I'll counter that you have no guarantee that it won't work out. If character A pays low price for combat stuff and high price for investigative stuff while character B pays high price for combat stuff and low price for investigative stuff, you'll most likely see A with mostly combat abilities but a smattering of investigative stuff, while B does the opposite. The imbalance you suggest only occurs if one character takes only the inexpensive options while the other does the opposite and overindulges in expensive purchases. In any case, getting agency over the game is only going to mean dealing with what the GM puts in front of the characters, and most GMs will adjust adventures to the characters that are active in them.

Except stuff doesn't work that way for several reasons.

For example, some activities(like combat) benefit from the whole group contributing (if the 'good at combat' guy doesn't single-handedly destroy encounters, he will benefit from the input of every 'average at combat' guy, as every added damage helps the combat end faster). Other activities (like social stuff) only involve thre most competent character (apart from some very special circumstances there's little reason to not let the party face do the talking). A good at social/average at combat character will get drqstically more spotlight time than an average at social/good at combat one.

Your experiences are not universal. The group doesn't always act together, especially not when performing covert missions. There are going to be times where social skills are needed and Mr. Right Now is going to have to pull it off because Mr. Right isn't in a position to do his thing.

I defined "working" as "allows players to freely choose from any combination of skills and talents" and then described how the system taken without assumptions of player intention (because that will always be subjective and thus cannot be taken into account) still presents a limited number of viable choices. If you don't see it, that's willful blindness to it on your part.

Sorry, but you can't determine what constitutes a "viable choice" without making assumptions of player intentions.

Objectively, Aptitudes do let every character purchase any combination of skills and talents. Whether anyone considers certain combinations viable or not is subjective.

Also, I'd wager giving people "full freedom" was never the intent of the Aptitudes system, and thus judging the system by how well it accomplishes that is already showing bias.

Consider that the system was introduced in Only War, a game where everyone got to play a soldier, in most cases from the same unit - I'd say creating a way to differentiate the characters between each other was the highest priority, and the relative freedom was a side-effect of doing it in a way that wouldn't waste half the book's volume on different advancement charts.

Incidentally, one thing I consider a valid criticism of the Aptitude system as presented in DH2 is it sticking with the same set of Aptitudes as Only War, which divide the combat stuff along many different lines but lump all non-combat stuff into just a couple of different Aptitudes - this was fine for OW, where combat stuff was the meat of the game and all other stuff could reasonably be treated as an afterthought, but it's not that great for a system with a greater focus on social and investigative stuff.

I'll counter that you have no guarantee that it won't work out. If character A pays low price for combat stuff and high price for investigative stuff while character B pays high price for combat stuff and low price for investigative stuff, you'll most likely see A with mostly combat abilities but a smattering of investigative stuff, while B does the opposite. The imbalance you suggest only occurs if one character takes only the inexpensive options while the other does the opposite and overindulges in expensive purchases. In any case, getting agency over the game is only going to mean dealing with what the GM puts in front of the characters, and most GMs will adjust adventures to the characters that are active in them.

Except stuff doesn't work that way for several reasons.For example, some activities(like combat) benefit from the whole group contributing (if the 'good at combat' guy doesn't single-handedly destroy encounters, he will benefit from the input of every 'average at combat' guy, as every added damage helps the combat end faster). Other activities (like social stuff) only involve thre most competent character (apart from some very special circumstances there's little reason to not let the party face do the talking). A good at social/average at combat character will get drqstically more spotlight time than an average at social/good at combat one.

Your experiences are not universal. The group doesn't always act together, especially not when performing covert missions. There are going to be times where social skills are needed and Mr. Right Now is going to have to pull it off because Mr. Right isn't in a position to do his thing.

I operate under the assumption a gaming group gathers because they want to play together, not take turns waiting around. As such I expect al the group to be involved for the majority of the play time.

Even so, the average at combat guy gets to contribute in every combat while the average at social guy only gets to contribute when the good at social guy isn't around.

Even so, the average at combat guy gets to contribute in every combat while the average at social guy only gets to contribute when the good at social guy isn't around.

Possibly, but I'd think that modifiers to the roll for being the appropriate type of character might be in order. Your Highborn Administratum character might have the best Fel and the most training in social skills, but when talking to a bunch of Hive World Outcasts, perhaps a character with a similar home world and background might actually do better. This really shows up when dealing with Void Worlders as well as the Mechanicus and the Astra Telepathica, both of which are very clannish. What I'm suggesting goes above and beyond the Peer talent, and is a situational modifier that I'd apply.

Even beyond that, I've never seen everybody but the face "go silent" in a social scene. It doesn't happen IRL, and likely not in DH either.

Even so, the average at combat guy gets to contribute in every combat while the average at social guy only gets to contribute when the good at social guy isn't around.

Possibly, but I'd think that modifiers to the roll for being the appropriate type of character might be in order. Your Highborn Administratum character might have the best Fel and the most training in social skills, but when talking to a bunch of Hive World Outcasts, perhaps a character with a similar home world and background might actually do better. This really shows up when dealing with Void Worlders as well as the Mechanicus and the Astra Telepathica, both of which are very clannish. What I'm suggesting goes above and beyond the Peer talent, and is a situational modifier that I'd apply. Even beyond that, I've never seen everybody but the face "go silent" in a social scene. It doesn't happen IRL, and likely not in DH either.

Your experience is not universal. When discussing the merits of a given rule system it's best to assume people will be sticking to said rules system.

'I can fix it' is in fact an admission that it was broken.

Even beyond that, I've never seen everybody but the face "go silent" in a social scene. It doesn't happen IRL, and likely not in DH either.

Yeah, the combat guy rolling an untrained Deceive test (with Fel 20-30) to not reveal the party's secret identity is a big source of hilarity over here too .

Even beyond that, I've never seen everybody but the face "go silent" in a social scene. It doesn't happen IRL, and likely not in DH either.

Yeah, the combat guy rolling an untrained Deceive test (with Fel 20-30) to not reveal the party's secret identity is a big source of hilarity over here too .

To be fair there are a lot of groups out there that view social encounters are seen as more of a matter of freeform rp rather than social skills and stats. In those groups the 20 int 20 fel combat brute isn't necessarily expected to.behave dumb and anti-social.

However saying 'there are many groups that ignore social skills in RPGs in general' is a poor way to pass judgement on said social skills.

You know, if I have to work it out myself, why should I pay for the product?

Because it gives you a skeleton that makes it easier than scratch? Because the rest of the product is possibly sound and the one gripe you have may be fixed with a simple change? Throne forbid they give you templates for every single thing that is possibly requisitioned as a reinforcement ever in the entire imperium. It'd make the core book like 800 pages. It's just not feasible.

Yeah, the combat guy rolling an untrained Deceive test (with Fel 20-30) to not reveal the party's secret identity is a big source of hilarity over here too

What if he's being singled out for an answer by a stuffy noble?

Hilarity ensues of course! Uhm... Is this a tricky question?

Hilarity ensues of course! Uhm... Is this a tricky question?

I interpreted it as making it seem less valid if the guardsman was put on the spot in a social situation when he obviously isn't "the face".

Hilarity ensues of course! Uhm... Is this a tricky question?

I interpreted it as making it seem less valid if the guardsman was put on the spot in a social situation when he obviously isn't "the face".

It is less valid. That's beyond question. In a social situation, when the combat character opens his mouth is the moment when another character nicely asks him to shut the f*ck up. Unless the combat character in question has acceptable social attributes (Fellowship 30+, Deceive/Charm/Inquire/Intimidate/Scrutiny at +20) in which case he is welcomed to contribute.

Woah, woah, woah. Let's keep it cool guys. First of all, I'm not trolling. Second: it's true, I should post some examples and will do so now. I don't auto-hate every FFG RPG ever made, but compared to many others they are lacking.

Now for the DH stuff. I'll reply to ThenDoctor post now: acolytes in DH1 quickly become powerhouses. With plethora of skills and talents that give x 2 init bonus, greatly increase one's chance to ignore suppression and reduce fear to almost nonexistatnt threat, DH1 pretends to be a game about "normal people thrown against horrors of the galaxy" but in truth is the most powergaming friendly system I've ever run or played, and I'm a player/DM with 20+ years of experience. There were waaaay to many skills and talents.

Yeah, sure. I could start throwing CSM at them. Or Terminators, or Daemon Princes. However this is the game, where players are supposed to be at the very bottom. They are normal humans, nothing special, nothing uniqe. They are not playing characters like Kal Jericho or Harlon Nayl. But they will, and fast at that. Beacuse the scaling system and XP rewarded is not balanced at all. Beacuse they will loot 15 autoguns from dead mooks and sell them on the black market and buy themselves full carpace armours and bolt pistols with AP rounds. Beacuse psykers are pants on head retarded with their power levels. Beacuse "we're from the Inquisition" or "I'm an arbitrator hahaha" solved everything, and why shouldn't it? Afterall these are some of the basics of 40K world. Unfortunately they translate incredibly poorly to a tabletop RPG.

When I'm running a game I should not worry about my players going like a breeze trough 20+ mooks that I throw at them, all coming from different directions, all armed to the teeth, beacuse "muh suppression" and bloody carpace stoping almost everything they throw at them. One of my players got hit by a friggin rocket from an RPG. It did nothing. Another jumped 4 storeys on a concrete ground. Again, nothing and he was playing a scum.

I'm not a type of GM that likes to kill his players or to pick up fights with them. I love to watch them succeed. But at the same time I want to see that they've earned their victories hard and bloody. Not breeze trough an army of redshirts like they aren't even there. When I'm running a WFRP my players are tense during an encounter with a simple, stupid Gor. When I was running a DH game, my players wondered how many Space Marines they could take down. Yeah, excellent tension right here.

Before anyone accuses me of being sh*tty with atmosphere let me say this: to me the atmosphere, tension, background and general feel of the world I'm DMing is the most important thing in the game. And DH was the only game where it failed. I'm not saying that I wasn't to blame, but... honestly, I can't say that this was my fault. Not entirely anyway.

Next thing: there are waaaay too many weapons to chose from. I like diversity but this is riddiculous. Our sessions turned into barter party, where players were spending more than an hour to buy the best gear available to them, beacuse otherwise they'd lose. So they were buying a gun, then all the attachements that could be afixed, then there was the ammo... Jeeeeez, what happened to the RP'ing? Our sessions turned into breaks between quests in Skyrm.

And don't tell that I could tell them to stuff it. How on earth could I deny them the opportunity to buy stuff? Just beacuse? Because lol Inquisitor?

Also the career choices... If they took the percentage and overall gameplay mechanics from WFRP 2ed (which was a mistake, because WFRP is about hitting someone with a sword, not shooting him on full auto), they could also give more classes to choose from. If someone played a Guardsmen he was severly restricted when it came to RP social encounters. In WFRP for example I could play a soldier who was once a burgher or a thief. In DH, both in 1st and 2nd edition, I'm restricted to playing a brute, a brainiac or a sage. You see where I'm going with this?

Lat but not least, the fear and insanity system. For a while I liked it. It generally reflected the terror and horror of the uncaring galaxy... until I've found out that the more crazy an accolyte is, the more imprevious to insanity he becomes. Soon my players could chat with daemons of chaos, without fear of going bonkers. Daemons, who cause fear on a soul-based level, not beacuse they have horns and scaly skin. Some fine fluff knowledge there FFG. Good job.

I wanted to like Dark Heresy. I really did. We've started playing it when my love for the 40K was at it's peak. It's gone now. After witnessing the decline in quality of all 40K products, except maybe Forgeworld's HH range, I'm done. I've moved back to Warhammer Fantasy and once again rekindled my admiration for it. And DH 1st edition was the main reason why 40K is, in my opinion, pure crap right now.

Now for the 2nd edition.

I've run DH 1 for a year and played it for another half. I'm not talking out of my ass here. This are legitimate issues that I hoped would be fixed in 2nd edition. They are not fixed. Not by a long shot.

Beta had some interesting ideas. They've scrapped them for mechanics from Only War.

Why did they removed money from the game? I don't... I don't even...

Why did FFG made this game in yet another sector? Calixis wasn't really fleshed out IMO but it had some cool ideas, like Eloheloth, the Tyrant Star, Haarlock and the like. Of course it suffered from having an army of Inquisitors lurking there for some reason (most sectors of the Imperium have a couple of them at best) but overall it was promising. So FFG decides to scrap it and create a completely new and bland system for our enjoyment. Good job.

The classes are a clusterf**k. Who came up with names like Assassin, Chirurgeon, Desperado, Hierophant, Mystic, Sage, Seeker, Warrior? This is the 41st millenium, not DnD, They could have been a bit more creative.

Graviton guns. For no-name accolytes. Then again the 1st edition did gave you a chance to wield Daemon Hammers and Conversion Beamers.

Last but not least, you can now play an Inquisitor. Jesus Christ, really? So now every game turns into player-GM argument struggle over what his character can and can't do?

If you look at the general opinion in the net, most reviews are cool at best and downright negative most of the time. I understnad that this is an FFG forum, so that most people who are here, are here beacuse they like their games, but... you know, if majority of people are telling you that the thing before you is a pile of crap, maybe you should stop for a couple seconds and think about it, instead of praising it like it's the second coming of the God-Emperor. Just saying.

Of course this is only my opinion, however harsh it may be. But I think I'm still entitled to it.

No, I'm just saying that I don't agree with you. You can continue to tell me it doesn't work, but I haven't seen you show me that it doesn't work.

This game has rules, and it has a referee (GM). It also has flexibility in both of those that sports don't allow.

I don't see any evidence that the system in place for character advancement by Aptitudes doesn't work. It may not work the way you like, but it does work.

I defined "working" as "allows players to freely choose from any combination of skills and talents" and then described how the system taken without assumptions of player intention (because that will always be subjective and thus cannot be taken into account) still presents a limited number of viable choices. If you don't see it, that's willful blindness to it on your part.

Did you also define what makes a choice viable? Simply being more expensive does not make it non-viable.

Also, that part on "subjective assumptions of player intention" that you exclude is a pretty big part. If the characters were not being made by players that were going to make such choices then you might have a point, but all of my games have such players. Don't yours?

I did define viability as being a choice that allows player control over game mechanics, and further discussed the roughly implied equivalence of different skills and talents based on that viability. However, when a choice becomes overly expensive in comparison to other equally viable choices, it ceases being viable. It ceases to be viable because a greater amount of game control can be purchased through other choices. When one choice is worse than the other, it becomes the wrong choice, per game theory. This is basic academic theory, here.

And I agree that subjective experiences are important, but the only part of them that should impact game design is when those experiences are bad. If te experiences are good, then that's great, but if bad ones are left the game needs to be revised. In addition, subjective experiences should not be weighed when looking at what different choices cost. Why not? Because there is no way to tell whether they will be positive or negative, this making them useless to take ino account. The prisoners dilemma does not take things like honor or motivations beyond staying out of prison into account because they can't be accounted for and every example will have an equally viable counter-example. In other words, your anecdotal evidence is useless for designing a game system, beyond experiences with the system itself.

I defined "working" as "allows players to freely choose from any combination of skills and talents" and then described how the system taken without assumptions of player intention (because that will always be subjective and thus cannot be taken into account) still presents a limited number of viable choices. If you don't see it, that's willful blindness to it on your part.

Sorry, but you can't determine what constitutes a "viable choice" without making assumptions of player intentions.

Objectively, Aptitudes do let every character purchase any combination of skills and talents. Whether anyone considers certain combinations viable or not is subjective.

Also, I'd wager giving people "full freedom" was never the intent of the Aptitudes system, and thus judging the system by how well it accomplishes that is already showing bias.

Consider that the system was introduced in Only War, a game where everyone got to play a soldier, in most cases from the same unit - I'd say creating a way to differentiate the characters between each other was the highest priority, and the relative freedom was a side-effect of doing it in a way that wouldn't waste half the book's volume on different advancement charts.

Incidentally, one thing I consider a valid criticism of the Aptitude system as presented in DH2 is it sticking with the same set of Aptitudes as Only War, which divide the combat stuff along many different lines but lump all non-combat stuff into just a couple of different Aptitudes - this was fine for OW, where combat stuff was the meat of the game and all other stuff could reasonably be treated as an afterthought, but it's not that great for a system with a greater focus on social and investigative stuff.

First, I was clear that my assumption of player intent is ability to impact the game. You could probably use other metrics, like ease of understanding, etc., but I chose to focus on the process of engaging in the mechanics, as it is most relevant. So yes, it's an assumption, but no one is presenting another one that can actually be measured.

And again, choice viability, running under the assumption of a desire for the most utility, means that some choices ARE unviable, or at least objectively worse than others. Taking chaacter concept into account doesn't work, because each concept will differ by how much it desires it's choice. It's my subjective whether some choices become worse than others, as measured by cost:benefit ratio.

Also, I already mentioned that this system is more similar to the original dark heresy, with the appreciable development being the strict guidelines for how to price every advance. Otherwise you still end up with an effectively limited number of choices.

And the system being poor for non-combat is a greater issue of the system as a whole than aptitudes. Emphasizing social skills etc. as what to buy won't change the boring manner in which the system itself resolves and runs them.

You know, we could just agree to disagree since this is going no where. Like somebody else said before, we all have our opinions/experiences/preferences/views and nobody is going to change that. I think that's clear by now.

Unless you just want more back and forth talk leading to absolutely nothing. Feel free to spill your guts.

Nimsim, would you give me a few specific examples of unviable choices?

When I'm running a game I should not worry about my players going like a breeze trough 20+ mooks that I throw at them, all coming from different directions, all armed to the teeth, beacuse "muh suppression" and bloody carpace stoping almost everything they throw at them. One of my players got hit by a friggin rocket from an RPG. It did nothing. Another jumped 4 storeys on a concrete ground. Again, nothing and he was playing a scum.

I'm not a type of GM that likes to kill his players or to pick up fights with them. I love to watch them succeed. But at the same time I want to see that they've earned their victories hard and bloody. Not breeze trough an army of redshirts like they aren't even there. When I'm running a WFRP my players are tense during an encounter with a simple, stupid Gor. When I was running a DH game, my players wondered how many Space Marines they could take down. Yeah, excellent tension right here.

Next thing: there are waaaay too many weapons to chose from. I like diversity but this is riddiculous. Our sessions turned into barter party, where players were spending more than an hour to buy the best gear available to them, beacuse otherwise they'd lose. So they were buying a gun, then all the attachements that could be afixed, then there was the ammo... Jeeeeez, what happened to the RP'ing? Our sessions turned into breaks between quests in Skyrm.

Oh man.... This sounds a-w-e-s-o-m-e ! Now, I really have the inclination to journey into this Magical Realm! *phones some friends to invite them for some 40k RPG*

You know, we could just agree to disagree since this is going no where. Like somebody else said before, we all have our opinions/experiences/preferences/views and nobody is going to change that. I think that's clear by now.

Unless you just want more back and forth talk leading to absolutely nothing. Feel free to spill your guts.

I think I already did. Altough it wasn't as much a "gut spillage" as addressing the major flaws in a game, which, at some point, was a huge hope for me, both as an RPG player and DM, as well as a 40K fan in general.

When I'm running a game I should not worry about my players going like a breeze trough 20+ mooks that I throw at them, all coming from different directions, all armed to the teeth, beacuse "muh suppression" and bloody carpace stoping almost everything they throw at them. One of my players got hit by a friggin rocket from an RPG. It did nothing. Another jumped 4 storeys on a concrete ground. Again, nothing and he was playing a scum.

I'm not a type of GM that likes to kill his players or to pick up fights with them. I love to watch them succeed. But at the same time I want to see that they've earned their victories hard and bloody. Not breeze trough an army of redshirts like they aren't even there. When I'm running a WFRP my players are tense during an encounter with a simple, stupid Gor. When I was running a DH game, my players wondered how many Space Marines they could take down. Yeah, excellent tension right here.

Next thing: there are waaaay too many weapons to chose from. I like diversity but this is riddiculous. Our sessions turned into barter party, where players were spending more than an hour to buy the best gear available to them, beacuse otherwise they'd lose. So they were buying a gun, then all the attachements that could be afixed, then there was the ammo... Jeeeeez, what happened to the RP'ing? Our sessions turned into breaks between quests in Skyrm.

Oh man.... This sounds a-w-e-s-o-m-e ! Now, I really have the inclination to journey into this Magical Realm! *phones some friends to invite them for some 40k RPG*

Dare you enter my magical realm?

You know, we could just agree to disagree since this is going no where. Like somebody else said before, we all have our opinions/experiences/preferences/views and nobody is going to change that. I think that's clear by now.

Unless you just want more back and forth talk leading to absolutely nothing. Feel free to spill your guts.

I think I already did. Altough it wasn't as much a "gut spillage" as addressing the major flaws in a game, which, at some point, was a huge hope for me, both as an RPG player and DM, as well as a 40K fan in general.

You forgot "in my opinion". Oh god, we're going into circles.

You know, we could just agree to disagree since this is going no where. Like somebody else said before, we all have our opinions/experiences/preferences/views and nobody is going to change that. I think that's clear by now.

Unless you just want more back and forth talk leading to absolutely nothing. Feel free to spill your guts.

I think I already did. Altough it wasn't as much a "gut spillage" as addressing the major flaws in a game, which, at some point, was a huge hope for me, both as an RPG player and DM, as well as a 40K fan in general.

You forgot "in my opinion". Oh god, we're going into circles.

The magic circle never ends. In my opinion of course.

Why did they removed money from the game? I don't... I don't even...

Why did FFG made this game in yet another sector? Calixis wasn't really fleshed out IMO but it had some cool ideas, like Eloheloth, the Tyrant Star, Haarlock and the like. Of course it suffered from having an army of Inquisitors lurking there for some reason (most sectors of the Imperium have a couple of them at best) but overall it was promising. So FFG decides to scrap it and create a completely new and bland system for our enjoyment. Good job.

The classes are a clusterf**k. Who came up with names like Assassin, Chirurgeon, Desperado, Hierophant, Mystic, Sage, Seeker, Warrior? This is the 41st millenium, not DnD, They could have been a bit more creative.

Graviton guns. For no-name accolytes. Then again the 1st edition did gave you a chance to wield Daemon Hammers and Conversion Beamers.

Last but not least, you can now play an Inquisitor. Jesus Christ, really? So now every game turns into player-GM argument struggle over what his character can and can't do?

Point of order: they removed thrones because they didn't want people counting coins, it could be abstracted into a similar system like Only War or Rogue Trader.

Yet Another? The Calaxis is one sector, it's just next to a bunch of stuff. The new sector is a similar story, they explored all they wanted to in there and moved on. They didn't scrap Calaxis, it still exists.

Who comes up with those names? 40k comes up with those names, it's flavor.

Graviton Guns are near unique if I remember right, they aren't for no names.

Inquisitors are easy to deal with if you know what makes them tick and the actual limits of their capabilities. Ascension describes this well. It also takes a lot to become an inquisitor.

I'm just curious if you've read the book and not took glancing blows across it.

Graviton Guns are near unique if I remember right, they aren't for no names.

They are "just" Extremely Rare. It is actually pretty easy to get one with a good Commerce Skill or if you are OK with a Poor quality version.

Dare you enter my magical realm?

You can't even imagine. The gear porn is totally off the charts over here, and the things you can do with the right combination of equipment is mind blowing .

Graviton Guns are near unique if I remember right, they aren't for no names.

They are "just" Extremely Rare. It is actually pretty easy to get one with a good Commerce Skill or if you are OK with a Poor quality version.

So they still have to try. They aren't just given to schmuks even then they aren't impressive versions of the weaponry.

Some of the stuff in Xath's post is a non-issue for me as well. I have no problem with one of my PCs eventually becoming inquisitor. I did tweak the talent tree somewhat for balance reasons. Jack of All Trades was an advantage the class did not need, period.

Nor do I have a problem with the "we're from the inquisition" bit. I put COVERT into their mission briefing. If they bork it up, the heretics go to ground and good luck finding anything suspicious. "We're inquisitors" has people suddenly on their best behaviour and no one has seen anything suspicious; except perhaps old lady Atterkopp, with all those cats. She's definitely suspicious. Take her and go!

Combat and gear can be ridiculously exploity, yes. I solved this by having them on an inquisitorial cruiser in downtime with a fully stocked armoury and issued "mission appropriate" equipment. Carapace armour and graviton guns are usually not among that. Frankly, carapace armour isn't legally available for individual civilian purchases at all. Most worlds will want to see some ID before buying, because their production lines churn out IG or Arbite dress. Combat itself was scrapped entirely, because, as Xath correctly said, it does not actually evoke the atmosphere intended for the game. We went with a modded first beta instead and slapped in stuff from The Dark Eye 4e which made things simple and deadly . We'll be moving to the first bionic replacement limbs already, in mission two.

I do have a problem with the acquisition system. I've had one with it since Black Crusade. I loathe it especially for the lack of monetary figures. To me, this is -lazy-. I'm used to games which have price lists for everything. That's one of the things that makes it easy on a GM that, for me, is the absolute minimum in effort a company should provide. It's not a feature, it's a bug, unless you give me back the tools to provide an immersive shopping experience. It works in rogue trader, where you're richer than Scrooge McDuck or in Only War, where you're issued your gear from the administratum, but when players have the option to do street level shopping, it falls apart entirely. It creates a gamey, unimmersive flair full of random numbers players can, and will, pick apart for logic loopholes.In short:

Even with the acquisition system, players are going to ask how much something costs. Having figures ready instead of in 10+ year old books is a godsend.

That said, the fluff in the book is actually alright. I'm fine with the Askellon sector. Why not? But, it's honestly not the focal point of my campaign. The entire segmentum pacificum, however, is. I use 40kwikia more than anything else for that one.

The problem with actually having monetary value for stuff is that, once selling stuff starts having value, odds are players will start looting. I just have a hard time imagining a bunch of acolytes (or worse, an Inquisitor) asking around for customers for the 10 shotguns and 5 sets of Flak armor they have acquired in their last mission.