H.B.M.C. said:

Well, those adventures you've mentioned are indeed a bit crappy, to be frank (and not only them). It seems, loads of work are required to make them look at least somewhat less shoddy. But, what if I prefer GMing adventures as close to the text as possible - what do I do? I GM them, but reserve my moral right to critisize them to the core.

That said, many other DH adventures (Haarlock trilogy, Illumination, Edge of Darkness and some other) are great, regardless. I believe they are praised decently by the community.

I can totaly understand why you would think those adventures a bit crappy. And quite frankly, I don't have a solution to make these better for you other than putting forth some effort by yourself to alter/detail it more, or to contact FFG and making your concerns known. I can sympathize with people that just want to jump in and play the adventure. I, myself, wish that were the case. But I've loved creating adventures since getting into RPG's years ago and have been altering every published adventure to my players tastes, from AD&D to Call of Cthulhu. So, IMO, it's not just FFG's adventures that I do this to. But I also realise I've been doing this for a long time and I can see that this can be a problem for GM's/players that are newer and I think FFG needs to adress this in further publications if they wish to broaden thier influence on new gamers.

Mithras said:

Well, for 17 years of gaming and GM-ing/playing custom made scenarios, I must admit that the latter better suit our needs. Still, that doesn't, I think, serve as a good excuse for publishing low-grade official full-length adventures. But, of course, you can't like every one of them.

H.B.M.C. said:

I liked "Damned Cities". And Lure of the Expanse.

There have been good and bad adventures all across the 40K RPGs. Most lean toward bad.

Even if they can be tweaked to be ok or great, they are still subpart.

Edge of Darkness was great. I dont mind Shattered Hope does what it needs to do (and can be just as much fun with role playing thrown in).

But Haarlock part 3 was crap. Black Sepulchre made me stop even looking at my 40K RPG books as it was just so god aweful. IMHO (IN MY HUMBLE OPINION) (MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION) Dark Heresy has been on a stead decline since Rogue Trader was released.

Rogue Trader has been on a decline since Deathwatch, and so forth.

Now there are some exceptions, Blood of Martyrs was fairly good, Ascension was not. Daemonhunters was OK. Radicals Handbook was excellent.

In general I now buy the adventures just for maps, gazeteers and stats.

So what stats are in Church of the Damned?

Peacekeeper_b said:

Pretty much agree with this, the published DH adventures have been a mixed bag and IMO even the good ones have only been good because i have adapted them. Edge of Darkness and House of Dust and Ash have been the best. Having a go at people for being down on them is a little harsh because i think in general they deserve the criticism. The 40K line really deserves a classic adventure like the Enemy Within or Masks of Nyarlathotep to be written for it to ensure its place in the pantheon of great RP games. Fingers crossed it is on the horizon.

Replicant253 said:

You speak my mind! I wish Mr. Bligh would do some more adventures for DH. He seems to know good game design.

Those of us who criticize a lot of the scenario books for Dark Heresy don't do it out of hatred or malice for the line. Quite the opposite. We do it because we really love Dark Heresy and the 40k universe. But seeing a lot of these scenarios such as Black Sepulchre is like having a brilliant gifted genius level kid who just smokes pot all day and writes his papers ten minuets before they're due. There's just so much potential that is being utterly waisted.

One of the major problems I've noticed with the DH scenarios is the rather heavy handed rail-roading. I don't know why so many DH adventure books insist on having these A -> B -> C plot set-ups as it seems incredibly amateurish, especially for any kind of game with one foot in the mystery game genre. The hobby has been around for a while and there have been plenty of work and breakthroughs made in the horror, mystery, and epic (the three things the DH scenario books seem to want to go for) scenario design over the past 30-odd years. If nothing else, Masks of Nyarlathotep shows us that you can indeed have a mystery/horror series of adventures of epic proportion and consequences -scenarios where there is no ABC plot design and what a player chooses to do actually matters in the end. Of all the problems with the current shape of DH adventures, the fact that player choice has very little effect on the over all plot as presented is the worst and it just keeps happening. To fix that problem, you pretty much just have write a whole adventure your self and if you're doing that, why use the book at all?

When the Haarlock trilogy started, people would want the book without the desire to run the adventure or not think too much of heavily rewriting it from the ground up because it came with a lot more. If the story and set-up for the scenario was sub-par, there was at least some great setting information in the form of gazetteers which would spawn additional or different ideas and make the books worth while. That seems to be fading away as well. It's starting to look like the only reason to buy these books would be for a poorly implemented rail road which would take a GM like me about as long to rewrite into something usable as it would to simply write up something from scratch. In other words, there's no real incentive left to buy these books. That coupled with the fact that we know it can be so much more if it just tried (and keep hoping with each book that it will be the magic golden egg) is infuriating. It's like that genius gifted kid is smoking pot 24-7 now and realized he doesn't even need to turn in any more papers to get a C out of the course, and that's still passing, so why try.

In a setting and game genre proven to be capable of so much, why should we be complacent and happy with mediocrity at best and "holy crap, what the hell is this?!" at worse? It sure as heck doesn't do the thing we love any justice and, in the end, can only hurt it -something none of us wants to see

Graver said:

Couldn't have put it better. DH is supposed to be CoC in space, isn't it?

I personally don't see much evidence of FFG's 40k rpg output 'improving', as some one put it upthread.

We do get some books, with some good stuff, some even with some great stuff. However I do think it's damning that imho there does seem a general decline in quality since the BI released early stuff. Yes, there are still thing to like in most of the books, however the later game lines seem undeniably more scant in loving setting detail that DH/Calixis to me.

There's a feeling that rules are being chucked in at the expense of flavour. I've been saying this for some time, so my complaints won't be news.

As proof I do like some FFG stuff, here's some praise for recent books;

The Emperor Protects - This DW module surprised the heck out of me by being really well written. Okay the first of it's 3 adventures is pretty bland and 'meh', and I'm disinterested in the over arching plot (not that it's terrible - just not my style), but the second adventure has some interesting and useful Necron lore, and best of all -for once- the third adventure actually gives us an imaginative and very good new setting. The Chaos Forge world of Samech is a brilliant location imo - I LOVE the great names and atmosphere; the Black Engine, the Soul Alembic, the Astrum Conflagro, the Irradial Forge, Arcanotech, the Whispering Cogitators and so on. THIS is a 40K rpg setting! It's new, it feels detailed but also very open to GM tweaking and addition, and there are credible non-combat ways to insert Space Marines into the location. I wish this much love and care went into each 40K adventure setting.

I don't care too much about using or not using plots from published modules, so long as the module gives me rich material to mine and TEP pays a mining GM off in spades.

Daemon Hunter - Okay, this one's a bit slim (as is becoming the norm) and I think too much space is given to the Grey Knights (which seem rather too vaunted, powerful and mysterious to use as pcs to me), but what's there in the rest of the book is actually really good. We actually get a fair bit of new setting detail dotted about for a change, the stuff on the OM itself is excellent by and large, and the new classes (though I don't use the official game rules) inspirational enough that I've just started a new campaign based around a Reliquary 26 Agent and her team of 'acquisitionists'. Love the Magos Techsorcist too! The daemons are a bit 'been there - done that', but it's nice to have the stats I suppose. All in all an enjoyable and inspiring book.

I think the Ecclesiarchy sourcebook is ... okay. But only okay imho. It doesn't really give much new, the differing Sororitas are okay, the Calixian bishops again good, and some other bits and bobs are also useful, but ... it just didn't sing for me.

My main gripe with FFG has always been their apparent aversion to continue in earnest the great starting detail we and they were given with the Calixis Sector, though now I'm not wholly sure they even understand some it's core principles. Remember when Calixis Sector was militarily quiet for an Imperial Sector? No space marine chapters around etc? No really dangerous borders - yes there was always the Halo Stars, but the implication was that any threat from that region was distant and basically not too relevent to the inner sector. Yet now with BC we're being told there's a mini-Eye of Terror sat at the edge of the Sector, full of Chaos warbands, daemon princes, Chaos Space Marines and so on, all just spoiling for a fight!? That seems so wrong to me. If that was the case why would the Margin Crusade have been launched so far into the Halo Stars? Wouldn't you build massive fortress stations and systems around such a lethal enemy region?

Calixis was great from the start, it could have been expanded to become much better still.

Just received my copy and on a first quick perusal of its contents I came away much more satisfied and interested than with Black Sepulchre.

The Gunmetal City Infernis setting is cool, there are good interesting NPCs, and there definitely is a big climax.

The Laughing God said:

I think this might change. While it is much better then "Black Sepulchre", it has its downsides

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

These includes

• a xenos creature which will die if exposed to air as a test-subject-spawner... with no explanations how this thing got into the hive or in the belongings of the gang in the first place (unless I overread something).
• An Exorcist whom is not informed by a troubled soul about a possessed friend..himself lacking "crafty individuals" for an Exorcismen... in one of the major cathedrals of the calixis which is including a detachment of Sororitas(!).
• A group of feverent believers who want to enter a site which they firmly believe to be the site of a revelation of the good-emperor... which are willing to BURN SAID PLACE DOWN in order to get there (???)...which is said cathedral, a major focal point of worhsip (see above)..which sense does it make to set a place on fire you want to enter? ("...smouldering ruins having been attack and set on fire by the pilgrims...)
• An Arbitrator who is still to be pesuaded not to open up fire on Agents of the Inquisition IF THEY WIELD A ROSETTE (+10 bonus on command/intimidation/blather test to keep him from shooting for the Rosette, so). I would get it if you reaching inside your jacket would provoke an attack, but the mechanic repeated does not support his assumption)

Regarding that last point, Gregorius:

I know it's from a novel, so hardly gospel, but a senior magistorum official in Ravenor makes the comment that "Stackers have been known to fabricate [that] sort of thing out of tin and glass". Presumably the Arbitrator simply finds the situation so unlikely that he's still suspicious of its legitimacy.

As for the rest of those points ... yeah.

So can I ask what stats/rules/notes are in the book that may be useful?

Most modules from the 40K line of books become just reference material for me anyway.

I find it a bit funny but i share a lot of my tastes in adventures with Adam France. Adventures have to be, well, iconic for the setting. Like samesch in the emperor protects and not these linear ABC videogame-y type of affairs. The biggest gripe i have with most of the adventures as written is that they rarely give a decent "feel" for a location where the characters are most notably certain cities or ports in various adventures are glossed over very quickly.

general grievances regarding most adventures

1) the first book does not tell to the gm what the trilogy is about. This is very infuriating if one likes to modify adventures as i do. if you do not know what the plot is it is really really hard to make it cohesive.

2) Vague npc motivations. Let me elaborate slightly. As an example let us use the Haarlock trilogy. Even after i've read the adventures multiple times i still for the life of me can not figure out why the pilgrims of hayte are involved. if the pilgrims are all about wanton destruction should they not be helping the PC's to release Haarlock for maximum chaos and mayhem?

3) This one is in general for Rogue Trader but it is applicable for DH and DW too. The lack of planetary data/maps. A nice colour picture of the planet really doesn't help as much as it may seem to and a small "fact sheet" would be very helpful. In the sheet small things like gravity, atmosphere, lenght of day, imports and exports etc. would be listed so that as a GM i do not have to hastily scribble the details on a piece of paper that i promplty misplace after the session.

I for one loved the Emperor Protects it was well written and i'll adapt it to my RT campaign. maybe chapter 2 will be hardest considering the Alpha Legion is involved but hey it's a challenge and i cannot resist to give the players an opportunity to steal a titan from under the noses of the arch enemy.

I loved the house of dust and ash too. Very strong in the setting specific imagery. Airship battles, odd mourners despicable xenos foddling nobles buying all kinds of proscribed items. Perfect!

Haarlock trilgoy i really couldn't figure out one way or the other. even after reading all of the books multiple times i couldn't figure out what haarlock really wants and why on earth most of the factions that are involved ARE involved. Including the Hereticus Tenebrae folks and what Haarlocks link to that mess actually was.

The warpstorm trilogy this far has been a bit of a let down to be honest. Frozen reaches is going to be useful for developing my planetary invasion framework but as a regular adventure... dunno... lure of the expanse was definitively more in the line of what RT is really about. Namely stealing loot from under the noses of the pointy eared gits and elbowing everyone else to be first in line. and ofcourse ransacking half the expanse on the way there. as it should be.

and now the apostasy gambit. i haven't really made up my mind yet. as written part 1 was rather dungeon crawle-y but i think i'll twist it more to the horror aspect then the old "solve it by firing our guns" approach. Part 2 has promise but is unfortunately again vague with details on the NPC's (like what the gang with the xenos was hoping to accomplish), odd omissions (where to find the flintlock pistol?) and most annoyingly lack of maps. i know it had some but not nearly enough. Same goes for citadel of skulls it had very few actually useful locations described in a concrete way.

Anyway enough rambling. I'll buy the books only for the locations and ideas if nothing else. But in general i wish they wrote them more like Green Ronin used to do WHFRP adventures and less like and american comic book...

Peacekeeper_b said:

There's stats for a penitent engine. That's it.

godmonkey said:

Well it is explained in the book. The Pilgrims want to get their hands on the Legacy to gain unlimited powah and/or a doomsday device they can use to sow said terror and mayhem. It may be thin but it is explained.

Get what you mean though. In Tattered Fates {SPOILERS!] they want to draw out the Widower, gauge its strength, to see if it can help them get closer to the Legacy. That's pretty vague and undefined yeah.

Silly question, I read that the Black Sepulchre had 3 apparitions. Do they have stats and does it explain how to destroy them. Looking for some Halloween ideas, and if there is a haunted mansion or cathedral I might get the module just for that.

Thanks.

Mike

rustorod said:

rustorod said:

As Gregarious says, they each have a nice little stat block complete with wounds (they average something like 20 wounds a piece). And you take care of them like you would any ghost, with bullets, lasers, a chair to the head, set it on fire, it all works.

The above is completely serious -sad, so very sad, but serious. You kill the damned ghosts.

If it's a fun Halloween type game you're looking to run, perhaps you should look outside the DH line-up. Call of Cthuluh is great for such though, given DH's direction, I've found Delta Green stories to fit fantastically with minimal changes. For a fun Halloween romp, give Night Floors a try.

Thanks for the link, looks interesting. I do also have Mansions of Madness for Call of Cthuluh, I'll take a look at it and see if it has some good ideas.

--- SPOILER ---

I read the first two chapters/parts (Cathedral and Gunmetal City) of the book so far and it seems indeed far better that Black Sepulchre (not that difficult though). It still feels indeed, like godmonkey said, like a “linear ABC videogame-y type of affairs”. I fear all these MMOs with NPCs having question marks above their head start to influence serious RPGs like DH.

My main problems so far are:

• The Arch-Cardinal and head of the whole Ecclesiarchy in the Calixis Sector as a strongly corrupted heretic is rather extreme in my opinion. His main advisor as a heretic for example would have been critical enough. But to not just having him being a heretic, but also having him replaced by a psychic doppelganger and saying he is even more corrupted than most of even the Maledictors Hand is a little off if you ask me and also a little overloaded story wise. Sometimes less is more…
• By whom are the PCs (i.e. the Examiner of Relics or however they are called) send (or requested) officially? By the Ministorum? Then by whom specifically, as the highest ranking one sits in the cathedral itself. By the Inquisition? Makes no sense as official Inquisition involvement is never mentioned? Who else come into question? Freelancers? I doubt it…
• Gregorius’ point regarding the Exorcist is very true as well.
• The whole cathedral somehow feels like a normal sized church with a few dozen inhabitants/staff. But it is the most important and most venerated spiritual building and focal point in the whole sector. It should have the size of a town at least. Many square kilometres in size and full of thousands of pilgrims and staff. Sometimes less is not more…
• The Lector X has critical information regarding the Arch-Cardinal, but dares not to involve anyone (at least locally), but he seems the PCs appropriate (weird enough…). Then the PCs must do him a favour (i.e. exorcising his friend), so that he tells them? Sounds really inexplicable, that the alter egos the PCs are representing should do such a thing. The PCs are in fact doing him a favour involving themselves and are sort of helping him…
• I am rather sure the Venomskin lead won’t be enough for my players to leave the cathedral for Gunmetal City.
• A down-hive region of Gunmetal City (with maps, descriptions and legends again not fitting each other…) where two gangs fight each other (absolutely fine until here). One gang is led by a powerful Psyker (well ok so far) and a vile and powerful xeno creature in support (uh…) and the other gang is led by a sort of half-daemon (urgs…) of Khorne (and eventually supported by a Herald of Khorne (pfff…)). The Ordo Malleus eradicates settlements for less. Sometimes less is more…
• The PCs are ambushed by hungry Slum Hunds, while only meters away one can see the stabbed corpse of a ganger. These minor things can be overlooked though…
• Another rogue Psyker at the fair. Sometimes less is more…

More to come I fear…

Luthor Harkon said:

SPOILERS GALORE

1. Yeah, this seems really inconsistent. We ran the first part this weekend. The PCs went extremely suspicious, that this stranger, Lector Xavieticus, would 1) Cast suspicions against the head of the Ecclesiarchy, the very first time they met the lector. The -only- thing which stopped them from executing him on the spot for high treason was the fact that they themselves were already suspicious of the Arch-Cardinal. 2) Ask complete strangers to aid with an exorcism of his possessed friend. This smack dab in the middle of one of the most holy sites in the Calixis Sector.

2. The Venomskin lead is extremely weak. Supposedly, there are documents in the Arch-Cardinals office that leads to planet Stonegarden (though they're only mentioned in Chapter three, where it is assumed the PCs have found these documents. There's nothing on where they are found, except a very general note about them being in the Arch-Cardinals quarters). By breaking into the Arch-Cardinal's office, plus finding the documents in the secret Forging Wing, the PCs could concievably build a case against Ignato already in the first chapter, without even having to travel to Gunmetal.

Some further points:

1. The Inquisiton is suspecting Arch-Cardinal Ignato, head of the Ecclesiarchy, of treason. The acolytes get told this by their inquisitor at the start of the adventure, and the inquisitor then leaves to take care of "more pressing matters". More pressing like what? Preventing a full-scale invasion of chaos forces that threaten to annihilate the Calixis Sector? Stop Marius Haxx from mutating into a daemon prince? Prevent a bloody and prolonged civil war within the Inquisition? I fail to see what would warrant a serious inquisitorial investigation than the suspicion that the Arch-Cardinal himself is a heretic. Especially with the evidence gathered from the Black Sepulchre. Add to that the subplot which Luthor Harkon pointed out. Cheese.

2. Why would the PCs actually try to study the relics? There's -no- point to this whatsoever. It could serve as a smoke-screen, to verify their identity as inspectors, but what if the PCs fail their verification? Will they be gunned down by the sororitas? Will the Arch-Cardinal hang them high? It seems like a filler, and something to do to just pass time.

3. The Synod meeting. Why does the PCs have to attend? Again, it serves no purpose at all with regards to the plot. A filler, and a slightly cheesy one, just to show off the high-and-mighty of the Calixis Sector.

4. There's an entire subplot that's hinted at in several places, but seems to have been edited out. In the descriptive text of the Hospital wing it mentions "Three important NPCs", and yet only two are ever detailed. There's also Medicae Gallican which is hinted at having some sinister scheme, it even says someone has fallen prey to him, but this is never clarified. I appreciate that the designers want to give the GM some leeway and add plots of their own, but this just seems sloppy. If you're going to edit out a subplot, make sure you do it completely, not just cut out an NPC and leave it at that.

It might seem that I'm complaining, and maybe I am. But the reason I buy adventures instead of making up my own is because I have precious little free time in which to work out adventures. This adventure module requires a lot of work to make it work, instead of being just a cheesy romp through the Cathedral of Illumination, where the acolytes has to stop the Arch-Cardinal OR MILLIONS WILL DIE!

from france

some argument may have been already explained if so i am soory.

one word: boring

well no not one word.

boring: why should the pc gets involved in ? i mean yeah fate of the sector and so on... but on who autority? does the big I played the games just to f... remind the eclersiarchy that they are not above.

weird: why killed ghost? hey if you put two priest in the same room one will tell you that they are holy gost and the other they should be ban.

why the exorcism should be done by the pc? it s church they have some plus no faith oriented players group exist. if it is my arbitrator who do it it will be with a salad of finger in his face.

how such a big church no sorry cathedrale can be run with so few people?

a good doctor ? hum no thank.

fanatics? yeah plenty of it too much in fact but wait we have sista of bata to calm down every one. uh no they just patrol and keep enthusiaste people away. thanks emperor to have created sista of bata.

oh by the way we are the inquisition badass can wee move in the private place of ingatio? (for ascension after all direct aproach can be good) ? no? **** there are no sista of bata they are servitor with kinky bdsm outfit.

oh ignacio use to watch often a relics? no forget it no player will think about it. after all it is not important. are the pc's dummies? ah yeah we are here to inspect the relics can i watch it ? yes? you want to see my relics inspector paper no?

speacking about dummies? someone know big secret never tell it to anyone and the pc commes and sudently he can't shut is mouth.

a secret wing? wow auspex + tech priest + functioning brain. hey there is too much space if we compare to the official plan.

purpose? what is the purpose of the fanatics redemptionist narco derviche? of the venom skin? and other npc whose presence are very thin. we have a tons of blah blah blah the cathedral but the npc are really not up their task.

oh a penitent engine? good in the excellent blood of martyr their is one also.

i know i am very harsh like have been with church of the damned but if i am so it 's because ffg can produce such marvel like blood of the marrtyr but their adventures are so railroad.

if i compare with adventures of rogue trader their i s such differences. citadel of skull and lure of the expanse are good.

i know they can make good job so why i should accept mediocre books?

Reading through Chapter 1...

Your points are all valid, assuming the Acolytes are nobodies. If they are at least trusted (Rank 4-6) though...

OBLIGATORY SPOILER ALERT!

It would make sense for an Inquisitor to send agents instead of appearing in person because, well, Ignato is influential and probalby well connected, possibly even to the Ordo Hereticus. An Inquisitor making an entrance at the steps of the Cathedral of Illumination might be a bit too obvious. His faceless agents though can be considered unknown, therefore ideal for doing undercover work.

As for their identities... I just assumed that the characters act as knowledgeable specialists, making their appearance at the synod gathering (where their opinion is explicitely asked for) less of a curiosity. It's also the reason why they can enter the Sacristy at their leasure, a place that is closed to the public.

Excorcism is not something done lightly as far as I know. Only extremely valuably persons (high ranking officials, throne agents etc) are taken into consideration for such an extremely dangerous ritual. Everyone else is simply shot. Something the local Sororitas would do in a heartbeat and something that Xavieticus rightly fears. His only gleam of hope is that the Excorcist owes him a significant favour. And the characters, they're still assumed to be professionals, right? And they're outsiders. Best option for a desperate man.

The missing third NPC in the hospital is simply an editing mistake. One I hope FFG will correct?

So far I find it much more entertaining that Black Sepulchre

godmonkey said:

I have't run or played House of Dust and Ash but I do like the look of it, and did intend to use it at some point in my Dark Heresy campaign. I haven'ty been so keen on any of the Dark Heresy missions provided by FFG though. The first tow of the Haarlock trilogy looked ok, but the third was a let down.

I actually like Frozen Reaches. I wasn't so keen on Citadel of Skulls though. Lure of the Expanse was ok, but just felt a bit... aimless. That may be part of the reason I am not so keen on Rogue Trader anyway though, ie its more loose nature.