So I'm preparing to GM a game of DH 2. It's only my second time ever GMing in real life. I have a fair amount of experience GMing in PbP games. I started reading through the scenario in the back of the book but it strikes me as being a bit overwhelming for a beginner. The sandbox nature of it with, along with the fact that the bad guys can be any (one or two) of three factions strikes me as being a lot for me to deal with. Add to that that it seemed to imply that the GM should be coming up with clues and leads for the players on the fly.

I'm not saying it's a bad scenario, I'm only saying that I don't think I should start with it. What is everyone else’s opinion of it? Has anyone run it? How did it go?

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with Edge of Darkness, available for free in the DH 1 support area.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/dark-heresy/pdf/edge-of-darkness.pdf

This is based upon reviews and a quick read through the synopsis. I'm not 100% set in the decision yet, but I'm leaning heavily towards it.

What scenarios has everyone else run? How well did it go?

First off, a note for my players, should they find this:

Andreas, Lukas - hvis I læser det her, så pis af med jer.

Edge of Darkness is fantastic. I'm sure you could easily convert it to DH2. I started with it (in DH1) and it completely hooked my players, from not really being Warhammer fans to being completely into it - and that was my first time ever GMing. I highly recommend it.

As for Seeds of Heresy, I started my group on it yesterday. I'm working it into my current campaign: The players just met their Inquisitor for the first time. He received the report from Zedikiah while they were at his mansion, and then they set off. That gave me a nice excuse of sending the Inquisitor (and some of his older acolytes) to deal with the Ecclesiarchy while the players were sent to Novabella.

We didn't get very far - character creation took up most of the evening. It is very sandboxy, but my players tend to enjoy that. It's the first sandbox I've ever run, though, and I'm notoriously bad about wanting to control my games (I'm a new DM, too, and I get nervous when they stray from my "path").

So far they've landed on the planet, under cover of night, and inspected one of the local radio stations (disused, but obviously revered). Then they approached the capital and tried to infiltrate it in disguise. They've got a glimpse of the church (poor citizens, but a wealthy Harvest-Prelate) and the corn silos (and the rotting smell coming from them), but not much else.

We ended the game with a group of "bandits" (hungry citizens) assaulting the Tithe-Guards to get access to the silos.

The players have a lot of ideas about what's going on. Most of them are wrong, but they're still digging at it. We're enjoying it, but my main worry is providing non-obvious but usable clues at the right time. I'm going with an innocent-criminal-heretic split, with them most likely to pursue the criminals and only then realizing that there's heresy afoot. At least that's what I hope.

One issue I have is that the players are extremely suspicious of how Novabella suddenly dropped out of contact with the world, and I'm realizing I don't have a good answer for that. I'll have to come up with something. I'm going with a post-abandonment-leads-to-heresy scenario, so there's no reason that would be related to their being cut off, but the players aren't buying that "it just happened".

I implied to my players that the planet may have been forgotten about due to Administratum bungling. If you wanted, you could have the true reason be more sinister, but at face value an Administratum mistake is entirely plausible. You only have to read the Caiphas Cain books to realise that stuff like that can happen.

Yes, considering it's only my second time GMing I don't feel comfortable with the amount of DIY involved in this scenario, specially considering that some of it will have to be done on the fly. Administratum bungling is a fine false lead until the party lands and hears everyone talking about the "Living Saints" or spots that everyone is covered in tenticles... I don 't doubt that others could do something really cool with this, but I still need to be held by the hand a bit.

Rejoice for you are true is a pretty solid adventure in Purge the Unclean, I started off my first ever campaign with it and it went great.

I remember when I did Rejoice...went down badly with my group.

They behaved VERY unsubtle, made the enemies retreat into the shadows and were attacked by mercenaries who almost wiped them out.

Since thst adventure they care much more about subtlety.

We finished our playthrough of Seeds. Overall, it went really well.

I'm not a very experienced GM. So far, in all the games I've run, I've been pretty adamant about trying to stick to my plan. I've tried to lead my players back on the track I wanted them to be on - hopefully without them noticing, but I haven't been flexible. Seeds forced me out of that and it was a great experience.

My setup was:

Innocent but incompetent Kathrinkas (knows about problems on the planet, but hasn't done anything about it).

Criminal Barahona (taxes the citizens to the limit, keeping the wealth for himself - has been responsible for detaining Psykers but has failed in this and doesn't want to admit it).

Heretic Drachenstein (one of the escaped psykers has started a cult of Nurgle and has corrupted the leadership of the Sodality).

The players were subtle at first. They landed on the planet, checked things out but pretty quickly made their way to the capitol. They investigated some corn silos and found that most of the corn was rotten. From there they went to the Sodality, where they managed to break into an archive room and check out the logs for the past 30 years.

With their new-found knowledge, the players decided to come out of hiding and confront the leadership of the planet. They went directly to Kathrinkas, announced that they were from the Inquisition, and demanded that he gather everyone in charge of anything. Then we got to the interrogations.

One of the players took point here. He had the leaders come in one at a time and put them through epic interrogations. Martein Kathrinkas was the only one to leave the room somewhat composed (having decided to tell everything he knew). Everfast and Barahona were shot to make an example. Drachenstein had not showed up, but instead sent an emmisary, who was left in a foetal position, sobbing. Every interrogation was played out, with virtually no skill rolls (mainly Observe to see if they were lying) and were some of the most fun I've ever had in an RPG. Really tested that I'd set up motivations properly for each NPC.

We didn't use the social rules, sadly. Things were going so well that I felt I would screw things up if I tried to force rules into it.

Immediately previous to this, the team had met their Inquisitor and his experienced retinue, which included a Deathwatch Kill-Marine. I took a risk here and decided to have him show up on the planet, sent by the Inquisitor who had learned in his investigations of Zedekiah that there was probably something sinister going on.

Antilus, the marine, showed up in a drop pod, making a hell of an entrance. I was worried about stealing the spotlight, but things ended up better than I could have hoped.

While the players went to investigate the drop pod crash, thinking it was a comet, in-fighting broke out in the capitol. When the group returned, most of the citizens were dead or fleeing - and then rose as plague zombies. Someone had been poisoning the water.

The odds were insane, but the Space Marine urged the players to move to the suspected location of a coming ritual (they'd picked up a few clues) while he took on the horde. This saved me from a massive combat and let the players get the spot-light.

The final battle took place in a complex built under the silos, filled with rotting corn, fish and bodies. The Space Marine caught up with the group and took on his role of holding off a Plaguebearer that was summoned (leaving one party member puking for 6 rounds), while the rest of the team took out several cultists and the originally responsible psyker. The fight between the Marine and the Plaguebearer was epic - pretty perfectly balanced. They took each other to 5 wounds, the final one taking off the leg of the Space Marine and effectively removing him from the fight. By now, the players realised that the Plaguebearer was way out of their league, but they decided that they weren't abandoning their ally. Sniper set up a shot and missed. Tech-Priest decided to charge in (despite my reminding him of what just happened to the Astartes) and roll to attack - and missed. Fate Point. Rolled 03. Plaguebearer tries to parry and fails. Damage (with a warhammer) comes out to 22 - the Plaguebearer is killed.

And there was much rejoicing.

We'll have a clean-up session next time, before moving on, but they're pretty much done.

I was worried about the open structure, but the players really took to it, it forced my to play in a different way, and we all had a hell of a time.

I'm not sure if it's the best adventure for a brand new GM. It's great for someone with 5-6 games under their belt, but if I'd never run a game before I would've been really intimidated by this. Personally, I think I prefer adventures like this over the more railroad-like adventures that have so far been published. It gets me started on a scenario, gives me a location to work with, and lets me get to work.

I remember when I did Rejoice...went down badly with my group.

They behaved VERY unsubtle, made the enemies retreat into the shadows and were attacked by mercenaries who almost wiped them out.

Since thst adventure they care much more about subtlety.

Excellent! Lesson learned

I'm not sure if it's the best adventure for a brand new GM. It's great for someone with 5-6 games under their belt, but if I'd never run a game before I would've been really intimidated by this. Personally, I think I prefer adventures like this over the more railroad-like adventures that have so far been published. It gets me started on a scenario, gives me a location to work with, and lets me get to work.

This.

I would need to take an evening or so of prep time before I was able to run this adventure. Sandbox is one thing but open-ended is another.

Edge of Darkness has a great balance of the two; you can approach the investigation in whatver order you like and it still makes sense (although it may go badly wrong), but it's a **** sight easier than "you arrive on a world. Shennanigans are occuring...."

On first reading it struck me more like a campaign setting than a single mission.