What if you were in a predicament? You have two games you could run, either Planescape in ADnD 2E or Dark Heresy? How would you argue the benefits of one over the other - leaving system mechanics out of it?

I have a DH game on haitus, and am currently running a PS game, but am debating going back to the former. The Planescape game has been going pretty well, but I've had an itch to run DH as of late ... the catch is, I've made a bargain with my players that if I start another game I will run it for no less than 4 months. (otherwise, honestly, I'd probably change every month)

So ... which should I do? And can you go about convincing me or one or the other?

DH is way awesome. However, if you have a game that is going well, I wouldn't stop it. Your players may not click with the themes or setting or rules of DH (or any game) and then you've already lost steam on your old game. So I recommend you keep playing Planescape until that starts to loose steam and not be as fun anymore. In the meantime, feel free to write up thoughts and notes for DH as they come. Then you'll be extra ready when it is time to start a campaign.

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear in my initial post ... I have a DH game on haitus, we started it last summer and played for four months, but got sidetracked do to some player issues ... since then I've been running Planescape. Now, I'm feeling the urge to get back to DH, but doing so will mean putting the PS game on hold for four months ... I'm looking for excuses to either keep going with PS or switch up. Until it ended, the old DH game was doing fairly well, imo, and I know I have one player who would love to get back to it. (we, actually, did have an issue with the DH mechanics clashing with the theme the first time we played, but I translated it into another system and that was working quite well)

We just defeated the Widower this afternoon. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole seven hours we were playing and even spent a considerable ammount of time standing up because I was too fidgetty to sit down.

I returned to roleplaying a few months ago after many years away to play Dark Heresy and didn't as much excitement out of a game as I did today for a long time before I 'retired' so I've got to vote for Dark Heresy.

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That's a tough one! I LOVE PlaneScape. I ran it for several years, several years ago... I miss you planescape!

I'm playing DH right now, and have not had some PS in eons so I'm tempted to side with PS on that basis, but really: this isn't a question you can "get wrong." You either are having a good time playing what you're playing now, or you decide you would rather be playing something else. If you're runing the game, then I would go with your personal preference of what you prefer to run.

If anything, I'm inclide to go with deinol said: if things are working well now, why stop? And nothing prevents you from preparing for the time when DH becomes the flavour of the day! I haven't run a game in a bout a year, but I still try to keep working on adventures/campagins for my Rokugan game. (Sahemless plug: 4th edition is awesome, BTW! )

Good luck and happy gaming!

I end up GM'ing most of the games that go on locally. Two incidents that really come back to my mind that include awesome moments have occured during dark heresy games.

Situation 1: the group was going about a secret sororitis library where nuns with books who were researching dark texts. While trying to use a rather mundane power, a combination of bad rolls and lack of fate points led to the groups psyker turning into a daemonhost. Another character, thinking quickly, turned on a meltabomb charge and then threw it at the pskyer, knocking him into an elevator. A third character reached in and hit the number for a random floor and the remaining team took off running for their lives.

Situation 2: while working for a radical inquisitor, the group, who had been sent on a mission to a small imperial world with order to draw the attention of the imperial authorities to the area. The group, after some research, decided to attack the ruling palace and destroy the tower normally used by the astropath to talk to the rest of the imperium. The attack would create a 'hole' in the transmission web between imperial worlds which is the first sign of a tyranid attack. After fighting the palace guards and having preplanted explosives to create anarchy in the streets to tie up the arbites. Once the damage was done, the group had to lay low for five months before a relief fleet arrived, just in time to meet an actual tyranid invasion.

Jack of Tears said:

Just FYI - which system are you running PlaneScape with? Old AD&D 2nd ed? Or have you adapted it to something else? I've been thinking about getting back in that pilot's seat again...

My suggestion would be run your current PS game until you get to the end of a scenerio/campaign. Tell your players you need some time to plot out another scenerio/campaign while in the meantime play a couple one shot DH scenerios. Especially if your players aren't familiar with DH. After a couple scenerios ask your players if they want to continue with DH or go back to PS. There is nothing wrong with commiting yourself to playing X game for Y amount of time, but at the same time get some feedback from your players. Nothing worse than to think the players are gonna like a setting and start playing according to your self commited timetable only to find out they don't enjoy the system and are only playing because that's what your running.

My two cents take it as you will.

Macharias the Mendicant said:

I'm running with a homebrew system based in 2E, but sharing some elements with Rolemaster and a couple ideas from 3E. (not much from that last, however)

The official PS fanpage has translation info for 3E (and 3.5 I think) if you're looking for that. (personally, I feel the setting was better served with the looser rule structure of 2E, and many of the people on the forums tend to agree, but the setting is awesome enough that I'm sure it will fly with whichever ruleset you prefer)

I loved the Byzantine rules for the Schools of Magic in 2e. But I have to admit, after playing a LOT of 2e, I also played a LOT of 3e/3.5e and I might be tempted to give it a shot... Thanks for the link.

Wow, I played RoleMaster for years. What portion are you using with the AD&D stuff?

It is so awesome 'super', 'great', 'fabulous' and 'stupendous' gave up, moved to Tasmania to hide and got lost but no one noticed.