Dark Heresy 2nd Edition

I've always found the background of 40k incredible rich and it is certainly my favorite sci-fi setting as I think it is oddly enough one of the most realistic settings out there. I look at the Imperium and the way it is ruled by superstition and false religious dogma and then look at the world we live in and I think "Yeah, that's pretty plausible actually."

So role playing in this setting was an obvious thing for me to jump into and with the release of Fantasy Flight's Dark Heresy Second Edition Beta I thought it was about time to try my hands at GMing a game.

I had previously played in a Dark Heresy game as a player and a good few years back I had experimented in a failed attempt at GMing a game with some friends back in London, but this was the first time I had really experimented with running a game of DH.

So far the game is going really well, but I'm not sure whether that is due to the system they've created or the setting they've been given. Truth be told I've never been a great person for reading a set of rules and being able to know the ins and outs of it straight away, I tend to need to play the game at least once with some people before I get the handle on things and with an RPG you don't tend to use all the rules or even most of them in every game session. This has led to me feeling like I've been treading water rules wise and there have been a few instances where I've just let my players do something all the while thinking "Nope don't think they should be able to do that..." That of course is my problem, not the system, BUT there are some things that have been bugging me and I'm hoping that there will be some changes when the big update comes out for their Beta rules.

Now that all sounds quite negative, but like I said at the start, the game has been going really well and there are some aspects of this new addition that I just adore. So I thought I would talk about that here and then in a later post talk about the areas I hope they change.

1) Combat (or damage to be precise)
If you're not familiar with the system, here is a brief recap. There is no health stat, when you take damage you tot up the amount and compare it to a relevant chart for that weapon type and that body part and it tells you what happens. For example you get shot in the chest with an lasgun for 10dmg, looking that up tells me that you take a point of fatique and that you take a energy slash across the chest. The next time you take damage on that spot it adds to the 10 already there, plus an additional 5 because you took a previous hit.

I love this, it makes your characters take real damage and it makes taking down a big bad guy that much more descriptive. (it does take a little time to look this shit up, but when they bring out a GM screen I'm sure that will speed things up.) For smaller bad guys they give you advice how to deal with that so that combat doesn't slow to a crawl when fighting 20 grots.

2) Character Creation
You first choose your Homeworld. Are you from a feral world, a hive world, born in the void? This gives you some changes to your character and some suggestions for your background.

You next choose your background. What were you originally doing? Where you a member of the Administratum tirelessly recording millions of meaningless  numbers that can affect untold millions of Imperial Citizens? Where you a member of the Imperial Guard? Where you an outcast, surviving where and how you could? This again gives you some changes to your character  and some suggestions for your role.

The final major part to character creation is role. What is your role in life and the group? Are you the warrior, who will jump into the fight first? The seeker, who relentlessly searches for his given target. These again gives you changes to your character.

For me this leads to a really personalized character and allows you to really tailor make your character around who you are and what you want to portray. We spent an entire session doing this part and I really feel it has lead to well rounded and thought out characters.

3) Action Points
Characters now have 4 actions points to spend per round of combat and there is now a really useful list of actions and the number of actions points that are needed to complete them. Love that! It's nice simple and you feel you can do more with your character per round.


That's it for now on Dark Heresy, I'll post again about the areas that I hope they improve on and I might also start posting about the actual sessions and the stories that transpire.