My group and I are soon coming to the end of our Dark Heresy campaign, and having played the system weekly for over a half year now are we looking for something new to do, with our eyes falling on Rouge Trader since I already own some of the books.

Our Dark Heresy campaign is the first real thing that I have GMed, so to say that I am wet behind the ears would not be wrong, but I have been playing the games as an PC for a good while now so the worlds ain´t alien to me.

Knowing how hard it is to balance things properly out in DH, giving a challenge while not killing the whole party each and every session am I looking for a pre written adventure that we could play, me not knowing enough about RT yet to generate my own opponents and obstacles. I have looked a bit in the core book and read its adventure, but honestly does it seem a little bit tame compared to how the group have rappelled down a titan, broke the fingers on a demon, and gotten their knee caps eaten by scaled smiling cats, so I was wondering if there was any other adventures that could be recommended for a first time RT GM.

Any good advices, pit traps there is going from the one system to the other, or just general good advices is much adored and wanted.

PS. 100 bonus achievement points to the one that saves my ass the most, this else being an objective with the exploration trait worth 500 achievement points!

My 1st recommendation is Frozen Reaches (never GMed it, but have read so many awesome stories that I wish I had). My 2nd recommendation is Lure of the Expanse (having personally GMed it). See link below for other recommendations.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/108191-first-time-gm-question/

Also, in LotE PC's like to obtain the Light of Terra. See link below for questions on whether this is or isn't feasible for your campaign/endeavor(s).

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/90469-what-if-my-player-want-to-take-the-light-of-terra-lure-of-the-expanse/

Other members of this forum have asked for an adventure order. Link below for more info on that.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/94422-adventure-order/

And for changes for LotE that are interesting, see below.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/99435-lure-of-the-expanse-reworked/

Do I get negative points for simply making links and not going into detail? Because that would be so awesome.

Hand-write your adventures. Pre-fabs are... meh and tend to feel forced. There's some advice.

Hand-write your adventures. Pre-fabs are... meh and tend to feel forced. There's some advice.

I know that pre-fabs are rather meh, but as a newbe noob with players where half of them hadn´t even heard of Rouge Trader before I mentioned it in passing... Well leaning up against something is nice at time. And just because it is written does it not mean you can´t edit it after all. *looks at his DH adventure that suddenly had a hab block revolution and what not because it fitted in*

Do I get negative points for simply making links and not going into detail? Because that would be so awesome.

If there is one thing that I have learnt as a GM is it to never say no, so negative points to you mister!

Not particularly helpful advice, considering the OP noted why he/she didn’t want to build their own at this moment.

Personally, I wouldn’t go with Frozen Reaches first – it’s a great scenario (one of my groups favorites actually) but it definitely benefits from more powerful and experienced Rogue Traders (and even more so from experienced RT players.) It’s also the kind of mission that you will need to expand on/work with, as well as adjust depending on the resources of the undertaking dynasty.

Lure of the Expanse, which my group did early on, went over well. However, if I was going to do it again I would spend a lot more time with the book to flesh out the particular sub-adventures, as well as plan more things for interaction with the numerous VIP-NPCs involved in that mission. It would also have benefited from the PC Rogue Trader having had previous encounters/relations with some of the NPC Rogue Traders prior to the commencement of the adventure.

Returning to actually answer the question – I would actually recommend to start with one of three adventures:

Forsaken Bounty : Honestly. It’s the “Introductory Adventure” and works nicely for that. Simply toss out the pre-made characters and use the ones your party creates instead. This one is particularly good if your players are not going to have a large amount of time prior to first game, as the nature of the mission allows you to hand-wave almost half the rules, and concentrate on the core exploration & combat rules. It’s also short enough to complete in one sitting, allowing your players to feel like they accomplished something day one.

Dark Frontier : Listed as the “follow up” adventure to Forsaken Bounty, there isn’t actually anything in it that requires you to do it in that order. One can simply assume that the “Worm” is a trophy from one of the Rogue Trader’s ancestors, or being blown of course is simply bad fortune or Navigator Failure. Like the one above, this allows you to hand-wave a number of rules, and doesn’t require your players to know anything about ship combat rules. This adventure does allow your players more freedom of action and requires a lot more social interactions, and so in that way may be better or worse as a starting adventure depending on your particular group.

Whispers : I forget the actual title of the adventure that comes with the GMs screen, but it’s the third of the ones I’d recommend starting with. It uses primarily Main Book enemies, who are decent enough for starting characters to deal with. Your players won’t need to know starship combat for the first session, but it’s in there before the adventure concludes. It takes some more work from the GM, as you’ll have to flesh out some of the sub-adventures (Svard should have more social interaction/investigation, and Cog can use a lot of increasing) particularly if your players take a non-standard approach to the situation.

Regardless of if it’s the first adventure, I find this one to be very nice as a campaign launching point, as it gives the players a semi-base in the Expanse. In my particular campaign, where they did very well in the adventure, Svard provides a number of useful things, including a company of household troops (1 ^st Svard Expeditionary). The library on Silence is a good place to insert old dynasty records that can serve as a critical point or a launching off point for other adventures. Cog and Station 23 give them a decent set up to keep their ships supplied for extended explorations into the deeper expanse. I also place Svard a couple jumps away from Damaris, which give the PCs extra motivation for Frozen Reaches (loss of trade routes, Svard being next if orks aren’t stopped). Also, if you ever pick up Stars of Inequity, one can build Svard relatively easily as a colony in those rules.

The captain you meet at the beginning of the adventure can also make for a useful contact in the Imperial Navy, and the nature of the storyline provides a potential Inquisitorial contact as well.

Agreed. Frozen Reaches is very good (for a pre-fab), but much more accessable once you are familiar with the game, and maybe have more than a single ship.

I have also experimented with introducing Damaris long before running Frozen Reaches, to establish it as a friendly, valuable planet. Makes it that much more important to save it, hopefully.

Not particularly helpful advice, considering the OP noted why he/she didn’t want to build their own at this moment.

Personally, I wouldn’t go with Frozen Reaches first – it’s a great scenario (one of my groups favorites actually) but it definitely benefits from more powerful and experienced Rogue Traders (and even more so from experienced RT players.) It’s also the kind of mission that you will need to expand on/work with, as well as adjust depending on the resources of the undertaking dynasty.

Lure of the Expanse, which my group did early on, went over well. However, if I was going to do it again I would spend a lot more time with the book to flesh out the particular sub-adventures, as well as plan more things for interaction with the numerous VIP-NPCs involved in that mission. It would also have benefited from the PC Rogue Trader having had previous encounters/relations with some of the NPC Rogue Traders prior to the commencement of the adventure.

Returning to actually answer the question – I would actually recommend to start with one of three adventures:

Forsaken Bounty : Honestly. It’s the “Introductory Adventure” and works nicely for that. Simply toss out the pre-made characters and use the ones your party creates instead. This one is particularly good if your players are not going to have a large amount of time prior to first game, as the nature of the mission allows you to hand-wave almost half the rules, and concentrate on the core exploration & combat rules. It’s also short enough to complete in one sitting, allowing your players to feel like they accomplished something day one.

Dark Frontier : Listed as the “follow up” adventure to Forsaken Bounty, there isn’t actually anything in it that requires you to do it in that order. One can simply assume that the “Worm” is a trophy from one of the Rogue Trader’s ancestors, or being blown of course is simply bad fortune or Navigator Failure. Like the one above, this allows you to hand-wave a number of rules, and doesn’t require your players to know anything about ship combat rules. This adventure does allow your players more freedom of action and requires a lot more social interactions, and so in that way may be better or worse as a starting adventure depending on your particular group.

Whispers : I forget the actual title of the adventure that comes with the GMs screen, but it’s the third of the ones I’d recommend starting with. It uses primarily Main Book enemies, who are decent enough for starting characters to deal with. Your players won’t need to know starship combat for the first session, but it’s in there before the adventure concludes. It takes some more work from the GM, as you’ll have to flesh out some of the sub-adventures (Svard should have more social interaction/investigation, and Cog can use a lot of increasing) particularly if your players take a non-standard approach to the situation.

Regardless of if it’s the first adventure, I find this one to be very nice as a campaign launching point, as it gives the players a semi-base in the Expanse. In my particular campaign, where they did very well in the adventure, Svard provides a number of useful things, including a company of household troops (1 ^st Svard Expeditionary). The library on Silence is a good place to insert old dynasty records that can serve as a critical point or a launching off point for other adventures. Cog and Station 23 give them a decent set up to keep their ships supplied for extended explorations into the deeper expanse. I also place Svard a couple jumps away from Damaris, which give the PCs extra motivation for Frozen Reaches (loss of trade routes, Svard being next if orks aren’t stopped). Also, if you ever pick up Stars of Inequity, one can build Svard relatively easily as a colony in those rules.

The captain you meet at the beginning of the adventure can also make for a useful contact in the Imperial Navy, and the nature of the storyline provides a potential Inquisitorial contact as well.

Well, if you pit a starting group against the whisperer, be sure to give them plenty of room to build up their ship and let them gain experience with the rules for starship-combat - seriously, the Whisperer is brutal (unless you stack up on RaW Macrobatteries, but that's another story).

Other then that, Vaults of the Forgotten from Edge of the Abyss (a pretty useful book anyway) also makes for a nice adventure - not the best one, but certainly decent and helps establishing a few contacts out in the expanse.

That's true - but if they play it well they'll also be backed up by Capt. Keel's Lunar Cruiser, at least a couple of system ships, and the lance batteries on Installation 23 itself. I agree though, particularly if your group are not also part-time war-gamers it's a good idea to have them make a couple of skirmishes against the darts (and time to repair in orbit or back at The Balwark (look, a Damaris connection ) in between.). Also depends how many ship points the characters decide to start the adventure with. Just remember to have the Whisperer shoot NPC ships or the Installation if you need to save your PCs for a round or two.