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So, a couple questions...

First, I'm assuming it's the same throughout the line, but, specifically playing Black Crusade, I couldn't actually find out how characters (players or enemies) die, other than some critical effects.... I'm sure I'm just not thinking of the right language, so the index isn't working.

Second, I'm wondering what Dark Heresy is like. I have Black Crusade (though obviously haven't played much), and am wondering how different in feel and gameplay/mechanics Dark Heresy is from it.

Third (or, second-and-a-half), I recognize bits and pieces of Inquisitor in Black Crusade, and wondering how much that carries over in Dark Heresy-- specifically, the moral ambiguity and infighting, but generally just the feel that INQ created. (If DH doesn't have that feel, but another does, which one?)

Thanks!

Generally speaking it's through critical effects that characters die. Unimportant enemies-- IE those without names-- can die when they lose all wounds though, at the behest of the GM to make things faster.

Dark Heresy is much more restricted and ordered than Black Crusade. In many ways this is for the better-- Only War did what BC was trying to do far better IMO. Also, your character is far weaker to start out with.

Dark Heresy is about you being a lackey in the Inquisition. It's far more morally ambiguous than Black Crusade is.

Thanks for the info-- that helped a lot!

On a related note - which of the 40k RPGs would it be best to start with? My group has more of a 80's-90's D&D background, while one player has only played CRPGs like World of Warcraft, LotRO and RPG-lite boardgames like Ravenloft and Ashadalon but is a big LotR film fan.

Only one of them has more than the vaguest of passing knowledge of 40k beyond being able to recognise a Space Marine, and even the one guy has only a passing familiarity via a few Bill King novels. - this means they're pretty much coming in as blank slates, and have no particular bias towards playing as an Inquisitor, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch or Chaos .

So I'm looking ta picking up the latest version of WHFRP and one of the 40k books. I actually have Dark Heresy, but it's put away somewhere and I have no chance of finding it before I move again in a few months, so all else being equal I'd rather not repurchase it.

Thoughts?

It really depends on what aspect of the franchise interests you and your group the most, as the various games cater to a specific part each, at times with game mechanics tailored to it.

Ruleswise, I absolutely love "Only War". Even if the idea of playing Imperial Guard is not to your liking (you little heretic you), it's just so incredibly easy to mod.

If they’re all blank slates from a 40K perspective, then it really comes down to what sort of game style they’d want.

Invesigation/Horror? Dark Heresy.
Freedom/Exploration? Rogue Trader
Heroically killing the ever-loving gak out of things? Deathwatch.
Freedom/Being evil or rebellious? Black Crusade
Endless War? Only War (but that’s not out yet ‘cept for the beta).

If I had to introduce everyone to the concepts of 40K whilst at the same time not tying them down within a universe that they don’t understand yet, then Rogue Trader would be the best choice.

They would be the crew of a ship, and everyone’s familiar with the Millennium Falcon/Starship Enterprise tropes of being a crew aboard their own ship, and you (as GM) could slow-burn the concepts of 40K to them as they explore the Expanse. It would allow them to discover things at their own pace (for the most part), and they’d feel that they had a lot of freedom.

You could do a similar thing with Black Crusade. The upside is you get the most up to date rule set. The downside is not everyone will want to play evil characters right off the bat (not that everyone has to be evil, but you get what I mean) and whilst you have a lot of freedom in that game, you don’t have the same freedom as you would as the command crew of a massive Imperial ship.

Dark Heresy is my fav game, but newbies might get annoyed with their weaksauce characters (and it would require a decent amount of 40K knowledge). Deathwatch is similar but different. They’ll kill a lot of stuff, and that might be fun to start with but without any 40K lore knowledge it’ll be quite shallow and you might burn them out. Only War I’d just wait for.

I should note that I’m not saying Deathwatch is a shallow game, or that Dark Heresy is a bad game because your characters are so ‘average/unexceptional’. They’re both RPG’s, and you’ll get as much depth out of them as you put into them, but they mightn’t be the best starting points for a new group – especially a new group without any 40K knowledge.

Alternatively you could run them through Shattered Hope. It’s the FFG intro adventure to Dark Heresy. It’s a bit of a dungeon crawl, but that’s what makes it so easy for new players. Before we started playing our DH campaign I put all the players through separate ‘intro’ missions to get them used to the rules, but even when we started playing as a full group I still did Shattered Hope first. It’s a good learning tool, and has three very distinct sections (Intro/Talking/RP’ing, then movement/tests/environmental hazards, then combat).

That's kind of waht I did for Only War-- put the squad through a "shakedown" mission to help figure out what rules I need to explain.

Hm, I think Rogue Trader might be the way to go. A couple of them have played very "open" campaigns of Traveller and Twilight 2000 in the past, and they like Star Wars/Trek/Firefly, so it would probably fit them well as an intro game. Any suggestions as to one of the better starting campaign books?