Hi all im new to being a gm and im having issues writing up missions for my group.

Is there any tips people can give me about writing up missions?

I'd suggest trying out one of the pre-made adventures first. Best free one(in my opinion) is Edge of Darkness

Then if you want to try your hand at creating your own adventure, I wrote up a small guide a short while back on how to go about that here

My best advice for creating an adventure is to have a story(from a movie, book, or your imagination), provide a hook for the players to become involved with it, and then think about how the game will react to the players' actions.

My best advice for being a new GM on the other hand… realize that you will probably make mistakes(I still do), but always try to learn from them and improve. And remember that you and your players are all there to have fun, but it falls largely on the GM to make it fun.

Hey Hey!

Welcome to the forums.

First thing's first- did you check out the Running an Investigation/Conspiracy Adventure topic on these here forums? The name is a bit misleading but it actually gives you step by step advice on not just running the game but writing it beforehand as well. I highly recommended read for all new GMs, especially for Dark Heresy.

I assume that, as a new GM, you likely only have one group consisting of your friends. For a first game, I, like everybody else here I think, often recommend you run " Edge of Darkness " from the forums as an Introductory adventure for several reasons.

Not only is it a very good scenario- but you'll get a good chance to find your own style and to get to know your players a bit before you actually start writing things from scratch for them (Do they like combat more or investigation? Horror or kick in the door purging? Underworld games with scum and criminals or the more paranoid "trust no one" approach?)

A quick search on these forums will reveal a lot of topics, new GMs, asking the frequently the same questions and getting a lot of very good advice- you should give them a read.

Writing a mission for a single group can be difficult- especially if you don't have another to play-test it on. As such, if you ever have any ideas you'd like to expand upon, feel free to post them right here in the forums. More Often than not a lot of Gms will post up suggestions and ideas and generally help you make it happen or give some more definite shape to your vision. If nothing else, putting up your ideas will help you get your stories together.

Now I leave you with a few questions- are you new to DMing or 40k and Dark Heresy in general? What about your players? These things will determine if you even have any ideas or if you're starting off from scratch

Edit- Ninja-ed on all counts but posted it anyways!

benjamin_bernhard,

If you're new to game mastering regardless of the system or setting just keep in mind the core fundamentals of pen and paper gaming. The games are composed of encounters wherein which you will present a situation to the players and then ask them to respond. In effect a game could be summed up as a series of hypothetical situations.

Because encounters form the basis of your game it's wise to spend most of your time thinking about these and taking care of things ahead of time. A carefully crafted conspiracy with weak encounters likely won't have the same impact as a straight forward plot with amazing encounters.

Some tips on making good encounters.

• Ask yourself what makes this encounter interesting? A gun battle in a static open plane is not as interesting as a one in along rickety rafters that might give way at any moment.
• Is there an opportunity for all the players to participate? If not is the encounter engaging enough that one on the sidelines could enjoy seeing it unfold?
• Is the situation loaded with good choices and opportunities? A hacking scene where one simply rolls a die can be improved by adding unexpected information in the system and adding time pressures. Say the system will shut down after tampering. The hacker has enough time to pull the files they came for but then notices an opportunity to leave a malicious virus that will relay all transmissions sent from this terminal back to the acolytes.

All of the above is good advice. In addition, never have the outcome of a particular scenario come down to a single roll- because my experience is that it will fail and leave you high and dry. If proceeding to the next stage in the adventure hinges on someone making a Challenging Search roll, and they fail, then what? One way to avoid a botched roll derailing a mission is to build in multiple ways to solve the problem. When I design investigaton-based missions, I try to include at least three different routes to solving the mystery. Sometimes I get lazy and think that the 'right' path is so obvious that I don't need alternatives, and it's backfired on me more than once…

Adeptus-B said:

Best advice yet. It's all good, as he says, but this is a really tough lesson to learn unless you screw it up a couple of times. Give them options or you will be left improvising and they'll catch you making crap up…

Adeptus-B said:

There's a video game that sums up this lesson almost too well. It's called Heavy Rain. Througout the game many of the scenes imply that the characters can die or fail to continue the search for the killer but it's only true during the last segments. If you fail it changes things and you miss clues but the game continues and you can still achieve an ending.