Okay, so, I was just thinking about something.

I've run RT games for years.

I have never.

In

My

Entire

LIFE

Run a game that actually has the simple act of trade. My PCs don't buy stuff in one place for cheap, then move it to somewhere else. They're always fighting wars, colonizing new planets, looting ancient worlds of their riches, stealing Orkish dabloons, and generally being these swashbuckling star privateers.

Does anyone actually do trading around here?

Or is that **** for chartists?

Trade is unexciting, which is why players don't do it. I, too, have run RT campaigns for years, and the most I've ever seen is the group planning out the trade that their "other" ships will conduct. The RT and Seneschal would sit in the state room and review trade opportunities - then dispatch their NPC-run transports to actually do the trade. It's all run in the background by me.

Yeah, pretty much ^this. We just figure out where and what to trade, and have our fleet do it.

Yeah we trade:

We give them our marco shells, bombs and cyclonic torpedoes.

And in return they die and give us their planet

cyclonic torpedoes.

I'm pretty sure you only ever need to give one of those.

We trade gunfire.

But yes, there's some commerce in our games. But there's so much more to do than just buy stuff for cheap and sell it for more, if I wanted that I'd just play EVE Online or Elite: Dangerous. It's fine when starting up, but it seems like small potatoes compared to what a Rogue Trader with a warrant from the God-Emperor should be doing.

Actually opening up a new trade route by navigating the Warp and charting the route, clearing any "layover" spots from pirates or hostile aliens and the like, setting up small outposts, and negotiating deals on both ends (which may or may not involve dinner parties/massacres), that's what we consider to be 'trade'.

Picking up barrels of pickled grox meat to sell for a few more coins a star system away is beneath the dignity of some of my players. That's what NPCs are for anyway.

As the players get new ships in their inventory, I ask them, what is this vessel's job ?

How will it serve the dynasty ? If trade is not maintained, PF will slowly fall.

as they said, RT finds the loot or markets, and NPCs run the groceries around.

Warships protect, transports trade. Here's House Windsor after 12 years game time:

hmmm. pickled grox.

I was actually reading through the suggested Endeavors that no one ever uses, and I was amused to see one of the Lesser examples was to do a standard trade run between two places...and the last objective was essentially doing something unrelated but flashy and ostentatious so as to not gain the reputation of a dull chartist.

What everyone else said. It's something that goes on in the background to help keep the profit margins even. Or the players set up the deals, and let the NPCs deal with with the majority of space trucking. It seems okay for the right sort of game, or maybe for an introductory adventure. But having the center of an adventure be spreadsheets in space doesn't fit my games. I already get enough of that in Eve Online.

We play a Kingmaker-esque Rogue Trader game, and do trade. We have three primary fleets: exploration (which includes the Rogue Trader flagship), defense (maintaining assets, includes the dynasty flagship) and trade. We discover trade routes and broker the deals, but the actual trading gets done by the trade fleet.

We also use the colony system with some homebrew to thoroughly chart the tides of the dynasty, and have learned to prepare years ahead as the Exploration fleet with us as its primary crew can be away from the core of the Dynasty realm for upwards of two years realspace time. A LOT of trading, building and politicking gets done, but most of the time mainly as an influence game by Astropathy

Not to say no one does, but it might be a bit more common if more Rogue Traders dealt with, or also carried money in denominations smaller than Profit Factor units. There are so many little things you can find in RT, as you loot through various places you ought not have gone, from weird armors, crafted from Nid hides (even if there aren't Nids there) to ancient, sanctified plasma pistols, but these will be worth some amount of thrones, and RTs are so much bigger than that. On their scale, the "trade" they take part in, you might as well go play Eve Online. No intent to insult your games, or even Eve, but most RTs seem to trade more in near-death experiences, and bolt shells. If the book had a "pocket change" rule in it, for liquid assets you were carrying around, to buy your booze at the party, or have your stuff polished, I'd have an easier time with it, but, while the system and fluff actually don't support it well, I like to think that the RT has something between a platinum/black card, and an Inquisitor's rosette, containing all the pertinent information on the bearer's "credentials" (are you REALLY a Rogue Trader?), and linking to their finances, so moneys can be paid, deals brokered, and on. I don't know how else Rogue Traders conduct negotiations with other parties, without always having a hold filled with trinkets to trade. No LS fiber-optic connections, and astropathic relay is still slow and costly, so I don't know. And your RT MIGHT actually carry thrones around, for when they just have to buy cheap stuff.

No intent to insult your games

Hey, hey, hey...my players don't trifle around with trade. They are like, "HEY, LETS CONQUER THE SPINWARD FRONT!!!!!!!!!!" and I'm like, "Okay! *quietly crumples up my entire campaign's premise and throws it away*

No intent to insult your games

Hey, hey, hey...my players don't trifle around with trade. They are like, "HEY, LETS CONQUER THE SPINWARD FRONT!!!!!!!!!!" and I'm like, "Okay! *quietly crumples up my entire campaign's premise and throws it away*

The joys of being a GM.

I've often seen it as the best, and worst, aspect of Rogue Trader, even compared to other RPGs; on the one hand, one of them ia the Rogue Trader, and that gives them, and their group, a real opportunity to chart their own destiny, but on the other, it tends to, at least in my eyes, take a bit away from the GM's ability to steer the game in a direction they've got material planned for. They get the feeling of freedom, but the GM doesn't have the "you are on a mission for the KING" card, or something like that, and if they don't want to do something, as a group, they can just walk off.

Try to imagine your group is playing Lure of the Expanse (note: I'll endeavor NOT to spoiler here). They are flying along, looking for the points of confluence that will lead them to the big prize, a world ripe for the taking, littered with loot, when they come across a point, and there, floating in the void, is the Light of Terra . This storied battleship is a wreck, only slightly less menacing than a warp-tainted hulk, but it's still a find, said to be filled with great history, and greater treasures from the Crusade. So, you start to explore, and find out that much of the frame is still there, if not in great shape, and you can survive aboard it. You're the only ones here, and you could hide your ship, ambushing any of your competitors who might stumble upon you. If your group isn't on "baby's first adventure", and you've done some RT stuff before, you might already know how hard starting a colony can be (what else do you do with a planet? Rhetorical.) You don't know what sorts of loot, beasts, and problems might be on the Dread Pearl, but you're here, now. Whether you decide to stay and reclaim the Light , hoping to salvage her, or just find the holds, and loot them forever, burning through walls and doors, if you must, your group might just as easily elect to say "screw fighting seven other Rogue Traders, for a world hard to hold, and a colony we don't want to operate. The loot and goods on the Light are Imperial-made, and could be easily sold, while also being LEGAL, assuming the Pearl is covered in xenotech prizes. In other works, the orders of your superior, be he a Watch Commander, Inquisitor, General-Militant, or whomever might force you to follow the path you have set out upon, but RT says "you forge your own path", so they could simply say "WE did find the prize", with the only thing stopping them being a hazy "compulsion/need to possess the Pearl", which the book really doesn't flesh out, and which fades later, if you don't get it.

It's great for adventuresome players, but I can see it making the GM's job very difficult, under certain circumstances. That's just me, of course.

Maybe you should determine at the end of a session what the next thing will be that your players want to do.

Like "Let's conquer the Spinward front!", and then you end the session while travelling through the warp. Maybe with a few extra details discussed (although not necessary) as part of some long term elaborate plan, like let's visit planet X first and then move from there, based on some local rumors or whatever and then finally conquer planet Y for reason Z.

At least that gives you time to prepare a bit in advance. Your players need to understand that you can't just determine everything on the fly. Some GMs are able to do that, but those won't be the majority.

An alternative would be to "keep them busy until next session".

Like "Let's conquer the Spinward front!" at the beginning of the session. Cool, enter the Warp, oh no, Gellar Fields failure, or something causes crewmembers to go insane, or a mutiny/riot because of reason X in the past... something that you can prepare in advance and throw at your players to stall them.

Oh, don't worry, the plan was decided at the end of the last session, and so I've had a nice week to whip up a titanic 12-endeavor meta-quest.

I'm just amused that my villain - this evil plotting radical ordos xenos inquisitor who operates through twelve levels of false leads and agents and operatives - had this complex plan involving sneaking an agent onto the PC's ship, sneaking a gene-targeted murder drone into the Navigator's chart room (loaded with a modified tyrannid bioweapon, none the less) so he can orchestrate the navigator's kidnapping whilest the PCs are out in the Expanse...

And then the PCs change the entire milieu and focus of the adventure.

I'm planning to have him compliment them on seeing through his plans and so completely ruining a lot of them.

I expect them to blink and go, "...huh?"

Yeah I agree. I love that playing RT, the PCs have a ton of agency, they can go about conquering sectors/go on a pilgrimage to Tera/establish a giant casino on an asteroid next to Footfall. Anything! They have the resources, skills, ambition, and fate points to do anything, and I love it.

At the same time this means that for when I'm GMing at least, we have a meta game understanding, any sort of endeavor the players come up with, they need to inform me about ahead of time. So I can put some thought into the hows and whos that would likely be involved. And if they don't have an adventurer planned, I'll just send them some plot hook via their intelligence network. It's the gentlemen's agreement that their PCs can do anything they can think of, but as a GM while I'm totally willing to facilitate that, if it's something big I need a little time to prepare. I imagine that's how most RT GMs go about things.

A few times as a player, I've been in sessions where we did trade. Including bringing a massive hold full of ores from Sephirus Secundus to forges. Another time, literal tonnes of opiates to Footfall.

My take on rogue traders is that they're best suited to forging a path for chartist captains to follow. Anyone with a ship can move cargo from safe and known point A to safe and known point B. But only rogue traders can head out to unknown point Z to check it out.

I've never drawn up more than an initial adventure to get the ball rolling, and so far that's been a reason for them to be in Koronus Expanse in the first place. I knew ahead of time that one of my parties was going to be difficult so the game started with the chase scene. "You're in command of a 2-mile long vessel. You're currently running from 4 1-mile long vessels....and don't come back until you can whup our @sses!"

I find out what they want to do and draw that up. That means I don't have to throw away a scenario because the party doesn't bite at the bait. I just give them rumors and watch to see which they investigate. That's all I need to draw up, and not too much in advance either, since I've watched parties give up on some endeavors.

But trade? Yes, all the time.

"What? The natives won't slave away in the mines for us? Send in the landing parties!"

"You can't. You left them occupying the last planet you treated this way."

"****! I guess we'll have to negotiate for their unobtainium."

"The natives want real food, maternity leave, health care, and paid vacations."

"That's all? That doesn't cost me anything. We agree."

"You'll be collecting 1 PF from this planet when you station a ship on this trade route."

"You said it would be 2 PF."

"That was before the real food, maternity leave, health care, and paid vacations."

Trade.

And trade routes.

"The planet isn't worth anything to your PF until you station a ship on the trade route. We can run that as a side endeavor performed by NPCs if you don't want to make that planet part of your primary ship's circuit."