Yes Im referring to the events in the Illumination module and Purge the Unclean in which the acolytes risk receiving corrpution points for harming innocents while doing their duty to the inquisition. As i see it Corruption stems from the warp and maybe lust for personal power/wealth, not dedication to the god emperor (otherwise Exterminatus would be the ultimate corrption, everyone ivolved going max corrupted right away).

But is there another way to handle disregard for human life? Insanity points? Fear test level +10? Not every acolyte is a stone cold killer and there should be something to make it less appealing to just blaze away into a crowd, at least for those not already jaded.

Well i think CP have been reworked so its only warp related things that grant them not, not simple evil deeds the exterminatus is more likely to be the insanity line of stuff, much like the pilots who dropped nukes on the people of hiroshima and nagasaki in japan

Those should be insanity points, if you want your pc's to gain corruption points, give them a Psyker.

Btw, did any body catch that every time a psyker rolls a 9 he also gains 1 corruption point?

I think he just gets a CP if he gets a Peril.

My personal view of corruption points is that they are a measurement of both a characters level of apathy toward evil deeds and his ability to justify to himself committing them. No one starts out as prime evil – it is a long winding road along which the dark powers are ready to offer reward to keep you on that road.

Being corrupt doesn’t come from the warp, it comes from choice. The warp’s only influence is to tempt the character into making the bad choice and corruption points are a representation of how far along that road the character has traveled.

If an evil hive ganger is using an innocent crowd for cover while he takes pot shots at the characters with his hand cannon, it’s easy to justify shooting back;

“If I don’t kill him now, he’ll kill more people.”
“The fate of such and such hangs in the balance.”

But, regardless of how you justify it, shooting back with significant risk of hitting an innocent bystander is NOT a purely GOOD thing. In fact, it’s a bad thing… it may be a bad thing with a good outcome, but it’s still a bad thing. That’s one thing I really like about Dark Heresy – fighting evil can not be done effectively without sometimes getting your hands dirty. Sometimes you have to sink to the same level of the very forces you fight against. It is often necessary to make the choice between committing a bad deed for the greater good and earn a corruption point or refraining from such an act and potentially risking more lives.

Is it fair that the PC’s are put in such positions? Absolutely not… but evil doesn’t play fair. The forces that the characters rail against do not have rules and placing their opponents in a position to make hard choices is often the only ground they ever gain as an army of Inquisitors and acolytes hunt them mercilessly every second of every day.

As stated in earlier threads: the source of this conflict comes from an unfortunate naming issue.

Many people read "corruption points" and reasonably think of moral corruption and pretty much all the traditional definition of the word corruption. However if you read the section about the sources and effects of CP its really about warp exposure.

I have no disagrements with the above post's statement that their should be cosequences for hard choices re good and evil. And that this fits with the definition of the word corruption.

However the effects of the acumulation of CP's resulting in mutation moves them away from defining CP's via these traditional definitions of corruption. Otherwise every evil bastard running arounf the 40k universe (and their are an awful lot of them) would have eyes on stalks and tentacle.

So read corruption points in the book as if it had been named properly; as: "Warp Taint"

For being evil/corrupt use the insanity points system.

It has been suggested that Corruption Points went through many revisions from when Dark Heresy was first conceived to when it was eventually published. As Purge The Unclean was in the works before Dark Heresy every saw print, it is entirely possibly that the Corruption Points presented were more in line with an older, unpublished version of the rules, and was simply not corrected in the final printing.

I can only agree with the majority here - Corruption points are not an evil-o-meter. If your character shoots a few innocents and hasn't got either the Willpower or Jaded to shrug it off, he might get some insanity there. If he shoots a lot of innocents for no reason, he might get into trouble with his superiors or the local authorities.

But the main point is: WH40k is a crapsack universe. It's a place where people are expected to do bad stuff and where they usually do it without consequences because it's a daily part of their life. Arbitrators supress demonstrations in ways that make third world dictators weep tears of joy, death cult assassins are sociopathic murderers celebrating the killing of other people and Administratum bureaucrats routinely condemn world to poverty and starvation because it fits their plans. If that got you any corruption points, half the Imperium would be slobbering mutants.

If that got you any corruption points, half the Imperium would be slobbering mutants.

He's on to us. Run!

Attila-IV said:

As one of the authors of Illumination and the author of Purge The Unclean - the roaring dinosaur-like chap is completely correct. Corruption Points (in the final run) are supposed to be acquired by exposure to the Warp (in all its manifestations).

While "corruption" is indeed rief within the Imperium, Corruption Points don't represent that.

The offending portions should probably be shifted to causing Insanity Points.

I've been kicking around another mechanic, but it isn't ready for dissemination yet.

OK, thanks for clarification and other input guys, I'll use give the PCs some insanity points (always fun) instead, although one IP per degree of loss of degree on a WP test seems a bit too harsh, considering that the shock table hardly gives as many. One or two points should suffice for second-degree murder.

Purge the Unclean looks really nice otherwise.

"There is no innocents, only varying degrees of guilt."

That's pretty much how I sum up how the generic NPC's of a game are to me as either a PC or a GM, considering the Inquistion's own stance on, 'innocence." However, while maiming and possibly hurting an otherwise good disciple of the Emperor may seem corrupt it could very well be a process to aquire information needed to hunt out the true ruinious powers or invoke them from hiding to seek the party, so this shouldn't really invoke corruption points unless the PC takes sheer pleasure in the NPC's or PC's torture. Now butching an entire villa for no other reason for blood shed when a purge wasn't ordered, then yes I say corruption points ( a lot of them, say 2d10 or 3d10) are in order.