I could see characters trying to requisition a certain amount of money.

That's easily fixed by a four word note 'money cannot be requisitioned'.

Even if they do though, if there much harm? If they're going to have better access to specialist equipment during the time they are 'in the armoury' so to speak its their choice if they want to get hold of a higher budget. They can buy all the chickens and grox they want on that feudal agri world then, you just might regret it when your using them for ammunition later.

If your players get really cocky just introduce a really anal administratum clerk that wants to see receipts for everything.

That's easily fixed by a four word note 'money cannot be requisitioned'.

Even if they do though, if there much harm? If they're going to have better access to specialist equipment during the time they are 'in the armoury' so to speak its their choice if they want to get hold of a higher budget. They can buy all the chickens and grox they want on that feudal agri world then, you just might regret it when your using them for ammunition later.

If your players get really cocky just introduce a really anal administratum clerk that wants to see receipts for everything.

I was saying that instead of being paid for being within the Inquisition, they could just requisition currency. That way, they won't build up too much cash considering that they are being "gifted" the cash.

Whether Dark Heresy is built to use currency is a matter of opinion, one I very much disagree with you on given that its predecessor Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was designed with hard currency in mind, and functioned fine for over two decades. It currency system was more complicated, even including the taxes for specific cities (which I really miss in settings like DH)

There are /flaws/ with using just hard currency, but I really don't see why using INFL as a way to requisition equipment and than giving characters actual money to use in the adventure is infeasible (which is what you appear to be saying). Its just a matter of taste, arguing that one is completely unworkable is just a farce.

Old thing worked adequately for its time, therefore there is no reason to improve it! This would be like if the field of psychology never moved beyond Freud because it worked well enough at the time and had a decade or two of inertia behind it. As hard as this may be to realize, there have been improvements in the "technology" of role playing games. It's fine to use old technology as a baseline, but its important to recognize when it's time to change things.

So basically, yeah, "old thing worked okay" as an argument that ignores the flaws in the old thing and the reasons for changing it is not a good argument.

Whether Dark Heresy is built to use currency is a matter of opinion, one I very much disagree with you on given that its predecessor Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was designed with hard currency in mind, and functioned fine for over two decades. It currency system was more complicated, even including the taxes for specific cities (which I really miss in settings like DH)

There are /flaws/ with using just hard currency, but I really don't see why using INFL as a way to requisition equipment and than giving characters actual money to use in the adventure is infeasible (which is what you appear to be saying). Its just a matter of taste, arguing that one is completely unworkable is just a farce.

Old thing worked adequately for its time, therefore there is no reason to improve it! This would be like if the field of psychology never moved beyond Freud because it worked well enough at the time and had a decade or two of inertia behind it. As hard as this may be to realize, there have been improvements in the "technology" of role playing games. It's fine to use old technology as a baseline, but its important to recognize when it's time to change things.

So basically, yeah, "old thing worked okay" as an argument that ignores the flaws in the old thing and the reasons for changing it is not a good argument.

This is a good position to take, but unfortunately I don't think it's in the majority here. "Change for its own sake" and all that.

Whether Dark Heresy is built to use currency is a matter of opinion, one I very much disagree with you on given that its predecessor Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was designed with hard currency in mind, and functioned fine for over two decades. It currency system was more complicated, even including the taxes for specific cities (which I really miss in settings like DH)

There are /flaws/ with using just hard currency, but I really don't see why using INFL as a way to requisition equipment and than giving characters actual money to use in the adventure is infeasible (which is what you appear to be saying). Its just a matter of taste, arguing that one is completely unworkable is just a farce.

Old thing worked adequately for its time, therefore there is no reason to improve it! This would be like if the field of psychology never moved beyond Freud because it worked well enough at the time and had a decade or two of inertia behind it. As hard as this may be to realize, there have been improvements in the "technology" of role playing games. It's fine to use old technology as a baseline, but its important to recognize when it's time to change things.

So basically, yeah, "old thing worked okay" as an argument that ignores the flaws in the old thing and the reasons for changing it is not a good argument.

Your entire argument revolves around your assumption that the influence system is an improvement, which is not shared by everyone here, so its a really terrible argument because its entirely subjective. Its a change, but whether its an improvement is entirely debatable.

If you've been paying attention I'm actually not advocating a sole 'hard currency' system, I've pointed out the flaws in that for a setting of this nature many, many times. I'm also against a pure 'roll to acquire' system because I think it detracts from the game in terms of immersion. I know many players that enjoy playing out some parts of downtime, which include actually 'contacting' their contacts to get something or talking to the shop keeper to haggle for something. Using solely influence would make all these things redundant.

Admittedly, not everyone does enjoy that, which is why I'm trying to find a balance. But your coming at me as if your opinion on the influence system being an improvement is apriori, which it isn't. Its a matter of taste.

I wasn't advocating for the new Influence system. I like it better than hard currency, but I'd also like to see some of the randomness taken out and have some of the scarcity added in (which I actually accounted for in the Influence system I proposed in my thread).

What I was saying is that when you make the argument that "old thing worked fine for it's time therefore we don't need to change it" you are making a bad argument. If you think the new Influence system sucks, that's fine. However, the old system should be open to improvement and it's people making arguments like yours that lead to system stagnation and lead to new blood wanting nothing to do with this hobby. Feel free to go to any job and be the guy telling everyone that whatever attempts they make to improve something are **** and that they should just do things like they were back in the 90s. See how far that attitude gets you. I see that you're fine with posting on this message board in 2013 in spite of the problems it has compared to in-person communication.

The influence system is at its core meant to move players away from bean-counting. That is its primary goal for improvement. It is poorly implemented in this game due to the separate scores for players in spite of very little differentiation among them and inability to get very different scores. It doesn't promote the sense of scarcity and desperation that was a theme of the original dark heresy. It is also too random in nature, which is in turn tied to it using the not-so-good d100 system. Those are legitimate criticisms. "Old thing worked fine (even though it had problems)" is not a legitimate criticism and it is grognardy as hell and is anathema to improving anything.

What I was saying is that when you make the argument that "old thing worked fine for it's time therefore we don't need to change it" you are making a bad argument. If you think the new Influence system sucks, that's fine. However, the old system should be open to improvement and it's people making arguments like yours that lead to system stagnation and lead to new blood wanting nothing to do with this hobby. Feel free to go to any job and be the guy telling everyone that whatever attempts they make to improve something are **** and that they should just do things like they were back in the 90s. See how far that attitude gets you. I see that you're fine with posting on this message board in 2013 in spite of the problems it has compared to in-person communication.

You're putting words in my mouth here. I didn't say 'Old system worked fine therefor we don't need to change it' you said that was your interpretation of my argument and now you're repeating it as if its something I actually expressed. Don't do that, it's childish, and to be honest mildly offencive. If you actually read my input into this thread from the beginning you'd see I actually came in on the side of the influence system, but said that a wholesale replacement was too far in the other direction. I really can't see how that argument relates to what you think I'm saying and I'm starting to suspect you either didn't read it or didn't comprehend it as well as you think you did.

My argument using wfrp as an example is simply stating "saying this system was not designed to be used with currency is a farce" because it is. Whether it can be adapted to incorperate a new system, and what that new system should be are serpeate arguments.

I didn't say the influence system sucks, I said it was open to exploitation and removed part of the game I know some people enjoy. I've also stated ways I think it can be used to good effect within the game, without replacing currency entirely, which I assumed was the point of the discussion rather than having to side with one extreme or the other.

There's a huge difference between saying 'This thing does not need improvement' and 'I do not think the changes you are proposing are the best way to improve this thing'.

I didn't say the influence system sucks, I said it was open to exploitation and removed part of the game I know some people enjoy. I've also stated ways I think it can be used to good effect within the game, without replacing currency entirely, which I assumed was the point of the discussion rather than having to side with one extreme or the other.

There's a huge difference between saying 'This thing does not need improvement' and 'I do not think the changes you are proposing are the best way to improve this thing'.

Very well put! FFG badly need to look at this, and somehow have influence AND money, but with the option to use one or either on its own.

Honestly that just sounds like it'd lead to a fairly bipolar game that doesn't know how it wants to handle acquisitions.

Yes, please! I want Influence AND money! Hard, dirty, ugly Throne Geld.

Ok people I think we are starting to get to a point where we can't see the wood for the trees,

I've just done a quick re-read of this thread and as far as I can tell no-one (including myself) has actually said "get rid of Influence" as a serious option. What some of us have simply been asking for is something that we can use alongside Influence when we don't feel its appropreate.

Now obviously the first thing that comes to mind is DH1's currency, but what I was hoping this trread might be able to come up with was some options (like Nimsim's alternative Influence system elsewhere on these boards) that could make more sense as an aquisition system for DH2.

Now personally I'd like to see a system that seperates your actually contacts and favours from trade and cash transactions - this is one of the things that bugs me about the current system. It doesn't make sense to me that calling in a few favours with NPC's that are your allies will magically make all the cash in your wallet vanish. I know that some will say I'm not being imaginative enough, but I think we are getting to the point where I have to put as much work into justifying why players can't buy things/call on their allies as I do for a decient side mission for the campaign. I want my aquisition system to be quick, simple, and ultimately something that the players can manage without too much GM input (I feel us GM's have got enough on our shoulders running the game as it is - to quote XDM "deligate where possible")

I hope this makes sense, I'm now off to go through my library of 60+ games to de-construct there aquistion systems to see what we can learn and implement into DH2 to make it as robust as possible.

Regards

Surak

Setting a limit on item acquisitions pretty neatly separates things; the only thing diminishing your ability to acquire gear is, well, acquiring gear.

But that's such an untidy resolution. Invariably a player will say:

"I have influence silly high, why can't I buy 2 bolter mags, 3 krak grenades AND a plasma gun. I have really high Influence, surely I can afford it! Look I passed the test!"

Where as with 'hard' currency, there's a definitive limit on affordability that can be altered somewhat through tact, careful use of skill and the locale the players find themselves.

I agree with Surak that it seems...clunky to smash together contacts/peers/societal influence with wealth and I'm not wholly convinced it's a wise idea. A currency certainly does remove a degree of logistical overhead from the GM and that's always a nice thing to be able to do. I ideally I see something like this occurring:

PlayerRequest.start

if itemExistsOnWorld then

if playerPassInquiry then

if playerCanAfford then

PRAISE THE EMPEROR!

else

youRequiresAdditionalPylons

endif

else

duntFindItGuv

endif

else

gmSayethNay

endif

end

What we have is playerPassInfluence in place of playerCanAfford which means looking up yet more tables for modifiers for each item (which has already been done for availability and the like) and just seems to add a further level of irritating mucking about.

Of course this is simply my opinion and the majority of the games I play in deal with currency. DnD, PF, SLA Industries etc whilst only the post-DH 40k games deal with abstract wealth and it's...unsatisfactory and awkward.

Influence is not "influence of the Inquisition." It's the summation of a character's contacts, resources (money, credit), favors, and so forth. Having two separate currency systems came up in the first beta and I said then it was a bad idea. Most of the criticisms of the system from that thread came from people who didn't really understand what an abstracted currency meant. It adds nothing to have separate currency systems (bean counting vs abstract) because the abstract system already covers everything the bean counting one does.

I agree with some things but it's not even close to believable that a Feral world is going to mass produce thrones or even lasguns for that matter.

The actual currency (and cost(s) will (and should) differ between planets or regions, whether it's an Imperial World, a far-flung colony, or a rival empire.

While I like a measure of influence in the game, I also don't like the pure diceroll element for acquisitions. It takes a lot of the player's involvement out of acquiring their beloved weapon-- they just rolled for it once.

So I often require skill tests, or minor 'Endeavors' for many things, rather than a basic one time roll.

Something like a brief meeting with the NPC in question by one of the party. If he roleplays it well and potentially tests an appropriate skill, then I'll say he gets the item.

Total abstraction to a simple influence number can get too 'gamey'.

An option is to use the influence number as merely gating the difficulty in availability, and perhaps a roll against it telling just how much the player would need to do to get this.

In essence, I'd like to see Influence more personalized : potentially involving the brief use of Contacts.

I

Yeah. I dont really understand how buying/aquiring 2 refractor fields cost the same amount of money/resources as 4 or 5. Its too abstract for me.

RAW, there is a difference in subtlety lost, but besides that it's really a question for your GM if you want to acquire a half dozen of something very rare.

While it doesn't say so explicitly, my reading of the Requisition Test section says the test is only ever for 1 item/2 clips.

While it doesn't say so explicitly, my reading of the Requisition Test section says the test is only ever for 1 item/2 clips.

I believe it is for one type of item, with the amount of them modifying the difficulty of the test. You don't need to roll a separate dice for each Guardsman you requisition if you want a squad, for example.

This leads to situations especially in Rogue Trader where, since the roll difficulty only goes up in certain increments, players will say "well, I only want two, but I may as well get five since it's the same difficulty".

Hence why I believe some of the abstraction undervalues the items a bit, and will tend to require some additional measure of involvement from the players.

That's in RT. Unless I'm blind the DH2 beta makes no mention of modifying the test for quantity.

That's in RT. Unless I'm blind the DH2 beta makes no mention of modifying the test for quantity.

It does not seem to be explicitly stated in combing the rulebook, other than perhaps an implication within "availability".

Some, like guard regiments, could perhaps be handled under the 'using influence on people' segment in Influence and Subtlety.

But this is definitely something that should be clarified: What if the acolyte says "I want ten lasguns"? Presumably the lasgun store is fine with making multiple sales, it is 40k after all.

While a GM could probably work something out, there should likely be some guidelines for it in the Armoury section.

As a side note about Influence, some numbers may wish to be tweaked: Declaring Exterminatus without cause is only -5 to Influence.

The advance for becoming an inquisitor seems to require 75 Influence-- enough to requisition a Grey Knight Terminator.

There may definitely need to be some clarification about what Influence can and can't do, how, and what situations might call for a reduction in Influence.