Hi.

My second group i GM wanted to play RT. Since it didn't work out with first group i am not fond of that idea but since they ask so nicely i am willing to give it a try. So my question is how to deal with characters power? I mean so that they won't bring entire regiment of mercenaries on a mission or blow nearby moon just because they can. From my expierence it is easy to abuse power in RT. They got limitless resources and freedom. How do you guys (and girls) deal with that?

Have the mook mercenaries fight off the dozens of orks rampaging towards your expedition while the Explorers face off against the Warboss and his nob retinue.

The moon was the hibernation area of a void kraken, which is now bearing down on the ship with fanged maw and grasping tentacle.

The best games of Rogue Trader are the ones where the game steps up to 11 right out of the gate. Encourage your players to steal titans, kidnap alien princesses, suplex hive-tyrants with their titan to rescue the princess.

Um... that's really the point of the game. RT isn't Star Wars, Firefly, Dark Heresy, Rifts, Shadowrun, D&D, Pathfinder, Deadlands (so many memory lanes I just ran down there) or a myriad of other games where you are just a group of hero's following a trial. You are playing a game where a player can own worlds, has weapons that entire civilizations were killed to possess, and commands fleets of ships whose reactors are more powerful than several nuclear bombs combined.

But, if you are really really worried about them abusing their power, then simply have bigger fish get mad at them for doing so. Direct action doesn't have to taken, it can be more indirect. Trying to get more Soldiers, well Winterscale said any mercs that join up with you will never be hired by his organization, and would be vented out the nearest airlock if discovered at any of his orbital stations. Saul keeps underbidding your contracts, so you PF is always deduced when dealing with people he knows or is near him (which is already in the rules but your PC's don't need to know that), etc etc. IMHO, there has to be a reason why the NPC's get mad though, even if it doesn't make sense to the players.

Also, when the PC's bring down a horde of troops, have an enemy horde greet them. When the PC's go in alone, have only a handful of enemy forces be in the area (do this about 7/10ths of the time and eventually they will get the hint).

Edit: A better example is what Errant mentioned above.

Anyhoot, RT is an open sand box game, with the players controlling very influential characters. So you can't really control what they do, but simply react to it and go along with it. I'm not saying pull any punches (though sometimes it is required), but to simply have fun and enjoy your and the players story(ies)

I get the concpet of RT but how engage players to take action and not taking shortcuts? In my first group people (myself included) got bored since they did not take part in action. It was like "Why should we go explore space hulk since we can send half army there?" or "Ok so RT need's to be first to claim it so we take our army anyway and stay in back" and things like "Ok so we gonna blow this huge airlock with starbord cannon (and bypyssaing half adventure due to the fact they don't need to look for key)

For most my players it was like playing on cheats, they have unlimited ammo, all weapons they can aquire, army of mercenaries etc. Anyway i get that my first group are not used to this kind of power levels and freedom and prefer to be inquisitor lackeys But for second group i fear they like this and will abuse it a lot. So i wanted to take precautions just in case

I dunno. Mercs are expensive, and large battles mean large death tolls. Not only that, but showering eveyrything in bodies, grenades and las-fire has a tendency to do a hell of a number on the carpets - as well as any fragile artefacts your party may want to claim.

There's no reason why a rogue trader party should have to personally deal with every last mook, but sending your army unattended into a space hulk is basically suicide - they'll get picked off by the creatures that make it their home. A single creature with a Fear rating can wreak havoc with thousands of soldiers if they're packed tightly enough.

And a locked door isn't even a challenge to someone with a melta-bomb, much less a macrocannon, but what about the destruction such a weapon causes to everything *inside* the airlock?

And then there's also a matter of the players getting bored. Of course not doing anything yourself is boring - why the hell do they think most rogue traders are suicidally brave adventurers, hunters and all-around glory hogs?

I think you should talk to your players and agree on what kind of game you actually want. That's what took care of the problem for my group.

I do have this problem a little. Some of my players are extremely cautious, and they insist on sending in whole companies of troops to secure every LZ, and like to explore with large compliments of men and support vehicles to hand. Two of them (the RT and the Missionary) often will not even leave the gun-cutter. The Trader tends to co-ordinate efforts from the relative safety of a bank of viewscreens (like Gorman in "Aliens") while the Missionary sets up an impromptu trauma facility and waits for the casualties to come in. They seem to have embraced the support role.

My Void Master and Explorator on the other hand, are the complete opposites of this, and often employ the somewhat out-of-genre catchphrase of "we need to stop fannying about and just get in there." It is invariably these two that lead the household troops into the massive bloodbath of the week.

The Arch-Militant (of all people) vacillates between these two positions. He wants to be the action hero and gain all the glory, but often his nerve fails him and he'll hang about at the back with a meat-wall of troopers protecting him (the player is in his early teens, and this campaign is his first experience of role-playing). He likes to souvenir-hunt, but much to everyone else's amusement he doesn't have much of a collection yet...

Arch-Militant (over vox): "The Ork captain's corpse is wearing a cool pirate hat? I want it. Can you bring it back with you?"

Void Master (over the sound of gunfire): "You're more than welcome to come in here and get it yourself. " (laughs)

The thing is, everybody seems to be having fun, so I don't have a problem with it. Our main combat encounter this week was an epic battle rather than a small skirmish, with the RT and the Priest arriving in the nick of time to rescue everyone with the gun-cutter. You just need to embrace the larger scale of things. The only time we seem to have traditional-sized role-playing fights is when they are in some civilized place where it is not really socially acceptable to be marching around at the head of an army while you shop for hand-flamers.

I agree if the PCs never leave the ship and everybody role-plays vicariously via their troops then that might be a problem, and I worry about that sometimes. But as I said, my players seem to be enjoying themselves and as long as that is so I am okay with them behaving however they want. Everyone seems engaged, even when their characters aren't personally doing much. That's the key. If they aren't you need to have the talk.

Sorry, went on a bit, and forget to address this point:

I mean so that they won't bring entire regiment of mercenaries on a mission or blow nearby moon just because they can. From my expierence it is easy to abuse power in RT. They got limitless resources and freedom. How do you guys (and girls) deal with that?

That's not abusing your power, that's using your power. If you don't want a game where the players get to wield this level of power you need to look for another game. As I said in my earlier post, you have to embrace the larger scale, not try to fight it. The PCs will resent it if you give them the power and then constantly try to find ways to stop them using it. They'll feel like there's no point having it in the first place.

If they have an army, send them into very dangerous places that will test that army. You can still have social encounters and other situations where it isn't appropiate to have a hundred armed men standing behind you, and individual, small scale things can still occur. It's just that it's not often the combat that's like that, at least in my campaign.

Sorry, went on a bit, and forget to address this point:

I mean so that they won't bring entire regiment of mercenaries on a mission or blow nearby moon just because they can. From my expierence it is easy to abuse power in RT. They got limitless resources and freedom. How do you guys (and girls) deal with that?

That's not abusing your power, that's using your power. If you don't want a game where the players get to wield this level of power you need to look for another game. As I said in my earlier post, you have to embrace the larger scale, not try to fight it. The PCs will resent it if you give them the power and then constantly try to find ways to stop them using it. They'll feel like there's no point having it in the first place.

If they have an army, send them into very dangerous places that will test that army. You can still have social encounters and other situations where it isn't appropiate to have a hundred armed men standing behind you, and individual, small scale things can still occur. It's just that it's not often the combat that's like that, at least in my campaign.

I think that is some kind of problem since mostly i GMed on the small scale. While idea of space opera in general is quite appeling there is much micromanagement here. I don't have problem with them being heroes and powerful but i want them to be part of the action and feel like we are playing RPG game not strategic/sim/rpg hybrid. Maybe a simple talk would be enough what do they expect and what i expect so we agree on the gameplay style. I want style which is fun for all players. I read somewhere that good idea is to cut them of ship and army on some adventures but i feel like it is a cheap move and it will be silly to overuse it. So maybe a better question would be how to motivate them to do things personally?

I agree, it is all about the details.

We like an intimate session but we want an epic backdrop. My group is mostly non RPGers, this is the first RPG for them and their first taste of 40K.

So they bring a regiment to take on a threat. Well, does this threat not have anti-air capabilities? Is it just some guy in a cave with a bent lasgun? Upscale!

Paint a brush with their vast resources. They may want the big epic game and if they want to be big fish they'll just run into bigger fish. Let it go, is all I'm saying.

I've found that RT is about making the largest and most epic thing you can think of and throwing it out the window because it still isn't big enough for this setting. And while the focus is rightly on the PCs, I think with RT in particular you have to remember that there is a living universe out there. And that your PCs aren't the biggest fish in the pond. Until they become so. Then you just move them to a bigger pond.

For example, the party gets rich enough to match Winterscale, supposedly the biggest fish out there, have them deal with entire xenos empires or arms of the Imperium. Have the Inquisition keep tabs on them and knock them down a peg if they get too crazy.

Lastly, just take a gander at the "You know you are playing Rogue Trader when..." thread. There are a lot of great examples of how fun and crazy RT can get.

Rogue Traders and their retinues are some of the better-statted, singularly power non-Space Marines in the galaxy, and with gear that is also almost as good; their regiments of mooks, no matter how well-trained and paid for, probably are not. As has been said, if you want to discourage use of ludicrous amounts of fodder-troops, throw in some stuff that they can't beat, and let it cost your players some PF. For my mind, examples include, but are not limited to Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Genestealers. Any of the three of these will likely eat heinous amounts of your bought-and-paid-for army, causing your players to either have to leave goodies, and men, behind, or get off their fannies and do this crap, themselves.

It's sometimes my feeling that certain character types CAN justify not going in; Astropath Transcendants and Navigators CAN be powerful, but they can also argue to just stay on the ship. Rogue Traders, AM, Explorators, and other such gun-runners, not so much. Many of these need to be in the thick of things; if they weren't pampered princelings handed their warrants by their fathers, the fifth holder of the warrant, they had to do some interesting crap to convince someone that they were worthy enough, or trouble enough, to go through the effort and expense of acquiring it for them. They are often crazy, and lead from the front for adrenaline highs, and the first pick of loot that their Warrant entitles them to. Explorators are probably the only ones who will understand the cool stuff you find, and will want to get to it as soon as possible. Guns work better a little closer than back on the lighter, for the others. Not to tell your players that they are doing it wrong, or to change their mindsets, but if you want them to commit more of themselves, and less of their regiments and money, make it worth their while, or too expensive not to. Otherwise, your RT is mostly a planetary governor of a planet that moves, and they are MEANT to have ludicrous power OUTSIDE the Imperium.

Rogue Trader gear is ludicrously better than space marine gear. The standard space marine has power armour, a bolter and a combat knife. Or possibly a bolter and a bolt pistol in more recent codices, I'm not entirely sure.

Rogue Traders, on the other hand, can treat plasma weapons as disposable. At least with this acquisition system.

Rogue Trader gear is ludicrously better than space marine gear. The standard space marine has power armour, a bolter and a combat knife. Or possibly a bolter and a bolt pistol in more recent codices, I'm not entirely sure.

Rogue Traders, on the other hand, can treat plasma weapons as disposable. At least with this acquisition system.

No argument there. The only place a Space Marine might win vs. a Rogue Trader on gear is availability. Some things, even some simple things, I can see a Rogue Trader finding it hard to find. Case in point, say the RT wants to get plasma pistols for his retinue, and himself, of course. Say that's seven plasma pistols. The book might not always do a great job of making some rare treasures as hard to find as the fluff makes it out to be, but only military organizations should be making plasma pistols, or AdMechs ASSOCIATED with military organizations, before someone says Tech Priests make everything. They don't probably just build surpluses of ancient-tech plasma PISTOLS (because who usually uses mass amounts of plasma pistols?), so that random Rogue Traders can come by and buy a half dozen, and the military doesn't always NEED money, so they'd have to have something the military DOES want to trade. Thus, in my opinion, finding such things CAN be tricky. Space Marines just get **** near anything they want, because the Imperium, as a whole, bends over backwards to see to it that the Angels of Death have as much of all the best stuff they can, thus Chapter's worth of powered armor suits, or the parts to maintain the older models, copious amounts of hard-to-make, portable bolter weapons, stuff with higher damage, greater ammo, or longer operating time, and such; they bend over backwards as much as Space Marine fanboys do for the fluff that goes with Space Pups and sparkly in His light Blood Angels. Granted, Space Marines, DW KT or Chapter, still can find it harder to get their individual stuff, since they have to prove their worth (they of all people), while Rogue Traders just prove their bank accounts, so perhaps my point is moot

PF represents political pull, contacts and general authority as well, so it can be assumed that a successful acqusition check covers "acquiring" the item, rather than just buying it.

I would like to overhaul the entire system, though, possibly with exponential increases in difficulty if you want *more*, *better* and *rarer* equipment all at once. Digging out and persuading some archmagos who has a BQ plasma pistol he isn't using is one thing, but buying a whole bunch of the things probably involves finding several *different* people who have those things lying around, or a large number of artificers to make the things by hand, et cetera.

On the other hand, it shouldn't be all that hard to buy a company's worth of crummy stub automatics.

I agree, Magellan. I typically use a simple GM fiat to determine if an item is present (of course, I also let my players look for "a nice sword" instead of having to roll for "Mark II Mordian pattern Power Sword" specifically) - but the vast majority of the time, the Acquisition checks my party makes are either for an item they found as part of the plot, or during down time, which they spend alternating between the Lathes and Scintilla. They've also specifically set up 'Acquisition' offices on footfall and port wander to keep an eye out for "special" items that they want to buy. (Its hidden in the P.R. office they set up, with an orator who's job it is to, every saturday, read a dramatic account of what the Rogue Trader has done recently.)

So yes, I agree that the rate of acceleration for rarity of item, as well as how it relates to number looking to be acquired, could do with an overhaul. Also, more qualities would be nice. With the level Rogue Traders are at, and the artisan nature of the Imperium, I'd like to see 5+ levels of craftsmanship above normal.

Why would they have to make acquisition checks for items they already possess?

Found as in "located the presence of in another person's possession" not found as in "look, there's something on the floor".

I agree with all the above statements about the epic scale of Rogue Trader, however if you really do want to make it so the players have to get their hands dirty I do remember reading a suggestion somewhere of having a ship crewed entirely by servitors.

This might work more more for exploration style adventures for beginning players but might work for others as well. Essentially the servitors can do all the maintenance on the ship and basic flight and ship gunnery, but with no troops at their disposal the characters will have to do the exploring/negotiating/fighting for themselves with no one to hide behind.

This would mean they don't start with any troops. But there's still nothing stopping them from raising their own troops if they decide they need some.

As another alternative, you're the agents of a Rogue Trader. Your characters are granted some tactical rights over a ship based on the captain's trust of your abilities, but you don't have leeway over the use of extra resources to accomplish your missions, unless you're able to sweet-talk the ship's barracks-master into looking the other way and approving some 'shore leave' for a group of his soldiers and whatnot.

My honest to goodness advice is to not do it. As GM, you're the one doing all the work, so your word is law. If you're not comfortable running Rogue Trader, don't do it. Run Star Wars or something.

If you want to run Rogue Trader on the lower scale of power (i.e. not being able to field standing armies, use of orbital bombardments, etc), have the game start off as the Rogue Trader and his personal retinue having just been disposed by a mutiny, and stranded at Port Wander or some other (more dire) location. The games focus should be on revenge and the reclamation of their vessal (a la Pirates of the Carribean's Jack Sparrow, hunting down the Black Pearl). The end game gets powerful, but plenty of action for the pcs in the transit.

Alternatively, if you don't want to deal with mutiny and the potential resulting anger/pathos issues, the other option is starting the party a sector or two over from Calixis, having just been informed that his/her Great-cousin six times removed has just died and by the laws of the dynasty, he/she has inherited the warrant, the ship (and everything else) is waiting at port wander.

Oh, and people may be trying to kill you for it.

While I've only had limited experience as a player in Rogue Trader, there are a few intuitive ways to disincentivize deployment of overwhelming force at every opportunity:

* Deployment cost: Shipping large bodies of men to and from a planetary surface, space hulk, etc. involves significant expenditures of time and money. Even if the contracts of the mercenaries or household troops you employ don't involve additional provisions for things like hazard pay, etc., the fuel costs of shipping and continuing to supply military contingents of significant size will be appreciable, and you will also have to pay to replace or restore killed, lost, and wounded soldiers, equipment, vehicles, etc. Depending on the scale of the deployment and the nature/value of the objective, you could deduct Profit Factor from what the endeavor would yield whenever the players try to bring along a lot of support or whenever that support suffers significant casualties. Additionally, deploying large forces too often could deplete the endurance or morale of your men or the logistical support capabilities of the ship, which could be quite hazardous in the event of unforseen complications or threats (a raider boarding your vessel, a scenario that genuinely requires large-scale use of your military assets).

*Compromised objectives or personnel: If you have your men go and do everything, don't be surprised if they botch sensitive scenarios, fail to make use of decisive opportunities, or surreptitiously claim of the most valuable treasures for themselves. Moreover, Space Hulks and diverse other adventuring contexts can have serious moral hazards such as Genestealers, chaos artifacts, Yu'vath devices, daemons, and other things that you are free to invent. If you are not there to supervise affairs or don't exclude your troops from contact, you could have subsequent difficulties with insanity, insurrection, chaos cults, genestealer cults, etc. aboard the ship as a result of your subordinates being suborned by other forces. Exposure of a significant contingent of troops to massive horrors or major casualties could also be used to justify decrementing shipboard Morale after a less than smooth mission.

*Time: Safely and efficiently transporting and assembling large numbers of men is generally going to be more time-consuming than just going yourselves with mild or minimal support. Dynamic adversaries and rivals (every campaign I've played in has had the antagonists moving at a speed wholly independent of the players pursuing objectives and reacting according to their own motivations and capabilities, so dawdling was often the most dangerous thing that could be done in a scenario) will have more time to perceive your presence, maneuver around you, advance their plans, ship their resources or treasures offworld, get to the objective faster, etc. whatever, and even against purely static foes (like the guardians of some Yu'vath ruin) may be able to better detect and activate on a larger scale against large bodies of intruders. Allowing the enemy to seize the initiative or wasting time and arriving too late can have disastrous narrative consequences (although if one does this it would be important to convey that had the players acted differently they would have had a chance to avert the less desired outcome).

Generally speaking, however, it's unlikely that someone as well-provisioned and important as a Rogue Trader would expose him or herself to considerable risk without bringing some NPC backup. That's just the nature of the game.

Those are very sensible points, and well formulated as well. However, I do think that morale deductions are too easily dealt with to be considered a useful deterrent to anything, and I don't think it makes any sense that having full-time mercenaries actually fight once or twice every couple of months (which, given warp travel times, is probably how often it'll be) would reduce their morale in the first place.

Also, if you're gonna reduce their profit factor for losing soldiers, does that imply that you're gonna replenish their soldiers?