[Paladin+W40K] Game prep, or my first try at conscious Nar

[Christoph Boeckle]

I've been reading the Forge since a bit more than a year and am beginning to understand some of the stuff in a way that would allow me to actually put them into play in a coherent way. Here's where I discovered Nar: before that I thought people played for either "tactical fun" or "immersion". I recognized some elements we enjoyed in our games that could look like components of Narativism so I decided to consciously try to produce more such events in-game.

As far as Techniques where concerned, I had used some kind of Delayed Kicker before (a background element popping up in play unexpected and forcing the player to make a moral decision) for characters in a one-shot game, but I, the GM, had written the characters and the scenario and then let the players choose their character.
It actually did influence the game quite a bit in an interesting way, so I wanted more of that.

When I discovered Paladin, I just went like "Hey! That's an excellent example of a system that produces decision-making situations! Let's give it a try!"
Now I feel ready to tackle my first Narrativist game, with a greater awareness of the gaming phenomenon (explicit social contract, giving guidelines and suggestions for CA, a system to support it, etc.)
Now about the game itself:

Fundamental points
Play characters serving an ideology, frequently (constantly?) confronted with moral conflicts, and having to reach decisions about them.
To make it easier, the ideology isn't quite nice by RW standards, even if it has its reasons.
The system will reflect the moral conflict in the mechanical aspects as well.

So I decided on using the Paladin mechanics with just a few modifications:
Faith vs. Heresy: The terms that replace Light and Dark Animus. Faith represents the Grey Knight's point of view on the Emperor's cult. Heresy is deviance of those views (but one could be heretic and still fight for the people of the empire, of course). This is not a universal energy that lives in all things. It's a way more abstract and relative concept, but characters still derive strength from it. I've even thought of alternative dualisms for some alien races (the Eldar for example would work on something like Balance vs Excess), but that will be introduced only at a later stage, when the limits of Faith will have been explored to a certain degree.
Firearms: The attacker is always Active, and rolls against a difficulty, based on distance and visibility, assigned by the GM. If this is succesful, the victim rolls Reactive Flesh against a fixed difficulty depending on the weapon. Wounding then follows standard resolution.
Psy-powers: Characters can only perform downright supernatural actions it they've got the psy-power on their character sheet (bought like an ability, but activated through Faith or Heresy points). Examples: Psychic Assault, Holocaust, Shrouding...


Creating the Setting

Backdrop
I had wanted to run a game in the Warhammer 40'000 universe since ages. I now had a perfect reason to do this: a fucked up world, where no one could just sit back and live. Characters must do something for humanity to survive. At terrible costs sometimes (even outright over the top, but at least there are easy to identify concepts at work).
For those who don't know the setting to this table-top wargame, here's the general idea, perhaps a bit bended to my tastes:
Humans in the far 41st millenium have expanded across the universe under the lead of the Emperor. His body was slain in an epic battle against the forces of Chaos (beings from the parallel universe which basically just seek to feed of humans) but his remains where placed in a huge Throne in his palace, and his spirit is still supposed to communicate with the officials who run the Empire in his name.

Organization, Faith and Charter
The demonic hordes of the four aspects of Chaos (Khorne: sheer physical violence, Nurgle: illness and decay, Tzeentch: magic, Slaanesh: perversion) relentlessly try to infiltrate, assault, manipulate and corrupt humanity. Their primary means is posession of heretic cult members.
The Grey Knights order is the main fighting unit of the Empire against this danger. They must keep secret the existence of demons: the fear or greed of humans would litteraly open portals for those beings.
The PCs are such Grey Knights. Basically these guys are bio-engineered and fanatical warriors equiped with powerful combat suits and demon-hunting blades.
In the official W40K setting, these guys are just about fearless, undoubting, emotionless killers. Their faith and devotion to the Emperor is second to none. I slightly loosened it up, to allow for the decision making situations to occur.

Code
I understand this is a rather big code by Paladin standards, but I wanted to portray the Grey Knights as closely as possible. I hope it makes sense in the Paladin point of view as well.
The Word of the Emperor is a pretty large concept: the commands, beliefs and military/religious hierarchy of the order. I admit that the term doen't really fit. I could have broken this down into more laws, but I think they wouldn't occur in-game often enough to be worth the bother. One thing for instance would be assault on superiors: the game does not focus enough on political intrigues for this to be a worthwile law. If a PC does murder an Inquisitor for example, I'll just have them check off the "You will not refuse the Word of the Emperor" law, or even have them excommunicated from the order.

Minor Laws
- You will not doubt the Word of the Emperor.
- You will question the suspects [of demonic posession or heretic views].
- You will not linger in applying your sentences. [I suspect that this one is going to be redundant with the next law... I felt I had to have more Minor Laws than Major Laws and thought that this would incite players to make order-compatible decisions. But it doesn't really bring up a moral issue by itself.]
- You will show no emotions or weakness.

Major Laws
- You will not question the Word of the Emperor.
- Innocence proves nothing [rather kill an innocent than to let an open acces point for demons].
- You shall not heed demons' and heretics' words.

Ultimate Laws
- You will not refuse the Word of the Emperor.
- You will destroy all demons and heretics.

Arms
I didn't quite follow the Paladin guidelines.
The Holy scripture: This is what symbolizes the Grey Knight's commitment. It is usually worn on the armor's breastplate. No mechanical effects.
The Nemesis blade: This is the Grey Knight's symbol of power. A sword denotes the justice-bringing aspect, a hallberd the empire-protecting one. 1 die for combat. 3 dice if the enemy is a demon or heretic psyker [powerful heretics usually have access to demonic gifts in the form of psy-powers].
The Terminator armor: This is the Grey Knight's symbol of the protective virtues of the faith in the emperor-god. Adds 2 dice to combat (also against firearms). Allows breathing in all environments, night-vision and teleportation. 2 dice penalty on most athletic rolls.
Storm bolter: This is what you shoot your enemies with. 1 die for ranged combat. Range: 100m. Number of "wounding successes in case of hit": 4

Power
Grey Knights are capable of incredible physical resistance and devastating blows.
In addition, some Grey Knights master pychic powers. (Each power costs one ability).
Some special equipement is also at disposal. (Each special equipement costs one ability).


That's it for now. Characters and their kickers will follow shortly.


In the meanwhile, I'd love a little bit of advice on the way I adapted the mechanics, especially the code. For example: I mentioned at one point that the Grey Knighs must keep their activities secret. This is one of those "Words of the Emperor". Is this too vague and too vast? Did I blatantly forget a law, based on what I've said?

I believe we still need those character-options, so as not to be at a loss, even if all they portray are tactical advantages and color. I hope this does not disrupt the Nar aim of the game. Examples will follow with the characters in this same thread.

[Christoph Boeckle]

I've been reading the Forge since a bit more than a year and am beginning to understand some of the stuff in a way that would allow me to actually put them into play in a coherent way. Here's where I discovered Nar: before that I thought people played for either "tactical fun" or "immersion". I recognized some elements we enjoyed in our games that could look like components of Narativism so I decided to consciously try to produce more such events in-game.

As far as Techniques where concerned, I had used some kind of Delayed Kicker before (a background element popping up in play unexpected and forcing the player to make a moral decision) for characters in a one-shot game, but I, the GM, had written the characters and the scenario and then let the players choose their character.
It actually did influence the game quite a bit in an interesting way, so I wanted more of that.

When I discovered Paladin, I just went like "Hey! That's an excellent example of a system that produces decision-making situations! Let's give it a try!"
Now I feel ready to tackle my first Narrativist game, with a greater awareness of the gaming phenomenon (explicit social contract, giving guidelines and suggestions for CA, a system to support it, etc.)
Now about the game itself:

Fundamental points
Play characters serving an ideology, frequently (constantly?) confronted with moral conflicts, and having to reach decisions about them.
To make it easier, the ideology isn't quite nice by RW standards, even if it has its reasons.
The system will reflect the moral conflict in the mechanical aspects as well.

So I decided on using the Paladin mechanics with just a few modifications:
Faith vs. Heresy: The terms that replace Light and Dark Animus. Faith represents the Grey Knight's point of view on the Emperor's cult. Heresy is deviance of those views (but one could be heretic and still fight for the people of the empire, of course). This is not a universal energy that lives in all things. It's a way more abstract and relative concept, but characters still derive strength from it. I've even thought of alternative dualisms for some alien races (the Eldar for example would work on something like Balance vs Excess), but that will be introduced only at a later stage, when the limits of Faith will have been explored to a certain degree.
Firearms: The attacker is always Active, and rolls against a difficulty, based on distance and visibility, assigned by the GM. If this is succesful, the victim rolls Reactive Flesh against a fixed difficulty depending on the weapon. Wounding then follows standard resolution.
Psy-powers: Characters can only perform downright supernatural actions it they've got the psy-power on their character sheet (bought like an ability, but activated through Faith or Heresy points). Examples: Psychic Assault, Holocaust, Shrouding...


Creating the Setting

Backdrop
I had wanted to run a game in the Warhammer 40'000 universe since ages. I now had a perfect reason to do this: a fucked up world, where no one could just sit back and live. Characters must do something for humanity to survive. At terrible costs sometimes (even outright over the top, but at least there are easy to identify concepts at work).
The color is quite striking as well. There is the "danger" that the game slips into Color Sim though.
For those who don't know the setting to this table-top wargame, here's the general idea, perhaps a bit bended to my tastes:
Humans in the far 41st millenium have expanded across the universe under the lead of the Emperor. His body was slain in an epic battle against the forces of Chaos (beings from the parallel universe which basically just seek to feed of humans) but his remains where placed in a huge Throne in his palace, and his spirit is still supposed to communicate with the officials who run the Empire in his name.

Organization, Faith and Charter
The demonic hordes of the four aspects of Chaos (Khorne: sheer physical violence, Nurgle: illness and decay, Tzeentch: magic, Slaanesh: perversion) relentlessly try to infiltrate, assault, manipulate and corrupt humanity. Their primary means is posession of heretic cult members.
The Grey Knights order is the main fighting unit of the Empire against this danger. They must keep secret the existence of demons: the fear or greed of humans would litteraly open portals for those beings.
The PCs are such Grey Knights. Basically these guys are bio-engineered and fanatical warriors equiped with powerful combat suits and demon-hunting blades.
In the official W40K setting, these guys are just about fearless, undoubting, emotionless killers. Their faith and devotion to the Emperor is second to none. I slightly loosened it up, to allow for the decision making situations to occur.

Code
I understand this is a rather big code by Paladin standards, but I wanted to portray the Grey Knights as closely as possible. I hope it makes sense in the Paladin point of view as well.
The Word of the Emperor is a pretty large concept: the commands, beliefs and military/religious hierarchy of the order. I admit that the term doen't really fit. I could have broken this down into more laws, but I think they wouldn't occur in-game often enough to be worth the bother. One thing for instance would be assault on superiors: the game does not focus enough on political intrigues for this to be a worthwile law. If a PC does murder an Inquisitor for example, I'll just have them check off the "You will not refuse the Word of the Emperor" law, or even have them excommunicated from the order.

Minor Laws
- You will not doubt the Word of the Emperor.
- You will question the suspects [of demonic posession or heretic views].
- You will not linger in applying your sentences. [I suspect that this one is going to be redundant with the next law... I felt I had to have more Minor Laws than Major Laws and thought that this would incite players to make order-compatible decisions. But it doesn't really bring up a moral issue by itself.]
- You will show no emotions or weakness.

Major Laws
- You will not question the Word of the Emperor.
- Innocence proves nothing [rather kill an innocent than to let an open acces point for demons].
- You shall not heed demons' and heretics' words.

Ultimate Laws
- You will not refuse the Word of the Emperor.
- You will destroy all demons and heretics.

Arms
I didn't quite follow the Paladin guidelines.
The Holy scripture: This is what symbolizes the Grey Knight's commitment. It is usually worn on the armor's breastplate. No mechanical effects.
The Nemesis blade: This is the Grey Knight's symbol of power. A sword denotes the justice-bringing aspect, a hallberd the empire-protecting one. 1 die for combat. 3 dice if the enemy is a demon or heretic psyker [powerful heretics usually have access to demonic gifts in the form of psy-powers].
The Terminator armor: This is the Grey Knight's symbol of the protective virtues of the faith in the emperor-god. Adds 2 dice to combat (also against firearms). Allows breathing in all environments, night-vision and teleportation. 2 dice penalty on most athletic rolls.
Storm bolter: This is what you shoot your enemies with. 1 die for ranged combat. Range: 100m. Number of "wounding successes in case of hit": 4

Power
Grey Knights are capable of incredible physical resistance and devastating blows.
In addition, some Grey Knights master pychic powers. (Each power costs one ability).
Some special equipement is also at disposal. (Each special equipement costs one ability).


That's it for now. Characters and their kickers will follow shortly.


In the meanwhile, I'd love a little bit of advice on the way I adapted the mechanics, especially the code. For example: I mentioned at one point that the Grey Knighs must keep their activities secret. This is one of those "Words of the Emperor". Is this too vague and too vast? Did I blatantly forget a law, based on what I've said?

I believe we still need those character-options, so as not to be at a loss, even if all they portray are tactical advantages and color. I hope this does not disrupt the Nar aim of the game. Examples will follow with the characters in this same thread.

[Christoph Boeckle]

Oops. I thought I was editing the post.

I only inserted the line: "The color is quite striking as well. There is the "danger" that the game slips into Color Sim though." (Backdrop paragraph)

If any moderator pops up, could you please delete the post with the quote? Sorry for the inconvenience!

[Surcapitaine]

Hey, Artanis!

I don't know Paladin very well (only played it once, after all), but I think you did well with your adaptation. IMO, there's no need for a law adressing secrecy - as long as the players know it's vital that they stay hidden from the public, they will do so.

Nice idea to do 40K Paladin, by the way!

[BeZurKur]

I'm new here so I might have it all wrong, but wouldn't sim be an integral part of your game and not a danger?  Playing in the 40k universe will need to have the right feel colored by PC and NPC actions.  I don't know the game Paladin (and would appreciate if you can point me to it -- it sounds interesting) so I can't comment on the impact of the mechanics.  I suppose if the mechanics influence PC actions to mirror the 40k universe and they don't do so only to simulate the source material it would be less sim.  Would it be no sim?

Considering your premise, Faith vs. Heresy, a source you might find interesting is Inquisitor.  It is Game Workshop's loose attempt at RPGs.  Aware that the code of the Imperium does not allow for much roleplaying, they created different denominations all serving the Emperor.  Some believe that he has risen again in another body, others think that keeping him alive on the throne is preventing him from fully ascending, and some other interesting ideas.  As you can see, these would all be labled heretical by traditional Imperium doctrine and addresses your premise within the same organization the players will be in. 

[Andrew Morris]

Christoph, I'm certainly no expert on Paladin (I only played a half session once), but I don't see any areas where you deviated too significantly from the rules, except in the Arms section. I think you could easily have just stated the nemesis blade as the weapon of choice, and everything else can be standard equipment.

I'm pretty sure this thread doesn't belong in Actual Play, though, since it doesn't sound like you've actually played yet. It might be better suited to the Anvilwerks forum.

Joel, the full Paladin text is a available online here.

[Christoph Boeckle]

@Surcapitaine: I think you're right about the player's keeping to secrecy anyways, regardless of code. And thanks for the kind words ;)


@BeZurKur: Well, from what I've understood of CA and Forge theory, I could very well use the exploration of setting and color towards Nar goals. If the exploration is a way that leads to adressing the theme of "Is what I believed was Right truely the good solution?" then there shouldn't be a problem. What I was afraid of was that players might latch on to the richness of pre-existing W40K fiction to completely delve into exploration for the sake of it (that being Sim). If that happens, then players would probably more often than not just play their Grey Knights as portrayed in the wargame: a cruel, but necessary force whose members never experience doubt.
Exploration happens in all games anyway, it all depends how it's used.

I would have bought Inquisitor if I had the money, as I'm sure there are lot's of interesting ideas in it. Then again, and always hoping I'm understanding Nar well enough to promote it, what is really going to be interesting is to see how the players reach their own decisions about what their characters will do about their initial beliefs. So it's not so important to present possible Heresies, they'll surely come up with some pretty deviant stuff themselves :)
Thanks for talking about it. I didn't know it was that rich in fictional contents, and I might eventually get it for the sake of reading it.


@Andrew: You're probably right about the Arms section. Thing is, I've still not quite grasped why it is so important to have just one weapon for the order. As long as there is strong symbolism at disposal for illustrating various points in game, I'm pretty happy. And as I see the Holy Scripture, the Nemesis blade and the Terminator armour each as equally important symbols of the Grey Knightsm, I just put all three of them into that section.

I was unsure about which forum to post it to. I will also include the characters here in a few days. The lot will serve as a base for the five planned play sessions. Here I state the basics, the goal. In the other posts I will try to see how well we managed and analyze it a bit (especially regarding techniques).
If any moderator thinks it should go somewhere else, please do move the subject (and erase the enormous quote as well please).

[Andrew Cooper]

Artanis,

I wouldn't worry about having posted to this board.  I've seen play prep done here before.  It is generally accepted that you will post about the actual session if you post about the prep though.

[Trevis Martin]

Artanis,

You can get a legit pdf copy of the inquisitor rulebook for free if you want the background material.  It's available from Games Workshop's specialist games site.  You can download it in two halves.

http://specialist-games.com/inquisitor/default.asp

If that doesn't work, go to specialist-games.com and select inquisitor from there.

Just in case it is helpful.

best

Trevis

[Christoph Boeckle]

That's swell! Thanks a lot!

[Larry L.]

I just want to say 40K + Paladin sounds bitchin'!

Let us know how the actual play works out.

[Christoph Boeckle]

Here are the 4 PCs. Two players are pretty used to playing with me and they were the ones that had the hardest time of getting used to the character creation rules. (The attributes are way more abstract than those from CoC or D&D, f.ex..) Two others have played a bit with me and have in general less experience in table-top rpg. They were much faster at creating their character. Though I must say they had also a clearer view of what their character should be.

I also introduced Kickers that are supposed to play out over a few game sessions. Any comments about them would be very helpful to me.
To allow for some more interesting human interactions, I introduced the "Soft spot" rule. This is one "negative" aspect from the young days of the character that has not clearly been eradicated from the Grey Knight's mind, and although it is initially dormant, its something that either the player or the GM can work upon. Must be a kind of relational conflict with the order.

I'm not very good at finding some nouns, so I mix up adjectives and nouns for Attributes.


Frater Sinistralis, played by Gaétan
A sly character in doubt about the order, with a pretty egocentric view on things in general. As such, started the game with 5 Faith points and 1 Heresy point.

Attributes (active, reactive, social)
Flesh: Strength 3, Robustness 3, Viciousness 3
Faith: Cleverness 3, Stoicism 1, Brutality 2
Heresy: Detachment 1, Rebel , Perfidy 1

Abilities
Arms
Psy-cannon (Special equipment: 300m range, doubles margin of success against demons and heretic psykers)
Mental Submission (Psy-power: for 2 Faith/Heresy points, allows to roll Social vs Social. Margin dictates degree of mental influence exerted (not clearly defined))

Soft Spot
Parents killed by Grey Knights because they had witnessed a demonic attack. Managed to hide and then join the Grey Knights, with the intention to seek vengeance against the particular officer who ordered them killed. As he was otherwise a promising novice, the superiors just erased corresponding parts of his mind. Or so they thought.

Kicker
Recently discovered that the order where responsible for his parents' death. [This didn't really work out, as it was actually quite unrealistic in regard with how the order works. We will refine that point.]


Frater Solfatis, played by Jérôme
A mysterious character that prefers to keep to himself. Doesn't think much about trust in his colleagues. Started play with 5 Faith and 1 Heresy.

Attributes (active, reactive, social)
Flesh: Endurance 4, Insensitive 3, Intriguing 2
Faith: Persevering 3, Determined 2, Convinced 1
Heresy: Independance 1, Rage 1, Arrogance 1

Abilities
Arms
Run
Holocauste (Psy-power: For 2 Faith/Heresy points roll 4 dice (additional dice can be bought on a 1:1 basis). In a radius of (half number of successes) meters, a burst of flames consumes every non-GK who must resist against a difficulty of (number of successes) or take damage as Winner Active / Looser Reactive)

Soft Spot
Has been betrayed by friends. Might not always trust his brothers.

Kicker
Another GK squad is being heard in court for heresy. Amongst those Knights is one of his only friends.


Frater Trieste, played by Julien
The spiritual leader of the team. Could be considered as a chaplain. Started with 6 Faith and 0 Heresy points.

Attributes (active, reactive, social)
Flesh: Quicknesse 3, Insensitive 3, Frightening 3
Faith: Uncompromising 3, Steadfast 2, Convincing 1
Heresy: Impulsive 1, Opportunist 0, Self-confidence 2

Abilities
Arms
Leadership
Emperor's Standard (Special Equipment: In group combat, grants one bonus dice to the group's pool)

Soft spot
Fear of being rejected, excluded.

Kicker
A very interesting relic has been found at [to be determined].


Frater Nis, played by Thomas
A straightforward warrior, who will follow the Code strictly in order to go up in the hierarchy. Started off with 6 Faith and 0 Heresy points.

Attributes (active, reactive, social)
Flesh: Strength 5, (he just takes the blows... can't find a proper word for that) 3, Impressive 1
Faith: Devotion 2, Unwavering 3, Harsh 1
Heresy: Ambition 1, Overreactiveness 1, Confident 1

Abilities
Arms
Run
Shield (Special equipement: +1 die in hand to hand combat and to resist ranged weapons)

Soft spot
Deep inside himself, he believes he deserves more recognition from his superiors.

Kicker
A superior's position has become vacant since the hearing of Frater Solfatis's friend's squad.





Rules modification
When shooting a firearm, one can add the margin of success up to one time the weapon's "strength" (the difficulty level to resist against it's projectiles), effectively doubling it's effectiveness in some cases.

[Larry L.]

Christoph,

It hadn't even occured to me from your posts that English wasn't your native language. Are you going to play the game in English or French? That is, are you groping for nouns for the sake of the game or the sake of writing here?

Here's some translation hints if they are needed:

Perseverance
Determination
Conviction?

Quickness
Insensitivity
Frightful
Convincer
Impulsiveness

Brick? (the guy that takes the blows) Fortitude?
Impressiveness
Unwaveringness? (Yucky.) Steadiness? Invariance?
Harshness
Confidence

The other nouns are okay. In fact, I had to look up "perfidy" in the dictionary.

The Soft Spot rule is a nice humanizing modification to the standard GW ludicrously macho Space Marine.

[Christoph Boeckle]

Our group is french speaking. I picked up my english in Ireland and it pleases me to see that it hasn't faltered too much, thanks :-)
(though I guess quite a few spelling mistakes come from french-english confusion: a personal favourite is juste)

Also thanks for the translation hints! Too bad we can't edit our posts. Although I think I should stick with adjectives, as they are richer and don't sound as bad as some nouns (this goes for french as well). For example:
one who easily convinces others is convincing
one who has great conviction in the order's mission is convinced
both stem from the noun conviction.

Perfidy is probably used more in french than it is in english, even though the words mean pretty much the same.

I'm also pleased to see that the Soft spot works in breaking up the unhuman space marines (although it is something that will be developped during play).

First game session will be posted asap.

[BeZurKur]

First game session will be posted asap.

Yes, please do!  The characters are intriguing; moreso than I would have imagined from a 40k universe.  Excellent job.  I'm very interested in where you take this.