Hello all :-)

Allright, I've been Gm'ing for 20 years, 19 and a half in warhammer fantasy, but lately jumped to 40k, as i find it a better system and setting. problem arised during the fist weekend of gaming. Remember, this was the first session with my old gaming crew, and they are tied down in fantasy (hard), so i wanted to make it good in order to bring the group over to 40k permanently.

I made a campaign using the premade mission at the end of the rulebook as a starter to get them involved. The issue happened at the end of that mission.

It was a premade mission, so i followed it to the letter, assuming the creators had at least tested the mission. Me being new to gm'ing 40k didn't have the experience of 40k to see the problem happening when the party entered the final act of the mission. They ran towards the cathedral, knowing something very wrong was happening inside. They were rushing it, thinking they were low on time, so fully ignored the hints in the village. Not like they are gonna search the ruin of the inn next to the cathedral when they spot "a strange dim haze surounding the cathedral". They fully ignored the hints about the lost eyes of the bodies on the ground and rushed past Brother lamark dieing outside the cathedral. They were almost panicking in their effort to rush that cathedral.

Then : Entering the cathedral : Corrupt Fear test -10 for entering the cathedral, then meeting the Skae-thing (demonci Presence -10wp), fear 2 ...another fear test, this time at a cumulative -20 wp, then the players must pass a wp test in order not todrop their weapons and stumble towards tysiak, again with a -10 wp due to the skae-thing. That is : Fear test -10, fear test -20 and WP test to stay in control -10 just in order to confront the skae-thing. And since they didn't pick up the eye-hint they can't harm it, as the rules don't specify anything about called shots to the eyes, only hit-locations. Thing is , with a startup character they average 31 WP, so all the players needed pass a fear test 21%, then fear test 11% and "mind control" 21%. I mean, they didn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of surviving that encounter.

Any other GM's tried playing the premade in the rulebook as it is written?

Obviously, the players got pissed of and wanted back to fantasy, but i managed to convince them to try one more session. I let them burn a fate each and let them escape iocanthos, just cause i felt the mission was dead hard for a startermission. THEN i ran the premade from the GM pack. AGAIN, i wonder if the creator has even testplayed the last encounter. The acolytes face off 3 Sloth Infiltrators at the end, and because they had to use their "Inquisitorial powers" to get a ride into the city (i mean, what startup character has 50 thrones each to spend on a ride??), all the sloth were gathered at the top of the windmill waiting for them in an ambush. In the premade it states: "after a few rounds of vicious fighting, the players should have taken care of the sloth, and can continue....

Sloth Iniltrator has T50, Unatural toughnes x2 and armor 3 all location, with regenerate d5 each round and 25 wounds each. Are there any startup group on the planet able to handle this? The premade states it's written for rank 1. Most players have S2 or S3 normal guns, and ws / bs 30 ish... they'd need a crit just to make a dent, and they will crit once every 30 rounds of fighting while the sloth regenerates a d5 each round. A few rounds of vicious fighting indeed.... Obviously, the party is now dead, and I'm left with a feeling the writers of these pre-mades have not tested their materials before releasing them... Any other GMs suffering from the same issues, or have i misread the entire rules? think i'll write my own campaigns from now on :-)

Not played the mission in question (I tend not to run premades) but my general experience of DH is that it plays more like /Call of Cthulhu/ than /D&D/ (and just to be clear, this isn't a dig - I play and run D&D and think it's an excellent game, I'm just trying to make a stylistic comparison).

Starting level Acolytes are not heroes, much like starting WFRP characters they're mostly just random dudes (although at least an Acolyte isn't likely to start play as a ratcatcher) - head on confrontation with powerful enemies will often get them completely slaughtered.

Another problem with premade scenarios is that DH Acolytes vary widely not only in power but in specialisation. A party consisting of two guardsmen, a Pskyer and an assassin will have a far easier time with combat stuff than a party consisting of two Adepts, a Scum and a Cleric.

grontha said:

It's been my experience that most premade adventures end up going something like this sooner or later. Admittedly, these two tales are exceptionally brutal, which I suspect is partly because of "premade adventure syndrome" and partly because DH is really not the kind of game where you can just run around, guns blazing. It's about investigating mysteries, learning important information and then making a tactical strike that favours your position. If your players are more interested in just fighting one battle after another, you might have better luck with Deathwatch - I understand the starting character power level is higher, and I would expect Space Marines to be better at long-haul combat crawls.

But yeah, premades in general tend to be disappointingly linear in terms of what they prepare and what they expect the players to do. Even when I design my own adventures with as open a path as I can manage, the players still find ways to surprise me and go off on a tangent. With premades it's virtually impossible to keep people on the prepared and expected path without heavy railroading, which of course I'm opposed to.

Another problem is you chose the biggest OMG WTF worst premade out there as a fallow up to one incredibly lackluster introduction that has to sit somewhere in the bottom 5 of premades for the setting. Had you come to the boards first, we would have definitely steered you from MitM (or at least warned you about that one) and perhaps suggested that you start with Edge of Darkness instead of Illumination. It is heads, shoulders, and navels above it in quality. Likewise, I would suggest browsing over some of the other fan made scenarios on the support site -some of those for beginning characters are much better then the ones that come in the book.

In the end, however, in this game as in most, you're better off just making your own -that way you are sure to have one that matches you and your group's preferred play style ;-)

I GM-ed Warhammer Fantasy (2nd Ed) myself, and while both system are similar, the settings are light years away.

Like others said, Dark Heresy is more investigative than action; for proof, Perception is now an basic attribute in DH, rather than a specialized skill like in Warhammer Fantasy. Player needs to think before leaping, and even some obvious linear situation might zig-zag a thousand times before the end is reached.

Hi Grontha,

Graver already said the major points (yep, these two missons aren´t....shining examples of the craft)...but talking about the scene

@Missing eyes
Well... do not want to blame you, but how about asking the pc for Awareness check while rushing towards the cathedral? They might have noticed the "missing" eyes. I would not have been above roling in secret and simply giving the pc with the highest Awareness the clue. After all, they knowed from Esha Rain that the Crowfathers inflicts the damage he himself feared most.

@Low on Willpower
No psyker in your group? This tend to come across rather maxed out. But you are right, a lot of pc will be ...outclassed in this department


Talking about better adventures :
Try "Brutal Lament" (from the support section of this sight). The enemies are not that hard to crunch on. The already mentioned "Edge of Darkness" is the best choice, in my opinion.

Talking about money & equipemtn:
I advise to always give the pc some "extra cash" and perhaps some gear. I never quiet understood that "finance yourself!" approach that is taken by some.
If you are handing them... say 100 to 300 thrones a mission and provde extra xp for saving some money, they will get the trick.

I strongly recommend not playing the introductory adventure, Shattered Hope , with actual Player Characters (as opposed to the sample characters included)- multiple 'Instant Death on a single dieroll' situations. "The adventure can't continue until you jump over this chasm. Roll under your Agility. Didn't make it? Roll up a new character..."