Hi,

I'm new to this forum. I'm a GM from Germany, we start to play on sunday the german "Dark Heresy" Version called "Schattenjäger" (means Shadowhunter, yeah i know stoopid translation, but whatever...)

Now my question: I was wondering if there are other awards for player except XP, Fate Points and "usual" weapons/armor. I'm missing the LOOT, where is it? We are playing Pen&Paper for almost 20 years now and we have been playing almost everything, most of the time you have an DM Book/Chapter or something like that, where are items descriped, mostly for loot. I know what will happen, my players will hack the first "Could be a Heretic NPC" to pieces and the next second they'll loot the body and will find nothing of interrest (nothing of interrest is for my players anything which isn't "Big time loot").

Is there a plan to release a DM book with NPC, Loot, futher Background information and so on?

Well,

You pc's are usually simply paid on a regular base, they can take weapons, thrones, armour and other goodies from dead baddies, you just have to determine what those baddies have, no tables, just use logic.
Baddies however can have items the pc's should use, such as guns inscribed with unholy prayers, armour with chaos symbols on them etc..

It is up to you to regulate this.

GrtZ,

S.

There are loot generators on DarkReign, but many of them seem meaningless. You could always throw in certain loot related things at your own disgression. The best GM had a rewards system that branched away from the EXP, Thrones, and Fate awards. He would give minor stat increases and offer us elite advances based on the rollplaying.

For example, our job was to pass as a nobleman and his entorage durring a party which was suspected to be host to some notorious heretics. While the rest of the party went ahed and gathered intell, I stayed with a nobleborn contact of our inquisitors and spent two afternoons learning the part. For this he gave me a +2 to my Fel, and Peer (Nobility) on the spot for 100 exp just because I stayed behind while the others searched for glory on the middle hife. In addition, because of savy rollplaying with the noble born daughter, he allowed me to take Charm for 100 exp (as i wouldnt have been able to get it for another 2 ranks). As time went on he awarded more Characteristic advances just based on how we played. It turned into a very fun group that encouraged us to act our characters.

I'll talk mostly about the loot. Here is a thing that makes this a different game from Dungeons and Dragons and similar. There are fewer gear upgrades, so they will be spread out more. There are different "levels" of weapons, and you can get a bit of a feel for how effective they are if you look at when the players can gain the skill to use them. Let me try to make an example of the hierarchy of swords:

Regular sword
Regular Sword with mono-edge upgrade
Cainsword
Regular sword with the Latheblade upgrade
Powersword

For basic shooting weapons this hierarchy would be something like:

Lasgun
Autogun
Shotgun
Hellgun
Flamer
Boltgun
Plasmagun (use some of the many good houserules that are published on these forums, the original rules are worthless)
Meltagun

And each of these can be further upgraded by adding sights, getting cooler ammo, getting them in Best Craftmanship Quality etc.

If you want your players to feel like they are getting a lot of loot and upgrades right out from the beginning, try equipping them with the bog standard equipment. This will mean things like one pistol with one clip or one shotgun with one clip, one knife and a leather jacket. After they have beaten up their first would be heretics (they resisted arrest, that means they must be guilty of something...) Let them find some extra ammo for their weapons. After the next group let them find one clip of manstopper rounds. Next: A proper sword, or a red dot sight for one gun. After that a set of 3p flak armor. And keep going. Do not allow anyone to play the "noble" background, it makes equipment to easy to buy.

A word of warning. In this game system the ability to do damage increases much faster than the ability to take damage. So during the first encounters there will be lot of small bleeding wounds. After a few months of play it will be a lot of "hit -> you are down". Warn your players that their characters will probably die. Either from being shot in the face with an Autocannon or from going insane and corrupted over time.

The Inquisitors Handbook is a "player book" full of new cool weapons, armor, gear and skills for your acolytes. Also have a look at the official errata. You find it here on the ffg homepage. It helps a bit with making the game more playable.

And here is a personal hint from me: If you think that Dark Heresy has too little loot etc, then you have only played action RPGs. Have a look at some of the good storytelling RPGs, such as Nobilis or Amber. I think it will expand your experience of roleplaying very much.

And I must say that hunting shadows is exactly what many DH adventures are all about. The acolytes spend a lot of time looking for clues, talking to shady characters, wondering over who they can trust and who they can't. So the german translation is actually a very good name for the game. Good luck with your playing!

Thanks alot, but i knew all of that.

I meant loot more like "Xenos Artifacts", "PSI Items" and so on.

Aha, there are a few rare and strange items in Inquistors Handbook, a few in Creatures Anathema and a few in Disciples of the Dark Gods. There are no good collected lists of all these items, as far as I know. Feel free to invent your own strange items as well, it can be great fun :-)

Ok thanks, Creatures Anathema and Disciples of the Dark Gods hasn't been released in german yet.

I think the loot is somehow a critical point in DH, cuz with every technical / mechanical device comes the belief its conection to the Machine God and also to the Soul in the device. Each time the players find something new from a dead or robbed foe, they should remember, that this stuff has a soul, which somehow reflecting also its prior usage. So even if the players can get the item, they should have doubts to use it, cuz the soul of the item also influence their own soul as well. Next to it they don't now what the Machine God thinks about their actions, so the best way to handle stuff of enemies is to leave it behind or to destroy it, so that no one else can use it again (Especialy if the item wears signes of heresy).

The equip of Xenos is way more dangerous, cuz the Empire forbids the use of it. That's because the Empire wants to cut down every influence of the xenos to mankind and the Mashine God had no influence on the item or it's soul. So the fellow players should never own or use such stuff (only if it is their only way to survive, and even then it is somehow heresy).

I know that this way of acting is evil in the eyes of the players (the real persons ^^), cuz they want cool stuff if they see it, but that's the way in the universe of W40k.

I for myself played D&D to, where I once had a campaign running in the Rokugan-setting (oriental). There it was forbidden to touch the posessions of dead people cuz of the bad karma and influence to the own immortal soul ... I know how players hate you for that ...... but try not to lose the touch to the flair of the W40k-Universe ^^

P.S.: Ich bin auch nen kleener Sack aus good ol' Germany ^^

Schattenjäger sounds like something that happens after I drink too much Jagermeister.

LOL, anyway, try Rogue Trader as it's a "phat lewtz" based angle on the 40k universe whereas DH really isn't.