Hi as the topic states I've never played an RPG before but when I heard about Dark Heresy I rounded up some mates and got into it, I'm a huge fan of the 40k universe and have read all the codices/fluff and a fair few novels as well, I have a good grasp of the rules of DH and ran one campaign which I felt went well, a typical cultist story however the sorceror in charge turned into an unbound daemon host, somehow all my pcs survived(I may have gone too easy on them) but they all had fun. Now I'm doing the Shades on Twilight story from purge the unclean and want to add some depth for my characters who are, an assassin who specializes in close combat recently got a chain sword and the appropriate talent hes the one who kills the majority of the enemies. A psyker who has high ballistic skill he has yet to gain a proper psychic power but has made good use of his minor psychic powers and a techpriest who is pretty useless in combat(he is the only one in the group who has rped before). There are also two NPCs in the party an assassin who wields two pistols and has to make a willpower test to get over his obsession with aiming for the head(my psyker "convinced" a governor to release him from prison) and a guardsman who also specialises in close combat. sorry for the wall of text but I'd really appreciate some help I feel I havn't drawn the players into the universe as much as I could

Hi,

"Shades of Twilight" is not very good with "drawing the pc into the universe" (...instead of "drawing them into the void). In my opinion, the best thing to do to draw people in is a good description of their surrounding and some examples of the everyday live going. These will be of no relevance to them, but it helps you to impose the world on them.

If they are, for example, walking down a corridor in a ship to reach the cutter waiting for them, describe what is going in the corridor. Make the corridor wide (3m), so they can pass by voidmens heading from a to be, a troup of downtrodden, overtired and underfed ratings shock-proddled by a bosun to their next work, machinepriests blessing a lately repaired airduct ventilation system (which will make the pc WAIT since the corridor is blocked by the Priest, two kneeling Technomants and a servitor holding a bow with smoking incenceses the ventilations system will suck in once it is reactivated).

Scene like this help to bring the players "into the world & into the mood"

Thanks I was already trying to bring more depth in but the examples are helpful, and I'm aware I can't include much in the shades of twilight but I want to help my gamers develop their characters any suggestions?

chieflazyarse said:

If you want your players to develop their characters, you need to get them thinking about who their characters are. Seems obvious, but what you want to do is find ways to make your players question where their characters came from, why they're here now and what they intend to do in the future. You can send them up against cult after cult in increasingly difficult battles, but that probably won't make them think about who they are or why they're here. Not that there's anything wrong with an action-oriented game, mind you. It's all a question of what kind of story you want to tell.

The simplest way to make them think about their characters is to ask them to write up a quick one-page background or something. Have a few sample questions for them answer, like "why did you become an Inquisitor?" and "where were you born?" Of course, how detailed they can be about such things depends on how much they know about the 40k universe to begin with. Offer them a session's worth of XP if they do it. That might like seem a lot, but consider that they'll be spending probably about as much time as a single session writing it up. When I first started GMing I used to love the background idea, but I've since given up on it since I've realised it's just that much more homework for me to read. Still, it's a useful learning tool if you're looking for ways to get into their characters' history.

You can also use "flashback" scenes to role-play important parts from earlier in their life. You should probably sit down with each player individually and outline what kinds of things happened, what kinds of people they dealt with, and how those relationships ended (or if they did.) Then you cna play out the scene at session after finding some way to "remind" the character about what happened to them before. You can roll dice for some things while in the flashback, but in general the player shoud be able to narrate more than he usually can wha tthe outcome should be. Done correctly, this can also be a fun little role-reversal where the player effectively becomes "GM" for this scene, and you just play out some NPC reactions.

Ideally what you want to get out of such a sit-down is ideas for NPCs who can resurface during the game in the "present," but you don't want to go forceably writing enemies into their character history without consulting them first. I remember one time the DM in a game I was playing in randomly decided to invent a woman NPC whom my character "had slept with one night" (even though my charcater was never established as a womanizer) who showed up pregnant and began manipulating me into doing what the DM wanted me to do. I never fully forgave him for just randomly rewriting MY character's past like that, so you want to be careful about making decisions for them. What happens during the game is fully under your control - you can bend or break the rules to make the game go the way you want - but what happened to your PCs before the game began should generally be left to them to decide.

Finally, having mined their characters' past for mutually acceptable plot hooks, you can find ways to bring those back in the "present." Old friends show up to ask favours, old enemies show up for revenge (not necessarily murderous revenge either - maybe the guy is just a prankster.) Perhaps a distinctive family heriloom that was thought lost shows up in someone else's possession and the player might feel compelled to get it back, one way or another. Et cetera. You don't want to do this all at once either. Use one character's history in the first story arc, and another character's history in the next. Spread it out a bit and let them evolve as the game progresses.

Thanks heaps man, you've been a big help if anyone else can give any other tips on gming that would be awesome although I feel as though I'm getting myself into a lot of work I really want my campaigns to be memorable

I am a new gm as well, I've had trouble finding really helpful threads out in the vastness of the forum void. However, the few comments here have given me some great ideas, you (all) should try to expand this post. Well, k thx by

chieflazyarse said:

It certainly CAN be a lot of work. The better you know your players and the kind of story they enjoy, the more you can cut out preparing for things they probably won't do - but you should always be ready to improvise! Players have a habit of doing what you least expect.

I would reccommend googling some general RPG blogs to read up on ideas for how to build a camapign. Don't worry about whether the blog is referring to D&D or White Wolf or whatever. Most of the advice you'll find can be applied to any setting, and you'll more than likely find tons of seeds for ideas to use later in the game.

I would also reccomend checking out sites like TVtropes.org. It's full of little cliches and narrative techniques seen in movies and tv shows, and a lot of those cliches can also be applied to running an RPG session. With a little practice you'll be amazed at how well your players respond!

One good thing about GMing is that the more you put into it, generally speaking, the more you get out of it in the end. Some ideas or charcaters might get bypassed, but you can save them for later and reintroduce them as "new" plot lines. =)

Knowing your player's characters help as well; if only to put them up agaisnt something 'up their alley', and maybe, just maybe, have 1-2 special moments where odd skills can be useful; sure your guardsmen took Common lore (War) or whatever, but it's not that much useful in a firefight; but add 1-2 elements where some knowledge would help the cell, and suddenly that risky 100xp on some shaky skill suddenly is worth it's weight in Gelts.