Dark Heresy Revamped : Introduction

(Because I can't leave anything well enough alone...)

Over the past decade or so I've played quite a lot of the assorted Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying games, from Dark Heresy to Rogue Trader, and from Only War to Deathwatch. I'm a big fan both of the setting, having been a 40k player since I was about 10 years old (Yes, I was one of those annoying kids in the shop badgering everyone with stupid questions and getting my greasy mitts all over rulebooks and carefully painted models, I'm sorry), and of all of the RPG's that I've played the Warhammer 40,000 RPG's have been amongst my favourites.

Dark Heresy 2nd Edition is particularly good, and it's got a lot to recommend it, although as I pointed out in my review long ago there's still a lot about it that needs fixing and tweaking. The games I've run for my friends (and especially the narratively focused adventures I've been running through with the girl over the past two years) have taught me a lot, and highlighted for me plenty of issues with the rules, issues that I think I'm capable of fixing.

Today I'm going to start outlining my attempt to do just that, taking everything I've learned from running the 40k RPG's over the years, as well as my experience of other rules sets and gaming systems, to take the Dark Heresy rules and modify, homebrew and tweak them into what I think to be a better system. Some of the rules modifications I'll be introducing have been long standing house rules, others are more recent alterations, and yet more are entirely new having sprung into mind as part of this little project.

For the purpose of this revamp I'm going to be drawing on quite a lot of sources including...

• Dark Heresy 1st Edition
• Dark Heresy 2nd Edition (Beta)
• Black Crusade
• Deathwatch
• Only War
• Rogue Trader
• Inquisitor
• Dungeons and Dragons
• The Dresden Files RPG
• The Mutant Chronicles RPG
• World of Darkness
• and lots more!

Going into this project I've a few goals in mind, which are as follows...

1. To simplify certain aspects of the rules that I see as being overcomplicated, keeping the game as accessible and easy to play as possible.
2. To modify the rules to encourage more cinematic and narrative gameplay.
3. To reduce the need for book keeping and other numerical minuteae.
4. To allow players a greater degree of freedom and customisation with regards to their characters.
5. To bring certain aspects of the game (such as weapons, wargear and psychic powers) more into line with their Fluff and Tabletop equivalents.

The plan is to go through the Dark Heresy 2nd Edition rulebook chapter by chapter, bringing up the rules alterations I've decided to implement as I go whilst simultaneously explaining exactly what the reasoning behind these changes is. To that end my next post in this series will begin with Chapter 1 : Playing the Game.

Until Next Time
Happy Gaming
Michael