By forced I mean things should look very dire from where there standing and theres a nice warm bed and a few defence drones in the tau encampment. Some players might think lets kill em and get there loot and others would say I think we can make friends here leading to infighting leading to corruption making the story interesting in a very differant way.

TCBC Freak said:

That just goes to show that players -never- do what you expect, and rarely what you want them to xD

 You have crashed on a feral world.  You have perhaps a hundred bolter shells between your squad, some random equipment that survived, and whatever spare parts or components you can salvage from your wrecked lifepod.  The ship itself probably came down somewhere on-planet, but Emperor knows where or how far it might be.  Nobody knows exactly where you are, and it's unlikely they're coming to get you any time soon.

Ten thousand years ago, this colony was lost and forgotten to the Imperium.  They fell into savagery, spread across the planet, forged empires and kingdoms, and have re-risen to the level of feudalism and steel.  There are multiple civilizations with wildly differing languages and cultures.  They have no idea what Space Marines are, and no knowledge there are other humans out there.  Their greatest scholars have figured out heliocentrism.  

Every religion on this world is heretical if not actually chaos-tainted.  There are Psykers living openly as "wizards" and wielding their power to achieve lordship over their fellow primitives.  You're pretty sure that the "dragon" the locals are talking about is some kind of very big, very mean Tyranid, and from the other tales of monstrosities it likely isn't alone.  They never are.  There are signs indicating the presence of Eldar Exarchs living somewhere on-planet, possibly with Webway access.  Local myths indicate Dark Eldar have attacked at some points in this world's history, a possibility that is the exact metaphysical opposite of reassuring.  

And are there Orks?  Of course.  There are always Orks.

@The Wyzard

I'm gonna steal your campaign idea! I'm going to run it as a fantasy game. I shall call it: Hammer of War. I think it will do well.

On a more serious note, Chapter affiliation can add some story idea by themselves. A Dark Angel character is a font of story ideas as they hnt down The Fallen of the chapter AND attempt to hide the Chapter's dark secret from the other members of Deathwatch.

When the Dark Angel investigates the Fallen rumors ala. Dark Heresy, what will he do when he learns the Fallen is hidden somewhere in a civilian village? If he decides to nuke the village from orbit (it's the only way to be sure) what will his Salamander Chapter pal say about that?

Also, the Blood Angel vampiric mutation could be interesting. Imagine the Apothecary discovering the Blood Angel player is falling into the Black Rage. Does he keep the secret and risk the lives of his brothers? Does the Blood Angel decide to wade into a sea of Orks and die honorably before becoming a monster?

I think Deathwatch offers more roleplaying and moral quandry than people give it credit for.

Warboss_Gurk said:

It absolutely does, but be careful with the DA Fallen dealy, remember that the DA will stop at nothing to keep their secret just that, a secret and that one needs to be a member of the Inner Circle to even know about them.  This can and should lead to interparty conflict if it ever comes to light, as said Dark Angel (if they know about the Fallen ahead of time) will have to do something about the rest of the Deathwatch squad knowing...  Having actually played out this scenario with some home brew space marine goodies (DA Librarian seconded to the DW because, there are few chapters who hate aliens more), I was lucky that when the Fallen Angel my GM sprung on me decided to go all Bond Villain on me and yammer on that the Black Templar and the Flesh Tearer in the party were tied up on the other side of the cathedral out of earshot or I would have had to kill my own party members (BT codex has a story about them picking up a Fallen Angel, the DA asking nicely for him back once and when they said no... well that BT crusade never made it back home. as the Templar was looking for any reason at all to declare me a heretic and detested working with me cause I was a psyker ;)

For other campeign fun plot twists, the Badab War hasn't taken place yet, would be interesting to have a Mantis Warrior or Astral Claw in the party when the rest of their chapter goes renegade/chaos, what's it like being one of the few out of Huron's grasp who doesn't want to turn on the Imperium? What lengths will he go to to rectify such... betrayal of chapter? ;)