I understand the estimations may vary wildly due to many parameters, but I would still like to have your suggestions. For example, how much an Arbiter could spend for lodging, food, out-of-pocket expenses etc. per month between the missions on Scintilla? Or a Noble? Or a Scum? Min and max would also be nice.

This is needed to calculate the net amount of the Acolytes Stipend they will be able to accumulate.

I think that the Income described in the rules have already taken that into consideration. Meaning that in reality the characters earn more income but some of it has been taken away to pay for food and class relevant lodgings. The Income represent the sum of thrones that the PC's have at their disposal to use on whatever they want. However this is only relevant during downtime. In-game the characters should be expected to pay for food and lodgings with their own thrones.

If you need to estimate it, however, you can always reference table 5-17: Services on page 152, which has costs of accommodations and provisions.

Varnias (btw, you have the name of my DH character ),

How do you know that the subsistence is already substracted? No, it cannot be so, because prices vary from one location to another.

I think I'll have to check the Services table, indeed...

egalor said:

That depends mate. My username here is the same name I have for my very first PC in dark heresy. So the question is, which one of us created his PC first?

But to answer your other question: no I don't really "know" that it is so. I just use it because it's simple and effective, because then you dont have to sit and check the services tables and bother with calculations. Also you dont have to take into account what type of standards each PC have (a noble born for instance would probably not rent the cheapest lodgings etc.)

Food and lodgings during downtime play such a minor narrative role anyway so I dont see the reason why you should bother yourself about it.

But if you feel that you must do these calculations, then there i always the food and services table. However I have a feeling that doing these calculations will f**k up the economy of some characters (Scum primarily, since they can sometimes have a pretty high income and sometimes have a really low lone).

I think, I'll try that kind of calculation.

Again, this comes from my early WFRP1 years, when we argued over the weight of one gold coin, because we had to find whether my players could carry several thousands of gold coins (accumulated through years), which simply blew off the price system in the game.

And this is not to mention that one guy has about 5 (FIVE!) Fate Points, he's an elf, and 4th Level Wizard!

That becomes difficult to GM to a degree that the game becomes senseless, as I cannot throw a bunch of Greater Daemons with BFG-9000 behind every corner at them. That's also why I don't like tailoring the adventures for some specific kind of a PC or his equipment.

My Inquisitor provides some "pocket money" to help off set the cost of food and lodging (and bribes unofficially) and the Adept in the group keeps the receipts so that extra expneses can be reimbursed.

egalor said:

All threats to a PC's health doesn't have to come in the form of well armed enemies either. I remember playing the scenario Scriveners star, where EVERY PLAYER except two had to burn fate points to simply survive an infection.

The enviroment can prove to be just as deadly as any potential enemy.

My Inquisitor either provides accomodation and transport or the means to pay for it. I hate the Income system , it makes no sense. Even if you accounted for all of the time a scum spends during the month they still get a random income. How do previous employers know where to send money to people who almost dont exist and are pretty much impossible for most people to track? How do those same employers know that the character has gained 1000exp and gone to rank 4 and thus should be paid more/ Why does exp automatically entail an increase in paygrade?

My players dont get paid a regular wage because of this and also because I cant be bothered with a bank withdrawl every session. They get what the Inquisitor or one of his lackeys deems is necissary and also get given rewards for helping wealthy people. This way is fairer to everyone as they are all doing the same tasks. If they could get secondary jobs then I would use the income tables but not for regular wages.

Kaihlik

Kaihlik said:

Because they dont work for their previous employers anymore, they find work at the location where they are currently stationed. A Techpriest is still a Techpriest whether he is also an off-world Inquisitorial agent or not, so all he does is get in contact with the local Mechanicus shrine and finds employment there. The same goes for clerics, but they visist the local cathedral instead. Guardsmen can work as mercenaries or guard detail for a wealthy merchant, assassins can work as assassins, arbitrators as private eyes or as retainers to the local enforcer or Arbites HQ. And Scum do what Scum do best, crime (explaining their somewhat varying income).

Get it?

I mean it's not like the acolytes sit and twiddle their thumbs while waiting for further orders from the Inquisition...

In my campaign I ruled that while PCs were free to spend as much or as little as they liked on subsistance for their characters those spending less than 50 thrones per month started suffering ill effects from such poor quality habitat and food. Those spending less than 75% of their monthly income on it suffered social penalties because they looked so run down and those spending more than 150% of the their monthly income on subsistance got bonus' because they were obviously a well to do member of their profession and capable of living it large.

This had a number of interesting consequences:

1) Several characters started money-making schemes on the side (I don't think anyone went into dealing Black-Market chems but the option was there)

2) Several characters asked if they could work overtime - yes, but their other downtime activities were severaly curtailed

3) A number of characters sucessfully argued that as they had the relevant trader or professional skills then they should be able to switch social class.

4) The scum worked out that if they were eating well enough to not suffer toughness penalties (ie: the minimum basic level of hygene and nutrition for a person not to suffer long-term illness) then they were doing well enough to get social bonuses with other scum as they were "living it large".

I should add that my thoughts on the consumables section is that the prices for lho-sticks and booze is enough for a month's reasonable useage so I'm possibly varying away from the RAW quite heavily here.

None of my players have had that much downtime and alot of it is spent on ships in transit. There is far too many situations where it doesnt make sense, no Arbite station when you are stuck on a death world for a month . If my players told me the characters were going to do those things then they would get a wage but since they dont then they get no money. Its the automatic nature of the income system that bothers me the most.

Kaihlik

About using "services table" for determing cost of living:

I would not do so, at least not for a longer period of time. These price are (as far as I understand) equal to "stay at a hotel" or "meal at a restaurant / snack bar". If HAVE to because you cannot "rent a room / a flat" or "find a grocery store and cook yourself", you simply have to.

But I assume that "standard living" is a little cheaper then that. Again..if you are able to "settle down".

My two cents.

I have always worked on the notion that the monthly income (which only makes up a minority of an Acolyte's finances at any given time - mission related pay, both as rewards for success and as resources for the missions themselves makes up the majority in my game) is a retainer fee paid during an Acolyte's downtime between discrete missions, which is in addition to subsistence costs, the fee being based on what they would have been paid if they were still in their original line of work (I gave the Scum an option of a flat rate, but he chose to continue with the normal random pay as it, in-character, allowed him to better maintain his extensive list of underhive contacts - I gave him a break in the cost of appropriate contacts as a result).

Personally, I see that as being a fairly common approach in most parts of the Imperium - the wages of a normal, non-Acolyte Guardsman don't include lodging and food because those things are taken care of on his behalf by the Departmento Munitorum... his bunk and his rations are part of the package, not optional extras he has to pay for. A midhive manufactorum labourer gets a pittance each month in addition to a small room in a company-owned hab and a couple of meals worth of recycled food a day, in exchange for dangerous, back-breaking labour in unpleasant conditions for half the day, and so forth...

No-1's got a point. Don't forget that the Imperium is a feudal society. Technically, everything is owned by the Emperor and is just out on loan to those that need the stuff. This is how the entire society functions. What you do is work for your masters behalf and do their bidding, whether it's working at your masters manufactorium, your masters fields, or shooting blasphemers for your master. In order to insure you can continue working in your masters manufactorium, fields, or battlefield, you are given what you'll need to live by your master in accordance with what they deem you need. In return for you assembling your master's sprokitdohickies, harvesting your master's wheat, or killing your masters enemy's, your master allows you to take a small sample of "profit" for your self, be it a sample of the goods to sell or trade on your own, a bit of cash, or some produce. This is above what you need to live (which just goes to show how generous your master is!) and is available to you to do with as you see fit. Of course, your mater has masters and all of the things he dose, he dose for his master, getting a small pat on the head and cut for him self while his master pleases his masters and so on and so forth. In then end, basic living is usually taken care of in such situations.

If you chose to charge your acolytes for living in down time, just remember, if you go by the book, it will cost an acolyte 180 thrones to sleep in the stables for a month and eat one meal a day comprised of sewer fungus and rat meat. (of course, that's probably better then corps starch rations...). In other words, most all characters (save for the clergy and nobles) will need to be rank 6 before they could afford one crappy meal a day and a place to sleep where they won't get arrested for vagrancy or stabbed for being there. DH borrowed a fantasy adventure model for it's economics but forgot that it wasn't a fantasy adventure game so be careful... that or this is just a clear indicator that most folks have their home life taken care of by their Land Lords (literally lords of the land...) and those who must rent a room are obviously rich enough or connected enough to pay a lot more then many folks will ever see. That's more then likely due to a lack of travelers to rent rooms seeing as how everyones working their fingers to the bone for their masters...

Graver said:

The term most associated with this concept is "noblesse oblige". Quite literally, the priviledged need to provide *something* to their workers in order to keep up the tithe to the Emperor.

In this case, I probably wouldn't worry about down-time upkeep unless it's particularly lavish or spartan, in which case I'd adjust the income accordingly.

Then again, I don't provide a lot of equipment or money unless obviously needed going into the mission.

The amounts for income in the rulebook are disposable income earned after subsistence costs have been paid. How it is earned is up to the GM and the players to decide. A retainer fee from the Inquisition, jobs on the side, end-of-year profits from the character's shares in Microsoft (now a subsidiary of the Adeptus Mechanicus) - whatever. Every campaign is different. To be honest with you, I think they should have left it out completely, but I suppose it can be handy for GMs who don't want to argue with their players about how much money they should get. He can open up the book and say "that's how much money you're getting" and leave it at that.

Barring the Nobles, who are independently wealthy, every class is defined by their relationship to the great and the good. Tradesmen are freemen who can afford to work for themselves, but guardsmen, arbitrators, psykers and workers all have to depend on the largess of those above them. The problem with telling a character that the food they get is class specific rather than what they buy, is what happens when a scum becomes a top level character? are they still grubbing around in the dirt? doesn't really fit. If you want to keep it simple assume that the table shows spending money (the last ten% of their pay-packet or retainer) If you want to get accurate, which might not suit everyone, times the incomes by ten (that way even a serf can afford a place to eat and sleep) and assume that everyone who knows the area has a contact who provides them with a 30% discount on food and lodging, which makes a difference between locals and tourists.

It is worth bearing in mind that the food and lodging of a lot of people is met by way of feudal due. The factory owner or whoever owns the poor serf probably has an obligation to feed and clothe them, and in return they are obliged to work in his factory 14 hours a day for six days of the week. Taxes don't really apply as the notion of an income tax is relatively recent, whereas a certain planets might have taxes on certain goods or commodities (a shrine world might have a tax on alcohol for instance, or even one on beards )

trentmorten said:

All of that is nice 'n all, but probably applies to maybe one or two worlds in the Calixis Sector.

Every world is different. Trying to come up with a general system that describes income across the Imperium is pretty much impossible, so the creators of DH just gave us something simple in case you couldn't be bothered coming up with your own for every planet the acolytes visit.

macd21 said:

True.

I think a few in this thread and on the forum in general have gotten a bit confused over the feudal nature of Imperial society. Sure, the Imperium on a macro scale is feudal. Every world has to pay it's tithe to the Emperor, while the Imperial forces are expected to protect and control these worlds against malign forces of Chaos, aliens and heretics dwelling within that society.

BUT (the big "but" here) there is no mention in any source that every single world within the Imperium adheres to the same feudal laws on a micro scale (micro scale here being an individual world with its own society). Of course there are plenty of worlds who do employ a feudal system with serfdom and variants of knighthood etc. But that is no standard.

Look at Iocanthos for instance, an utterly feral world owned primarily by warring forces. The only interest the Imperium has in that world is getting the Ghostfire pollen and any eventual psykers and perhaps a few able bodied soldiers, which they get from both sides of the warring factions since both of them need othe supplies that only the Imperial officials can provide. But other than that Iocanthos seem to be pretty much gripped by a state of anarchy, where savages fight eachother for territory and resources. In that sense you cant really say that Iocanthos has a feudal society, although Iocanthos as a world is included in the feudal society of the galactic Imperium.

And that goes for every world in the Imperim. Generally the Imperium will not care how a world is governed as long as the world pay it's tithes, refrains from consorting with aliens and punishes heresy and corruption wherever it is found. Other than that, the world can keep pretty much any form of government (or total lack of it) that it please. From communism ruling to oligarchy and dictatorship, as long as it doesn't include heresy and consorting with the forces of Chaos or aliens and the tithe is payed, it doesn't really matter in the eyes of the Imperium at large. (although other interested parties on that world might have different opinions, like the Ecclesiarchy for instance)

macd21 said:

The feudal system seems to be the mostly widely used system in the 40k universe. How many Hives are mentioned without having some sort of Nobility ruling them (except perhaps Volg)? Scintillia, Malfi, Fenksworld, Solomon, Sephris Secundus, Quaddis or any of the feudal level worlds (Acerage etc) are all Governed by this or very similar models, so i think we can use it as a decent basis for building up a little theory.

If your gamers are happy with such a simple model then lucky you but the group of 14 uni grads I run like a more concrete universe to exploit for their characters gain, so I've got to give them that. Besides, the man asked a question. I can provide more detail then the sketch i detailed above, as I've had to work out everthing from trading to profit margins on a lasgun. (sometimes i really hate my group).

With regard to Iocanthos, think of the roving bands of danish warriors that plagued Europe. They form around a powerful warrior (such as the Vai's or princes) and basically become a warband. The Vai keeps order through rewards (better weapons, pretty women) and sanctions, (bullet in the head). Just because they are all moving around and shooting each other with looted pump action shotguns doesn't mean that they aren't feudal.

trentmorten said:

Oh yes it can mean just that. A feudal system entails certain people close to the ruling body having ownership over different portions of land and the serfs living on that land. Which is why lords usually built castles and estates to monitor the serf's and their work.

A roving army that just pillage and plunder without a fixed position is a bit harder to determine as a feudal system. Sure they gather around a powerful warrior, but that powerful warrior frequently will find him or herself replaced when they grow old and can't keep their position from younger abilities. The feudal system on the other hand usually had some sort of lineage that determined who was the ruler and who wasn't.

A warband formed around a powerful warrior that wages war against other warbands looks more like anarchy rather than a real society...

It depends on whether the feudal structure is 'civilised' or barbarian. A barbarian culture can quite easily be classified as feudal, even when nomadic (or at least when semi-nomadic), provided the ruler (and ruling class(es)) fulfil the obligations implicit in a feudal structure. At an absolute minimum, providing for the protection of their subjects. The Danish warbands mentioned earlier are not feudal societies- they are bandits, reavers and marauders; almost pure military groups preying upon the settled lands they pass through.

The point about dynastic stability is a good one, though. I (half-)suspect I could come up with examples that didn't fit that mode, but it'd probably be arguable as to whether they were feudal, barbarian or tribal. There certainly has to be some succession mechanism in place for the society/culture to remain stable, and feuding, usurping and assassination-prone warlords is certainly not conducive to instituting and maintaining such.

Alasseo said:

Another aspect I came to think of when discussing succession would be the model of sucession. Feudalism usually have the lords and vassal's succesors being their children (of different dictates of gender, where the first born sons are usually destined to inherit the brunt of power). However this model is far from standard when talking about the nobility and aristocracy of the Imperium. Sure you have the Navis Nobilitae for instance (Navigator families) where proper breeding is important in order to preserve the navigator gene, but other "noble houses" of normal humans aren't always inclined to have their children inherit power and estates. In fact sometimes a noble house can resemble a trading corporation mor than an aristocratic governed faction, where the successors are "hired" from an irregular group of people that have proven themselves in the eyes of the current ruling elite. Yet the ruling elite of such trading houses are still considered to be "nobles", just like the feudal counterpart where wealth and power is inherited by blood rather than by ability.

I would guess that the more "corporate" model is the most common one on hive worlds (since hive worlds are effectively large trading centres), and although the top patriarch or matriarch of such a corporation/noble house might want to give the power to their children, they will still have to deal with what the other powerful (and non-related) members of that noble house/corporation might think about it.

The same can be said about planetary governors. Although a governor is well within his or her power to pass on his position to his or her children (and that such a government is pretty common throughout the Imperium at large), it is not necessarily a standard model. Sometimes the governor is nothing more than an Administratum Adept that sits out his days in an orbital station, never even setting foot on the world in question. Sometimes the governor title is changed annual in a voting process (similar to a democracy). Sometimes the Imperium just steps in and appoints the most accessible individual that seem to hold most of the power on the world to a governor title. etc.

With this huge amount of variation in mind i find it somewhat inappropriate to just assume that almost every world in the Imperium is ruled through a feudal principle. The Imperium as a whole might be governed that way, but not every individual world...