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Advice Needed: Getting started with The Cirian Legacy

Started by Death-Spectre, February 05, 2012, 05:32:09 PM

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Death-Spectre

Hi everyone,

New member here, I hope this is the right place to post. After many, many years off I'm finally returning to one of my favourite Games Workshop games of all time -Inquisitor as I'm in the very fortunate position to now be in a close knit gaming group of 4-5 players which meet up regularly and all have a similar mindset when it comes to gaming. Hopefully this will be the first of many posts on this forum!

Now I have had a brief bit of Inquisitor experience, GMing a series of one off games to get used to the rules and even running the Cirian Legacy campaign from the Inquisitor conspiracy series before having to quit early due to our group seperating to pursue careers etc (we only got 3 scenarios in, 2 from the book and one made-up but we had a lot of fun), but all of this was about 6-7 years ago. Now that I'm going to finally give this a proper go I thought I'd join this forum and get some advice as I've forgotten practically everything!

What I'm asking for is advice in general and for those who have played it, advice in running the Cirian Legacy campaign (that's the underwater mechanicus base one from The Cirian Legacy).

First of all, some basics!

I'm going to be the one GMing the campaign. As with all the games we play, whilst my players are usually a dedicated bunch it is usually up to me to be the first one to learn the rules of a new game or be the one responsible for running campaigns when we play 40k or Necromunda. I don't mind, my players do at least take the games seriously which I'm grateful for at least! Whilst I'd like to be a player in an =][= campaign one day, I'm very much looking forward to GMing my first full campaign.

Not including the GM- there are going to be three players in this campaign which leads me to my first question- how should the warbands be set up? Now this is largely up to the players but I wanted to ask the veterans of the game first for some advice. The two main choices are:

1. Multiple Warbands: Each player is an Inquisitor (or an equivalent, such as a Rogue Trader) and will each have a small warband that follows them around (any ideas on warband size?).

2: Single Warband (a.k.a The Dark Heresy approach).  One player is the Inquisitor and the other two will be members of the warband. In my prematurely ended Cirian Legacy campaign this approach worked well (but I only had two players back then).


I'm not sure what approach is best. For the Cirian Legacy campaign (which is what I'll be running again from scratch as only one of my players was in the previous attempt and she doesn't remember much past the first scenario other than it was fun); I seem to remember that the second approach worked really well but I don't want to limit my players unnecessarily- it could be fun having multiple Inquisitors running around and then subtly throw in little events which will drive them apart. What do you guys think?


There are plenty of more questions, but I'll leave it there for now because I don't want to make this post too convoluted than it has to be! Time wise I've got plenty of time to prepare for this. I'm currently coming to the end of finishing a Private Pilots Licence which when complete, will leave me with for free time to plan out my campaign properly. I'm planning to start sometime in Summer which should give me plenty of time  to prepare my NPCs, make terrain and in general fill out the blanks left in the campaign book.


Cheers,


Death Spectre


Draco Ferox

I would stick to 3-4 PCs per player, not all of which have to participate in a given scenario. One of these PCs could be the inquisitor/rogue trader/other mainstay, and the other 2 or 3 would be support personnel, such as acolytes, servitors, preachers, scribes and so forth.

As a side note, what "power level" does your group play at? Did you use the rulebook characters as a starting point, or did you make up your own, and if so, what sort of stats did they have?

Have you looked at the Architecture of Hate rules to represent NPCs? They're good for speeding up games with quite a few models.
Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Kaled

Draco, where are your manners?!  Greet the newcomer properly...   ;)

Welcome to the Conclave!

Quote from: Death-Spectre on February 05, 2012, 05:32:09 PM
I'm in the very fortunate position to now be in a close knit gaming group of 4-5 players which meet up regularly and all have a similar mindset when it comes to gaming. Hopefully this will be the first of many posts on this forum!
Excellent - it's always good to see new members, especially ones who have loads of opportunity to play the game.  [shameless plug]And if you want more opportunity to play the game, you and your friends would be welcome to join us at the Inquisitor Grand Tournament (or any of the other events we run).[/shameless plug]

QuoteWhat I'm asking for is advice in general and for those who have played it, advice in running the Cirian Legacy campaign (that's the underwater mechanicus base one from The Cirian Legacy).
I've never played the Cirian Legacy campaign, but I have the book - and I'm always happy to offer general advice.  First off on the general front, have you checked out Dark Magenta (the Inquisitor fanzine) and Carthax (the Inquisitor wiki)?  Both contain a load of useful info.

Quote1. Multiple Warbands: Each player is an Inquisitor (or an equivalent, such as a Rogue Trader) and will each have a small warband that follows them around (any ideas on warband size?).

2: Single Warband (a.k.a The Dark Heresy approach).  One player is the Inquisitor and the other two will be members of the warband. In my prematurely ended Cirian Legacy campaign this approach worked well (but I only had two players back then).
I'd always go with the first option - in part because Inquisitor games can be quite bloody and there's nothing worse for a player than for his only character to get stunned or out of action early on and then having to sit out the rest of the games.  Multiple characters is always best in my opinion.  As for size of game, I'd suggest 2-4 characters per warband, with no more than about 10 characters (including NPCs) on the table at once.  You could go a little higher if you use the Architecture of Hate NPC rules.  That may mean you have to change the scenarios a little, but I think that's preferable to one character per player (even if you only go as far as two characters per player).

Keep the questions coming, and why not post pictures of your models as they get finished.

- Dave
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

Inquisitor - Blood Bowl - Malifaux - Fairy Meat

Death-Spectre

Hi guys, thanks for the quick replies and the warm welcome!  :)

I'm quickly remembering the amount of work that goes into getting one of these things off the ground so I'm glad I've come here first to do some preliminary research first! I'll try to answer each point in turn.

I've never heard of the Architecture of Hate rules but I'll be gladly have a look if someone could provide me the link. For now the plan is to use the NPCs from the Cirian Legacy book itself.

As for the power level of the player characters- we won't be using the main rulebook stats as I remember them being too high- nor will we be going for very low level stats that Dark Heresy characters seem to suffer from. Right now the idea is to use the Random Character generator in the 2002 Inquisitor Annual as a basis- followed by a 'smoothing over' process to rule out the inconsistencies in creation. If any of my players however have a very clear cut idea for a character, I'd probably have them create the character stats in my presence with most of the stats being between 50-60 with the odd characteristic in the 70s, maybe in the 30s as appropriate. I don't want them too powerful, but I don't want them to feel like they're helpless either. Special skills wise, 2-3 per character max I imagine. I had a read of the Carthax wiki (thanks for the heads up Kaled) on the matter and I agree with what's said there.


What do you guys think I should do about restricting my player's choice on characters? To be honest, other than saying no to space marine PCs I don't want to be too restrictive (and I'm sure at some point in the distant future I'll fit in a marine somewhere as a treat); having said that I need my players to at least be on the same side for the start of the campaign (if they later go their seperate ways that's up to them) so I may need to tone down any loud and proud Xanthites out there at least to begin with (maybe tell the player that they need to keep their beliefs underwraps in the presence of their fellow inquisitors at the start but are later free to prosecute their beliefs once the campaign intro scenario is over?). What do you guys recommend? At the very least any non-humanoid aliens are going to be hard to fit in as the campaign involves the players infiltrating a mechanicus facility at the bottom of an ocean!


As a quick aside, I've had a look at your gallery of models Khaled and I can say that without doubt, it's easily the best collection of Inquisitor models I've ever seen. I'll definitely be posting some of my work in the future although I have to warn you in advance, due to financial constraints and issues of practicality- we will be going the Inq28 route. I have been inspired however by Molotov's excellent blog and we will be doing our best to ensure that we're doing Inq28 'properly'.


Going back to the player war bands, I'm thinking for the first campaign limiting it to 2 models per warband because if everybody turns up- that will be 6 models all fighting on the same side (that is until the players start disagreeing with each other which will make it a lot more interesting!).

I'm glad to see Dark Magenta is back again! I'm particularly happy about the continued work they've done on the source books for the different Inquisitorial factions -I'll definitely be using these!

For those familiar with the Cirian Legacy, I'm planning on making up some of this stuff to represent the underwater mechanicus facility in which the campaign is set. It seems ideal and I can't think of anything more ideal really but I'm happy to hear your suggestions!:

http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/index.php?view=product&product=39

http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/index.php?view=product&product=40

http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/index.php?view=product&product=157


Now I know this getting a bit general, but I would be deeply interested in hearing your personal experiences of running/taking part in Inquisitor games and handy tips and cheats you have to ensure the experience is as smooth as possible!

Cheers

Death-Spectre

Kaled

Quote from: Death-Spectre on February 05, 2012, 11:06:51 PM
I've never heard of the Architecture of Hate rules but I'll be gladly have a look if someone could provide me the link. For now the plan is to use the NPCs from the Cirian Legacy book itself.
Architecture of Hate is an article that appeared in Fanatic Online and was written by one of the members of this forum. Among other things, it contains a simplified set of rules for NPCs which are well worth using. Like most of the old articles, it can be found by visiting this thread;
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=34.0

QuoteWhat do you guys think I should do about restricting my player's choice on characters?
I think you have the right approach, better not to ban anything outright if you can avoid it, but give people some guidelines for what equipment they can take tec. And as you say, certain character types would find infiltrating the base difficult - but if the players comes up with a convincing story then I'd allow them.

QuoteGoing back to the player war bands, I'm thinking for the first campaign limiting it to 2 models per warband because if everybody turns up- that will be 6 models all fighting on the same side (that is until the players start disagreeing with each other which will make it a lot more interesting!).
That's probably a good number. However you might want to let the players build say 4 characters, then choose which 2 they are going to use in each game depending on the situation. So if they think they're meeting a contact in secret, them they shouldn't come armed to the teeth, whereas if they know they're walking into a firefight then their venerable old scribe probably ought to stay at base camp and let the heavily armed guardsman go on the mission instead.

QuoteNow I know this getting a bit general, but I would be deeply interested in hearing your personal experiences of running/taking part in Inquisitor games and handy tips and cheats you have to ensure the experience is as smooth as possible!
These threads would be a good place to start;
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=270.0
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=833.0
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

Inquisitor - Blood Bowl - Malifaux - Fairy Meat

Death-Spectre

Well there's certainly a lot of material to reacquaint myself with and some new material to go over so I've got my work cut out for me!

I'm really looking forward to planning and running this campaign. I'm going to be busy with study for the next month or so but after that I'm going to start putting everything together with a view to start the campaign early Summer. I'll be sure to post a 'pre production' blog of my build up to the campaign with photos of models as they're finished etc- it should be a lot of fun!

Now unfortunately, it's time to hit the books and get this last exam for my PPL out the way!

Draco Ferox

Sorry, Kaled. I figured that me being fairly new and all I'd let one of the older members welcome Death Spectre, make him feel a little more special. I may start with a little yellow welcome next time (I'm working up to the big yellow one).


Random character generation can be fun, but I would suggest moving away from it for your (inevitable) next campaign. I like how you want to "smooth out" the stats- how are you planning to achieve this? Is is something like "add 10/D10/D6 to any two stats"?

Sounds like fun. You may have to be a little blunt with this one at the start, and clearly state that there is no chance of xenos lifeforms getting into a mechanicus facility undetected, even tame ones wouldn't be allowed near the sacred machinery. As long as the players understand that just as real-world people are evening and untrustworthy (sometimes), their characters can be too. There's nothing like an unexpected backstab to liven up a campaign!
Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Death-Spectre

Hi Draco,

For smoothing out the stats I'll basically be adjusting the randomised rolls to better fit the character concept. If a Marksman for example ends up with 60WS but only 30BS (just extreme examples, Im not looking at the chart for specific number possibilities), then I'd knock 30 points of WS and add it to BS. If a character ends up with higher sagacity but low toughness and the original concept was for it to be the other way around, I'd adjust accordingly- whatever makes sense.

I'm currently rereading the second book in the series, Death of an Angel. It seems better suited for the number of players and will have the added bonus of none of my players having seen it. With the Cirian Legacy my girlfriend has already played through the first few scenarios a few years back. I haven't made my mind up yet though.

As for backstabs, one of my players has confided in me he's interested in exploring that option...

Dolnikan

Instead of rolling stats it would probably be better to choose them to fit the characters. These could be based on the stats in the rulebook or more like the conclave standard.
Circles of the wise My attempt at writing something, please comment on it if you have any advise.

Draco Ferox

#9
Regarding backstabs, I like to have a character who no-one wants to trust, and who everyone just knows will change sides if it will benefit him.... and then have a "trustworthy" character do the stabbing of backs. Of course, sometimes it is this guy who changes sides, so that people don't start trusting the supposedly untrustworthy guy...
Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Cortez

If you're going to tweak the stats to that degree then you might as well just choose them instead of rolling for them.

I usually base my characters stats on their background, with reference to their level of training, experience and specialisation. It sounds like you're planning to do this anyway.

Death-Spectre

Yup, all good points. I guess it all depends on whether we end up using the randomly generated stats to inspire a character, or create the character first and then the stats.

Choices choices!