[AlexMortimer]

So, My first thought was inquisitor. I loved that game when it came out and I loved the Dan Abnett Eisenhorn novels. It really captured my imagination as a kid.

I’ve not been keeping up with the new GW games and rule changes as I’ve only really been reading the books. There might be something out there, whether it’s fan made or GW that might cover what I’m looking for.

I’m looking for something that plays like inquisitor. Gritty detailed combat that is tactical. Where your Decisions mater!
Coop ideally or one person gms.
Ideally each player would control very few figures (except the gm)
I want it to be more sorry focused to delve into 40k universe.

I had an idea of something basic that I’d love to try and put together would be inquisitor based short campaign that could be played in 5-10 sessions. The plot would be an inquisitor and his team is sent onto a ship that has tumbled out of the warp broken and lifeless. The team have to find out what happened and bring back specific intel before the ship gets destroyed from afar. There would be room for nasty chaos spawns, epic scenery etc.

I’m hoping someone here has some ideas for me or am I on my own wanting this?

Alex

[mcjomar]

Your options are:

Inquisitor (at 54mm and/or 28mm) with you/someone as GM, and players picking out characters to make up a warband.
Aaaand go! (as noted in the welcome thread, do not use the Ready Reckoner for experience or loot systems).

OR

The new Wrath and Glory RPG (bit expensive - moreso than Inquisitor can be if you're careful with purchases).
I've played an intro session of it, and it does/can use the usual DnD-esque grid combat system. I'm not sure on experience systems, or looting though, as it really was just a one-shot short intro session.
The mechanics are quite fun (and open to creating humour as much as anything else, which is very good) and mechanically encourage a certain amount of proper Role playing, as opposed to just Roll playing.
However, without direct access to the full rules, I can't say more.


Outside of that, there's little else I would personally recommend.
I *could* mention Inquisimunda, but it uses old-school necromunda rules, and strikes me as more lethal than perhaps it should be for an RPG style plot-game. On the other hand, it would give you tactical combat - not as detailed as pure Inquisitor, but certainly tactical.
I personally wouldn't recommend it, but others might, YMMV.


As far as reading material, I'd suggest reading everything by Abnett, and following up with Sandy Mitchell (or in parallel, that works too). Ian Watson's work is worth grabbing, even if it is a bit out-dated in some ways, but it'll give you plenty to chew on. Obviously the Inquisitor Rulebook itself (better if you can get a hardcopy, but if not, our community does have access to the LRB - see the pinned posts in the General Discussion board for more info).
After all that there's a trilogy on Enforcers (the Arbites IIRC?) which comes in a very nice omnibus.
There's plenty more background reading to suggest, but that pile would keep you plenty busy initially, and afterwards you'd probably be more informed to be able to decide on your own (google is your friend though).

Ebay, and a few other resources are available in terms of acquiring suitable 54mm miniatures (see the pinned threads at the top of the Painting and Miniatures board for more information on this!) - for 28mm miniatures, there's an even wider array, but you'll end up doing a lot of conversions to create unique characters. Fun! In addition that'll probably lead to having lots of 28mm bits left over to create a good amount of NPC hordes for one thing or another.

[AlexMortimer]

Awesome, thanks for the tips!

I hadn’t heard of wrath and glory... I’m guna check that s!&@ out!

I actually have an inquisitor rule book which I’m going to fish out. Any tips for balancing encounters and making characters not too beardy?

Also I just picked up a copy of the ravenor trilogy!

Has anyone uploaded a mini inquisitor campaign here? I’ll chuck mine up as I do it for feedback etc

Ps wtf is the living rulebook?

[mcjomar]

RE: Balance - there isn't any.

That aside, it's mostly just playing by ear, and experience. More to the point, sometimes it's not supposed to be balanced anyway.

That said, this:
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/characters.html
And this:
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/scenarios.html
which can be found here:
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/
are reasonably good places to begin in regards reasonably balanced normal human characters, and reasonable suggestions for scenario design. Some of which appears in the Inquisitor rulebook anyway, so I definitely recommend reading that cover to cover at least once (or twice, or thrice, etc). It should be noted the statlines of the characters provided in the rulebook are actually very unbalanced and should not be considered balanced under any circumstances - actual play-testing for years by members of this community with better information than I have have proved this. Doesn't mean you can't look at them for inspiration, however.

The "living rulebook" is actually just a PDF copy of the rulebook that used to be updated by GW back when they actually supported specialist games (the fact that they are rebuilding their specialist games selection in the current era is beside the point). The most recent version of it can be acquired here:
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=34.0
Follow the relevant links, and you'll have access to all the Inquisitor information and articles you'll initially need - it's not a complete library, mostly because some articles were lost to time, but it's as close as we can get right now. It includes both official and unofficial supplements, which should be pretty clearly marked.
The Living Rulebook is essentially the "newest" form of officially sources rules, and the last that was ever provided. Maybe we'll get a suitable alternative someday, but for the time being I wouldn't recommend holding your breath.


The Ravenor trilogy is a good follow on from the core Eisenhorn trilogy - which now has a fourth book, The Magos (worth it). There is also Pariah, the start of another trilogy (or series) in that particular grouping of Abnett characters. The first book is odd, and I'm hoping the next two will fill in the gaps, preferably sooner rather than later (better too soon than too late in this case methinks).

In regards campaigns, mini or otherwise, I'm not sure.
Some of the articles in the archives created by MarcoSkoll may have some examples (I can recall at least one or two fan ones, and obviously there's the three official campaign books as well), and we also have our "Field Reports" section of these forum boards which *may* contain some useful examples. Maybe.

[AlexMortimer]

OMG, so much info!

Thanks mcjomar!

Also 3 published official campaign books too?! *drool*

edit: living rule book ftw, question: how do I tell what is new??

[mcjomar]

In the LRB most rules adjustments seem to have been made in red, but again YMMV. It *is* the most up to date source of official rules (moreso than the original printing, at least).

as for the 3 official campaign books, yes. They're semi-flexible, and give plenty of suggestions, but they're somewhat an on-rails affair. Adjust as needed to get suitable results, as usual.
Otherwise, yeah, the articles in the archive I linked that were written by fans can also provide some useful campaign examples (I'm afraid I've forgotten which articles specifically, but they were previously hosted by GW before being re-hosted by Marco - hopefully he'll notice this thread and fill us in at some point) but they're long on general advice, and comparatively short on specifics. Possibly a blessing though.

[MarcoSkoll]

I’m looking for something that plays like inquisitor. Gritty detailed combat that is tactical. Where your Decisions mater!
Coop ideally or one person gms.
Ideally each player would control very few figures (except the gm)
I want it to be more sorry focused to delve into 40k universe.

Personally, I would say that Inquisitor is ill-suited to the standard "Player-vs-GM" nature of a traditional RPG where everyone has a character and are collectively trying to thwart an evil scheme.

Inquisitor is inherently designed as a player-vs-player experience, and the best example is probably the fairly aggressive damage system that frequently hands out hefty penalties with two major assumptions in mind:
- In a Player-vs-Player system, each hit needs to matter, with plenty of granularity to have characters somewhere between full effectiveness and out of the fight. A "who runs out of HP first" system doesn't work well here.
- And if a character is heavily wounded, stunned or unconscious, the player will have other characters to use.

These things don't migrate well to Player-vs-GM play, as it means unnecessary bookkeeping for NPCs and PCs quickly losing effectiveness.
(An exception is when the PCs are robust and significantly outmatch the NPCs, such as Space Marines taking on traitor Guard, when it actually works very well, but more level fights don't work well).

Personally, the best descrition I have for Inquisitor is "Tabletop Improv Theatre". It's a genre of its own - a very rewarding genre, but still not quite anything else you might have played before.

~~~~~

If you want players facing off against a GM, that's probably better handed to a dedicated RP like Dark Heresy or Wrath and Glory.

Also 3 published official campaign books too?! *drool*

I'm going to continue to sound negative here, but I don't hugely recommend them! They're okay as examples, but the scenarios and stories just don't hold up well against what I've seen out of the community. (Many of them are pretty empty and shoehorned in to make it longer).

edit: living rule book ftw, question: how do I tell what is new??

I believe the edited sections are in red.

I would also suggest checking out the standard community "house" rules, which can be seen on page 6 of this event pack:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/89b3z3amxezdm3e/2018+Abyss+Pack+V0-1.pdf

These add in more opportunity for non-combat interactions (it uses artistic licence to speed up conversation, making talking a viable alternative to shooting), removes a couple of rules that had nasty exploits, and tries to make psychic powers slightly fairer.

~~~~~

The other alternative, but unofficial, is my Inquisitor Revised Edition project:
http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2387.0

This is a work in progress that attempts to update the Inquisitor rules with more interactive gameplay and fixing some clunkier bits, while maximising back compatibility. The main overhaul is the close combat system, which I'm exceptionally pleased with. (I was aiming for "well choreographed movie fight scene", and with some surprisingly simple changes to the original rules, it does it beautifully, with characters making maximum use of their environment).

Any tips for balancing encounters and making characters not too beardy?

Best advice?

Well, bearing in mind that I see Inquisitor as a player-vs-player game, the main balancing mechanism is good intentions. It wouldn't be fun if the other player(s) brought overpowered characters and steamrollered you, and there's no glory in "winning" by being more powerful in the first place (but there would be significant embarassment in losing!), so try to make your characters fair.

I've written quite a long treatise on my take on the "Conclave Standard"... which isn't really a standard, but more of a catch-all term for guidelines about creating characters who aren't invincible supermen, and who have strengths, weaknesses and the tension inherent in being able to fail:
https://carthax.fandom.com/wiki/Conclave_Standard

I'm afraid I've forgotten which articles specifically, but they were previously hosted by GW before being re-hosted by Marco - hopefully he'll notice this thread and fill us in at some point

Alas, I can't really remember which of the Fanatic articles have good campaign writing advice, but I can say that the 2002 Annual reprints some WD articles that have some reasonable advice about structuring campaigns.

[KaptiDavy]

Being the heretic that I always turn out to be, I'd suggest checking out some old school RPGs, that have simulationist rules.
GURPS would be my safest bet, as it's easy to understand (rolls 3D6 under the skill value), but can be expanded with lots of official material, and it has rules for combat maps - and a book called Martial Arts 

Yes, it has unofficial 40K materiel too