I can see an argument for keeping influence for when the group has proven themselves but by rank 5 gelt felt silly in DH1

I'm not exactly sure how two paragraphs and an extra column on pre-existing tables in the book would 'consume too much space', to be honest.

The Thrones Currency should exist in addition to Influence in my opinion. I've used both systems in conjunction many times before, and I've never had a 'too complicated, can't do basic math' moments. The Thrones Currency is a nice tool to have to determine many things than just 'bribery'. With them, a GM can tally a reasonable and background-sensible cost of construction for commissioned works (I want my own, personal set of power armor GM! etc, etc). Similarly, that applies to dark and forbidden sciences (transgenic blasphemies), underworld dealings, etc.

Influence is a nice abstraction for when the Acolytes reach a point where they shouldn't need be concerned with the mundane or when they are directly dealing with leaders or the vast organizations of the Imperium (The Adeptus Arbites, The Ecclesiarchy, the Adeptus Administratum, etc). Outside of that, towards the masses who may never have seen a 'promissory note' from the Guilder Banks of Tartarus IV, I think it's more prudent to use the thrones on hand than to assume 'they just have it'.

It's nice for me to know that I can use something as minuscule as wealth to pose an obstacle towards my players. Do they want to pass the gate guard easily with a bribe? Or did they spend it all on tricking out their weapon instead?

Got to agree with this more or less completely, as its how we've been running DH1 and RT in our group since Ascension/RT released. The abstract wealth system has its place, and is a very usefull tool for speeding up "gearing up" sessions when the group have just been given there new mission. But once they are out in the field its always been helpful to have cold hard cash around.

Another fantastic use for currency is as a comparative tool for in-mission "treasure" - yes you can use the + and - influence modifiers but personally I prefer something a little more granular.

Time to through put another example out there - this time from the earliest days of my first DH1 campaign

I sent my cell to Tranch to conduct an investigation under the radar, covered as a group of travelling merchants. I gave the group leader a large sum of thrones to act as a group fund but other than that it was down to individual character's finances. The first hurdle they had to deal with was when they realised that they had spent too much on shiny toys and hadn't actually got enough for all of them to take the mag-lev from the star-port to the hive, so two of them ended up having to find the local version of Hertz and renting the cheapest form of motor-transport they could find because thats all they had the cash for.

The entire session revolved around the group mis-managing there resources and having to find some other way to make it work, and all had a great laugh in the process - negotiating with dis-reputable traders, dealing with bandits on the road, having the two combat characters away from the rest of the party during a train hijack... and none of it would have happened if the players weren't in control of their own cash flow.

Influence/Profit Factor/etc all have their place in DH, but equally so does currency

putting a differnt spin on it - your conducting an investigation and the GM wants it to be obvious that the low-hive scum who's hab you've broken into has got more cash than he should, saying "there's a tight bundle of 100 throne notes on the table" gets the general idea, but its alot more impressive when one of the players realises there is basically the value of a car just sat on the table - without the armoury to reference how can you detirmine the relative value of the evidence?

Regards

Surak

Wholeheartedly agree!

But I don't see why you guys are so divided. I do not like the influence. Simply because it is not my playstyle. Myself and my group like hoarding and looting stuff. It is simply what we like to do. So even if thrones and gelts are not in the game. I will put them in there and make up my own rules on how they convert or are related to influence.

I think its good that this thread exists, but I am saddened by all the people who don't like thrones.

I think the main reason I don't like the 'abstracted wealth' is that it makes little sense in the macroscopic view to me. I mean, if the players find themselves on planet X and need to buy guns. Player Y wants a bolter, becuse he thinks bolters are cool, but he fails his roll. Instead, he goes for a plasma gun, which he succeeds in getting, despite it being a more expensive item. This makes no sense to me, but it seems like the sort of thing that would come up a lot.

It also makes a lot of situations more boring imo. Lets say you wanna bribe a guy: with a money system, you might still roll fellowship, and depending on your success or failure it could increase or lower the price. That doesn't really work with an influence system, you either fail or succeeed. It's so binary.

It's also a big loss to resource management, no longer will you have to choose if you want to buy X or Y, just roll for both and see what happens. (yes yes, you could restrict the amount of acquisitions but that also gets a bit wonky). Please FFG, make throne costs for most items, but let it be an optional system if you'd like.

This.

I guess my main issue is that "Planet Y" probably shouldn't have a 'bolter store' in the first place. And if it, for whatever plausible reason, does anyway I suspect the circumstances would be so unusual that they probably shouldn't be a core assumption.

And let's not kid ourselves here, Throne Gelt is an abstracted wealth system.

The Thrones Currency should exist in addition to Influence in my opinion. I've used both systems in conjunction many times before, and I've never had a 'too complicated, can't do basic math' moments. The Thrones Currency is a nice tool to have to determine many things than just 'bribery'. With them, a GM can tally a reasonable and background-sensible cost of construction for commissioned works (I want my own, personal set of power armor GM! etc, etc). Similarly, that applies to dark and forbidden sciences (transgenic blasphemies), underworld dealings, etc.

_{Influence is a nice abstraction for when the Acolytes reach a point where they shouldn't need be concerned with the mundane or when they are directly dealing with leaders or the vast organizations of the Imperium (The Adeptus Arbites, The Ecclesiarchy, the Adeptus Administratum, etc). Outside of that, towards the masses who may never have seen a 'promissory note' from the Guilder Banks of Tartarus IV, I think it's more prudent to use the thrones on hand than to assume 'they just have it'.}

_{It's nice for me to know that I can use something as minuscule as wealth to pose an obstacle towards my players. Do they want to pass the gate guard easily with a bribe? Or did they spend it all on tricking out their weapon instead?}

_{Pretty much my view. Knowing that you've got actual money in your pocket makes more sense for lower level PCs, who'd be provided with some discretionary funds and not really have the influence (little 'i') to use Influence (big 'i') that early in their career, especially when trying to be subtle.}

_{However it is a far better mechanic for more experienced individual. There comes a point (as used in Ascension, where you didn't have to roll for parties of influence <40 when acting openly) where - if prepared for the consequences - you should be able to just walk into a mid-hive arms dealer and say:}

_{"We are the Inquisition. We're taking your stuff. Deal with it."}

That's another thing, using your inquisitorial influence to buy/find stuff when you're on a mission seems very much like you may as well send a memo to all the heretics telling them to go into hiding for a while(or assassinate you in the night). It seems so very much off for on-mission purchases. I guess Influence could be cool if used sort of like mission-start requisition in OW.

Also, I don't really see why people think there's a fluff issue with the imperium having a more or less unified currency alongside local ones(at least in most places). This seems very much like something the Administratum would do. I might liken it to how most small countries in the world accept currencies other than their own, and what world isn't small compared to the Administratum?

That's another thing, using your inquisitorial influence to buy/find stuff when you're on a mission seems very much like you may as well send a memo to all the heretics telling them to go into hiding for a while(or assassinate you in the night). It seems so very much off for on-mission purchases. I guess Influence could be cool if used sort of like mission-start requisition in OW.

It doesn't have to be overtly Inquisitorial influence. It can just be a name-drop here or a favour called in there. And there are all sorts of cover stories that can be used as well. Nor does everyone have to be kept in the dark for most missions. You're investigating corruption at the Governor's palace or in the depths of a Hive? Fine - doesn't mean you can't have a special contact in the Administratum stores who gets you things. James Bond always has a contact to meet and it doesn't blow his cover. There are a myriad of ways to use Influence without flopping your Inquisitorial seal on the desk.

Also, I don't really see why people think there's a fluff issue with the imperium having a more or less unified currency alongside local ones(at least in most places).

Well it's not a problem so long as you can guide your players away from thinking about it in practice, in which case you'll be cleaning bits of player's head off your shirt.

This seems very much like something the Administratum would do. I might liken it to how most small countries in the world accept currencies other than their own, and what world isn't small compared to the Administratum?

I feel I've gone into why a universal currency wont work in sufficient detail and I don't think the thread will survive me re-posting it all.

This seems very much like something the Administratum would do. I might liken it to how most small countries in the world accept currencies other than their own, and what world isn't small compared to the Administratum?

I feel I've gone into why a universal currency wont work in sufficient detail and I don't think the thread will survive me re-posting it all.

When it's an iron-clad arguement with no room for refute, you will probably win others to that rationale. Until then, your perspective (respectfully) is not a fact of this discussion but personal point of view.

From my stance, the Administratum would certainly have a divisio whose dedicated to planetary and Imperial economics, trade, and currency values. =D

If all the chartered captains agree to use it a currency could be sector wide but if it fell apart all the nearby sectors would be iffy about doing anything like that.
You can use this to justify either setup.

This seems very much like something the Administratum would do. I might liken it to how most small countries in the world accept currencies other than their own, and what world isn't small compared to the Administratum?

I feel I've gone into why a universal currency wont work in sufficient detail and I don't think the thread will survive me re-posting it all.

When it's an iron-clad arguement with no room for refute, you will probably win others to that rationale. Until then, your perspective (respectfully) is not a fact of this discussion but personal point of view .

I gave solid reasoning for everything I wrote, I believe. By all means highlight anything that I got wrong, but it is unuseful to squash everything down to the same level of equivalence by saying everything is a "personal point of view". An argument that lists multiple solid reasons why something wont work is not "a personal point of view" if the things within it are not subjective. If you think it is incorrect, then I invite discussion of where it may be so.

But if you're not finding anything wrong with the reasons I gave, then that means there remains a long list of reasons why your proposal doesn't work. They don't become not reasons in your game unless they don't apply to your game somehow. And as they're all to do with basic facts of the setting, they will.

If all the chartered captains agree to use it a currency could be sector wide but if it fell apart all the nearby sectors would be iffy about doing anything like that.

I've gone into this earlier. It's silly to just repeat things, but I'll recap.

Either you're talking about a fiat currency or a non-fiat currency. If you're talking about a non-fiat currency then it's value will vary massively from world to world unless you can magically find something that exists in exact Resource to Population equivalence across all those planets. This is because the non-fiat currency must have inherent worth and be fixed in quantity (it can be non-fixed, but the system can only accommodate so much variance before it collapses. See the historical example of the pre-Breton Woods USA having to restrict Silver due to shifts in mining ratios causing it to become more valuable than gold).

Failure to preserve that ratio equivalence between worlds means that the value of the money shifts drastically between worlds. Your gold piece that would buy a house on one planet wont get you a grox-burger on another world. Thus making it useless as a universal currency. You see? You have to have the same ratio of whatever valuable material you mint the coins out of to people of that world, for the value to be the same. And it is very sensitive to differences in that ratio.

Alternately, you are discussing a fiat currency, where the money has value because people say it does, rather than because of inherent worth. This is even worse than the non-fiat currency. Look at the catastrophe in Greece (where I was recently) that has in part resulted from trying to tie it in a single currency with the economic powerhouse that is Germany! It's been impossible to make one currency work well for two such different countries at the same time. That was exacerbated by corruption in Greece so if you want an example where it is more purely resultant of unified currency, look at Spain where they have again been heavily harmed by attempting to share currency with France and Germany. And these are both examples of countries that are practically next door to each other and share similar types of government and technology levels! Try to manage a fiat-currency across multiple worlds and it is simply unworkable. Not complicated. Not prone to inefficiencies. Unworkable. I am being completely literal here - it cannot be made to work.

I said all this earlier. It's not "personal point of view". It's reasoned argument based on simple axioms which are present not just in my game, but in your game also . Unless you make your game wildly different to the normal WH40K setting, then all this applies to it.

I'm pretty sure if someone looted a dozen bolters and sold them in town, it would get some unsavory attention from the authorities on just about any planet. It could turn into a new investigation: Who smuggled in the bolters, who sold them, and for what purpose besides goods/money?

On a side note.

Where does this 'Looting phenomenon' come from? I just don't see this in my games. Perhaps i am blessed with mature and reasonable players. Most will ofc pocket a roll of cash or gem stones, but pulling the socks of dead heretics to sell them.. just doesn't happen. Enemy weapons will be scutinized, and only taken if useful in some way (no taint or chaos marks), but never to be sold engrosse.

I think the 'ZOMG LOOTZORDZ!!1!' problem can not be fixed with rules. This is a problem with players and GM. Game mechanics do not fix players, money or not, looters will loot.

As long as there will be benefit from looting, there will be looters.

That said, I am for influence COMBINED with thrones. How hard it is to list value of item in thrones? Just one additional column.

In BC there was something akin to money - skin patches, adamantium bars or other stuff. I would prefer to see actual money in DH2

Fiat, sorry I thought that was implyed. I wasn't trying to argue that any of your posts were wrong I was trying to give anyone who wants a currency to justify it.

As long as there will be benefit from looting, there will be looters.

That said, I am for influence COMBINED with thrones. How hard it is to list value of item in thrones? Just one additional column.

In BC there was something akin to money - skin patches, adamantium bars or other stuff. I would prefer to see actual money in DH2

This

As long as there will be benefit from looting, there will be looters.

That said, I am for influence COMBINED with thrones. How hard it is to list value of item in thrones? Just one additional column.

In BC there was something akin to money - skin patches, adamantium bars or other stuff. I would prefer to see actual money in DH2

This

Sounds good to me,

and on the topic of whether an imperium-wide currency is sane or practical I'm going say a few things;

I agree that in real, practical, terms a 'single currency' for the imperium is probably a Really Bad Idea due to economics as we understand them etc etc but this is Sci-Fi/Fantasy lets add a pinch of salt and consider the following;

We have Black Library sources (and DH1 and Necromunda) that establish Thrones or at least some sort of coin in use within the Imperium - I'm refering to the Abnetverse, The Inquisitor Novels, The Cain Novels, the Space Wolf Novels (Wolfblade only I think) and the two books written to go with DH1 - so if there is evidence for Coinage can we work out how it works?

How do the various Trade-houses, Free-Traders, and even Rogue Traders actually trade? Is it just a massive barter-culture?

and

How can a black market economy exist without currency (I just can't see them using ration cards for some reason)?

Interested to hear peoples views - I'm enjoying the well reasoned debates in this thread.but fully admit as I've just read pages 8-13 in one go this morning and as a reasult I may have missed a few points people have made.

For the record I am NOT trying to start an argument with this post - a reasoned debate is my goal

Regards

Surak

This seems very much like something the Administratum would do. I might liken it to how most small countries in the world accept currencies other than their own, and what world isn't small compared to the Administratum?

I feel I've gone into why a universal currency wont work in sufficient detail and I don't think the thread will survive me re-posting it all.

When it's an iron-clad arguement with no room for refute, you will probably win others to that rationale. Until then, your perspective (respectfully) is not a fact of this discussion but personal point of view .

I gave solid reasoning for everything I wrote, I believe. By all means highlight anything that I got wrong, but it is unuseful to squash everything down to the same level of equivalence by saying everything is a "personal point of view". An argument that lists multiple solid reasons why something wont work is not "a personal point of view" if the things within it are not subjective. If you think it is incorrect, then I invite discussion of where it may be so.

But if you're not finding anything wrong with the reasons I gave, then that means there remains a long list of reasons why your proposal doesn't work. They don't become not reasons in your game unless they don't apply to your game somehow. And as they're all to do with basic facts of the setting, they will.

Your points aren't wrong in Academia, just overlooking an important part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe - The Adeptus Administratum. Here's a single, simple quote found in almost any source about them:

The Adeptus Administratum is the administrative and bureaucratic division of the Adeptus Terra, the heart of the gigantic bureaucracy that controls the government of the Imperium of Man, consisting of untold billions of clerks, scribes and administrative staff constantly working to manage the Imperium at every level, from assembling war fleets to levying taxes .

Tithes and taxes are described separately under most accounts. My question here would be - what taxes? If it's a completely barter-trade society, then what is to trade when the majority of the citizens inherent their roles, and get what's given to them?

Moving on from that point, the Administratum itself is rife with defunct divisios who have no purpose, who have redundant functions, and so on. It is -an inefficient- bureaucratic mess. It's been highlighted several times now that entire divisios exist whose have lost their original purpose (because a world blew up, or some warp storm cut off a trade route, etc), but they persist anyway because of tradition and whatever excuse they generate for themselves.

Honestly going to suggest there aren't hundreds, if not thousands, of divisios dedicated to the forlorn and almost impossible task of unifying the Imperium's currencies rates? Sounds very much an Administratum thing to me. If there is a galactic standard, it's been made about a dozen times within the Administratum and is most likely a point of contention between the divisios that created them.

I think one of the most strongest points of currency being used in tandem with the barter-trade culture of the Imperium are the Pilgrims who make their way to Terra through the years, who 'buy' passage with passing ships and rogue traders. The Wealth of the Ecclesiarchy itself is noted to be formed by the donations of billions across the Imperium.

Wait a minute...How did the Ecclesiarchy get wealthy if the citizens are supposed to be broke, scraping by?

I don't know. I don't care for a real world declaration that this setting can't exist (because honestly, it shouldn't if we applied real world ideologies to it). What we do know is simple - The Barter-Trade and Currency wealth systems exist in this world side by side each other in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

On a side note.

Where does this 'Looting phenomenon' come from? I just don't see this in my games. Perhaps i am blessed with mature and reasonable players. Most will ofc pocket a roll of cash or gem stones, but pulling the socks of dead heretics to sell them.. just doesn't happen. Enemy weapons will be scutinized, and only taken if useful in some way (no taint or chaos marks), but never to be sold engrosse.

I think the 'ZOMG LOOTZORDZ!!1!' problem can not be fixed with rules. This is a problem with players and GM. Game mechanics do not fix players, money or not, looters will loot.

Wow, you must have a rare group. Thank the Emperor for your good fortune.

But for the rest of us... As soon as you include coins in a game, chasing those coins will almost inevitably follow. It's partly an artifact of all RPGs being the bastard spawn of D&D , a game specifically about seeking treasure, and partly just basic math: if better gear improves my character's chance of survival, and coins help me get that gear, then hell yes I want more more more coins! -And, you know, complete our mission, too, but- coins!

And that's not the direction I want my Dark Heresy campaigns to go. I want to simulate something akin to the Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels, where monetary wealth is absolutely not a motivating factor. That's what D&D is for...

And that's not the direction I want my Dark Heresy campaigns to go. I want to simulate something akin to the Eisenhorn and Ravenor novels, where monetary wealth is absolutely not a motivating factor. That's what D&D is for...

Considering that most of the Dramatis Personae carry maybe 5-10 thrones, I really don't see how any group of pcs would manage to be treasure hunters in Dark Heresy, unless the GM allows it become like that. (Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm respectfully chiming in Adeptus-B!)

Often, in my personal experience and game sessions as a GM, my pcs have had to make an adventure of itself to get anything equitable enough to resemble that trope (they raided a nobleman's manse on Quaddis during Tattered Fates, causing them to gain enemies along the way, it was overall a pleasant experience. All led by the Scum of course. =D)

Considering that most of the Dramatis Personae carry maybe 5-10 thrones, I really don't see how any group of pcs would manage to be treasure hunters in Dark Heresy, unless the GM allows it become like that. (Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm respectfully chiming in Adeptus-B!)

My players strip dead NPCs of everything they have- specifically armour and weapons- to 'sell in town', D&D -style. I've tried to shame them out of it, but, short of violating the First Rule of Game-Mastering ( never tell your players "You can't do that!"), I don't see any solution other than eliminating coins from the game...

Considering that most of the Dramatis Personae carry maybe 5-10 thrones, I really don't see how any group of pcs would manage to be treasure hunters in Dark Heresy, unless the GM allows it become like that. (Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm respectfully chiming in Adeptus-B!)

My players strip dead NPCs of everything they have- specifically armour and weapons- to 'sell in town', D&D -style. I've tried to shame them out of it, but, short of violating the First Rule of Game-Mastering ( never tell your players "You can't do that!"), I don't see any solution other than eliminating coins from the game...

The talk of the town is a group of violent separatists going around the hive gunning people down in the streets and stripping them of their equipment. At an armory, a group of armed, armored, and bloodied thugs offer to sell the owner scraps of shot-up, bloody bodyarmor and cheap half-empty rifles, some with gang insignia. He gives them the money because he's afraid of what they'll do if he refuses, but as soon as they leave picks up the phone and calls the Arbites.

Yeah, I've tried getting them in trouble with the local law- even put them on trial at one point. Still, they are locked in to treasure-hunting...

Sounds like you should be playing Rogue Trader...

Considering that most of the Dramatis Personae carry maybe 5-10 thrones, I really don't see how any group of pcs would manage to be treasure hunters in Dark Heresy, unless the GM allows it become like that. (Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm respectfully chiming in Adeptus-B!)

My players strip dead NPCs of everything they have- specifically armour and weapons- to 'sell in town', D&D -style. I've tried to shame them out of it, but, short of violating the First Rule of Game-Mastering ( never tell your players "You can't do that!"), I don't see any solution other than eliminating coins from the game...

The talk of the town is a group of violent separatists going around the hive gunning people down in the streets and stripping them of their equipment. At an armory, a group of armed, armored, and bloodied thugs offer to sell the owner scraps of shot-up, bloody bodyarmor and cheap half-empty rifles, some with gang insignia. He gives them the money because he's afraid of what they'll do if he refuses, but as soon as they leave picks up the phone and calls the Arbites.

I have actually done this before. My party raided a 'corrupt' tech priests lab/research facility and looted the Hell out of it. They received huge sums of Thrones a couple hundred, quality parts for crafting and even some superior quality weapons and armour. All of it covered in Mechanics insignias. I can tell you as a GM creating the next session of Mechanicus and Arbiter investigators was one of the best and most fun sessions I and the group had.