Xathess Wolfe said:

The consequences of actions should be made clear by any good GM I agree, I often have bystanders, innocents and bad guys with families etc - makes it more real Player reactions should then be in character ...................

Interestingly the one time I encountered the aforesaid goblin females / children in a D+D game - it broke the game and caused a 3 hour discussion.

We had killed some goblins and then found the females and children - now playing a young and fanatical Paladin - I said ok do they detect as evil? - thinking they would be neutral or similar - yep says the GM, OK does my religion consider all Goblins Evil? yep - so they die - much to suprise of everyone. (I don't usually play Paladins or D+D)

Upon which I loose my Paladin powers which I object to in the context of the game, character etc - long long discussion on the problems of having detect evil, what is evil etc etc...............I have never been a D20/D+D fan and this whole session did not help.

Graver said:

LOL you are sick and if there is a hell youre deffinantly going there. I Like it. Ill see you there. LOL

My roomate refuses to play because its not Space Marines.

Killing children and innocents for no obvious reason is a big CP-gainer in my book. That said, I wouldn`t describe the off-shot head of a young girl just to make a point. That`s too radical for me. People are playing for fun, not to be reminded of Gaza or whatever.

Better to give the PCs moral choices and bad situations. The players kill everything simply because they can - I have to make fighting more lethal for them, or the typical hostage with explosives kind of deal.

Oh well, they`ll probably just shoot the hostages...

Dagda said:

Is your roommates name 'Dezmond' by any chance?

kennetten said:

This is my opinion and in no way is intended to say you're wrong, just my opinion.

Well playing for fun is one thing, but to make it unrealistic for me makes no sense. If you're on a Hive world, where the population density is very high, and you walk into a mid-hive and just start shooting anything that moves, there is a good chance you're going to hit innocents, and children. Dark Heresy and 40k is about making choices, and some of those choices are immoral by todays standards.

I don't know if I'd advocate if the players took every precaution possible before going into a hive if I'd hype the dead children, simply because its not needed to be stated. But if you have irresponsible characters running around, and players thinking that killing off all the people in a mid-hive doesn't have consequences, and you feel the need to reel them in, playing up the dead innocents is the way to do it. It may not be "fun", but after one of two times doing it, and assuming the players aren't "wanna-be sociopaths who think its "cool" to be psycotic" they're start trying to minimize collateral damage, and at that point you can safely ignore all the unfun things.

Fun... maybe not... effective... definatly.

Don't forget having a hundred hivers shoot back, new term suicide by hiver.

I have a pretty 'kill everything in sight' kinda group at times (also DnD players) who I sometimes have problems with when Im trying to lay down an interesting plot. Their take on trying to infiltrate a gang was shoot the little guys until the big guys showed up and then shoot them too. I think one thing that turned them off to the investigation was the fairly low chance at being able to pass their skill/knowledge tests, and thats when they had the right skills to test for the situation! They have a lot of combat skills but not too many investigative skills between them.

I'm currently trying to combat this by adapting some suggested rules found here: http://www.darkreign40k.com/downloads/career-paths/acolytes-handbook/details.html . I justify this as the players have been given access to their Inquisitor's library and get given a few hundred points between adventures to go and read up on Common/Scholastic Lores. This doesn't count towards their level advancement and is justified as something that will help make them better Acolytes and so more useful to their Inquisitor. Now that the characters have the skills you just need to somehow work them into the plot. When my players saw their new found knowledge being used they seemed more engaged with the plot.

To further challenge the whole 'We can stand and fight anything' approach I decided it was time to show them they couldn't; I put them on a planet that was infected with Tyranids and had them fighting Genesteales and Lictors while an orbital bombardment that was clensing the planet was moving towards their position. This got the desired effect of "Run for it! And keep running!!"

Now that's the way to do it. Put the fear of death into them for once, and show them thier characters are not invincible killing tanks. (Just the things they fight sometimes lol)

Why does it have to be our role as GM's to "Teach" the players how to role play?

If players want to kill stuff, it's my job to let them kill stuff. If they don't have fun, they leave. If I am not having fun, I leave. That's just the way it is.

Find out what everyone wants and try to give it to them. Of course, if everyone wants something different, a compromise will need to be reached.

Have fun.

LeBlanc13 said:

Yes! Thank you!

This would idea that Dark Heresy is so exceptional from other RPGs continually makes me suspicious. It's just a fairly standard horror fantasy RPG...

Kage

play a DH game using only prim. weapons?

LeBlanc13 said:

QFT!

There is no right or wrong way to role play and we all role play for different reasons looking to get different things from the experience. Therefor, it's simply the GM's job to make sure as many folks have a good time (themselves included) as is possible. Heck, that responsibility extends to the players as well.

A role playing game is essentially a leisure-time communal game. That means that it is not only an activity designed for the enjoyment of those participating but also that any enjoyment and fun to be pulled from it must be a communal effort. As such, the only right way to roleplay (and GM) is the way in which everyone has fun and the only wrong way is the way that only adds to the enjoyment of one or a handful of participants.

In the case of the OP, there is obviously a rift between what the players find enjoyable and what the GM finds enjoyable. In such a situation, a compromise has to be reached (dark violent investigations?). Once an adequate compromise is reached (what ever that compromise is and no matter the play style it leads to), then the roleplayers will be roleplaying correctly, the game master will be GMing properly, and good games will be had by all.

Kage2020 said:

I would not claim that DH is a superior RPG (I have not tried many) but I certainly have alot of fun playing it. I would argue the setting is great and the rules if viewed as a framework can allow you to explore them very well. I have seen your posts in other threads and you seem to have slightly unrealistic expectations when it comes to DH, wanting it to cover all situations and have all background go into a huge level of detail which considering the scale of 40K I feel is a bad idea. I personally think that the narrow viewpoint helps and think that given time they can really dig into the background of the sector but you have to remember they have only produced a few books and they are getting the most useful ones done first before delving deeply into other areas.

In fact I am not quite sure where that comment came from since it doesn't seem to have any relivance to this thread. If you mean why do people seem to think DH is better than DnD then I would like to point out that DH and DnD are designed to do very different things with DnD much more geared towards the dungeon crawl and DH more towards the Investigation and discovery of threats to the Imperium. This should mean that you interact alot more with NPC's in DH and your consequences will effect those NPC's, the goal of the game is to help the Imperium and thus its people even if it means sometimes people have to be sacrificed. DnD is about being an adventurer and killing the bad guy, fighting the monster getting the loot. I am not saying one is better than the other but I know which one I prefer.

DnD tends to encourage a less role playing experience as you are interacting with the world alot less as people and much more as items that can either benifit you or harm you. DH is less like that by nature. It doesn't have to be like that with either system and a DnD group can RP alot better than a DH group and treat the NPC's as humans (or equivilent) and DH groups can be obsessed with killing things at all costs but they are not set up like that default.

I tend to think of DnD as more of a game rather than a role playing experiance and judgeing from this thread I am not alone by that assumption. Of course it all depends on the group and GM but I do not find it hard to believe that DnD players tend to think like that.

Kaihlik

Kaihlik said:

I think of any RPG as just that. It's a set of rules that allow peole to "Play" make-believe. What you do with those rules are up to you. Saying DND is more of a game rather than a role playing experience is a blanket statement that is false. The rules are just a framework in which a GM designs campaigns and players develop characters. RPG games are not predisposed to combat just because a game is described as combat heavy. You can still do anything you want within the context of a set of rules as long as the rules allow for it, or your group house rules to allow what you want to do.

In reality, a role playing game is a set of rules to help you facilitate actions in a story you design as a GM. It makes sure everyone reading the rules is on the same page for how to resolve actions. You could use the rules in DnD to play very similarly to a DH campaign with DnD characters or do the same with DH and play a Forgotten Realms campaign with the DH rules.

It's not the rules system that decide how the game is played....it's the GM's and players that decide. The same group could play DnD 4.0 one night and DH then next and have fairly similar experiences.

Saying DnD 4.0 is hack and slash, or DH is an investigative game only is rubbish. The games will yield whatever the GM and players want to get from it.

It's really just up to your imagination and which ruleset you prefer.

Indeed, the whole point is that like most MMOs these days, people just seems all about the bloody killing factor.

What's RP to them, killing the bad guys because they are the 'enemy'. In fact some players even decide that PvP in thier own group is 'roleplaying' and gaming. *shrugs* I thought the origial idea of most RPGs was to come together and interact in a new world, full of things we just can't do here because of technologial, magical and other limitations. (not talking oh we can kill whomever we want now muwhahaah thinking)

I just find DH to be a game that 'encourages' moving away from what the majority seem to think is the only form of gaming: Wham bam, thank you ma'am. True any GM/player can do this in any game, but too many get the thought that mechanics are only: "Count up how much damamge I can take and hit for with each stat & item", and not 'Hmm what can I do and see in this place?'

I applaud any GM/player who attempts to break the mold of : *sigh* Ok you kill the dragon/daemon, and go to the tavern/bar. Count up your xp. Ok gather up your new loot. Next dragon/daemon round 2. That's just going with the flow and compounding errors. Personally if the GM and players don't think in some similar way, then they most likely shouldn't be playing that game (that or give another person a go at GMing and see how it works), else someone is going to eventually get pissed off with another person, or just up and leave anyways. What's the point in playing different games if everyone is just going to play them all the same way?

Lost my train of thought though. Getting awfully negative with my posts laltely. I do know that fights are fun, but I could just never play in a group where that's all they did, with all thier games. It just...feels like a single-player FPS game or something that way. But then again it all plays into the type of gamer one is. I beleive there's some 'questionares' that attempt to identify what type of gamer one is: Like the explorer, the socialiser, the killer, the powergamer, the loot *****, the roleplayer, the rollplayer etc.

I'd attempt to identify what really is the goal of the groups individuals first. Create something to come up with thier playstyles perhaps (yes like everyone says, compromise, but that's harder then it looks for GMs and players to do at times). But most of all see where YOU fit in and decide if this is really what and with whom you want to play. It's an eyeopener once people actually see what they are really thinking is going on with the group.

Maybe 40k isn't the universe for you. Whadya think - groups of 40k players are gonna want to get togeather and not kill ****?

Dezmond said:

You likes to stir ups the trubble....don't you Dez?

There is a time and a place to assault the percieved evils of popular culture, but a 40k RPG ain't either.

@ LeBlanc 13 - I know that which is why i said just that above the paragraph you quoted. That was just how they felt to me not a blanket statement intended to cover each game system. Also I would like to note I wasn't refering to you in that post rather it was Kage I was directing the comments at sorry if that was misleading (your post was just inside his and I dont like trying to screw with the quotes on this forum).

My view is that each of the systems has a defalt setup which draws players inclined to one or the other. While either system can be played in any way depending on the GM or the group if you play the Dungeon Crawl type of game for many years it could make a play in a more hack and slash style, hell I see people who play MMO's acting in the same way sometimes. So really its not the DnD system but rather the style of game often associated with it that can cause people to play a certain way. Dark Heresy is just set up default IMO to encourage a much more investigative playstyle but again it totally depends on the group and the GM, if you played dungeon crawls using the DH system you would be having the same sorts of problems with player mentality.

Anyway Im not saying there is anything wrong with either style its all personal preferance, some people like to just view it as a game with no real consiquences whereas some people are deep roleplayers with alot of emotion invested in their characters and that is the same for any system. It is all about what you want out of it.

In the case of the OP he wants what DH is set up for as a default which is an investiagtion based game where the players consider their actions and their consequences and the players just want to play for the rewards like they were doing a dungeon crawl.

Somehow I dont think this justification is going to help me and that people are going to willingly misinterperate what I am saying to prove a point one way or the other but hey, what the hell its just a game.

Kaihlik

Fideru said:

It sounds like they have a good handle on the game actually.

Isn't this about an inquisition? If someone doesn't appear the same or think the same as you.....PURGE them!!!

Kaihlik said:

I like to willingly misinterpret what your saying. Really, it's what I live for.

It just irks me sometimes that people try to say a game is all about one thing or another. These generalizations can and do turn people onto or away from possibly really fun games. All RPG games are about role playing. What you choose to do in that game is up to you. They are after all just a set of rules. The confusing thing is that most RPG companies come up with a different slant to set their games apart from the others. This is just a sales tool. The games are all really just about one thing. Setting down rules for how to deal with critical situations in the game. You could easily port rules into different genres of games if you chose to. The DnD rules would work equally well in Sci-Fi, Horror, WWII setting, etc... DH actually has technology levels broken down in the Inquisitor's Handbook. You could easily play in only one era of play and use primitive weapons only in your campaign for example. They players could be stuck on a planet similar to Earth for the entire campaign or even in just one city of the planet.

What an RPG company has to sell you on is their setting. If you're not hooked on the setting, most people won't even by the books. Rulesets are really boring and frankly they all do the same thing, but in different ways. Styles of play and player preconceptions all come from this setting background. If I gave you a ruleset only and told you to go to town with it, you would have no preconceived thoughts about how to play that game, but if I package the rules with a background and setting, some preconceptions will form in your mind as you read the flavor text and the background.

I've been waxing on this too much. I understand those were your feelings on the issue Kaihlik and apologize if my comments seemed like an attack.

It was just me venting.

DH rules and is the best RPG ever!!!!! So that so! And anyone who disagrees with me is stupid! ;-)

Seriously, this thread is about GM`s (like me) bored shitless because whatever intricate plot we come up with, the players vaporizes it with bolter fire faster than you can spell cuppycake! (I know, don`t ask).

So, how do one turn the group into bla bla. The setting is uninteresting. You can investigate inside a cave if you want to...

It really comes down to communication.

Players and GM need to be on the same page. If you're players want to hack and slash, who are you to tell them no. Find a new group of players.

LeBlanc13 said:

See I disagree with this. Players holding a GM hostage "You give us the game we want to play or else" is just as bad as a GM saying "play my game or else".

But you said it better before, both sides need to communicate.

The GM needs to clearly define not just what game system he wants to run, but any up front house rules, as well as what style of game he wants to play. Just saying "Lets play DH" doesn't mean crap. Saying "I want to play a Investigative style DH game where... blah blah blad" is better.

But the players need to be up front to. If they don't want to play said style of game, then they need to say it up front. But I've known too many players who agree to play a type of style of game, then go and either purposely or sub-conciously derail the game and play it the way they want to, then get angry that the GM isn't catering to their style, when the GM was upfront about the style of game he was going to run.

Now here's where I'm going to say I disagree. If the GM was upfront about the style (in this case investigative) of game he wanted to run (which I'm not so sure he was), and the players agreed to play that style, but are now simply hacking and slashing, well then its the GMs JOB to either get the game back on track, or simply end it

Simply put if the GM wants investigative and the players agreed to it, then he's the GM, and that's who he is to tell them no. They need to go find a new GM. If the players didn't have a clue, and wanted hack and slash, then I agree the GM needs to find new players or come to a concencious.