So for those of us unfortunates who had no access to Free RPG day and thus need to wait a week or two in hopes the PDF will land...

Anyone have some spoilers on Broken Chains? I care less about the adventure itself in this respect than I do about what system and setting info it might contain. What are the pregens? Anything else of note?

I would like to ask: Are there any horde rules in Black Crusade like in DW?

I am not very good at spotting interesting rules changes so I'll leave that for the other thread.

Pre-gens in Broken chains:

name

character type/archetype

Asrodel the fated

Chaos Space Marine/Forsaken

Nina Black

Human/Renegade

Ciro (Alpa Legionnaire)

Chaos Space Marine/Chosen

Hepastius Bore

Human/Heretek

Which by my count leaves us with the following Character types and Archetypes (so far):

Chaos Space Marine

- Chosen

- Forsaken

- Sorcerer

Human

- Renegade

- Heretek

- Apostate

There is no mentioning of any horde type mechanic and except for the explanation of Infamy (pretty much exactly like fate points) there really are no rules in there except the bare basics (that I can spot after a quick read).

Looking at the pre-gen PC's the default human power-level may be RT (lots of +10 skills). Combat rules were a bit different as well. Standard Attacks were Ordinary (+10) difficulty vice Challenging (+0) difficulty like in DH, RT and DW. All Out Attack was +30 vice +20 like in DH, RT and DW. The rules for Swift Attack were perhaps the biggest change. Swift Attack was a full round Challenging (+0) Weapon Skill test that scored a hit with a successful test and another hit if you scored two or more degrees of success. Note the similarity to the rules for Semi-automatic bursts. I'm not sure if the reduction in combat difficulty (as no one likes missing, especially new players) and combat action mechanics (to reduce the amount of dice new players have to roll) were made specifically for the quick-start rules or if they represent changes made to the system for Black Crusade

What's the Renegade like? The name sounds like a smuggler/scum mix of social and combat abilities.

Cifer said:

That's pretty much spot on - at least judging by the pre-gen. Nina Black is far above the other characters in the social department with a Fel of 53 and Charm and Decieve trained to +20.

"Nina Black is a charming and charismatic leader. Though skilled with a blade, her true weapons are her words. She can motivate, persuade, or command even the most reluctant underlings."

Black_Kestrel said:

I'm pretty sure those represent changes to the system. Swift attack was in Final Sanction and Forsaken Bounty and worked as normal. The same goes for all other combat mechanics, which were as normal in the demo adventures.

I really like these rule changes, and will be stealing them for the other games.

Also, in broken chains unnatural characteristics are additions to the bonus rather than multipliers. (CSM get +4 to strength and toughness, the Heretek has +2 strength and toughness.)This is most likely a system change because unnatural scores were multipliers in Final Sanction.

Interesting. Sounds like it's darn near an entirely different game. It's going to make conversions a lot more difficult for those of us who aren't good system monkeys.

Still, between being Levelless and Classless, it sounds flat out MUCH better than the old version too. I wonder if there'll be any sort of thing to convert the others to similar systems?

Ok maybe I missed it somewhere no one is talking about Infamy characteristic

In Black Crusade Free RPG Day Book Broken Chain it uses Infamy instead of Fate Points (Read section on Role of Infamy). Fates points which used to be like 3 or 5 points is now an Infamy Characteristic which is like ballistic Skill or Weapon Skill a percentage (for pregens in handout 30, 41, 35, and 32). So Deathwatch brought us Squad and Solo skills is this a new element Black Crusade is bringing

So Infamy Charasteristic how will that work, maybe to show how hard core you are in a universe dominated by chaos you roll under and get the effect and tick one off. Two paragraphs, one saying use it is a characteristic and the other saying all the things you can get, just like old one, 1D5 wounds, extra degree success etc. Regardless I don't see anyone else talking about this?

All I know is that I went to Free RPG Day just to get the Pathfinder We Be Goblins adventure and when I saw the Black Crusade module my eyes grew large with passion. I just moved a few months ago and where I was at before, I had an RPG group. It might take a while before I get a group going, but I was considering Dark Heresy when a group does come together. Now that I see Black Crusade and perused the module a little, I think I want this. I still need to get familiar with the rules. I may even consider running the game even though I prefer to be a player instead of a game master. The thought of spreading chaos throughout the universe gets me all giddy inside. Sorry, I may have added nothing to the tidbits that you requested, but my wife seemed to not care about this at all.

Infamy seems to be a combination of Profit Factor/Influence from RT/DH and Fate. A character's Infamy Points are determined by their "Infamy Bonus" much like a character's Strength or Toughness Bonus. You can spend them like Fate Points, but it is currently unknown if you can burn them to avoid death. A character can also 'test' Infamy to see if other characters have heard of him/her or know his/her reputation (this mechanic comes up once in the adventure). I believe that one of the Designer Diaries mentioned that characters use Infamy to acquire gear and possibly followers in a similar fashion to Rogue Trader or DH: Ascension (I'm not entirely sure on this, mind you).

It was a hell of a lot of fun. We had a small group, so I got to take two characters, the Tech (anti)priest and the psyker.

I had worried that I would have a hard time Role Playing the "bad guys." No problem at all. The adventure starts with you waking up on an Inquisition prison ship after 200 years in stasis. Something had gone wrong....

Before we had any encounters, our GM described the interrogation rooms we walked past. I had my psyker spit, and I was in character for the rest of the adventure. Turns out it's really easy to hate the Inquisition.

Seriously, the PDF of this cannot be released soon enough. If it had come out yesterday, that still would not have been soon enough! And darn it! It's sad Free RPG day stuff isn't released same day PDF for us unfortunates without access to a participating store.

I find it absolutely incredible that this hasn't been put on the website to download.

Once again FFG's decision making is just extraordinary. Whatever logic they abide by isn't of any sense to me.

signoftheserpent said:

Last year, we had Deathwatch demo a week or two after the Free RPG Day, but still well before the release of the game. Hopefully we'll get the same this year.

signoftheserpent said:

Well, considering that the event took place over a weekend, and it's presently not even half-past 6 in the morning in Minnesota, I don't think anyone is really around to do anything about it at the moment.

Should have been made freely available as soon as it was written, not saved for some pointless event. I presume FFG actually want people to buy BC.

signoftheserpent said:

Do you also believe that christmas and birthday presents should be given as soon as they're bought rather than waiting for the event they've been bought for?

You may regard Free RPG Day as pointless, but you're not a Local Gaming Store looking to draw in a crowd of potential new customers (the reason that Free RPG Day exists; it's common for the publishers of RPGs to take action like this to support those local stores).

signoftheserpent said:

I don't know how you sir make a living, but I do suppose you sometimes have to sell something, too...

Marketing is much more complex than just spilling the beans about the product. Sometimes, you have to build up anticipation, reveal your cards slowly etc.

Sometimes, you have other goals than just selling your product. Free RPG Day is a joint venture between publishers and gaming stores. Stores benefit from the exclusive, free content being handed out, publishers benefit from hyping their products to people who might never visit publishers' sites.

Ironically, the fact that we spend time discussing the game even before it's release means most marketing effort is wasted on us, as we're likely to buy it anyway. Hence, alienating us (temporarily, at that) in favor of people visiting gaming stores looks like a sound marketing strategy.

This.

FFG usually waits a bit before releasing the free PDFs. I like it, makes me want to attend the events more.

@signoftheserpent

Should have been made freely available as soon as it was written, not saved for some pointless event. I presume FFG actually want people to buy BC.

And considering that you're still going to buy it, your presumption has no impact at all.

You're right. You should get something for nothing.

All that sitting around you're doing needs to be rewarded!

I wouldn't mind so much if I was in the UK or America, but cause in Australia we're ahead 10 hours the free rpg day occurs on our Sunday, so the stores are shut and it gets pushed to Monday. I can't really justify taking an hour plus off of work for a free event.

If we got it ahead of the US people would probably (rightly) cry foul but still its a bit incovienent for us.

signoftheserpent said:

Sometimes there are players who look the adventures for spoilers. I think in FRPGD some games are played in which the players doesn't know very well each other. I think in such games, it's better not to have the adventure released.

Anyway, I can't wait too for the adventure to be released, now that it has been played.