Oscar's Journal

[Oscar Pyth]

Whew, what a first post for returning. Hey all. Just wanted to write something to inform folks that I'm not dead. Just was rather busy for a spell. I should be back and in action after I finish reading over all these changes and make due changes to Oscar here where its necessary. If anyone has any threads with me that went unfinished and they either want to finish em' or turn them in please by all means let me know.

Sorry again for the abrupt disappearance!

[Rumour]

Welcome back, Oscar! I'm glad to hear you're still around. You & your PC are fantastic additions to the site and Rynmere. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your writing! x

[Oscar Pyth]

Tales of a Dark Heresy GM

So I've mentioned before I GM'd and occasionally still do GM a table top game called Dark Heresy. If you aren't familiar, its a pen and paper RPG that takes place in the Warhammer 40k universe. Essentially its as grimdark and over the top as one can get and still be taken semi-seriously. Dark Heresy puts you in the shoes of Acolyte's of the God-Emperor's holy inquisition. Expendable assets used to fight a shadow war against Xenos, the forces of Chaos, and horrific daemons of the warp. Its fun in a rather deadly sort of way. As in your characters will often die. A lot. Figured I'd post the more amusing exploits of some of my groups here for posterity. And giggles.

Now then, where to start. Ah, yes. Let us start with the tale of the Psyker Who Cast Push.

GM O had players A, B, and C going through a long dungeon in a ruined city invaded by Cultists devoted to Chaos and traitor imperial guardsmen. Their paths were wrought with much peril. Not the least of which was because Player A was playing a Psyker (space wizard that can possibly blow up from harnessing the power of the warp).

At every turn, Player A was using the opportunity to cast their super cool powers to give themselves an edge. On the first floor, GM O took him aside and noted that using powers so frequently could have greater chances of bad things happening. The advice, naturally was ignored when in the next combat he rolled psychic phenomena. Nothing too bad, just voices in everyone's heads.

Player's B and C were naturally a tad worried about Player A's 'help'. Especially as they ended up racking up more phenomena. Still, Player A was confident he 'had this' and that 'RNG was totally on his side.'

Eventually he had a bad Phenomena Roll and had to roll on Perils, the 'could possibly end a campaign and TPK' bad chart. After this he was more careful with his powers and cast them at Fettered. Psychic powers have 3 levels. Fettered, which halve the psyker's manifest dice or 'psy rating' but can't invoke phenomena. Unfettered, which let the psyker use their full potential at the risk of causing phenomena on certain rolls. And push, which has you roll on phenomena at a higher chance of bad stuff happening but you can squeeze more power out. Its a risk vs reward thing, the more you risk the better the reward.

Anyway. Fast forward to the final floor. Player A attempts to detect psychic disturbances in the ritual caverns. GM O allows them to glean that the veil is weak due to the ritual being performed and mass sacrifices being made. Player B, an Adept (basically a scholar type character that knows quite a bit about everything), attempts to use their forbidden lore on Daemonology to figure out what's going on. They learn that this ritual is being used to create a Daemonhost that could potentially kill millions of people.

With this sobering fact learned the party cautiously moves up, Player C, a Guardsman, blowing away cultists as they come. Eventually they reach the Big Bad Evil Guy. BBEG doesn't bother with a long winded monologue and attacks the players. He uses Physic powers as well, pushing Player A to their final mistake. They use push. And roll poorly. After rolling poorly they go on Psychic phenomena. They roll poorly there. Roll on Perils of the Warp. 100-Greater Summoning. A Greater Daemon og Tzeentch pops into existence.

Players A, B, and C are shocked into silence. Player A can't believe what just happened and is a tad in denial. Player B has a numb look on their face and is already breaking out a fresh character sheet. Player C meanwhile has his character turn to the team psyker and blow their head off with a point blank shotgun to the head. GM O is dying of laughter behind the GM screen. TPK. Ended up playing Magic: The Gathering for the rest of the night.

Fun Times.