I was just wondering how easy it is for someone who has never played an RPG before (me) to get into Dark Heresy? I love 40k fluff and the tabletop game and I'm thinking of buying these books just for the information anyways...but I'm curious about playing the actual game as well. How fun is it?

Do the rules allow for miniatures to be used on a hex based map like DND 4th edition or is it all just pen and paper?

Thanks in advance

I'd say that DH is very "newbie" friendly. The rules are pretty simple and easy to remember. You can use miniatyres if you'd like, or you can just go with pen and paper.

The rules are in general not that important in RPG´s as it is in a TT-game. Most gamers agree that if the story will benefit from "cheating" or "tweaking" it is perfectly ok to do so. Knowing every single rules is not that important making it easier to learn and play compared to the miniatures game from a rules point of view. The difficulties lies in other aspects of the game.

The rules are fairly easy to learn just make sure to get the errata and read through it.

The main difficulty in DH is knowing the setting. If you are already a fan of 40k then you will have no problems,

If you are not used to RPG, I would not recommend starting with DH (unless you like to have a rough start).

The rules are simple, sure.
But there are a lot of tiny bugs, both with errata and not. You can´t simply open the book on page X to know what you have to do. You have to open the book on page X and cross-check with an errata (which is a dozen pages long) if somehting has changed.

In addition, if you are not used to "house ruling", you are going to find some of the rules (especially for character creation) a little bit "rail roading"..or will end up brewing house rules that will lead to another kind of mess later. "House ruling" is something you learn by "try&error", so a lack of experience is a disadvantage here.

Same is true to the price lists.

Don´t ge me wrong, I like the game. But in my opinion, it is simply not "newbie friendly". But as already said... if you are not frustrated by the thought of thumbing erratas and make your first expierences with tweaking things here and there, you will have fun

Well, checking the errata isn't neccessary unless a rule is obviously broken - especially for a new GM.

Dark Heresy is a big setting to swallow as a new GM, but if you think you have enough of a handle on the world and you're not afraid of a rough start (all new GMing experiences are rough) then I say go for it. GMing is a great experience, ever changing, ever growing ... you'll learn a great deal through trial and error. (use one of the published adventures first, to get a feel for the setting) Don't be afraid to ask questions on the forum, that is why we're here.

My first RPG was Warhammer fantasy roleplay, and I play the primarily, but I've recently picked up the DH book, it seems a little more complex that WFRP, so it wouldn't personally be very newbie friendly, but if there are rules you don't like, or things you don't understand, you can make a hosue rule, or 5

It's not the most "newbie friendly" game but it's hardly the least either. The trick with any first RPG is to focus on fun first and learn the gritty details as you go. I would agree though that WFRP is much more newbie friendly than DH and equally as fun.

I think compared to most RPGs, it's newbie friendly, espeically if you know the 40K universe.

Make sure your friends are patient and not a bunch of rules lawyers and you'll have fun. Try running the adventure in the core book and those online here (see Support) before you do your own. See what works for you and your group.

A great middle road if you don't have the time or inclination to develop a full blown adventure is to take published adventures and change them a bit. Add a subplot, or a a theme that connects all your adventures. Example: add a ruthless criminal (diabolical? xenos?) gang that hires out to cultists and such, and let the players discover their hand in heresy after heresy. An extra NPC here, some xenos tech there, all with clues pointing back to the insidious gang. As a grand climax after many adventures, the players could face the kingpin of this gang to stop their affront to the Emperor once and for all.

I've heard the average campaign lasts six months. Mine go longer, but I only ref every other week. I like to wrap things up with a bang, rather than let the campaign wither away with a wimper. I'm timing my next big bang for when I have enough Rogue Trader material to get that rolling.

See, I have different layers of campaigns. My sub-campaigns last about 3 months, but they are always part of a large campaign which can last as long as a year. (or more) I love long reaching story archs so long as they don't reuse they same old villians and story lines ... I want everything the remain fresh and interesting. I also love it when pcs can set long range goals in my games .... in my SW game one player had to set a goal six months of real time in advance before he ever saw it fulfilled. Now that is fun.

The rules are totally newbie friendly, especially if you've played MMOs like World of Warcraft (I found the "class", "levelling" and "talents" to be much like picking the skills from the talent tree in WoW). Keep it simple to begin with and don't try and throw too much cool stuff in too early. I ran a 6 year 40k rpg campaign using a homebrew rules set and found that too much too quickly results in ennui towards the situation. By keeping it simple it allows you to read more of the fluff which is frankly much more detailed on a personal level than anything GW has written. if you don't believe me, then before DH came out I challenge you to find any reference to Imperial currency and methods of payment in GW fluff (actually I think "Inquisitor" made a passing reference but it was not an RP system and it wasn't that detailed).

I'd say any RPG is as newbie friendly as it's players and GMs. That being said, find a group thats open and friendly and dive right in.

>>The rules are totally newbie friendly, especially if you've played MMOs like World of Warcraft (I found the "class", "levelling" and "talents" to be much like picking the skills from the talent tree in WoW). <<

Wow, I mean seriously, wow. I feely unbelievably old when people are using an mmo to reference and explain an rpg. This is a day I have dreaded seeing for years and it has finally come.

I mean, great if an mmo opened the door for anyone to experience a table top rpg, but ... I just feel terribly, terribly old.

I would definately say it is newbie friendly. I started with WH40K tabletop and fluff. Than I had a friend invite me over to listen to a session of DH. By next session I was in and loving it. Two or three sessions and I know most of the rules, with the occasional, oh crap, what was that again? Now after only a few months, I am preparing to run my own Campaign. Granted I won't start until we finish one of the two we currently are in, I already have a couple of sessions written and ready to go. I have to say that for someone who never played RPG's before, I found this extremely simple to pick up. I now have all of the DH books and absolutely love it. I can't wait for each Thursday to come, as I am dying to play some more, and continue my great experiences with my friends. My only suggestion would be, find an experienced GM to start with. That will make it easier, but if not, I still think you will have lots of fun.

Jack of Tears said:

I so totally understand and agree with you. Just this morning somebody referred to Alternity as "old school" on another forum I'm on.

Pneumonica said:

Ouch. I'm going to have to start shopping for walkers now I guess...

I was a total noob when I first got into DH.

The game system itself is very easy to grasp. There is nothing fancy or innovative about the game mechanics. There are a bunch of charts with most being used during character creation and a few being used in combat only when characters are in danger of gaining some bad effects on their person. One thing I recommend is to go through mock combat beforehand and pass out the chart with the myriad of combat options. Combat in DH is pretty deadly especially in low character levels and the combat options allow players to think more tactically and thereby give them a better chance of pulling through a combat scenerio.

Roleplaying should not be difficult for you since you are already familiar with the tone of the setting.

DH doesn't use hex grid maps. It used square grid maps. You can play the game using your 40K miniatures but if you can keep where everyone is at during combat in your mind than you should be fine without having to resort ot miniatures. I, myself, use tokens on grid maps to better visualize what is going on.

I would like to reccomend that if you're new to RPGaming, that you have someone in your group (preferably the GM) who isn't. This isn't a DH thing, this is a general gaming thing. However, when I started gaming my group was 100% newbies, so it's not a mandatory thing, just a useful thing.