In Dark Heresy, you're summoned by your Inquisitor (or an Interrogator) and told what heresy you're to stamp out

In Rogue Trader, you hear about a map leading to untold treasures.

In Deathwatch, you're handed a mission briefing and asked what equipment you'd like.

In Black Crusade... you sit on a rock somewhere in the Screaming Vortex...

How do you start a campaign or a single adventure of Black Crusade? Like no other game of the series, BC lends itself towards a sandbox approach. Further, the setting favours pro-active PCs - they're not the ones thwarting the plan of evil, they're doing the planning themselves. And other than with Rogue Trader, the focus of the game isn't Exploration, so stumbling around in darkness trying to figure out what to do isn't that much part of the theme. So... how to start?

The Compact system is suited to framing an adventure, but to come up with a plan for a compact including secondary and tertiary objectives, the PCs need to get some information first. How do you deliver that? How do you supply the details needed to concoct a Fiendish Scheme ? Do the PCs somehow take note of a planet somewhere and then do some scouting on their own without a compact drawn up? Would the reconnaissance be its own compact? Or do you just tell the PCs all they need to know about their target? Or spare yourself the trouble and simply use the PCs' background stories for adventure ideas at the first chance you get?

I started most of my stories "in media res" - in the middle of a battle against another warband, or something like that.

How did you incorporate Compacts into that? Did you just state "you made a compact to achieve [primary goal A]" or did the players formulate one of their own after things calmed down?

Cifer said:

Erm, if you've been running Rogue Trader differently then you've come as close to possible in a RPG to "doing it wrong." Hopefully that statement was just hyperbole. On the sandbox scale it is slightly more open than late game Dark Heresy, both of which are far above Deathwatch in comparison.

If you need a way to get players together and the action started before a sandbox approach, consider a temporary master figure who unites the party originally but is intolerable as a leader. Make him or her aggravating enough and the party's first Compact would be to betray said master.

One of the things I love most about Black Crusade is that the 'mechanism' you're looking for, that carrot to make the players get up and go , synchs up perfectly with the core desire that brought those players to the table in the first place: to get power . The very mechanics of an RPG reward you through the accumulation of power, and here those translate into RP in a concrete, non-abstract way. This not only makes it unique in terms of style, but it also allows you to give the players an unparalleled level of freedom - just like the open-ended level up system lets them advance in any direction they choose, the end goal of a Black Crusade gives them infinite paths to that power. My advice would be to let them take it, through whatever path they choose, creating a uniquely player-driven experience.

There are several steps I would recommend, from my 15+ years of gaming experience, to go about this (not that these are the only paths; merely that this is what I plan on doing). First, firmly seat them in the region. Either use a previously contrived situation/deus ex machina, start them en media res as Millandson suggested, or let them talk out the backstory, and use that first adventure to ground them in the area. Knowing where they start helps give them a jumping-off point when it comes to determining where to go. I used the Broken Chains adventure for this, myself. You can also let them use this time to establish their individual strongholds, or leave that until later.

Then, at the end of that session, ask them where they want to go. Let them walk through the decision making process of where they are, what they have available, and what they can find, and see what interests them. Do they want to find a way to take the fight to the Imperium? Curry favor amongst the denizens of the Screaming Vortex? Gain wealth and gear, or political power? Gather armies? Listen to them talk about what they want to try to do, and use your GM viewpoint to keep their plans rooted in the area of the galaxy you want to play in. Once they get a goal in mind (it can be something nebulous, like "find a weaker warlord we can kill and take his stuff"), call it a night. Then craft your adventure. By putting this "figure out where we're going" stage last in the session, you let the players dictate where the campaign will go, while still giving yourself time to go craft an adventure for it. Now that you know where they'll be looking, and what they'll be looking for, you can start to design story hooks that will feel neither contrived nor railroading. You don't have to worry about carrying them anywhere, since the in-game mechanical rewards are the carrot that drives them, and the Corruption counter is the stick that propels them.

To take the previous "Warlord" case as an example, you could start by giving them the illusion of choice: "Which sector do you start looking it? There are three or four nearby, before you start to get out of the Gloaming worlds." Then tell them about the Warlords you designed for the area, and how they're fighting. They're always looking for mercenaries to gain the upper hand, right? Or maybe one of your characters has political ties to one, or can call on Legion loyalty? Then lock the struggle in a stalemate, and let the players' actions tip the balance. They happen to turn the tide of a battle for a Forge, for instance - do they betray their leader immediately, or give it over to curry favor and play the long game? Let the Compact and its objectives evolve organically according to the plans they make. You don't have to declare every single Objective before you start; you can instead reward them organically as they arise.

It does require more flexibility from the GM, I'll admit, and it helps enormously to have a thorough understanding of the area the PCs are playing in, but letting them tell you where they want to go both gives you time to prepare and lets them lead the campaign in a way that's just not possible with most other games. Being in charge of the path of their own destinies is part of what makes Black Crusade awesome, and I for one plan on taking every opportunity to cater to that.

TL;DR: Let them go where they want, make them tell you where they're going, and then make missions to cater to their plans. Hope this helps!

Cifer said:

I started them off with one, to get them into the flow of things (such as "escape from/take over this prison ship" or "fight your way to the warband's leader and kill him"), and then, after that, allowed them to make their own.

For me, the first step is always when we make characters. I expect we meet for at least a few hours, talk things over and hammer out the generalities such as who wants to fill what roles and what are the meta-plot or meta-motivations that the group wants to explore. This also allows me to properly equip new players joining the group so they know what to expect from the campaign.

Once those basics are laid down, and I have an idea on what the group will be composed of and what they'll be striving for, its a matter of building on that. Loosely, I'll adapt a local portion of the setting to my needs, starting "small" in the traditional sense. As the characters succeed or fail they'll gradually increase the scope of the game at a usually comfortable pace. I frequently ask for feedback at the end of a session, or outside of game sessions, to get an idea on what players liked and what they are planning for the future.

But to me that first game session where we meet and talk things over is probably one of the most critical when running sandbox campaigns. I find that trying to create a sandbox campaign without player input is a recipe for frustration, either your own or that of your players.

I have a very nice start point for adventures planned out.

SPOILER ALERT _ PLAYERS DO NOT READ.

The introductory adventure PDF can end with the players in nominal control of a ship.
In a bit if a state but still intact.
In mine they will have the ship, but it needs a lots of bits to get it properly operational.
it is also a big target as well as a big prize.

This gives me many options for start points. E.g.

• Help XXX with his problem and get some parts or crew.
• Bad old ZZZZ wouldn'y mind a new ship, and yours looks like a steal....
• They need to get to QQQ for some bits, where things just might happen...
• Its a big ship full of strange stuff - some stuff may cause problems, attract attention, or need blowing up...
• Who is in that hidden triple sealed welded shut and shielded special cell you found down on deck 13 that even the inquisitors were 'insufficient clearence' for..
• Its also a rickety ship. It may break down and parts are needed desperatly for repairs. Hmm just need to find a job to get the cash for it....
• It wasn't their ship, and the original owners would like it back (and them too - alive or dead.)
• And finally, hmm what could a fully functioning ship do to the local balance of power - and would people be so unhappy about that shift they might just want to do something about it...

And thats just of the top of my head.

I took a Calaxis Sector Hive World and had the players "led" to an apartment with some information and a few weapons in.

It's taken a fair amount of work as I've had to build a Hive and come up with a power structure, locations, gangs, Imperial forces, the PDF and such, but what the players do is completely up to them. It has taken a little modification to the Compact system; an overarching compact to conquer the Hive leaving the secondary and tertiary objectives as smaller compacts to facilitate their primary objective.

And just to be nice back stories are known only to me and the player it belongs to as are a bonus or 2 they may of gained for what their character has been through and the same goes for any personal goals they may want to complete, of which there are several good and kind of worrying ideas.

Does not have to be in the screaming vortex. They could be in a ship or somewhere else. All missions do not necessarily need to begin in the eye of terror. As with Black Crusade I realised that the game is alot more flexible than Deathwatch where everyone has to have a steoreotypical SM demeanor. I preferred DH as the possibilities for flexibility was much more than DW.