Dark Heresy: Rules Hacking
If you know me at all you know that I can’t leave a perfectly good system alone. Here are a few rules hacks that I’d tinker with if I were running a Dark Heresy campaign.
First, I’d like to remind folks of the Inquisitor “narrative miniatures” game. A few years ago Games Workshop put out this minis/rpg hybrid, and it’s currently available for FREE along with a ton of support material. It’s a very similar percentile system and character stats are nearly identical so minimal conversion is needed to use it with Dark Heresy. The fluff, of course, needs to conversion. For folks who want some Space Marines in their DH game, they’re in Part 2 under Adeptus Astartes; no Career Paths for PCs, but enough to put together some NPCs. In the Articles section is an additional piece by Gav Thorpe on how to incorporate them in an Inquisitor’s war band.
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To get a feel for the system, here’s a walk through the character creation process. It is very D&D-like, but with point-buy elements and a few interesting variations. All in all, it makes me think that if I want a crunchy system for fantasy I’d rather drop $50 on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and get everything, including a plethora of character options, in one book than drop $100+ on D&D 4th Edition.
Last weekend I was supposed to play this game, but unfortunately I was sick, the gamemaster was sick, and it just never happened. I’m hoping we can pull it together another time, because this system is incredibly cool, unique, and innovative.
In 1978, thirty years ago, I rolled up my second D&D character. He was a gnome illusionist-thief named Adam Madblade (hey, I was 14, some slack please on the cheesy name) and I haven’t ever really looked back. Yes, I’ve played a variety of characters across many races and classes and had a lot of fun doing it, but gnome/illusionist/thief has always been my fall-back position.
