Logic Migraine

saw this this morning

Reblogged from choochoobear

bigbigtruck:

and all I could think was, “that’s a hell of a lot of tl;dr for


Probably gonna delete this once i have some coffee and get less grumpy.

GM gaming advice: Dark Heresy

                 Now originally, I was tempted to write an article about Gming as a whole. A bit of advice for newbie GM’s wishing to try their hand at roleplaying. Honestly though, there are a million articles and podcasts that focus on the GM process and my words would be at best a simple anecdote and at worse a complete rehashing of what was said a million times before. Thus, I decided to be a bit more focused with my articles, at least for now. I am going to pick a few games and give you my thoughts on how I would GM them, what I would focus on, and other little tidbits that you might find useful in the game I’m writing about as well as other games as well.

Now, I am not arrogant enough to believe that this is the end all be all guides to GMing in the various properties. This is just my opinion and I want to emphasize this before I continue. Each person is different so he or she will have their own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to GMing. They will also have different styles that may or may not mix well with what I write here and if you only take one or two bits to help improve your game, or nothing at all, it’s completely up to you.

So, for a start I will begin writing articles for a universe I’m a huge fan of, Warhammer 40k.

                  I have always been a big fan of the Warhammer 40k universe and its dark tone. That and similar universes always hit me in a particular happy place between my sense of adventure and my cold black heart. I will eventually write an article explaining my love affair with dark universes and human struggle, but for now, just except that I have some issues. Either way, these articles won’t be a deep discussion about the mechanics of the system. It’s more for the tone of the universe as a whole and some random GM advice for each book that might fit in with what you’re trying to do for your campaign. 

                      At the time of writing, Fantasy Flight Games has four major properties in the Warhammer 40k universe. Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch, and Black Crusade.  I will, if time and life allow, write up a little something on each. As for Dark heresy, the ascension expansion will be talked about in a future article, probably when I get around to playing it with my players. If they survive that long that is. 

Anyway, without further ado, the first article.

                                               Dark Heresy 

 Looking over schematics for an alternate route of escape

Techpriest Ramirez: “ Do I know of any other exits besides that one up?” 

Me: “You know of one major exit but it’s past the Demonic portal”. 

Arbitrator Theodorus:” Up we go!”

                     Out of all of the systems, Dark heresy is the one I will be most comfortable with my characters dying. Hell of a way to start a paragraph but it is the truth. The setting of the game assumes that you are simple acolytes of the inquisition. The way the inquisition tells it, you are chosen because you can help the Imperium against the heretic, the alien, and the daemon. The truth is that you’re a schmuck who seemed slightly better than the other schmucks of your class and so the inquisition put you on a planet, pointed you in a certain direction, and waits to see how many of you survive. I personally think the best way this is shown is by your dice.

              Now, many complain that dark heresy characters are underpowered and honestly, they are right. Played straight, you will succeed a little more than 30% of the time when you first start playing. That, to me, is what makes it so interesting and fun in the first place. It emphasizes the fact that the characters are in over their heads. They are facing off against odds they really have no way to handle. The point of role-playing in dark heresy is not just how to win, but also how to handle your failures. The characters one route is closed, so they have to think of another and you have to give them another route to try as well. Even if it includes running from the giant daemon with an axe fetish. The end goal of the game is great and all, but the journey is what’s more important, and honestly, it will have a lot more of an impact if the players think they did it on their own. Of course, this hinges on the fact that the GM rewards them for their cleverness.

              Dark Heresy, more than the other Warhammer 40k games, needs a GM who is willing to reward characters for cleverness and good roleplay. The roleplay portion is easy. The character gives a convincing speech, you could be tempted to give him or her a +10 or even a +20 on their charm or intimidate. Of course, originality should also be a important factor. If your player decides to give the same speech 10 times to several different armies, you can expect those bonuses to start going away.

          My characters, most of them with acting backgrounds, have given such impressive and jaw dropping performances in their games that I’ve been tempted to just give them the win. I haven’t of course, random chance should always play a factor, but I’m surprised the heretic scum they fight aren’t bursting into tears in awe instead of intense pain.

                Cleverness though, may be a bit harder to quantify. What is clever and what is obvious? That will be up to your discretion as the GM but you shouldn’t be to strict with what you consider clever. For example:

              Ratt is facing a few gangmembers who want to greet her with their holy “shank you” ritual. Sadly, Ratt is a big believer in the “staying alive” religion and  must politely decline. There are two of several ways to accomplish this.

         Route A: She could simply shoot them. A viable strategy and depending on the circumstances may be the only choice. Still, desperation or not, she probably won’t get any bonuses for doing so.  

         Route B: Ratt recalls that she is in a sewage treatment plant and asks if there is a few pipes with sewage close by. I, as the GM, say yes because I know what she’s thinking and the idea of gang members in sewage gives me a warm feeling inside. I also give her a +20 bonus to the shot because a) its was a clever idea and b) Its just a goddamn pipe. She hits and the next round either the gang members will receive negatives on their rolls or Ratt and her party will gain bonuses dependent on which I think will be more helpful to her party.  

           Now Route B is harder not for the player, but for the GM. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the GM must be able to describe where the characters are at any moment. Now, this doesn’t mean you spend 20 minutes describing each room they enter in detail. That would be too much work for the GM and would get really boring for the characters really quickly. But, even a few seconds of description can be enough to stir a player’s imagination. Ratt may not have come up with the idea for the sewage if I hadn’t said my simple one line description beforehand “ you are in a large room with pipes crisscrossing the walls and ceilings.” 

           The second reason is that the GM must be willing to not only let the player be clever but also learn when to say no. This requires the one thing that I think is never really emphasized, logic. Of course, logic in a world of warp daemons and space marines might be a little far-fetched but follow me on this. The GM always has to think what is or isn’t possible in a certain situation. The pipe analogy works fine, considering the area environment she was in, but if she stated, “do the gangs members have a bunch of barrels with explosive markers around them?” you could probably say no. Now, you may ask, but there might be explosive material in a sewage plant such as hazardous gasses and so on. Why wouldn’t it be logical for them to be around? Mainly because, unlike the AI in a first person shooter, would a real person, especially gang members who have been around the block a few times, have been anywhere near such obvious explosives, or would they have just put them somewhere safe so a random cigarette would blow them to bits.

            With the mechanics part out of the way, we need to discuss the most important aspect of dark heresy, the Warhammer 40k tone. Warhammer 40k is a dark universe which feels like its five small steps from falling apart into oblivion and that the only heroes are only considered good guys because the bad guys are so much worse. Put the imperium of man in any other universe and it would be the evil empire the plucky young group of idealists would try to destroy with the force and a shot through the small hole in its exhaust port.

         How does Dark heresy capture this and how should you emphasize this in the game?

               Dark heresy is a game where the term the end justifies the means is never more emphasized. There are threats so big and so evil that almost nothing can be ignored as a solution. This doesn’t mean that the players should be monsters, but it might help if they know what human life is worth compared to the fate of a planet. It might be hard for your players to be put in the proper mindset.

                For example, my players discovered a plot to introduce an alien nanobot swarm into the nobility to try to take control of them. Some people were already infected and were a few trigger words away from causing devastation. My players immediately went the star trek route of trying to find a cure and after a minute of discussion, I had to stop them. The imperium of man viewed anything alien as evil and tends to choose the easier and most brutal method to solve its problem. Thus, the solution would be to simply find those responsible, put a stop to them, and give the infected the emperors mercy (a merciful shot to the face). Not very nice but considering the Imperium of man lives in a universe of evil daemons and aliens that want to destroy/control/torture them, it must be harsh and brutal to survive.   

        Such decisions though, have a price. Dark heresy forces the characters into dark places. Places they might not have gone too normally. The one way to do this is with either corruption and insanity points. I seem to give more insanity/corruption to my dark heresy characters than my rogue trader or Space marine characters. If they honestly gained 100 corruption at some point, I would be the least bit surprised, and neither would the players. There characters have done such terrible things and seen such horror that honestly, insanity may be a relief.

          But, just numbers on a sheet shouldn’t be the only thing showing their change. The players should eventually grow their characters according to these changes. Its easy to say I now have nightmares, but how do those nightmares effect the character. Will he become more erratic. Will he start fighting with the other characters? Will the dreams be nothing but his mind troubling him or can it be something more. Will something call him through his dreams to try to corrupt him from the inside out? These are the type of questions the player and the GM need to figure out to make more your characters dark journey a bit more interesting.

      I hope this article has been helpful to you and I hopefully will be able to put more articles like this in the future. If there is anything you think I left out or have any questions, please feel free to comment.

I exist

My first Blog post. The post that sets the theme of this blog and will determine my blogging future….. so…ya… Well that was fun, going to work on my Deathwatch game for my gaming group. I’m thinking lies, intrigue, and giant monsters.