The Cycle of Fate: Equipment or Lack Thereof

For the past month or so (I actually realize I have no idea what number tomorrow's session will be) I've been GMing a campaign of Deathwatch. Because of issues relating to plot and design choices, I've actually been refraining from analyzing the game from a GM perspective thus far, but now that the campaign will be over in one or two more sessions, it's probably safe to start talking about certain aspects of the game, and how it went.

One of the key ideas that was the genesis for this campaign was the Space Marine Kill-team crash-landing on a primitive planet, and having to go some time without their treasured equipment. Most of the players probably did not realize to what extent this would be true. The idea was to hopefully prompt an experience that was different from the previous 40k RPG campaigns, and also give a chance to use the talents and skills that weren't directly associated with combat. Did it work? Let's look.


The Chart
Players would roll on the following chart at the start of the campaign, and that would be the one piece of wargear they would retain, and in subsequent sections that would be what they rolled to recover their equipment.

1. Primary Ranged Armament

2. Primary Melee Armament

3. Power Armor

4. Secondary Ranged Armament

5. Secondary Melee Armament

6. Grenades

7. Ammo

8. Misc. combat items

9. Misc. non-combat items

10. Player's choice (DM re-roll)

There was some slight adjustment depending on the character and their load-out, but that was the general gist. The idea was that the players would be at a significant disadvantage, but not entirely powerless.

In general, the randomness worked. However, I think I slightly underestimated how uneven the distribution could potentially be, and I made one incredibly bad on-the-fly decision which essentially meant one player had 2 items at the beginning instead of just one. It was far from perfect, but I also don't think it was bad, and I only think it could have been really improved by making a much more personally customized list for each player, or by completely eliminating the randomness factor. Still unsure on how I feel about it overall.

Player Vulnerability

Another aspect that goes along with the reduced payload is that suddenly the invincible Astartes would suddenly be a lot more exposed, and could actually be threatened by things like wild animals and primitive weapons. There was never the expectation that they could actually die from these things, but at least harm could potentially come to them.

In general this did kind of work, in that creatures and monsters caused wounds that, had the PCs been fully armored, never would have happened. It also meant that as players recovered armor, they became a lot more confident and chose to lead the way, which makes sense. However, from a GM perspective I'm not sure it actually made a huge difference, and might have actually created more work for me since I had to theoretically balance two different types of enemies, the "primitive" and the "anti-armor." It wasn't a huge issue, but it was a lot more enemy types to plan for. Whether it felt different to the PCs I couldn't say, but who was wearing armor did definitely become a strategic choice on a couple occasions, so I suppose this definitely worked in that sense.

Use of Primitive Weapons and Armor

The 40k RPG line has both "primitive" and "non-primitive" weapons and armor, and they interact differently. We had never had a campaign where the distinction mattered, so we thought it might be interesting to have that be the case. Unfortunately, what I failed to realize is that Space Marines fists and thrown projectiles are actually better weapons than any primitive weapon they could find, so the PCs just ended up bashing stuff in lieu of attempting to scavenge or create weapons (as a general rule, anyway. They did pick some stuff up, but never actually used it if I recall correctly). 

This meant that this aspect didn't really come into play, which is slightly disappointing but not a big deal in any way. The key problem in this case is merely unfamiliarity with the Deathwatch system; I probably knew that Space Marines were that good even unarmored, but I failed to remember or failed to factor it in. Something to keep in mind for future Dark Heresy campaigns, but it's not worth bothering for DW. 

Increased Sense of Teamwork

Although DW is supposedly pretty strategy and teamwork-oriented for an RPG, by eliminating a majority of items and replacing them slowly, PCs would be forced to think a bit more tactically and choose options a bit more wisely based on their available resources. 

I think this did actually happen, since there was a good deal of discussion before each planned engagement regarding who had what and who could do what. However, I'm not sure if this was actually more than would have happened normally, or even whether the sense of team grew as a result. This aspect is definitely a bit more uncertain compared to the others.

Sense of Limited Resources

Finally, in many RPGs there's the sense that everything is almost unlimited, especially if you're not marking everything down all the time. By not having resupplies, PCs would have to think a bit more carefully about ammo usage and other aspects. 

I think in general this did happen, although again whether it was actually beneficial to the game as a whole it somewhat questionable. I think if the campaign had lasted a bit longer, or if items had taken longer to find the effect would have been more pronounced, but as it stands from my perspective the amount of ammo and weapons never felt quite desperate. The PCs may have felt differently, though.

Use of Non-Combat Skills and Talents

Finally, wandering through a rural world means possibility for things like navigation, wrangling, crafting etc. 

Unfortunately, I don't think this happened quite to the degree that I had hoped, and the primary fault lies with me. I actually realized while planning that I did not have a lot of good ideas regarding basic navigation or "overworld" problems. I'm sure there are a lot of good ideas out there, but I just simply wasn't thinking of a lot of them, for whatever reason. There were a few things, and probably some other stuff I abstracted out could have been solidified a bit more, but in general there was a lot of narrative speed-walking with a few rolls thrown in for good measure. On the bright side, this kept the game going at a decent clip, but on the downside there was probably a lot  of missed opportunities.

Conclusion

So, was the experiment a success? I feel overall there were more positives than negatives, but whether it was a good choice overall, I'm still not completely certain. If nothing else, I'm unsure of whether it actually changed the gameplay experience as much as I expected. Luckily, though, there doesn't seem to have any substantial downsides, nor did it make the campaign "bad" in any way (I think) so I'm glad we tried it out, if nothing else.

Of course, all this is from my perspective, so if you have anything to add as a PC I'd be happy to hear it :-D

-HTMC