Are We the Baddies? - A Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy 1st Edition Review

 

 

Dark Heresy

Designed by Owen Barnes, Kate Flack, and Mike Mason

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In the dark future of the 41st millennium, humanity has few defenders left. In fact, we've become our own worst enemy, as trillions live under the oppressive Imperium of Mankind. Zealotry and intolerance are abundant as humanity constantly fends off the countless enemies it has accumulated over the last ten millennia. Its founder, the God-Emperor of Mankind, clings to life through arcane technologies. Little more than a corpse, his psychic might barely holds his crumbling domain together and his priests claim he single-handedly prevents human extinction. But even this won't be enough in the face of dark gods and all consuming aliens more villainous than even the Imperium.

In Dark Heresy, players take on the roles of Acolytes, the foot soldiers and investigators of the infamous Inquisition. The Imperium's feared secret police, they root out threats to the "human soul" wherever they might lie, even within their own ranks. 

Inquisitors wield the authority to put entire planets to death but Acolytes end up doing most of the dirty work. They'll be thrown into the labyrinthine politics and dark secrets of the Calixis Sector, a particularly volatile patch of an empire in peril. 

With nothing to call on but their own wits and whatever firearms they can carry, Acolytes will have to root out and destroy various threats. Malicious cults, reality warping daemons, and ruthless aliens lurk around every corner. Acolytes stand to lose life, limb, sanity, and even their souls in the quest to buy humanity even another day.

Dark Heresy was the swan song of Black Industries, Games Workshop's short lived return to RPG publishing. Built off of the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the hybrid RPG-wargame Inquisitor, Dark Heresy was released in 2008, one month before Black Industries closed its doors. The Calixis Sector would live on at Fantasy Flight Games, who would publish the rest of the line and its future companions like Deathwatch and Rogue Trader. Even so, none of the future endeavors would ever quite match Dark Heresy. Though not without its flaws, it was a worthy inheritor of the WFRP mantle, a great way to live out the Dark Millennium, and a solid RPG in its own right. 

Regardless of how good of an adaptation it is, Dark Heresy has a powerful hook: hard bitten investigators struggling against horrors from beyond the stars and those within their own hearts.

A Less-Than-Heavenly-Host

Character creation is fairly in line with the prior WFRP books, with the consolidated stats of WFRP 2nd edition. Notably, a Perception stat has been added and the admittedly wargame-y Attacks has been removed. This game offers no species or races besides human: the humanity of the Dark Millennium is a superstitious, xenophobic lot and doubly so in the Inquisition. To compensate are the somewhat more flavorful "Homeworlds." Players get to pick from the dominant worlds in the galaxy spanning Imperium: lawless Feral Worlds, mega city wracked Hive Worlds, the starship bound Void Born, with the rest coming from the average Imperial World.

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The Homeworlds are admittedly a little more robust than the standard, currently under fire approach to species in most RPGs. While there are stat modifiers for each option, they're a result of culture and environment rather than somehow inherent. The actual statistical differences are limited to 5%, with most of the differences coming from atmospheric talents. Hive Worlders are frightened by the open skies, Feral Worlders care little for advanced technologies, and even regular Imperial Worlders are emboldened by the assertion that "Of all the planets in the Imperium, theirs is, in fact, the most beloved of the Emperor."

The all important Fate points make their return as a limited pool of bonuses and rerolls that replenish each session. They also have their classic purpose, to be permanently spent to stave off death.

Added for some additional gothic flavor is the Divinations Chart, made up of dozens of grim 40K quotes like "Truth is subjective" and "Only in death does duty end," with appropriate bonuses. It's mostly flavorful, in addition to the other largely cosmetic charts for a character's appearance and background.

Particularly fun is the Quirk chart, which leaves the character with tasteless fashion choices, strange smells, various scars, and minor health ailments. In contrast with the square jawed acolyte on the cover and too many other Warhammer works, Dark Heresy is not meant to star stalwart ubermensch but more human, vulnerable figures.

The Earth Priesthood

In contrast with the staggering number of careers offered by WFRP, Dark Heresy restrains itself to a more standard eight. In some ways it's a poor tradeoff but fits the tone of this game better. Six of the eight careers are drawn from offices of the Adeptus Terra, the Imperium's central bureaucracy, and its affiliates. Unlike the more open ended WFRP, this is a game explicitly about defending the Imperium from horrors that make it seem tame by comparison.

There's a good variety, with a solid half having not graced tabletops since the wargame's second edition, assuming they ever made it that far. And while there's an unsurprisingly militant focus, space is set aside for a more subtle approach. Adepts offer more scholastic abilities but little in the way of combat and the multifaceted Scum can be run as a charismatic grifter or hired muscle. Even more overtly martial careers like the Judge Dredd-styled Arbitrators have some more "subtle" options available. 

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Having characters that are mostly drawn from Imperium institutions is a big departure from WFRP's compelling focus on normal people (though it had its share of adventurers-in-uniform) but besides the justification, that isn't completely lost. Characters are distinctly not superhuman and in fact not particularly relevant. They start out as low ranking lackeys, conscripts, and recruits, with the bare minimum of gear and training, experience representing them rising through the ranks.

Speaking of which, they take a very narrative approach with the Psyker career. They roll on a chart to determine the traumatic effects of the sanctioning inflicted on them by the Imperium, the harsh training to prevent their psychic abilities from running wild. Psychic powers function much like magic in other systems, though there's not much stopping a Psyker from casting a power every turn. However, a roll of 9 triggers "Perils of the Warp," as reality buckles and induces either a spooky event or full scale daemonic possession.

Psykers take a while to get to more offensive powers but the minor ones seem to have more utility than the more complex ones. Spamming Healer and Spasm has saved many a party in my games. Psykers do feel much stronger than most players and the lack of restrictions on power use can be hard to write around.

Even so, when psychic powers do backfire, it never ends well.

Grim Machinations

I'm making a lot of WFRP comparisons, but considering how close the basic mechanics are, I'd say it's warranted. The book itself even makes the connection a few times. The games play very similarly, with the same basic task resolution mechanic of making percentile rolls. Like in WFRP 2nd edition, skills were important and broken down into Basic and Advanced. Basic skills can be tested against even if a character hasn't purchased it, though the check is made at 50% of the relevant stat. 

In theory it gives PCs more options in a situation but in practice I find it can get rough. Unskilled players doing basic tasks like Inquiry and Bartering have a chance of success hovering around 10%. It encourages characters to be specialized but it also discourages players from stepping out of their niche. GMs are meant to mitigate this by making story relevant checks easier (by anywhere from 10% to 30%). 

But I often feel I'm stuck in a balancing act between ensuring characters don't feel too helpless without making them too powerful. To some extent that happens in every rules heavy game but it's an especially present issue in Dark Heresy.

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The skills and talents mostly fulfill basic mechanical functions, like swimming, along with some classics like Blather. In a sci-fi dark age, knowledge is power, so Knowledge, Forbidden Lore, and Tech Use are all valuable skills. But there's also a spattering of colorful, if not particularly optimized options, like Lip Reading and various Trades. Talents have even more personality, with the expected combat focused ones paired alongside the bizarre.

For a game about investigations, there isn't much mechanical support for it. Dark Heresy spares about a page worth of dedicated rules for it and little direct instructions beyond that. A lot of games I've been in (both as a player and GM), end up putting too much focus on the combat but with how much of the book is dedicated to that it's not surprising.  

Part of me is thankful that investigations aren't too codified in rules and dedicated skills. It's given my players and I more leeway in how they want to approach the murderous conspiracies of each session. Arguably social and investigative elements in an RPG suffer from overbearing rules, as it can leave less room for them to exist in the narrative. But even so, I wish Dark Heresy had done a bit more to help GMs and players avoid always going in guns blazing.

Big Guns Never Tire

"There is only war" by the 41st millennium and so unsurprisingly combat gets the bulk of the focus in Dark Heresy. For all my griping, I think this game strikes something of a balance, unlike future titles. There's enough personality in the rest of the game to offset the focus on simply destroying the horrors Acolytes uncover.

Combat follows the same basics as everything else. Damage is determined by rolling a D10 with the appropriate weapon and talent modifiers added. A 10 triggers Righteous Fury, the equivalent of a critical hit, letting a player roll an unmodified skill check for the chance to deal additional damage.

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This game goes beyond even WFRP's infamous critical hits by giving separate critical hits charts for each of the four damage types. It sees characters get melted, torn apart, disemboweled, or reduced to a smoking heap. I'll admit that on the surface the more the better, but it's the most obvious example of Dark Heresy over complicating a pretty simple base system. Flipping between the different critical hit charts and keeping track of damage types quickly becomes tiresome.

Each class of weapon (Las, Bolt, Plastma, etc.) requires a dedicated Talent, so even players who manage to scrape up a plasma pistol at Rank 1 won't be able to use it properly.

The armory itself is vast, capturing the archaic nature of the grimdark future with its variety. Players have access to everything from super heated melta guns to the humble bow and arrow. You can imagine which one is easier to afford. There's a similar range of melee weapons, from matter destroying power swords to... regular swords. 

Armor gets less attention but it's hardly neglected. It's easy to imagine with all these options that Dark Heresy would be far more lethal than its Fantasy counterparts but that hasn't been the case for me. Between the wider range of medical, psychic, and protective aids on offer, an Acolyte has a much easier time getting back into the fray. The availability of cybernetics further mitigates the lethality long term. Combine that with defensive abilities with unforgiving skill checks, and fights can drag out to the point of tedium. Even with more actions, bonuses, and equipment, the "whiffing" problem definitely wasn't solved here.

Horror and Madness

The game master section offers the usual array of physical and mental obstacles for players but in Dark Heresy, the biggest threats at a Game Master's disposal are the least tangible.

Dark Heresy includes the classic staple of nearly every horror game, insanity. I've discussed sanity mechanics a few times at this point, so I'll just say it's a very questionable but not irredeemable idea. 

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Considering how combat heavy Dark Heresy is for a horror game, I do think having some kind of psychological trauma mechanic is valid. Characters can persevere against the physical threats posed by their adversaries but victory won't undo the horrors left in their wake. Players mainly accumulate Insanity Points from failing Fear checks, which causes temporary psychological effects. As the Acolytes march onward, they may very well develop permanent issues. Said psychological conditions are left fairly vague, mainly as phobias and hallucinations, so they're thankfully somewhat detached from real world conditions.

Of course, Acolytes also have their very souls at risk. Separate but parallel to Insanity Points are Corruption Points, gained from brushes with the malefic forces of Chaos. The most interesting way of doing so is by willingly entering bargains with Chaos daemons, for unnatural powers at the price of one's soul.Whether PCs accumulate it willingly or not, there's no real defense from Corruption and its effects. They're represented by Malignancies, a broad range of physical and mental ailments with a more supernatural bent to them.

As corruption mounts, eventually characters also have to resist mutation. The lowest underclass in a regime made up of almost nothing but, it's an especially grim fate for Acolytes frequently tasked with hunting them down. The mutation chart is a tad limited, though admittedly every version has paled in comparison to the hundreds of entries in the original Realm of Chaos books.

The Dark Millennium

While not all of the mechanics mesh together perfectly, Dark Heresy papers it all over with such a strong atmosphere. This book grasped Warhammer 40,000 in a way few other installments have. It returns the game to its roots as a dark satire and it may very well be the funniest 40K publication with its gags and jokes. This is best shown by the quotes throughout the book. Grim proclamations from Imperial authorities and their enemies has always populated the margins of rulebooks but here many come from the "normal" people of the setting, with equal parts amusing and tragic insights.

The Dark Millennium of Dark Heresy doesn't depict the Imperium as the heroic necessary evil of modern publications but rather the absurdly dysfunctional and needlessly cruel monstrosity it was always meant to be. 

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That being said, Dark Heresy won't be unrecognizable to those less familiar with Oldhammer. A good deal of the art is taken from prior publications, most notably Dark Heresy's predecessor Inquisitor. It's a well curated selection of some of the best Warhammer art, ripe with atmosphere and character, so that's not a complaint. A good deal of original art also features, with a less of the typically model kit-centric focus. Wayne England and Dave Gallagher all have substantial bodies of work, but they did some of their best here.

Besides some familiar art, Dark Heresy effectively captures the bleaker and more horrific elements of the setting. More importantly, the book lays these out in a way players and GMs can actually engage them. The themes section is a little blunt but perfectly summarizes what Dark Heresy should be about. Acolytes desperately searching for the cure to a crumbling, ignorant empire on the brink of destruction. 

Dark Heresy also emphasizes the feudalism of the Imperium, caused by how stellar communication and travel is entirely on unpredictable psychics. As long as a group does their homework with the rulebook, they shouldn't have trouble capturing the admittedly difficult tone of the setting.

Probably the wisest decision made for Dark Heresy was restricting the setting to a single region of the Imperium, the Calixis Sector. Before anything else, it's a richly developed backdrop even within the core rulebook, sporting its own major locales, power groups, and unique threats. The big planets get a disproportionate focus but you're given just enough history and nuggets about other worlds to work with and plenty of room to add your own mark.

Warhammer 40K's setting is vast and menacing, so this managed expectations. With the Calixis Sector, Dark Heresy crafted  a corner of the setting more conspiracy and mystery oriented. The tabletop fixtures, whether they be Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, or Tyranids, are relegated to the fringes of the Calixis Sector if they're even present at all. 

This allows the Dark Heresy's themes of corruption to be better explored, as reflected by a bestiary populated mostly by the suffering denizens of the Imperium, some of the seditious elements, and a few of their monstrous patrons. It would have been easy to spread the book thin in an uneven free for all that covers every major faction.

Instead, Dark Heresy opts for something much more focused, functional, and frankly fun with the Calixis Sector.

Objectionable Means, Questionable Ends

Beyond the complexity of Dark Heresy's, its not an easy game to run. No faithful version of Warhammer should ever feel welcoming. But here you truly do play the villains, albeit ones facing an unfathomable evil. I think Dark Heresy still could have done slightly better, but the book doesn't do much to justify the Imperium. Its depiction of everyday life is nightmarish, even before getting to the cults and monsters involved. Even the named Inquisitors recognize the Imperium is doomed on its current course, though their alternatives aren't any more palatable.

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It's easy to imagine players would find it uncomfortable to uphold such a broken regime. One immediate example is the tasteless sidebar awkwardly noting the Imperium doesn't treat women very well. While the Imperium should be repulsive, this acknowledgement is somehow worse than if they just let players figure that out for themselves. Admittedly I'm more frustrated that it does nothing constructive with that observation, unlike previous Black Industries publication Knights of the Grail, which used Bretonnia's extreme chauvinism to explore the different identities people construct in response and opposition to rigid social norms. 

But more to the point, players shouldn't feel comfortable fighting for a hyper-militarized theocratic regime. If they do treat that as a straight power fantasy, I'd be more than a little concerned. But ironically that's what makes the Inquisition uniquely suited to tell stories in the Dark Millennium. Between their renegade members and devious agendas, the organization is best suited to show the worst of the Imperium. 

Dark Heresy even acknowledges that Acolytes might find their goals shifting from "defending humanity" to escaping the yolk of their Inquisitor or even putting a stop to their master's schemes.

In the current political climate, Dark Heresy feels like a hard story to tell but an important one. The monster hunting and mystery solving is genuinely fun but it asks the hard question of how many necessary evils can you indulge in before you become plain old evil.