I ask this question with some trepidation, for you see, I have a player in my group, Fral Leman: Man of Legend, formerly Man of Action, who has done the impossible; on more than three occasions.

It all started during an assassination mission, a planetary governor of a fridge world (with more than it's fair share of lore) has committed so much heresy that the Acolytes are being sent in to take care of it. From stripping the Ecclesiarchy of power to forcing techpriests to commit tech heresies, Gov. Barbarossa Helhand was one evil guy. Skipping several hours of play, the PC's eventually reach Barbarossa in a critical assault after everything goes to hell. Even worse, the governor's palace-fortress is actually the salvaged wreck of a rogue trader ship that is partially functional, elevating the fight several kilometers in the air before a speedy fall. But I digress.

The party, composed of a Biomancer, a Guardsman, and Fral Leman (A guardsman), encounter the governor who turns out to be a lesser daemon in the guise of the governor. Everyone manages to keep their cool but Guardsman A gets blasted out of the armor-glas by a noise blast, sending him off and away. Lucky him, he was still alive and activated his "parachute" (a device I reluctantly accepted him to find). Fral Leman, coming up with his second insane idea of the day (the first to suppressively fire upon over 50 army thugs after stabbing their boss in the throat, detonating their Chimera and killing them all) and takes his two grappling hooks, run at the daemon, hooking onto his leg, running out the window after hooking onto the ledge; and pulling the daemon outside to fall to his doom.

As the ship falls Fral Leman gets back inside while the Biomancer bloats like a balloon and flies away (still surprised that they left him to die). Falling to certain doom, Fral Leman secures himself against the broken control console and lites a Lho-stick on the way down. He is joined by the Prince just before impact (who was essentially a space marine). As he falls he puts on his "Indestructible sunglasses" as the sun sets. I roll Impact damage (5D10 + 5, it is lessened from his secured fastenings). I then proceed to roll: 1, 1, 1…..1…………1!!!! Fral Leman survived a crash that leveled the city while taking only 1 wound.

Mission 1 End

Now before I ever continue on to the more rediculous things that had been accomplished, the Question of the title must be addressed: Should Players be alloowed to change the universe? Namely Fral Leman. A man who has killed everything so far: from Nobz, Chaos Space Marines, Orks and Daemons to Mecha Nobz, a Chaos Lord and a Warp Beast that devoured an entire ship.He even retains a single point of corruption and not a single Insanity Point. This may seem like endearment but if you had seen the things Fral Leman has done in-game, I can't help but wonder what he ISN'T capable of (which kinda scares me a a GM). I have thrown almost anything and everything I had. The only thing that the player admits that Fral Leman wouldn't do well at is investigation. Although, he does say that, and I quote, "Fral is all about getting **** done, no excuses, no fears." I could talk much longer about what Fral has done but I must keep this about the post question.

Note: currently Fral Leman has attracted the attention of several Inquisitors for investigation based on his deeds (considering he is only a regular former guardsman turned mercenary).

First of all, there is some kind of height the game that should just kill the character outright if he falls. For example, with the falling damage that was written, I had once a character that could have survived an entry in the atmosphere and punched the ground and got back to his feets without even a broken leg. But the rules are made for more regular situations, not that kind of where the GM must decide by himself what happen.

Otherwise, this kind of thing can happen if you (maybe I'm wrong, you'll tell me) let all the dices determines what happen. I once made a game where the pre-final encounther to 3 players of level 2 (a sister, a scum and a guardsman) had to flee a kill team of 5 chaos space marines. They decided to stand their ground and I just played the battle by dice rolls. I rolled badly. They didn't. 5 chaos space marines died, which is stupid.

In an important battle (I.E. boss battle or half cinematic fight scenes), you must had trials that add difficulties that stack with the final fight. For exemple, your planetary governor puts on infra-red goggles when his body guards drops smoke grenades all over the places. Your characters don't see a thing and become with great maluses to hit their adversary or even see him, when he's got (and his guards too) the mean to see them. That's just one example.

I'm not telling you to kill your character; after that is epic if he survives such things and I honestly am the kind of player, when I don't GM (I must admit this happen rarely) to succed in very hard things, but even then, its a question of making the battle more than just "statline vs statline". Fire tears off his shoes, there is plenty of shards of broken glass on the ground, the ship is rising and there are no gravity fields to make it possible to stand correctly; the guys must succed agility tests to advance and not fall.

To answer the actual question….

I can't do it.

Try as best as I can, I've never had my players actual change the world. I can't imagine them doing it- and I wouldn't want them to do it.

I guess i am probably the biggest Amalathian or even (Gasp) Libricar tendencies.

EVERYTHING HAS to stay the SAME.

Why you say?

Because its so cool as is.

Will players ever be resolve the secret of the Tyrant Star? Uncover the forces behind the Halo Devices? Resolve long lasting conflits between Various Inquisition Factions? Or even (relatively) simple things, like saving a planet whose natural state is in constant decay and destruction [Tranch, for example].

The various conspiracies in the Calixis sectors will remain completely unsolvable in my games- even though thats very unfortunate. At best, they'll get glimpses of people working within these things [Like my Night Cult Segment that I am planning] but even that won't solve anything.

That doesn't mean that the Acolytes cant constantly save the sector- They've already saved it a couple of times. But the universe and the tight web thats woven around Calixis is MUCH bigger than they are, at best, they'll be able to keep it at bay for ther limited lifetime.

I agree with Saldre on this. I don't feel at ease (but it's just me) to change many things in the permanent Dark Heresy setting, that's why I created an other sector near the Calixis Sector, where I can destroy, build, kill and do many things at my will, leaving place to my characters growing in power and changing the universe in question, still being in the canon of wh40k.

In my current running game of Dark Heresy I encourage my players to adjust the setting. However I portray the Imperium in the Calixis sector as so absolutely ridden with crime, decay, heresy, and evil that to change the fundamental nature of the setting is unlikely. Some things that currently are different in my game…

1. There is massive hole in Hive Sibellus from special munitions fired from Orbit. The players called down the strike.

2. Sector Governor Hax is a madman and some one is trying to replace him. The players actually have 15 dead clones of the guy which they keep under wraps.

3. Luggnum will fall to an Ork invasion and the players are tasked with preparing it as an adequate speed bump. Luggnum's fall is the direct result of interfering with the Churgeon's experiments in the Edge of Darkness module. In my game the Logicians were aware of the invasion and planned to use any means necessary to help the people of this world survive the attack. The players were fully aware that stopping the Logicians would mean millions would die by alien hands.

Ithink the whole point of most roleplay games is to have some impact on the world in which they play in, whether it is recovering artefacts, looting, or killing the big bad. I do no thtink it is practical for the players to change the UNiverse, at large, but they should be able to have an impact on the local area, be it a city, hive, planet or sector.

On your players exploits, well he seems to be extremely lucky, I would not punish him for been lucky. Having other inquisitors investigate the nature of that luck would be appropriate.

Just to re-iterate a slight bit, I guess it may have been partially my fault as far as the Planetary Governor's "true" self and Fall Damage. I originally had the set-piece become an immense trap: they go in, kill the guy but not before the thing takes off and comes crashing towards the planet. So if anything, I had partial thoughts about making it instant death but, for the sake of a "lesser-minded" player in the group, decided the best solution would be common sense in a crashing situation but with implemented creativity. Now as far as the whole "daemon" situation goes, I have to take the blame for that one. Originally a spin-off move to avoid one of the player's "glory-hogging" if you will, and somewhat as an intended after-thought, I turned the governor into a daemon once said player got an incredibly lucky shot on the leg, scoring 20 damage with a grenade launcher (frag). Needless to say, I was a bit "aggravated" by his success. Mind you, this is the same "lesser-minded" player that sought nothing more to do in the game other than scream "FOR DA EMPRAH!!!" like a good little guardsman (He already died once before, apparently not learning his lesson). I'm not against character themes, but let's just say that he's a real ass in the universe, but I digress.

I forgot, in terms of the actual story, to make all of his bodyguards cultists and such. So when the governor showed himself all of his guards immediately freak. Normally I would have let them stay in-game, but considering the ship's immediate descent, I figured the difficulty of a daemon might draw things up to the time-limit if you will… Que Fral Leman… Game Over for the daemon, and not a single blood-curdling rending to anyone either

On a slightly seperate subject, but still retaining to the idea, I am currently drawing up a special mission for Fral Leman and retinue dubbed Man of Legend. I am planning to make this the most demanding, and partially impossible adventure possible. At this point in our group there is kind of a running theme of the GM (me) trying to kill Fral Leman with the most Die-Hard, no chance, "never coming back" mission possible. I am simply going to give a slight overview on my plans in order to get some advice for this.

It starts with several Inquisitor's, after extensive scrutinizing of Fral & retinue, discovering that Fral is apparently not an average human being; as to what he is exactly can't be said for certain. He maintains some sort of Warp resistance and, in additon (I didn't really mention this in the above but it was concluded in his time with the Warp Beast and the Chaos Lord Krale) to resisting the Warp forces, Fral contains a gift capable of reflecting Warp energies to a limited degree. Or in other words, the guy seems to have resisted the impossible and (due to a moment of dumbness on my part by allowing him to "reflect" a Chaos Lord's Warp attack on a 01) reflect said impossible. All of this, yet for the odd reasons inexplicable, Fral cannot manifest Psychic powers of his own. Regardless, said radical Inquisitor plans on surgically implanting an acient relic/rosarius into Fral's anatomy as "additonal aid from the God-Emperor".

Fral, being deemed a tool of the Emperor by a radical Inquisitor, decides it's best to send him on a mission, into the Formless Wastes of the Warp. The goal: recover an STC long lost drom the Dark Age of Technology that the Inquisiton refuses to talk about (not even sure if it still exists) that a daemon stole during the chaotic fighting on a certain Forge World. Turns out that, said landing area for the Warp incursion is not in the Formless Wastes, but in the domain of a Daemon Prince yet they are still in the corect location. Turning the attention towards the Daemon Forge, the group will make their way to the Soul Furnace, there they will meet a special Chaos Marine who resides in a Chaos Dreadnaught. The only way for the party to find the location of the STC is to interrotage him (Make or Break), of which is revealed that the STC resides in the gullet of the Daemon Prince but only a special ritual can sever it from his form without destroying it. I've decided to be a real **** to the group by making the ritual a lie conceived by the Daemon Prince to keep any of his followers distracted long enough to be decimated by his mind, seeking their intents out in his domain.

Needless to say I'll allow the other "non-amazing" players to use Grey Knights in this special occasion but I am thinking about permitting Deathwatch instead. I didn't make an ending because I plan on killing them regardless of what they do. Anything they do off the path to progress will simply be free-hand game mastering.

Thoughts & Tips? (other than I'm a **** and that I should be fair and blah, blah, blah…etc.)

You know how "The more things change, the more they stay the same"?

Or, you could be REALLY mean and subscribe Fral's continuing luck to be from a Daemon that has set its sight on him.

First, let me introduce myself…

My name is Mentressa Calliope. I am an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor.
Eighty years ago, I traveled from the Scarus Sector to Callixis to take a position as an Auditor-Tutor at the Tricorn Palace, Sibellus. I was charged with the task of selecting, educating, and training candidates for…well, let's just say "a particular task". These candidates; some have been known to refer to them as "Acolytes"; were then chosen by various of my colleagues to initiate investigative action Cells, or in-fill those Cells with casualty vacancies.

Toward the end of my career, I had become increasingly enfeebled by a most unfortunate illness; osteoarthritis; and was deeply troubled by my imminent invaliding by the Callixian Conclave; I'm afraid they meant to put me "out to pasture". As retirement goes, I suppose I should have welcomed it, as any retirement from the Ordos that you live to "enjoy" is a milestone of some significance. Or so I've heard.
It was during my physical decline that I chanced upon the discovery that my colleagues also considered me to be doddering, addled, that my "corners had become rounded", and I overheard much that many thought was kept in quiet confidence. One of these things was a suggestion that my tutoring techniques had some inherent flaw, and that many candidates would be a liability to the Ordos. The course of action had already been decided; they would sanction my final classes. They would do it after I had signed off on their final assessments, and intended to keep it secret from me, thinking that in retirement I would forget about souls no longer in my care. But my mind is a trap, bursting with every thing I have ever seen and learned; I have never forgotten a face, and I never can, and to sleep at night with so many faces crying out, confused and pained in the final moments of their betrayal would have been impossible. To save my students (my Auditors) I began using subliminals, implanting the necessary elements of survival that would hide them away from the Inquisition. This worked for a while, until most recently it seems.

When I learned of sanctions that had been successful, I sent my remaining contacts into Sibellus with the intention of reeling in the remaining Auditors. Some know they have a bounty on their heads, and some even know it is the Inquisition who hunts them. Not all of them trust me. I can't say that I blame them. And many have yet to be found. In any case, I returned from my "retirement" with the intention of putting my Auditors into the field. They would do the work of the Inquisition, the God-Emperor's own will guiding them, and they would prove by their successes or failures the merits of my tutoring establishments. If they could prove to the Inquisition they were not liabilities, but instead utterly devoted to their professions and the God-Emperor, then I could perhaps call for the dismissal of their sanctions.

My first Cell of Auditors has brought to the Emperor's justice the career heretic known as Myrchella Cinderfell. She was canny, a dangerous opponent, and only toward the end did we learn her true identity and the danger that implied, but my Auditors were dogged and unwavering in their pursuit of her. She now lies in cold storage, dead, awaiting a proper introduction to Lord Caidin. He will ask questions. He will want to know why I have returned to my audits when obviously I can take to the field no longer. He will ask the identity of my Auditors. He knows them already, if not by name, then by his signature endorsing their deaths. Or, if it is not his name that decorates the sanctions, then he will know whose does.

Now, as GM: At first, it was hard for me to accept that something published could be altered by me or my Players. I wanted to use a published adversary to drive the first investigation for a new group of Auditors (Acolytes), but I kept coming back to the fact that they would be putting an end to one of the Callixian Conclave's most wanted, and the thought of doing so felt, at first, like I was going to deflate the setting. Killing a published NPC. In the process though, it became quite fun. The Crimson Countess had assumed yet another false identity; a vain, mean-spirited and calculating woman with a sense for fine fashion and style; and it took many weeks (game and real time) to suss this out. She was devilishly clever, seemingly always prepared for a quick get-away, had a fresh batch of trinkets and toys (and henchmen, allies, and clients) about her person to take the edge away from the Auditors, and she did it all while wearing the latest in designer fashions for the discerning heretic. The first time she "escaped" it was a surprise. The second time she was being impersonated by a dupe. She almost made a clean third, but a succession of poorly rolled Toughness Tests meant she never regained consciousness after her grav-craft transport crashed; Auditor-Censurist Tertius Gaius simply walked up, rolled her over to verify her identity, then put a bullet into her temple. A seemingly anti-climactic end to a very tense investigation, but he follwed the Inquisition protocol on her file to a T.

For me, as GM, I thoroughly enjoyed the end game. I sat on the edge of my own seat, silently screaming "Wake up, you stupid *****!" When the moment came, I could hear the clap of the pistol being fired, the smack of the bullet as it impacted inside her skull. I think for the Players it hasn't all sunk in yet. I think they realize they put an end to a career heretic, but I don't think they realize they've dramatically altered the setting. For them, something published, "graven in stone" so to speak, no longer exists, and they are responsible for that change. Well, by my design, but still…

It can be done, but you can't go too big, otherwise you might not have anything left to work with.

What you wrote here is very interesting, Alekzanter.

On the other hand, Inquisitor Balthazar, I don't think creating a scenario where the only objective is to kill your players' characters is a good thing. You can create them a hellishly hardcore mission in which their survival is unlikely, but creating the mission with the express objective of killing them, I don't think it is a good idea.

InquisitorAlexel said:

That is a fair enough statement. After all, I've kind of left my plans for "HE MUST DIE" in lieu of just having some fun myself by playing my own rediculous Famulos Protege who's suspiciously beautiful, has glowing hair and feathered wings (needless to say I rolled rediculously well…and for several odd reasons he has regeneration, Unnatural Strength/Toughness x2, Flyer(15), etc.) Don't ask…

I only figure that if I am so narrow-sighted as to attempt to kill everyone regardless of feelings or anything that our little group might find ourselves hating me from their on; not as far as being an ass but more as to being a bastard that only wanted their destruction to the point where I would just have them walk off reality's cliff (literally). But in contrast to that, I've slightly altered my position, that being: I feel that if a player has no influence at all (being on the behalf of the Inquisition) they lose a sense of authority that would allow them to do many things the game calls for. If they affect the setting too much, good unto them, they made a difference (at most) to the sector (something that I feel that many, including myself sometimes, forgets that it's a good chunkc of the entire Imperium), but not so much so as to effect the events of novels and such in other sectors. And thus almost seems the purpose of the Calixis Sector in my eyes as a GM; somewhere to make the Imperium incredibly different, but not so much so as to be a displaced setting. I figure that if a PC of any kind (successfully or not) designs an STC over the progress of only 1 year then they should be commemorated on a rediculous task in such a stand-still setting. Of course reprocussions should pop up due to it though in the event word get's out.

But even more importantly, I can't help but see that the Imperium isn't nearly as Grimdark as many mention; it's more like a kitchen in a middle-class home. Sure there are plenty of dark, grimey spots but there are plenty of lighter ones to compensate for how bleak everything is, regardless if its grime is only "less disgusting". Sure there are worlds like the iconic Cadia, Catachan, Dusk, and Krieg, but all of those worlds (most often in Cadia's mention) are used as template worlds for the majority of the universe as far as the nieve thought process goes. Not every world is at war, not every world kills to survive every day; and not every world has seen conflict (some not seeing any for hundreds or even thousands of years). In common place, I guess the best way to look at everything is not through the Grimdark filter, but taking a step back and just looking at it from a basic sci-fi setting, not allowing personal opinion to sway all because of favour for one brand or another.

In conclusion, I guess I do believe that PC's should have an impact. Why? It's the Calixis Sector, filled with opportunities and possible changes at the pull of a trigger. Does that it mean will impact the Imperium? Probably not. Kill Governor Hax of Scintilla? A Lord of Terra just signed a partchment assigning a new one after a few years; moving on. Grimdark is only Grimdark if you put close your eyes to all the other awesome things in the universe. In essence, if you don't focus on the beaurocratic bull*%@#, religious confilcts, and agonizing agenda's of the Inquisition, then maybe there is a difference that can be made…elsewhere.

P.S.: I understand that this might be a bit much for the topic but as far as I'm concerned, you can never go too deep into Warhammer 40K mythos & concepts.