The way I run things is that corruption points come from warp/ruinous powers exclusivly.

If Hitler and Mengala (both would have existed in 40k cannon) didn't grow third arms out of their foreheads then neither do the characters for any non warp related evil. However acting like a sociopathic murderer WILL gain you insanity points. Act like an insano for long enough and you just might become one.

As to doing evil deeds atracts the attention of the ruines powers and thus gains the character CP I think is dangerous. Where is the line? Since the chaos gods are basically made up of the bad/evil of sentient races then almost everything the acolytes due would fall into their hands. Lying, killing, etc,etc. virtually every thing they do would please one or more of the chaos gods and would thus earn them CP and VERY short carrers.

llsoth said:

I could make a decent counter arguement about the Hitler thing. Its quite possible I could argue that his (and his flunkies) obsession with the occult, and his rather continous usage of occult rituals, he could have quite possibly been trucking with the Warp. It could just be that due to humanities lack of strong warp usuage at the time, that the influence of Chaos wasn't as strong as it is in 40k period. Without having any kind of real back history for how Hitler's Germany was in 40k fluff, it could be that due to Nazi Germany's love of the occult that they WERE mutating slightly. I could quite honestly see Hitler being some Chaos God's playground, while Stalinist Russia being more like the Imperium, with America and England playing that parts of the Eldar.

llsoth said:

Psh, you only scratched the surface!

Sure, lying, killing, and ****** small children would get their attention but there's so much more! Slaving over an immaculate painting, eating 'till you puke then eating some more, being a drug addict, having hope for the future, not having any hope for the future, fighting to eradicate poverty, fighting to eradicate a long standing disease, enacting a cunning plan that saves the lives of millions, helping a grieving widow accept her lose and get on with things, forcing the same widow to never get over her lose, killing that same widow, or deciding to show that widow the time of her life are all things that can cause you to grow eye stalks! And that's not even mentioning WAR! Yes, WAR! Something firmly and irrefutably in the domain of a major chaos god. War.

I'm fairly certain Khorne is attracted to War. It is his little thing after all. Now, if you can get corrupted and mutated by doing things within a given chaos gods domain, then why the heck do most Imperial Guardsmen still only have two eyes?

I'm with Ilsoth and Graver on this one.

Simply being "evil" or acting within the sphere of a chaos god (practically impossible to avoid) should not be enough to award CP. And when you think about some of the fluff/novels, entire worlds have been laid to waste to get the attention of the chaos gods. So I can't see how a single character through a few misdeeds can get the (unwanted) attention of the dark powersby simply doing nasty things to innocent people. This is 40k, dat sh*t happens everyday on such incredible scales that whatever the character does properbly won't register anywhere.

Though a character may turn to worship of a chaos god through insanity, and through that worship gain CP as he dedicates his malign acts to his dark masters.

But as long as you are simply having "fun" (randomly killing innocents, ****** anything and anyone you meet and eating the left overs) no-one in the warp gives a ****.. because you aren't special my friend, you are just another lunatic in the dark grimness of 40k... take a number and wait in line.

Serialkilla said:

I can't cite the page number, but I'm pretty sure (right there in the section detailing corruption points) that it flat out says that the Chaos Gods are paying PARTICULARLY SPECIAL attention to the Acolytes, hence the Corruption system.

Most average joes of the imperium succumb much more quickly to the nefarious powers of the Warp. The slow corruption is so very tasty for the Chaotic "quartet".

I would give for reading texts dedicated to the ruinious powers!

Troels

Luddite said:

It seems a rather broad assumption to me that IP are linked to whatever constitutes Imperial Morality. This only works if you are using a model in which insanity = deviation from the norm. At which point your insanity level would change regularly depending on what the norm were you were at and/or be entirely subjective (at which point tracking it via points becomes meaningless).

So a major question is what do IP represent deviation from? A functional grasp of physical reality? Some moral code (and if so which moral code)? Some clinical definition? In-setting norms? Or some definition based on modern out of game conventional behavior?

DocIII said:

Honestly the system itself seems to disagree with itself on this point as much as we do. Technically the deviation should only be based on in game conventional behavior, but since that seems to be rather fluid from planet to planet it can get tricky. On planet A, multiple arranged child marriages to adults are the norm in the culture, but on planet B that be child abuse and ****, and would make you a deviant. On Planet A, you kill any adult over the age of 60, but on Planet B that be murder. On Planet A, to figure who will be the head of a household, anyone can submit their name for the job, and then whoever is the last one alive at the end is the head of household, but on Planet B that be disgusting.

On Planet A, they have a ceremony to the Emperor, under the guise of the Fertility Sky God, in which the entire planet for one night a year copulates, but on Planet B that be an orgy and would be concidered heretical.

Both however are loyal planets to the Imperium, they give their tithes, their versions of the Creed are within standards, and they obey Imperial Law, its their local laws and customs that are different. So how does one make one insane, and the other not so insane? So since one planet can deviate so much from another planet in the Imperium, deviation isn't the only standard that applies here, which brings the confusion in the scenerios and rules of the game as well.

Now that said, there are some points I think that humanity as a whole agrees is deviant. The moment it steps over the Imperial Creed or over Imperial Law, it begins to become deviant. Its one of the reasons that the Inquisition has so many problems with itself, because they are allowed to deviate from the norm as established from Imperial Creed and Law, many see Radicals as heretical, however Radicals can turn around and say its for the good of the Imperium, and get away from it.

Which I think may be the key to all of this Insanity and Corruption talk. If its for the good of the Imperium, then the Emperor will protect you (in the form of Fate Points). However because the alcolytes have the eye of the Emperor on them, the Chaos Gods are also watching, and are more then willing to step in when the Emperor isn't watching and corrupt them if they can (in the form of Corruption Points.) To me, insanity points are for when the Emperor isn't watching (or doesn't approve of your actions or the actions are for personal reasons and not for the good of the Imperium) but aren't bad enough in and of themselves to catch the eye of a certain Chaos God.

Having Sex isn't going to catch the eye of Slaneesh (even if its for personal reasons). Having sex with a three breasted mutant, two Grox, and a Ogryn probably will catch the eye of Slaneesh even if you didn't intend of calling him/her/it.

DocIII said:

I agree.

But since CPs don't apply in these situations, the only mechanic left is IPs, so its a matter of applying the only thing that can be applied.

Luddite said:

Bolt Rounds... apply directly to the forehead.

That would work too

Waste of ammo, use a rope.

How about we meet half way... a gallon of promethium and a match?

You can never have too much fire.

<dons red robe and calls for the purifying flame>

Xathess Wolfe said:

I'll take that gallon of promethium and a match, and raise you several tonnes of promethium gel, smeared over thirteen score seditionists, mutants and witches tied to wooden posts... and a Leman Russ Battle Tank with incendiary shells to ignite the whole thing.

Xathess Wolfe said:

eeerm... *twitch* oh god im gonna be sick

So necrophilia gets attention of both Nurgle and Slaanesh?

Letrii said:

If its a standard corpse... Slaanesh

If its with a zombie... Nurgle

If its with multiple Zombies... then they get to fight over you

Necrozius said:

Precisely, therefore I would definetly dish out corruption points for ****. It doesent matter if you **** someone for just for the ****, or if you use **** as means of torture to gain information about heretics (in order to wipe them out in the name of the Emperor).

It gains you the attention of the ruinous powers nontheless (propably Slaanesh), and therefore it shuld give an amount of corruption points. I mean, Chaos is not unkown for using subtle trickery to snare its followers. The corrupt dont always know they are slipping further and further into corruption and madness for their transgressions. So even if they think they are doing "the right thing", or if their background and upbringing sees the immoral acts (such as ****) as "acceptable", they still play the violin of Chaos.

Of course, more overt acts (such as a human sacrifice blatantly in the name of Khorne) should reward a higher amount of corruption points than more "petty" immoral acts, but **** and torture (no matter in who's name or what cause it is done) should provide a small amount of corruption points (maybe just one or two).

Remember: there is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt. >

But thats just my two gelts...

Varnias Tybalt said:

If immoral acts will give you corruption this would pretty much turn every Redemptionist, slaver and Interrogator of the =][= (to name a few) into mewling spawns of chaos within a year.

And the huge question must remain... who decides what the moral norm is? The current planets culture? The characters own moral codes? Can you gain corruption points for one thing on one planet and not on the other ?

Well, since this system is based in a pretty fantastic setting inspired from many types of media: film, comic books and literature, I'd like to point out that GENERALLY, the grittiest anti-hero usually pays the bill eventually in some shape or form.

By that I mean that the "hero" who makes a hard decision like setting an orphanage on fire for "the greater good" will be celebrated as a great victor. But down the road, such acts might come back to haunt them in some way.

This is, after all, space fantasy. Orcs and Elves. This isn't some esoteric conceptual art thesis on morality and such. If you do bad things in the name of some evil god, you get rewarded or punished accordingly. If you do good things for a benevolent "good" God, you get certain rewards as well. Look at the Sororitas.

Anyway, I'm POSITIVE that the dudes who write up the fluff for this setting do not miss the inherent irony of the Inquisition. By that I mean murdering innocents for the greater good.

I mean, seriously: the protagonists dress up like Cenobites (pin-head in hellraiser) at a Scandinavian black-metal concert for christ's sake! Darth Vader's a ***** compared to the typical Cleric!

Anyways, just like the hyposcricy of our own real world religious wars in the name of Christ, we, the players, can see the same irony in this game setting.

If you're an atheist, then you believe that there IS NO higher concept of right and wrong. But obviously, in a fantasy setting like 40K, there definitely ARE gods that watch over humanity and take an interest in the major players on the stage.

People keep on saying: "well, those redemptionists do all kinds of horrible things! Why don't THEY all have tentacles?" Not all mutations are obvious. Some just warp the mind. I believe that those ******* redemptionists, just like the sociopathic commissar, typically meet a gruesome end in some fashion. Only after they've served their purpose, though: by causing all sorts of pain and death. Khorne likes murder, in ANY shape or form.

Then again, this is just MY take on the setting. I'm very possibly wrong, though.

This came up during my game when my Assassin decided to murder a slaver's wife and child. The town was already falling to the Redemptionists, he had no reason to kill them he simply did it for kicks. In that way, his actions pleased the Dark Gods and they took notice of him so I gave him a Corruption Point.

However, going beyond in game rationalizations, Corruption Points are also a great means of keeping your players in line. I don't go handing out CP every time a player acts out, but they can be useful. For example, the Assassin's player is something of a problem player. He's too attached to his character and he keeps trying to steal the spotlight from the other characters. This is especially annoying because he is screwing around while they are actually trying to follow the storyline.

Serialkilla said:

I'm going to stand by my concept in your first statement that the Emperor protects his own, and as long as you do it in the Emperor's name, and the Emperor approves, you're not going to go all spawn of chaos for simply interrogating some heretic.

But I agree still that we don't have a good definition of the second one. I will say though, going back to the OP, is that an Arbitrator turning pure Murderer and going against the Corpus Presidium Calixis, is a Heretic, so in some cases the moral norm is what you are and what you do, not so much where you come from. A Cleric doesn't diverge from the Imperium Creed, a Arbitrator doesn't diverge from the Corpus Presidium Claixis, a Guardsman doesn't diverge from the Primer, a Tech-Priest doesn't diverge from the Omnisshah.

You know the more I think of it I think in cases like the OP, we need a third "imaginary" points, called Heresy points. Radical Inquisitors would ignore many more Heresy Points, then a Puritan would, but simply having Heresy points doesn't make you insane nor corrupt per say. Using Xeno Tech wouldn't make you insane or corrupt, just a heretic. Same with a cleric stepping away from the Imperial Creed, a Abstractionist Judge, etc etc.

Now of course being servants to the Inquisition, we'd have a bit more lee way, and servants to Radicals would have even more, but at some point even the Radicals would say "enough" and put a bolt round to the head of the offender. So it could be interesting is some kind of abstract Heretic Points would build up, so that at a certain point the GM would turn and send a Puritain on their asses.

Normally I'd say we wouldn't need a mechanic like this, and I don't think we really do, but since this seems to be a continuiing problem in many threads on how to mechanically deal with such characters as the OPs Arbitrator, this kind of system would work mechanically, while other GMs would just deal with like they always do, through RP.

Morals and mutation.... This has turned out to be a really nice thread and I do enjoy all the different views on the subject.

Actually i'm starting to see why "they" didn't just write up a set of moral codes and law-books. The fact that these... erhmm.. facts (doh) are missing really turns the setting into a playground for the mind. And it's always interesting to see how you other hard working GMs handle the same speculations that I have had.

The dark contemplations of the 40.000 universe and its perils .

luv it

Serialkilla said:

I really think it is a roleplaying question. the immorality of any act can only be measured by the character in question. Some people (at least normal people) feel that they have done something wrong if they **** another human being, others feel totally indifferent (psycopaths for example).

Thats why I always think its important to more or less establish how the player character reason about different topics (and of course, how mentally sane the character is). A bastard child of a serf who was conceived due to his mother being raped by a psychotic aristocrat dilletante, would propably feel very bad if he raped another woman (having spent his first years with a **** victim propably leave its emotional scars).

But lets say that the player character is the psychotic aristocrat dilletante instead, he not only has one but TWO reasons for excusing ****. One because serfs are basically insects in his eyes, and he has been brought up not to treat them with standard human dignity, and two he is a psychopath (if you are totally devoid of empathy, its hard to see why its bad to force yourself sexually onto another person).

Basically, actions that go against the PCs own convictions (wether they are grounded in past experiences, upbringing, mental stability or religious convictions) should grant corruption points. Quite simply, actions that break a characters own moral code. (and it is every sadistic game masters obligation to push PCs into situations where they have to commit to such actions >)

AND of course, overt corrupted actions (like human sacrifice blatanty in the name of Khorne) should also grant corruption points.

Necrozius said:

Wouldn't that be more of a nihilist than an atheist? I mean, there are plenty of atheists who have a conviction of a higher concept of right and wrong (although not a divine concept, since atheist deny the existence of divinie beings). Whereas a nihilist is completely at ease with the fact that morals are just human concepts without any inherent worth (I consider myself a nihilist btw).

And while we are on the topic, I would say that I would be even more convinced that my nihilism is correct if i lived in a fantasy world where gods really existed. Simply because NO ONE could reasonably say that one god is right and another god is wrong. The gods themselves would be as arbitrary and worthless as the real world morality is.

(I thought i should mention that although I am aware of the physical and universal worthlessness of morality, I do have my own moral code which I follow. I just don't kid myself into thinking that the way i feel about different topics is the "right" way, or that other people who disagree with my morals are "wrong")

Necrozius said:

I think the same way. Not all mutations are obvious (and can even be considered "mutations" at all). I like the "warped mind" concept alot more than evilness and sprouting tentacles. I do think i have to come up with some house rules for this, more in line with RPGs like Kult or Noir. Sure physical mutations are cool, but more if they are used as cimactic events, rather than permanent features of a character. That they can outwardly appear as normal people, but their minds are so corrupt, and their inner darkness so overwhelming that they start to physically change in certain situations (like combat for example).