Dark Heresy: running a campaign without money

I played in a D&D campaign, Eberron, where the DM just said, "Money isn't a factor. Just assume whatever normal goods, services, or equipment you're purchasing for yourself is within your means. It went just fine. We didn't bother keeping track of coins or other treasures beyond some magic items or useful equipment we found. We were all agents of the state and doing our jobs was motivation enough. Now 5th edition D&D is fairly infamous for gold being meaningless passed level four or five, but it was nice not being concerned with it at all.

The long and short of it is the players need to make characters motivated to engage with the campaign as you presented it to them. For Dark Heresy, or any game set in the Warhammer 40k universe, every human being has their place in society to achieve the Emperor's grand plan. Maybe they're a farmer on an agri world, maybe they're toiling in the depths of a hive planet making knives for the Astra Militarum, or maybe they spend all day polishing all that gold armor for the Custodes. It's a quasi-feudal/fascist society, and the players are in a unique position of being outside the social norms but in a sanctioned way. They can't afford to make the Inquisitor mad because then what becomes of them? Where will they go? How will they survive? The players need to decide what motivates them to work for the Inquisitor. Maybe it will improve their social station? Perhaps they're fanatics who believe they're going to purge the Imperium of xenos and heretics. It's up to the player to decide.
Nope.
 

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I had a similar need (not dealing with credits or thrones or whatever in a 40K setting). Luckily, Wrath & Glory has an abstracted Wealth system that fit the bill perfectly.

This is of no help to you, I suppose. But in case you're curious, have each Inquisitor have a "Wealth" rating. Each digit can represent a chest full of thrones, a valuable relic or some credit documents etc. When they want to purchase something, they make an "Influence" check (Fellowship?) with a bonus or penalty depending on their relationship with the faction they're buying from (eg a tech adept may have a bonus if they're trying to get Adeptus Mechanicus-themed gear). If they fail their check, they can spend one or more points of their "Wealth" to add 10% increments to their roll.

Eg, Titus the Guardsman wants to buy a melta gun from local scum. He has a criminal background, which gives him a +10 bonus. He rolls and comes short. Spends one point of his Wealth stat to add a 10% to his result. While his Wealth is now one point lower, he has his melta gun.

Wouldn't be too hard to hack something along those lines. An abstracted "wealth" stat can be handy for skipping all the details of counting coins.
I want the details of counting coins, as do my players.
 


Totally off topic, but every time my eyes skim past this thread title I think, "WTF? Why are they talking about Derek Hersey on Enworld? I didn't know he was a gamer!"

(RIP)
 

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