This is easy. Kill him.

You don't sound as if your character is frustrated. You are frustrated. You, the player. Are the other players frustrated? If so, kill the Rogue Trader. Have yourselves a pow-wow, plot to dethrone him, then kill him. Then tell the player to not draw up another RT.

If the other players aren't as frustrated as you are, then you are in the wrong game. Find another. Errant Knight said this.

I lost you there. So who is frusturated and what the hell are you talking about?

The builders of this forum software put is a button with the word "quote" wrtten on the bottom right side of each post. Use it.

Errant knight is saying that if the OP is unhappy with the way their game is progressing then they should take steps to change it or walk away, the game is meant to be enjoyable.

Thanks for clearing it up and thank you for telling me about the quote here I will try it.

This is easy. Kill him.

You don't sound as if your character is frustrated. You are frustrated. You, the player. Are the other players frustrated? If so, kill the Rogue Trader. Have yourselves a pow-wow, plot to dethrone him, then kill him. Then tell the player to not draw up another RT.

If the other players aren't as frustrated as you are, then you are in the wrong game. Find another. Errant Knight said this.

I lost you there. So who is frusturated and what the hell are you talking about?

The builders of this forum software put is a button with the word "quote" wrtten on the bottom right side of each post. Use it.

Errant knight is saying that if the OP is unhappy with the way their game is progressing then they should take steps to change it or walk away, the game is meant to be enjoyable.

The builders of this forum software put is a button with the word "quote" wrtten on the bottom right side of each post. Use it.

While I don't disagree with the intent of your statement, I should point out that the forum software, especially the quoting feature, works very poorly. It is infact the worst forum software I recall having used, ever. and I used to read news in netscape 1.

Clearly you weren't around for the original version of the forum software

While I don't disagree with the intent of your statement, I should point out that the forum software, especially the quoting feature, works very poorly. It is infact the worst forum software I recall having used, ever. and I used to read news in netscape 1.

Clearly you weren't around for the original version of the forum software

If it was worse than this? Nope.

And happier for it I'm sure.

It was way, way, way, way, way worse. The forum software used now is heavens compared to the old one. Forget about even trying to nest quotes before, or breaking parts out of individual quotations.

The current software works acceptably well. The old software made me want to cry.

The current software makes me want to cry.

I don't even want to think about the previous versions then.

Personally I would talk to the GM about it.

If the guy is just bad at roleplaying it isnt his fault, teach him!

If the guy is roleplaying his character as an inept RT then I would imagine he is more than willing to accept any fallout from your in character selves.

When I started RT as a GM, I straight up told everyone that the RT is first amoungst equals, so he is a figurehead but everybody has equal amount of pull, RT decides to vent the lance batteries because a menial down there looked at him wrong, if this is just fun roleplaying a insane RT then fine! if not let people veto him, after all he's giving orders to equals.

Im just worried the atmosphere of your group will become untenable if you kill his character and he's a touchy player, you guys need a conflab about it.

RPGs with military themes (or paramilitary, in this case) can be very difficult for gamers. There's this whole thing about ranks and giving orders and that often doesn't sit well. If conflicts with having fun. This is something to take into consideration before even starting up a game, especially in the world of the internet, where you often have strangers sitting down to play with each other. If the RT is a problem, the whole game can crash.

There are ways for GMs to design a RT game so everyone remains involved. Perhaps the ship is only a small part of a larger Dynasty and characters with complaints have a way to appeal to a higher authority. Maybe the ship has been funded by outside parties and they have placed representatives (other PCs) on board to see to their interests. Maybe those characters have certain authorities. You only have to look into the Age of Sail for examples of these arrangements.

It could be that one character is in charge of the ship outside of combat and another is in charge during combat. Maybe one character makes the business decisions and therefore decides on which endeavors to pursue and where the ship goes next.

There are many ways to share decision-making. See to it that everyone has fun.

While I agree with the Everyone having fun part explicitely, Starship culture in 40k is modeled heavily after colonial era sailing ships. Especially in RT where the captain basically carries a letter of Marque on Steroids! Bear in mind though, While the Rogue traders power is technically absolute onboard, there are a lot of other Organizations that are technically independent of his authority working to keep his ship functional. Even on a modern day Naval vessel, It is a foolish Captain that constantly ignores the advice of his senior officers! The bottom line for me though is this: Rogue trader, OW and other such games are as mentioned, Military flavored! That means rank structures are part of the game. The Gm does not have to force it to be tedious but also, if the players want to ignore it completely that is poor roleplaying! This is why I ask my players to elect their captain! They may promote themselves at this discussions but, whoever they choose from that point forward is the CO.

Side note; There is one possible exception to the above mentioned rant: In history a Vessel often had a Master and a Commander. The ship's Master (The RT.) was it's owner. That individual made their overall intentions known to the ships Commander (Who could be any other character.) who was responsible for commanding the vessel itself. The modern day concept of an executive officer is actually descended from this relationship.

If the player really dosent know he is causing problems, then a mutiny is the worst possible thing the group could do. At best all it would do is kill the game, and what is the point of playing a game you are about to kill? At worst it will cause alot of bad feelings for no reason.

If you are not having fun playing, the first step is to find out if others have the same problem. If not, then the problem is probably that the game isnt what you want to play. Not much you can do about that.

If others are having problems too, then talk with the player causing the problems. He may just not understand, or is trying to do something you dont understand. Work out what you all expect and desire from the game and see what you can do to get there.

On the other hand, he may just be really bad and there is nothing that anyone else will do about that. Then it may be time to play a different game.

While I agree with the Everyone having fun part explicitely, Starship culture in 40k is modeled heavily after colonial era sailing ships. Especially in RT where the captain basically carries a letter of Marque on Steroids! Bear in mind though, While the Rogue traders power is technically absolute onboard, there are a lot of other Organizations that are technically independent of his authority working to keep his ship functional. Even on a modern day Naval vessel, It is a foolish Captain that constantly ignores the advice of his senior officers! The bottom line for me though is this: Rogue trader, OW and other such games are as mentioned, Military flavored! That means rank structures are part of the game. The Gm does not have to force it to be tedious but also, if the players want to ignore it completely that is poor roleplaying! This is why I ask my players to elect their captain! They may promote themselves at this discussions but, whoever they choose from that point forward is the CO.

Side note; There is one possible exception to the above mentioned rant: In history a Vessel often had a Master and a Commander. The ship's Master (The RT.) was it's owner. That individual made their overall intentions known to the ships Commander (Who could be any other character.) who was responsible for commanding the vessel itself. The modern day concept of an executive officer is actually descended from this relationship.

Exactly. We tend to use this concept to give Void-master characters leverage - Navigators, Confessors, Astropaths, and Enginseers have organisations sat behind them who out-mass the Rogue Trader dynasty several times over, and the Arch-Militant has the advantage of bolt weapons set for fully auto diplomatic fire.

While I agree with the Everyone having fun part explicitely, Starship culture in 40k is modeled heavily after colonial era sailing ships. Especially in RT where the captain basically carries a letter of Marque on Steroids! Bear in mind though, While the Rogue traders power is technically absolute onboard, there are a lot of other Organizations that are technically independent of his authority working to keep his ship functional. Even on a modern day Naval vessel, It is a foolish Captain that constantly ignores the advice of his senior officers! The bottom line for me though is this: Rogue trader, OW and other such games are as mentioned, Military flavored! That means rank structures are part of the game. The Gm does not have to force it to be tedious but also, if the players want to ignore it completely that is poor roleplaying! This is why I ask my players to elect their captain! They may promote themselves at this discussions but, whoever they choose from that point forward is the CO.

Side note; There is one possible exception to the above mentioned rant: In history a Vessel often had a Master and a Commander. The ship's Master (The RT.) was it's owner. That individual made their overall intentions known to the ships Commander (Who could be any other character.) who was responsible for commanding the vessel itself. The modern day concept of an executive officer is actually descended from this relationship.

I agree with this. The rogue trader may be the boss, but you can only push humanity's best and brightest so far, and you'll be hard-pressed to keep your command crew around if you treat them like crap. They are amazing individuals and would most likely know that - an Explorator leaving your crew because of your incompetence and spreading word of it through the Mechanicus would most likely be devastating, for instance. These people know your secrets and have contacts and powers of their own, even beyond just shooting you in the back.

And by whatever you hold sacred, talk to your group about the problem . You'd be surprised how many people are willing to behave like adults if you treat them like it. Not that the internet is any place to learn that lesson.

The Age of Sail, Age of Discovery, and Colnial Era actually have many different examples of shared power aboard a ship. Take the Golden Age of Piracy as one example. Captains were elected. They had a Sailing Master, who had command of the ship outside combat. Then they had a Captain, who commanded during battle. There were exceptions to that, of course, and they were some of the most famous pirates, being good at two things. In the Dutch Indiamen, a Secretary General would be in charge of things ashore and the Master Pilot would be in charge of things aboard. On a Portugese Indiaman, one guy was in charge of the expedition as a whole while each ship had its captain AND another guy in charge of negotating business deals.

You can even go with a multi-ship Dynasty, if power sharing is an issue. It's not too difficult to draw up a 20-30 SP ship, and you can easily get 2 ships that way, and maybe even a third if you skimp. That might be a fun campaign.

Consider that your PC Rogue Trader may very well not be head of his dynasty this means his shipmates although technically subordinates mayenjoy more experience and greater esteem in the eyes of the actual head.

I ran a campaign on this premise with a recovering drug addict partygirl grandaughter of a semi-retired RT who manages his small fleet of ships from a comfy mansion somewhere.

All the shipmates had secrets from the old man to keep things on the straight and narrow while they set out to recover the family warrant of trade from the scene of the RTs sister`s mysterious death.

Only the RT knew what they were doing and why.

Only the senecal knew the warrant they had with them was fake (he had made it himself under orders.)

Only the priest knew the sister had been killed on the orders of a bishop with a grude against the dynasty.

Only the explorator knew the codephrase to engage/disengage the warp core.

Everyone was under orders to depose the partygirl RT if she slipped back into obscura and alcoholism or endangered the ship.

This setup means even the RT can be sidelined if the cre feel they make a bad call, because at the end of the day they all aswer to someone else. Even if that person really doesn`t care about the small details as muchas ultimate profit.

in essence:

RT "I`ll take the call"

crewman: "I can`t let you do that sir, it`s too risky, let that new guy.... larry, do it"

RT "oh...alright I suppose. Nice red shirt you`ve got there Larry."

Larry "Thank you sir. Arghhh the voices! I can taste all the beige carpet in the universe" *dies*

Crewman "You see sir? Far too dangerous, your father would have had my bollocks if you`d been hurt."

RT "Fair enough... so what are we going to do about Larry?"

Crewman "Who?"

The Age of Sail, Age of Discovery, and Colnial Era actually have many different examples of shared power aboard a ship. Take the Golden Age of Piracy as one example. Captains were elected. They had a Sailing Master, who had command of the ship outside combat. Then they had a Captain, who commanded during battle. There were exceptions to that, of course, and they were some of the most famous pirates, being good at two things. In the Dutch Indiamen, a Secretary General would be in charge of things ashore and the Master Pilot would be in charge of things aboard. On a Portugese Indiaman, one guy was in charge of the expedition as a whole while each ship had its captain AND another guy in charge of negotating business deals.

You can even go with a multi-ship Dynasty, if power sharing is an issue. It's not too difficult to draw up a 20-30 SP ship, and you can easily get 2 ships that way, and maybe even a third if you skimp. That might be a fun campaign.

While you are absolutely correct, most of these are variations on the same theme I was talking about. The "Master and Commander" example was meant to reference a style of command breakdown as well as it's specific historical example. The Pirate method is actually how I start any new RT game! The Pc's 'elect' the player that will play the RT. How that player chooses to delegate authority is largely up to them. I also Emphasize that many other organizations on board are their own little fiefdoms! (Especially the Navigator and the Admech priests!).

I once had a situation where one of the Navigators minions refused to take orders from the Ship's XO! She was deferential to the Captain (But still referred him to her Navigator master) but did not see anyone other then the Navigator himself and the Captain in her chain of command. For the Navigator's part, They refused to sanction their underling in any way! They explained (Politely) to the XO that the entire Navis Noblis retinue on board was under contract with the RT's dynasty. This meant they were bound to the Captain and no one else under their contract! Thus, while their minion was a tad inartful , She was not wrong!

I once had a situation where one of the Navigators minions refused to take orders from the Ship's XO! She was deferential to the Captain (But still referred him to her Navigator master) but did not see anyone other then the Navigator himself and the Captain in her chain of command. For the Navigator's part, They refused to sanction their underling in any way! They explained (Politely) to the XO that the entire Navis Noblis retinue on board was under contract with the RT's dynasty. This meant they were bound to the Captain and no one else under their contract! Thus, while their minion was a tad inartful , She was not wrong!

Sure, it's only fair. No one would expect the captain's oathsworn bodyguards, the Explorator's servitors or the arch-militant's drinking buddies to be truly loyal to anyone else, so why not the Navigator's bodyguards?

Part of what I like about this system is the vastly different party dynamics you can achieve, even with the same classes in play. We've had iron-fisted warlord rogue traders controlling every aspect of their ships, naive young captains being manipulated by seneschal, explorator or even xenos puppet masters, and hard-eyed crime lords who'd let anyone do their thing up to a point, but made them disappear if they crossed him. We've had shady mutant bodyguard arch-militants hiding in the shadow of the lord-captain, brazen noblemen commanding just as much respect as the boss, simply by force of personality, and stoic commissars who could part a crowd with a glance, that everyone obeyed out of fear - at least as long as they were around.

And the list goes on. As long as everyone is on the same wavelength, you can do a lot. It can even be fun to have a captain who routinely trods on his underlings, as long as you talk about it beforehand and agree on what everyone wants . A lot of people out there want strong independent PCs who don't need no captain, and fair enough, but a complete democracy is unlikely in this game, and kind of kills the point of playing the captain.

This is easy. Kill him.

You don't sound as if your character is frustrated. You are frustrated. You, the player. Are the other players frustrated? If so, kill the Rogue Trader. Have yourselves a pow-wow, plot to dethrone him, then kill him. Then tell the player to not draw up another RT.

If the other players aren't as frustrated as you are, then you are in the wrong game. Find another.

That will have one of two results, he'll either draw up a revenge character or he'll storm out and never come back. That is unless he has close friends at the table then a third thing will happen instead, the group will disintigrate. Like I said before the smart money is just on saying "yeah right behind you sir!" when he insists on doing stupid **** and then taking cover as fast as you can. If the voidmaster thought opening that channel was stupid he could have looked right at the GM and yelled "I cover my ears!" or "I mute my headphones!".

He'd have probably had to roll an initiative to see if he did it fast enough but that would still be one more roll between him and a burnt fate point. The way I see it you know this guy is dangerous to you and like GI Joe says knowing is half the battle, so keep an eye on him and when he starts doing dumb **** lock eye contact with the GM and shout what you're doing for yourself to save your own ass.

Killing him IC won't help anything. Talk to your GM first - they are the one putting in the effort to run a game for you after all and going behind their back is low down. Explain your concerns with the player in question to the GM and see what they say. It may be that your GM can angle the game to push the RT player in a different direction without massive IRL issues arising. Or it may be that the problem is so severe it requires an intervention of sorts and your whole group needs to sit down and have a chat...

This is easy. Kill him.

You don't sound as if your character is frustrated. You are frustrated. You, the player. Are the other players frustrated? If so, kill the Rogue Trader. Have yourselves a pow-wow, plot to dethrone him, then kill him. Then tell the player to not draw up another RT.

If the other players aren't as frustrated as you are, then you are in the wrong game. Find another.

That will have one of two results, he'll either draw up a revenge character or he'll storm out and never come back. That is unless he has close friends at the table then a third thing will happen instead, the group will disintigrate. Like I said before the smart money is just on saying "yeah right behind you sir!" when he insists on doing stupid **** and then taking cover as fast as you can. If the voidmaster thought opening that channel was stupid he could have looked right at the GM and yelled "I cover my ears!" or "I mute my headphones!".

He'd have probably had to roll an initiative to see if he did it fast enough but that would still be one more roll between him and a burnt fate point. The way I see it you know this guy is dangerous to you and like GI Joe says knowing is half the battle, so keep an eye on him and when he starts doing dumb **** lock eye contact with the GM and shout what you're doing for yourself to save your own ass.

Pretty much how we handled our incompetent (on purpose) Rogue Trader. Just stay back and when possible, roll your eyes and ignore his orders.

Meh. Maybe that's the LARP experience coming out, but if a character endangers everyone get rid of them and explain later. If they are doing it on purpose and calling it roleplay then talking with them about it just forewarns them of the mutiny.

But once again, that's me and my gaming experiences talking. And yes, I've had games disintegrate. I'd rather risk that than spend painful months in a game I wasn't enjoying when I could be looking for that next great game.

Feel free to follow your own inclinations.