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Warhammer 40k RPG


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I was talking to my girlfriend today and she brought up how it might be fun to try to RP in the 40k universe. I notified her to the existence of several of the (actually pretty recent) pen-and-paper Warhammer 40k Role-playing games. This kinda got me thinking it'd be nice to try one of these out. (I own one of the books but I've never really opened it.) Has anyone experience with any of those RPG's? Would anyone be interested in semi-regular sessions of some form of 40k RPing? What sort of setting/characters/etc would guys like to see?

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There are five official RPGs in the 40k universe under Games Workshop, all published by Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). And In order from oldest to newest.

  1. Dark Heresy - For people who want to be Imperial Inquisition lackeys. Expansion gives special fluffy incorruptible snowflake Grey Knights.
  2. Rogue Trader - For people who want the freedom of working as/for a "merchant-privateer" (closest analogy). Sometimes come with own ship, depending on story and DM. Expansions have rules for Orks, Kroot, and I think there was even a Arch-Heretek
  3. Deathwatch - For people who like stomping glorious amounts of aliens. Play exclusively as Space Marines.
  4. Black Crusade - For people who want to play as Chaos. Kill Maim Burn, Papa Nurgle give free benefits, the Lord of Change is best lord, yeah, that stuff. Chaos Space Marines or Cultists
  5. Only War - For people who want to play as Imperial Guardsmen. Although there is an option to play one in Dark Heresy (I have), this gives a more authentic view of Imperial soldiers (minus excess death).

All books use the D100 system (Percentiles. Player rolling lower for tests good. Player rolling lower to pass tests and higher than opponent good.) As far as I know, The first three use a "class" system as far as I know (More exp = rank-up = more access to traits and skills for that class). Black Crusade and Only War use "archetypes" (Skills based advancement, no rank restrictions for advancement.). Rogue Trader has rules for spacecraft (Though some say they are broken, I haven't played it).

Daz da gist of it ya gits.

I Like Black Crusade (Because Chaos here). Dark Heresy if fun if played right, and I've wanted to play either Deathwatch or Only War for a while now.

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While I have the Rogue Trader book, I wouldn't object to picking up the other books. I also heard a while back that they're working on an update that would, more-or-less, combine the systems to be more interchangeable. Not sure if that's gone/going anywhere.

As for myself, I'm quite a fond of da Orkz, but I could easily play in any of them. I could be coerced into playing anything human-based quite easily with the promise of Tech-Priests (All glory to the Omnissiah!) or possibly even Black Crusade if I was able to play Iron Warriors or something of the sort.

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Ebay and Pdf files are my friends for books. Don't have to deal with absurd pricing.

I'm more of a chaosy guy, my Thousand Sons sorcs, despite being overly nerfed on tabletop by based Ward, carry my legacy of utter destruction through warpfire. Although, I do enjoy a good Black Templar Marine, or a Elysian Drop Trooper (Or one from a Tanker regiment).

Dark Heresy, Deathwatch, and Only War offer some form of playing as a non-corrupted Human associated with the Incense support AdMech. Black Crusade has the heretical variant. And I'm sure allowances within reason have been done for Rogue Trader (You are on a ship after all.)

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I know that there is an Adeptus Mechanicus adept in Rogue Trader. The mechanics essentially throws their lower ranking guys at Rogue Traders since they're on the fringe and that's where all the untapped knowledge is. Heck, they could even find a working SCT!

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IMO better to decide on what we're playing first, and how we're going to work times, heck, I'm in a different timezone altogether.

Then you can talk about recruiting people to play.

Also, I vote NOT GM for me, simply because I don't have the time to devise plots, given I'm already doing so for a Star Trek Campaign in my society next year.

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For the Blood Ravens! For Glory! For... SPHEZZ!

Now that's out of the way... I am sure it'd be pretty complicated to be a GM for Warhammer. I've done Dungeon and Dragons... and luckily the GM can just bend the world to his will. Warhammer... there is a LOT of lore you need to know before you can make any plots. There is not necessarily a bad guy in the series. Just war and ideals.

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Well, I'm thinking that Rogue Trader MIGHT be the best solution. It offers the most variety for what you can play as. It's also likely the one where you need to know the least about 40k since it's set on the fringe (I think?)

Side note: If you guys know anyone who's interested in 40k, or even just Sci-Fi in general, would you direct them this way? We have a very small number of people and getting more would increase the chances of something working out.

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Yar, Rogue Trader takes place in the Koronous Expanse, a unknown section of space to the Imperium.

The simplest way would be to take a "Star Trek" like approach of exploring sections of the sector, performing tasks, trading to keep ship afloat, and generally finding things of value to turn a profit.

It is however, still advised that some rudimentary knowledge is obtained about the 40th Millennium before you play. Helps speed the game up, and you're not the only familiar race out there in the Expanse...

Also, I have alot of other sci-fi books and pdfs. I lurk on /tg/ quite a lot for.

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