I have always looked at the ranking system as just a way to get more skills and talants, but could it mean something more for the acolytes? I have an acolyte who has been the only one to keep his character the whole entire time we have played. He not the highest rank yet, but when he is and the others are still working on rank 4 or 5 that he could act as a semi-=][=? I know there is a command skill, I think, but could this higher ranked acolyte have the other burned alive or executed if they disobaye? Just something I was thinking about.

That depends entirely on their inquisitor and his trust in the acolyte. If he's proven his worth in the past, he might be tasked with supervising the other acolytes.

My acilytes are curently maqurading as a guard kill team and where forced to take ranks by the leadership, but theur not followed that strongly, sepends on the party.

It really boils down to if you want to give that much power over the group to one person, and if your group is mature enough to handle a de-facto leader that they take orders from other than their Inquisitor. In my experience, giving one character 'rank' over the others comes off as favoritism and breeds inter-party conflict. This may greatly enhance your game with new roleplaying opportunities, or it may backfire and do exactly the opposite. Hope that helps.

RoBro said:

Giving a character actual authority over his peers is awkward, especially if that player abuses the authority his character is given.

Leadership is useful in keeping a group coherent and effective, but I wouldn't force it on the group. My group picked a leader from amongst their own number during play, selecting the group's Arbitrator to be their Prime Acolyte (a first-amongst-equals leadership role - he leads because they chose him to lead them) after the first mission because he seemed more capable at it than anyone else.

With regards to the Command skill, or any social skill for that matter, you should always be wary of letting players try to use those skills on other players' characters. Social skills like Command should be used primarily for dealing with NPCs, using them to take even a little control away from another player is generally a poor choice unless your players are sufficiently agreeable to the notion.

First of all, I would not allow players the authority to kill each other. Second, I do doubt that they are meant to have. If they are not wiedling a rosetta, how should they? Background wise, an Arbitrator might have.. but only for Heresy/Traitorship

Second, I would base "command hierachy" inside the group on Rank or the Command Skill. I run two groups. In the first one (DUSK: a PDF Soldier, a Psyker and a Sororita) the group appointed the sister as there leader. The player of the soldier deemed he would be about obyeing orders (exception: the "red shirt" militionaries they were "given"), the Psyker felt more comfortable with being the advisor ...and the good girl playing the sister "obeyd that she would lead"

In the other group, I announced (through an NPC Medicae-Interrogator I still use) a "Primus". Three player group: psyker, assasine, arbitrator. Psyker got announced "Primus" by the Inquisition. I rule so since the Assasine-Player needs to be "leashed". He trys to be constructive, but he is to happy "solving" things with killing people. The Arbitrator players is a little to hasty with making decisions (and is still a little lost in the World of WH40K).
I am fortunate, that the Psyker player is very reasonable about his "Power". He is not a "bully" and he is not pushing people around. He simply has the "final word" and the power to say "no".

So, "announcing" a Primus (through NPC) does not have to be a bad thing. You simply have to think about it first (with regard of how your players will play thing from there on).

Besides this, "Primus" is in my cell announced on a "mission basis". Next mission, it might be different.

Having a leader appointed by the Inquisitor can work but I would also have the Inquisitor make it clear he expects the leader to take into account the experience of the other member so of the group So if the guardsman advises one way of doing things in a combat situation and word comes back to the Inquisitor that the leader is ignoring that (and the results are bad or medicore) he won't be very happy.

Gregorius21778 said:

I meant WOULD NOT...and I miss the EDIT function a lot...