Hi all,

Obviously DH is an investigative game by nature, but I was curious if anyone had played it as a police procedural game with the PCs as an Arbites investigative team?

What kind of stories work as Arbitrator level investigations in 40K? I need to dig out my Shera Calpernia novels again for some inspiration, but I'm intrigued as to what could be done with DH from this angle (particularly as I've only got one prospective player, and I can see this role lending itself well to one on one play). Also if anyone can suggest any good resources for designing police procedural investigations for RPGs (not necessarily DH specific, just anything that can be useful) that'd be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Anodyr

Hi Anodyr,

the way you want to play it, "Judge Dredd" comes to my mind. There is a JD RPG. I do not have any experience with it (besides having bought a Sourcebook for Blockwars and there "Undercity"..with not much of any new inspiration), but perhaps the adventures used there could be useful for you as well.

If EURO is the currency of your home country, the PDF of said system provided by RPGDriveThru might even be an easy-purchase by for you.

Talking about possible mission:
Since they are only about Heresy & Riots, this would be it. Perhaps going for an Annihilation of a Gang as "Training" for the riots (after the action was sanctioned by the local Enforcers, of course).

Heretical Death/Murder Cult in the Area?
Underground Arenas featuring xeno beast?
Hunting Mutants groups whom start pillaging the habs above there zones?
Smugglers (whom in addition to skimming the Taxes are Skimming the planetary tithe)?
Counter-Rebel/Counter-Terrorist actions?

My first campaign started with acolytes being an Arbites investigator team. Later on they learned that an Inquisitor had been manipulating them from behind the scene, but at start they were doing very much Arbites things. If you check out my campaign log (link is in the sig) the first five missions (from Doppelganger Incident to Death to the False Emperor!) were done under Arbites mandate and include everything from not-so-simple murder investigations, to infiltration, counter-rebel assaults and combat operations.

If you've got the IH, you could use some of the Arbite background packages/casefiles for inspiration as well. Maybe have them go through the Red Vaults and come out the end as one of the few survivors? That would then open them up for vengeance/hunt for the Lady Gray.

The Calixian pattern killings would be pretty cool as well. ANYTHING could happen there. A jack the ripper style Halo-device-mutated killer, to a Predator 2 style game.

I'd suggest also looking at the Disciples of the Dark Gods book as well, maybe have them pick up the trail of one of the Most Wanteds.

You could easily use the different careers for different types of Arbitrators, with Scum being undercover types, Adepts being the knowledgable crime-scene investigator type, all sorts. It'd be quite a fun game I think.

The tricky part would be defining the parameters of forensic science that the PCs have access to. Can an Arbite with an Auspex detect skin cells left at a crime scene by a culprit, for example, and if so, can they then determine said culprit's DNA and cross-reference it with the hive's database? To aviod all of the potential headaches that might result from the full range of Imperial Science that a well-rescourced Arbites Precinct would have access to, it might be wise to set your campaign on a rough-and-tumble frontier world/outpost, where the underfunded Arbites are expected to solve crimes "the old fashioned way"...