Hello Rogue Trader fans!

This week I have a report from Gen Con about Rogue Trader with some great pictures, and I've also uploaded the Origin Path chart to the support page. Enjoy!

Great stuff! Much obliged!

Cool cosplayer costumes as well. The only better ones I've seen was from a video on youtube with these two guys dressed up as space marines. (sick costumes, I guarantee).

Now about shipping to stores in september... Does that mean that the pre-ordered collectors editions are shipped at the same time?

The suspense is killing me here!

... Im sorry, I don't mean to sound whiney about it. Im just REALLY looking forward to getting my hands on this book.

I was lucky enough to snag one of the copies at Gencon and just finished reading it from front to back. Can't wait to start rolling some dice and try it out. We're suppost to start character creation next week. Just wanted to say great job and the books gorgeous.

Also, I'm sure someones going to ask how the origin path chart works. You start by picking a homeworld or a starting career. After that you may make an origin selection from the choice directly below it (or above if starting from the bottom) or to either side of that choice. You continue that same process until either you've reach the bottom tier and picked a career, or reached the top tier and picked a homeworld.

So if you picked Forge World for your starting homeworld. Your next selection from the birthright section would be either scapegrace, stubjack, or Child of Creed. If you picked Child of Creed, then your next selection could come from Renegade, Duty Bound, or Zealot. And you repeat this process until reaching a career. You can also start with your career and repeat the process up to your homeworld.

Each selection on the chart gives your character different skill selection or talents among other things.

dragonmarkeddm said:

... Let me take a "WILD" (not bloody likely) guess here:

If you choose the "Chosen by Destiny" aspect from "Lure of the Void"... You get more fate points than usual? (has Captain Obvious struck us yet again? )

Oh yeah smarty pants (please note this guy is my player or I wouldn't talk to him this way ) .. guess which Motivation has an extra fate point?

Lucky for you I have my book here in front of me.

Chosen by Destiny get to choose one of three options

Gain the foresight talent, take a -3 will

Plus 10 to fellowship, -5 to Will involving alien stuff

or +1 fate point, and 1d10+1 insanity points

aethel said:

Ahem.. It's "Captain Obvious", thank you very much. Rogue Trader and shipsmaster over the fine vessel "Plain Transparent". Oddly enough those big guns on the sides of it REALLY DO insane amounts of damage, and the thick looking hull REALLY DO absorb the most grievous punishment.

Anyway. That one was a bit more tricky. It could be Vengeance. I mean if you've set a path of revenge, then dying before that objective is done would be rather anti-climactic.

But it could also be Renown, or Endurance. However im not really sure what the last one is supposed to imply (I know what the word means, but not really sure of every sort of context it can be used). But if it is what I think it is then im guessing that it is Endurance. (if you're going to "endure" the impending perils of rogue trading, then you better have enouh fate points to burn)

... Or has Captain Obvious finally been proven wrong about something?

dragonmarkeddm said:

So going by that the only prohibated career/homeworld combinations are that a Death Worlder cannot be a Rogue Trader and a Nobel Born cannot be an Astropath?

Captain- Nope. It's Thrones. (maybe luck... gambling.. dunno. But there it is!)

Khouri- It's currently debatable whether the career row is actually supposed to be included in the rows that you trace. As it doesn't have a little dotted line like the other rows do, I am in the camp that you're only supposed to draw a path from Homeworld to Motivation, and career is something separate. Nothing is explicit either way in the book.

This will probably be largely up to GM caveat until we hear some errata.

aethel said:

Huh? "Fortune"?

Well that's wierd. Oh well, who cares. Im not really out to milk as many fate points out of the PC creation system anyway. I never have to, because to date, my PC's rolled up in the conventional way have for some reason always got the highest amount of fate points of their respective background from the start.

But I make up for it by scoring really low on the d10's when rolling for damage in combat. (hate it when that happens )

aethel said:

Point.

Going through the characters for Forsaken Bounty a few of them don't have careers that match up with motivations if you follow the origin chart though to career.

e.g. Trask is a Rogue Trader with a motivation of Renown.

I'm in the camp of the career being part of the chart. My take on that is that it wouldn't be printed on the chart if it wasn't ment to be part of the selections. Also the directions say start from either the bottom of the chart, or the top. The dotted lines I think are to just fill in the empty space between the selections and the name of the particular row. That's my humble opinion anyway.

Khouri said:

The chart doesn't have to be used for character creation. It's an optional way of bring the group together by having shared background experiences. It states that the GM may as an option forgo the chart and allow characters to make what selections they want.

Another option also given is that the GM may designate a single row as a "free row" for the entire group, where selections don't have to be adjacent to the prior and following choices. Otherwise under normal operation, yes I believe the chart does limit what characters can and can not be for career choice/homeworld options and such.

Khouri said:

I also noticed that. But then a certain degree of fudging is allowed if the GM approves.

Let me get this straight:

So when using this Origin Path per the standard rules, you can't just pick any Homeworld you want and then pick any Birthright you want? You have to stick with only certain birthrights, motivations, lures of the void, travels and travails etc. that are relevant to the past choices you've made?

And you're also restricted in what career you're able to choose later on?

Cause if that's the case, I think im going to have to GM fudge it. I think that both me and my players will want to pick any homeworld, birthright, lure of the void, career etc. regardless of what previous choices they made. Seems a lot more fun (and a lot more versatile) than being restricted in your choices. The way I see it: as long as a player can motivate strange combinations of birthrights, homeworlds and such with a better motivation than. "I wanted to get these extra points and stuff." then it will be fine by me. In fact I wonder why the standard rules don't rule the same way?

(or I could've just gotten it all wrong, if so then please explain it to me)

I believe the reason for the standard rules are for two reasons. The first reason is that fluff elements from one selection leads to natural fluff elements from the next selection, thus giving your character a logical progression of background material. Not saying that choosing your own would lead to no less a logical progression, but I think that is the reason it's done that way. Second, the group is suppost to make all the characters at the same time (suggested way to do it), and one person makes his selections by drawling a line from his beginning choice to his ending choice. He then passes the sheet to the next person who draws a line from beginning to end and passes it to the next person and so on around the table. Then every compares where the orgin paths for each character (hence the name path being used) converge, and use those areas to build background together. The reason for a strong group background is that the group consist of the Rogue Trader (captain of the ship) and his closes advisors (everyone else), and thus must have a very well established history, or else the Trader wouldn't trust them to be in his inner ring. (Also the group of players should set down at the same time to design and build their ship too, which is like a character in it's own right.)

Those are just my thoughts. As stated though, the GM can forgo the use of the chart, it's just an aid to character creation and group dynamics

I like it. I was wondering how the members of my crew came together, and this provides a cool way to develop that with my group.

The restrictions in it may annoy some people, but if the book says you can just fudge/ignore it then there is no reason it should cramp anyones creativity.

Having not seen it yet, I think I might have the career row be the "free row", but that might change when I get my collectors addition.

I do wonder what some of these terms mean. Could someone tell me what the a "stubjack" "vaunted" and "ship-lorn" are. More interseted in the background lore/fluff than the bonus (but bonuses are nice).

monkyman said:

A stubjack refers to someone whose life has been steeped in violence, and is very skilled at it. Not sure on the etymological reason behind it, but there it is.

Vaunted characters were raised decadent and wealthy--usually nobles, for obvious reasons, but the important thing is that you were separate from and above the toiling masses.

As for "ship-lorn"....you were lorn of a ship. More seriously, you are the (most likely only) survivor of a starship wreck, and most people think you shouldn't have survived. It's viewed as an ill omen that you did, rather than a miracle, and Void Born will consider you very unlucky to be near.

RocketPropelledGrenade said:

So if you were already Void-Born, it means there's really no one who likes you!

aethel said:

Hehe, that sounds like that kind of character I usually play.

Everybody hates him for one reason or another. (can't say "him/her" because I've never played a female character)

I once had a male charecter who role-played a femail Sanctioned Psyker...he even role-played PMS once every game month...it was odd

Hmm...I dunno. We always start every Campaign with the obligatory Bar Fight. Oh, we do have one GM who starts all his Campaigns with "You wake up butt-naked on a stone table in the pitch-black darkness" (Like Haarlock's Legacy...boy, he was eating it up!).

This would kinda break tradition...