[Let's Study] Dark Heresy – The Role of the Inquisitor

I’ve been thinking about the Inquisitor in Dark Heresy for a bit, and I have to admit that it does present an interesting framework element for a Dark Heresy campaign.  Unlike other games, Dark Heresy’s baseline assumption is that you work for an Inquisitor.  No if’s, no buts.  There’s an Inquisitor, he’s influential, powerful and you work for him.

In some ways, it’s kind of like automatically defaulting to the “Voice from on High” framework.  Authority Figure (in this case, the Inquisitor) sends you off to do stuff.  Do well, and you get rewarded (or the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve somehow helped the Imperium survive just that much longer.)  Fail, and… well usually failing means you never make it back to seeing your Inquisitor anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

This is great for new RPG groups since it’s easier to motivate players to do stuff.  Players new to rpgs in general take the missions as they come and work within this episodic framework.  Other players, might chafe under this restriction, especially players who actually like to rebel against authority in any form.

That said I think this is really where communication comes in great again.  Players need to be able to really commit their characters to the game, and knowing who their Inquisitor is will be a great help.  The idea of having them pitch together an Inquisitor that they can see their characters working for (or eventually against) is a sound plan.

There are many ways to spin the type of Inquisitor there is in a game, and the GM can open up the discussion with a baseline of sorts, then start tweaking with input from the players.  Personally, I’m considering doing that brainstorming as part of the campaign pitch process, as I can only comfortably put together a pitch once I have an idea of what kind of game my players will be willing to play.

To the guys and girls who’ve played Dark Heresy before, who have been your most memorable Inquisitor encounters as GM or Player?  What made them so interesting?  I’d love to hear stories of DH games that really capitalized on the Inquisitors, so I’m very interested to see what people have to share.

[Let's Study] Dark Heresy – How Should I Run It?

Okay, so I’ve spent the past few days looking over Dark Heresy, its rules, the character creation, and basic assumptions.  I’ve had some knowledge of the setting beforehand, having played Chaos Gate and the Dawn of War series on the PC, owning a few Black Templar space marines as a Warhammer 40k Tabletop Wargame army before, and reading several of Dan Abnett’s inquisitor novels.

That said, I think that the primary obstacle in creating a pitch for a Dark Heresy campaign is the preconception that 40k is nothing but mindless violence and senseless death.  While these are things that are extolled in the in-game literature, the truth gets a little more complicated than that.  Of course, first impressions make for very strong influences on how people react to something, and Warhammer 40k is one of those love it or hate it settings at first glance.

[Let's Study] Dark Heresy – System Review

I’ve been flipping through the rules of Dark Heresy over the past few days, skipping forwards to the rules after Character Creation.  While the gear and powers are interesting to me, I figure I’d better learn how the game actually runs before I go about the shopping list of guns and gear for the game.

Interestingly enough, after taking a moment to read through the rules, I’m very impressed by the way the game is actually rather simple.  The basic system is percentile, with players aiming to roll equal to, or lower than their character’s Characteristic value to succeed.  This is rather elegant for players who prefer to think of their odds in this fashion, and gives them a chance to really eyeball their chances of success.  I find that this transparency is really handy in games like Dark Heresy where injury and death are pretty constant threats given the nature of the setting.

Skills work in an interesting fashion since they’re enablers.  A player character may attempt an action even if they don’t have the skill associated with it (as long as it’s a Basic Skill), but they suffer a penalty of having to halve their effective Characteristic.  However, if a character does have the associated skill, then the player character may make the roll normally.  Further “levels” of a Skill provide something called Skill Mastery, modifying the roll further, with succeeding degrees of this skill adding a bonus +10% to the roll per degree, for a maximum bonus of +20%

Now, one thing that people tend to say about Dark Heresy is that the players seem really weak.  The average Characteristic for a starting character is 35, and rolling under that seems remarkably difficult.  Still, it’s good to remember the fact that the system has a lot of ways for people to boost their chances.  The first and most obvious would be the Skill Mastery bonuses discussed above.  Another thing would be the GM Difficulty Rating for the Test.  While most combat rolls would be at a -0 penalty, many skill tests that aren’t under duress should benefit from a +10 bonus most of the time.  Another would be to work cooperatively, this method might not be available all the time, but helping each other out lowers the Difficulty Rating of the Test by one degree, so there’s certainly no harm in doing so.

On the Combat side of things, the system remains the same.  I like the attention placed on Combat Maneuvers, as a careful players who really thinks of what maneuvers to use at the right time can really improve his chances of survival and success in battle.  Maneuvers aren’t just cute tricks to pull off, they’re a crucial part of the fight, and I can see the importance of having the maneuvers summary table available to the players during any fight.

Hit Locations was a very pleasant surprise for me, as I’ve actually found them to be amusing in all sorts of ways.  Aside from being a touch of Old School fun, it also goes a long way to making sure that people understand the lethality of the setting.  The accompanying Critical Hit Tables were pretty descriptive and again hammer home the fact that fights in Dark Heresy can get very ugly indeed.

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Overall I have no complaints about the system.  It took a bit of getting used to, but that’s most likely just me trying to learn a new system all over again, (something that I admittedly enjoy doing.)  Dark Heresy has a solid system, with a good eye towards emulating the kind of gaming experience that will fit with the Warhammer 40k Universe.

As a more Narrative GM, I find that the system fulfills my needs for a robust backbone to support the game without getting in the way.  While I forsee a bunch of lookups involving tables and the like, I think it won’t be too disruptive to play.

[Let's Study] Dark Heresy – Character Creation Walkthrough

One of the first things I like to do when checking out a new game is to build a character to see how easy it is to pull off.  This also comes in handy when I have to teach players to build their characters as well.  That said, the Dark Heresy Character Creation is pretty efficient, with room for both random character generation, and enough wiggle room to hash together Point Buy variants if you have players who abhor the random characteristics rolls. (Honestly I don’t mind random rolls since they give texture to characters.  Nobody can be excellent in everything after all.)

That said, I dove in right away into trying to put together a character for the game, picking some options, and rolling for the Characteristics.

[Let's Study] Dark Heresy

After putting this one off for a long time due to the uncertainty involved in player interest, I figured I might as well give this game a shot.  Dark Heresy is an rpg based in the popular Warhammer 40k setting from Games Workshop, and is currently being produced by Fantasy Flight Games.

Among the three Warhammer 40k rpgs, Dark Heresy is the most interesting to me since it takes place in more familiar settings, and lends itself well to investigative games, the sort that I like to run.  Being agents of the Inquisition puts the players in a position of relative authority, being able to use the xenophobic norms of the society of the Imperium of Man to police society from threats of the Alien, the Mutant and the Heretic.

That said, I know next to nothing about the game system, and I’m admittedly not quite so familiar with the 40k setting in great detail either.  I remember playing the Dawn of War RTS games, and can name a few Space Marine Chapters, but that’s about it.  The majority of my exposure to the setting was through Dan Abnett’s Eisenhorn and Ravenor Trilogies, which may color my perception of the setting somewhat.

That said, I’m looking forward to cracking this game open and seeing what makes it tick.  Who knows, I might even find the right hook to get my players to try it.