Note - I have not played the adventure, only read it through

The story line and the idea of it being customisable by the DM is good

My worry is its not very straight forward to run, especially compared to those in other source books or the 1st edition rulebook.

As a "starter" mission in the main rule book a lot of newbies would be encountering it, and i feel it requires a lot of work to keep it organised,

I will be running this on Sunday - and by running I mean "blinded-folded and arms behind my back as I run into a mine-field unprepared"

I did something irresponsible and suggested we play this on Sunday, getting everyone hyped up and ready- before I actually read it, thinking "Its the start-up adventure! The work's already done!"

Like he said previously- that's not really the case. The idea is great, the characters are great- and generally speaking, its a great plot [though I am pondering how I can have all three organizations be heretical without straining disbelief ]- I've quickly realized that its going to take quite a bit of work to get ready!

Only a few locations are described, unless say Sinophia Magna which, despite being very open, was very well detailed. Or better yet, Edge of Darkness- again, VERY open game- but the Location is fleshed, not just the NPCs.

Now to be fair there a lot more NPCs here and they are a LOT more fleshed out- but that's not an approach I would have taken when marketing to new GMs. There's even a lot of "random events happening" which would rely on the person's ability to "Improvise".

I know thats all the rage right now- Cooperative storytelling with the players. But its difficult to pull off, especially in an investigate game where there needs to be links and clues and evidence and its very difficult to come up with that stuff for a starting GM. Heck, its difficult for veterans to come up with it sometimes!

Now general guidelines are great - but a few structured encounters would have been nice, maybe a couple of maps too to help visualize.

That being said- at the end, there is a quick run-down of one of the scenarios proposed, which is pretty good, if not slightly too easy for a starter investigation.

I am going to ATTEMPT to run this on Sunday- but honestly, I am not sure I am going to have the time to actually prepare everything that would be required (from Individual scenes that the players might go trough, to maps and locations they might fight in, etc...)

Good luck! I'm running it on thursday and I'm already concerned at running what seems a fairly complex adventure and teaching rules at the same time.

I can't work out if I like this for a starting adventure better than the usual linear approach, or if it's too much (especially if the GM was new).

I really like it! Will be running it tomorrow, using the suggested options for a simple run-through. We might re-run it later with different options, we'll see

I incorporated this story into my campaign but my players became very quickly bored. I agree that free-range campaign style is good, but these guys appear to need to be led by the nose from encounter to encounter. Its all very well that huge complexities are taking place behind the scenes, but if the Acolytes are just wandering from town to town, there is very little information on how to clue them in on what to investigate. I would have liked a more linear option.

Even a sidebar with a list of possible "free-roaming" encounter examples, so when things slowed to a crawl I had something to throw them.

I've come across a few, but they're buried deep in the text. Things like "raiders attack a land-train carrying grain". Ok, but why are the Acolytes on the land-train? etc

Linear campaigns string events together for you in a credible way. This free-roaming thing has seemed to mean that the Acolytes kind of stumble from town to town and stand around waiting for something to happen in front of them.

I like the open style of the adventure. It supplies a lot of material that GM can work with and it sprang few ideas in my head. Having said that I believe it's going to be difficult to run for a Novice GM (two mistakes and he is gone per the new wound mechanics). I believe FFG should put more effort in the chapter for inexperienced GM/groups. Maybe even include sample characters. Without this they most likely will feel lost.

I'm going to run the adventure but will mix some of the material. I like the idea of heretical Solidity and loyal but incompetent Nobility. I plan to seed some false leads to the players by pointing signs of inbreeding among Nobility. I also like the concept of the ornamental fields and pointing this as a false lead towards the Faithful.

The Solidity itself will be a part of larger, sector wide criminal/heretical organisation. This should lead to interesting continuation which may turn out to be a campaign. The organisation itself is going to be involved in planets isolation.

With the Faithful I'll go with the criminal option. To be honest I don't see any "criminal" aspect here. This is 40k and building a Cathedral in the name of the Emperor at cost of millions of lives is pretty standard in my vision of this universe.

I also plan to include the psykers but as a sort of resistance. You could say they are the good guys because they work for the common people. On the other hand they will be responsible for killing of the Astropath. They are not sanctioned as well and as that they pose a threat. I'll make sure my players will have tough time to decide what to do with them. Will they go puritan and purge/arrest or will they go radical.

We are now playing this adventure, so our impressions quite good. My party chosed not direct aproache, they posing themselves as roug traders, who wish to by some food, in exchange for machinery, tools and over stuff. So in this way it had more roleplaing and thinking instead of dumb encountering and rolling dices.

At this point they know about unsanctioned psykers on planet (heretical Harvest Faitfull) and got some clues about Nobelity selling some food off planet(Criminal Kathrinkas).

From over side, this adventure good, but not good enought for starting adventure. In my opinion, for starter you shoud make a strait guideline like this party heretikal, this criminal, this loyal, and make plain and simple all event. Like why died asthropat. Why died Harvester-Prelate. Why planetary isolation began. So inexperinced master can take ready story and try to change something, if he wish. Becoase right now you got some black houlse in reasons and consicuanses of involved parties, and it make confusing using some guidelines.

From over side, this adventure good, but not good enought for starting adventure. In my opinion, for starter you shoud make a strait guideline like this party heretikal, this criminal, this loyal, and make plain and simple all event.

They did. Did you miss the "Plot suggestions" on p 324?

Ooops, sorry mised the entrance part.

But this kinda example, that reading thru lots of information and sugestion about adventure it easy to miss the strait plan. I tryed to say that it should be explained as main adventure, and in the end of chapter should be aditional options.