"Do yuz tink yuz kan be da bigga's an' bestest Ork der iz!?" Hello everyone! A few years ago, when i joined this site, the first campaign i ran here was a Rogue Trader Ork campaign, and to this day it has been one of the funniest experiences i've ever had the pleassure to take part of. From big orks trying to, but getting stuck, inside ventilations shafts, and Ork Pain boyz trying to solve the issue by cutting off the stuck orks legs, to ork missiles going horribly haywire that they almost kill the party, and ofcourse, many wonderfull orky dialects and trheats to bonk eachother on the head! I now plan to run another Ork Campaign this summer, however, this time it will be diffrent. What rules does it use? This Ork Campaign will be using Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy 2nd edition as the base template for the main game, however it will be using a fair bit of houserules that i will specificly make to make ork characters possible! And i will be using rules from other books, primarily Rogue trader (the only 40k rpg that so far allows you to play as orks), but also Only War (where there are stats for ork wepons and npc stats for alot of orks that are closer to DH 2e than rogue trader), and possibly other books. I have not yet written these rules, but thats why i am asking for poeple who are interested now instead of later when the campaign is supposed to strat, so that i have time to see what people want to play as, so i can write rules accordingly, and help you create your characters before the campaign will start sometime this june. What will you be able to play as? As I mentioned, this is an Ork Campaign, that means more specificly that you will be playing as these bastards: In other words, you will be playing as the greenskins, the orks, however, if someone really wants to, i can allow people to play as the smaller grot/gretchin too, however if thats what youw ant to play, i expect you to realise the complications ascociated with being a race frequently stomped on or otherwise eaten by their larger cousins, and i will expect gretchin/grot players to be clever little bastards capable of convining the bogger orks why not eating or stomping them would be a very good idea indeed XD. As for what roles/classes you will be able to take, well, there's alot of stuff available, and i'd love to hear your thoughts on what you could consider playing as when it comes to orks. Just to name a few examples, there are your ussual Ork Boyz with either your choppas or shootas (melee or dakka, and if you dont know what dakka means you are probably new to orks XD), then ofc there are ork storm boyz who strap giant (and unstable) "rokkits" to their backs and fire themselves into enemy formations to beat the lving snot out of them. Then there are ofc the oddboys, the ork mek boys that build and maintain the orks odd and unbelievably functional tech and machinery , the pain boyz (or mad doks) who are the ork "doctors", the speed freaks who just love to go fast with vehicles, and ofcourse later on there are many, many nob classes (i might consider letting a few of you start as nobs, togive yo a slight edge over normal ork boyz who arent weird oddboyz), like flash gitz, nob boss, 'ard nobs, ect. I think it is safe to say there is alot of freedom of what you can become, and the DH 2e system allows people alot of freedom in what they want their characters to become. What Is expected from Ork characters? One thing i wanna be clear about is that inherently, at its basics, the world of Warhammer 40k is incredibly silly , and the Orks are posibly the most silly and lighthearted bunch there ever was in the 41st millenium! Whilst a normal gm for a normal Dark Heresy campaign might expect an aura of mystery and serious composure from the player characters, I except silly and possibly over the top or otherwise just straightforward actions from orks, in particular when dealing with other orks! You see when orks meet other orks they engage in a very intricate and sophisticated ork diplomacy process known as "beat the other guy to a pulp until he and his boyz agree with me!", which means that whomever is the biggest an' baddest ork around (or in some rare cases the most cuning ork around) is the boss and everybody else should probably do as he says, or risk getting permanently pummeled into the ground. In other words, i fully expect conflicts within the party, however i excpect them to be silly, fun, and short . Why do i expect there to not be to many lengthy arguments? because I expect it from your characters to get bored if you are forced to listen to some "git" drag on for too long about something your ork has probably already forgotten about due to all the rambling, and i expect orks to do something to stop being bored, and since there is nothing orks quite like more than fighting, that ussually means clobbering someone! If i as gm feel like an argument is getting long and going nowhere, i will intervene and simply state that now the other orks is getting restless and whomever is talking the most is risking being clobbered. I do wish to remind you tho that at the end of the day, you're all supposed to have fun, and orks are suppsoed to want to have fun, by fighting, as such whatever brings you a fight will be yoru characters most common goal. As a final word on this and a bit of a reminder, if you want your party to listen to you, as an ork, you have to make yourself heard by being the strongest, or most clever even if youa re not the strongest you can probably tempt the others by sugesting your ideas brings even more fighting. What do i expect from the players? I want players who are not afraid to be a bit silly, but who knows when they are going to far. orks can be over the top, but there is no reason to sugest things impossible even for an ork in the given situation. I also want players who are not afraid to take a little bit of a risk! I understand that people want to protect their character and sometimes the party from dying, and that some players can be incredibly cautious because of it, but the fact of the matter is that you are orks, you instinctively want a big and tough fight, and your characters are ussually not smart enough to really take everything into account. This doesnt mean i expect you to rush every little thing you see, after all orks do have an instinctive sort of cunning that still allows them a range of tactics and strategy, and even orks can realise when they are biting off more than they can chew. As such i dont expect you to discard planning and strategizing, however i dont want you, the player, to be afraid of doing something risky. Next, as players, i want you to know when you can and when you shouldnt interupt fellow players, but at the same time i dont want you to be afraid of grabbing the spotlight, whilst also being kind to offer the spotlight to someone else. Try to interact with as many players as possible, try to keep conversations between you and a single player short whilst in game and in voice chat, and be respectfull to those who are currently roleplaying. It is fine to make small jokes that get a laugh out of everyone, but try to only jump in when you detect a pause that doesnt seem to require an imidiete response. This may sound harsh, but i know from experience that its never fun to have multiple people arguing over voice-chat, in particular when it comes to situations where some characters shouldnt even be able to interact. If you feel like you have something important to say/add to a conversation youa nd your character is not in, use text-chat to make a comment on the conversation, that way you dont have to imidietly interupt the flow. Just dont be a dick ok :) Next, I want you to be able to come up with your own ideas for how to progress yoru characters story, dont expect me to guide you all along the way in a pont-a-to-point-b type of story, because i will present you with oppurtunities, it is your job to chose wetehr or not to react to these oppurtunities, or if you want to go in a completely diffrent direction. Find a goal you want to persue, and try to also find something for the entire party to do and just be creative! Motivate yourselves to action, dont be afraid to make wild sugestions! Embrace the freedom i as gm will give you and use it to write your characters story together with the other characters players! Finally, i would prefer if you have played at least one or two warhammer 40k rpgs before and that you at least have some basic knowledge of the lore. I dont require you to be perfect lore nerds who knows everything, because you'll be playing orks anyway and there is no way yours characters would be able to call much on anything related to 40k lore, because you dont exactly read books as orks, nor do i rekon orks would be that keen on listening much to some other race rambling on about their peoples history. I have run enough campaigns with new players to know that i ussually have to explain rules several times every session (granted one ussually must explain rules even with experienced players, and with house rules this time it will be no diffrent, but at least i dont have to explain everything). Does this mean you cant join if you havent played a 40k rpg before? No, you can still ask to join, however i'd like you to still know some lore (at least about the orks) and that you have played rpgs before, and that you at least read the rules of DH 2e enough to understand the basics. None of you need to perfectly understand all the rules, because i myself dont know the rules perfectly (despite having played pretty much all 40k rpgs at least once or twice, some alot more than others), and you will se that you wont always need perfect knowledge of the rules, just so long as you make an effort to have fun and be creative ;) What to expect from me as the GM? I have talked alot about what to expect from you, it is only fair i tell you more on what to expect from me as the gm! The first thing you need to know about me, is that i prefer player driven and interactive stories, i simply provide you with a world and occassional events, and may sometimes try to make an large plot or goal for you to follow, but at the end of the day, you are the players, and i know from experience that players can chosse to completely ignore something a gm has spent several hours making and preparing. As such, i have embraced the narrative and creative playstyle that from a gm's perspective requires very basic planning on session events, and more work on simply constructing the world around the players whilst being able to "wing it" alot. You wont see me make detailed tactical battlemaps (or use them at all) unless events have led you, the players, to such a point where an epic confrontation is unavoidable. I also dont require people to follow the combat rules exactly all the time because i really like narrative combat, where you explain what your character is trying to do (sometimes with the help of actions written with the rules, but you you can also just sugest the use of a character skill, trait or talent, or even gear to make/do something that there otherwise might not be a rule for), and i as the gm will tell you if you can or cant do it (tho if you actually say "i attempt to..." then i will let you try it even if it in my mind is impossible, because you stated that you're doing it, and didnt ask if it might be possible first), and if i allow you to do it i will state what you have to roll. Furthermore, to speed up the rolling process, i as gm will ask you to just roll what you're supposed to with modifiers from your own skills, talents and traits, and then include penalties/bonuses afterwards, it simply goes quicker, and i will ussually still give you and idea of how difficult it is before making a roll, and afterwards i will explain why it may have succeeded or failed, so that you at least get some justification as to why something went well or not. One thing you can also expect is that i may send opponents that, whilst dying easily, can often kill you, or at least wound you, easily, however while i can make moments that looks like they might kill someone, i do tend to be fair enough to at least give your characters a chance to survive early in a campaign, even if the damage they take normaly would kill them outright (i ussually do this by either asking you to spend one or more fate points, or if failing that, that you burn a fate point. i sometimes may ask nearby members of teh party if they do something in that moment). Regardless it is ussually a good idea to have a backup character in mind (i ussually let players make backup characters with an equal xp level as the characters that died). To give you an example of how i might run a combat, if there is character say, 15 meters above you on a cliff with a chainsword. Now, normaly, this guy cant hit you, because he is standing above you witha melee weapon and froma top down view a gm might consider this guy going around to try and get into combat, or roll to see if he jumps/climbs down and if he suceeds. I would tell you "Roll Awareness, hearing based", and give everyone a secret big bonus to hear the soldier screaming his lungs out as he jumps from the cliff, and if anyone succeeds, i will say "you look up towards the cliff and see a man wielding a chainswords leaping from the cliff 15 meters above "character a" and descending fast with the intent to kill! what do you do?", giving the characters some time to perform an action of their choice before the falling maniac makes his attack. If nobody hears the maniac, i would say "you thought you heard something, but you guess it was nuthin", let everybody make an action while i roll how well the maniac made his jump, and then next turn i tell them if the guy succeeded, meaning i reveal the attack on "character a" but still give them an awareness test to give them a chance to react and defend themselves before making the manicas attack roll, or should the maniac fail his rolls, i will tell them "suddenly a man, schreeking his lungs out, splatters across the ground before you, his chansword clattering to the ground and covered by the mans own blood". Depending on the battle circumstances this may have more effects, it might distract an enemy, or the man might fall on one of his allies instead. Thats just one example of what i might do. Another thing i like to do is reward creativity and awesomely executed moments following "the rule of cool". If a character did something that made everyone laugh and think it was really cool and exciting, i will give the rsponsible character(s) an appropriate reward, and players can usually try to haggle with me after a session to try and justify extra rewards. By offering this i hope to motivate some action in players during sessions, since being active and creative thus can make your character more awesome faster. I will also talk to my players and listen to their concerns on how a campaign is run, i want everyone to have fun and as gm its my job to ensure that, and as such i will listen to what my players want in an attempt to improve the player experience. Oh and btw, i swear, if you aint ok with that, dont join. What will the story be? It will obviously be a rich story full of the deepest of mysteries, the greatest and most in depth characters and epic battles full of~ oh who am i kidding! you are orks! The story will start with our greenskin players being stuck in some wasteland on some planet, and they all discover a stick, thats right, just a regular woden stick, on the ground, and then whatever happens after that will be shenanigans of your own creation! Will you fight the imperium? If you find them or they find you, yes, absolutely! Will there be other orks? there are always other oks! Something is always bound to happen, you choose what you want to do, but whatever happens you can be sure of one thing: there will most certainly be fighting to be had! I dont have an intended ending for this as i cant be sure you guys would accomplish it before the end of summer, so instead i give you the freedom tomake your own adventures, and then we end when people feel like its time to end. when will we play? This is an important question, we will have to discuss it as a group, however i will tell you right now that i live in sweden and thus follow primarily central european time, and most of my available time will be in the evenings (and not on sundays because of anotehr campiagn i'm part of), which for those across the world will mean early in the morning. Think carefully about what times you are available to play and where you are relative to other potential players. being able to speak english is a requirement, and we will primarily use skype for voice chat, i wont allow people playing through text. How many players are you looking for? I want a minimum of 4 players, however knowing that there are sometimes people dropping out early in a campaign i will be looking for 6 players. So long as there are always at least 3 players available for a session it will be run unless the available players specificly request there not be one unless other players are present. How long will the sessions be? i'm looking at about 4 hours or so, more if people are having alot of fun and wish to continue, and so long as others in my house are not knocking on my door complaining about the noice. Final words So you've read the text wall, are you interested? if so, leave a comment or sent me a PM! If you have any questions, dont be afraid to post em! Right now i wanna see who is interested and what people would like to see out of a lighthearted Ork Campaign. I may have a character/campaign discussion group call/chat at a scheduled time with interested players so that players get to know each other early and help eachothr with character creation and ideas, ect. I hope to hear from you!
