So just finished our first mission (Final Sanction) and in the encounter against the Broodlord my mate (Dark Angel Tatical Marine) did the most insane and Heroic thing, He 2 shot the Broodlord!!!

Now I don't know if i had the rules right (our first game and I am the GM, learning rules as going and so forth) but it was the way we were doing it.

He moved into a corner of the Broodlords rooms and went into Overwatch mode. When the Broodlord dropped to attack his buddies (Space Wolf Rune Priest and a Blood Angel Assult Marine) He did a semi-auto burst with Helfire rounds loaded. He hit and proceded to get 7 righteous furys in a row and totaled out at 225 damage with his second shot to the chest.

Each of the PC's had 10 or less wounds each at this point in time and were worried weather they could take on and kill the Broodlord without 1 of them dieing.

For such a epic shot and managing to kill the Broodlord before it could do any harm to the rest of the team I gave hima fate point, 2 extra renound and a Bonus 200xp.

Question to everyone though, is it too much? too little? or right reward for such a feat. I have never GM'ed before in my life and got stabed with the role cause I own the copy of the book in my friends circle.

noidea said:

The Righteous Fury rules have been errata'd.

See the errata and other ressources here:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp

The Fate Point may be too much. Don't give out fate points like that, it makes the players feel too safe. I would give out a fate point only at the end of a very heroic campaign, saving countless worlds or so.

I would recommend that you handout fate points at the same rate at which the kill-team as a whole loses them. That way some players will probably run out of fate points eventually while others might have 1 or 2 more than they started out with. If you don't handle it this way, there is not much chance for player mortality.

Alex

ak-73 said:

+1; IMHO Fate points should be for super-exceptional feats and the like. Personally I tend to award fate point more for cleverness, heroics, and roleplay rather than exceptional luck (such as 7 RFs in a row). The concept of restricting them to a rate that is equal to how fast they're burned seems like a good rule of thumb as well. The players should fear death, but not be crippled by that fear.

Cheers for the advice and the link to the errata. Guess he gonna get told the fate point comes back.

I found it a bit of a struggle staying interested in the game sometimes while I was GM and would just wipe out guys to speed stuff up cause I would get bored. Think need to do it more and get the hang of it to be able to make the games more interesting and dynamic. Have defently found being GM alot more work then I thought it would be. Hardest thing so far is to work out sizes of the areas were the battles have taken place.

noidea said:

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, GMming is a LOT of work !

Him having the extra fate point won't hurt things too terribly much, so you may be okay in not taking it back so long as your players are okay with you saying "I want to be more restrictive going forward"

Poke around on the forums here for some threads about being overwhealmed by the psyker, why are boltguns better, heavy bolter being too powerful, etc. Most of those threads have some creative advice on how to make hordes and enemies more interesting, using the terrain, enemy tactics, turning points, etc. If you don't, you're right, it can get dry very quick and it tuns into a slug fest. AK also has a 'mini idea dump' that covers some adventuer ideas and some interesting roleplaying opportunities that you can put into your adventures to make things a little less of a dungeon crawl. But sounds like you're playing fast and loose with the combat already to keep it going, which is great- I think that's something people need to be willing to do.

Good luck you you!

Howdy!

We dont award fate points, we use fate point experience points.

They are awards for amazing bravery, role playing, etc...

Once you have Fate Point Exps equal to your new Fate point total you get the next fate point.

Example: Johny Jarhead has 3 fate points , so when he gets 4 fate point experience points he cashes them in and gets his new fate point and now has 4 fate points. He starts over on his fate point exp. and when he gets 5 new fate point exp he gets his 5th fate point.

major shultz said:

Interesting system- how does mortality work in a game like that? If you're low on fate points (as in you've come close to death quite a bit), it would then be 'easier' to get new fate points. On first glance it seem like it would have the same problem as awarding fate points more 'easily.' Or do you give the 'fate xp' out in the same way some of us give out fate in general- only for extreme acts of bravery or excellent roleplaying?

There's been some interesting points raised about combat in DW. I feel that a game of DW needs to be run a little different to other RPG's. Of course DW has the same elements as any other RPG, even generic fantasy, but I think the game can benefit more from different focus.
Because it is a military-style game, the GM should definitately put more focus on planning interesting combats, which requires some extra work on the GM's part of course. Basically, if you use generic Hordes, then the game will turn into a tedious dice rolling game. Also, if you read the published adventures, they often have certain themes attached; such as choices between one evil or another, whether to let millions die to save a planet, or to go after a more hated target and risk the sector. Stuff like that.

One thing I learned, that has helped me GM all kinds of RPGs, is to have actual plans for campaign's adversaries and allies. Doesn't have to be super detailed. But it really does help the game's believability if the bad guys actually have a plan. Best way to do it is to take a scene from the upcoming session, and break it down. What is the enemies' objective? Then start visualising or mapping the location, and put yourself in, say, the enemy general's place, and try to figure out how you would go about acheiving your objective. Consider the advesary NPC, and consider how far they will go to acheive their goals..

Once you have things like this figured out, you end up with an encounter that has a lot more immersion, as opposed to being a bunch of random Hordes and Elites for the players to simply mow through.

As for size and location, I use maps when possible. For the Extraction mission, I made a Cartograph-style map, and uploaded it to one of my player's iPhone. They ended up with a gritty computer screen map that they could pan around, zoom in and out of, etc. Added a little flair to the proceedings.

I dunno, maybe we need a thread with encounter ideas, for inspiration. As others have said, interesting locations and events add to a combat. Real life combat doesn't usually take place on open fields with people shooting at each in the open. There's cover, weather, strategic positions, formations, smoke, debris, explosions, fire, etc etc..

I hate to do it, but consider the Star Wars movies as an example. The gunfight in the docking bay between the Millenium Falcon crew and the Stormtroopers. The speeder chase across the discharging electric fields. The big, dramatic swordfight across the bridges soaked by lava. Take out those things and you have just some back and forth dice rolls.