Making Dark Heresy engaging for new players to 40k

[Daerke]

Hi all,

I have just started running a campaign for Dark Heresy and while I am pretty well read on the setting material I would really like to get the players interested in the setting as while they have all played warhammer 40k, they don't care so much for how the imperium works and runs when it isn't in a state of constant warfare.

With this in mind I would like to ask if there are any GMs or players out there who have either run or played in a Dark Heresy game where the setting was used to create a unique game, rather than CoC in space with some grimdark thrown in.

Does anybody have any suggestions for unique encounters within the 40k universe which would be interesting for players and are somewhat unique to the setting?

To give you a little background to this question, I have been using the Dark Heresy core rulebook setting material to flesh out a long term campaign which will explore most of the different locations mentioned throughout the different source materials. the emphasis is on investigative gaming with bouts of either combat or survival horror to change things up a little during sessions. The goal is to provide a campaign which explores how the political and social influences of galaxy-wide institutions can be used be the evil or corrupt to gain personal power for their own ends.

So far the players have encountered a heretic who was using a drug which gives people visions of the warp (aka space-hell) to fracture their minds while he turned them into sleeper agents for a galactic conspiracy and now the players are about to encounter mutant mine workers who have formed a socialist workers union with the help of a terrorist cell connected to a being known as the King in Yellow.

I hope this helps as I would really like to differentiate this game from the other campaigns I have run for the players in the past but I don't want to fall into the pit trap of simply using the setting to retell the same old stories which are commonly found in RPGs

[Teapot]

What stories do you want to tell? What parts do the players not like? Is it the Nazi Inquisition? When is the Imperium not at war?

The first question is the important one.

[Jacko]

I agree with the clone, figuring out what kind of stories you want to tell is key.  In fact, it probably should have been decided before the campaign started, but no plan stays intact so it's not a problem. 

I played in a brief DH game where we were sent to a recently 'rediscovered' planet that had been settled by humans prior to the Dark Age of Technology before getting cut off.  It was an interesting blend of 17th and 18th century cultures combined with some of the technological advances of the 41st millennium.  Think powdered wigs, steam boats and lasguns.  The Imperium is always at war but there's 'the front lines' and then the more peaceable 'rear'.  Even so, war is a constant and so everyone is at least tithing to the Imperium to keep the war machine moving.  We were there to figure out why they kept demanding more weaponry and off-world assistance to fight 'the pale ones', which could have been Chaos-tainted mutants. 

The real fun of the campaign was just trying to get over the culture shock of being a gang of henchmen used to operating in enormous, squalid Hive cities and finding ourselves in the equivalent of Louis XIVs court. 

As huge as the Imperium is, it's not homogeneous and that can be a real source of fun even for players who are intimately familiar with the setting.  Show just how diverse humanity can be (and how terrible we can be to one another) even in the face of alien/supernatural forces bent on our destruction.

[Daerke]

Thanks guys,

In response to your question about what the goal of the campaign is, I really wanted to run a game which shows of just how labyrinthine the workings of the imperium is. to put it another way, what is life like for the majority of humanity when there is a persistent threat of either heresy, aliens or chaos just out of sight? How would someone with very little experience of dealing with these threats react when they are recruited by an organisation meant to combat  all these dangers?

I want to put the players through the full range of different locations described in the books because I think they are pretty good resources for a long term campaign.

Sorry if this doesn't answer your question very well. I really want to run a narrative campaign and this is my first attempt at it with any real thought put into it so I'm sure you can understand how much I want it to succeed

[Teapot]

Pretend you're playing Paranoia and take out the funny?

I'd say look for a book with the most horrible stories about people drafted and sent to Vietnam for the combat part and find the Cultural Revolution for the everyday part and take those as your starting points. It still kind of depends what you want to play up. For fostering paranoia, every other person you meet might not be a person, they might be a heretic or have mutations, or they might find a way to label you as one first. The combat is fast and brutal, give more descriptions at the start. In the early fights describe wounds and screaming in detail. Slowly move to bland notes that the injured are injured as the people get used to it.

Also use descriptions to focus on a theme for encounters, something may not even be interested in the players, it never looks at them when it shoots at/stabs/tries to dissolve them. Others may be wild-eyed but come like bloodhounds never breaking eye-contact as they stab with a rusty shiv.

And don't let up. If everyday life is a drudge, it's a horrible one. Overseers abuse them, underlings plot to take what they have, the governor puts down complaints with mass driver attacks approved by the Inquisition, if the players don't approve of that tactic, have the chain of paperwork cross their desk needing their rubber stamp.
If everyday life isn't bad, shove the contrast in their face. Point out how weak everyone there is, even them. Just two or three heretics summoning demons and the whole planet will die. Have them see enemies everywhere, and make it true, it's not their paranoia, the new guy is evil. And that's why he has to be killed with whatever farm impliment they have at hand.

[Daerke]

Thanks mate, those tips are really good. I'll definitely incorporate a lot of what you've said in my games.

[ckenp]

Have your player's read Dan Abnett's novels about the Inquisition? Those help not just with immerision but also present multiple planets for setting ideas.

edited to add:
Not to cross polenate, but there's a Warhammer 40k podcast called Independent Characters that recently did an episode about Dark Heresy (found here) that talks about the game from the perspective of introducing it to Warhammer 40k players who may not normally play tabletop RPG's. Their product doesn't compare to RPPR's impeccable work, but since it's related to the topic I thought it worth sharing.