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[OOC] Dark Heresy: Relic Hunters (2nd adventure in the works)
Utsanomiko
Bros before DoesRollin' in the thlayRegistered User regular
Bros before DoesRollin' in the thlayRegistered User regular
So what is it?
I'll be running a series of roleplay adventures for Dark Heresy, the Warhammer 40,000 pen & paper RPG from Black Industries. If you don't own a copy, you can borrow a friend's to create a character and get an idea of the skills and combat actions used in the game, or rely a bunch on me to interpret your described actions. I might post a reference list for combat actions, but preferably you've got an idea of how the rules define what you can perform and what base numbers you need to succeed.
This will more or less be in the same vein as the other three DH games going on, my game is simply being run separately (for now, at least) and what I'd describe as a little more brisk pace.
It's set in the standard DH setting, Calixus Sector, 815.M41
The Inquisitor the player characters will be serving is Frederich Bustarius Screed, relic-hunter of the Ordo Simalcrus.
"Relic Hunters?" That's not in the rulebook *or* on Lexicanum! Uts, what kind of fanon are you trying to push here?
I'm using the existence of minor Ordos (Militum, Sicarus, Sepulchuras, Obsuletus, etc) to create an Ordo Simalcrus, an Imperium-wide Inquisitoral conclave specialized in the investigation and retrieval of lost artifacts and items of holy, technological, or even alien and psychic nature. Certainly there are Mechanicus explorators, some Adepta Sororitas orders, and Rogue Traders devoted to similar tasks, but theoretically there would be members of the Inquisition who carry this out on their own, on either groups' behalf, or even as a mediator between them. It's not something your characters would be privy to and probably wouldn't grasp for quite a few years down the road.
In a nutshell, it lets me focus a little less on inevitable final confrontation combat encounters and more on playing out the theme of a universe full of ancient and unknowable dangers. I summed it up a couple weeks ago with "rather than charge their way through a crowd of cultists to slay their leader, the real final confrontation is revealed as the leader activates his ancient talisman and it turns out it's actually a *vortex grenade* and now everybody has got to get out oh god oh god".
Not that there's anything wrong with charging through crowds of cultists.
'Play by post'? Like, a message board post? This message board?
Yeah Holmes, here on this message board. There is an In Character thread where all the narrative, character actions, dialog, and any immediately relevant questions (like 'is there a nearby blunt object I can grab?' or 'can I step inside an interesting-looking shop and look around?' ) will be made.
This here will be the Out Of Character thread, any discussions or questions that doesn't need to clutter up the IC thread can go here. This includes elaborations on characters' background and personalities that may be of use to me as GM or interest to whomever. Especially during downtime when not everyone else is on to post IC. By all means, give me questions and input about your given surroundings or story details I may have glossed over; I may be the planner and referee of the story, but the real meat & potatoes is how your characters move it forward and laterally. Really explore the scenario from your characters' perspective and reasoning.
Outside observers are welcome to make comments and suggestions as well, particularly as I'm still getting familiar with the rules. I may not necessarily *follow* suggestions, but I'd still like to hear & discuss them.
When's the game start? When do players post?
The game has started on the second day of March.
As for day-by-day posting, I've had the experience of many games faltering and losing most of their steam due to losing speed and progress, stemming from taking advantage of PbP's ability for players to play by only participating infrequently and at different times. This slows the game down to wait for the slowest player, posting maybe one every day or two, where everyone else starts checking back only this often and then not even that often as the game drags on for weeks to complete single scenes.
So what we're going to do is try to schedule rough time frames where I and all players will be on at the same time of the night, a couple nights per week, typing up our actions and checking back every 5-10 minutes for updates. So far I think I've got everyone available most nights per week from 7-11 PM Central Time. This isn't to say we're refraining from posting subsequently outside these time frames- if you're online you can go ahead and use the opportunity to take another turn if it's available, and I encourage players to post contingency plans if they're going to be away for more than a day or two ("I'll just follow their lead without voicing my opinion" always works well).
How shall we play this?
On most other boards I'd include some kind of lengthy explanation of following my lead, keeping up the pace of each scenes' placement of events in time & space. I've seen some PbP players use some really awkward initiative and narrative that winds up dragging the game out into either collections of absurdly overbloated monologues or a mess of characters conversing with others' internal thoughts while in completely different locations.
But PA seems to have people here in CF with a solid grasp of roleplaying, so all I'll say is I'd like to see people keep the descriptions of their actions and characters closer to what you'd hear in in person around the tabletop than a fiction writing assignment.
EDIT: It was late at night and I let this section get ironically large to describe my past experiences with this. Again, I think most are on the same but but feel free to ask or discuss here.
Fellow poster Spanky and I played a short game of DH in PbP format as a leadup and practice session to this campaign, the transcript viewable here, and for the most part it represents how it will play out. I tailored it a bit to the player's deemphasis on OOC asides and rules references, but I'll throw in some quantitative statements about what skills can be used with obvious modifiers in the actual game. Combat rounds will definitely be handled better and more clearly, with less random goons and a better memorization of rules. Manticore's game seems to be close to the mark so far.
I'd say a rule of thumb is no more than half your sentences being descriptions of what your character is doing; again, the other DH games are comfortably close to this standard and I haven't seen anything I'd correct for length. When you make an attempt to perform an action, go ahead and post your d100 roll using Invisible Castle, so you have an idea if you succeeded or not, and I'll post the details of the result itself. You can post out of initiative order in combat, but keep in mind the results will be written in order; you may end up aiming at a target a split-second before soemone shoots them, so you may have to use some flexibility in your descriptions or agree on some tactical orders of attack in the group.
Who all is playing?
Currently, my roster includes:
Spanky The Dolphin as Janan Kyros, Voidborn Tech-Priest
[MIA] Fellius Castiron, Imperial Arbitrator
DarkPrimus as Dariel Reason, Hive Scum
Elldren as Mira raed'Allen, Feral Assassin
[NPC] Zolo Hornrunn, Hive Scum
Three players even before the OP is up. I'm pawwpular.
Characters will be starting at their 3rd Rank, using 1600xp and 11 months wages for their character builds. You don't need to roll for world, career, or appearance; Just sections 2, 4, and Divination in the rulebook.
My reasoning behind this upgrade is to put more emphasis on characters relying on a variety of skills and thinking their way out of situations and less on survival through brute force; you can deflect a lucky laser blast to the chestplate, but carelessly activating a malfunctioning Squat black hole generator is going to kill you.
Ideally, at least from Inquisitor Screed's ideas of putting together a cell of skilled agents, a well-read Scribe, a resourceful Outlaw, or a decisive Priest would be welcomed additions. A Guardsman or Psyker might not be prepared to do much a lot of the time, but these are only my suggestions and feel free to play whatever class or homeworld you want.
I want character stats for every player character PMed to me and would like a short paragraph for both a physical description (couple sentences outlining what others would notice without difficulty) and background (where you're from, what's notable about your history and what you think of your situation). Nobody's parents were killed by Orks, none of you were raised by Eldar, and with as short of time the game's been out I'm already sick of hearing about so many characters being from Cadia; it's a fortress world close to the Eye of Terror and you've never been there.
Sounds fun and I'd like to join in, but I don't know anything about this whole Warcraft 2000 stuff.
It's like Dune if their civilization fell apart and was reconquered by 12th century crusaders. And your inner demons grow into external demons and burst out of psychic peoples' heads. If you really want to comfortably get into character without consulting the Wiki or me every single post, play a Feral character and treat their understanding of the world like somebody medieval or outright savage (there's a God and he's the Emperor of Mankind and he sits on his Golden Throne on Holy Terra up in the heavens) . Actually, I'd say everyone's best bet is to treat the setting like it's the middle ages in terms of superstition, education, and enlightenment, as chances are your characters don't know any of the info you'd find in the tabletop game's army books and consider most of the galaxy's dangers to be both folklore and sound beliefs. I myself find this anachronism-filled space setting ironically more medieval than most fantasy worlds, which is what's so entertaining about roleplaying in it.
Alright, so there you have it. As outlined in the syllabus, there will be tests on chapters I through XII over the course of this campaign, so be sure to study the book thoroughly and bring a spiral notebook and a number 2 pencil to each gaming session.
I'll be running a series of roleplay adventures for Dark Heresy, the Warhammer 40,000 pen & paper RPG from Black Industries. If you don't own a copy, you can borrow a friend's to create a character and get an idea of the skills and combat actions used in the game, or rely a bunch on me to interpret your described actions. I might post a reference list for combat actions, but preferably you've got an idea of how the rules define what you can perform and what base numbers you need to succeed.
This will more or less be in the same vein as the other three DH games going on, my game is simply being run separately (for now, at least) and what I'd describe as a little more brisk pace.
It's set in the standard DH setting, Calixus Sector, 815.M41
The Inquisitor the player characters will be serving is Frederich Bustarius Screed, relic-hunter of the Ordo Simalcrus.
"Relic Hunters?" That's not in the rulebook *or* on Lexicanum! Uts, what kind of fanon are you trying to push here?
I'm using the existence of minor Ordos (Militum, Sicarus, Sepulchuras, Obsuletus, etc) to create an Ordo Simalcrus, an Imperium-wide Inquisitoral conclave specialized in the investigation and retrieval of lost artifacts and items of holy, technological, or even alien and psychic nature. Certainly there are Mechanicus explorators, some Adepta Sororitas orders, and Rogue Traders devoted to similar tasks, but theoretically there would be members of the Inquisition who carry this out on their own, on either groups' behalf, or even as a mediator between them. It's not something your characters would be privy to and probably wouldn't grasp for quite a few years down the road.
In a nutshell, it lets me focus a little less on inevitable final confrontation combat encounters and more on playing out the theme of a universe full of ancient and unknowable dangers. I summed it up a couple weeks ago with "rather than charge their way through a crowd of cultists to slay their leader, the real final confrontation is revealed as the leader activates his ancient talisman and it turns out it's actually a *vortex grenade* and now everybody has got to get out oh god oh god".
Not that there's anything wrong with charging through crowds of cultists.
'Play by post'? Like, a message board post? This message board?
Yeah Holmes, here on this message board. There is an In Character thread where all the narrative, character actions, dialog, and any immediately relevant questions (like 'is there a nearby blunt object I can grab?' or 'can I step inside an interesting-looking shop and look around?' ) will be made.
This here will be the Out Of Character thread, any discussions or questions that doesn't need to clutter up the IC thread can go here. This includes elaborations on characters' background and personalities that may be of use to me as GM or interest to whomever. Especially during downtime when not everyone else is on to post IC. By all means, give me questions and input about your given surroundings or story details I may have glossed over; I may be the planner and referee of the story, but the real meat & potatoes is how your characters move it forward and laterally. Really explore the scenario from your characters' perspective and reasoning.
Outside observers are welcome to make comments and suggestions as well, particularly as I'm still getting familiar with the rules. I may not necessarily *follow* suggestions, but I'd still like to hear & discuss them.
When's the game start? When do players post?
The game has started on the second day of March.
As for day-by-day posting, I've had the experience of many games faltering and losing most of their steam due to losing speed and progress, stemming from taking advantage of PbP's ability for players to play by only participating infrequently and at different times. This slows the game down to wait for the slowest player, posting maybe one every day or two, where everyone else starts checking back only this often and then not even that often as the game drags on for weeks to complete single scenes.
So what we're going to do is try to schedule rough time frames where I and all players will be on at the same time of the night, a couple nights per week, typing up our actions and checking back every 5-10 minutes for updates. So far I think I've got everyone available most nights per week from 7-11 PM Central Time. This isn't to say we're refraining from posting subsequently outside these time frames- if you're online you can go ahead and use the opportunity to take another turn if it's available, and I encourage players to post contingency plans if they're going to be away for more than a day or two ("I'll just follow their lead without voicing my opinion" always works well).
How shall we play this?
On most other boards I'd include some kind of lengthy explanation of following my lead, keeping up the pace of each scenes' placement of events in time & space. I've seen some PbP players use some really awkward initiative and narrative that winds up dragging the game out into either collections of absurdly overbloated monologues or a mess of characters conversing with others' internal thoughts while in completely different locations.
But PA seems to have people here in CF with a solid grasp of roleplaying, so all I'll say is I'd like to see people keep the descriptions of their actions and characters closer to what you'd hear in in person around the tabletop than a fiction writing assignment.
EDIT: It was late at night and I let this section get ironically large to describe my past experiences with this. Again, I think most are on the same but but feel free to ask or discuss here.
Fellow poster Spanky and I played a short game of DH in PbP format as a leadup and practice session to this campaign, the transcript viewable here, and for the most part it represents how it will play out. I tailored it a bit to the player's deemphasis on OOC asides and rules references, but I'll throw in some quantitative statements about what skills can be used with obvious modifiers in the actual game. Combat rounds will definitely be handled better and more clearly, with less random goons and a better memorization of rules. Manticore's game seems to be close to the mark so far.
I'd say a rule of thumb is no more than half your sentences being descriptions of what your character is doing; again, the other DH games are comfortably close to this standard and I haven't seen anything I'd correct for length. When you make an attempt to perform an action, go ahead and post your d100 roll using Invisible Castle, so you have an idea if you succeeded or not, and I'll post the details of the result itself. You can post out of initiative order in combat, but keep in mind the results will be written in order; you may end up aiming at a target a split-second before soemone shoots them, so you may have to use some flexibility in your descriptions or agree on some tactical orders of attack in the group.
Who all is playing?
Currently, my roster includes:
Spanky The Dolphin as Janan Kyros, Voidborn Tech-Priest
[MIA] Fellius Castiron, Imperial Arbitrator
DarkPrimus as Dariel Reason, Hive Scum
Elldren as Mira raed'Allen, Feral Assassin
[NPC] Zolo Hornrunn, Hive Scum
Three players even before the OP is up. I'm pawwpular.
Characters will be starting at their 3rd Rank, using 1600xp and 11 months wages for their character builds. You don't need to roll for world, career, or appearance; Just sections 2, 4, and Divination in the rulebook.
My reasoning behind this upgrade is to put more emphasis on characters relying on a variety of skills and thinking their way out of situations and less on survival through brute force; you can deflect a lucky laser blast to the chestplate, but carelessly activating a malfunctioning Squat black hole generator is going to kill you.
Ideally, at least from Inquisitor Screed's ideas of putting together a cell of skilled agents, a well-read Scribe, a resourceful Outlaw, or a decisive Priest would be welcomed additions. A Guardsman or Psyker might not be prepared to do much a lot of the time, but these are only my suggestions and feel free to play whatever class or homeworld you want.
I want character stats for every player character PMed to me and would like a short paragraph for both a physical description (couple sentences outlining what others would notice without difficulty) and background (where you're from, what's notable about your history and what you think of your situation). Nobody's parents were killed by Orks, none of you were raised by Eldar, and with as short of time the game's been out I'm already sick of hearing about so many characters being from Cadia; it's a fortress world close to the Eye of Terror and you've never been there.
Sounds fun and I'd like to join in, but I don't know anything about this whole Warcraft 2000 stuff.
It's like Dune if their civilization fell apart and was reconquered by 12th century crusaders. And your inner demons grow into external demons and burst out of psychic peoples' heads. If you really want to comfortably get into character without consulting the Wiki or me every single post, play a Feral character and treat their understanding of the world like somebody medieval or outright savage (there's a God and he's the Emperor of Mankind and he sits on his Golden Throne on Holy Terra up in the heavens) . Actually, I'd say everyone's best bet is to treat the setting like it's the middle ages in terms of superstition, education, and enlightenment, as chances are your characters don't know any of the info you'd find in the tabletop game's army books and consider most of the galaxy's dangers to be both folklore and sound beliefs. I myself find this anachronism-filled space setting ironically more medieval than most fantasy worlds, which is what's so entertaining about roleplaying in it.
Alright, so there you have it. As outlined in the syllabus, there will be tests on chapters I through XII over the course of this campaign, so be sure to study the book thoroughly and bring a spiral notebook and a number 2 pencil to each gaming session.
Utsanomiko on
0
Posts
IC Thread. Post there as often as you like, and between 7-11pm CST as often as reasonable for everyone to make time for..
That should include their physical description for others to read & grasp clearly who they're interacting with, rather than read your sheet and use meta.
EDIT: Also, feel free to modify the type of charms you might start off with (if you have a preferred alternative to just braided hair). You can probably pick a different set of clothing of the same type for free as well; I generated a Feral Assassin on a whim the other day and made him as a frontier wilderness ranger, with a hunting rifle and switching his clothes superficially from a Good bodysuit to a Good fur-trimmed longcoat. As you can guess, in truth I did it as an attempt at min/maxing, breaking starting equipment to my own advantage.
So really, if you think of a modification that would be more of a stretch, go ahead and ask here or in PM.
In a similar vein, I'm allowing Hive World Adepts. I mean there's lots of stuff that needs sorting out on a Hiveworld, if it were my rulebook I'd add them and remove Imperial-world Tech-priests (none of the random Imperial world types include forge worlds or even remotely resemble places raising tech-priests), but I'll allow both based on good background summaries.
I have been scouring the net looking for a Dark Heresy pbp game I could join.
Did I find one?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I've received character sheets from both Spanky (who has yet to post, oddly) and McLovin, the later with background and description.
DarkPrimus has discussed his character with me, but still needs to sort out his wages (I'm just going to rule he should roll his scum earnings 11 times, or ask me to roll them for him), equipment, and submit his sheet.
Anything Scarce and under is pretty much up for grabs without issue, I'll review Rare and Very Rare items case-by-case if they seem too pricey or out of place, but I haven't turned down anything yet. You should probably ask about Very Rare equipment beforehand.
Generally the characters are experienced enough to have made a reputation for themselves, but have only been in the employ of their Inquisitor for a couple months and doubtfully have done more than one significant task or errand on his orders. Mostly just written expectations on where they should be, what dangers to look out for, and the kind of operatives he is looking for. I've spoken to both Spanky and McLovin about their background with Inquisitor Screed and his acolytes.
Any specifics on creation I need to know about? Or is it starting character "by the book"?
And how do I "Submit It"?
I think the "roll by month" makes sense with how the scum class is supposed to work. Now that we've got this and the rarity issue sorted out, I can get you my sheet shortly.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Use the board's private messaging to send me information outside the OOC thread.
EDIT: I encourage, however, to roll to determine as much as possible with your characters, and accept their lot in life. I myself made a character entirely in this manner and each time I came up with a result I didn't like I went with it anyway and ended up being more intrigued and motivated to work with into a character concept, from being a Psyker to a shrine world background to being over 40 to convulsing whenever Holy Terra is mentioned. I ended up with a combination of traits that made me imagine a sort of a sombre pious agent that looked a lot like Malcolm McDowell.
For example, a quilted vest, since I want to buy better armor.....
Since you're new to the forum, Jer, I highly recommend reading you at least read through the other IC Dark Heresy game threads here, and browse some of their Out of Character discussion thread, to get an idea of how things are done here. I'd say everyone should read them, as some rather awesome stuff is going on in them and I'm taking a few notes on how they're running. That and I now almost want to have psykers involved despite how little my Inquisitor/minor ordo campaign has to do with them.
For the record, the recruitment for my DH adventure was not though open sign-ups but by invitation until I had enough to start a thread, so technically the 'open' position is still subject to my review and final say. I'm mainly pointing this how due to how utterly new you are to Penny Arcade and the utter lack of reference I have to of you, Jer. Heck, you could have come here straight from Gaia Forums for all I know.
No problem. I dont know what the Gaia forums are... I'll PM ya a little info on me.
I actually got a randomly rolled up Psyker character before I ever looked into the rules for them. I've just got to say be careful with them, as they're similar to DnD Wizards/Sorcerors in that they start out poor but can quickly become ludicrous. And if you're starting at 1200 points (potentially 600 points away from when you could get corpus conversion/psy rating 3/power well), it removes a lot of the downside to them. They get rather...absurd.
An example is a psyker with 50+ WP, power well, corpus conversion, and 9 wounds:
If they had lucky - during combat use half action lucky and half action single shot (with a laser sight weapon). They're allowed to reroll any miss and no need to roll to manifest (since WP bonus and power well overcome manifest cost alone). Giving them likely better shooty hit chance than dedicated ranged characters.
If they had Fire Bolt - Corpus conversion 8 hp, and throw out on average 8x1d10+5 Firebolts that have a 50+% chance of hitting their target, causing fire. Which could basically one round major daemons.
If they had Seal Wounds - CC and Seal Wounds every round as a half action every round, being effectively immune to damage if they don't outright die in a single round. They likely wouldn't even need to roll dice to manifest and heal more than their HP total.
But hell, just having a Psyker with Seal Wounds means that the PC party will always enter into encounters at full wounds. It effectively removes the Medicae skill and any healing (autosanguine, protosanquine, master chiurgeon) talents from the game.
But as of right now I have stats in from everyone, bios in from McLovin, and physical descriptions in from 2.
I'm busy writing down some notes for important characters locations, and immediate issues that require being set in stone, but very soon I should be starting up an IC thread, perhaps in a couple hours even, where right off the bat the characters can form together and discuss what they've been briefed upon while in transit to their destination.
All this is well and good but if they're manifesting every round they are gonna gain corruption/insanity/who knows what pretty quickly from psychic phenomina. which they get more of a chance to call down as they get more psy ratings.
Crovax.436 Steam: Crovaxan
Looks like the game is starting soon, so I'll get crackin'.
Hopefully I'll pass the entrance review.
Psychic phenomina only come into play when a psyker rolls manifesting dice. That's where a high willpower bonus / Corpus Conversion / power well / discipline mastery come in. A Psyker is allowed to roll as many or as few dice to manifest as they'd like, up to their Psy Rating. Meaning a Psyker with two ranks of power well and 5 WB could use over half of the minor abilities without ever needing to roll a single dice to do so. Further, they could corpus conversion to power abilities without needing manifest rolls, then do the same to heal themselves from their corpus conversion damage on the next turn, again without a single manifest roll. Which means no insanity or corruption gains.
This is normally balanced out by simply not having the ability to do so for the first 1800 points, and by the time you've gotten there you've already gained a huge number of corruption/insanity points. You're also probably dead from Daemon possession by then too.
Edit: Not that it matters since he doesn't have a Psyker in his game anyhow.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I'm not implying they couldn't or shouldn't be used to good effect, but that the other careers would be more reasonable parts of this cell.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?p=4691910#post4691910
Get your characters together and have at it.
Also, this thread is now the Out of Character thread, meaning any out of place questions or comments go here.
EDIT: NOW The OOC thread, not 'not'. Whoops.
Luckily he had sticks on him or Zolo would have looked like an ass. We'll see how the hat remark plays out.... Since he's not wearing a hat. O_o
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Your name WAS Darius when I read the first post. O_o
:P
You can blame the GM for that. Apparently having his name written on the character sheet you give to him isn't enough to get it straight.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Your character sheet was a crudely-written jpeg; everyone else sent their stats as I instructed them, in easy reach of copy & paste.
I should give Dariel an Insanity point for feeling inexplicably out of place. :P
It should be simple enough for you to copy them, you bum.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
All reading & duplication mistakes made with character sheets not in the requested format are the fault of the sheets' creator.
More like, simple enough for you to copy the text.
Anyway, I calculated the xp expenditures and looked over everyone's stats & equipment, and I'm satisfied it's correct. I'll let players handle making their own rolls and comparing it to their stats, and double-check it myself. If it's a general check (like scrutiny or awareness) I'll likely give results for any lesser challenges they pass.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Maybe McLovin's character spent most of the trip sick, lying on one of the bottom bunks with his eyes closed.
EDIT: Looks like Little Miss Speak-&-Spell decided to interact with the planet-dwellers finally. :P