/40krpg/ - Warhammer 40k RPGs General

>Ordo Malleus.
>Emperor's Children color scheme.

Not sure if Heresy or not....better call Heresy to be safe.

Enemies Without

Thank you.

I think it's from one of the DH1e books. The Ordo Malleus always use books for their symbols.

More in OW Shield of Humanity.

Would it make sense for a Rogue Trader to enter one of his scions into an apprenticeship(?) with the Adeptus Mechanicus in order to remove them from the line of inheritance?
Also, are there any resources I can read on the path one would take to become an Adept of the Mechanicus?

I've not heard of anyone doing that before, but it certainly makes sense, like old nobility sending their kids to become members of the clergy.

Asked last thread, but figured I'd ask again but does anyone here have any tips on how I'd go about running a succession war in Rogue Trader?
Planning on starting off the party's Rogue Trader and entourage pre-warrant, with the first story arc being their ascension to full blown Traders, but I'm worried I might be being a bit too ambitious.

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I need some help Veeky Forums. Please tell me if I'm crazy or not.

I think I remember seeing, in several FFG splatbooks, a red parchment stamp in the shape of a red spider with an Inquisitorial I on the thorax. However, flipping through several books hasn't turned it up.

Is there a symbol like that in any of the splatbooks that you can remember?

Wars of succession are a nasty business usually. Especially for something as coveted as a warrant. I would say you first need to determine the state of the dynasty. If they're doing well then what's the actual order of succession? How far down are the PCs? If they're one of only a few heirs apparent or one of two then the fight would be lots of espionage and political intrigue. Outright wars don't usually happen in sector at least so if you want them to actually get their hands dirty you can make them take their scuffle into the frontier. It depends on how many resources they're going to have at creation. Bear in mind that not having a warrant to start with makes for some awkward situations even beyond the bounds of the Imperium since the PCs don't have its unilateral authority.

If the dynasty is mediocre or especially if it's in the shitter then it can actually be easier to get the warrant. Other heirs can be idolaters and curs and just do basic, scummy stuff to try and earn it or pawn it off while your crew wants to redeem the family line.

As for the war itself, I would say it should probably not devolve or erupt into an open conflict unless the PCs are already presumed to be powerful in their own right. Most bids for advancement like that end poorly since you don't have the authority to start but the person you're fighting might already be able to unilaterally erase you. I suggest you look at Aspyce Chorda's backstory as a framework for conflicts of succession. Lots of assassination, bribery, blackmail, and political exploitation rather than balls to the wall warfare. Or you could have them challenge other successors to staged honor duels or some such.

If you're going to continue with your plan to have the first arc of the story involve their acquisition of the warrant I would frame it as a political drama. Trade and negotiations to amass a powerbase or undermine their rivals'. You need to be careful about giving them too much power to start with.

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Yeah, I was thinking of having it be primarily espionage, politicking, assassinations and what not.
I was gonna give the players a transport or some beat up old vessel to start off with, and the first story arc would be to claim the Warrant of Trade and the dynasty's flagship, both of which would be under watch by some of the late Rogue Trader's trusted retainers.
I was also wondering how long the succession should take too, a sorta overnight explosion of assassinations, trade deals, behind-the-scenes deals that ends with most of the dynasty wiped out? Or a long-running thing with the various family members scheming and plotting until eventually there's only one remaining with enough sway to claim the Warrant.
It seems like a really cool idea and a good way to get the players invested, but I'm worried about messing up and it being more of a hassle than it's worth.

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You could start the game before the death of the Warrant holder. How long the conflict takes is probably dependent on how expected their death was.

If its been a long-time coming then things would end relatively quickly after a massive explosion of violence and backstabbing as every successor's plans come into play at once. If it was sudden (such as the sudden death of a young RT in combat) then it may be more drawn out as everyone quickly scrambles to assert their claim even before they've have time to call upon their allies. Perhaps that could be first arc? Eliminate the rivals and their retainers before their most powerful allies can arrive to fuck your PCs up.

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Right, that makes a good deal of sense.
Thanks, you've given me a bit to think about, I'll go read up on Chorda and see if I can't plan out some stuff.

Sure! Tell us how it goes.

How are dreadnoughts atm?

I've always wanted an all mecha army so I have either a choice between tau or space marines, except I can get a large number of dreadnaughts on the cheap.

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Wrong thread.

Is there a good primer for people unfamiliar with the setting? I know there's the 40k bible in the mega, but it's a bit much to give players.

Which parts of the setting?

I'm looking for the basic information that an
imperial citizen would know, especially about the Imperium.

Aliens bad. Heretics Bad. Mutants Bad. Emperor good. Praise be Him on the Golden Throne and be thankful for your daily ration.

The average citizen is blind to what is beyond their planet, much less their hive spire or equivalent. Aside from that, localized knowledge of places and people.

William T. Sherman as a Rogue fucking trader
>Atlantia IV will burn
>trade is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.
>If I had my choice I would kill every administorum cleric in the galaxy, but I am sure we would be getting reports from the Warp before breakfast

So I found out at my work that there are at least 3 other people who are interested in RPGs. One of them has D&D experience, one is generally into nerdy sci-fi stuff, and the other is somewhat of an unknown quantity but he seems into it.

They're thinking Pathfinder but I'm thinking fuck elves and all that shit, let's get some Inquisition going.

So, how do I go about convincing 3 people who probably have little knowledge of 40K to dive into Dark Heresy? Or Deathwatch?

I don't want to just go "I helped write some of the books!" as that'd be like saying "I know this better, so play my rules!" and that seems like a dick move.

Any suggestions?

>little knowledge of 40K
Only War

Fluff it like starship troopers in your pitch.

Can't say I've ever run Only War before.

That's why I was thinking Deathwatch. It's the "easiest" from a player perspective, and makes 'em feel like Big Damned Heroes™ for a while.

link?

imo it's harder to get the tone right for DW, and riskier in the sense of players possibly drifting into monotone super soldiers or otherwise off key.

If you create an OW regiment with access to armour augmentations and carapace armour, they'll be plenty tough enough for average threats, too.

Wrangling.

SM characters are boring

They're really not, but the players and the gm all need to have a decent knowledge of 40k and space marine fluff.

I'd personally say Dark Heresy or Only War is best for players with little to no knowledge of 40k. It depends on the premise you want for the game. Both games start the players out as relatively normal imperial citizens that feasibly don't know much beyond their homeworlds and it allows the setting to be introduced to the players as well as the characters.

I guess my issue with Only War is that it kinda makes them all the same, whereas with Dark Heresy they can be a whole host of things.

Plus for new players what sounds more exciting:

"You're a Guardsman. One among billions. You have a trusty lasgun and some solid flak armour. Good luck!"

-OR-

"You're an Assassin. You have spent your formative years taking lives for money until your run in with an Inquisitor changed your life forever. Now you exist to root out heresy and extinguish it."

You could do awesome shit with them. But when all of your players are capable of properly roleplaying larger-than-life space marines with authentic chapter-based quirks and personalities, you've reached the state of absolute enlightenment and you'll only want to play DW from now on.

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>I'd personally say Dark Heresy or Only War is best for players with little to no knowledge of 40k.
I'd agree with Only War. Once you have a regiment established, the game is super easy on what a player needs to do for character generation, and it's not hard to rp colonial marines from Aliens, with variations for worlds and regiments.

I'm a pleb who has only read a single Ciaphas Cain book so it is out of my reach

Thing is, "you serve in the Imperial Guard" should be closer to "you serve an Inquisitor" than "you were raised by a death cult".

And extremely easy ways of replacing dead PCs via the comrade system and just writing a new name.

For the game I run, the Rogue Trader's warrant is a dozen sentences painstakingly scrawled onto the back of a stained receipt from a take-out place, signed by the Lord Inquisitor responsible for burning the first one several millenia ago.

They're still waiting on the new one to arrive from the Administratum, not that anybody remembers it's in transit anymore. The house's fortunes have crumbles in the interim, meaning the courier has spent the past thousand years or so travelling between the dynasty's former assets only to be told they were sold off to the new occupants. The officials aboard the vessel aren't able to request new orders because their standing orders were to make an express, nonstop delivery without delay, and they don't have authorization to make an astropathic call unless they either experience catastrophic gellar field failure, plasma core detonation, are taken over by a hostile boarding action, or complete their mission. Incidentally, the Astropath has been locked in stasis for most of that time to ensure they actually have a way to send a message when one of the four conditions is met, since the crew has seen many generations come and go by this point.

With wrath qnd tlory i'll be able to do a ganger campqign.

But in the meantime. Anyone willing to teach me the ropes of dark heresy 2e?

its a d100 roll under system where circumstances modify chances. Character building is based off of aptitudes which change the cost of learning things. Skills can use different characteristics depending on the specific task

I don't suppose anyone has stats for Thunderbolt fighters written up anywhere.

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Not even ready for a 0.1 release yet.

Page 10 bump

How was your last session?

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I haven't played in years. I just read the books and imagine all the fun me in a different timeline is having playing this.

Several sessions ago, our boss sent us to infiltrate a rival inquisitor's stormtrooper recruitment planet for dirt.

We finally got to the point, half the party burned fate points in a dumb ambush, and turns out the Inquisitor has been brainwashing regular guardsmen and captain america-ing them to get his stormtroopers.

I get the feeling we were supposed to be more horrified, and I tried to get a little worked up because my character has "Hatred:Mutants" which I suppose genetically modifying guardsmen into supersoldiers with unknown archeotech counts as but I just wasn't feeling it.

Would your character consider space marines to be mutants?

Aww user, have you tried the gamefinder thread?

Erratic work schedule and weekends means that I wouldn't be a very good player.

Does the average Imperial Guardsman, albeit one seconded to the Inquisition, know how a space marine is made? Especially when he's only met one once?

Astartes are the Emperor's Angels in his mind, as is proper for a guardsman.

But yeah, that was one of the reasons the players, not the characters, were having trouble working themselves up into a proper "HERESSSSSY!!!!" fix.

>"Yeah, we're doing something a thousand times tamer then what the Cult Mechanicus does daily, BUT IN SECRET!"
>"YOU MONSTER!!"

Alright I know I'm gonna get shit for this....My old group wanted to play DW again and they all really like Primaris marines, figured I might try to run a game with the players as Primaris. There any homebrew around for this heresy?

I know there was some primaris upgrade template stats for the marines themselves, but I haven't seen anything in regards to their weapons or armor.

Ah, hope it works out for you eventually.

Come to think of it, a better question as to what they consider to be mutants would be gland warriors.

Considering that's pretty much exactly what we're dealing with... probably.

True Patrician taste.
Also a good thing to consider Space Marines is to have them be akin to Classical Heroes, they bear heavy weight on their shoulders. Comradarie and deep sombre moments make for truely great RP

Or you could blast a soundtrack from DOOM and kill the fuck out of shit. both are pretty fun

They wouldn't really, not unless they've studied forbidden lore in regards to astartes, otherwise he'd probably think they are forged in esteroic methods, such as created by the Emperor's divine light or by infusing a champion with awesome power upon an altar consecrated to the emperor.

Maybe take some inspiration out of creation myths.

Having trouble finding one, I think I might just do something similar to what someone mentioned int his thread. "reddit.com/r/40krpg/comments/6wkuq4/dhdw_primaris_marine_stats/"

Supposedly it will be in Gold Experience soon,

We were on patrol, and some Blood Axe scouts ambushed us. We managed to kill them without fatalities, though one did a runner. My fellow Weapon Specialist, with his stupid 50+ AGI, ran after him, missed a long-las shot, and then the stupid Ork jumped off a cliff.

Went into crit damage, broke three ribs, and then kept running. While the squad didn't know, his flail chest ended up killing him 140m later, so their base is completely unaware of both us, and the sizable IG base 10km away.

Now we need to find out how the fuck these Orks got into a mountain pass that was chosen *specifically* because of how hard it was to get to. So, the squad's going on a bit of a camping trip next session.

>tfw no proper Inquisitor RPG videogame

You'd think a big studio would have picked up the rights to Eisenhorn by now. The books are paced exactly like a Bioware RPG albeit with a high party turnover.

>the Inquisitor has been brainwashing regular guardsmen and captain america-ing them to get his stormtroopers.
That is painfully normal and expected of the Inquisition. It's like being horrified upon finding out that Space Marines 'know only war' or that ROgue Traders deal with xenos. Go back to your boss, tell them everything is on the up and up and go investigate some actual heresy for Emperor's sake. There's actual problems in the Emperium to be dealt with.

You don't just make stormtroopers out of guard. They come from the Progena academies and are brainwashed as soon as they arrive as children.

I know right?
I'm just like "I burned a fate point for THIS?"
We know, that's why it was weird that the baddy Inquisitor was getting Stormtroopers from a planet that had no Academy. And now we know it was because he was doing some winter soldier sounding stuff that isn't nearly as heinous as our GM wants us to think it is.

If Inquisitor Cassius Whatever-his-face was using some Chaos artifact to pull alternate universe versions of guardsmen wherein they were stormtroopers, except not really, then I'd have some meat to work with. Like, we were finding some clues of some Chaos angle which has not paid off at all.

Can sense presence be used for fighting in the dark? Rules on what exactly it tells you are vague, but my GM allows it.

Sounds like your GM isn't well versed in the lore.

No. It detects if they're in range and how many, but not where.

There is an Eisenhorn game, but it was basically intended as a tablet/phone game. Not terrible, it's just a low budget adventure game of the first book with the wonderful Mark Strong playing Eisenhorn, but it's certainly nothing to write home about. I think the highlight is that they got the character design of the Rogue Trader Eisenhorn pals around with down pat, he's a high fashion cyborg weirdo. A lot of the voice acting aside from him and Eisenhorn is pretty bad though, which is a crying shame. The game is basically a video-novel, they should have dumped money into getting a solid cast that could really sell their lines.
But yeah, I'd love a Bioware rpg about being an Inquisitor. Hell, Commander Shepard is basically an Inquisitor as it is, just part of a nice, xenophilious empire that sometimes does dirty deeds as opposed to a fucking horrible place full of awful people where dignity does not exist.
In the Imperium, gender is surprisingly unimportant. There *are* worlds that have shitty gender politics, but beyond a mild preference for men over women as soldiers the Imperium is basically like Star Trek's federation. Remember that many of their holiest figures are women, which, in a society as deeply religious as the Imperium is, counts for a lot. Sure you've got planets where women are treated like crap, but you've also probably got cyber-matriarchies where men are seen as inferior and only kept around for breeding, etc.

You take what you get, playing Dark Heresy in person in 2018.

Mostly, I think my GM's main issue is that he wants to keep his game low powered without murdering us all. You can't have both. You can't have the bad guy doing something truly heinous if that would put us against something that would kill everyone, because he goes out of his way to gimp our equipment, force us to justify experience spends, and other tips in tricks to frustrate the fuck out of me.

I have 1500 XP sitting around, not spent, because I keep getting told I can't use it to buy skills without spending time researching how to do the thing, and then getting berated because my character's only skills are shooting good and spotting things good.

And then he doesn't even have us roll awareness checks when we get ambushed! FUCK

What is the smallest amount of mechanical augments an Explorator could pull off? I wanna make a Genetor who is more obsessed with the improval of the flesh than the replacement of it.

Made players ride through the jungle on a Kingdom of The Crystal Skull-style buzzsaw truck while being chased by Talos pain engine

Gonna base a Rogue Trader arc off of Aliens, colony sends out a beacon saying they found something and goes dark, then they have to go see what happened.
What should the titular Alien here be? Genestealers or a Lictor or something are the obvious ones, but I don't think there's much of a Nid presence in the Koronus Sector, old Yu'vath stuff maybe?

You could take the Yu'vath and go with something from Dead Space. Some vile Yu'vath sorcery that turns people into undead xenos hybrids.

And on top of that you can "gift your game" with the insanity that people get from the Maker from Dead Space, where they have very real interactions with their dead loved ones that tell them all sorts of weird things, all of which is in their heads... until it is not just in their heads that they see, hear and feel them...

More likely that they're taking inspiration from DH1e's Ascension and the Stormtrooper career in that. Combining it with "Lostock Augmentation" style bio-forging and hypno-indoctrination would allow for the described troops.

Probably the standard starting augmentations plus medicae-, optical-, and manipulator- mechandrites.
As they progress they may eventually reach the stage where their experiments can provide viable replacements for some of their cybernetics, but the cyber-mantle and potentia coil can't really be replaced without becoming openly heretek (if at all)!

I can't remember: Was there ever a Death World Home World in DH1.0?

As a mechanically distinct option? Nope.

Looking through my books, can't find anything.

Damn. That's a shame.

Oh well! Thanks everyone.

Got a question for you guys.

Would an average guardsman who's backstory is quite some service in the Imperium know what the Inquisition is. If not by what they do, just by simply knowing the name or having heard it once.

GM seems to think even knowing the name is Forbidden lore and I'm kind of disagreeing on that.

Nah, that's dumb. The common man's fear of the Inquisition is itself a weapon against Chaos. They might not know many details, just that the Inquisition makes crossing the local authorities is a bad idea.

How far-fetched would it be to play a sister of silence in DH? Obviously, she wouldn't be a full SoS and likely wouldn't have taken the vow, but could an inquisitor requisition a SoS novice or something?

Extremely. Easier to be a SoB Blank.

That's just a standard blank. Inquisitors absolutely make use of them.

That's what I was thinking, all I asked even was to put it together that a company of stormtroopers that saved our ass were Inquisition due to having overheard them say "Inquisitor" and from their armor. He instantly got pissy and told me to roll a -30 Forebidden Lore test because there was "no way I could know."

I passed it anyway

Inquisition is like, 90% rep. They want people to know what they've done on a victory, even if said "victory" is murdering an entire planet because a member of the PDF sneezed seven times

That's silly. Once he realized his mistake he should have just retconned them using the word Inquisitor. What is the story exactly, if you don't mind me asking?

If you're just common guardsmem who got saved by storm troopers and you heard the word "Inquisitor" mentioned your characters should probably be scared that they're going to get purged for witnessing something you weren't supposed to.

Story currently is that we're on some backwater planet, i'm the only off worlder in the regiment. They don't have good native medics so my character is from another world. To skip alot of stuff because we've been going awhile, we've been defending this castle from these "plague zombie" lite creatures that are being controlled by a parasite. Using my Diagnostor I managed to discover it and prevent our garrison from being infected by the local water. The difference between zombies and these guys are that the longer someone is infected with it the more cognitive function they recover, so they were using firearms and catapults against us and what not.

One night while defending from these pseudo zombies an NPC introduced by the GM turned out to be a latent psyker and failed a roll so bad he got turned into an unbound deamonhost. We managed to barely kill it suffering only one player death. And then later on in the siege during another battle a company of storm troopers got dropped to aid us.
My one complaint is now it feels way to much like its a GM vs party members with some of the stuff thats gone on.

I more meant one who has had training with the sisterhood rather than just random null chick. I wasn't sure if that was a thing. Are there rules for different levels of null or progression?