There are many RPG games out there as you know, some are action heavy(like Dungeons & Dragons) and some are story heavy (like World of Darkness) which line do you think the Warhammer 40000 falls? How do you play your games, keeping the story behind and focusing on the combat and action aspect or story as being the most important aspect and thinking all other action, combat and interaction parts as 'scenes' (those who played wod and dnd will get what i meant ), (and of course you can play however you want but i want to know how you guys see it and how it is designed)

I've been raised on World of Darkness and Vampire (Requiem and Masquerade) for some eight years or so its storytelling for me. I just for the life of me can't understand the concept of making a super-killing machine by reading the rule books five times over. Just play a cool character and recognize that the crunch is not unimportant but secondary.

It really depends on the 40k rpg system you're using at the time.

Given how brutal DH can be, I certainly see it focusing more on the story and investigation aspects, whereas DW is certainly action oriented. RT always felt a bit more like empire building, and less story driven than player-sandbox driven (at least when I ran it). No idea where BC falls, haven't had a chance to run a version of it, but it looks like a mix of combat/story, depending on party attitude.

I think that for most systems, what is really comes down to is how you want to play your games, regardless of what the designers originally intended. I for one - and fortunately, my group of players agrees with me - prefer having a compelling narrative with the occasional action sequence thrown in when it fits the story .

I think combat can sometimes give players a different sense of accomplishment than solving an elaborate conspiracy - not better or worse, but different. But you don't need to have combat to gain a sense of danger - a hazardous environment or the sense of the proverbial ticking bomb can, in my experience, make for just as much tension.

Actually, there are few things in a roleplaying game that I dislike more than "combat for the sake of combat". In a lot of the official modules, there seem to be action sequences that are just there so the characters can shoot stuff. This IMHO not only slows down the game as a whole by stalling the players with cumbersome combat sequences which don't yield any real sense of victory (because there was no reason for the fight to happen in the first place), but it also doesn't add anything to the story that is being told.

So I guess my answer is: judging from the official modules, DH at least seems to be intended as a more action-oriented game, but in my experience it works just as well if not better as a story- and investigation-driven one.

I prefer to have a balance. Given how brutal comabt can be in DH I tend to focus on investigation and storytelling. But once the PCs have worked out what's going on it is far more satisfying for them to find the big bad and take them out rather than call in some deus-ex machina cavalry to do that bit for them. However I think because DH is supposed to be brutal there needs to be that element of danger and the badguys taking the initiative is also a good thing.

Having said that I could imagine a group where they weren't good at fighting wanting that to be the case and perhaps the satisfying thing for them would be planning an attack rather than carrying it out.

Do you create 'scenes' or 'stages' or play all the parts. Which of the following do your games fit most a movie or theatre?

Personally I find it quite a challenge playing too many parts in one scene. I think the most NPCs that the PCs are talking to I usually manage is about 3. Even then I tend to keep it to a major mouthpiece NPC and their extras.

Ubernatus said:

I'm afraid I don't understand your question. By the nature of RP it's always more or less setting the stage for the players and letting them play it out. But I don't think that's what your asking…can you make an example what the difference between scenes, stages or playing all the parts is in this context?

Sometime ago i was playing Vampire the Masquerade. It is using 'scene' time system, which divides your story telling in to scenes and some storytelling between the scenes. It rarely goes like what's described in DH book example of play. It's not an adventure so to speak, it's a drama, a theatre… And in a theatre play scenes are more important. And of course the plot and characters.. You need well described NPCs to do this. On the contrary in a DnD like 'adventure' game you need well designed 'encounters' not drama or roleplaying.. Yes, of course you can roleplay as much as you want but you can play without it. Challenges are the most important in these games not the characters, NPCs or drama. Hope it is clear now

Honestly that sounds more like a question to direct at a GM rather than a game system. DH provides information on what you could/should work with in a RPG based around the 40k setting where the PCs work for the inquisition as acolytes. Anything that comes after that is the work of the GM. As far as the printed modules, I have not had a chance to read any beyond those contained in the sourcebooks. They tend to be pretty light in describing the exact encounter the players might face, and instead just list the different parties and NPCs the players may encounter, along with their goals and such. Past that, there may be a few strings of events that are going on, outside of the players' actions, as well as the difficulty of certain types of actions (how strong is that lock over there, etc.).

Now, I don't want to be rude, but I'm getting a sense of "this type of RP is greater than that type of RP, which means this game is better," which, while it may be the case for you, is a fairly useless comparison to try and make. All players and GMs want varying degrees of combat, subterfuge, RP, politics, horror, and mystery (and whatever other aspects may be out there, I'm just trying to cover the broader points of DH). The trick is to find the system/setting that suits them, and their fellow players. RP, while certainly important, is not, nor should it be, at the top of everyone's list.

I can tell you DH has the basis for a pretty good mix of combat and interaction. Not every career is combat oriented (adepts), the skills cover a wide array of possibilities (oodles of common lore, scholastic lore, forbidden lore, with some overlap between them to allow for multiple options for knowing something), and in the setting, knowledge truly is power. At the same time, DH can offer a pretty competent combat system. Abstract enough to not get too bogged down in the details, but realilisitc to not be a gung-ho idiot just running in.

No i never meant anything like that i know it sounds like that And Dark Heresy, in my opinion, should be played interaction/drama heavy. Also you don't have to play a game in Inquisiton and be Acolytes.. You can play an Arbitrator team sent to investigate a matter. A Guardsman team which are part of Cadian forces and fighting daemons etc. And also personanly i never prefer games which have too much action not much roleplaying. To my taste, a RPG should be a theatre and all events and encounters (combat or interaction) are scenes of the story. That's why i never liked the DnD 4th edition, too much action and combat… But some 40k fans prefer to see the 40k's beauty in its battles not the black comedy grimdark aspect of this beautiful setting. It really gives the GMs a chance to create really good stories. That's why i am asking what do you expect from 40k? what do you prefer to do? how do you play your games?

Well, sorry for misreading that then. This being the internet, it is hard to tell sometimes.

I do tend to run with the inquisition setting, mainly because so much of the system does feel like its built to accommodate for that (especially given the types of lores Ascension level characters gain access to). It also provides a pretty nice motivation to do anything other than the normal dredgery of life in the Imperium, and also possesses the power to actually control one's life (as opposed to the arbities/guard example, which could tend to be a bit more orders driven. And while yes working for an inquisitor can order the party as well, I would say its easier for an inquisitor to be lax in the particulars of their orders for a group of acolytes than say the orders a group of guardsmen may receive).

My first campaign tended to be a "planet of the week" style game. This had more to do with it being my first game I ever GM'd, and that we had a variable number of players any given game session. Thus, a long term campaign was just a tad bit too difficult. The themes tended to be very much mystery/horror related, and the system was able to support that quite nicely. I ran pretty much complete homebrews, but I did cannibalize some sequences from existing modules I had read, because, well, they seemed interesting and did fit with what I was running. While there certainly was a good bit of interaction, it was always slightly weakened by the fact that most NPCs wouldn't return at the next game, so there was no use in getting too attached. I had a core set of support NPCs who made up the rest of the inquisitor's retinue, whom the party had fun interacting with. Players did enjoy it, but power creep was inevitable (kept handing out too much xp), and eventually it was difficult to throw meaningful challenges at the party that were still only 1 session games.

Second DH campaign was a longer investigation, kicking off the game with The House of Dust and Ash from DotDG. Excellent module, players were crapping their pants with Master Nonesuch and the game was much loved. I used the various hooks at the end of that to build my own home brew on top, turning it into a Tyrant Star investigation (with me making up exactly what it was). Plenty of "fun" material to read and use to my liking.

Also, just because it was fun at the time, my explanation of the Tyrant Star was that it was initially used by humanity from before the Dark Age of Technology. It functioned as a prison for daemons. Essentially, man was using it as a means of getting rid of daemons without casting them out into the warp (from which they would only come back anyway). Basically, mankind found an anomoly out in space and built a structure around it to stabilize it. Since I was on a Count of Monte Cristo binge at the time, it was referred to as Château d'If. Since the Dark Age, the entire prison facility fell out of repair, and eventually, the devices that stabilisied the core of the prison facility broke down, causing the anomoly the prison contained (what was now called the Tyrant Star) to begin moving/phasing around the local area of space.Of course, all the players had to go on are the absolutely strange and terrifying reports/prophecies about the star itself.

That campaign had quite a bit more interaction/politics, with it eventually turning into a matter of political control of some of the noble houses on Malfi to help prevent absolute chaos for when the Tyrant Star inevitably arrived, along with an investigation into the dark workings of a cult on the planet, who were abducting people and such.

DH is very much built around the off the battlefield aspects of imperial society. The battlefield portions are left to DW and the incoming OW game. That still is not to say I have good hopes about OW, but that's more because I love the notion of the commissar.

Probably the worst thing about the 40k setting is that its easy to take the low hanging fruit of the "canned" enemies of the imperium (pretty much any non imperial army in tabletop, OR generic cult that worships chaos). Most players expect the threats to come from those pools, and completely miss out on the vastness of the galaxy in 40k. But once again, that falls on the GM. I do feel that much of the 40k RPG line's material accounts for this though.

DISCLAIMER: I tried to keep this post spoiler free, but the example I'm making below IS heavily inspired by an official module I am running right now.

Ubernatus said:

Aaah, I see now , thanks for explaining.

Well, I agree with KommissarK in the sense that the system (DH) really supports any number of different styles of game and it's mostly up to the GM to pick the one that best fits the group and also his sense of storytelling.

For me, that is neither a scene-based approach nor an encounter-centric one. I like to run (and my players are thoroughly enjoying it - or so I think) something I like to call a sandbox-style game. Basically what I mean by this is that their Inquisitor (or whoever) gives the group some hints (i.e. some strange murders have been happening) and sets them out in a city or region to investigate. Basically, in these cases, they can do whatever they think would be prudent and conceivably in line with their Inquisitor's orders and what he would support - be it drafting help from local Enforcers, Arbites or just flat out going undercover and talking to no one. This also means that I usually try not to force any encounters or NPCs on them if they don't move towards them on their own - though I do use Schroedinger's Gun (disclaimer for that link: TV tropes ahead) every once in a while to rewrite something into their path. But basically, if the acolytes would decide to stand on a hill outside the city and take a break for a month, the story would unfold without them - and usually end pretty bad, of course.

But the point is: the acolytes can in fact do whatever the hell they want. Which for the GM means that he has to have a very broad plan of some major NPCs, Events and storylines that are happening and the ways the acolytes could possibly influence them - but if they don't, they don't, and things just roll along without them. He also needs to keep track of at least the general mood and actions of the major groups of the story (maybe the criminal underground, the Enforcers, …) and create new NPCs from these groups on the fly should the players decide they'll go ahead and find some random criminal to interrogate (who could, if the underground in this city is well-connected and organized, actually know a thing or two!).

Running a game like this can of course be a lot more work than presenting the players with well-connected scenes or encounters, and it's also a lot more demanding on the players (after all, they have to devise their own schemes of uncovering what is going on with less guidance from the storyline), but when I'm a player myself, I personally find it a much more realistic experience - and when I actually make it through a game like that, I get that "we solved the mystery!" feeling instead of "we survived long enough for the final boss to arrive and killed him". To that same end, I also never actually read out any of the "read aloud or paraphrase" sections from the modules when entering a location or anything like that - I think it feels far too much like a cutscene that pulls the players out of the story. Instead, I try to create as much immersion as possible by creating a "living" world around the players that they can interact with - or decide not to, with consequences that are usually somewhat unpleaseant.

As a side note, most of the official modules I've read so far actually lend themselves quite nicely to this style of play as they spend a lot of time describing the major NPCs and "broad strokes" of the story, but never go into too much detail of specific scenes.