Dark Heresy

[AegisD]

Some friends and I were considering getting into Dark Heresy, but I was just curious about the start cost (since I\'m the only one currently employed and would therefore be buying everything). I know that the core book is $60, and I can pick up the GM book for $20, but is there anything else we\'ll need?
And exactly how many people makes a good game anyway? I\'ve heard everything from two to ten. Sorry if this is all rather vague, but I don\'t know too much about it and the site I found (seems to be the official one) didn\'t tell me much.

 

[Sakura]

There\'s the inquisitor\'s handbook, with a new class, more background options, class options, weapons und stuff like that.
But we started out when there was just the corebook, and we got along just fine.

I\'d say 4-5 people are best. That way you have a nice variety of skills, to actually find out what\'s going on before being bitten in the ass by it, and fighting roles. Less might be a bit stressful and inflexible.

 

[uberdark]

i play with 4 players. we got the inquisitors and core book for $70 on amazon.com. and did ground shipping for free. took 2 weeks but was worth it. only two books is all you need. the monster book will come in handy later on.

enjoy it and kill lots of things.

 

[wingwong113]

I played with a group of about 5 people, and it worked out great. Had a nice variety of skills (cleric, guardsmen, 2 psykers, and a ganger).

You just have to be -really- prepared, especially if your GM is the type not to fudge things when starting groups have rolls go extremely poorly against them (or worse, fudges them the other way). I think our group lasted all of about 4 sessions before we had one of our psykers perils-of-the-warp a group of 12 or so gangers who were about to kill us into pissing themselves into a catotonic state. Sounded epic at the time, until someone down the street made the willpower save, and called the local Arbiters saying it was a rogue psyker. Unknowing Inquisitorial agents showed up, fragged half the house, and pretty much took down everyone (including themselves), on suspicion of a rogue psyker.

Sucks, but that\'s the breaks. Of course, a latter session turned profitable as we stopped a mini Ork Waaaagh! that was trundling along in a mile-wide battle line by zipping behind it on a dunebuggy, launching hallucinogen grenades in front of them and having 90% of the Orks roll a \"THEY\'RE COMING OUTTA THE WALLS D:\". Rokkits don\'t do well for the occupants when fired inside of a vehicle.

 

[The Ghost]

My group runs with four people and a GM but at first there was a 5th player and things went just fine. We have a Freelance Assasin, Tech Priest, Cleric (Thats Me), and Sanctioned Psyker. With this diverse set of skills we get through ok, though not exceptionally well.

Quick question: do you plan to GM or someone else? I have some advice from both perspectives but I don't want to tell the PC tricks to a GM or vice versa.

 

[Shapoopie]

We are currently playing with a regular 4 playing characters, and one gm. With another random character subbing in for whenever we haves someone that wants to play just one day. 4 has been a really good number thus far, and my thoughts are:

1. You honestly only need the core book for now. We have the inquisitors handbook, but never use it mainly because none of us have ever gm'ed before, and its still mighty entertaining with just the basics.

2. The GM's screen thing is very useful (or so i have been told) as it has many tables, handy rules, and so forth in it that saves time for flipping through the book to find special rules. Handy, but not absolutely necessary.

3. In our group at least, we have had many close calls to death due to throwing weapons.,... grenades can be thrown sideways and backwards when not meant too so be careful when using all them..

4. and finally, psykers seem vital. They can win you a battle, (thanks to spasming scary bosses and healing tanks), or kill off an entire towns square of people including party members due to anti graving them 100's of m in the air ( i was the only one in a shop besides the shop keep..... needless to say the dead party wasnt to happy with me ) so make sure people get all sorts of classes, and not just all go scum or whatever as it may not end well for them/you.

all in all, start cost should be $60 - 80 bucks if you get the screen, then some paper for character sheets.

 

[Meph]

I'd say, try to play with 4 players max. I'm currently GM'ing a party of 5, all experienced players but imho you just have more dynamic and less interference with 4 players. I'm going a bit nuts on DH and just buying everything that comes out (being a 40K fan for 20+years makes game like a wet dream come true) but I'd say, go for the Core book, the GM screen (handy, handy), and if you can get your hands on it, the Character Portfolio as the basic sheets are just complete crap. Like all basic character sheets from every game I ever played, after a few level-ups, there will be NO decent room anymore on the basic sheets for skills and talents, much to the frustration of my players. With the character folio's they're purring like a kitten... For the rest I find 'Disciples of the Dark Gods' and 'Creatures Anathema' welcome additions. Great sources for enemies and antagonists.

For my players, I started out with the intro story from the preview, then the story from the core book and the Space Hulk story from the Purge the Unclean book. From there I noticed that my players prefer more action oriented roleplaying with heavy roleplayed character focus and that they're not that big fans of investigative undercover stories so I brewed a large scale campaign ready for them.

Basically I've got some story elements prepared, general overspanning story arcs and - hooks. I started of the campaign a bit more linear with crash landing them on a thought-to-be lost Imperial colony that has a WAAGH brewing. The Orks pulled down their ship from orbit using a hybrid Orkified Archeotech array. I have some deeper subplots running with a century-spanning Adeptus Mechanicus conspiracy to recover an STC, a Rogue trader who's pillaging and selling archeotech equipment, some of which corrupted, and the player's inquisitor doing behind-the-scenes investigations into it all. The adventure on the planet brings them into contact with the descendants of the original colony, who are being racketeered by Blood Axe Orks, who in turn are cheating the main Warboss who in turn is being influenced and corrupted by iffy xenos tech and he's laying siege to the crash landed Imperial frigate, from which the players escaped during the descent from orbit.

So basically I've got enough vague idea's ready to accommodate the player's whims without letting them get lost in the sandbox. I've got NPC's ready, general timelines for the bad guy's actions and ideas for expanding the main plot lines which the players choose to walk on, and I've got some handouts prepared with clues and artwork gathered to illustrate. I've always preferred to work campaigns like this with experienced players as you never know what they're going to do. Fully railroading a party of players always feels a bit forced, and letting them do whatever is just too loose. A good balance is needed between prepared stories and having enough alternatives ready in case the players decide to blatantly ignore carefully prepared clues or just blatantly and rebelliously taking a different route.