So I have an idea for a campaign (I hope) or at least a long adventure. The problem I'm having is how to get the players from point A to point B. So here is the short form:

A radical Ordo Malleus inquisitor has found a planet that he believes has fallen to a Cult of Khorne. In the process of investigating this, he has found that the corrupting influence is a greater daemon that is bound to the planet. The bloodletting of the cult is causing the daemon to slowly awaken. The Inquisitor has decided that the planet is beyond saving and wants to declare Exterminatus on the planet, but he determines that the destruction of all life on the planet will strengthen the daemon enough for it to awaken. Because of this, the Inquisitor decides to use the Hive Fleet terrorizing the Jericho Reach to destroy the planet, believing the Warp Shadow will sufficently dampen the death throes of the population to keep the daemon from awakening. To do this, the Inquisitor is looking for a Nicassar device he thinks can be used as a beacon in a manner similiar to Inquisitor Kryptman's use of genestealers.

So the pieces I see are:

1) The Deathwatch find out about the plot.

2) The Deathwatch go after the xeno-tech and fail.

3) The Deathwatch go after the radical Inquisitor

Now I would like this to be a several adventure plot. For example, I see #1 being a single adventure where the Deathwatch, in dealing with a Tyranid infastation find the lab the Inquisitor was using to determine how to control the hive fleet, #2 being mulitple small adventures where the team have to deduce the location of the artifact, and then #3 being the big shoot-out at the end. My problem is that I want the flow to be due to the work of the party, not the MMO style "Quest giver tells you to bring them back something. You do so and then they tell you what that piece means and what to do next, etc." so does anyone have any suggestions? I don't mind doing the work to flesh stuff out, I'm just having trouble getting the high level bridge concepts to come together.

WookieeGunner said:

It's tough when you have an over-arcing plot line to let the characters drive the show, some off the top of my head tips/issues/questions

• The harshness of #2 stands out to me, the whole "and fail" portion. If you don't allow success, or at least make them think they had a chance, it will be very scripted. Sometimes that's just fine, but other times you want to avoid it.
• The order; I honestly see if I ran this for my group, the first thing I'd expect them to do is hunt down the Inquisitor. Once the only other person in the galaxy looking for it is stopped, you can take your time in finding and securing the device. Forcing them down a corridor to finding the tech may let them on to the fact they're plaing on rails. Be prepared and be flexible in what course of action they persue.
• Create some benefits/penalties to future adventures based on previous adventures- for example, if the team does #1 really well, give them extra intel to make #2 easier. If they do #1 terribly and destroy some extra info, make #2 harder ("If you hadn't nuked the lab from orbit, maybe some additional information would have been there that would've made this easier" kind of thing)
• Make sure the enemies strategy adapts to player input- npcs ignoring warnings, npcs remaining headstrong, can sometimes feel forced. Keep their personalities and methods in mind, and create back up plans for when the players outwit you.
• To create bridges, you have to think motivation, and you have to know your players- what would make your players want to go after the xeno tech first? What would make them think that was the best course of action? What information shows up in the lab to tell them to go get this- a journal, a star map, a prophecy? After failing to get the xeno tech, what makes them think they can get the Inquisitor now? Why couldn't they before? What motivates them to go after this guy?

Maybe try it in a different order? Have the kill-team go on a mission to "retrieve a rumoured xeno tech" (the thing the radical wants his hands on), and have the radical take it from under their noses (they fail, but dont feel railroaded), which will spark the seed for #3 and #1 (as in they want to find out why he took/wants it, and you want to get it back). With that outline I think it will be possible to weave the parts you have together rather well, bar any strange decicision from the players.

BrotharTearer said:

Personally I like that one- somehow the search for the xeno tech leads them to it. Perhaps the radical isn't known as a radical yet and he even accompanies them on the mission to get it, then 'secures' it for himself. The KT get suspicious, do some background leg work and find he's got a lab somewhere. They then go to the lab, and then we move from there.

Having them deal with the Inquisitor ahead of time could also make them feel more betrayed, and get more out of putting a bolt round into his skull.

Surely it's not the DW role to act as the police to the Inquisition, though? It's not their remit to deal with Inquisitors.

Personally, I like the outline, but would probably do something else with it, instead making the players explicit in the fall of the world and it's destruction at the hands of xenos.

My fluff:

Same as yours. However, instead of relying on tech, the Inquisitor is instead going to rely on the tried and tested method of using genestealer cults to 'call' a fleet. Then: After the planet falls to the Tyranids and the demon cannot wake, they use Exterminatus to purge the place.

So the plan becomes:

Kill-team help capture genestealers and a brood-lord from a planet where the infestation has been detected early. The xenos are then transported to the demon-planet. The kill-team then sneak the creatures down to the surface and release them in full knowledge that they will kill the planet. /angst I'm thinking of parallels to the Aliens films here.

Players go away and do some more missions while stealers breed and call a fleet.

Players return, as the planet is in chaos, with the xeno cults rising and combating the demon-cults. Players have to perform a surgical strike pretty much on the eve of a full-scale invasion/civil war in order to evacuate those of the Inquistor's retinue who have been supervising affairs and to rescue any McGuffins the GM can think of. There's scope here for them to co-opt /clash with some Grey Knights sent to deal with the demon, or for some really whacky situations with PCs dodging fire form both stealer cults and khorne cults.

Tyranids arrive and trash the planet. Players watch from the other side of the system in a stealthed craft.

Players watch as planet is stripped bare by tyranids and -at the perfect moment- press the big red button. Planet dies, Tyranid fleet in close orbit dies, demon dies. Bittersweet victory ensues. Questioning of morals and sacrifice, shades of grey, blah blah, everyone home for tea and medals.

For added fun: The grey knights were sent to contain the demon, but because of the fracticious nature of the Inquisition, don't know the whole story: That the demon isn't going anywhere because of the shadow of the warp.

Players might then help evacuate the 'knights or even cross swords with them. Once out, the inquisitor that sent the knights is going to be unhappy[TM] with the one who sent the Death-Watch. Cue more possible conflict with the PCs attempting to resolve it, decide who is most 'right', and potentially levelling weapons as an Inquisitor, or helping one escape the other.

Ultimately, it would be good to see a lot of moral questioning. Maybe the 'opposing' Inquisitor's plan instead involved putting temporary wards around the demon so it couldn't gain power from death for a while, then nuking the planet, then simply declaring it off-limits so that no living creatures would again die on the planet and cause the demon to rise. In which case, both Inquisitors are planet killers, but the seemingly 'nastier' one one deliberately infected the planet with 'Stealers has also gained a lot of valuable information about them (assuming the PCs evacuated such McGuffins) and also wiped out a tyranid invasion force.

Thanks for all the replies. Some general comments:

1) The "and fail" sounds harsher than it is. In our group the GM is always very flexible with having the NPC's react to the PC's, so if they come up with a way to stop them so be it. On the other hand I've been the PC in adventures where the plot was specifically written for us to catch the villian and yet he ended up free because of our action (or lack of action in the case of going off on a tangent).

2) My thought for dealing with them going after the Inquisitor first was to not let them know who the villian was initially. They just know someone is going after the item and they have to stop it. Our group often has puppet-master villians so there are many times where the actual villian reveal ocurres very late in the adventure.

3) One of the themes I was going with was that the different Ordos, although they are supposed to work for the Inquisition first, consider their branch of "villian" the worst evil. So an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor would consider the Tyranids a lesser evil then the Daemon, but a Ordos Xenos would consider falling prey to the Khorne Deamon and then letting the Grey Knights mop up the daemon a lesser evil then strengthening the Hive Fleet through letting them consume a planet. Though this would cause some interesting KT/GK friction as mentioned.

4) I didn't want to use Genestealers because with Kryptman it was using one xeno-race to protect humans from another xeno-race. I have trouble seeing a KT using a xeno-race to kill a bunch of humans.

5) My players would try to find a way to save the people not affected by the cult. In a Star Wars RPG, we had an adventure once where we were supposed to sneak onto a planet and retrieve some Rebel Spies before the planet they were on was destroyed by a supernova. The Imperials had locked down the space port to stop people from panic leaving. Our group ended up taking over the space port so that as many people could leave as possible.

As regards point 5. That's very noble, but I'd use that to cause some quandry and difficulty. The needs of the many etc etc. Make them make HARD choices.

I'd make saving innocents ultimately be a bad choice. I'd perhaps give them the option or make them work for it, then bite them in the backside with it by using the escapees as a vector for spreading khorne worship or genestealers Alien-style.

Maybe I just like too much angst in my games!

Siranui said:

In many cases, I'd imagine yes- though if a DW KT comes across information regarding an Inquisitor that has gone off reservation and is creating an immenent threat to a population of folks they're not going to stand by while the great slow gears of the Imperium grind on, they're going to get on a ship and stop the SOB.

Now that said, I do think the whole concept of using something like tyrannids to create a warp shadow so that the death of the world doesn't summon a greater threat to be an interesting shade of grey. Which is the bigger evil- do you trade territory for the idea of a daemon not being summoned? Is it worth it? Is it worth compromising your principles for?

I agree with point 5 though- make it a tough, tough call, not an easy 'save the civilians' type of encounter. Make them have to chose between two evils, maybe they try to do both, but only one works, etc. Marines are sworn to protect humans so saving the innocents is something they may do, but they're also willing to make sacrifices in order to preserve the larger picture, so if letting them die saves another world or a primary objective...

Charmander said:

Adding: You could also introduce NPCs who support each of the opposed viewpoints, like a general who supports saving the people (maybe its his/her homeplanet) & an inquisitor who supports the extermination "for the greater good of the GE's I mperium," thus "giving the GM voice" to the diametrically opposed choices.

L

I'd be interested as to where GMs on here think that their group would stand. Mine would totally vape the system for the greater good of humanity!

Siranui said:

I think there would be quite an argument in my group, half of them thinking nuking it from orbit is the clean and sure way to go, but half of them would see it as their duty to try, sacrificing their own lives if needed, to help the Imperial Citizens.

Another possibility to create a bridge for your three story elements without changing their order:

The Adeptus Astartes could find out that this hive fleet somehow behaves strange – other than all hive fleets that have been watched before. So the Apdetus Astartes sends out the battle brothers NOT to destroy the fleet, but to observe it and to discover why it behaves such strange (and, of course, then destroy it. afterwards).

Doing so, the player's characters will find out that this hive fleet is somehow influenced by xenos technology. And then they will find out who controls it...

This story twist about observing the hive fleet could give your story an interesting twist because it is a quite moire challenging situation than just blowing it to hell (what is difficult enough, granted). But first and foremost, your player's characters will be the ones who are the driving force behind the investigation what's really going on. You won't need any NPC who tells them the story because they will find it out themselves.