Newbie Question concerning gear

By Brother Anselm, in Only War Rules Questions

When my players finish an adventure they don't have to give back all the gear acquired by their logistic roll (For non mission specific gear) do they?

They can just keep accumulating a hoard of stuff as long as they can show they signed off on it ?

Yes. Mission assignment gear (that you predetermined as a GM) will generally have to be returned.
If they lucked out on that roll (or actually screwed it up) and got randomized items, useful or not, they can keep those, because they got lost due to bureaucratic error. The Munitorum considers them lost and as long as no one finds them, you can keep it.

You can have some fun with returning those items: Maybe the Departmento Munitorum accuses you of stealing them, as you clearly have unsanctioned gear (never mind that you got it by accident and are trying to return it), maybe they praise you for it. Or perhaps they shrug, tell you they've written it off already, so you'd best keep it. Or if you don't return the items, maybe the hard-ass commissar comes around for an inspection...

Any items that you requisitioned specifically are assigned to you and you keep them until discharged or dead. Generally.
Since all your items (and you yourself, too!) are the property of the Departmento Munitorum, they can theoretically take it away again. It's unlikely to happen to your Standard Kit, but say you requisitioned a melta gun. Now, your regiment is on some backwater, fighting the local savages, while another regiment has to fight an enemy elite tank regiment. The DM might decide to take all your AT-equipment and give it to the other regiment, because they need those guns now while you can wait to get AT equipment resupplied from further away. Or so the DM thinks :)

Yes. Mission assignment gear (that you predetermined as a GM) will generally have to be returned.

If they lucked out on that roll (or actually screwed it up) and got randomized items, useful or not, they can keep those, because they got lost due to bureaucratic error. The Munitorum considers them lost and as long as no one finds them, you can keep it.

You can have some fun with returning those items: Maybe the Departmento Munitorum accuses you of stealing them, as you clearly have unsanctioned gear (never mind that you got it by accident and are trying to return it), maybe they praise you for it. Or perhaps they shrug, tell you they've written it off already, so you'd best keep it. Or if you don't return the items, maybe the hard-ass commissar comes around for an inspection...

Any items that you requisitioned specifically are assigned to you and you keep them until discharged or dead. Generally.

Since all your items (and you yourself, too!) are the property of the Departmento Munitorum, they can theoretically take it away again. It's unlikely to happen to your Standard Kit, but say you requisitioned a melta gun. Now, your regiment is on some backwater, fighting the local savages, while another regiment has to fight an enemy elite tank regiment. The DM might decide to take all your AT-equipment and give it to the other regiment, because they need those guns now while you can wait to get AT equipment resupplied from further away. Or so the DM thinks :)

And how do you handle equipment requisition petitions?

For example,

- how many pieces of equipment can it be asked for between missions?

- How many times can you ask for a single piece of equipment before they tell you "hey, that's enough, you won't be getting that".

- what if a player asks for a weird piece of equipment (needle gun, ornamented caparace or whatever) and is lucky enough to get it?

My idea was to let them ask for one piece of equipment after every mission and to make them "escalate", so you can't get a best craft caparace right away, you have to get a best craft flak armour first, and so on.

Well, it kinda depends, I think. To get it out of the way: The rules don't say. This is entirely up to the GM.

Here's how I'd do it:

If you have the time to fill out all the requisition forms, including good reasons (of up to 255 letters)*, then nothing's stopping you. Except that if you bring in 100 requisition forms to the quartermaster, he's gonna laugh and throw them away. If you come up to him and chat (unless he's busy, then you just do it as efficiently as possible) and hand him four requests, all of which are reasonable for you, then by all means try them all. Particularly the being friendly bit should help somewhat. As should having a Munitorum Manual while filling out the forms and taking your time in doing them correctly.
*Because there isn't that much space on the forms (and in the Cogitator...),

So, four or five, depending on how much time you have, if you wanna do them properly. If you rush them, I'd make up a luck roll or something to determine whether you've made a mistake on the forms: If yes, then forget rolling for requisitioning, your forms are just thrown out. The DM is busy, if you don't do it right, tough. If you keep wasting their time with wrong forms, you might even get punished! Not executed, unless you're a major spammer, but you really shouldn't have enough time or forms for that.

I'd go for "unlimited, unless there's an in-game reason". You wanna go "Ceterum censeo I need that fethin Best Craftsmanship Carapace" whenever you requisition anything? As long as your forms in order, I don't see anything but a nice plot hook there. Why does your character want that item so badly? Who notices and what do they think of it?

I'd never let such items come down purely to luck. In general, I'd always ask, before the actual requisitioning bit, "Is this something that your regiment or you yourself have access to?"
Ornamented carapace: This is for certain regiments or valorous deeds, since it marks you as special on top of being good armour. Hence, you cannot get it unless someone can commission it for you or you're in a position to order it yourself.
Needle rifle: This is a sniper's/assassin's weapon. are you going on a mission which requires it, or have you shown the right aptitudes? Then go ahead and try. The trained operator in a Super-Heavy Regiment? Yeah, no, denied, as it simply isn't a weapon the regiment has access to.
There are alternate avenues, such as trading with other regiments, but these come with their own RP hooks.

My sergeant was able to requisition fire bombs and exterminator cartridges for the entire squad, because he took some time in filling the forms out properly, with the help of a Munitorum Manual, justified it (particularly it wouldn't be only for himself) and talked to a priest to give a recommendation ("We want to bring the Emperor's Flame to the Enemy!"): Since they're all items the regiment has access to, it was possible, and with everything I did I got a nice bonus. We did get enough for the squad :)

So, that's mostly how I'd do it. Then again, as a GM I often just eyeball situations, which I can do well because with my groups there's generally a clear sense of how we want to play the game (we talk about that) and because I get feedback every session to make sure I get it right. It's a cooperative thing and it smooths rules like these out nicely.

My group is the other side of the coin. They want stuff because it is cool, and get mad when they don't get it. So be careful about how much they actually get, and whether or not they keep it. Ultimately it is up to you, so maybe if they get too game-breakingly powerful you have an "inspection" that finds their gear, confiscates it, and then punishes the squad.

But wouldn't that make them far more mad? I mean, you're taking away something that they got fairly and punishing them for any item you let them have .
Isn't it better to talk to them about the style of game you wanna play beforehand and then say "look, with this item, the game goes from gritty war story, which we'd agreed to play, to action movie. That's not what we agreed on, and not what I wanna play. So that item is off-limits except maybe for some plot-determined moments" ?

And besides, if they requisitioned it properly, and maintain it relatively well, then an inspection isn't gonna do anything.

Of course if you have a rules-lawyerly group, where everything has to strictly be RAW, it's a bit different, as they'll be able to roll for anything as often as they want, until they get it.
Personally, I have to say that the Wh40k RPGs range, however, from bad to utterly, completely, broken in terms of RAW and really need to be houseruled to work well. It's a shame and a lot of work, because while it's been done for Dark Heresy f.ex. Only War is different enough to require its own set of house rules again.

It depends on the person, in my group. Most are content to roleplay and deal with whatever comes before them, but I have one player who is loud, stubborn, and worst of all, a rules-lawyering power gamer. He is very good about reading the entire rulebook, but when it comes to the table, tells everyone the best equipment and how to get it, as well as trying to strong-arm the GM into doing what he wants to do. This wasn't as bad when I GMed, but when another player took over, it got really bad.

So, moral of my story is to try and keep equipment out of the hands of your players if they are anything like mine. Maybe give them stuff if they really, truly, roleplayed for it well or have an actual reason and story for why they have it. Otherwise, it just becomes a mess.

Hmm. That's why I try to talk about expectations and wishes beforehand. The strength of a social contract established by giving everyone a say in how the game should look lets the group I GM and the groups I play in just say no to such players. We've only had one problem player so far, and yeah, once he just quit because we wouldn't let him surprise the enemies in the middle of a firefight because he made his stealth sniper roll, but most of the time, it reins him in very well.

On the other hand, I do also always try to read the entire rulebook and I've told everyone to stay away from plasma weapons because they're just worse than... everything I can get at that point, really... put I think I manage to stay on the side of "playing effectively" instead of just going into "munchkin-style powergaming". Similarly, as a GM I help my players pick good choices, because an optimised character is a useful player character and a useful character is much more fun than a useless one. NPCs can be hilarious when inept, but inept PCs are problematic. Again, unless that's exactly what the group wants. SLAPSTICK HEROES OF THE OLD WEST, HEEEEEEERREEEEE WEEEE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ;)