from a dire lack of dedicated setting detail to help create adventures and plots that were about stuff other than killing bugs.

So, to help DW avoid sameyness and short campaign lifespan, I'd advise plenty of setting detail.

Not to put any of the other ideas down here, but really , a GM shouldn't be afraid to make up something, or even to modify what is in the current books. No stats on a carnifex? Make em up. Sure, it may be difficult scaling it right, but get the right idea in your head on how accurate/how much damage it should deal it should be, and go with that. If you find that its getting too powerful, slowly tone it down during the encounter. Its not like your players should be able to know its WS and the damage output of its attacks. If you find they're having too much difficulty killing it, tone down its armour, or cut down its wounds. If its going down too quickly, give it more wounds so that the players at least break a sweat.

Ya want Orks? Come up with some big enemy like a warboss, and make a few horde like enemies to represent his boyz'. Once again, the key is to challenge the players, not give them an easy time, or to mop the floor with them.

Now sure, the books help for codifying things like Ork weapon damage, or ideas on how to mechanically handle Ork infestations/spore stuff (although CA doesn't really do that I guess). General stat lines are good, but its not like the players should actually be looking at that info while playing.

Adam France said:

In Aliens you had male and female marines and you could use that for side-plots a la Star Trek fairly well. (And btw the Sergeant of the Alien Campaign I ran modeled his PC after a Chaplain, the morale officer, so-to-speak.) Also in Aliens the players had to deal with various commanding officers.

Please bear in mind that there have been no supplements to the Aliens RPG, of course it would get samey quick if the GM didn't run it right.

Again I'd like to invoke Recon too - another military setting and the job of the GM was to ensure that interesting group dynamics would take place (psychotic civilian life journalist and pacifist coal miner or whatever). Or take the Twilight RPG (anyone remember?), for example. In military RPGs a lot comes down to who the person is outside of their job and how these different personalities interact on the job.

My impression is that the Deathwatch Core Rulebook quite frankly will be lacking in the regard. My hopes are pinned on Rites of Battle.

And as knights are the other great influence on the idea of Space Marines, an RPG about knights has to also give the players and the GM inspiration who a knight might be behind their jousting and sword-fiddling. What do they do, how do they live, whom do they interact with in daily living, what are their dreams, hopes and aspirations.

Again, not under the impression that the Core Rulebook wil provide this inspiration.

Alex

Space Monkey said:

There won't be for the current and upcoming set releases since the Devs have stated that the campaigns for DH/RT and now DW all take place before the Necrons wake up.

Adam France said:

I had plenty of luck running Aliens without the Aliens in it when I ran the game (used Hero system but the Living Edge? games background and Marine guide, etc). But, we're talking about a group who state "fighting xenos" in their mission statement, while in the Aliens game the Alien was the exception to what the Colonial Marines were set up to do.

I think that's why I'm surprised there aren't more xenos stats in the book, and the 'nid focus.

They can only fill the book with so many NPC's, the core book of an RPG has a lot to cover afterall.

And the Deathwatch's main enemy is aliens, yes. But it's not their only enemy, they're Space Marines and loyal to the Emperor, they're not going to ignore Chaos or other renegades just because they're not aliens.

I'm sure when creatures anathema came out there were a lot of people complaining that there weren't enough tyranids.

The books space is limited and they wanted to base it in a war zone rather than settled space, to make that at all useful it means that you need a certain number of each enemy to make it useful. Bearing that in mind they decided to pick three enemy enemy to base the story around, Tyranids, Tau and Chaos. That's more than enough for campaign after campaign.

Yes they could have chosen Orks or Eldar instead but they already have some rules for Orks and Eldar in other 40K rpg lines (and probably more coming out), and no you don't need them to play Deathwatch, the whole campaign setting is designed that you don't need them. But for the people that do have rules for them they aren't going to be buying them again.

ak-73 said:

There's actually several pages on just those things in the Deathwatch book, just as there is in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader. All the questions/suggestions for their dreams, hopes, fears, their past, are all in there, in the Character Creation section that helps to build a living, breathing character.

keltheos said:

Let me remind you please of the creed of the Colonial Marines from the Movie "Bug Stompers - We endanger species".

As for the Deathwatch containing the necessary backround material for inspiration, we'll see. For the moment I'll remain skeptical.

Alex

As mentioned, FFG did have a finite amount of pages. As a play tester I can report that the lack of certain units/enemies was something that was brought up. Most of the ones I personally thought should be in the book were detailed in other books. At the end of the day, they took the 3 major forces in the Jericho Reach and detailed them enough for people to get going using the page count they had available.

I actually tested using the given stats for Lictors in a play test game and it worked out well. I also included Gargoyles at one point (stats as Gaunt + flying) as well as a Tyranid Prime (Warrior with increased stat-line). All of these were alongside the stock creatures found in the DW rulebook. Worked out well and was easy to do.

IIRC page-count wise the Tau get just as much as Tyranids.

Howdy!

The rulebook (which has not come out yet) needs MORE COWBELL!

Thank you, that is all.

More Cowbell!

P.S. Please read the rites of battle from the FFG DW support page....hmmm looks like lots of zenos goodness coming out.

P.P.S. More Cowbell!

Pfft. Anyone knowledgeable about 40k would know that at least a quarter of tyranid gaunts generally are outfitted with cowbells. Of course, FFG neglected to mention that in their statblocks, which is why Deathwatch is RUINED FOREVER!

Nice one Cifer