OK, a wee bit late, but anyway:

the basic "extraction" scenario from the DW rulebook. It's a fair start. The underlying "time runs out" idea is clever, but it requires too big a suspension of disbelief. No matter where you are, cosmically speaking, flying to a planet, touching down and finding the Magos - in five hours - is impossible. The whole idea of getting a transmission, sending a team away to another planet in another solar system to rescue someone who is hours away from getting killed is simply pointless. The whole idea that a planet is literally overrun in a matter of hours, even days or weeks or months, by a creature that will attack on foot (or even motorized) is ridiculous given the sheer scale of a planet. Getting anywhere takes a couple of thousand miles, meaning days even if you run at 100 miles an hour.

I guess what I wanted to say: the time element is where my suspension of disbelief will fail me, and I know my players (who like to play through space travel) will give me the eye when I explain to them the hours-long deadline.

A reasonable orbit above a planet is 36.000 km above sea-level ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit ). Page 170 of "RoB" states a drop-pod makes up to 12.000 km per hour. Travelling to the planet (provided top velocity is reached instantaneously) will take the players 3 of their five hours.

I know DW is not Traveller and one shouldn't be to anal about the whole space-data side of it, but the transgalactic resuce mission with only hours to spare - man ! Of course, an outcome could be that the situation evolved to a point where mere hours are left, but that still leaves the problem of extraction - from the time the players call the Thunderhawk that they are ready to be extracted, the ETA will (p183 RoB), ahem, 18 hours if one assumes cruising speed of 2.000 km per hour (travelling from Orbit).

Anyway, probably best not to think too deeply about this one and just make do, but what I was wondering, did any of guys fall over this at all (or your players) in actual play ?

My group didn't have a problem with that, as I personally think there is some misunderstanding here. Or, you could call it bad writing

To me, the idea is that the 5 hours delay is more like real-life time, and should be translated into in-game time. That is, first the mago has a problem, he broadcasts, the Kill-Team wasn't too far away so they're sent there, which spares some time...

Then you can say the infestation is effectively a bit slower (although 'nids really tend to breed surprisingly fast), but don't put numbers on that and it should feel smooth. I hate giving numbers in those situations, I tend to say "in the very near future", "in some time", "you still have plenty of time", etc...

As for the Thunderhawk, let's just stay it has already been closing in: no one urges the Marines to avoid wasting oil, the Imperium isn't really on the ecologic side So let's not count that many hours to descend : it was very low on altitude, and everything goes just as planned

Yeah that's how we played it - insertion by drop pod with a thunderhawk starting at the same time for pickup.

When I ran that scenario I simply had the briefing say that there was time limit involved and they need to find the Magos as quickly as possible before extraction became an impossibility. Doesn't need mentioning and it adds tension. The GM just plays that and makes the last bit of the scenario tense, action packed with a "we're not going to make it" feel.

I think that the root problem may be that you're confusing DW with Sci-Fi. DW is science fantasy. The science takes a back seat to the action, just as fantasy and historical fiction are differing genres. Don't sweat the numbers so much. Or make your drop-pods travel faster.

You can still easily insert a time limit by -during the drop-pod re-entry- having the situation change and appraising the PCs of the new and updated time-frame and situation.

I modified it for my game. The Kill Team was in the Castobel system for an earlier adventure. I had tyranid reinforcements arrive in system, which prompted the final consumption of the moon. So, I ran Extraction from there, they traveled in-system to the moon, dropped, then got out. I was more abstract with the time and gave them ~3 hours of "ground time" (I think, its been a little while).

It seems easy to adjust to me. It does take weeks for the planet to be totally overrun. But it probably only takes days for the tipping point to be reached where the PDF forces are fighting a doomed fight.

And why not have the distress call go out weeks ago? It took that long to send a force. By the time the nearest kill team (PCS) reach the planet it is already doomed. It isn't that the planet will be nearly completely consumed at that point. Just that the hordes of Tyranids are already swarming toward the VIPs position. Maybe the marines can even see the swarm on the horizon as they drop. So once they arrive they release they have just hours to complete their mission.

I think there are three important points, the first is (as siranui takes every opportunity to point out) Warhammer 40000 is far from a reliable source of science fiction. see a thread on another forum which calculates that the mass of the material imperial starships are made of is lighter than styrofoam.

second, if you are a GM and you don't like this then change the numbers to make it work better, if you are a player then request that your GM looks at the numbers in a friendly out of game way. I think during the session you should just suspend disbelief, interrupting and trying to correct a GM in front of all of the players might be seen as hostile.

Finally I have to say I disagree with your orbital numbers, a Geosynchronous Orbit is indeed of the order of 30000 km up but it is very easy to make an orbit much lower than that, the Mir space station for example is in an orbit that has been stable for decades at only 360 km from the surface of the Earth (more or less). This for makes a drop pod journey of less than two minuts

Short answer, no, no problems from my group.

During the brief, why not tell the PCs that by the time they get to the ground they'll only have 5 hours left until they can no longer be extracted? As deinol suggests t doesn't really matter when the Magos sent his message, provided that he sent it after the Tyranids started consuming the planet. In addition, for him 'getting somewhere' there is nothing preventing his point of origin from being closer to the polar station to begin with. As for the Thunderhawk, IIRC the book says the TH is being kept in reserve and hiding until extration is ready, you can hand wave this to say that they were on station just out of reach of the main bits and pieces of the fleet?

That's how I ran it, and since it's such a short and self-contained mission I ran it as kind of a 'side quest' while the team was enroute to a pre-planned mission. I also used it as an intro to some folks from the adeptus biologica which I used later in the campaign.

While I don't personally like to play out space travel, I won't fault a group who does; just remember (as has been mentioned) travelling between systems is done via the Warp, which takes the whole light speed limitation out of the equation and gives the GM full control over how long it takes to go between systems. It can take weeks/months to travel, or in some cases you can even arrive in the system before you left the other system. When travelling through the warp (aka hell), the GM does what the GM wants.

As an aside, I'm surprised that this is the one flaw in the 40k system/setting harder sci-fi fans would take issue with. In a world where the bolt shels are filled with heavy hydrogen

Ariolan said:

Thanks everybody for reacting.

After reading the posts, the idea ventured to have the situation acutely deteriorate to the point that the polar cap is only hours away from being overrun and the Thunderhawk circling somewhere and available is the way to go.

Obviously this is no science fiction, but I find that every now and then, some aspect hurts me more than others - dunno why......

I have no logical explanation why the time frame bothered me so much here and I couldn't care less about other, more glaring inconsistencies. I appreciate everyone bearing with me on that one and the many answers written in a constructive fashion.

Will run it this weekend and am tempted to somehow introduce the Samech Space Marine eater from the "Monster Manual" preview, just to let you see how much I care about realism per se

Charmander said:

Even better yet, I would have Deathwatch Epistolaries pass their Watch Captain the information that their estimate is that the players will have 2 to 7 hours before extraction can no longer be performed.

Alex

ak-73 said:

True point, better to leave it open and estimated, as best guesses is usually all the characters would get

There is a difference between “High” and “Low” orbit. In low orbit spaceships are exceedingly vulnerable to attacks from the ground – but if you have air-superiority that might not be an issue.

Space Marines, however, are experts at entering hostile low orbit, and delivering their cargo of marines (and probably a massive barrage from their weapon systems at the same time) before hastily retreating to high orbit.

So a strike cruise might get within a few hundred km from the planet, launch the drop-pods and Thunderhawks, and then retreat to several thousand km again.