Mr. Welch's Mad Musings: Dark Heresy

[@jackotears8692]

'Dark Heresy' is what made me a fan of 40K. That, and the 'Eisenhorn' books.

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

While Dawn of War was my introduction to 40K, it was just a fun childhood memory of a fun game with some cool cinematics and voice lines. Discovering Dark Heresy by way of being a Neon Genesis Evangelion fan(because there's a fan-made NGE RPG based off it) got me briefly into 40K as a setting... Discovering If The Emperor had a Text-To-Speech Device via a RWBY fanfic discussion thread(don't ask, I barely remember any details beyond the shock of seeing "Slaanesh Patrol" with zero context, abd it sonehow got be morbidly interested enough to look deeper) is what actually got me to stay interested in 40K...

[@inquisitordragon6827]

Personally, it's nice to see a Group of Ogryn that somehow got recruited by a Inquisitor. Fumbling around and somehow succeeding.

[@PenumbranWolf]

1st edition Dark Heresy is one of those systems that are very versatile. I have run it as both a Cyberpunk setting where I told my players to replace any instance of the word Ecclesiarchy with the word Corp. and I have even run it as a kind of Steam Punk magitech setting.

[@SpicyChickenGodAJ]

I've known about Dark Heresy for years, had a stolen PDF I loved scanning through and then I go to Conroe for some Christmas shopping and found both Rouge Trader and Dark Heresy first for 70 bucks a pop.

[@SerpenThrope]

FYI, my girlfriend and I decided to test out Aquelarre character creation. I decided not to read it in advance, since I wanted her to teach it to me (it was a gift for her). We're enjoying it, but at times it does feel like if someone with an actual understanding of history (and less obsession with rape) wrote FATAL, because it sure as hell doesn't sugarcoat anything. We're not done making my character, but he's a slave, with no proficiency in weapons, a eunuch, and his parents are unknown.

[@Ravenclaw74]

I have been fortunate to have every book from all Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Only War/Black Crusade/Deathwatch

[@Ravenclaw74]

No not planning to sell them. Going to mine material for my eventual Wrath and Glory games.

[@jiriz0r]

Ah Dark Heresy, the game that got me into rpgs after drooling over the lore in pdfs of scanned copies. So many characters, so many campaigns, so many fond memories. So many splatbooks too, by the end of 1E buying new gear meant hours of choice paralysis. Do I want an Armageddon pattern Autogun with a red-dot and manstopper rounds for high damage (implied to fire .308 as it was built for anti-Ork use). Or maybe a Sollex Deathlight lasgun with a backpack powersource (mentioned in the entry for the gun but never actually listed anywhere) for that sweet sweet Armour Penetration? Kinda surprised you didn’t mention how The Lathe Worlds made all classes beside the Tech Priest superfluous though, that shit allowed for some hilariously OP Tech Priest builds that could straight up outclass any other class at its own game and be nigh unkillable to boot.

[@TheGRAAK]

Anything after Radical's handbook (more or less) is garbage ;) (except Haarlock's campaign, of course) I love this game!

[@hellhammerCCCP]

I'll never forget my guardsman punk girl that last one session thanks to mouthing off to the wrong officer

[@jasonnewell7036]

Only played Dark Heresy a little, but I remember my character was a Hive Ganger with a magnificent pompadour. The pompadour was very important.

[@jsmoothd654]

CEASE YOUR HERESY

[@Balevolt]

One of the Las Guns ( the MK.III) in the inquisitors handbook was literally just a basis lasgun with flavor text it was great.

[@dredlord47]

Wait a minute. Hold up >genestealers >medium threat A PURESTRAIN GENESTEALER IS A LEGITIMATE THREAT TO A TERMINATOR IN SINGLE COMBAT! DON'T YOU "Medium threat" ME! JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE MORE HORRIFYING THINGS THAN GENESTEALERS DOESN'T MEAN THAT THEY'RE NOT A MASSIVE THREAT!

[@hughsmith7504]

Medium as in the middle of the threat scale, not as in roughly even to a medium lvl player :)

[@dredlord47]

@@hughsmith7504 An Ork Nob is a medium threat hostile. Anything able to gut a terminator marine on its own is high threat.

[@ChaosTicket]

Psychic powers in Warhammer (and the magic in Warhammer Fantasy) usually are very risky often ridiculously so making the idea that the Imperium has Navigators, Astropaths, and other psykers operating every day practically impossible. I remember the Inquisitor rpg from the early 2000s. If you wanted to use any psyker power you have to Succeed at the roll or suffer a backlash that lowered your psyker stat (Sagacity if I remember right) by as much as you failed by. You could have your character spend multiple actions raising your success chance. Then using psychic powers was also considered a Risky Action so even if you could perform it you could randomly fail and have your stat lowered.

[@OzarkCelt]

I played this a bit back around 2010, IIRC. I liked it but the GM didn't like character death so I went around blazing guns like crazy.

[@Maehedrose]

I finally managed to get the 'Only War' core book so I now have all the core game books for the FFG line. There are still some of the expansion books I need, especially in 'Deathwatch' and 'Black Crusade', but I was very happy to get this part of my collection finished.

[@YuriPRIMErpg]

About some DH2E troubled fate... I hold an unpopular opinion that it's far from being a rules upgrade, and it becomes obvious when you look at it's development cycle. (If you were in backers Early access for DH2, oh boy, what a messy ride it was.) First things first, one has to detach himself from the idea that an increment to an edition number at the end of the word 'Edition' is somehow equates to an improvement... not to say that there wasn't room for some, nor that it wasn't needed, but DH2 is an example of taking two steps forward and one step back... and then two steps sideways... and then running in circles, screaming for attention. Contrary to some bogus opinion, the licence wasn't all of a sudden yanked from FFGs dainty hands, like they didn't expect it coming... the licence wasn't *extended* and they knew well about it ahead of time. They knew about it, because they were having talks about Warhammer Fantasy licence extention, which wasn't granted a long while before 40k talks. Which, again, is typical Games Workshop tactic, they grant someone licence on terms favoring GW, when the studio proves to produce quality content, the next time around they have a good bargaining position to ask for better shares... that's when Games Workshop ditches the publisher and goes to a smaller studio that aches for a famous IP to latch onto and become famous(they'll agree to humiliating profit splits just for a shot to put themselves on a map via popular IP) Fantasy Flight was too big and too pricy. Non of the rumors about Star Wars content published by FFG being the reason GW dropped the support was any true... GW does that all the time, Ulisses Spiel North America (folk responsible for "Laugh and Lorry") was exactly such story, small studio on life support that crafted some generic RPG with 40k skin over it. Likewise Cubicle 7 for Fantasy Roleplay, but those fellas were smart enough to latch onto 1'st Edition nostalgia, which sold well so far. Now... FFG knew they won't get licence extention, so they slapped together 2nd Edition Dark Heresy as a last effort to capitalize on a popular franchise, because Dark Heresy stands still as most popular and most revered title of the series, a cult clasic, that's what they went for... they slapped this RPG together in 6 months! In their first designs the idea was for complete rework of the system, one with action points much like in fallout, where different actions had different point costss, reworked influence and subtelty system... However, as the time went on (and FFG was running out of time in fact) they scrapped the project and gave you a mish mash of Only War/Black Crusade mechanics, spliced with a list of houserules from FFG forums, regardles whether it made sense or not. So behold, we're back to breakdancing recoil guns from Black Crusade and Only War... cause someone decided full auto was too effective, and we have to give singleshots a chance, despite the fact it makes no sense realistically, lore-wise and in corresponding game mechanics. They completely removed monetary concept, cause 'money bad', despite the fact you had influence mechanics in expansion to 1E, but that was for high rank gameplay, and lack of currency was a real mess for low power and early street level adventures and investigations... now your acolytes walk into a bar and are expected to flash their bills of exchange at people or some other nonsense... Try playing 1st part of Harlock's Legacy where the whole point is, you are on your own, scavenging for resources on hostile world, everything counts and you have to be careful about what you spend on bribes, ammo and gear. 2E changed the crit mechanic to be more interesting (well, actually took it from Only War - that's a theme here) so now when you roll a 10 you incure a minor crit effect on the enemy without going on their critical wounds threshold... so now an enemy can't use his left hand for 2 rounds, the other will be slightly dazed for 3 rounds, yet another will have some other effect for x rounds... what they did in fact was prolong the encounters, adding to book keeping process a bunch of insignificant small effects for a brief narrative flare. The mechanic to call in for a powerful NPC help that shows itself out of nowhere was the dumbest thing I've seen in a 40k game... Imagine you can call for a Space Marine to drop from orbit in the middle of your spicy combat encounter, cause you have problems dealing with foes and just spent some magic narrative points... all of a sudden a solemn drop pod of some dumbo who hangs out in orbit to save Acolytes in a nick of time, shows up and saves the day. Hooray! It's an action game now? Players can't feel sad about loosing key encounters, it's modern gaming. For the same reason they had to ump the stats... cause aparently GMs don't know about how to use modifiers? Despite the fact it's given in multiple examples. Now every action you do is at +10... cause 50% to pass a test on a green starting character is super low and unplayable apparently... oh and don't get me started with the loonies who think it's 30% chance, you can see they have no idea how this system works when they look at stats, see base chance of 33% and completely omit you're suppose to supplement that base chance with decisions, gear and declarations, but that part of the community is a completely different can of worms, ironically that's the same folk who had exactly same complaint in 2E, when they couldn't pass with 40% in base stat, plus 10% mercy mod FFG shoved into the game to shut them up. Psychic powers were neutered, and not much improved from 1E, alas they were tamed somewhat. That said, 1E had major issues. Elite advancements(outside your career progress table) were not touched upon at all, beside vague 'increase the cost' advice if one wanted to buy it out. And there is significant lack of rules or info about vehicles. Add to that absolutely insane psychic powers... how insane? well for first, they were loosely defined. A paragraph of ominous description at best, a sentence at worst. Hey, there is this power that lets you lay on the ground and stand up as spectral form invisible to anyone, that can pass through walls and cast psychic powers! Is there a limitation? How far can one project himself? Can a psyker like that be harmed? How fast does his spectral form moves? Can it chase down a vehicle or airplane flying away and mind control the pilot? No one knows, cause it's left unexplained and undefined... say what you want about 3rd edition DnD, at least they put some hard math on those spells, even if they led to ridicullous outcomes. Telepathy? you can project yourself to anyone in solar system... how do you know where they are? do you need some sort of link? oh boy, psychic powers were a mess. Dark Heresy 2 was a product line to earn some quick buck while they still could. FFG knew well they couldn't deliver on a profound long line of expansions like everyone hoped, but they cynically presented it this way to ramp up sales, cause no one would support a product with such hard short deadline. Took bits and pieces from Only War and Black Crusade, sprinkled it with houserule dust from the forums and people fell for it. Askellon sector was small, stereotype driven setting, cause it had to be written quick and cheep. Rules had to be compatible with the last few games to hopefuly move the remaining product off the shelves, and fans who saw their favorite houserules immortalized in the system had greater incentive to buy a copy.

[@braddoc4087]

I agree on the full auto rule change...it was ridiculous to see 'I shot full auto before you never get all shots on a target for real in real life' and 'even armies today don't go around full auto everywhere except dedicated, and braced, specialists operators and blablablabla...'. It's a game set where you got to pray or at least get a thought about the soul in your gun before you fire it, if you didn't made the sacred cleaning ritual, reciting prayers as you strip and clean your weapon before going out in the field that is...who cares about now it's set 38 000 years into the future, where everything is on full auto. I will admit it was powerful, but so was an accurate weapon with extra damage dice and everyone loved those. No one liked the autogun with fire selector, silencer and manstoppers rounds, but an accurate rifle with a silencer and scope firing called shots to the head with dum dums was all right. Same for money removal. And how the so called 'whiff' factor is blown out of proportion; just most ranged weapons, you get +20 with just being at short range and aiming half a round and firing the other half action. In melee you gang up; you ambush, recce the place, think before you leap. You don't Space marine it throught the front door and kill everyone because 'Inquisition'. If you do, then it's either time's up so we got to do it NOW or lack of ideas and shooting is always fun. To add for negatives, there's the bad mistakes and errors of the careers in the Core book, especially the Scum, the Talents as well; the errata helps sort things out a bit. The Beastiary section is lacking, the humans are types, but nothing one cannot already do with the book itself with numerous variation of Arbites, and Scum types alongside weird ones like butcher. Tech-Priest can become too powerful, with having thier own powers like levitation, throwing lightining balls, affecting minds via subliminal sounds waves, un-jamming guns (a dozen or so) with but a wave of the hand, recharge lasweapon chargepcks- and let's not begin with the mecharendrites. I say that if FFG had done Only War as a DH supplement as it was supposed to, add in maybe the Ogryn and Ratling as extra races to play, put in the Regimental creation rules. Have the Guardsmen careers be extra rank bought at char gen to get a role, with the Specialists class as extra careers for the Cleric/Psyker/Tech-Priest, throw in Munitorium quartermaster for Scum/Adept, get Arbitrators as Commissar or even make it a new career. Add in the vehicule rules and vehicules (instea of relying on RT for that in DH), some new gear, add the Spinward Front as a way to advance the setting of the Calixis Sector, a nice backdrop for more investigation on Heretics, Xenos and Chaos, and close enough to cut in some Rogue Trader and Deathwatch into the mix. Then it would have rounded up 1st pretty much everywhere and kept it going instead of killing it and restarting anew with a different mechanic

[@SerpenThrope]

I find this series interesting, because I have friends on the Dark Heresy side and friends on the Wrath and Glory side. Excited to see how theh compare.

[@RollCorruption]

Great video, i'm currently in the process of creating a fan project Dark heresy 3. Very useful to get me in the mood to sit down and write.

[@argeltalthecustodiankiller6552]

Speed hard to say, because in the book Horus duck the emperor hits , but the rest can’t think of anything wrong.

[@scottycheesecake]

I love Dark Heresy. The criticisms are spot on, though.

[@Balevolt]

Using a psyker rules for the high level rules makes psykers work alot better in 1.0

[@Dariushellstrome]

This was interesting but I'm really interested in the next video, I never heard of it, don't speak spanish but I find stuff about rpgs not available in english to be interesting

[@NefariousKoel]

Same. Checked out the English version of the French RPG Capharnaum awhile back. Interesting concepts. Took a bit to wrap my head around some of it thus far.

[@docnecrotic]

More 40K makes me happy!

[@AlVainactual]

Thank god the Cubicle 7 rescued Wrath and Glory

[@SerpenThrope]

Btw, my girlfriend is jumping for joy to see you review Aquelarre.

[@LezCharming]

I really like the roleplay of the Templar Calaxis, but don't wanna be overpowered. What about this revision? Your fate is sealed. Upon taking your Templar vows,your mind is scanned so thoroughly that even your future paths become utterly foreseeable. You cannot ever use or gain fate points. You are always fate 0.

[@LezCharming]

Here's four more disads. Monastic robes. Any armor beyond robes is considered Templar anathema,a sign of ostentatious void taint. Strictly forbidden. Physchic swordlash. Restricted to melee. Gets backlash for even picking up a ranged weapon. Physchic poverty. You can't buy items. You can only accept gifts from your liege lord. Greed is void taint. This last one is 2ed specific. Physchic temptation. Your powerful mind is ever a temptation. Roll that demon risk every time you use any psyonics.

[@heymay724]

I hope you bring up cubicle sevens Revamp of Wrath and Glory if you ever get around to that. It seems to be a Improvement and should have been the release version.

[@Mr_Welch]

Need to get a copy. Pretty sure I can get a copy of the first attempt pretty cheap.

[@heymay724]

@@Mr_Welch Its so bad man..

[@NefariousKoel]

@@Mr_Welch - I don't know if they changed many core rules from 1e to the new 2e just yet, but the gray background in the 1e book is an eye sore. Also has some layout and grammatical issues. Also, sadly, rather thin on the great 40k art for a book that size. Cubicle 7's 2nd edition looks much easier on the eyes and better organized, from what I've scanned of the PDF thus far, and I think it's core book is supposed to be released late May or thereabouts. All that said, I much prefer Wrath & Glory's dice pool system over the old d100 system with it's stacks accountant-scaring stacks of modifiers. Also easier to mix different factions in it, such as Astartes and Inquisitorial Acolytes or Mechanicus. Hell, or just doing an all-Mechanicus run for example.

[@theblindbuildergrandminuti5648]

Jedi? I think you mean sensei... heh

[@jameshenderson4876]

No

[@AGTheOSHAViolationsCounter]

Mr. Welch: Calls Dark Hersey "lethal" Me: Watches Mr. Tex and the BPL crew Police Academy/lethal weapon their way through a campaign where NONE of them die. Magisterium Mundanus 4 lyfe!! Grikklak fly real bird!