Hi,

This might be a stupid question about something that I just haven't found yet, but what do personal demeanours actually do? In one example it says that a guy has gregarious and gets a bonus to his Fel, but no other benefits are listed that I can see. Is this left open to the GM? My pal also has the book and hasn't found the answer to this yet.

the demeanors are a system where it rewards the roleplaying of the chr say as in your example he is gregarious and uses his demeanor to gain the fate point bonus for charming an imperial general to position his troops as a diversion and then goes on to role play that by giving a speach and playing to the vanity and such of said general would double the bonus. hope this helps

Look at "Triggering a Demeanour" and "Improvements" on pages 32 and 33 of the rulebook. What the Demeanours do is there.

From what I recall, if you trigger your Personal Demeanour you get a buff an ability as if you had spent a Fate Point. If you then roleplay it well, according to the book that is, you score an Improvement and get to double-buff, or double the modifier you would have just got from saying that you were going to trigger your Demeanour. One way to determine if it was "roleplayed enough," as suggested by the rulebook, is to ask the other players around the table whether they thought it was worth it. In true Coloseum fashion they give a thumbs up and a thumbs down. The majority thumbs up means you get that double-buff.

Just what kind of buff you get depends on the Demeanour. Say that you had Imperturbable as your Personal Demeanour (you might need a flashy 40k name for it like "Stoicism of the Emperor's Grace" or some such ), in a situation where it is appropriate that the character remain calm, they can play their Demeanour card. This can manifest in a number of ways depending on how you want to buff your character. Say that they were taking the equivalent of a "Route test" in the wargame for whatever reason. That might be a Willpower test. So triggering your Demeanour would give you a +10 to Willpower. While the others run as fast as their knightly legs can carry them in the "ceramaplate mail" that +10 Willpower might hold you steady. Roleplay it well, as judged by your fellow gamers, such as with singing at the anthems of your Chapter, battle cries, letting slip the Space Puppies of War or whatever? Wonderful. Double-buff, or you double your bonus. You now have a +20 to your Willpower.

As above, though, it depends on the situation. Say everyone is taking withering fire from a heavy bolter. Maybe everyone else is Digging In to get their mystical armour bonus (or, as some would have it, everyone is conveniently hunkered behind a relieving arch, etc. ) but for whatever reason you cannot do so. The thing is, you don't need no pansy digging in. You walk under the Emperor's Grace dang'nam'it. Out comes the Personal Demeanour again (well, once per game) and you stand tall and true against the withering hail of fire. Perhaps you tear the helmet from your head (very 40k) and scream curses at the enemy, perhaps you even catch one of the heavy bolt rounds in your teeth, turn it around and spit it back at the enemy, or turn your chest into a cannon so you can shoot your second heart at them. Whatever is going to get that thumbs up from those notoriously fickle team members who want to throw you to the metaphorical lions. (This might be literal if there are Space Wolves in there and you're a Dark Angel!) Okay, you decide that you're going to "spend" your Demeanour/Fate Point and you get -1d10 to the damage, or -2d10 if you got the thumbs up. It's possible that this is even better than the Dig In Buff...

...As the heavy bolter rounds hit all around you, you laugh at your comrades as they cower behind those flying buttresses, convenient Dragon's Teeth reinforced with steel, or whatever. That's right, your 'ard.

Remember, though, that you can only trigger each of your Demeanours once per game.

Forgive the tongue-in-cheek tone. I'm not overtly fond of the buffing even though some consider it to be great, so please do take it as tongue-in-cheek.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

If it was just the buffing, I wouldn't find it so great either (and initially I didn't). Just another Fate Point (or an improved one). But I see Demeanours a bit differently now. First of all, you only get one Demeanour per session, not one each. ;-) Secondly, more importantly... Demeanours is a mechanic to further elevate chars from DW over those from DH and RT (where pure stats at times might fail to elevate above them). I see it as a once per-game free shot at doing sth grand even beyond what probability (of dice rolls) might allow. A way to try to tackle the impossible, to go where only the Deathwatch can go (and all that other SM jazz). A feature of super-heroics.

So if the player succeeds, he'll pull off sth grand. (Which is why I wouldn't grant Demeanours on irrelevant and trivial stuff.)

And even if he fails, he'll always score some partial success or sth spectactular otherwise will happen.

A good and fitting addition to the theme if handled right.

Alex

ak-73 said:

I'm waiting to be astounded, to be honest. Unlike many people here, I've only had just over one hour of face time with the book (which is about the time that I spend in a "First Blush" review, which is sort of like an extended sit down with it in the store).

ak-73 said:

You may be right, or it may just be shoddy writing, playtesting, or proof-reading. Admittedly it might also be shoddy Kage-reading.

Deathwatch p33 >>>

"A demeanour may be triggered a maximum of once (and only once, no matter how many demeanours he may have!) per game session."

The thing is that you have two Demeanours, one Chapter and one Personal. Since the text jumps between singular and plural it is hard to judge, but it seems from the language used that you may employ both your Chapter and Personal demeanour once each . What it does say is that you may have many Personal Demeanours of the character's history, which could be read as having numerous Personal Demeanours at once given the language used. On the other hand, I tried to stay with the intent of the Designer's Diaries and take this to mean that while you can have numerous Personal Demeanours during the lifetime of the character, at any given time you've only got one Chapter Demeanour (that doesn't change) and one Personal Demeanour.

If you then go into the sidebar, it then talks about Demeanour being used once per game ("divine moment of blessed fury") and then goes onto mention the two different Demeanours (Chapter, Personal) once more. The text then alludes to tension between Chapter and Personal Demeanours, but isn't really specific enough to tell what the writers are really trying to say.

Again, as I'm seeing it, the writing seems to be all over the place in terms of tense, intent and what-not. Would it have been hard to say, "You may only use one Demeanour per game, be that a Chapter or a Personal Demeanour." Instead, we've got this bouncing backwards and forwards, which may represent legacy concepts sneaking in because of the playtesters/authors/proof-readers.

Without the guidance that rules might have been able to provide? You'e got two Demeanours, Chapter and Personal. Chapter never changes (thus, the text), but Personal Demeanour can change as much as you want. Thus, two buffs.

On the other hand, if Personal Buff and Chapter Buff were choices... Yeah, that could be fun, most especially in a meta-game kind of way.

ak-73 said:

Addition to the "game" or the "roleplaying?" I say that it is a buff because you shouldn't necessarily be buffed because of the roleplaying...

Kage