My experience with Seeds of Heresy

By seanpp, in Adventure: Seeds of Heresy

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My group started this adventure this last Sunday. We have an ongoing campaign ( http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/emperor-preserve ) and we just made the switch to DH2. Everyone kept their same character they've been playing but we reworked them all from the DH2 ground up in the session before this last one. I modified Seeds a bit to meld with our story arc and it seems to have fit quite nicely. Many of my comments echo some already made.

My first impression was I liked the wide-open structure of the adventure - it offers a lot of possibilities with different potential levels of complexity.

As our session approached I got a bit nervous about this same "wide-openness" - definitely puts more on the GM to be ready for whichever direction your players choose. I went with the adventure's recommended structure, which I won't go into because my players might read this. My anxiousness was the combination of an adventure with a lot of moving parts and a new system I hadn't played with yet.

Once my players arrived I could stop over-thinking and just tell the story. Didn't keep up with the Subtlety, Disposition & Personality trifecta that well, particularly the latter two; that's going to need some work...but it'll come. I like the new narrative tools.

I very much like the Building Combat Encounters section in DH2 - though wish its scheme wasn't opaque so I could easily use it with NPCs I'd created.

That's a start...I'll post more about it later.

Posted at

To Continue My Thoughts About Our First 2e-B Session

So my group had our first session with the 2nd Edition Beta & I think it went well. I incorporated the Seeds of Heresy adventure in the back of the Beta into the Cell's story arc.
This last session was all investigation roleplaying and no combat. The adventure can have a lot of moving parts, which is to its credit but also puts extra pressure on the GM. All the roleplaying that this scenario calls for is a real opportunity to put the new Subtlety, Disposition & Personality aspects through their paces...and, unfortunately, I didn't do them justice. I'll try to rectify that next session.
Our session started with a big gear acquisition party a'la their new Influence characteristic, to no surprise. It went okay but I'm still forming my opinion about it.
Since there wasn't any combat, the main 2e-B aspect put into play was players using their skills. We all got used to the fewer skills with more functions. I like the new streamlined skills of 2e-B. The Inquisitor's Handbook had a great section on expanding the functions of every 1e skill & I intend to use that to provide more functions to every 2e-B skill, perhaps in the form of a printed list I'll create for my players.
So far so good & my impression was that everyone was looking forward to the next session.
[Edit: No idea why the type is so light and hard to read.]
Edited by seanpp
Posted at

How was yur impression with the influence requisition system ?

Is it going to be exploited by players easily ?

What about requisitions during the mission - how did you handle that ?

Posted at

How was yur impression with the influence requisition system ?

Is it going to be exploited by players easily ?

What about requisitions during the mission - how did you handle that ?

Want more experience with it but so far I'm okay with it, I think.

First of all I should mention, I thought the way they had it in DH1 was odd and discombobulated. In parts of DH1 they made clear that the Acolytes were not paid by the Inquisition but rather by their previous employer. In other parts they stated that some Acolytes went to work for the Inquisition for the money. I ended up just going with the former and it tended to make the Inquisition seem irrationally tight.

For that reason, I'd planned on implementing Influence from Ascension into DH1 at some point anyway, so I'm all for that new stat and requisitions. The total elimination of money was a surprise and certainly is taking some getting used to.

GMs are going to have to have a good idea about the availability of things ahead of time, which really isn't so different. I think a GM decides whether a particular type of weapon is available at all in a particular area on a particular planet. If not, there's no rolling for it. If yes, they can roll for it if they'd like. Bolters weren't to be found in gun stores in the campaign when we were using DH1 and that won't change. As far as requisition, Inquisitional installation equipment lockers are going to tend to top out at similar levels. If they want something more rare than that, for requisition or acquisition, I anticipate it'll involve a good deal of role-playing and some rolls.

Regarding your question about requisition for this mission - I let them requisition (roll) for anything -10 or easier before they were dispatched to the AgriWorld, where there wouldn't be any requisitioning available. It was more generous than it will be normally - meaning for example, I let them go for weapon mods at that level too but weapon modifications of their choice isn't typically going to be available from Inquisitorial equipment lockers.