Necromunda as a RPG

[The_Dragon_Rising]

I would be surprised if I were the first to have this thought but I cannot find otherwise.

The Idea

The idea would be to play a RPG campaign in the same vein as D+D, etc but using Necromunda as the basis of both the story and combat system.

The Gang

As opposed to each played having a gang each, instead each player would control a character in a gang and would RP their particular character with the GM making the gang decisions.

Why

It would lead to a different experience, a blend of a story driven campaign and individual character development combined with the combat and environment that Necromunda provides.

The Changes

There would have to be minor adjustments to the rules in order for it to work; the wounds characteristic would be the main one and the levelling system for characters could use some more development. For the most part the GM should serve to keep the rest balanced however.

_________________________________

The first question therefore is whether anybody has read about or tried a similar idea themselves, and, if so, how did it work out?

The second question would be, if we assumed I had a group willing to try this in the coming months, what other points would you bring up which could need exploring or changing in order to make this a 'smooth ride'?

Finally, my aim would be that any changes made to the rules for this could also work within the basis of a normal necro campaign and thus could result in some give-back to the community in terms of new ideas and developments.

Any thoughts and comments are welcome at this point.

[Malo]

I ran a campaign recently which was somewhat RP and story-based but each player had their own gang. The campaign is currently on hiatus due to RL becoming so busy, but details of our various scenarios and summaries are here http://www.yakromunda.com/campaign/106/yak-sector-k-42

I found I had to fudge and make up a lot of rules during the campaign as Necromunda just isn't designed for a storyline RP campaign at all. The idea of every "scenario" ending with territory and income didn't really work as during a lot of the campaign they didn't even have territories, they gradually earned or gained them in other ways. So I had different means of providing income during some of the scenarios and they really had to watch their spending. Quite often there were activities and continuing scenarios following each other that didn't lend to the idea of collecting income and doing injury rolls etc. when they're in the middle of a large event spanning several scenarios. Also the concept of out of action and bottle rolls didn't work for a lot of scenarios I wanted to do as it didn't make sense that they could escape areas with OOA guys sitting there that they suddenly get back. Quite a few times they actually had to drag their fallen comrades out of an area to survive.

The idea of each player having a single ganger is more along the lines of Inquisitor or something but in a Underhive scenario?

[The_Dragon_Rising]

I agree that the post game rolls do not really support a story driven campaign and as such I too would likely remove territories for the most part and have something like looting of bodies for income which could be sold at a market/bazaar/general goods store and which could also serve to replace the rare item table (roll instead to see what the store has in terms of rare items).

As stated OOA/Wounds I believe would be one the main changes that I'd need to make as with only one character the chance that a single lucky shot could kill them would defeat the idea of a campaign.

For the most part though, yes, you are correct, something along the lines of INQ but with the general aim being that it could be distanced from the superhuman and instead focus on the 'everyman' so to speak (of course of the campaign survived that it not to say progression could see them toting huge suits of armour or even leaving the hive).

[Caiphas Cain]

I think an adaptation of Dark Heresy would work pretty well actually. That or the rules from Inquisitor.

To get rid of the lucky shot ending someones life, DH has fate points, which can be "burned" to save you from instant death. Say you get three fate points per character, one fate point can be used for a reroll, regaining D6 wounds, ect. After each session, you get your fate points back. However, one a fate point is burned, it's gone forever.

[Scalebug]

Back in the 90's we played Necomunda campaigns (as well as 40K setting in general) using the G.U.R.P.S rules, it worked very well, as those rules in their very concept are done to enable any setting you want. We even got an approving thumbs up by Andy Chambers himself, when we had him as a guest at a con I was part of organising back then, as he also liked that game. Present day, I would probably look at the FFG 40K games, it seems to me it wouldn't be all that much work fitting them to an underhive gang war setting, all gear available in Necromunda game, and much more is already present, what you would need to do is probably just write up some fitting career paths and such.

Re-working the actual Necromunda rules for a more detailed RPG, first person so to speak, game, would not be my choosen path.

[Malo]

I think an adaptation of Dark Heresy would work pretty well actually. That or the rules from Inquisitor.

To get rid of the lucky shot ending someones life, DH has fate points, which can be "burned" to save you from instant death. Say you get three fate points per character, one fate point can be used for a reroll, regaining D6 wounds, ect. After each session, you get your fate points back. However, one a fate point is burned, it's gone forever.

Actually Dark Heresy is what I was thinking of, I just thought Inquisitor as you're part of an Inqusitors group. Thanks.

[The_Dragon_Rising]

I am sure I have a DH rulebook rattling around somewhere so I shall certainly check that for ideas.

The idea of "fate points" I believe is a bit too grounded in the supernatural.

As the aim would be to capture the 'gritty' feel of the 40k universe for the average 'hiver' this would be inappropriate.

Also, "Scalebug", can you please expand on G.U.R.P.S, it is not an acronym with which I am familiar

One proposal that I gave a bit of thought too and i'd like to get some thoughts on:

Wounds characteristics change:
- Each character starts on approximatly 10 wounds with every 5 being the equivalent of 1 wound in normal NM terms (so a starting level of 2W)
- Weapons and damage would be dealt in terms of Str=Wounds dealt so a Str 4 weapon would take a 10 wound character down to 6, so on and so forth
- Potential for heavier weapons, such as those with high impact to do 2x/3x damage to represent their ability to OHKO the average man (for obvious reasons therefore Lascannons would not be a common story weapon)
- Potential for special weapon rules such as flamers to be simplified to do 1 damage for every turn the character is burning, or some such.
- Change the Flesh Wound, Down, OOA rule such that every time a hit is inflicted, (one 4 wound hit counting as 1 rather than 4), a character suffers -1 WS+BS representing the wound, and at less than 5 wounds a character would go down. Any character healed, (healing equipment or somesuch), above 5 wounds again would be able to return to action (suffering from the above flesh wound rule), however any character that drops to 0 or lower would be incapacitated and unable to return to the fight. (Potential here to use serious injury table, perhaps edited, for characters who end a 'fight' on 0 or lower wounds).

Potential here also to bring in structures/vehicles, etc with a Toughness and Wound Characteristic: for example a wooden wall could have T5, W30 representing that it would take a few hits from the average human to knock it down/through, whereas an armoured truck would be much harder going into the realms of heavy weapons only (T9, W85)

Thoughts on these changes and the potential impact the variety of weapons/rules would have if implemented?

[Scalebug]

wikipedia.

Good game, though I haven't played it since, since I drifted away from RPG's the last years of the previous century and never got back into it.

[New Cult King]

I've run a hive-based gang game using the DH rules, and it works perfectly

[wilsongrahams]

The biggest issue I see is that if each player controls one member of the gang, who are they fighting and who controls them? The games master? Or would they be bot like with simple actions - always advance or shoot depending upon weapon? Would the enemy consist of gangers up to the same gang rating every time or is this where the rpg element comes in - some will be easy walks in the park, others you'll be lucky just to escape alive and forget about territory etc.

[The_Dragon_Rising]

The biggest issue I see is that if each player controls one member of the gang, who are they fighting and who controls them? The games master? Or would they be bot like with simple actions - always advance or shoot depending upon weapon? Would the enemy consist of gangers up to the same gang rating every time or is this where the rpg element comes in - some will be easy walks in the park, others you'll be lucky just to escape alive and forget about territory etc.

As you say, it would be GM vs Players and as such could mix it up with easier and harder fights; by having this as a story driven, character based campaign too, rather than purely a gang vs gang system, it would not be out of the question to include other ideas from the standard RPG repertoire, for example, 'Gang Leader wants you 3 to go an collect item x from place y; on the way you run into roaming monster A and Scavenger gang B, etc' which would, hopefully, keep away from, what can sometimes, become the worst part of NM, in as far as that every gang can be expected to look the same and run similar weaponry, thus become repetitive.

[Askil the Undecided]

I think the problem wilsongrahams sees are the result of him(?) envisioning Necromunda the RPG as exactly that, rather than an RPG set on Necromunda.

[wilsongrahams]

Possibly. Having not delved too deeply into RPG's in their true forms, I guess I have always assumed an RPG based on Necromunda would just mean you had one model instead of a gang and that the fights are set by a games master and the 'may I open this crate and see if there's anything inside?' would not be part of it. As you say, an RPG set on necromunda with the necro rules for the combat is different to what I envisage. To me, taking one character each has it's own rewards (In gorkamorka, necromunda and space hulk) and I have usually done this when there is no chance of a campain to start and lots of players waiting about. Choosing to look after your own model means you tend to play safe and not help out other gang members at times even if beneficial to the team as a whole to do so.

Sorry about the rant. So, is the OP interested in a full-on RPG using mini's and necro combat, or a necro game where you have one 'standard' model and the opponents appear randomly etc as per games master decision? I once used this second system for a plague zombie game. My gang had gotten too big for it's boots and needed wiping out and starting again, so the gang was split up between players (most not actually necromunda players at all) and then in the spare time after our normal fantasy and 40k games, we played til 'home time' with random things happening as I thought of them. Each time the gang got more and more beat up, and I'd bring along silly models as surprises (A Carnifex once!). This is how I viewed what the op wanted.

[The_Dragon_Rising]

I believe that the intention would lean towards your first statement, a "full-on RPG using mini's and necro combat", but as this is a board for discussion its merits and foibles when aired will allow me to decide whether to do it.

I too have tried gang/s vs 'things', heck we even had times whereby we had four players gangs teaming up to beat the 'zombie horde' but at the end of the day this was still NM with an alternate battle type rather than NM with an altered direction.

[The_Dragon_Rising]

I believe that the intention would lean towards your first statement, a "full-on RPG using mini's and necro combat", but as this is a board for discussion its merits and foibles when aired will allow me to decide whether to do it.

I too have tried gang/s vs 'things', heck we even had times whereby we had four players gangs teaming up to beat the 'zombie horde' but at the end of the day this was still NM with an alternate battle type rather than NM with an altered direction.

[bosky]

I think the idea is neat in theory, but I feel that the Necromunda combat rules are skewed too heavily towards skirmish gameplay as compared to RPGs and some players may find it limiting to control only a single figure. They aren't really a ton of in-depth options that a player could do each turn as the combat rules are really built around a skirmish level in terms of the degree of detail and decision making. Think of something like a turn in D&D compared to a single models turn in Necromunda: In D&D you can do a bunch of different attacks and "special moves", in Necromunda it'd be "Okay I move and roll a couple of times to shoot". You want that degree of abstraction when you have 8+ models to manage, but not when you just have a lone ganger to worry about.
Modifying something like Dark Heresy or Inquisitor would probably work better since you could delve deeper into skills, exact hit locations, etc.

[Askil the Undecided]

For example: Almost every single time I played Inquisitor the first shot of the game always managed to hit someone square in the groin.

[Grimbad]

I think the idea is neat in theory, but I feel that the Necromunda combat rules are skewed too heavily towards skirmish gameplay as compared to RPGs and some players may find it limiting to control only a single figure. They aren't really a ton of in-depth options that a player could do each turn as the combat rules are really built around a skirmish level in terms of the degree of detail and decision making. Think of something like a turn in D&D compared to a single models turn in Necromunda: In D&D you can do a bunch of different attacks and "special moves", in Necromunda it'd be "Okay I move and roll a couple of times to shoot". You want that degree of abstraction when you have 8+ models to manage, but not when you just have a lone ganger to worry about.

That's one way to look at it, but many of the people I play RPGs with prefer D6-based systems that don't have lots of mechanics. On the other hand, those systems tend also to be more open-ended than Necromunda is as a system, but on the mutant third hand, a good GM could probably make it all work by providing some good narration over the combat and giving players difficulty rolls for things they want to do which the rules don't cover.

[The_Dragon_Rising]

That's one way to look at it, but many of the people I play RPGs with prefer D6-based systems that don't have lots of mechanics. On the other hand, those systems tend also to be more open-ended than Necromunda is as a system, but on the mutant third hand, a good GM could probably make it all work by providing some good narration over the combat and giving players difficulty rolls for things they want to do which the rules don't cover.

Ive been away for a while as work has been ramping up but work on this project has not been forgotten. I believe that Grimbad here has stated what I currently have as a vision for this as an RPG; narration over complex rules. That said I have reworked some of the rules and I have brainstormed a way to have difficulty rules in the game.

I shall aim to share these soon for critique.

[Inquisitor Kallus]

Seriously, check out Dark Heresy. It is pretty awesome and allows you to add more to your whole setting as such. The D100 system allows for a lot more variety and the array of items, weapons and equipment allows for a great deal of personalisation of characters.

Also the rules are all there even a recommendation on using 28mm models...1m=1inch , all you have to do is set the scene as it were and put in restrictions etc. The only big thing I would say is the weapon ranges, theyre realistic...pistols shooting 30 meters and so on but it is the modifiers to hit etc that make it more reasonable and indeed being Necromunda there should be a fair amount of terrain.