Over the last couple of weeks i've been going round in circles trying to devise an adventure for DH. Once we get the first one or two out the way the process of writing, I hope, will become easier.
But i haven't written an adventure in ages and I must say I'm rather overwhelmed by it. I'm not sure how much to write, and what I should be doing to make it effective. If I look at Edge of Darkness, which seems the best published scenario, it's 46 pages odd of notes and information, even scripted passages (some of which are qutie good). The rulebook, and it's far from alone in this, gives no advice.
I have the two pc's stats in front of me and I'm also wondering if they are really a good mix: a psyker and an assassin both low rank (which means not able to do much, which i don't per se mind) and both ostensibly geared for combat but not much on investigation for instance.

Well, I like to add two adventures or plot hooks a week.

For go killem and get something, all you need are npcs, stat blocks, and place descriptions.

For whodunits, I like to start with a paragraph about the killer and victim, a time table of event, which creates clues and witnesses. Then I make a list of suspects and make sure each clue clears a few people until only one or two remain.

Most of my adventures are only a single page each. Once you have the npcs described and know how they spend their time, the universe will pour out.

If you write more than a page or two and half to look up mire than a stat block, i feel like you are wasting effort. Past that, it might as well be model train building.

Good advice.

I think part of the problem is the characters are at a confluence of two issues: being too weak to face what might be described as the major players in a heretical conspiracy - daemons, arch heretics, most xenos, for instance - and their skillset is basically a weird kill team - assassin (though certainly not a heavily resourced killing machine) and psyker (with combat oriented powers, as the minor psyhic powers he has access to are predominantly).

It might  be easy to have the assassin take contracts, perhaps from a tavern based patron. But a psyker? They aren't independent characters - far from it.

So it's a bit odd. I'm happy with the choices they players have made; it's not the gm's job to limit, without good reason, the player choices. So it's my job to respond to their ideas. Not dictate to them you can't be this if you're that.

Background

The Inquisitor has just received word from his eyes on Hive World that a heretic has been located and needs to be purged. The agent was sent to investigate a string of homicides and having determined the pattern, placed a bug on the next likely victim. The victim was indeed kidnapped and the agent was able to follow him, however the bug was discovered and destroyed when the kidnapper reached sub level 008.

It can be confirmed by a civil engineer that no one entered any of the tunnels to sub level 006, so the killer stopped on 008 or 007. Both levels are crime infested, mutant inhabited, sludge collecting hell holes. The agent believes that he may not be able to locate the killer without drawing too much attention in the tight nit communities the live on those levels, so he has called in the cleaners.

The player characters, under orders of the Inquisitor, need to help Ground Agent locate and kill the Heretic. As a secondary objective, they need to determine if this heretic is on his own or has accomplices. The Heretic should be questioned before he is killed, if possible, unless enough information can be obtained by other means.

Adventure

Write up Heretic, Ground Agent, Civil Engineer, Local Thug Leader, Local Police Officer, Local Bar Owner, Local Black Market Contact

Design Heretic Layer

Write up: Heretic Minions, Local Thugs, Local Mutants

Future Hooks

Write up Heretic Contacts
Write up Heretic Prisoners - include interesting hook for why they were picked
Write up Black Market link to possible Heresy off world
Write up troubling object in Heretic's possession that others may want.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;501763Good advice.

I think part of the problem is the characters are at a confluence of two issues: being too weak to face what might be described as the major players in a heretical conspiracy - daemons, arch heretics, most xenos, for instance - and their skillset is basically a weird kill team - assassin (though certainly not a heavily resourced killing machine) and psyker (with combat oriented powers, as the minor psyhic powers he has access to are predominantly).

It might  be easy to have the assassin take contracts, perhaps from a tavern based patron. But a psyker? They aren't independent characters - far from it.

So it's a bit odd. I'm happy with the choices they players have made; it's not the gm's job to limit, without good reason, the player choices. So it's my job to respond to their ideas. Not dictate to them you can't be this if you're that.

I just wrote up an adventure in my style. I wrote "write up" wherever there is more work. If an NPC won't be in a fight, I usually just get a name, level, and brief description.

I think you are underestimating how lethal the setting is. Yeah, they aren't strong, but killing people in the future is easy. If the bad guy is too strong, they can suck him into space, poison him with gas, blow him up, cut his brake lines, mine his elevator shaft... they don't have to shoot laser beams at carapace armor.

Bad guys can also be weak. Arch heretics have shit bird minions, like the killer in my adventure. He might be as weak as a PC. It doesn't take much to kill and kidnap flatscans.

If you let them go about things there own way, you can throw them any adventure you want. Just be generous with "what kills" and let them do it there way.

Like it. Nice format.

How would you write up the following idea, which is what i've been thinking this morning before reading your last post:

The acolytes have been tasked with accompanying an adept acting as a proxy for the inquisitor (whose nature and identity will remain secret, hence the proxy) to bid for an estate in a waterfront low level hive district (think Arkham 40k). The pc's are to accompany and protect him while finding more about who else is interested and the suspected cult activity surropunding the estate.
The inquisitor wants this estate as a base of operations for a longer term matter concerning the revelation of the opening of a warp rift ten miles offshore and the subsequent cult activity surrounding this dark event, as described in the forbidden text The Book of the Depths. (think dagon/cthulhu/deep ones vibe). I also like the idea of a forlorn waterfront region as well.

(EDIT: a brief overview like the outline above, I can do the work myself )

EDIT TOO: I notice that i'm looking for maps/layouts more with DH than I was ever used to. I'd alwasy run games more 'narrativistically' than DH allows as it has more precise movement/position rules and requirements, and I want to learn them. Also the environments can be spectacularly detailed especially as cover in some form seems to be a must.

I think games like what you are describing are the hardest to run. I only rarely do it when i have an especially good idea. The only thing I can do for them is to first get a really clear idea about the npcs. I guess the elusive part is figuring out what the fuck exactly the players are going to do for an adventure. It takes a lot of brain power to run opened up political intrigue.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;501772The acolytes have been tasked with accompanying an adept acting as a proxy for the inquisitor (whose nature and identity will remain secret, hence the proxy) to bid for an estate in a waterfront low level hive district (think Arkham 40k). The pc's are to accompany and protect him while finding more about who else is interested and the suspected cult activity surrounding the estate.

The inquisitor wants this estate as a base of operations for a longer term matter concerning the revelation of the opening of a warp rift ten miles offshore and the subsequent cult activity surrounding this dark event, as described in the forbidden text The Book of the Depths. (think dagon/cthulhu/deep ones vibe). I also like the idea of a forlorn waterfront region as well.

What you're currently missing here is the underlying game structure (i.e., what actually happens at the table). Actually, there are probably several game structures in what you're describing.

(1) "The PCs accompany and protect him." I'm assuming this means that there will actually be something to protect him from. To prep this, you need to draw up a list of threats (i.e., the attacks that will be directed his way). These might be triggered by location (when he reaches Water St., the assassins strike) but just putting them on a timeline will probably work, too.

Stat up the threats, put 'em on the timeline, and give a little thought to how they'll know where to find the guy. (That way, if the PCs decide to get proactive, you'll have some idea what the result will be.)

(2) "To bid for an estate." When I prep a large social/business gathering for an RPG, I prep two tracks: First, I prep a roleplaying profile for each significant participant. Second, I prep a list of significant events.

Sometimes the significant events are on a timetable. Sometimes they're keyed to particular NPCs or locations. Sometimes they're just a list of conversation topics that are popular at the party. Whatever (a) make sense and (b) is most useful for me.

For each roleplaying profile I prep five things: Name, Appearance, Roleplaying, Background, Key Notes.

Name should be self-explanatory. Appearance is a very short description of what the PCs see the first time they meet the character. The Roleplaying section consists of two or three bullet points that give me touchstones for roleplaying the character. For example:

-   His fingers are delicate in their movements, but constantly drumming out gentle rhythms in the air.
-   Respects wealth, but not other forms of power.

Background is the meat of the character, but I tend to keep it short and to the point. (2-3 paragraphs at most.) Finally, the Key Notes are important bullet points that I don't want to forget about. (For example, if one of the party event triggers is keyed to talking to this character. Or if they'll offer the PCs a job. Or a notable relationship they have with another NPC. Or a clue they're supposed to drop. Etc.)

And, basically, that's all there is to it: With your stockpile of characters and events, you should be able to make the event come alive at the table.

(3) "The suspected cult activity around the estate." Okay, for this you clearly need to drop some clues. For this I use Node-Based Scenario Design to break stuff down into easy-to-manage and easy-to-design chunks. Should be fairly straight-forward: Liberally seed #1 and #2 with a bunch of clues to get them on their way.

(4) "...or a longer term matter concerning the revelation of the opening of a warp rift ten miles offshore and the subsequent cult activity surrounding this dark event, as described in the forbidden text The Book of the Depths."

For this, I would start seeding vague, non-actionable clues.

By non-actionable, I mean that the conclusions they reach will be interesting, but not really give them anything to go on. For example, they might learn about what The Book of the Depths is... but they won't have any leads on where it might be found. (Later, of course, they'll run into the clues that will give them that revelation.)

These non-actionable revelations can be seeded liberally throughout the nodes of #3.

What if you threw something absolutely ludicrous at your Players?

I mean, if DH is part of WH40K and is "all GrimDark, all the time", have them cope with the Second Coming of Christ in your game and see what happens.

Quote from: jeff37923;502114What if you threw something absolutely ludicrous at your Players?

I mean, if DH is part of WH40K and is "all GrimDark, all the time", have them cope with the Second Coming of Christ in your game and see what happens.

Awesome.

Quote from: jeff37923;502114What if you threw something absolutely ludicrous at your Players?

I mean, if DH is part of WH40K and is "all GrimDark, all the time", have them cope with the Second Coming of Christ in your game and see what happens.

why play 40k then.

As for the oddness of the team, I'd throw in 2 NPCs to round them out and act as subordinates / plot devices to help where the PCs may lack necessary skills.

Also, I'd make at least one of the NPCs into someone they can truly trust and not be worried about betraying them. The other NPC can be 90% trustworthy, but maybe with a persona that bugs the PCs.

I like adding at least 1 NPC into PC groups. Gives me a voice inside their decision makings which allows me to drop hints, reminders, etc without it coming from the GM.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;502140why play 40k then.

To see what happens.

I think i might need to come up with something really simple. The above idea (the one that isn't mine) is good, but i don't really want use mutants. They do seem to be the catch all.

Nor do i want to use Christ.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;502112(3) "The suspected cult activity around the estate." Okay, for this you clearly need to drop some clues. For this I use Node-Based Scenario Design to break stuff down into easy-to-manage and easy-to-design chunks. Should be fairly straight-forward: Liberally seed #1 and #2 with a bunch of clues to get them on their way.

I'm a bit confused by this node based stuff. I get the idea of supplying enough clues that the idiot players will get the message at some point But the node stuff lost me.

Also the acolytes aren't meant to know there's a warp rift or of the Book of the Deeps. All they know is there's an auction and some heretics that might bid against their interests.