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Hey all! I'm playing with a group here where I live, playing dark heresy, me being the GM.

Just a question to throw out there to other RPG players, specificly if you play Dark Heresy. How much actual power do you hand to your pc's? Do they own only their cloth and weapons or are they lay claim to city spiries?
Reason I ask is that the continuation of my current plot opens up for the posibility of them gaining power and influence. So anyone got any tips on how to keep the game challangeing and intresting even if they end up bathing in money and riches?

The way I ran my group was they never actually had any power of their own. They did however wield some of their inquisitor's power. My players honestly never asked for anything but I would have let them claim housing or even squads of soldiers if they went through the proper channels.

The "Ascension" supplement supports "actual power" where the PCs begin to exert political, social and military influence, I think - though it is intended for characters past level 8, when they could become Inquisitors etc themselves.

Not sure if you have it, but it basically touches upon exactly that which you're talking about here.

Other than that, I suppose it should depend on the situation. As GM, you have the opportunity to "guide" the players' power by denying them certain routes or allowing others. A careful balance needs to be maintained between maintaining a certain degree of realism and interactivity (rewarding players for good ideas rather than outright banning reasonable consequences), yet at the same time making sure they do not "break" neither the game nor the setting itself with their aspirations.

The most obvious limitation to player influence would be that (a) they are most likely on the move across the sector, never actually "settling down" anywhere, and that (b) their Inquisitor could easily interfere and order them to cut loose any ties in order to maintain secrecy.

On the other hand, allowing a certain degree of power in the players' hands, even before Ascension, could prove a boon for the game overall. Imagine your Scum building an underground network of informants through which you could toss them hints and plot pointers. Or your party's Cleric gaining in influence within the Ecclesiarchy, in turn providing the cell with free allies on every world they visit. These things could get especially interesting if they require the players to "masquerade" in order to conceal their true nature - such as the entire party appearing as the Cleric's layman servants, or a bunch of bounty hunters and mercenaries acting as the Scum's muscle, whenever those characters are dealing with their respective organisations.
It depends a lot on how much "cloak and daggers" you want the game to get and what your group consists of, though. Too much concealment can easily prove detrimental to certain types of character concepts.

Hmm, good ideas. Maybe I should make it more cloak and dagger then before. Making their power more subtle and in the shadows, not in-your-face power like driving a baneblade around. (obviously wont give them a freakin baneblade )

Everything Lynata said is spot-on accurate.

I'm running a Malleus game right now, with a bunch of Rank 3's pushing Rank 4. Their Inquisitor took an active part in their training, and as such knows who she can begin trusting with (real) power. For my game* I've had them get their hands on one sanctified weapon each and an assortment of easily burned cover IDs/personas as they're doing stealth investigations with explicit orders to avoid altering anyone to Holy Ordos involvement. If they play their cards right their Inquisitor (bedridden from injuries sustained in the last mission) may give them the Rosette with a "F&%^ up, and it's your head" note attached.

*YMMV needs to be carved into any advice about rpgs. My group is a mix of myself and another veteran (20+ years) player, my wife who's been playing for about 10 years and two complete newcomers to RPGs, and 40k in general. I decided to lift some of the flavor of Eisenhorn and Ravenor, so their Inquisitor is available to them, even in a limited way. For my group, it's been great, but I can't see it working for everyone.

They have access to an inquistion armoury so they can get some gear on loan for a mission duration. They can also buy thier own gear, since they can rent weapons, they are not spending their money to buy bullets and basic things all the time.

So they can manage to buy themselves a bolt pistol rather than having it seized due to thier autority from some guy who will surely remeber that slack jawed acolyte who ran off with his family hierlom.

I was going to say "that's exactly how my group did it".

Then I remembered you were my GM.

Been running a game for a while here, so maybe I can shed some light on the subject.

If you can manage to keep their income to a certain level equal to their experience, then you won't run into player power issues, aside from power gaming psykers.

I tone each area to what I expect them to have within their reach. First area is rock bottom, so clubs and maybe stub pistols, next is a decent upgrade from that, then I start throwing heavy stubbers, vehicle mounted weaponry and light vehicles, plus the occasional nice melee weapon that is far to cumbersome for them to take, ect ect.

I give the party access to all the gear. The only stipulation is beyond a certain rarity, I have to roll to see if it is available. Things get easier to aquire as the game progresses. I try not to loan stuff to players, as they have a bad habit of not returning with said items for whatever reason.

juraigamer wrote:I try not to loan stuff to players, as they have a bad habit of not returning with said items for whatever reason.

This of course could be dealt with via in-game consequences.

Said consequences may very well include not getting anything in the future, though.

Yes but don't forget, unhappy players are players that drag the game down for everyone.

For that reason, I try to avoid situations that cause problems or can cause problems later down the line. Making enemies of NPCs and factions is all well and good, but restricting the gear they can take on a mission, yet kinda need to for the mission... doesn't end up working well.

Yes, I suppose the type of player is fairly important for this question. I don't think it ever was a problem for my old group. Some items were lost or damaged in action, but I think everyone tried their best to bring the stuff back in one piece.

It's a balancing act, really. As a player, I'd hate it to have to resort to scavenging and looting corpses to cover the character's most basic needs or acquire gear. We're Inquisition operatives, not D&D tomb raiders!

The combination of loan equipment + personal equipment (either gifted, or purchased via character income*) also makes it much less punishing to actually maintain proper behaviour and do stuff like shun or even destroy valuable gear because it is "touched by Chaos" or "tainted by the Xenos", rather than thinking of the precious money you could get for it on the market.

Looting fits for Rogue Trader, but not so much for Dark Heresy - or Deathwatch, for that matter.


*: preferably some sort of Inquisition stipend rather than career-based pay (imho the latter is just one of the many things that most often would not really make sense in DH)

When my Pc did not return a thing the value was taken off their next pay; all of it if the item was 'cheap' or part of it in case of costier items.

My players can keep almost everything they can get their hands on. Only a few times has their master stepped in and gone "Thank you. We'll take that!".

Overall though they've had to fend for themselves. Once they're in the field their master expects them to complete their objectives, and they have to figure out the best way to do that.