Last issue we were talking about “Warhammer.” As promised, this issue is on its futuristic counterpart, “Warhammer 40,000”. It will be focusing largely on “Dark Heresy”, “Warhammer 40,000” gone “Dungeons & Dragons” for the uninitiated.
As stated earlier, “Warhammer 40,000” is the futuristic version of “Warhammer.” So, many of the different races and stereotypes still apply. The biggest difference is humanity is largely a group of catholic space Nazis. Space Marines are pretty much angels that hold the highest favor of the God-Emperor. Chaos Marines are fallen angels with Warmaster Horus being the direct reference to Lucifer. The Inquisition is essentially a mixture of all the clandestine organizations known today, if they were largely made up of psychics and had the direct ability to order a planet to be purged of ALL life. The Orks are still drunken sports hooligans. The biggest difference is that they are literally sentient space fungus in that any piece of them which is cut, shot, blown or shed off grows into another form of an Ork. The Eldar, better known as the elves that are fairly adept at guerrilla warfare, are essentially a large group of Ernesto “Che” Guevaras. The Dark Eldar are pirates and assassins. Necrons are tech zombies with guns. Daemons are still daemons.
That being said, it’s time to get onto “Dark Heresy: A Warhammer 40,000 Roleplaying Game.” The basic idea is that you’ve been recruited into the Imperium’s Inquisition. It doesn’t matter what walk of life you came from, whether it’s soldier, scholar, thief, assassin, psychic, etc. An Inquisitor deemed you useful and gave you the option to join his warband or else. Now you serve until the campaign is over or you’ve died by one of the multiple ways to die.
Character generation for the game is much more in-depth, but is also a less time-consuming endeavor, as opposed to other pen and paper games. You roll for everything: stats, what kind of planet you were born on, what class you are, your age, superstitions, number of siblings, etc. They are all determined by the roll of the dice.
Unlike most American pen & paper (P&P) RPGs, gameplay, unless you’re rolling for damage, is a roll-under system using percentile dice, meaning that using two 10 sided die (one for single digits up to 10 and one covering the 10s up until 100), you have to roll a total that is less than the stat being tested. This gameplay usually amounts to luck and good choices with skills to have to test your highest stats (i.e. for getting information, if you have a low fellowship/charisma but a high strength, Interrogate or Intimidate would be better skills to have, as opposed to the skill of Charm, especially if you decide to become a Commissar from the Inquisitor’s Handbook expansion).
In a way, this P&P RPG has you putting more thought into the gameplay rather than figuring out how you want your character to start. “D&D”. and similar games, tend to have you roll the stats and then pick and choose from two or three books to build a character that would work for the setting you’re in. In “Dark Heresy” you let the dice fall where they may. The only thought that you put into building your character is to decide from base package options of equipment and skills where you’re giving an either/or decision. Everything else is how you play the character. Will you turn heretic and play with the daemons, or support your God-Emperor?
Honestly, it’s a great game with rich lore that entices the minds of its player. If you wish for exposure to “Dark Heresy”, Black Sun Games currently has a campaign going on Sundays starting at 6 p.m. Won’t you roll the dice of madness and make dark pacts with me?
If you want to learn of the roots of heresy, Jonathan Gronli can be reached at jon.gronli@gmail.com.