So the holiday season is coming up, meaning that it's time for a new RPG. I have a couple of options as to what to pick, but I have my eyes set on Deathwatch. Before I actually buy the game I wanted to know if it's up to the fine quality I've come to expect from FFG. So I guess what I'm asking is...

1. What are the serious pros and cons of the game? From looking at the quickstart rules, hordes look to be fun, but also seem to have the ability to become monotonous at the same time.

2. Is there a good balance of character options even with the strictures of being one of the Revered Astartes? I know space marines are one step away from normal humans, but im hoping that the incorporation of different chapters will balace that out.

3. Are the core mechanics sound? Dark Heresy is probably my favorite RPG of all time. I'm really hoping that it has some things in common with DH.

Thanks in advance for your help, and I look forward to reading your advice.

WizendTurnip said:

1. Pros: You get to play a space marine isn't enough? I feel the epic scope is a lot of fun, and the fact that you start off playing characters that get to interact with the 'important' people in the world- the governors, the inquisitors, the generals, the folks in charge. You also get exposed to the worst the universe has to throw at humanity, which are creatures that characters from the other lines would be torn to pieces by.

Cons: It's an epic scope, you can easily get away from the feel of the characters if you're not careful, and you can't fit into places a RT or an Inquisitor/Acolyte could. Some of the rules are 'gamey' and have an odd vibe to them. IMHO, the designers didn't put enough information in the books on playing Marines- maybe because they wanted everyone to build their own world, but it would've been nice to see some of the personalities expanded on, or if the starting sample adventure had a few more RP elements to it. You do have to work (and so do your characters) at the RP or it can become a classic dungeon crawl very quickly.

2. *I* think there are- every marine is a combat monster, but you still have all the core skills, so you can build a guy in just about any direction you want. You don't see certain classes out of the box (scout, chaplain) but those can be made with either simple modifications or a targeted character build.

3. They're the same core mechanics as DH, with some additions. A crawl of the forums will see a host of house rules, but the main one's I've seen or decided to implement deal with a few weapon balance issues, toning down of the rightous fury rules back to the DH rules, and some changes to some of the way requisition is done. The horde rules are pretty good if you ask me, you just have to be smart/careful in your encounters

Charmander said:

That's a pretty good distinction there too. You're not a normal human being anymore. In fact, if you can swing it, get a copy of the Flight of the Raven from Black Library, where they have a little tirade of an Imperial Army officer going off on a Ravens Guard commander at their main base...

Heck, if you can reinforce that in your game... especially if you play anywhere near a chapter's homeworld.

WizendTurnip said:

<These are my own personal opinions>

1) Pros - Mission based so its easy to 'Guide" your characters to the adventure. You don't have to worry as much about them going off on some twisted tangent and becoming Eldar Hugging Eco-terrorists. Cons - it si what it is. The very nature of it is much less flexible.Deathwatch is a Space Marine combat game. If you don't want to be a Space Marine or you Don't like Combat - don't get it.

Hordes was designed to get rid of the monotony. Hordes is not used in place of all combat, it is used to manage taking down a hundred cultists armed with butter-knives (trolls this is called an exaggeration - and yes I spelled exaggeration wrong). So it speeds up what would be twenty mninutes of dice rolling by calling these 100 cultists a Horde 30 (there is no direct corelation between the number of members and the size of the horde - it is relative to what the horde is comprised of and how tough a fight they are). Instead of everyone rolling against against 100 targets, each person is going to whittle down the horde which will break in a round or two of combat. It adds some interaction to a foregone conclusion, without getting mired down in minutia AND it still impacts things like timeline and ammo counting. I think hordes combat is a brilliant compromise.

You still use regular combat for the important targets.

2) The career types and chapter definitly add distinct flavor to characters, The careers impact game play more, the power of the Chapters is to allow distinct roleplayability to the characters: An Ultramarine Tech Marine acts way different than a Space Wolf Tech Marine.

3) It uses the same core mechanics as Dark heresy and adds additional functionality like Hordes, Renown and Demeanours

My view:

1. An honest assessment of DW can only be made after I have reviewed The Emperor Protects (the first scenario trilogy) and Rites of Battle (the Inquisitor's Handbook equivalent).

Pro: I like the epic setting and that everything around Space Marines is sacred in some form or manner. Fighting enemies in dozens adds nicely to the epic scale. And yeah, you get to play Space Marines. Including a host of cool gear and many cool new abilities. Squad mode abilities in particular are great as a mechanic.

Contra: A lot of players who haven't read half a dozen novels involving marines can find it hard to get into the act. The scenarios that have been published so far (discounting Emperor Protects) have been so combat heavy that there isn't much role-play unless the GM and the players are into their roles. It's not impossible but you need to create the right synergy between players and GM and between PCs and NPCs.

The rules are not fully thought through in several areas and need some fixing. Especially the scaling upwards doesn't always works well, given that it's all founded on the smaller scale DH.

2. Here too you have to wait for Rites of Battle for an honest assessment. DW needs more options. Perhaps more than DH needed those.

3. See above. Core mechanics are DH except on a higher scale which isn't without problems. This isn't so much of a problem since you can read here in these forums how other gamers have been solving any potential issues which should help you to actually stay clear.

So, it's not all blue skies imho. The main thing is that GMs spend some time to work additional role-playing opportunities into scenarios and players understand that they themselves need to put some work into role-playing until they get into the vibe.

Alex

Thanks for the feedback, especially the bits that cleared up the horde rules. One more question before I decide to buy. Are the Spacemarine chapters detailed and canonical? This is probably the most important factor in my opinion. I need the Space Wolves and Ultramarines I grew up with to be the same or it just won't click. I know FFG put a lot of time in consulting with Games Workshop over this stuff, but I need to hear it from the mouths of the fans.

WizendTurnip said:

Ultramarines will work well enough. Space Wolves... that's an issue that doesn't sit right with many Space Wolves fans.

I should elaborate here: The chapters get 3 pages of descriptions each or so. The descriptions are just fine and in accordance with the official background, etc. You don't get much more than these descriptions though. And that is because once assigned to the Deathwatch the Marines leave their chapter behind. Of course it still influences them (insanity points triggering the Primarch's Curse, for example, causing Blood Angels to succumb more and more to the Black Rage, etc) but the chapter is something they have been coming from not something about where they are at. They're on a Tour of Duty for the Deathwatch now. And they have taken a solemn Oath to never reveal to anyone back home what they see or hear while serving the DW. The rulebook could have used a few pages dedicated to special troops like Rune Priests or Ultramarine Tyrannic War Veterans or DA Ravenwind PCs, etc. It doesn't have any of that - I think for space reasons. The creators of the rulebook apparently had to cram a lot into the available pages.

That said, many Space Wolves fans think the Space Wolves advances are not representative of "their" SWs. SWs in DW don't get close combat skills in their advances. They get more story-telling, carousing, tracking, wrangling, etc. - that kind of stuff. There is cool stuff among it (Wisdom of the Ancients) but the lack of ferocious close combat talents is obvious.

If "your" Space Wolves are a melee-loving, wild bunch, my advice is to go over to the "Retooling of Space Wolves" topic and use the advances suggested there instead.

Alex

WizendTurnip said:

LOL that is a HUGE can-of-worms. My question would be which canon? These are the root of many od the 20+ page threads on these boards. 40k canon conflicts itself in so many ways...

There are only a couple three pages per chapter and I would say they do a good job of keeping to the spirit of the first handful they chose.

ak-73 said:

Yah, I would agree with Alex, some consessions were made for play balance. Otherwise everyone would have everything. Keep in mind the rules allow "Elite Advancement" which means any character can get any skill and would allow players who play a Space Marine a certain way, to get advances that make sense for that style of the chapter implementation.

Darq said:

Fair enough. GW has been buiding this universe for 30+ years now with a hundred odd authors and game designers. That sort of explains the continuity errors, but not well enough in my opinion. Not really the proper question to ask there, eh? lol.

It's good to see that they keep the spirit of them at least.

ak-73 said:

That's some good advice there. Good to see that the players and GMs are getting out there with patches for the current rules. Maybe Rites of Battle will have some specialized character backgrounds and stuff, like the Inquisitor's Handbook did for DH.