So how do acolytes process evidence and communicate with their superiors/inqusitor/cell leader?
Let's say they find some clues after raiding a cultist lair. They don't know what those clues are, what do they do? It's not like they can get on their cellphones and email a picture of whatever to Chloe at CTU.
Would low ranking acolytes have access to a crime scene lab? I know the arbites have these sort of facilities (at least according to the Book of Judgement), as well as Mechanicus Biologis facilities, but they aren't ubiquitous nor i should imagine particularly open to would be forensic analysts - who won't have a clue what they are looking at. DNA is not something I would imagine most acolytes know exists!

Why not?

A playable option... no, a fucking core class is the Adeptus Mechanicus, who can know all the technical whizbangery you can imagine. DNA labs, whatever. Another core fucking class is your Arbites, which gives you the legal mumbo-jumbo. ANother core fucking class is scum, the dude with all the street contacts and 'hey, that harmless scrap of paper is actually the wrapping for a chidorian brain bug!' commentary.


I don't exactly see what the Dark Heresy game line is missing to make a vague CSI ripoff in the Grim Dark Future where There Is Only War... and drug/sex cults devoted to dark gods.

As for contact with the inquisitor: You do realize that the game itself deliberately does not go into detail on that so that YOU the GM can decide whatever the fuck you want is correct?

So: Its a voice over a speaker on a desk and goes by charley. Its a vaguely autistic guy who makes cryptic puns while banging his dead brother's wife who is also a dominatrix, its an angry dude in an office who yells alot and threatens to take their badges and guns away, but always manages to look the otehr way when they rough up suspects and shoot up half the hive.


Whatever the fuck you want. Its not getting in your way, its gotten OUT of your way.

Servo-skulls should be floating crime labs, not to mention communication devices.

Just for the fun of it (and I may do more like this later... promises promises)

Quote from: Mission:InquisitionFormer Lieutenant Griswold of the 414th Ophelian Lancers, took his seat on the tram headed to the Charnam Sector of Sibellius Hive.  He felt a hard lump under the ancient temperfoam seat cushion, and withdrew an old and cracked looking dataslate. At his touch the screen lit up with the majestically spinning Rosette.
"Acolyte Griswold, your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to root out corruption in the Charnam Sector. Reports of blood cultists among the hive gangers clashing in the streets with up-hive pleasure cultists has grown too bold to be ignored.  Your team has been carefully chosen for this task.
Adept Balthezar should be able to research the local records and determine how deep the corruption goes and trace any links outside the Hive so that the origins of these cults may be discovered.
Arbiter Dred will provide the true authority of the Lex Imperialis and should grant you access to the local Arbites station house should you require reinforcements.
Mendicant Ipswhich can rally the faithful and his flamer may prove useful should you find it necessary to fight openly against the members of either cult.
As always, should you fail in your mission, the Inquisition will deny any involvement. This message will self destruct in thirty seconds.
 

There is no reason that the Inquisition team needs to go planet to planet. There are a million heresies on a planet of 10 billion citizens. Makes sense for an Inquisitor to be stationed on the planet and even have multiple teams.

DH is awesome for CSI 40k and espionage.

Emphatic today aren't we!

We've started playing and I'm getting a lot of procedural questions, which is understandable. They like the setting, but of course they don't understand it. There are things that are vague for me as well, such as what's the state of mass media/mass communication on places live hive worlds (as opposed to fuedal planets or death worlds, other than the screams of unwary hunters)? How does the average citizen, having witnessed a murder or an act of sedition, call in the arbites, the pdf/local militia/the peelers, or even the Holy I?

I have something of an issue in that we have two players at rank 1, which, abilitywise, is a lowly place to be, and both are more combat oriented than anything else (though combat for them hasn't been that dangerous!). So tasked with raiding a tavern, I'm asked a) how do they show the authority they represent (if, as low ranking acolytes, thay have it at all), b) what about calling for backup/the inquisitor/or anything - such as forensics/interrogators (their intimidate attempts failed due to bad luck, although I should have ruled otherwise tbh). Simple little things that programmes like CSI/24 take for granted as theyre constantly on their mobiles. Would they have servo skulls following them around? Certinly not all the time, and neither has a servo skull from character creation. I'm not sure how to judge these other than 'you work for the inquisition, kill everyone, they're all guilty'.

When it was established the bad guys present were heretics (a chaos rune on the door) they were quite happy to execute the emperor's will. But their instincts as players lead to asking the questions - which I'm happy to field, btw. They aren't asking from a position of frustrsation or boredom.

Quote from: Spike;504342Just for the fun of it (and I may do more like this later... promises promises)

Yes, I probably should have given more thought to how to present their briefing. I jsut said 'they'd been told to raid a tavern in Cankertown'.

It's odd, at least to me: the Inquisition has a huge scope of authority and resources. I'm not sure how to dole out these things/represent that auhtority with low ranking acolytes. Do I give them a seal they can wave around as low level servants? Are they meant to be that obvious? Even if they are sent on what might otherwise be a simple task (say gathering intel), what if they need to exercise that authroity. Ok that question alone might make for a good game, but it still needs an answer - rather the players need something they can understand.

So when they are asking me 'what if the guy isn't a cultist but he's innocent', what then? I feel i need something more concrete to back up 'it's your call'.

People in Hive can just have phones, if you want. There's a technology to build FTL starships, but not even most basic of phones? Please.

As for players' authority - I'd suggest going with an idea that they do NOT have much of it. They aren't supposed to be Stormtroopers - they are agents of Inquisition whose entire idea is to solve the cases quietly. Running around, lasguns in hand, will land them into prison - and it's entirely up to the Inquisitor if he pulls them out, or not. Remember that he has hundreds, if not thousands, of agents like them - he can sacrifice pawns if they prove to be a waste. They were chosen because they can get the stuff done, and actually calling the Boss should be reserved for real emergencies - such as discovering that entire office of Adeptus Arbitres is corrupted.

As for the access to laboratory - it's a bit tricky part.  Maybe establish a quest from Arbitres, which'll land them a small access to their CSI lab in return?

Communications wise, its pretty much canon now that every servant of the Imperium uses a vox-bead, which is basically a cell phone/star trek talk-to-me-button sort of mcGuffin.

Its DH canon that every inquisitor has his own touch with his acolytes, ranging from the 'I've got one team I personally lead' to the 'I have thousands of guys I never meet that get their orders from my own private beaurocracy.


It wouldn't be offending anyone's sensibilities for acolytes working openly to have some sort of rosette badge they use with full Inquisitorial Authority. It would lack the geegaws of a true Rosette (id badge, hack key, yadda yadda), being merely a symbol of their duty.  Likewise, if you plan on them getting official back up, there are arbites stations everywhere, and... again, if you plan for it... a few warm bodies can be made available from said stations.

The official adventures sort of cover the spread. In the first, starter mission, the arbites station is fully compromised by the bad guys (a tech heretic cult) while in Shattered Cities (?) they can work with loyal arbites against corrupted arbites, and if they win they can haul arbites with them against the big bad demon trapped in the ruined tower at the end (I... er... think...)

Obviously, nameless redshirts tend to die like nameless redshirts, but ya can has 'em if ya wants 'em.

Quote from: Rincewind1;504367People in Hive can just have phones, if you want. There's a technology to build FTL starships, but not even most basic of phones? Please.

As for players' authority - I'd suggest going with an idea that they do NOT have much of it. They aren't supposed to be Stormtroopers - they are agents of Inquisition whose entire idea is to solve the cases quietly. Running around, lasguns in hand, will land them into prison - and it's entirely up to the Inquisitor if he pulls them out, or not. Remember that he has hundreds, if not thousands, of agents like them - he can sacrifice pawns if they prove to be a waste. They were chosen because they can get the stuff done, and actually calling the Boss should be reserved for real emergencies - such as discovering that entire office of Adeptus Arbitres is corrupted.

As for the access to laboratory - it's a bit tricky part.  Maybe establish a quest from Arbitres, which'll land them a small access to their CSI lab in return?

Somehow the image of peons of the Imperium walking around with iphones is too jarring!

I think the players felt that they needed some mechanism with which to carry out their duties in service of the inquisition. So, as with cops in real life, they assume there needs to be some sort of accountability and some means to show their authority - not least of all to squeeze answers out of recalcitrant cultists. One issue I had was i wound up having the cultists say nothing - what would they say? They are cultists therefore somewhat fanatic. Issuing some kind of James Bond supervillain reveal seemed completely out of place "damn you acolyte, i planned to summon a daemon and would have gotten away with it were it not for your fiendish powers!"

Spike has it right - people use voxes, which are something closer to walkie - tokies then cell phones.

If you want to know what cultists can say - read Call of Cthulhu, Inspector Lagrasse's story.

Quote from: Rincewind1;504377Spike has it right - people use voxes, which are something closer to walkie - tokies then cell phones.

If you want to know what cultists can say - read Call of Cthulhu, Inspector Lagrasse's story.

Good call, my favourite Lovecraft story. The sense of creeping menace is iconic.

But it was understanding that most citizens are just paupers anmd so even these sorts of technologic thingamabobs are too dear (perhaps inexplicably).

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;504381Good call, my favourite Lovecraft story. The sense of creeping menace is iconic.

But it was understanding that most citizens are just paupers anmd so even these sorts of technologic thingamabobs are too dear (perhaps inexplicably).

Depends on a world, really.

Quote from: Rincewind1;504382Depends on a world, really.

are you sure? I would have though the poverty of the average (ie non-noble) citizen is a fundamental aspect of the setting.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;504386are you sure? I would have though the poverty of the average (ie non-noble) citizen is a fundamental aspect of the setting.

It would depend on the planet; there are lower-class areas on our world where people have plenty of "nice things", but life can still be grim and shit for them.

The Imperium certainly wouldn't have something as disposable as our cellphones (The AdMech build things to last), but I'd be happy with giving players something like, say, Nokia 3210's. It would change the way the game is played (Being able to speak to anyone "nearby", say within a few hundred miles radius, makes information far easier to acquire), though (Compared to just being able to speak to specific targets like your ship or the rest of your party).

I'd imagine a lot of traditional spycraft still goes on in 40k. That shit works.