40k role play advice.

[evolved23]

So coming up shortly a few of my friends and myself are organising the beginnings of a deathwatch session. I have never played a pen and paper rpg and by virtue of the fact that I suggested it I am now honoured with the role of GM. A bit of background myself and one other player have both got 40k and fantasy armies so we typically know the lore etc and he has volunteered his services in keeping me on track etc.

However the two other players are both women who have no knowledge of the wonders of the 41st millenium and only one has played and rpg. The scenario we have selected is to be the extraction from the back of the dw book and already it seems to be getting a bit complex as now we have to throw in sister rules for the ladies.

So seeing as though this is my first time can anyone provide me with some sage words of wisdom about this bearing in mind that this may very well be the gateway game that will open up a universe(s) of possibilities?

 

Thanks.

[Brother Nihm]

Take a look here

[WatchCaptainAzrael]

Something you should always keep in mind is to avoid saying "no" to your players without a very good reason. When they perform an action that you feel might blow up in their faces, give them warning of the possible consequences and let them decide for themselves what to do. Likewise, retconning their previous feats for the sake of plot continuity is something to avoid; don't become too attached to a particular villain they end up slaying prematurely. Once I ran into all of these in the same session, and then some... My will to play vanished before the end.

 

If you're unsure about the minutiae of a certain rule, use your better judgement to resolve the issue, and then double check the rulebook. If you're playing with friends that don't have a lascannon firmly planted up their rectum, they won't demand your scalp for not knowing the exact details of a ruling they're not familiar with either. Also make sure that you accept their corrections to a particular ruling if they're right. If you're in doubt, ask them to point it out for you.

 

Deathwatch can become a bit dull if you don't go beyond "rollplay". Use miniatures and markers to build up impromptu tactical scenarios, describe the actions and deeds of each character vividly, pull out unexpected surprises beyond a mere roll to see how many bad guys pop up that turn. You're not limited to the NPCs indicated in the adventure either. My group's Extraction mission once had a whole session dedicated to dealing with a Lictor that had nested in an elevator shaft that provided a shortcut to the objective... And was hunting down a group of guardsmen barricaded inside the refinery. These little tertiary goals are a good source of fun and XP/renown rewards, don't shy of coming up with "subquests"!

 

Oh, and have a look at the errata if you haven't yet. Very important if you have a Devastator with a Heavy Bolter on the team. :)

Edited November 24, 2011 by WatchCaptainAzrael

[AGPO]

I'm a relatively new Deathwatch/Rogue Trader player, but I've played and run a fair few RPGs in my time. As a new Games Master here are some things to bear in mind:

 

1) Your PCs will have different strengths and weaknesses, so make sure you include something for each of them. Eg: To take some classic archetypes, if your party were to include a thief, an investigator and a warrior, then there should be some fight scenes, some investigation and some areas where stealth is required. If you just go for fight scenes two of your players will be left with nothing to do.

 

2) Reward good roleplaying. RPGs suck when they fall into meta gaming, so cut your players a break when they stay in character, even if it's in their worst interest. The same goes the other way round for players who don't try to roleplay. You can do this with XP or in game. If your player roleplays an interregation well , then his hostage may give up more info than they would have if they'd just roled well on a dice. Likewise if someone has their character behave in a thoroughly un-marine like manner, then maybe the next big bad has a particular hatred for that PC's chapter.

 

3) Sometimes an interesting game will rely on you bending the rules a tad. If one guy's character falls to an embarassing death five minutes in, the rest of the evening is gonna suck for him.

 

4) Rule of cool is vital. If your PC wants to try something, your first response should almost always be "if you wanna try it, go for it." (For the one proviso to this, see point two.)

 

5) In general, the three 40k RPGs don't cross over well, especially not Deathwatch. Marines are far closer to the fluff than they are the tabletop version in terms of toughness. They'll walk through any opponent who's a fair challenge for a normal character, whilst in the same respect anything that can provide them with a suitable challenge will flatten a non-Marine. Also, Sisters of Battle are one of the most challenging PCs to role play, and recommended for experienced players. If the women in your group really don't want to play male characters, I'd recommend you give Dark Heresy a go first, as it's generally a better intro and allows you to play more relatable characters.

 

6) Writing a balanced adventure can be tough, I'd suggest playing the scenario in the rulebook first to get a grip on GMing.

 

Good luck!

[Olis]

4) Rule of cool is vital. If your PC wants to try something, your first response should almost always be "if you wanna try it, go for it."

 

I've done this with my guys many times, usually with suggestions from the same guy time after time. It usually ends in hilarity ('Orbital Lander Conkers' will forever be a funny phrase among my group). Just try to rein in the very stupid/outlandish ideas and bear in mind that injuries sustained via stupity/outlandishness is NOT the GM's fault. If they do something obviously stupid and snuff it then it's their problem. :D

 

 

Edit: Also - Cheers for the publicity Nihm. :mellow:

Edited November 25, 2011 by Olisredan

[Warsmith Aznable]

Let us know how it all works out!

 

My group (which is myself and my friend Mike plus whoever we can wrangle into a session) plays all the Fantasy Flight 40k related RPGs the way people started playing the different White Wolf modern horror RPGs back in the 90s. Which is to say we treat all the different core rulebooks as a single system, using GM magic and Rule of Cool to make it all work. Sisters of Battle, Space Marines, Orks, Mechanicus Adepts, Assassins... One huge old school "AD&D in the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium" game.

 

We twist official canon to the near breaking point at times, but it's always incredibly fun.

[Lord Mad Balrog]

I'm going to have to disagree with the WatchCaptain in that sometimes you HAVE to say "No" to players. I just played a different RPG over this past summer, and the two game masters put together a really horrible mish-mash of two different systems in order to cater to the preferences of one player. It did not end very well, and half of each session was spent establishing what rule from which system was to be applied in this circumstance.

In this case, it looks like you're running into something of a similar problem with the Sisters of Battle. The easiest thing I can recommend is looking up masterwork power armor in a Dark Heresy book, if you have it handy, and applying that to the SoBs. Your female players kind of chose the wrong franchise if they don't want to play male characters. Neither the SoBs nor the Astartes work well with others, and in the case of the Astartes, they HAVE to be able to have years of training together to operate perfectly as one unit in the kinds of situations Space Marines face regularly. If your players really, REALLY do not want to play an Astartes, then they need something to balance the scales. Power armor is all well and good, but SoBs don't usually have, say, Betcher's Gland or all-but-immunity to poisons, which is of particular importance when fighting tyranids.

 

On a more positive note, Space Marines are one of the few RPGs I've played where the "rule of cool" basically has to apply. Even in games with supernatural creatures, there are still some very important limits, but Space Marines are born and designed to overcome anything the galaxy can throw at them. The Space Wolves regularly hunt whale-sized kraken FOR SPORT; the Word Bearers summon daemons for kicks. However, this is not to say that you should just throw out the rules and go with a narrative campaign. But if it comes to one Space Marine living or dying on a really, really unlucky hormagaunt strike, as AGPO says, that's not even the rule of cool. That's just plain simple courtesy to the player.

I've recently put together a campaign of my own, so what I can tell you is: take it slow. Don't be afraid to spent a little time giving your players details, and more if they ask for them. Know what's coming in the next few situations, so that player action can have a lasting impact. If they fail a Tech-Use test, but throw the switch anyway, it still opens up that underground pipeline where the tyranids have been depositing biomass for later consumption, which means there's a flood of biological sewage attracting even more tyranids... The smallest thing can pan out into an epic side-quest, giving players who may be specced in different modes to use their skill-set. Too many people forget the role-playing aspect of RPGs, and are content to either sit and roll dice, or pretend that all of what they know, their character knows, too. Bop their character on the nose, metaphorically speaking, if they're crossing the line too much and too frequently.

[Hfran Morkai]

Remember that stairs are a Space Marines most hated foes.

 

(According to falling damage, falling down an average flight of stairs should kill a Marine >.>)

 

One thing I've noticed in our 40K roleplaying sessions is that our party tends to get distracted by fluff arguments, ruining the atmosphere of the game. Also, if you have an insane character who always seems to die (AKA all my 40K roleplaying characters to date barring my Alpha Legion Champion) let them do it spectacularly. For instance meltabombing a Defiler as his action, eradicating it only to have another Defiler pick him up and cut him into little pieces, but using all my fate points I was able to arm another meltabomb and attach it to the Defiler, YEAH.

[WatchCaptainAzrael]

I'm going to have to disagree with the WatchCaptain in that sometimes you HAVE to say "No" to players.

I said "say NO only if you have a very good reason", not "say NO because you don't like what they like". ;) Being uncomfortable with rules mixing-up is a perfectly valid reason, of course.

[Lord Mad Balrog]

If you had played the game I had, you'd know that sometimes it has to be a "HAVE to". :(

Rules mixups are one thing - those solve themselves if you have the book handy. But I would be severely tempted to say "No" to Sisters of Battle in a Space Marine Deathwatch squad, for both system and fluff reasons. There are ways you can work things in, and precedent for others - for example, Huron Blackheart's crazy power-claw/flamer bionic arm. However, in order to pull off something like that, your Marine has to lose an arm in the first place, and there's no good reason not to make him suffer a little for it. ("You lost your arm to a lascannon blast. Better hope you have a pistol-grip bolter rifle, or you're down to your combat knife and headbutting people.")

[Tallthulu]

I will say this about DMing Deathwatch, crossovers work fine, if you know the fluff well enough and persons not playing marines understand just how ri-donkulous space marine-sized problems are. Our friday night DW game includes a Dark Angel (tactical), Raven Guard (assault), Blood Angel (assault), Fist of Dorn (apothecary), Space Wolf (iron-priest) and two Inquisitors, and it works fine. The Inquisitors are respectively a psy rating 11 Ordo Malleus semi-radical and a xenophile Untouchable from the Ordo Xenos, covered in rare tech, both xenos and imperal.

 

A throne agent has to be aware of their relatively fragile nature, and at the same time be aware of all their options for the use of fate points. Stealth and big psychic abilities are something that throne agent's are generally better at than marines. Still, non-astartes would do well to be VERY quick witted and always have a backup plan (as they are not subject to DW Squad Mode abilities... unless the gm is giving that to them). Alternatively, having an Apothecary in the party helps.

 

As GM, try to involve the non-astartes in a semi mission critical way without making the marines have to babysit them. And if your SoB player insists on being a Battle Nun, then consider the 'tried and condemed' character backround package in 'The Radical's Handbook'. It makes for a fun plot device and reason to be seconded to the Inquisition and thereby the Deathwatch.

 

As far as rules arguments in various books goes, i advise taking the system rules from Black Crusade (mainly due to it being the most recent version of the rules-set) and then working them back into DW, they make the game faster paced (in combat especially) but without the 'epic level fatigue' that comes with your squad being so good at everything that they can never fail (this can easily happen around ranks 4-5 for space marines). Example, full auto and semi auto attacks now no longer give you a bonus to the attack but are a half action as opposed to a full. melee combat with multiple strike capable actions would now work like full and semi auto (with degrees relative to the number of hits). Feel free to message me about the conversion rules we have instituted, they are simpler than you might think and there is a guide to do it already in Black Crusade.

 

You may need to be prepared to make a judgement on how the rule works on the fly. If your game is getting bogged in rules lawyering (more than 2-3 min of arguing over mechanics and filibusters read from mechanics sections of the books), I find it best to interrupt and make a ruling that will stand for the evening. State that you will make a final judgement on how the rule will be handled before the next session. This way your players get maximum gaming time/enjoyment ratio and players that could care less about the argument don't get burned out on the damage to the flow of the game.re