Okay, so…what is the matter with these things?

Notice the 'average settlement' on page 126. so this is for EXACTLY 1000 ppl, yeah?

Now, if we look at '1000 or less' (the increase in difficulty by 1 step) below this first table… where did the difficulty known as 'Difficult' go? the (-10) difficulty? it's gone… across the whole table.

So 1000 ppl, things can get difficult, but add or take away 1 person, then it's hard or challenging with no inbetween.

And…the time-to-find-things for average settlements are nowhere to be found. There's times for <1000 and <10,000, so does that mean that since it's 1 more than 999, it takes the same as <1000? or since it's not <1000 but <10,000 then it takes the same time as <10,000?

Finally…They fail the inquiry test to find something. did they just waste 1D5 months doing absolutely nothing in the middle of an investigation?

I know, I know, it should be 'As Logic dictates'. I agree. I'd just rather not have to think about it in the first place, so that I can get through the GM-Hateful-stressful task of Player-character shopping, and move on to lasfire and investigation.

I have read the 2008 rulebook, the 2010 rulebook, the 3.0 errata, and made an excel file of what should be the revised values. I am in need of other's opinions.

Thank you for your time.

Honestly you really are thinking about it too hard on the +/- 1 person thing. Its whatever the GM wants it to be.

All the players need to know is the difficulty and duration of the inquiry test. The rest can be left to the GM. The table is a guide on how the GM should apply difficulty. Obviously, certain items in one area are more available than in another (of the same population). This is up to the GM to decide.

There are just some things that I want over and done with without my Intervention as a GM. I know it's down to me, I just wish it wasn't. I hate it when PCs go shopping - the classic is:

*passes test* 'you find a shop that sells the thing you want' *PC grabs radio* "hey guys, this place has got what we want!" commence 2 hours of "has he got this?" "how about this?" "this?" as 4 players badger 1 poor shopkeep. player 3 says "what does this shop have?" GM: "well what would you like?" "Well I want to see what he's got, describe what's on the walls."

Guidelines = abusable settings. Give me a locked sequence so that I can leave them to it, take their thrones, and give them the weapons they want.

Still doesn't explain what happens if they fail the inquiry test though - fail before beginning, wasted time, or always succeeds with additional degrees of failure increasing time? Or is this up to me too? 'congrats, you just wasted 1D5 months walking in Circles'.

If they fail the test, I wouldn't say they wasted the time. I was always under the impression it was an extended test sort of thing, but I often confuse it with Shadowrun. As far as availability in a single shop environment goes… But yes, if they fail the test, they should have to spend more time searching. If your concerned about time being spent, reduce the interval down to weeks/days/hours.

I'm not sure if I'd try to run a shop environment though, instead just have them test by what piece of gear they're searching for.

And isn't that what you're looking for? E.g. "State what your looking for." "A Lasgun" "OK, make an inquiry (+20) check" "Made it by a degree of success"/"Failed by one degree" "Ok, you find it in X time"/"Well, you try, but you can't find it"

If you really want to simplify it, have the degrees of success reduce the time it takes to find it, and have failure simply increase the time it takes to find it (if you even feel like giving the item to the party).

KommissarK said:

…that extended test thing is not a bad idea. I will cover that investigation part of the rulebook again (i had no idea how to use it at all) but I suppose it's an extended inquiry test? that way it technically always 'succeeds' but is quite involved.

KommissarK said:

Yeah no don't try shop environments (Except for Sikes the Reclaimator from EoD but that's a given.)

KommissarK said:

I honestly tried to do that once I knew what I was getting myself in for. "so what item do you want?" "I can't decide, what does this place have?"

The problem with this is (apart from missing difficulties & incorrect tables) if you don't find it, what is to stop the PC simply looking again, and continue rolling until succeeding? if they fail, does it mean they'll never find it, even if their PC colleague finds every Item out of 10 he was looking for on the first roll? or that, for this time period, they wasted their time?

The lasgun is a perfect example - PC1 can't find it, PC2 finds two. Why couldn't PC1 just look again? Does he have to ask PC2 nicely to give him one of his?

Reading Page 125 again it states they must succeed on the inquiry test. perhaps they lose units of the base time (minutes, hours, days, weeks, months)equal to the degrees of failure in wasted time, but can look again straight away? or do they spend the whole time looking, and find nothing, wheras any other PC could find it in Half the time with the same modifiers?

It's like doing a search test - (e.g. test taken, result - 5 degrees of failure) GM: "you find nothing of importance". PC: "oh? Well I'll look again." (Re-Roll)

I see no issue in requiring further tests/time to find it if they fail. Often enough, DH is a race against the clock; the heretics don't work off of the acolytes' time table. Almost anything worth investigating is time sensitive. The only time it may not be is during a long term investigation/infiltration (e.g. figure out whats at the heart of this cult). At that point, its also worth noting that time is indeed money. An acolyte's monthly income is hardly anything of note (except for maybe a noble born or cleric), so they really do need to be doing active things to get thrones. And without thrones, they're really not buying anything of value.

Also, maybe this is still Shadowrun kicking in, but I seem to think its also possible to raise the price you're willing to pay and add a bonus to the inquiry test (say an extra +10 bonus for a 10% price increase). I'm now certain thats from SR, but I think it might make for a good house rule for you, just to avoid the heartbreak of losing a months time for no reason while searching.

I generally don't bother with these tests to be honest. If they want something relatively common and are in a hive, they get it. If they want "a better gun" get them to look at the table and decide what they want, that is what the tables are for. I would never run a shop environment unless the scenario really called for it.

I suppose this generally only applies in downtime, if they really want to buy something in the middle of a mission I would ask them how long they look for then adjust the test accordingly. IRL if you go to buy something you don't look up how long it takes to find something, you say 'I'll spend this afternoon looking'. If they want a best quality powerblade but only spend 1 hour walking to the nearest shop the chances are worse than if they dedicate a week to exploring the trading district of a city…

KommissarK said:

Ahh, music to my ears. This is like one of those moments when a woman is talking to a guy about something serious, and somewhere in the conversation she mentions breasts. And all he remembers from the conversation was that they talked about breasts.

I played a session yesterday (which went really well, ingenuity, moments of awesome and sheer amazing luck cropping up everywhere) but this was the ONLY thing that drove me to mild frustration.

Your suggestions are well recieved, and have given me a technique to 'gift' to the players (albeit complicated for a first-time dark Heresy player.)

There are two factors from this discussion that seem to apply - 'How wide' and 'how long'.

A player would think 'I can spare 5 hours' and choose the appropriate area (availability by population scales) to search in (of course, the maximum possible searching area would be defined by the acolytes' location - no 100,000+ in a dirt-town, but possible in a dirt-city) and then, if they fail, they've wasted their 'requested' time. If they succeed, and if the time it takes done NOT fall within their 'requested' time, then it's not found but they KNOW they're on the trail.

If it all falls within, then Gtz, you found the item. (of course, paying extra for bonus sounds good too!)

NEXT QUESTION: A player wants an angelus Carbine with red-dot and Aux GL.

TO FIND IT…One test for weapon plus upgrades? or three tests, and a trip to the armourer to get it slapped together? Or can a player assemble the weapon himself? what are your thoughts?

Also apparently Shadowrun = breasts. I know from experience that if man so much as flinches head in direction of conversation involving breasts, then either hard kill-stares will greet them or a 'typical bloke' commentary will ensue. Enough of this Boobie talk anyway, we're talking about pretending to purchase phallic representations instead, for His sake.

Breasts?

Where?

Darth Smeg said:

O_O

/slowmotionfacepalm

*le Sigh* Typical Gamer behaviour… nobody mention motorised water vessels, or this could really get frakked up.