Gamesmastering and need advice

[zerodemon]

Hey guys,

I've run several campaigns for Inquisitor now, most of which were pre-written. We're heading in to new territory now because we want to start doing some unique stories with new characters. How do you guys write your campaigns? Any advice for what kinda stuff I will need? We're looking to write relatively structured campaigns based on the random release of clues to goad the warbands towards a few preset conclusions. We've got a nice side mission system in place already (which we crafted over the last few "seasons" of play.)

Second question. We play in 40k scale. Do a lot of people do this? We find it awkward to play in the larger scale. I have a range of models in larger scale, including a squad of imperial guard, but it is too hard to get a good range on the cheap.

Also, out of curiosity, I'd like to know which of the following ideas you'd be more interested in playing in.

- Each player controls 1-2 members of a warband investigating vampirism on a hive world. They are vampires in the classical sense (as in undead, reanimated) but they all worship Khorne. The lead inquisitor is experienced but has been given the job to "keep him out of the way." He is an NPC. The players will be controlling his acolytes and their respective warbands.

- Investigating the sale of Xenos tech (Tau) sold by Rogue Traders inside Imperial space, which leads to a backwater Imperial world, a desert settlement and the auctioning of an alpha level psyker. What follows is a desert chase (inspired by the Gorkamorka "the chase" scenario) which sees the cad of a rogue trader escape.

[the_gobbo_king]

The question is not what we would be interested in playing, but what your players are interested in playing. Ask them.

Do you want to play:
a) An investigation of brutal killings in an Imperial Aristocracy
or
b) The tracking down of a heretical arms-dealing cartel.

Sorry for the briefness,
Scott.

[andyg2006]

+1 to what the_gobbo_king said.
IMHO, controlling more than one PC makes the story more convoluted, so I'd try to keep it to one PC per player.
I think playing in 40k scale is a good idea...the models are relatively cheap (certainly a lot cheaper than the Inquisitor-scale ones) and people can convert and paint their own PC's which means they 'invest' more into their characters and everyone gets a better experience all round.

Also, there's nothing to stop you incorporating both stories into one...maybe the vampires need a psyker to activate something they need (or think they need) to further their evil plans, but their undead senses just aren't enough.

One important thing I learnt was not to forget that major NPC's (e.g. "end-of-story Bosses", recurring characters/nemesis) need just as much thought and characterisation putting into them as PC's do, so not just appearance, wargear and powers, but go into their background + history, motivations, priorities, allies and enemies, can they be bought off? are there compromises that they would accept (e.g. if they are found out doing one thing, is it important enough for them to defend it with their lives? Or is it just one of many plans, and they will abandon it in favour of doing more important tasks?).

I'm not saying you are wrong in what you are doing, but I GM'd for about 10+ years (so I don't know if this helps or not) and I tried the style you're mentioning, but it doesn't always work out too well, as sometimes it feels like a restriction/maze.

What I found was that I always did it on the basis of free-form roleplaying and also tried to let the characters get involved and to tell their own stories and it worked really well.
To make this style work, you need:

*To know your players (i.e. what they are looking for in an rp).

*To know their characters (i.e. what do they like to do/motivations, are there any long term goals they want to achieve, do they individually have any long-standing enemies or allies who keep interfering/helping, do they have things in their background e.g. phobia's, personal hobbies, etc?).

*To know the world they inhabit, such as is there something which is going to happen in a certain timeline? (i.e. even in 40K, it doesn't always have to be world-shattering horrors) What is the 'feel' of the world they inhabit, both in the overall mood, but also in the general area nearest to them (a decaying forgeworld, a sprawling hive city, do they mainly hang out near an Arbites precinct which is secretly corrupt)?
And what are the ongoing timelines in the world in terms of NPC plans, evil plots, etc. (N.B. not all ideas have the same timeline, e.g. some ideas will be nearing completion, others will be mid-term and just continuing as normal, others will be escalating or diminishing, whereas and others are just merely starting out).

As the PC's go around doing their usual thing, they get rumours or suggestions of what to do (e.g. they might all have the same superior NPC asking them to get involved in things), but not all of these are linked to your 'storyline'. Then it's up to them what to follow up on.

As time goes by, each rumour may have an ongoing plan of what might happen if ignored/stopped (e.g. eventually a local gun-runner might become a medium-sized criminal organisation with bigger connections, or someone travelling on false passports might actually be an assassin who got sloppy once or twice, but doesn't know they have been traced yet).

Then, whether they investigate 'story x' or not, each idea/rumour progresses with the timeline, so some suggestions become more concrete + maybe a few things start happening as the NPC's plans come to fruition, maybe other rumours start, etc.

If the idea (for example) was for "find out who is behind the evil plot and make sure these bad guys don't get away", you can always have them come back at a later date (e.g. it may have been a race against time to capture the criminal/mutant NPC but the PC's were too late...however, the shuttle which the NPC was using got shot down as they fled, and the survivors were apprehended by someone else, but later escaped, keeping just one or two steps ahead of the PC's, but still roaming around at large to create problems later on).

Anyway, hope this makes sense (tired atm) and hope it might be of assistance; let me know if I can help any more.

[zerodemon]

@andyg2006 See, I didn't explain myself very well. The rumours angle you were running with is exactly what I'm talking about. Seeing it written down in such a concise, informative form is quite helpful though. Gets the brain juices flowing.

When I say relatively structured, I just mean I have a prescribed main plot thread (ie the thing the Inquisitor should be focussing on.) It's not on the rails by any means. I just know where that main plot thread is going. I know what the bad guys will be doing and when. The PC's will then be given the chance to thwart/assist those actions (depending on their alignment.)

I love to have those branching stories. We ran the Inquisitor campaign packs that games workshop released and, thanks to branching stories, changed the Karis Cephalon section from a 6 week session in to 5 months.

We're going right ahead with the vampires for now. The guys love the idea of being vampire hunters. Suppose I'll see where it goes.

[kaled]

I'd definitely suggest more than one PC per player - there's nothing more frustrating for a player than having his one PC incapacitated and having to sit around and do nothing for half a game while his character just makes healing actions. Or worse, having him be put out of action for most of the game.

I'm surprised so many people find 28mm so much cheaper than 54mm that they dismiss 54mm. Sure, 28mm can be cheaper, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. I've shopped around on eBay and got poorly painted GW models for just £5 which were easy to clean up which makes them about the price of a 28mm model. Also I've bought non-GW models cheap enough that I was able to build a four man 54mm warband for less than £10 - and that got me four unique characters that were well received by everyone who saw them, not just four rubbishy generic plastic toy soldiers. Plus there are a lot of advantages to 54mm that, for many people, mean it's well worth paying the extra for - especially as you don't need to build new terrain or make any other investment over 28mm.

[zerodemon]

Nice to see someone fight for 54mm. My issue would be NPC variation. We have played in 28mm quite a bit and it's allowed me to form teams of skitarii, mutants and kroot as well as some really great random models.

[kaled]

NPCs are easy enough at 54mm. There are plenty of cheap models you can get that can be easily converted with bits from your bits box. For example there are some plastic Russian models that are popular at the moment. Take a look at these threads;
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/...p?topic=1640.0
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/...p?topic=1723.0
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/...10253#msg10253

As you can see, they're a good base for NPC conversions - most people just do weapon swaps, often for Ork weapons, but it'd be easy to go a bit further and turn them into mutants or skitarii rather than guardsmen or gangers.

And they're not the only option you have for NPCs. De Agostini do a range of collectable Star Wars miniatures that you can pick up for a few quid each which can also be converted easily to make NPCs (or PCs for that matter). There's also a similar range of LotR models. I've also seen people use 1/32 Airfix models. There are also some 28mm models that work well at 54mm - e.g. ogres make good (short) mutants.

In other words, finding NPCs isn't difficult. Maybe not quite as easy as at 28mm, but not so difficult that it should be a reason to put anyone off playing at 54mm.

[MarcoSkoll]

I should add though that 54mm NPCs are probably a mite easier for those of us in the UK.

With a rather more close-knit community made up of a large number of experienced and dedicated modellers, many of them with a long history of 54mm, it doesn't take much more to find a heap of NPCs for the events than "Hey, who wants to bring along some spare cultists?"

(Which, on something of a meta-level, is a neat demonstration of how an Inquisitorial Ordo works - Inquisitors sharing their resources to create a far more powerful force than they could muster alone.)

[kaled]

But even if you're just playing in a small gaming group, all you need is for everyone to build a handful of multi purpose NPCs and you should have plenty of scope for running nice varied games.