This is simultaneously my first Dark Heresy campaign and my first time DM'ing. I've got my group and I've got my idea as well as some of the progression laid out, but I keep worrying it's going to be too simple/too easy for my players to see where things are going before they've found all the pieces to the proverbial puzzle. Any suggestions to help keep my players guessing?

Well, for starters, don't worry I did, and still do, and nothing ever happens, the most my players divulge from my stories is that the man who never follows them into a shrine and wears a long coat and mask is in fact a vampire. (This is for a WFRP game, I've never GMed DH).

Also, could you give us the lowdown on your campaign? It'll help everyone give you pointers as to what you could make more obscure and stuff to keep your players guessing.

One thing, never tell your players what they realise. Only in rare cases, if they find an astrotelepathic transcript informing them of a trade between a Chaos cult and the head of the hives Ecclesiarch, don't tell them:

"....Come on, you know what that means, you met him eysterday! Fine then, the head of the Ecclesiarch is trading goods with a chaos cult, what will you do?" Let the players figure it out, but if they're utterly clueless, have their Inquisitor inquire into the investigations progress, or if it is truly vital, make sure they realise what they've just found.

If its your first, there is nothing wrong with "the easy way". Player seldom feel bad if they had an easy time. And after all, you are a first timer.

"The gods tell you to relax, everything will be alright"

All right, here's the basic plot.

The Acolytes run into a group of heretek cultists on a mining asteroid that's fallen silent after their ride (a Rogue Trader captain 'convinced' to ferry them to Scintilla by their Inquisitor) decides to take a look and see why the station has gone quiet (and also to loot). When the smoke clears, they'll find that the miners had discovered some sort of inner chamber in the asteroid right before the cultists showed up (they'll also have to run screaming like little girls from a pair of Necron Flayed Ones["animated statues"], but that's mostly cinematic fluff). Upon arriving on Scintilla and being introduced to the Inquisitor's contact, they're sent to break up a xenos artefact smuggling ring, as well as capture the leader of the ring to see if they can find out where they're being supplied from. While there, they find crates marked with the same symbol (a gear broken into eight pieces) that the cultists were wearing, containing warp-tainted weaponry and equipment.

The story branches here depending on whether or not they capture the leader. If they do, the contact will be able to find who is supplying them and send the acolytes in disguise as the smugglers to bring the supplier (a House Krin noble) to the Emperor's Justice. If they don't, then the contact will find a link from the warehouse they raided to another one owned by the noble and send the acolytes to infiltrate the storehouse. This is where they will first discover who the cultists are (Brotherhood of the Shattered Machine) and that they're gathering all sorts of xeno tech and forbidden knowledge for some purpose, as well as that the noble is helping to fund them and pawn off the tech they 'aquire' but don't actually need. After this...well, I haven't really set up that far, though I do have the final encounter planned.

Hope this helps.

Truthfully, the best advice that anyone can give you is simple: be flexable and have fun.

Be ready to tweak your plot when acolytes pull something you didn't think of. When (not if ... when ) they do turn your plot upside down, take heart in the words of D. Adams and Don't Panic!

You seem to have your story pretty firmly laid out. Don't be surprised and/or upset when the story doesn't go exactally the way you wanted it to. That is the one major mistake that I have seen from new DMs. You can cover all options, and count on your players to think of the one thing you missed.

I agree with shadowkat on that one. I ran the Maggots in the Meat for my first GMing experience...

Everything went according to plan until they got to the final conflict. "Wait... Should we charge in guns blazing and kill everything inside of the rickety wooden structure filled with bodies? No! Set fire to the whole thing and kill anything that tries to get out." Needless to say things tried to get out, but they were on fire and had fallen a fantastically far distance in the process. I was really disappointed I hadn't managed to kill a pc...

But long story short have fun. For all intents and purposes (and I don't mean to offend anyone here) you're god to the PC's.

make sure you have prepaired a score of names . Fixed for your major npc and a score of names you can apply to everyone and anyone they might talk to (instead of shooting them).

re-read the rules for combat and re-read all the talents your pc will have.

prepare a little map of your major combat areas and figure out how a given npc might try to flee from there if things go southward for them.

Most important of all:
Prepare a little "introduction speech" (write it down!) for getting your fellow guy in the mood right at the start. In addtion, make some small notes for every "new scene" so you can come up with a tasty description to set the mood. Nothing crumbles the feeling more then statements like "this is a large store room, 20 x 10 meters and you see four well thugs armed with autoguns and wearing flak vests".

Be descriptive, stay descriptive and everyone will love and hail you after the game, no matter how it went! (if your description where rather sluggish. Trust me! Some of my forma vampire group still hail me despite the fact that they all HATED my gameworlds for being "unreasonable and out of touch with reality)

Gregorius21778 said:

This is probably the BEST advice anyone has, or could give you. Also, just one more thing, make sure you know the rules. And if you don't know the exact rule, well, make it up as you go. Nothing is more of a killjoy than in the middle of an expic fight, Guardsman Zek grapples the demonhost, and says, what kind of test was that again? And you respond, I am not sure, let me check. You just let all of the excitement right out and now it will be hard to bring it back up quickly before the fight is over. Just remember, as long as you rule it, they will probably believe it unless they know for a fact its otherwise.

I find that funny voices, accents and hamming it up go down well.

R.

Props. I'm not just talking about miniatures.

Props work well. Dark Reign has some stuff if you don't know what I'm talking about. For example:

The Techpriest has conducted the examination of the forensic evidence your party requested. You could:

1. Just tell them the information.

2. Write down the information. Then you don't have to repeat yourself and can feel guiltless if they don't read it or "forget" it later.

3. Type it out on a "Dataslate" (downloaded from Dark Reign), print it and hand that out to them.

Number 3 is obviously the coolest way to convey the info and will have the most impact. It takes a little more prep time, but I feel it's worth it. The results I get with my group are more tangible if I say....get some parchment paper, a black pen, hand-draw the heretic's map and then just for effect, crisp the edges with a cigarette lighter.

I also find that I can get away with cheesier plot-lines if the Props are good. Heh heh!

Remember the #1 rule of GM'ing: The point is for everyone to have fun and create a memorable gaming session. (This includes yourself, so don't be a pushover trying for them to like you)

Two more things you should know if you've ever played MMOG's: Phat Lewtz are more prized when earned, yet you must beware of "The Grind".

Keep in mind that the players aren't your enemies. You're not out to kill them or ruin their plans to stop whatever foe you've created for them to defeat. They may come up with ideas or strategies that never even occured to you, but don't get frustrated. Take a second to think about how the characters on your side of the screen would react and play accordingly. Flexibility is huge as a GM.

Since I have yet to GM or play Dark Heresy (bought the core book yesterday) I can only throw out some advice on general GMing that I've picked up.

First, don't expect the first few games to go perfectly, if both you and the players are new to the game you will spend time checking rules you're not sure on and the like and this is perfectly fine.

Second, don't make your campaign to "tight", what I mean by this is you shouldn't have things that need to go a certain way for it to keep moving, all the times I've GMed the players have never done what I really wanted them to, which is the greatest part of a good group

Thirdly, as mentioned above it is not GM vs players, sometimes it can be hard but as a GM you must stay as neutral as possible, I've been a player in RPGs where the GM were activly trying to kill to the point where it got really stupid and this is just no fun (don't be afraid to kick it up a notch if the players are doing extremely well though).

That's my three pieces of advice for now, there are lots more like having a list of names for NPCs ready and the like, but I've found that those three things are the most important, next to "have fun", that will always be the most important advice and rule for a GM and a gaming group.

Oh and your plot sounds really fun, hope you'll keep us updated on how it goes along, would be fun to read.

Cryxx

Wow, I'm amazed at all of the positive responses I received and great advice. To all of you, thank you! (This extends to everyone who posts after this, as well). You all provided some really, really great advice, and I'll do my best to take it all into consideration. Knowing my players, I'll have to be VERY flexable.

Thanks again!

Oh, and for those who are interested, I'll try to keep a record of the campaign's progress and post it up here when I get a chance.