I'm currently working on something and would really like to know what the average "gain" of Corruption Points is in the different groups over the scope of a prolonged campaign (say, Ranks 1-8, or right into Ascension). How quickly did the characters in your party accumulate Corruption, and at what score of CP did they end up?

Thanks in advance for any input!

My group has been running for 15+ sessions and our characters range from 0-20 corruption.

That said it probably should be higher, one of my fellows and I wrote all the plot and we at least initially (and probably still) don't really do the system true justice, I just write rollercoaster adventures that keep my players amused that seems to have done the trick so far.

Also during the campaign I allowed my players to buy off insanity and corruption at a rate of 2:1 over time one way or the other (but not both, you either become more deranged and less twisted or saner and more tainted) and recently they have had a peroid of three years in downtime spent recovering.

The campaign i have GMed for over last year has 0-30 corruption but they have been careful to avoid it at every point. It is entirely down to what your characters do.

In my current game a player started, RAW, with 25 Insanity.

Insanity and Corruption are things that are more up to player actions than anything else. If I feel like they should have more I'll throw in Fear-causing bad guys for insanity or have a bad guy cast Warp Corruption. We enjoy the random tables so having character start losing it and sprouting limbs is part of the fun, but I'm not sure we've ever gotten over 40 in either, with one exception.

In the last game we played with me as a player I ended with ~80 corruption due to 2 daemon pacts (both of which I reneged on, to their great chagrin), ritual sacrifices, and bare-handedly handling warp artifacts. I ended up transferring my consciousness into the body of the BBEG, casting her out as a pissed off warp entity. I was ultimately blasted by my own petard after rolling a natural 100 on the perils table with no fate left.

My first 60+ session campaign ended with most of my players having ~ 10-15 corruption. I think our psyker finished with 25+. My players were lucky enough to have limited exposure to Daemons, which probably had something to do with it.

Over a prolonged period of time (campaign arcs of twelve to fifteen 6-hour sessions) I've had PCs reach 30-40 CP. I don't use many Daemonic creatures. I do, however, throw in CP for poor moral choices, choices that can be damning even if not connected to Daemons/the Warp, usually one or two points.

Had a Guardsman with an imaginary friend. Named the guy and everything. Once, when asked if their way back was secure, he answered by saying "Zeke's got it covered." It wasn't until much later the other PCs realized there was never any Zeke.

If we played with RAW CP/IP, my players would be dead or drooling in under 10 sessions, I'm fairly sure. So.. I hand them out based on the solid mechanical foundation of "when I feel it's appropriate", and we usually discuss more elaborate consequences by email before introducing them at the table. For the sake of roleplaying and suspense, I'd suggest that's probably the best way to go about it.

I also let my players get rid of both, if they can come up with a compelling story explaining how. This too is handled by email usually, and tends to involve long in-fiction periods of downtime.

Over a prolonged period of time (campaign arcs of twelve to fifteen 6-hour sessions) I've had PCs reach 30-40 CP. I don't use many Daemonic creatures. I do, however, throw in CP for poor moral choices, choices that can be damning even if not connected to Daemons/the Warp, usually one or two points.

Had a Guardsman with an imaginary friend. Named the guy and everything. Once, when asked if their way back was secure, he answered by saying "Zeke's got it covered." It wasn't until much later the other PCs realized there was never any Zeke.

That's funny, one of my players did exactly the same, tough his invisible friend was called Zack in homage to a video game (I forget which). He managed to come up with the idea and run it by me in 2 mins alone during a break, so between us we managed to keep the nature of Zack undiscovered for.. 2 sessions, I think.

So, it seems like 20-30 Corruption over prolonged gameplay is the average? That's quite close to what I was hoping for.

Thank you all! You've been quite helpful.

So, it seems like 20-30 Corruption over prolonged gameplay is the average? That's quite close to what I was hoping for.

Thank you all! You've been quite helpful.

With that drastically scaling up if your players intentionally start dabbling with heresy and forbidden lores/occult or alien artifacts.

Yea average for a few of my groups were about 20-30 corruption and 20-40 insanity without a Psyker or with one that moderately used his powers. With a Psyker that popped it like candy or someone babbling in sorcery, 40-70 corruption and 40-60 insanity. This is over the course of a year, with about 2-3 sessions a month averaging 5-8 hrs of gameplay. Average rank at end of year was high 7 and mid 8. Everyone had the option to reduce corruption and insanity by spending xp, in which most took it. So numbers could be about +15/20 or so.

Sounds perfect and fits to what I had in mind. Thanks for your input!

Also, thanks for the Insanity count; this projection may prove useful as well as I just had another idea on how the two may interact. I recall some DH supplement already offered a rule somewhere that allowed trading one for the other, but I think I may try to refine this a bit.

Rarely ever more than 1d5. To be more than that, a player would have to do or say something than "welcomes" corruption - like being a sociopath.

If you got corruption for being a sociopath, the Enforcers would have an easy job finding all those criminals by looking for their tell-tale extra heads

If you got corruption for being a sociopath, the Enforcers would have an easy job finding all those criminals by looking for their tell-tale extra heads

lol nah. There's a wide margin between sociopath and simply violent. Most PC's tend to lean towards violence - but few really rise to the level of being true sociopaths.

Simply being a sociopath will not make you mutate. You would have lots of mutated crime bosses and noblemen and clerics and so forth.

Simply being a sociopath will not make you mutate. You would have lots of mutated crime bosses and noblemen and clerics and so forth.

I don't think you quite understand what a true sociopath is.

Edit:

For example, in a recent campaign, the cell was attacked by some mercenaries while sleeping at a contact's home in the upper hive on Scintilla. My character is starting to become slightly unhinged by some of the things we have seen and done. I blagged two of the mercs with a point-blank shotgun blast, sending blood flying everywhere. I RP said I don't try to dodge the splattering blood, I just stood and "bathed" in it.

The GM made me roll a WP test or gain corruption. I thought that was perfectly acceptable.

Simply being a sociopath will not make you mutate. You would have lots of mutated crime bosses and noblemen and clerics and so forth.

I don't think you quite understand what a true sociopath is.

Edit:

For example, in a recent campaign, the cell was attacked by some mercenaries while sleeping at a contact's home in the upper hive on Scintilla. My character is starting to become slightly unhinged by some of the things we have seen and done. I blagged two of the mercs with a point-blank shotgun blast, sending blood flying everywhere. I RP said I don't try to dodge the splattering blood, I just stood and "bathed" in it.

The GM made me roll a WP test or gain corruption. I thought that was perfectly acceptable.

hope this helps

Simply being a sociopath will not make you mutate. You would have lots of mutated crime bosses and noblemen and clerics and so forth.

I don't think you quite understand what a true sociopath is.

Edit:

For example, in a recent campaign, the cell was attacked by some mercenaries while sleeping at a contact's home in the upper hive on Scintilla. My character is starting to become slightly unhinged by some of the things we have seen and done. I blagged two of the mercs with a point-blank shotgun blast, sending blood flying everywhere. I RP said I don't try to dodge the splattering blood, I just stood and "bathed" in it.

The GM made me roll a WP test or gain corruption. I thought that was perfectly acceptable.

hope this helps

Profile of the Sociopath

Yeah.

Quite a lot of people.

Mainly it refers to inability to feel empathy.

I have no idea why not dodging blood would give you corruption. In violent subcultures, that's just being macho. Davy Crocket ate a man's freaking liver. I would be pissed off if my GM did something like this.

But in 40K, the term "corruption" means so much more than just being a game mechanic.

In my mind, purposely not trying to dodge splats of blood from people you just mutilated carries with it a component of what "corruption" means in this game universe.

If you don't see that, I'm not sure what to tell you.

But in 40K, the term "corruption" means so much more than just being a game mechanic.

In my mind, purposely not trying to dodge splats of blood from people you just mutilated carries with it a component of what "corruption" means in this game universe.

If you don't see that, I'm not sure what to tell you.

I do if you don`t see why bathing in blood of murdered people is messed up and evil then maybe the police should take a look at the strange correlation between how often you bathe and the rise in missing people near your house.

Guys I think we just found our sociopath.

Also lack of empathy is just one of many symptoms of sociopathy others include a diminshed sense of danger, increased propensity for social disorders and trouble forming lasting relationships.

And of course, Psykers should skew the averages for CP and IP if they're playing it "right"

But in 40K, the term "corruption" means so much more than just being a game mechanic.

In my mind, purposely not trying to dodge splats of blood from people you just mutilated carries with it a component of what "corruption" means in this game universe.

If you don't see that, I'm not sure what to tell you.

I do if you don`t see why bathing in blood of murdered people is messed up and evil then maybe the police should take a look at the strange correlation between how often you bathe and the rise in missing people near your house.

Guys I think we just found our sociopath.

Also lack of empathy is just one of many symptoms of sociopathy others include a diminshed sense of danger, increased propensity for social disorders and trouble forming lasting relationships.

He didn't "bathe in blood," he had it splashed on him. oooh! (Not to mention that bathing in blood is actually arguably morally neutral since it hurts no one. )

So you want to give Corruption Points for trouble forming a lasting relationship?

Anyway the point is that giving CPs for such behavior will make it very easy to spot evil people (since they will all have two heads ), considerably simplifying the job of the Enforcers.

Look, 40K is to a large extent Space Middle Ages, with Chaos relacing the Devil. You do not acquire witchmarks (straight from medieval folk belief BTW -- that's what a witch's familiar suckles on) from being evil (being a bad king, and so forth). You get them from consorting with demons.

Part of the main theme of 40K is hypocrisy; that the Imperium is just as evil as the forces it is fighting. If you give CPs for being evil (which actually means "doing things that the GM thinks is evil" -- something that is going to cause problems!), this goes away because being evil turns you into a physical monster, with which the Imperium is clearly not peopled.

This is another issue from that in the DH you are basically playing the Space NKVD. You ARE evil from the POV of modern Western society. So whose value system are you going to use? If you use 40K's value system, you're going to give people CPs for sparing the weak and so forth.

You use the rationale that unnessecarily extreme violence, cruelty, excess or greed are evil, feeding the gods of chaos and corrupting the character, but as they say the devil is in the details.

Bombing an Orphanage becuase "screw you I`m with the inquisition": bad enjoy some corruption points you monsterous douchebag.

Doing it to save the planet from the psyker-coven inside who are losing control about to uneash a full blown deamonic incursion: justifed, have a cookie.

The forces of "good" sometimes have to commit terrible crimes to stave off the darkness, the important thing to remember is that themore terrible acts you commit, the more you become like to the vile foes you despise. Eventually you have to either pull back from the precipice or fall becoming one of the enemies of mankind you sacrificed so much to fight.

There lies the line between order and chaos.