So I'm finally getting around to running some RT again, and trying to have it be much more open and sandboxey. Right now the crew is still noodling around on Footfall. I have kicked off both the Into the Maw and the Lure of the Expanse plots at the same time which... may have been a mistake but it's been pretty entertaining so far. The Navigator ate all the things at the banquet ane managed to get himself even more mutated, he's well on his way to becoming a flipper baby.

Anyhow, my quandry is this; How much should they know about the expanse? Like, system wise?

Do you guys assume there is a commom knowledge base that tells your player say... the basic 1 paragraph blurb about the system from the core book, for every system. Do your players know about every system on the map?

I wanted to give them a few places they can get to and then run it West Marches style as in "we go east for 5 days and see whats there" but the physical navigation doesn't really map 1:1 to Rogue Trader travel.

Anyhow, yeah. Thoughts?

Well, common lore (koronus expanse) is the skill to test for that kind is knowledge. Modify the test based on what you think is appropriate - I.e. (-30) or more for uncharted systems, flat for major worlds. Then use degrees of success top determine the amount of info they receive.

When the test fails by 2+ degrees, give false information.

All RT/Navigator's should start play with a "map" of the Koronus Expanse. Now, whether or not they actually know any information about the places on the map, or how to get there, is another story.

@Nameless, yeah I gave them a "map" essentially along with some stable warp routes, but I guess my question is. How much do you put on that map?

@traejun, yeah you mean the skill that no career in the core book gets till rank 2 and that I'm pretty sure no origin box has access to aside from Press Ganged? That skill?

Yup, that skill. I believe there's a few origins that allow for "choose a common lore," but not 100% sure. Either way, they can always roll vs. 1/2 Int if the GM feels they'd have any reason at all to know anything about the world in question.

I think it's worth considering the players have at their disposable a ship full of voidfarers of various levels of experience. If they don't have common lore: koronus expanse, someone else on the ship will.

Sorry, but "Someone on the ship surely has the skill." is a cop out. If that's how the game was meant to work then there wouldn't be individual skill lists and you would just always roll off your crew rating.

That aside.

So I guess that's my question is... Are all of the systems on the map consider to be common knowledge? Like, you may not know anything about them obviously, but does the space Garman (be it the Navigator or just a map) have the ability to just go, "ah, yup Damaris is over yonder." Not so much concerned with specific info about the place.

I base my "general knowledge" off of the Koronus Expanse map found here: http://sketchesofpayne.deviantart.com/art/Koronus-Expanse-Map-189646399 . I figure that anything on the pre-defined well-travelled routes would be known by the Navigator, and all of the other planets are known in the way that I know the names of a lot of countries on Earth, but couldn't tell you that much about most of them.

The Koronus Expanse is meant to have thousands of systems, so presumably most of them are hidden for convenience for the GM.

Right, ok cool thats what I was getting at Erathia. That was kinda my plan, but so far I had planned on only giving them a fragment of that map and then letting them find the rest, but wasn't sure what other folks were using as a "general knowledge" base for their campaigns just as far, hey we know this thing is over yonder.

Like for Lure of the Expanse, sure the party may know there is a Magoros system, but you need to make the roll or info from someone else to be able to recognize the system from the psychic treasure map.