AtoMaki said:

Not really. Too many gamers embrace the "dump stat" mentality and put the lowest in social stats hoping their personal charisma carries through. Not saying that's the case here, but it's just as possible as your scenario and they're just biding time until they get their opportunity. So, no--it's not counterproductive.

That aside…then the issue isn't about "forcing" social interactions or not (as that's what stats in games are for…when in doubt, make a little noise and roll them bones). The real issue is player expectations. Before the GM does anything then, he needs to talk with the players to ensure they're all on the same page for what each one wants or expects.

Until then everything else is moot.

HappyDaze said:

Well, the fluff generally supports incompetence within the Munitorium as a rule rather than as the exception. Attrition and space marines combined with high level leadership from the reserves tend to win wars more so than front line in most of the fiction--with some exceptions.

NeoSamurai said:

NeoSamurai said:

That's not incompetence. That's brutal indifference.

The Departmento Munitorum is a single department within the Adeptus Administratum, itself the massive bureaucratic arm of the Adeptus Terra, the government of the Imperium. Countless trillions of souls toil day and night on a million worlds simply to ensure that the largest single civilisation in human history is running. It is the endless burden of these people that their actions must ensure that worlds are supplied with food, materials and tools and provided with protection against the horrors that dwell in the darkness between the stars. A tiny error can mean the deaths of billions of humans light years away. For the lowliest scribes, menials and sub-ordinates, chances are that they never know the specific significance of their tasks, to better allow them to perform their duties without being crushed under the weight of their purpose - Scribe Iohannus Cervidus may know only to transcribe data from one source to another, to create copies to be subjected to intense mathemantic scrutiny, to be read by senior Ordinates and Masters so that tithe forecasts can be calculated for the next century. He does not know why, and to ask would be to invite punishment, for such knowledge is not his to know. His duty is to serve as commanded, his reward is the satisfaction of his masters.

The Departmento Munitorum are responsible, within this, for all matters logistical that affect the muster, movement and maintenance of the core armed forces of the Imperium - the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy (the other military forces - the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, and the Adeptus Astartes - handle their own logistics, while the Adeptus Arbites are law enforcement rather than military, and local PDF forces are for individual worlds to support). This means that ensuring that worlds get the armed forces they need, and that those armed forces get the equipment they need to wage a war, are the sole responsibility of the countless billions of Adepts who serve the Departmento Munitorum.

It is a vast undertaking, on a scale beyond comprehension except as a vast abstract. Nobody alive today understands how to organise armies on a scale that dwarfs the population of modern Earth over interstellar distances, who hail from hundreds of thousands of different planets. We can only speculate in the broadest of terms how such a challenge would be met… and when your decisions may affect the lives of billions, then everything must necessarily come down to numbers. Individual people cannot matter in the grand scale of things, because they are too small a variable to consider. One soldier amongst billions is a statistic, a single unit of a resource subject to the bloody arithmatic of warfare.

Battlefield strategy and tactics are things for front line officers - colonels and captains and lieutenants, and the lower orders of Generals. The Lord-Generals and other supreme commanders, for whom victory and defeat is measured in the liberation and desolation of planets, not the lives and deaths of men, cannot afford to look at the small picture.

It is in this way that the Imperium must operate. Brutal indifference to the plight of the individual is a necessity to ensure the survival of the species.

I think the discussion might be drifting a trifle from the subject, which is encouraging conversation in military based games like Only War. Out of Character encouragement might be seen as a trap or something of the sort. I find that making the characters clearly open to conversation helps. A commissar (like Cain) saying "speak freely, Trooper" can help prod them in the right direction. Yes, heresy will still be punished by a bolt round in the head, but it will encourage the group to network.

Also, a friendly Supply Sergeant/Quartermaster will give the group something to discuss. When being buddies with someone gives you a bonus to getting sweet gear, the group usually gets chatty real quick. Think of the camp or base as the rough equivalent of the tavern in fantasy games. Pick up tips, mini-quests, and quick cash from card games, ect.

To address the munitorium debate: they are a monolithic organization and can be used to create humorous situations (my group once rolled the ogryn uniforms while trying to get detonators for some explosives they found) it should be kept in mind that they usually have sort of the right stuff. Whether or not the group actually gets it is another story. You don't need to provide constant reminders that the group is pitiful and insignificant. In all likelihood, they already know, and further reminders will create resentment and hopelessness. The story is about the heroes after all, and what kind of story would it be if they didn't break the mold somehow?