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Hello there,

I know that "hobbyists" and roleplayers are usually different kinds of people, but since I was talking about this with a friend, I thought I could talk to so some Warhammermaniacs and see if any one else has tried this. So straight to the point: Have any of you ever tried using the WH40k background for some kind of pen & paper roleplaying?
If so, what scenario did you play? What are your experiences?

I myself thought of playing out some kind of Imperial Guard "Dogs of War" scenario, in which players would take the role of newly recruited soldiers in the IG, getting their share of trigger time unexpectedly early. I guess there would be more interesting settings one could play in, but I want to keep it simple for starters, since the other players don't have as much knowledge about the WH40k background as me, and I want to ease them in, before playing anything difficult involving Eldar, or Chaos Space Marines, or something. And getting into the role of a casual soldier is the easiest thing, I guess.

Anyway, before I totally nerd out on you guys, I'd just like to see if there are people around even interested in the roleplaying topic.

Dark Heresy my friend.

Googled it.
I didn't even know there was such a thing as WH40k roleplaying ressources. I might look around a bit, if I can get a copy of that, eventhough it seems a bit... specialized setting-wise. But fantasy flight games usually doesn't disappoint. I'm quite interested in what rules they use. I would just have used GURPS with maybe a few modifications / custom traits.

I currently am a GM in a Dark Heresy campaign. The rules are very similar to those found in the Miniatures game. It is a D10 system similar to WHF system.

The books are hard to come by, but they are still in production. Black Industries stopped production on the RPG in order to support their novels first and foremost. A company in Roseville, MN appropriated the licensing from GW and BL and are continuing to produce new source material, but it seems to be coming at rather random intervals. I curently own everything for the Dark Heresy, and generally have it pre-ordered whenever I hear of an upcoming release. The rules are simple but can be a bit unnerving to a person not familiar with them or used tot he either 2nd edition DND or the current system which is all d20 based.

The name of the company producing it is called Fantasy Flight Games. www.fantasyflightgames.com I believe you can order direct from them or find a local distributor over in Austria. Hope that helps.

Thanks for further info.
What I wondered about was: Is the Dark Heresy ruleset as specialized as I imagine it to be? I'm not too much into the witch hunting aspects of the WH40k universe. So if the rules in it are very specifically about how to play an Insquisitor hunting down heretics and alien cults that wouldn't be quite the thing I'd really like to GM. They should be modifiable for other settings though, I guess?

well there is a lot of user created content that is top notch including statistics and paths for being a space marine. It specializes in the inquisition now but further products are supposed to open the universe up. Playing beings such as Eldar or possibly Orks..

It's simply humans, but you can play as a guardsman, a hive ganger, an assasin, even a sister of battle. They have Tech priests, Psykers and so on and so fourth. As a GM you're as open as the world lets you be. I ahve my characters dealing with Dark Eldar and discovering ancient ruins and STC's and any manner of things. It's basically an outline with rules for combat weapons & more.

Here is a fansite with rules addendums and lots of cool info including some alternate roleplaying systems...

http://www.darkreign40k.com/index.php

They also have a pretty good one that I dled rules for D20 Warhammer 40,000. Its a pretty big roleplaying game got rules for everything you can think of in the 40k universe its pretty awsome. Tho you also need a a D20 Modern Rulebook

Supposedly the Dark Heresy is the first in a line of RPG systems. I think they will follow in the path of the White Wolf Games and come out with madified set for each new release such as a xenos base book and then an addendum for each specific race. And then add additional addendums for Space Marines and IG. And of course a sourcebook for Chaos and so on and so forth... Unfortunately, due to the flooding in my area and the approacj of spring planting I had to cut my game short. We're couped up all winter so when summer rounds the bend it's outside we go.