So (5) game sessions in, and the players have started to bring along extra npc security forces from their ship in the last 2 sessions, there are (6) players. I am concerned they are trying to bend the rules or nature of the game (centered around their actions). I have a few questions on the matter, looking for some guidance on how to deal with it:

1) What is the best way to deal with/counter the squad(s) of security forces the players are starting to bring with them?

2) Is there a viable way to prevent them from bringing extra forces with them?

3) If this is "normal" in Rogue Trader, what is the best way to deal with combat situations since rolling every NPC's action can bog the game down?

Hi there,

I wonder why people see it as "odd" or "a problem" that a RogueTrader brings along a squad of armsmen when traveling with this command crew. ESPECIALLY if those command crew includes such important personal as an Astropath or a Navigator..

The official game sometimes seems to see it the same way, but then again the official game sometimes seems to forget that it started out on premises where at least one of the players is in charge of an entire 40k void chip and (most of) it´s crew.

@1) Change your encounters
Take into account that the player/s might be accompanied by a squad of armsmen NPC. This means that the opposition/situation should be formidable enough to demand a couple of armsmen (IF it is a combat encounter) and is in an environment that allows such a number of fighters while making more fighters foolish (because they would get into each others way).
In DH2nd (if I expect troops to be brought in) I start to describe casulaties after X rounds of battle while only describing and "roling" the action the characters are involved in.. the longer the characters take in their part, the more casualties. If they were outnumbered to begin with..well..

2) Close quarters are, as are social situation. But really, DON´T! Why should you play RT if you don´t want to allow the players the resources of an RT?

3) see above, so many players and GM will argue that it is NOT normal.

I hope this was helpful

Tie up the armsmen/household troops with a similar number of opponents using suppressing fire. Use some mooks to occupy the player's troops, and until the PCs get involved with that section of the conflict, you can just narrate it, and not make too many dice rolls.

This leaves the PCs to make the Decisive Difference in the fight.

Also. Remember, the Household Troops are NPCs, they're not going to be shooting too close to the PCs if they've got a choice in the matter. Also, they're going to want to take cover and hold their ground. None of these mad heroics like charging the enemy.

I have no problem with PC's bringing along NPC guards. My group has actually spent a lot of resources hiring, equipping, and maintaining a small 100 man unit of elite commandos (I limit the total number of acquisition rolls per game to 2, so it actually matters whether they spend it on themselves or stuff for the ship or crew or whatever). They've also got a few elite NPC's who fill in gaps in the PC's skill sets, but are otherwise not quite as good as them. They've got a NPC Seneschal who acts as their spymaster, a mercurial eldar corsair to be the backup pilot and token xenos, the commander of their commando unit who can lead the troops if the PC's are busy elsewhere (like say disarming a nuke about to destroy the hab spire they're assaulting). Usually these NPC's act in the background because they're good enough the players can trust them not to screw up too badly, and usually this allows the players to go do the star trek away team thing rather than hovering over their investments and ship and troops.

1) Well it usually isn't long before the PC's are all running around with sub-skin armor, best quality storm trooper armor, etc and simple las guns and auto-guns are ineffective against them. So have them go after the RT's returner of armsmen while the PC's deal with the elite of the enemy force, whatever it is.

As for actually running the encounter, unless it's only one or two NPC's, I treat each group as a single unit, or if it's big enough groups to be “mass combat” I'll make it opposed command tests with various bonuses and penalties.

2) Can't think of a “one size fits all” solution. You'd have to go situation by situation.

3) Sure, why not. They're super-rich space (nobles/businessmen/mercenaries/crooks all rolled into one). Why wouldn't they have a posse of bodyguards, aids, arm candy, and sycophants with them most of the time? Even Kirk brought along some red shirts when he Spock and Bones beamed down.

Absolutely. A Rogue Trader has more personal wealth and income than a number of planets do. This is someone who values their own life. This is someone whose family (Dynasty) basically has a not-so small army at its disposable, even if it is spread out across its various holdings.

Members of the Dynasty are (usually) not considered expendable assets.

A Rogue Trader is a major noble - a Peer of the Imperium - having a group of retainers/household troops to escort them while off-ship is entirely appropriate. The size and nature of the retinue and escort is a subtle language all its own. Are there just a handful of troops dressed in spiffy dress uniforms? The RT is confident in his safety and trusts the people he's meeting. What weapons is the escort force openly carrying? Some small arms and blades? Or are they bringing squad support and heavier weapons? What kind of armor are the troops wearing?

My players started out with such ideas, but have since stopped due to my tendency to use their retainers for extra dramatic tension. Some stragglers fall behind in the xenos jungle, or get too curious exploring a wrecked ship. Then the team hears screaming, maybe gunshots, maybe clawing. They come running and SURPRISE! it's 3 mutilated corpses, with no sign of what killed them. Forward scouts get it the worst. Then they have to make command tests to keep everyone else from panicking and abandoning the mission, then execute them for cowardice, it's a whole thing.

We've since come to an agreement that this is Star Trek-Hammer 40k, and red shirts die. Support staff can come to 'secure the area' once the captain and all his senior officers have single-handedly dealt with every possible threat, found the shiniest loots, and lost several gallons of blood.

My group plays traders-militants, their defiant-class light carrier filled with 4 squadrons of valkyries, barracks housing 3600 drop trooper mercenaries.

Of course they deploy thousands of soldiers during their Endeavors. Of course they lead their warband. How do I deal with it while keeping focused on the PCs? Well, I simply solve mass battles narratively, based on troop disposition, terrain, quality and sound tactical ideas, while PCs can either lead their men from the front (Only War mass battle rules can do the trick) or perform the assasination of enemy leader/lead the bombing raid on enemy positions, providing close air support/get valuable intel/go on a special mission to sabotage enemy effort/negotiate using massive ground forces as intimidating factor/survive assasination attempt ON THEM/otherwise act semi-independantly, yet giving an edge and making all the difference.

Can those troops accomplish missions entirely on their own? Of course, but the mission will be either too simple and will barely pay off the expenditures, or difficult enough for the casualties to be expensive to cover, making it not profitable. That way, even with thousands of competent, badass mercenaries hardly resembling redshirts and able to do things on their own given adequate supplies and money, PCs are motivated to act on their own, because minimising casualties and maximising effectiveness is achieved that way and brings profit.

Yep, the idea of 40k star trek / 40k mass effect never sounded believable for me.

My solution is simple: when they bring enough force and command them well, let their troops handle the combats.

More time spent with RP, less with rolling dices for pew-pew.

Story will move faster.

And... If you really want to have them in combat, roleplay the overall combat and do mini-battles with the enemy captains while the battle is raging all around them (think of eowyn vs witch king). Throw in NPCs or explosions or things like this on-demmand, "to spice things up" in case the PC is doing too well or too terrible.

Hell, I do this even during boarding actions - if the PCs are doing exceptionally well with their rolls and at least 1 of them is aboard the enemy vessel, I eventually start one of these battles with an op NPC lord-captain.

I can see bringing troops as worth it, and cool, for the most part. Especially the way FFG writes a lot of the material, there might come a point where your players are pretty cheesy, and there's no good way toportray the NPC's as still challenging, without rendering the work the players did to overcome challenges moot. You have leveled up, have the best armor, great guns, etc, and are expecting to fight savages, some Footfall street thugs, etc. Either every encounter is rendered a laugh, as there is no way they have similar gear, and rarely the numbers to balance that out, or they always seem to have breached a PDF armory, and are sporting heavy bolters, carapace armor, and making you wonder why you took all the time to acquire stuff. I like to see the troops you bring as something you can actually LOSE, and an asset you can actually USE, especially if the enemy has enough "troops" to make a game out of it. Otherwise, pull scenarios where confines say no, like hulks, ruins, etc, where more than a few people crowd the place, and render them inefficient.

I've written up two Rogue Traders for fanfiction purposes, and both would escort their parties with troops. Aedan Qel-Drake has an entire force on his ship, called the Maidens of the Dragon, and while he'll have several who fill skill roles, a dozen more, or so, will simply be his high-end mercenary protector-types, and he'll always have them, both to watch his tail, and to allow him to show off in front of them, as he isn't really the cowering type. Korvallus is like an admiral, so he'll usually bring down a big unit of guards, too.

I've had a group that had to send the mooks in first, secure an LZ, and deploy heavy guns and vehicles before they'd risk themselves on a planet.

I've had a group that treated their characters like members of an elite strike force that performed high profile space marine-style assassination, sabotage, and striker missions.

Use mook rules, or horde rules, if you don't like red-shirts, or narrate the scene. They are so many answers. Mass combat can be resolved with fewer dice rolls than a 10-man melee.

Great ideas. I am going to move forward with some of these ideas and see how it works next few game sessions. What I am concerned with really is the Astropath bringing another of the ships astropaths, Explorator and Rogue Trader brings 5-10 guards, Navigator and Void-master always tries to stay on the ship to "nuke the site from orbit", and the Ork Freeboota/Mekboy tries to bring along the 4 orks he recently "pacified" into joining; all when they make planet fall/board a derelict vessel in anticipation of danger.

I dont stop them but with some of these suggestions I can get around the combat fairly easily now, it appears I was already on the right track.

I dont stop them but with some of these suggestions I can get around the combat fairly easily now, it appears I was already on the right track.

Great job! Some GM's see this as an issue, and try to punish the players and their characters for bringing the 'red shirts' along. Obviously, this is a bad idea. The best practice for an enjoyable game for all parties, is to go along with it, and to work with the players. Having 'red shirts' die every single time the PC's bring them along is not enjoyable for too many people. Having NPC's die heroically, tragically, or un-expected should probably happen about 1/3, and maybe 1/10 of the time they should save the day (example: rescuing the PC's as they are pinned, distracting the Chaos Marine getting ready to pounce on the unaware PC's, coming in with a shuttle to flee the area before the bomb explodes, etc etc). The rest of the time, everything should go as mostly intended.

Of course, if the NPC's are not properly outfitted for the occasion, the PC's should hopefully have a chance to notice this before anything major occurs. If they fail to take the appropriate action to correct the deficiency after they notice it, then by all means, let the slaughter begin. But once again, punishing them for something they could not foresee isn't really fun for anyone worth gaming with. Just my two cents here.

Great ideas. I am going to move forward with some of these ideas and see how it works next few game sessions. What I am concerned with really is the Astropath bringing another of the ships astropaths, Explorator and Rogue Trader brings 5-10 guards, Navigator and Void-master always tries to stay on the ship to "nuke the site from orbit", and the Ork Freeboota/Mekboy tries to bring along the 4 orks he recently "pacified" into joining; all when they make planet fall/board a derelict vessel in anticipation of danger.

I dont stop them but with some of these suggestions I can get around the combat fairly easily now, it appears I was already on the right track.

With the spare astropath I'd bee a little leery simply because the ship has a very limited number of astropaths and navigators (I generally assume 2-6 astropaths and 2-4 navigators), so if something happens, you might be in trouble. More with being out of navigators than astropaths, but either is bad.

You might also consider giving the Voidmaster some reasons to fly the group down. "The shrine city below you is wreathed in powerful storms. Scanners show the storms seem to be following an unusual weather pattern. You can brave the storms, land many miles away and trek in on foot, or wait to see if the storms dissipate."

Or.

"The derelict is in rough shape, with great rents in it's hull. One of the rents looks as if it could take you fairly close to the core cogitator, but it will take a skilled pilot to get in without skewering the lander on a shard of adamantine plating."

Of course, if the NPC's are not properly outfitted for the occasion, the PC's should hopefully have a chance to notice this before anything major occurs. If they fail to take the appropriate action to correct the deficiency after they notice it, then by all means, let the slaughter begin. But once again, punishing them for something they could not foresee isn't really fun for anyone worth gaming with. Just my two cents here.

When my group first figured out that they had a ship full of servants they were about rank 3 (game started at 2). They decided to take a couple of squads of armsmen with them to nose around a space hulk. The armsmen had what I estimated the average ship's arsman would have, light flak coats (armor 2) and pump action shotguns. First they ran into some orks and lost half their armsmen. Then they ran into some unknown insectoid aliens and lost all but two of the rest.

After that they figured out that they shouldn't take schmuck level renta-cops along with their heroic heavily armed and armored characters. On the up side it let them feel powerful personally, since they survived and thrived (albeit somewhat mauled), while also realizing there was only so much they could do on their own.

After that they started looking into getting some higher quality soldiers and better gear for them.

1) What is the best way to deal with/counter the squad(s) of security forces the players are starting to bring with them?

Well after the first skirmish they brought NPCs which cost the lives of some, they hired on some ex-guardsmen and outfitted them quite well (we used regiment creation rules for Only War) to assist with the ship security, etc. All these ideas are working out as I make notes on how to handle combat for the NPCs by using the Hordes rules from Deathwatch.

And it gave me another idea that if/when the players send the NPCs off on a mission while they do something, I can have backup characters made for these NPCs and run a different adventure with the players in control, using Only War/Deathwatch rules...a little something for the future.

In a few fights with 50-100 participants on either side we have used a form of mass combat rules from OW, using different sorts of enemies as different "units" and some of the leaders as unique NPCs. It made things reasonably easy. In bigger fights it might be better to just use abstractions for what is happening in the background, which the PC actions can impact.

Assume they aren't going to take a squad.

Assume they are going to take a small Platoon. They themselves -- the Rogue Trader, Retinue and Bridge Crew (ie player characters, maybe an extra NPC) -- are going to be the Platoon Command Squad, and they are going to have with them at least three ten-man infantry squads, composed each of two five-man fire teams, with several attached skilled noncombatants for skilled tasks that the main characters themselves don't have that they will commonly need. Make threats which require a Platoon and a highly highly capable command squad with armor cracking capability in the command squad (melta / plasma / power weapons, which the player characters will of course generally keep to themselves) leading the platoon to overcome. Assume they are going to put whatever resources necessary as far as Gun Cutters, Lighters, Shuttles, Halo Barges, and eventually something like maybe drop variants of those extended cab tauros assault vehicles (like is in only war final testament) to give their group more mobility and make their default group a convoy, as those can totally fit in halo barges and cargo cutters and such. Just enable this, and assume they will be doing this as a matter of course. Have officers OBJECT when the Rogue Trader wants to go gallivanting off without sufficient bodyguard, and then make them very very happy they DID invest in getting all of this...

Well the players have a lot to take care of before running around with 50+ bodyguard. I started them out as normal characters but a seriously under-crewed ship, little transports (gun cutter and 3x aquila landers) and an old rhino. After about 5 sessions now they mostly concerned themselves with acquiring personal items, ignoring their ship, crew and tools of the trade. They currently have no real direction lol, despite explaining the game, what they can do (pretty much anything), etc. I think they still have Pathfinder/video games on their brain, because they loot every encounter and are looking for something of personal value in every cargo hold, etc. All except the ork freeboota that has aspirations of being a Rogue Trader with a mighty empire, fine women, and lots of teef (it's crazy I know, but his background story really plays up to this).

At any rate, now that they have a platoon, they are stranded, about to take on more people, a new xenos character and whatever other trouble they find, they might actually figure things out...or keep giving me great plot devices.

I have been looking at the Only War and Deathwatch combat systems (comrades and hordes) and I think I have a good handle on what to do, I just need to commit it to paper. If it works out ok (or regardless if it does) I might post up here and see what people think.

As other said, your PCs brings troops, so does your big bad villain…so while the Rogue Trader is busy duelling Captain Evil while they both balance each other on a railing, the NPC troops from both side are shooting left and right, adding ambiance to the battle.

As for casualties..the PCs wins, there’s some casualties, wounded too, but overall the troops are fine.

The PCs lose, it's a bloodbath, with the few survivors no doubt spraying rumours of the horrific one-sided ‘battle’ they barely managed to survive.

First admitting to being kind of a jerk about this one... I generally lightly "remind them" that mooks are just that... mooks. They are easily dispatched especially by the enemies that a decently high level RT command crew need to be worth their time. Also, Father, I "encourage" team work by keeping profit factor low when they don't necessarily focus on it. They want individual items, fine.... roll on your crappy acquisition test lol.

I generally narrate, rather than roll, for the minions. Better minions are treated as a single Horde from Deathwatch. This lets one of the players roll them out on a single roll, and makes it easeir for my BBE Monster to cut down a dozen of them.

So (5) game sessions in, and the players have started to bring along extra npc security forces from their ship in the last 2 sessions, there are (6) players. I am concerned they are trying to bend the rules or nature of the game (centered around their actions). I have a few questions on the matter, looking for some guidance on how to deal with it:

1) What is the best way to deal with/counter the squad(s) of security forces the players are starting to bring with them?

2) Is there a viable way to prevent them from bringing extra forces with them?

3) If this is "normal" in Rogue Trader, what is the best way to deal with combat situations since rolling every NPC's action can bog the game down?

An issue GMs can have in Rogue Trader is adjusting to the scale and the power level. PCs having minions, servants, bodyguards, and private armies are quite normal. Personally I'm a fan of agreeing with players to have the faceless armsmen fend off other minions, while the PCs and exceptional servants face off against the "real threat".

There are ways to prevent them bringing forces (teleportarium and shuttle can only bring so many, e.t.c) but I find it unnecessary.

No need to roll for each NPC. The massed combat rules in the core book aren't superb but they'll do in a pinch. I prefer narrative turning points for battles modified from Battlefleet Koronus. Where the PCs use their skills to lead troops and counter enemy tactics.

While I acknowledge that this is sort of a sh*tty thing to do, I often advise my players before a campaign starts not to constantly bring a small army of troops with them. Obviously, if mass combat or other circumstances logically lend themselves towards bringing a landing force, then they should go right ahead. Otherwise, don't do it because I don't want to have to load up on bad guys just so combat isn't trivialized. I've often attempted to rationalize it by explaining that troops/voidsmen are likely to talk about what they do when the ship is docked or the crew gets shore leave. Thus, unless they players want their crew to run off at the mouth, they should take care to shield them from knowing stuff. Again, I know this isn't a great thing to do, but it works.

I do a combination of these things. I generally want to run a game where the PCs show up, fight a roughly scaled force since that's where the combat system is best IMO and then let the mooks do the mop up. I use their mooks as redshirts to heighten the tension. I have the bad guys mooks fight the good guy mooks in abstraction to lend to the mood. Most importantly I do this by being explicit, I tell my players that I don't always want to have every possible combat have some contrived way to counter them. Because rolling dice for 40 npcs isn't fun and to me the mass combat rules as something that's resolved in a couple rolls to get back to the heroes.

I tell them that the more mooks they bring, the bigger of a shadow they cast(not always bad), and the looser lips are(mostly bad). I tell them that when stuff gets real they're more than welcome to bring down their legions of doom, call down overwhelming force or whatever. And I also tell them that my focus is on them as the Heroes ultimately winning the day. Whether that's defeating the enemy Captain on his own command bridge, or taking a particularly tough bunker or whatever. I tell them the ways I'm likely to work around their mooks, and using them like extras in a movie while keeping them the stars.

But that's how I like to play, and I make sure they know what type of game I have in mind. Rogue traders have thousands to billions of subjects, they can have flotillas of warships. Many move around with 100 man entourages. And some people like to play that aspect to the hilt, they like more socially based or strategic games. In my games that still happens, but because of plot things just usually happen to be resolved by a climatic sword fight or some other climatic set piece. You got a bunch of tools but the most important one to make sure no one feels tricked is just being straight up with expectations.

There are incentives for even wealthy and powerful rogue traders to keep numbers down. One shuttle is harder to spot than a dozen, and a handful of men is harder to spot than scores. I've seen entourages in game though and they can be pretty swish. Astartes in particular give events that certain extra "oomph".

Having thousands of troops gives the options of military campaigns. One group of players organised a loose coalition of Imperial and non-Imperial human forces to crush a fledging xenos civilisation. I organised the battle into "turns" of around a month. Each month, the players could decide how they were applying their PC skills. Leading troops from the front, jamming communications, organising logistics, etc. And some turns, there were complications that they had to deal with. Xenos guerillas, mined ground. It was at an abstract enough level that the only personal combat we rolled for was at the very end when they were burning down the capital city and duelling the king's champion.