DocIII said:

That’s a reasonable point of view. What I’m trying to say is though is as a player you’ve an idea of the bigger picture and a responsibility toward the other players as much as they have to you. In an adult and mature gaming group, inter-party conflict can be fun and when it drives the game forward or makes a particular scene for intense, that’s good. But when it just comes down to ‘Statistically it’s just a matter of time until, ‘Brainy’ there pops another load daemons on our asses, I say we shoot him in the back of the head when he’s not looking, and tell the –I- he slipped in the shower or something’ thats a bit rubbish.

If a player has been really trying all night to help the group but the luck of the dice are against him, arbitrarily just popping a cap in his head is poor gamesmanship (unless he’s daemon hosting ). But starting an argument about ‘can we trust the pale skinned freak’, and seeing where that goes, that can be cool.

On the posts other people have posted about the –I- reaction to the party executing there own. Acolyte cells are fairly autonomous, and while untimely they must answer to the –I- , out in the field there expected to make judgement calls and to live with the consequences of those choices. Ultimately this is one of the central themes of the game, making the hard call. However, as in the depths of space no one can here you scream, likewise in the depths of the hive the Inquisitor can’t see you stick a plastic bag over the head of a team mate and write up there death on the official report as ‘due to enemy fire’. Inquisitors that seem to know everything can be scary, Inquisitors that do know everything because the Ref knows everything are rubbish.

Ultimately though the problem lies with the arbitrary nature of the perils table, its perhaps a bit like comparing apples to oranges but within the wargame the effects of perils tend to only affect the Psyker, but in DH they tend to affect the group as a whole. That really shifts the responsibility of psychic actions from being a personal decision to a group one (can I risk this / can we risk this). Personally I’ve abandoned the table as a ref, and now try to make phenomena up on the fly, my players trust me to be fair and so far so good.

Oddly the only PC death that has occurred has been at the hands of other PCs. It was our Assassin (Metallican Gunslinger) that got caught up in melee with a Slaugth. He had held his own for a couple of turns trading (ineffective) pistol shots and being missed by the Saugth in return. He disengaged a few times and kept luring the thing towards where the rest of the group had fallen back. The rest of the group didn't think twice about dropping two exterminator cartrideges, a frag grenade, and a pair of firebombs on the pair. The damage was particularly nasty on the gunslinger, including an energy crit that incinerated him and then detonated the pair of frag grenades he was carrying. This finally took down the Slaugth. The gunslinger's player wasn't particularly happy with how it all went down, but he got over it soon enough.

Geredis said:

Yes, it does. It does also say that....

"Do not communicate with them!" [about "Psyker", same Paragraph]
"In actuality, they are considerably weaker then an average man, despite what their appearance suggests " [about the Enemy; Orcs]
"They are general slow and sluggish..." [about the Enemy; Genestealers]
"Eldar technology is antiquated" [about the Enemy; Eldar]
"There are several types of tau battlesuits, all equally ineffetive" [about the Enemy; Tau]

An imperial guardsman that would work after his "Primer", word-by-word and without hesitation or question, would be the worst choice an Inquisitor could make for a cell. Unless, he is supposed to be sent ahead as gunfodder or only used for the hot phase of a purge.
So, their is reason to doubt that any guardsman that will wind up in the =I= service will be that "by-the-book" type of soldier. At least at the point that he enters service.

After lecture, I even start doubting that the "Primer" as it was distributed by BlackLiberal was meant to be taken serious at all. It is so ripe with absurdity that none of it would survive a soldiers first real encounter with the enemy. Good propaganda for the home worlds, for sure. Good for green recruits before they are sent to the battleflied, yes. But if this would really be taught to every and any imperial soldier, the moral of any regiment and any fighting unit within the imperium would break after the first fight with xeno forces.

Because they would see and feel the ultimate proof for that everything they have ever been taught was a lie.

Gregorius21778 said:

This was one of the many facts that turned my Guardsman character into a jaded alcoholic.

I think it should be pointed out that it is plainly stated that acolytes are chosen for their ability to operate with discretion, and for their ability to break the rules for a higher cause. The Uplifting Primer isn't the field guide for how to infiltrate a Metallican Gunsmith training camp, which could be a potential job placement for a Guardsman acolyte. The "thing" that Guardsmen do is shoot people, kill things, operate heavy machinery (mostly to kill things), and to operate in a functional tactical unit. Given that the Guardsman is now in a tactical unit with a Psycher, part of operating within a tactical unit includes operating functionally with a Psycher.

I do think it is a weakness of the system that Perils of the Warp are so common. Were I to run the game, I would alter the chart so that Phenomena have less of a chance of blooming into Perils, or have the Phenomena chart be used if one or more 9's are rolled, but the Perils chart is rolled automatically and only if more 9's are rolled (perhaps 2? 3 seems a bit much) redrawing the Phenomena chart so that it never blooms into Perils. That being said, it is decidedly a threat that bad things will happen around a Psycher, but any acolyte has, as part of their job duties, the requirement to dabble in things that may condemn them. It says quite clearly that some level of Corruption, even if only minor, is an inevitable consequence of being in service to the Inquisition. The fact that the Psycher is a potential source of that Corruption is an already-established fact, one already accepted by any acolyte (or at least one to which they should already have been resigned when they were pressed into service).

I would not institute a "no-killing-PCs" rule. The game relies on fear and ignorance (to quote from Paranoia ), and it would be removing some of the character of the game to have a 100% certainty you could trust your fellow acolytes with your life. On the other hand, you work in a team and your team gets reviewed collectively for service, not individually. Death of a teammate speaks poorly of the team, killing a teammate speaks worse, and either way if that teammate was a resource costing five to ten thousand thrones then there'd be some serious explaining to do.

That said, I would require strong explanations for the death or misplacement of any acolyte, and indeed of any major item. Acolytes have knowledge, knowledge that is potentially deadly to have spread around. Acolytes have knowledge of heresies, technical secrets, xenos characteristics, etc. The Inquisition requires that such knowledge be under their control, and it's not under their control if its dead, any more than it is if it's running around free.