Dark Heresy – the almost game…

When I finally found somewhere to role-play again (something I’ve discussed at length before), the first game I was offered was Dark Heresy.

As my desire to role-play was so intense and as the game seemed based upon the Warhammer Fantasy RolePlaying game of which I was familiar, I jumped at the chance.

There is an old saying about fools rushing in.  I spent an evening with the GM and other players creating a character.  The day after I agonised about my decision and wondered if I’d chosen correctly.  I subsequently spent c. £120 (almost $200) on the Core Rulebook, The Inquisitor’s Handbook and Disciples of the Dark Gods. 

I then spent the next two weeks rolling this character and that one.  I took basic characters and  also added background packages.  After about 50 characters, I ended up with the one I really wanted.

I was an assassin, with a background of being a member of The Moritat.  I had a full background mapped out.  I knew my character backwards.  All I needed was a game to play in.  And that was the rub.  The game never materialised.

Meanwhile, I have 50 or so character sheets, three pristine rulebooks and nothing to do with them.  One day, I will GM the game – but not within the year.  Despite this, my love for rulebooks stops me from being too disheartened and when/if Rogue Trader gets published, I’ll be at the front of the queue to purchase a copy.

But what of Dark Heresy?  If you like the Warhammer mechanics and enjoy sci-fi you could do a lot worse than to pick up a copy of the game.

What do you need?

In theory you can get away with just the Core Rulebook.  Players can generate characters, you have all of the main rules and enough background to the ‘world’ to get underway.  The artwork is of excellent quality.  There are a fair few monochrome pictures within but even the colour ones tend to be dark.  It’s reflective of the game.  This mean, evil, dirty and violent.

Players can choose from a number of homeworlds but are essentially human.  Anything non-human is seen to be cannon-fodder.  Each homeworld gives different advantages e.g. Void Born PCs don’t suffer from space travel sickness and automatically know how to navigate and pilot spacecraft.

Next the characteristics are rolled.  The usual Warhammer fare are represented here (although there is no magic in the game – at least not legally).

Next the PC chooses a career path.  It is expected the player won’t switch classes often.  Choices include Clerics, Abritrators (space FBI), Guardsmen (warriors) and Psykers (instead of magic you can be a psionic).  Each career has associated bonuses and weaknesses e.g. Tech-Priests start with implants.

The player then spends XP on developing skills or improving characteristics (based upon what their career path allows).

The rest of the book discusses the definition of the skills, has an equipment guide, covers the core rules, has a GMs section and then gives a fairly detailed background to ‘Life in the Imperium’ and other background chapters.  There is also a full adventure to follow.

The basic premise of the game is that you live in the 41st Millenium.  There is a war against chaos, and your PC has been chosen as an Acolyte for the Inquisition.  Your task is to root out heretics, aliens and witches.  Combat is risky early on as most weapons do more damage than you have hit points. 

The Inquisitor’s Handbook is really a player’s guide.   It covers more advanced character creation.  In introduces four new worlds to originate from and explores some unique planets you could hail from. 

It also introduces background packages.  Rather than spend all of your starting points on skills, you can spend some on a background package that both develops a back-story and also gives some different skills.  Some really enhance your character, whereas others just make them fun to play.  Personally, I loved the option.

There are future career paths (rather like Prestige Classes) that you can aspire to.  I hoped to become a Moritat Reaper when I grew up! 

There is more equipment to choose from and a section on Religion and Superstition.  There is also a chapter on ‘Life as an Acolyte.’  Overall, this is a worthwhile addition to the Core Rulebook for players and GMs alike.

I also own the sourcebook Disciples of the Dark Gods.  It was billed as a, ‘collection of cults, secrets and conspiracies.’  It’s a solid book but I wouldn’t rush out to buy it until you’ve been playing for a while.

In terms of character creation (which is why I bought it) the additional material isn’t for the beginner.  It does add new Psychic Powers and offers the option of the ‘corrupting path of sorcery.’  This is a background book more than anything else as it talks about various cults – although it does contain another full adventure.  This is a GM’s book rather than a player’s book.

Overall, I like the game.  OK, I haven’t played it but I understand the mechanics because of Warhammer and I like the setting.  If you’ve ever played Warhammer 40k, you already know the world.

Some basic pluses are:

• It’s similarity to the Warhammer system
• The depth of the background material available
• Building on the knowledge of the 40k world
• The Core Rulebook is enough to play the game

My main gripes are:

• If you don’t know 40k, it’s a lot of background learning for the GM (players can learn slowly by having a background that’s from a backward world)
• If you don’t like Warhammer FRP, you won’t like the game mechanics
• It can be too dark for some (but not me)

My overall review advice is, if you’re thinking about it – get it.

Women in gaming

This won’t be a particularly long blog.  This is not a subject I can write with much authority on – as I’m not a woman. Rather my observations are linked to my ‘day’ job. 

I’ve had to deal with diversity all of my working life (as I work in HR).  I’m not talking about political correctness (although that plays a part).  I’m talking about being fair and equitable to all.  For by being inclusive, we get the best possible outcome.  Exclusion leads to a lack of diversity and eventually weakness.

But this isn’t a political speech.  Rather, it’s about the lack of women in gaming.  Years ago, I was with an auditor that noticed that most of the people in finance, sales and marketing were  women and the design and R&D teams were all men.

I countered that most of these roles were filled internally and as we had an equal opportunities policy, anyone could apply for any role.  I reviewed the stats on the subject and reported that few women applied for the techie roles and few men applied for the more office roles. 

The auditor responded with a question that has guided my thoughts on the subject ever since.  “But why do so few women apply for these roles and men for those roles?”

The implication is that, although women were welcome to apply to work in design, there was something about the culture of the department that dissuaded them.

Which brings me back to role-playing.  Are there so few women in role-playing because they have absolutely no interest – or because they don’t feel welcome.  As I gaze at my bookshelf, I see as many female authors as male writing fantasy novels. 

I think – believe – that many potential female gamers are put off because of the culture of role-playing, rather than because they’re not interested.  Just look at the way women are portrayed in role-playing books to help you understand that argument.  Why does every female character have to be scantily clad?

Do we owe half the population a better chance to role-play?  Yes.  Will we act on that responsibility?  Probably not.

The pros and cons of the Internet for role-players

If you’ve read my blogs for this month, you’ll already have an inkling for my dilemma on this subject.

On the positive side, the Internet allows me to do so much:

• Post questions and queries on forums anywhere in the world.  No longer do I have only the combined knowledge of the group around the table.  I can get rules advice, recommendations for campaigns – the options are limitless.
• I can interact via forums 24/7.  Any time of the day or the night, I can go online and expect a response quickly.
• I have access to so many resources on-line.  From alternate character sheets, to dungeon crawls.  From new spells to intersting magic items.
• PDFs.  The plus with PDFs is that I can see a book I want and download it immediately.  I don’t have to wait for the local gaming store to open for me to get a copy.  I just buy it online and it’s delivered immediately.
• Cheaper prices for materials.  With large online shopping sites comes price comparison and therefore price competition.  Unless you really wanted to, you’d never have to pay the cover price ever again.  Plus you can have delivered the next day without having to make a journey. 
• Better choices.  The online stores tend to carry more titles and hold more copies.  You don’t make a journey to your local store – only to find they’ve got no copies left of the book you wanted.  Yesterday I visited a big gaming store  with a list of c. thirty things I wanted.  I left with precisely two.  As it cost me £5 just to visit the store, that represents poor value for money.

Philosophers will tell you about balance.  For every positive there is a negative.  Some of the negatives of the Internet are specific, and some are linked to the positives above:

• Piracy.  Free stuff on the Internet seems like a good idea – but it’s killing the industry and especially the small game shop.  Trends to only offer content online – or provide special dice to play games (at an extortionate cost) are ways that gaming companies are protecting themselves.  In the long run, piracy hurts you and me.
• PDFs.  As much as I love the immediacy of the download, I need paper in my hand.  This means I print it off (often more than once as I lose a copy – bad for the environment I know) and cut out the local gaming store.  
• The demise of the local gaming store.  For reasons outlined above including online competition, PDFs and piracy, the local gaming stores are reducing in numbers.  The frings shops that also carried role-playing are either exiting the product line or reducing their stock.  This means we are more likely to go online, the local stores suffer some more and the cycle continues.  
• No browsing (no pun intended).  How many times have I gone in search of a new game design, only to flip the pages and be disappointed.  Back on the shelves it goes.  Without a local store to see the product, I have to buy on reputation alone. 

This is by no means an exhaustive argument for and against the Internet in terms of role-playing.  It has both positives and negatives.  The downside for me is that the positives are actually contributing to the negatives.

My first ever game

As posts go, this ought to be a short one.  Mostly because my memory of the game is so vague.  In fact, I’d forgotten all about it until I came across a copy in a game shop the other day.

My first ever role-playing game was…Tunnels and Trolls.  If you’ve never played it and see it really cheap, pick up a copy for novelty value. 

It dates back to the mid 1970s and is often abbreviated to T&T.  Apparently it was the second ‘modern’ RPG and was meant to be a simplified alternative to D&D. 

It’s premise is simple.   It’s a single-player game (or could be used to play by (e)mail) and is set in a Tolkienesque world.

You get some familiar starting attributes (Strength,  Intelligence, Luck,  Constitution, Dexterity  and Charisma).  I understand that recent editions have added Wizardry (or Power) and Speed.  Each is calculated with a random 3d6 roll.

Humans are the recommended race with elves, dwarves and hobbits as options.  You can also play as a leprechaun or fairy.  All races have modifiers.

The base classes are Wizards and Warriors.   You can also be a Rogue or a Wizard-Warrior.

Next you randomly roll for money and then buy equipment.

Combat is relatively common (rolling d6s, adding modifiers and then comparing scores) except that mass combat is done by one set of rolls. 

Believe it or not, T&T was a groundbreaking game: 

– It was the first to offer a wide range of non-human characters. 

– Armour absorbed damage (rather than making you harder to hit)

– It introduced the concept of spell points

– It introduced the publishing of game-books

The game-books were adventures that the single player could play without a ‘referee.’  Nowadays there are scores of free adventures on the web.

It was translated into at least seven languages and penetrated many foreign markets before D&D.

Enough of the facts.  I consider T&T fondly (now I remember it).  As an only child, the ability to play a game without the need of friends or siblings was awesome.  I now remember spending hours creating characters and going through the adventures.

As I reflect, I think my love of creating characters stems from this game.

Also consider it was a game out at a time where there were no computers.  There were no DVDs or even videos and no daytime TV either (unless you counted schools programmes, a short burst of shows around lunchtime or if there was cricket or horse-racing on).

T&T was voted one of the millennium’s most underrated games.  I’ll stop short of suggesting everyone rushes out and buys a copy, but if you have a young relative (especially an only child) you could do worse than consider it as a present.   I’ve seen it advertised in various formats between £15 and £25 (and $20 to $30) online.  It’s up to its 7^th edition now.

As I say, fond memories – albeit vague ones.  Without it I would still have found role-playing, but it filled a time when there was precious little else that could fire my imagination in this way.