Adventure choice: House of Dust and Ash or Tattered Fates for 4th rank Acolytes?

[Reilly2 0]

All help is welcomed in that matter.

My players are getting close to rank 4 now (one of them is even in the middle of it) and that's why I ask the question. I like continuity in the campaigns and, knowing that House of Dust and Ash is somehow linked to the Haarlock's Legacy, I think it would be nice idea to start with it. BUT, it seems to me that House of Dust and Ash may end up being too complicated, too full of intrigues and different factions for the players to follow (as they are not so mad about W40k world as I am - most of them rather hold it as more complicated and grim s-f universe). What is your opinion in that matter? What do you think I should choose? Which is more balanced as far as action/talk/investigate is concerned?

Thank you in advance.

- Reilly

[ZillaPrime 3]

Tattered Fates makes alot more sense both for the players and for the plot development if you run House of Dust and Ash beforehand.  You need not transition directly between the two though.  In my case I wrote a "transition" investigation to bridge the gap between the two adventures.  Tattered Fates has a rather distinctive intro to say the least, so I wanted to have my players "play through" the events that lead up to TF.   I had to upgrade the challenge for my team, but then there are seven of them at pretty high rank.  If they play things smart a rank 4 team should manage Dust and Ash ok.  These are potentially lethal adventures, but this is why the Emperor provided Fate Points.

If you decide to make a PC a "scion" in Dust and Ash then you get bonus torment for that character in TF as well. 

[Gregorius21778 249]

I would say "Dust and Ash, and leave TF -OUT-".   As far as I can see, "TatteredFates" can be completely ignored for the triology. Their are two "destinctive items" the group =COULD= gain there. But since chances are they don´t, I don´t thinkt that they will play to much of a role in the final part. 

If you want to save some bucks, leave TF out and go to "Damned Cities" after the group finished "D&A". Perhaps with something inbetween.

[ZillaPrime 3]

Personally I am having a blast running Tattered Fates.  My group is about halfway through it and the in-character stories are already for the history books of fun gaming moments.   All of the pre-published adventures run better with a little GM customization (for any game.  Fortunately FFG gives you a pretty good foundation to build on so far) and as Irony would have it, some of the material I added to "Red Cages" was written by Gregorius.  I tossed in some of my own stuff for good measure and the fun ran wild.   I had players asking me to buy elite advances in Hatred (Beast House) the instant I handed out XP at the end of last week's game.  As a GM I consider that a complement.

The only BI/FFG produced adventures I have been disappointed with so far are Shattered Hope and Baron Hopes.  Even Maggots in the Meat was a big hit with my group, and not all of those on this forum had a good oppinion of it.   Out Techpriest still gets pissed off if someone mentions "salt water" to him!  Plus what is not to like about the "build your own monsters kit" included in the adventure?

[Reilly2 0]

Thank you for quick response.

I guess I'll do as ZillaPrime suggests: start with House of Dust and Ash and then move to Tattered Fates. It should provide a lot of gaming (considering the fact that we play once a week for about 5h) and good opportunities for my players to fully roleplay their characters and use all of their abilities in different situations. And it should provide me with some evil tools to finally make them suffer. Buahahaha. Oh. Sorry. Anyway, being serious, thank you for the answers - I think my players should like the adventures and finally feel the 40k fully.

[The Laughing God 17]

Both adventures are easy to scale up or down as needed .. and they both need it

[ZillaPrime 3]

As prep for Dust and Ash do yourself a big favour and write up more "stuff" for the auction.  Padding the list with odds and ends (and maybe even some tempting piece of loot) will make for a much more dramatic scene.   Our group managed to piss off one of the more well-funded NPCs on the flight over so the petulant bidding war that broke out was quite amusing.  Make sure that if you have an NPC win bids on "exotic wargear" that they make use of their new toys later in the adventure (where appropriate, obviously).  If ever you had a bug up your behind to introduce an item to your game that just makes people grab their skull and scream "WTF?!" then this is your big chance!  The auction is full of really bizarre crap already, so you really can't do much to make the list any more weird.

Likewise for Tattered Fates.  The first adventure portion "Red Cages" encourages the GM to add their own scenes to the pre-written material provided.  This makes things alot more fun, since you can add all sorts of scenes tailored to one or more of the group's characters.  This adventure strips the characters of their gear, so I spent a bunch of time before the game preparing "loot cards" to make game play smoother.  I wrote out 3x5 index cards for anything they could potentially lay their hands on and make use of, complete with a short description and where appropriate the game stats (like weapons or armour).  This way I did not have to stop the game constantly for someone to transcribe things onto their character sheet, plus if they traded gear it was a simple matter of "pass the card".   Actual moment from my run of this:  "Do his boots fit me?  No?  Ok, well then I take the laces out of them and make a lanyard for the flashlight I found earlier."  I even burried potential tools for later scenes in the descriptions of some of the gear so that if someone got clever they could improvise their way to an easier scene: A crude improvised knife was described as a length of broken sawblade attatched to a rough wooden rod with tight windings of uninsulated wire.   Later on in a scene I added where several NPCs were held in cages the Assassin destroyed the crude knife by removing the wire... then using it as an improvised lockpick!  Since "plan B" was likely to be "use an axe as a pry-bar" there were definate rewards for players getting creative with the junk they were handed.

[RedSkull 84]

I ran D&A first and had a lead in built in right after to TF....although my one of my PCs was being difficult the entire way through TF....There are plenty of great RP moments open in TF....one of the interesting ones from my group was that when they meet the white scholar and the thugs bust in to try and take them things go bad. 1st they through grenades in a reading hall and then the pyro slings some fire bolts. Of course they end up burning down the records hall.  The 2nd thing was that my troublesome PC decided to test the law enforcment of this world and just murdered some person on the street and watched from a few blocks away.

I'm sorry to say but fire brand redemptionists just do not fit in the story arch.

Over all I would run D&A then TF and then continue the haarlock legacy...I was even going to go so far as to carry it over a little into my RT game

[Sister Cat 0]

I can't really speak to Tattered Fates, as I have neither read, run, or played through it.

But the crazy fun that ensued when I ran my group through the House of Dust and Ash was absolutely PRICELESS! 

There are so many opportunities for "unlooked-for" and "bizarre" interactions in this adventure!  If you can believe it, my acolytes actually ended up working in conjunction with Master Nonesuch, of all things.  By the end, one group of players had discovered and activated the

"emergency exit", while the other group had fed the Haarlock scion's blood to the Gilded Widow and released the Daemon/Daemonhost/Rogue Psyker/whatever.  I have rarely had so much fun with a "published" scenario, for any game.  Just my take.