Why Deathwatch: Apocalypse?
This is my Apocalypse World (AW) hack of Fantasy Flights Warhammer 40.000 RPG Deathwatch (DW). DW is a game where the players take the roles of gene-enhanced super warrior monks battling the enemies of mankind’s fascistoid Imperium. That star spanning colossal being the last line of defense between humanity and certain extinction. Since the players take the guise of glory seeking warrior monks coming from different chapters, a lot of internal rivalry is to be expected, and is also somewhat catered for in the rules.
However, I feel that the game really falls on its face when it comes to the action part. Instead of being the action filled romp it ought to be, filled with oath taking, boasting and ‘for the Emperor’-s it is a sluggish, bookkeeping fest of future world simulation. Not at all what I had expected when I opened the book. Since having played through a small campaign which died out due to the tedium of the rules I have been searching for a game system that would allow me to play DW the way I had imagined it would be.
Reading on the forum that someone had started a reskinning of the “The Regiment”-hack I realized that AW was probably the system I had been looking for. In AW reality is brutal and unforgiving and everything is tethering on the brink of oblivion. At the same time relations between the characters are important and help drive the story forward. This coincides with how I see how DW should be. But The Regiment introduces a more fine-tuned combat system than AW, a more simulating approach if you will. That is exactly what I want away from in Deathwatch. But still a lot of the very good ideas from The Regiment have been shamelessly stolen.
Considering that the subject matter is 7’ tall superhuman warrior monks 38.000 years into the future simulating reality should not be among the concerns of the game. Creating a fast paced action focused game where questions of valor, glory and chapter history are more important than how large the percentile gain is of a night vision scope when firing through smoke, on the other hand, should.
So this leads me to using the original AW as basis for my hack. When I found Mike Sands’ “The Juggernaut” playbook I knew I was onto something.
Why I originally had not thought about doing an AW hack is that the original playbooks are very singular in how the players create their roles, whereas in DW character creation is very binary; i.e. Chapter/Class. But now I believe I have a solution. It came to me as I sat folding playbooks for a game of AW. My printer at home is unable to print both sides so I simply printed them and then folded them back to back. Holding them in my hands I realized how I could combine the cool playbooks with the binary Space Marines of the future. I’ll make one side of the playbook the class and the other side the chapter!
So this is how Deathwatch: Apocalypse came to be.
I have a playtest document set up that should include most of what you need to try it out with four players. I.e. rules, moves&oaths, an ork beastiarium, armories, five specialties and four chapter backgrounds. I recommend that you print one each of the armories and moves.
I realize that I've forgotten to add an MC agenda but the whole game hinges on the MC being versed in 40k lore so it basically boils down to: Keep it grimdark and invoke history.
Here's the document:
Deathwatch: ApocalypseTL;DNR: Deathwatch has stupidly complicated rules, AW rules fit better, voilá!
Sadly, no space marine mammals included
Please feel free to comment and feed me feedback, for the emperor.