For the first time in many moons (not far off a decade) I not only did some roleplaying (there have been a few all too brief interludes as a player in the interim) but ran a game. That game was Dark Heresy. I’ve been and still am collecting the 40k games for the best part of this year. I daresay this will be the last rpg collection I will ever undertake. Back in the day SHRPG’s were the games I’d collect, along with a love of the oWoD, in particular vampire and mage. I’ve made it my ‘hobby’ to collect the 40k lines as a whol as they are gorgeous books.

Prior to last night’s return to the saddle my two players and I had, last week, created characters with a rather haphazard intro to the 40k universe they were much less familiar with than I. this was supplemented with a barrage of emails containing background references during the week. I think these went down well, it’s hard to tell sometimes. One of my biggest concerns is getting them to play the setting ‘right’. This probably sounds like arrogance, but one of the conditions of playing 40k is playing it right. It is a setting with a lot of depth, but can easily seem adolescent and ridiculous given its source as a wargame ostensibly aimed at teenage boys. The baroque and grim nature of the medieval + tech setting has a lot of superficial contradictions that can be hard no0t just to portray buyt to appeal.

So the two characters are an Imperial Psyker and an Assassin all starting at rank 1. this is important because, while limited, it allows me to start things off on a simpler footing rather than throw enormous and complicated threats at them off the bat. The learning curve is a little simpler. Dark Heresy seems to be a reasonably benign system, in terms of complexity, but one that front loads a fair amount of detail with an equally fair amount of charts and tables, some of which can be memorised (hopefully by me).

It was a nice gesture to see that one player had actually (and quite correctly IMO) devoted much of his time during the week at work to not doing his job but printing out some handouts for me, various charts and tables. It’s curious because he’s also a player that has an unfortunate tendency to joke about (which, again unfortunately, he did). More on that later, but first the encounter itself.

I chose to run a very quick, simple, encounter; three staged fights aboard a research facility and a neat, if I do say so myself, plot twist. An exercise in introducing us all to the combat rules and the broader resolution system. So the backstory:
The acolytes had been charged with heading to a small research facility on the moon, Murgos, orbiting a warp anomaly. The station is run by a tech priest known as Binarius Thule, a more higher ranking agent of the acolyte’s master, the Inquisitor. They had been charged with 2 things: recover Thule’s work ‘the experiment’, and kill Thule. This latter because the Inquisitor has learned Thule has been corrupted – always a possibility when working with the Warp.

The acolytes arrive and are ushered into the main hub, a largish lab, of the complex, over which looks Thule’s personal space. But before they get there, and just after they disembark, entering the station proper, their shuttle, the only means of escape, suddenly departs with 2 figures aboard. The psyker receives a momentary spasm of psychic unrest accordingly. The reason will become clear.

Within the laboratory they are told to wait. In the centre is a large cogitator altar projecting a holographic image of the nearby anomaly into which are plugged 6 servitors, 3 seated on either side. They attend the machine and babble numbers and data meaningless to the acolytes. On each of the right and left walls are 3 stasis chambers, 2 of which are occupied by mutants. There are two cogitators attached to each bank of 3 chambers monitoring them. This is a trap. Thule knows they are coming. He appears at the window and says something pithy before the chambers open and the 2 mutants, with their ability to vomit corrosive bile, inch forward.

This leads to a fight the acolytes win, followed by a tech priest armed with a las pistol intended to be Thule’s personal guard. His appearance is masked by the cogitator altar projecting the arrival of a traitor astartes suddenly. The stakes get upped and the guard attempts to use this as a means to ambush the 2. He succeeds in getting in before the psyker.

As he is dispatched a flash of light and colour signals Thule activating his ‘experiment’ a warp mcguffin allowing him to escape. While the acolytes head up to investigate and thus find no trace of Thule, they see the device, the rift (though which they can see the cockpit of their shuttle), and also hear the arrival, on station, of traitor marines (whom they have no prayer of defeating), and leap through… into their shuttle and escape as their earlier selves watch that same shuttle depart!

Well, I thought that was cool – and it seemed to work. In fact I was almost concerned they were too unsure of what the rift was and were going to instead face off a small number of traitor astartes!

Before dissecting the event properly, I think it went reasonably well. I felt as confident as I had ever been running a game. Perhaps more so because I knew it was a short encounter. I have decided, and it was agreed, that in the process of learning these rules I would much rather look stuff up and get it right, than do what every game has previously and emphatically advised: make something up on the spot, don’t break the flow, and look it up later. That’s perfectly good advice, but we are old enough and ugly enough to understand what we want, and along with running 40k as 40k, I intend to run the game and learn the rules properly. If that means slowing down the first few games then we are all fine with that. I think that’s a good thing.

That said it didn’t slow down much at all. Initiative is simple and decisive, actions seem to resolve quickly. Of course there are a few things I forgot – Righteous Fury for one (though I can’t remember if it actually came into play and certainly didn’t when I suddenly remembered the rule half way through). Likewise for psychic powers.

The most important thing I did overlook was that damage inflicted is reduced by Toughness bonus and, where appropriate, armour! This is quite a big thing, though the characters didn’t get hit by the enemies due to their abysmal attack stats. Even so, the fights seemed reasonably balanced. The enemies weren’t too weak and, fortunately, not too strong. It took a good few attempts to knock them down, and this included me haphazardly measuring the distance from their spawn point to the characters who were able to shoot at them in the meantime. The two creatures were simple mutants given the Corrosive Bile mutation and an unarmed attack. The acolytes used las pistols (aided, in the psyker’s case, by his powers) and were able to knock them down with damage, a couple of critical effects, and then finish them off while helpless. The tech priest was much the same only he also had a las pistol. No enemy had any armour anyway and they were all simple threats (minima). There’s probably a ton of other rules I forgot or misinterpreted. I did add degrees of success to damage because I couldn’t find the rule to say otherwise, and I’m not sure I was correct to do so, but it was important to explain the degrees of success rule. It didn’t break the game.
Now to discuss the specifics:

As I mentioned one player is prone to jocularity. This is the biggest problem I have in gaming. It’s very hard to know how to deal with because you’re playing with friends and everyone enjoys a joke with their friends. It’s a boundary thing. I didn’t let it get in the way, but in a greater level of adventure, which I hope to run, things could be problematic. It isn’t a case of deliberate disruptiveness, but just a personality thing – and who, after a hard days work, wants to be told to stop messing around when with friends. This is 40k, not the comedy club! In the grim darkness of the far future, there are no jokes!

He played the psyker and was fond of using, on his turn, a combo of two half actions thus: unnatural aim (psychic power) and then a half action attack. This is quite potent and, aside from the risk of rolling a 9 and incurring a psychic phenomena/peril of the warp, there seems to be no limit to his use of psychic powers. Again this wasn’t a balance issue, but there seem no limits on psychic powers – no points pool to pay for, no endurance limits or such. I wonder if I’ve missed something. He certainly understood the risks (actually I think he was curious to see what happened if he ****** up and incurred a backlash – again that’s not the right attitude for a longer term game).

Combat was only conducted using ranged attacks from the acolytes except in one instance. One mutant attempt a melee attack but failed miserably due to having one of its legs critically mashed up by las fire. As a result the assassin favoured a half action aim then half action attack. I did wonder whether there was a full action attack option for guns they could have tried, but I think the full attack, iirc, is for melee. It now occurs to me that I didn’t make use of half actions for their enemies. So overall I think the level of opposition was pitched right and would, had things been run more smartly by me, have been a slightly more challenging affair. But that works out well for the purposes of learning, especially as time was a factor (it was getting late when we wrapped).

Interestingly I had to make a judgement call on one action as the assassin wanted to manoeuvre beneath the mutant to sort of slide between his legs and kick his legs away from him also getting out of the psyker’s line of sight. I couldn’t find anything in the combat actions similar to this and so regarded it as a tactical manoeuvre and gave +10 on his WS attack (which he fluffed). Was there a more appropriate type of action?

There were a few other rolls. I used awareness to notice a few details and psyniscience, really just to show what they did. A couple of minor plot hiccups (they wanted to take the device with them, which I didn’t allow and didn’t want to but sought of put myself in the position where they thought it possible).
The psyker has the shadow on thy soul background from the Inquisitors Handbook and so, in transitioning the warp at the end, I thought it would be cool for him to hear the voice of the daemon he had previously encountered (as per the background) come to try and claim his soul, but they were both through (of course) the rift before any real harm. Just a bit of background, with the daemon screaming ‘no!’ as they escaped.

It will be interesting to see how a proper adventure/campaign progresses. Hopefully the nature of the 40k universe will come through and they will be inspired to really get into it full tilt, hopefully with a little less jocularity. However, I’m prepared to accept things as they are. GM’s can’t mould players into something they want them to be and as a learning curve that’s ok. I also didn’t have the full errata to hand, so there’s’ probably a few little issues overlooked.

Thansk to the people that answered various other threads along the way.

Man you need to format that text a bit better, split it into some properly defined paragraphs. As is it's difficult to read.

I'm sorry you feel you can't read it. There are properly defined paragraphs, if you are referring to a gap between them then the post would be twice as long and probably spread over multiple posts and even more laborious to read. I'm sure it's really not that hard to read.

signoftheserpent said:

Well, you're right that it isn't that hard to understand your format compared to the worst offenders.

That said, you had what I believe I counted to be 19 paragraphs in your post. I sincerely doubt adding another 18 or so blank lines to an already sizable post will render it it any less unreadable, and in fact may do the opposite, as the person you're responding to suggested.

Please don't take these posts as an indictment of your personality. What is easier to read is more likely to be widely read. We're trying to help you get as many people to understand and respond as possible.

I tried to read your post, but while I could handle the format, I didn't have time to finish the content. I'll try again later, try to give you what advice I can.

Edit: A quick glance, though, tells me you may not have read the Errata and its changes/additions to the Psyker system. Psychic Powers are considered an attack action, and due to rule the stating it so, you cannot use the same action more than once in a single turn. He can manifest Unnatural Aim, or fire his weapon, but not both in the same round.

Exceptions exist, and are numerated in the Errata.

Unusualsuspect said:

Just wait untill the psyker rolls some perils of the warp. Either he damages himself or his partner, inflicts some insanity/corruption on the team. Or he could roll 76+%, and then it becomes interesting :] He'll learn soon enough.

Mother Superior said:

First and foremost, I'd like to thank you for the editted formatting... Perhaps this is bias, but it felt easier to read. In all, it sounds like you've had a pretty **** good session or two! Congrats, man.

Concerning your issues, the jocularity thing could be dealt with in multiple ways, and I have to applaud the maturity you're presenting. Have you tried mood lighting and/or music, or small breaks for humor and socializing? Have you talked to the player? I wonder if he's aware of your intentions towards really grimdarking up the grim, dark 41st millenium...

Concerning the sliding tackle leg sweep, Tactical Maneuver or Knock Down both seem appropriate, depending on whether the PC intended to end the maneuver standing up or on the ground. If you feel it warranted, you might consider an Elite advance to enable substitution Agility for Strength when making such maneuvers, to more accurately reflect the sort of character that would slide across the floor to scizzor-sweep an opponent.

signoftheserpent said:

Forgot to mention this: As Unnatural Aim lasts until the end of the manifester's NEXT turn, the player could do a 2-turn setup for a shot with the +30 bonus from Unnatural Aim (and potentially other bonuses as well). This was a favorite tactic of my psyker up til this very last session, utilizing a tricked out Hunting Rifle, a half aim action, and a single shot. The Unnatural Aim was generally only used on the turns in which I didn't have a clear shot or for the rare ambush situations when I was on the giving side.

Edit: In case I wasn't clear, it is pretty easy with just a regular, stock hunting rifle and the time to manifest the power, to be firing at +60 to one's base BS. Even a minimal BS of 25 is boosted to 85% hit chance after modifiers in short range. Over 50% of hits landed do a full 3d10 +3 damage, too, with a Pen of 3 if you're using manstoppers. Suddenly those Untouchables ain't so untouchable no more...

Unusualsuspect said:

Thanks.

It was a simple encounter just to help learn. I might do another before getting into a proper campaign. In all seriousness, had i run it as a full game it would really have been set for a more experienced team: mutants, the possibility of an encounter with a traitor marine, forbidden science. I coudl have called for a Corruption roll and possibly also a Fear roll for the mutants, but I felt that would have diluted things, plus those aren't complex concepts or rules.

We play at the venue of one of the players. I personally would liek to use music (the dawn of war soundtracks), but that's for another day. However the venue isn't quite a hive city or a dark temple; it's the host's front room and he has family. Of course there are limits to the gaming experience which must come first; he certainly can't oust his family (they do give us space) for the grim darkness of the far future, nor can he transform it into the underhive (at least not intentionally). There are naturally priorities: we aren't teenagers plahing in a dorm for instance

As for taking breaks, well we don't play long. The average game session will likely be 2 hours at most. That also cannot be helped, people have lives and jobs including the host.

I haven't brought this up with the player. Friendship is more important than risking upset over an rpg. The issue, I think, is one of boundaries. I could labour the point, suffice to say he has a close family and they are always messing around and joking with each other. I think that he sees this as a natural extension of that as we're friends. He isn't deliberately disruptive, quite the opposite in fact, but there are boundaries. I hope that the game and the play experience will serve as invitation enough to calm down. I'm in no hurry to deal with this either so I'm not going to jump down his throat and start lecturing him on how to play or whatever.

The manoeuvre was in two parts, the sweep (which is easily adjudicated) was the second action. The first, which is the part in question, is the manoeuvre under the mutant. It isn't a reaction, it's not quite a tactical move and it wasn't a knock down though it could have been adjudicated as a full action of that kind.

It's not a big deal, but i am curious to know if an established move covers it. Adjudicating on the spot isn't something i find difficult however, but I am keen to actually run this 'by the book'. Not necessarily something I would have done in the past.

We haven't discussed elite advances yet, I may mention that this week. I haven't really looked into them myself.

Also I couldn't see any mention of what happens if an aiming character is interrupted between aim and attack actions. Black Crusade says that if a character takes a reaction he loses the benefit.

Thanks for the comments

Degrees of Success don't add to damage -- that could get really crazy! If you use the rules from RT or DW, though, they do serve as a minimum damage roll on one die.

bogi_khaosa said: