So I'm getting ready to start my first Black Crusade campaign fairly soon, and I had a question as to how to use compacts. They're a fairly important part of the game it seems, however I haven't got the faintest clue as to how best to use them! It seems as if it provides a structure as to how an adventure could be written, but it also seems to allow for the players to direct the course of a campaign or adventure as well. The question I have is how do you all bring compacts into your games? Do you create an adventure and structure it as a compact, or do you give the players a goal and let them have at creating their own compact?

I would probably give the players some vague sense of purpose but let ¨thme hammer out things in detail through the compact.

Gurkhal said:

So rather than sketch out a whole campaign provide them with the basic idea of a campaign and let them create a compact to get it done? Seems like the first session in any game then would just be the players haggling over a table.

Yeah something like that. I figure that the GM's main work will probably be to flesh things out and be a world builder (something which I personally love ) rather than detail all the parts of the campaign. The GM can naturally still throw out plot-hooks that the characters can go after but it might not be the same thing as with other lines, like Dark Heresy or Deathwatch. In fact I think that Black Crusade might be the very opposite of Deathwatch in that regard.

But while compact haggling can be a pretty important deal, you can also give them situation where there might not e all that much to haggle about. For instance in a PbP game I'm playing in we are starting on a ship which is currently being boarded by the Inquisition and with our previous leader slain by the enemy. While we still get to make a compact its pretty clear what our aim is and then go and plan for, in this case defeat the Inquisitorial forces and take control over the ship. The setting in which the players finds themselves will clearly affect what manner of compact that they make. If you put them on a war world in the Reach they'll probably go more militant than if you put them on a developed world in the Calixis sector. Thus you can nudge players into one direction or another by putting them in one type of setting, or another.

And it might not hurt to have discussed a little about what type of campaign that you would like to play before you make your characters and then negotiate over a compact.

I simply asked the players to make a compact after they had rolled up their characters, and then just go from there. So far it works like a charm; they get to try things they want ("WE WANT TO GO TO SPAAAAACE"), and I totally avoid unneccessary preparation.

How do people tie the fluff into the mechanics? Do the players create a daemonic ritual to the Chaos gods or what? Compacts are the part of the book that I thought needed some more explanation and examples.

In a face-to-face campaign, I'd likely make the first compact that brings the players together something relatively obvious - like taking over the Chains of Judgement. During that Compact, I'd present several possibilities for future ones - perhaps the players find a map with the coordinates of a Chaos artifact, perhaps they end up on a conquerable planet or maybe they hear about a feud between two warlords. So after the first Compact ends, they'll be able to explore their surroundings a little and discuss a new mission. Once they agree on a Primary Objective, they'll start researching it and see what secondary goals must be met to achieve the primary. As soon as they are able to name all the secondary goals, they'll formalize the Compact itself.

Ingame, there are both motives for doing this neither too early, nor too late: Too early and they might miss an important Secondary Objective or pledge a personal objective they're unable to carry out, too late and they will be lacking the dedication bonuses from the gods and an Anointed to quell dissent in critical situations.

In a game I'm running I simply threw the players onto a Calaxis Sector Hive world and have let them do whatever it is they want.

The compact took them a while to hammer out but we ended up making a compact to outline their long term goals and then each of the goals will be a compact within itself. This did introduce some interesting and surprisingly good ideas that I wouldn't of come up with myself.

Granted it doesn't allow me to plan for what the players do so I've ended up writing the main characters they will come into contact with and am roleplaying them.

Here's my question regarding Compacts:

If I am going to run a BC game at a Convention, should I bother with a Compact?

If I should, how would I work it in there without taking up half of the game time to hammer out?

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HPLustcraft said:

My answer: do not care about any compacts. It is convention, leave it be.

Gregorius21778 said:

Wise words. This is my first game I am running at a Con ever, I am probably just overthinking it...

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