So, I am looking at getting either Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, or Only War. I've heard that DH is mission-based, RT is sandbox, and OW is well rounded. The group I was thinking of doing a campaign for would want just a little more story/adventuring than fighting. Right now RT is the one I am most interested in getting, because it can involve lots of different locations and stories, diplomacy and politics, but I am unsure because I haven't actually seen any of the 40k rpg's played. Any suggestions on which one would fit that type of group? Also if you think one of the other rpgs fits that group type feel free to suggest it, from the tidbits I saw about each of the games one of these three seems like the best choice.

I have to suggest Black Crusade or Only War; the earlier systems are great, but the 40k RPGs underwent rules revisions with BC/OW that cut a lot of clutter. It's hard to go back to the clunkier older rules.

Only War is a blast, I must say. You can easily run a Dark Heresy campaign using Only War's rules.

I'd have to agree, the game could be run in many ways. A tiny bit of modifcation and the players are armsmen in the Imperial Navy. Engaging in hit and runs, boarding actions, landing on strange worlds either untouched by man or for stately affairs with the local authorities. Even just sticking with the Imperial Guard, different units can get up to different things.

For example in my own game the players are a Highborn Line Infantry Regiment, they've fought orks in the jungles, mountain passes and matched wits at the Subsector Governor's Court. I've listed their adventures here if it might inform you better:

You could do a game where the players are garrisoning a facility or sitting in the trenches, the posibilities are endless. Dark Heresy does have an interesting setting which Only War is tied to to a degree.

I've done a few reviews of the lines you've asked about-

Dark Heresy-

Rogue Trader-

Only War-

Thanks for the tips, definitely leaning towards to Only War now.

On a side note, Gaius, after watching your videos on Only War - which by the way were a great help, thanks - I noticed that you mentioned needing a d5 for damage. I knew that d10's and d100's are needed, but nothing else. I am a little new to GMing, so I don't have a a lot of dice right now. What kinds of dice are needed for OW? and how many dice would be a good amount?

Firenight15 said:

You will only need D10s. The D5 is actually D10/2. Alternativelly, you can have a special "scatter dice" from Games Workshop. It is a D6 dice with arrows and "hit symbols" instead of numbers. You can get it from WH40k players (they should have some to spare) and it could help you big time with scattering and random directions.

AtoMaki said:

I just use the raised point of the same d10 that I roll for scatter distance to indicate scatter direction, killing two birds with one die roll…

Ok then, I'm gonna do an order of OW/GM Kit/Dice in the next week or so, and hopefully soon i can get a game running. Thanks for the help!

Noooooo, WAIT!

You are about to make a big mistake….

While it is true that the later product lines (Black Crusade & Only War) have improved rules, conventional wisdom suggests very strongly that when it comes to role-playing, the order of play should be Rogue Trader > Deathwatch > Only War. That has certainly been my experience and I have played all three lines.

In Rogue Trader, players are Space Pirates ! Honest trade dealings, underhanded betrayals, treasure hunts, space exploration, trade wars, if you can imagine it, you can do it. A Rogue Trader and his retinue will face opponents such as rock wielding primitives, powerful aliens, planetary lords, alien non-sentient life forms and fellow rogue traders. All providing a lot of (external) role-playing opportunities.

Deathwatch surprisingly offers both internal and external role-playing. Internal means role-playing within the player group. Each marine (usually) has his own chapter providing background, motivation and typical behaviour and thus each player can be very individual rather than just a faceless space marine. I had a lot of fun with my Space Wolf trying to constantly outdo a Dark Angel in the kill team. Oh, the stuff we came up with….While Space Marines raison d'etre is to fight, Deathwatch marines act as special forces. Their typical missions often include a fair bit of investigation and exploration, usually leading to something nasty at the end. So there is quite a bit of room for external role-playing, interacting with crusade officials, planetary officials and whatnot. No, space marines can't sneak around undercover in human populations but there is still a lot of wiggle room. The additional DW books are filled with mysteries to be discovered by kill teams and the published adventures are practically investigations with a lot of scope for role-playing.

Only War suggests players can rise all the way to crusade command. Later books will detail such actions but the core book starts players off as typical grunts. The highest rank is sergeant with a commissar as back-up. Now think, how much scope for actual decisions and independent action does a sergeant have? A sergeant in the Imperial Guard? There is a lot of room for internal role-playing in the squad (think MASH or Dirty Dozen) as each player picks a niche (scrounger, cheater at cards, strong man, professor, etc.) but very few external role-playing opportunities. Even the published adventures make this clear. There is little interaction with people beyond the Imperial Guard. A squad will not be sent out to solve mysteries. Explore a region on their own etc. They will be attached to an officer at best. And that officer (NPC) will always be in charge which is no fun for players. Unless you turn the officer in a red shirt which gets ridiculous pretty soon. You can't even have a player took over as Commissar as they usually don't have command authority. And its simply not believable within the setting that a sergeant and a single squad get very much done on their own. The whole idea of the IG is faceless masses overcoming adversary by superior firepower. Tactical role-playing yes (e.g. storm that hill), external role-playing not so much.

Considering all this, I have to advice picking Rogue Trader. This has the further advantage of being more mature thus there are already quite a lot of books available including the monster manual, ship splat book and several published adventures.

YMMV

Only War is extremely easy to re-theme if you so choose and the rules are well rounded and a lot of the fat of the old ruleset has been trimmed. The most difficult part to work it is the logistics aspect for aquiring new equipment. Once you come up with a solution it's very easy to work into a different style of game.

The person above me is taking a very narrow view of what can be done in the systems. Just don't think over litterally about the mechanics. Only War may have been designed to represent the Imperial Guard but the core mechanics are extremely easy to make fit a different style of game and many of the classes are very well suited to roleplay skills. Even the most combat focused character can very easily pick up and use talking skills because of how freeform the system is.

For those concerned with command structure and ranks within Only War (like me at one point), this will put your mind at ease a bit.

Source: Only War Game Master's Kit, p.30, Squad Command section, second paragraph.

"An entire Only War campaign can be played from the standpoint of this level of command. If the GM and players do not want to assume further command responsibility, thier Logistics Rating may be a reflection of the respect and admiration of their fellow Guardsmen instead of their place within the chain of command."

Hope this helps out.

I would recommend Rogue Trader at first as well, if only to get an idea on the 'first set' of rules that got out for the 40K line; it is easier to go from RT to Ow than OW to RT, as RT is more structured while OW/BC is more of a loose form of character evolution, making careers mere suggestions at best, i.e, nothing is stopping you from making a super sociale soldier, even if that doens't fit the bill.

Droma said:

This person is rather surprised another person can read my lengthy post and still miss the point which is setting rather than system. This person will therefore try again and hopes other persons will appreciate, reject or ignore this advice….

The OP wants to play a campaign focused more on story/adventuring than fighting. Is Only War really the best setting for this? A few grunts fighting together against orks & heretics?

Yes, the Black Crusade/Only War rules are yet another evolution from the original Dark Heresy rules and a bit more elegant. But the Rogue Trader rules IMO are sufficiently robust as is.

It is certainly possible to rewrite the rules for older product lines using BC/OW or you could simply swap parts like the improved combat system. I personally see little reason to change the entire skill trees in the older product lines as skills and talents not in the tree can still be purchased as elite advances. Or a chat with the GM can often work just as well.

So the question remains; which setting and rules offers the best scope for role-playing adventures? My answer remains quite unequivocally Rogue Trader as this allows a group of players to chart their own course and pursue adventure with a combination of droll wit, roguish finesse or superior firepower. While the Only War system can easily allow military characters to gain the necessary social skills, the setting still remains the same. The players are grunts with little independence of action and with little opportunity to interact with non-combatants. Just compare the published adventures for both settings to see what I mean.

I am using Only War--all of it minus logistics--to run a DH game. Essentially, my players are part of a unit completely appropriateed by an inquisitor. I am finding that it is very, very easy to re-theme OW, so I'm not sure why the "suggested" setting for the game is this huge barrier some are making it out to be.

And that's not even using the simple full conversion of OW to DH rules you can find on this very forum.

ranoncles said:

Firenight15 said:

Any of the game lines allows you to do what YOU want to do with them. As the Storyteller/Game Master you set the stage for the story you want to tell.

Dark Heresy could be mission based or sandbox or anything else you want to play it as.

For Rogue Trader it could be missioned based, it could be sandbox, or the whole story could take place in the engine room…

My point is that each game gives you core mechanics and themes for you to do what you will. Certain games lend themselves to doing things better than others: Dark Heresy = investigation, Rogue Trader = adventure, Deathwatch = space marine/demi-god, Black Crusade = subversion/chaos, Only War = Imperial Guard/grim horrors of war.

Could you use Only War to run a Rogue Trader game, sure. Why? Rogue Trader is it's own game line and all the additional material/supplements are written with those rules in mind. You could convert the rules over to Only War but that takes time and my require to by Rogue Trader core book anyways. Why buy two rule books?

You said you were interested in Rogue Trader. So buy Rogue Trader. You are looking formore story and adventuring and Rogue Trader fits that to a "t".

It's not the system that is going to limit your story, the only restriction will be the ones you place upon yourself.

As for inspiration of a Rogue Trader game you can go to Fandible and listen to there podcasts of the RT game

When picking the game system, it two things you should consider. Theme and Mechanics. In Game design theory those are the core concepts developers’ use when determining the flow and direction. One thing to add is your mechanics should never contradict your theme. They should only enhance it.

I point this out because each system is a compilation to the theme they were trying to encapsulate at the time with what worked at the time. DH is a great system when the game came out. You felt like your specialty, and appreciated the dynamic feel when you had others in your group who could handle different things. By Rank 5 you felt pretty awesome by that point. The flaws of DH were the constant add on to rules with the supplements.

Don’t get me wrong, Inquisitors Handbook, Disciples of the Dark Gods, The Radicals Handbook, Ascension, Blood of Martyrs, Daemon Hunter, Book of Judgment, and the Lathe worlds added some great background, themed specialties and more References to GM and Players alike (I own all of these due to me being a 40k RP Nut). With each supplement, the mechanics then changed to incorporate the other game themes, and quickly the system from DH to Ascension rapidly was overhauled (Example, Psychic Powers, Influence, Requisition) this decision you can see was also due to the fact of player feedback from RT, DW and BC

Rogue Trader is a good game. Not my particular favorite. If you play the Specialty to the letter, I dont like the overall theme. However thats my opinion. The game is a good game. Feels like a Robert louise Stevenson in space theme. Can be played out REALLY well if your GM understands the concept of a RT.

Only War of the bat is well designed and is rather free form in character advancement. You choose your specialty and you can choose ANYTHING* long as you have the XP (*Not Psychic powers). This creates mechanically a feel of your character is being shaped by the experiences of the world and can learn things if the group was lacking in certain avenues. Also they give you a really good selection of Vehicle rules, Psychic powers (Which DH original rules would look foreign to a new player) Adversaries, and easy to follow combat rules, which fits all the current systems rather nicely.

To agree with another post, it is only the GM who is limited by their mind when it comes to which system is best. In my OW campaign, I incorporate the wealth system from DH, The Ship Rules from RT and Mob system from DW for large scale conflict. I also put my players not just in large scale battles or mission, but investigative archetypes that fit into the Theme of OW that you usually do in a DH game (Example, Trying to figure out where the missing supplies are going or why certain members of the regiment go to this one establishment after hours). In the end, we only play OW as a Guardsman game cause we are Ex Military and Public Servants who enjoy this sort of game. We do switch to our original DH game when want to play more Inquisitorial stuff.

Conclusion, You’re not going to go wrong playing DH. it’s a GREAT game. Just expect to have a learn curve when you go into the other systems (And the curve is not to bad). RT like I said, if you like the Idea of being someone with a Letter of Marque, establishing yourself with fame and fortune, and being a "Space Pirate", then you'll love it. OW by far is a solid rule set the minute you start. My only recommendation is don’t get bogged down by the "Specialty" Names. If you choose to run the game in any other matter than an imperial guard large scale type, then use the Specialty as Archetypes, and work with your players to create how they fit that Archetype. Use whatever rule set makes sense to you and is going to be the easiest to create fun and exciting games for you and your players.

Okay, enough arguing. Here is the real deal, OP. Questions you need to answer to get a straight answer:

1. How familiar are you with the Warhammer 40k setting? How much of setting accuracy do you want?

The answers to these questions has a huge impact on what *I* would recomend. I came into this game series in a round about way. Some friends of mine are trying to put together a multishow podcast--I will spare you the details--and have been playing DnD4e lately as "prep" for one of those shows. One of my players off handedly mentioned being interested in the Warhammer Battle system, which I had 0 knowledge about.

However, I'd played WFRP 1e quite exstensively, and had purchased all of the WFRP 1e supplements and many of the Warhammer Fantasy battle supplements back in the mid 1990s because of this. So I was very familiar with the fantasy lore (never have been one for serial game/movie novels so my knowledge was directly from game supplements). One of my other players and I started to remenice about this, which got me interested in running WFRP 2e, but I had a 3rd party talk me into buying Only War just to check out the game.

Making this already long story short, I read Only War, thought the game system was solid and loved the "feel" of the setting, BUT I eneded up having to by DH, RT, BC just to absorb more of the setting. So if you, like me are starting from the beginning, and NEED a good intro to the setting, I'd start with Dark Heresy. Particularly if it is important to you to stay as true to the source material/setting as possible.

2. Now ask yourself the following set of questions: what kind of game do I want to run--investigative, high political intrigue, space pirate, power, combat heavy, etc, etc? Follow this up by asking yourself how much prep work you're willing to do, and if this is more or less important than maturity of the game mechanics?

I will preface this explanation by saying, I really truly don't understand why people are telling you to avoid certain games because of their "themes." The Golden Rule of GMing/Storytelling (or whatever you'd like to call it) is that nothing is set in stone unless the GM says so. You don't like how a rule works? Change it. You want to run characters from a game that tells you "players are in the military" as police officers instead? Do it. You want to buy Rogue Trader and turn it into a Firefly game, abandoning the whole "universe" and setting, but keeping the mechanics? Totally fine.

However, this is contigent on how much work you, as the GM, want to do before the start of the game. Stripping out the setting of Rogue Trader, for example, and fitting the Firefly/Serinty setting to RTs mechanics can take awhile as an example. SO what kind of game do you want to run? How much work do you want to do to prep? How does this way against more or less refined game mechanics?

If you want to run an inquistion/investigation/political game and you don't want to do any work to get there, then go with DH. Similiarly, go with RT if you want a space pirates game. If you want to run a Chaos themed game, obviously, go with Black Crusade. If you want to run Space Marines, go Deathwatch. Imperial Guard, go Only War.

However, IF the smoothness and maturity of the mechanics are important to you, go with Only War or Black Crusade. If these things are important to you, AND you don't mind doing a little work (a lot of which has been done for you and already on this forum) then go with Only War/Black Crusade and adapt those games to the format you want to run.

As I said eariler, I am prepping for an Only War game that will quickly morph into a Dark Heresy game. I'm strictly sticking to Only War because I want part of the background of the character's stories to be that they are from and are still nominally are in the Imperial Guard. If I wanted to run a game where my characters were Dark Heresy types from the get-go, I would have used the converted Only War to Dark Heresy character creation rules you can find here.

I'm finding that my two biggest hurtles have been "logistics" and the comrade system from Only War and applying it to a more DH playstyle. Ultimately, I decided to gut the logistics system as my players will find themselves far away from their regiment anyway, and to keep a modified version of the comrade system--in this case I'm keeping it, but altering it slightly so that in more RP situations where the comrades aren't necessarily around, I'm going to grant other benefits (similar to what FFG did in Deathwatch).

So to come up with this, and work those changes took me all of 45 minutes. Clearly less time than it would take to say force RT onto Firefly/Serinity. What it boils down to is: what is important to you, and what do you want out of the game that you'll be running? That's it. And try not to let people tell you that the "setting" of a game limits what you can do with the engine. Most importantly (it is related), NEVER let you players tell you "THAT CAN'T HAPPEN! In the novels its impossible!" These games are supposed to be organic and about building compelling stories with friends, don't let anyone get in the way of that.

I honestlt think that all the background you need FOR PLAYERS in Only War is really the GW IG Codex and the stuff on the Imperium in the main WH rulebook.

That's probably more than an IG conscipt would know.

bogi_khaosa said:

I think you're right and its totally possible to run Only War sans any knowledge or background behind the book. I guess my point is how much background do you want as the GM? That's why I bought all the core books, and why my wallet hates me.

In my case I have it great I think, because of my 5 players, only 1 knows anything about Warhammer lore at all. Which means building the intensity and to te horror of it all will allow the players to really go with their characters down the rabbithole.

Personally, I find myself torn between running Only War versus Deathwatch. Looking through both books, I am leaning more towards Only War mainly for the more refined ruleset. I love me some Space Marines, but I find Deathwatch have more fiddly bits to contend with for a new GM standpoint. My two cents.

Garisaan said:

Assuming that the errata DW rules for RF and weapon stats are in play, the bonus changes in OW do not matter at all for Deathwatch, because there are almost no fully-auto Astartes weapons.

Just use DW rules for DW, Importing BC/OW rules into it will just mess things up. I know from experience. The internal balance of the games is different. It doesn't work.

In general I think the newer, OW and BC, ruleset only helps the balance of the DW weapons. But that makes already fearsome psychic rules even more overpowered. And the change to many of the talents and unnatural characteristics help to level out of the classes but that's massive amount of work to fit into the existings creature stats and things like solo mode abillities.

If it weren't for that I would suggest that weather you play DW or OW would depend on how much background of each the characters know. As it is if your team is highly SM orientated it's probably better off playing BC, unless the very idea of going against the Imperium is a anathema.

Garisaan said:

I feel you here, I wasn't really interested in Deathwatch at all until I read through it. Quite to my surprise though, it seemed to me there was a lot I could do with the concept, but… there is just too much. Having not GM'd any of these games, it just seemed like Space Marines have too many special abilities and powers. It seemed to me that it would take 3 hours to run a single small combat with my group of 5

I.

Go for Only War. It requires the least knowledge of the universe, really.

Make the regiment from some planet with nothing centreal about it, nothing you really have to buld flavor around.