Character creation - what if everyone wants ot be a Rogue Trader?

By ajurna, in Rogue Trader

I'm flipping all around in the book and I can't seem to find any discussion on party composition.

It seems as if there is an implied assumption that one player is the Rogue Trader and the rest of the players are the other major "officers" of the ship, somewhat how Ars Magica has one Wizard and the rest are the attendants of the Wizard.

Now part of my confusion I suppose is that the system is still fairly well chained to the old school method of "roll up your character and see what you are going to play." So the system to some degree is pushing people to not even know what they are going to play when they first sit down to make a character.

Thankfully with RT they included the point buy for you stats, which was grievously absent from DH. The character path is also a better system as it is removing a lot of the random tables that determine who you are going to be. I understand some people really enjoy this old school style of character generation, but after 30 years of gaming when I make a character I want it to be exactly what I want it to be. It was dissapointing to see that there are still a frew random tables embedded in the character creation process. Ideally the system should allow players to create characters on their own time, particularly with a system that involves a great deal of hard coded fluff generation along the way.

Anyway, so far in terms of character roles the system seems to be pretty vague. What if several players want to be a Rogue Trader? I know a good GM can put together enough fluff justification for several to be exploring together, either as members of the same family, or allied families, etc. The text is so chocked full of fluff support, but it doesn't seem to address this assumed character hierarchy.


ajurna said:

I know a good GM can . . .

That should be your answer. Just add adapt to the end of that sentence and you are good to go.

An easy out is to simply have all RT characters be as a group inheritors of the warrant. Personally I'd strongly suggest that the party diversify as they are going to be at a disadavatage vs a more diverse party.

Take a look at page 290 in the Rulebook. :)

FFG Ross Watson said:

Take a look at page 290 in the Rulebook. :)

Nice Ross, you divining psyker you.

FFG Ross Watson said:

Take a look at page 290 in the Rulebook. :)

Ha! Thanks!

For us, who haven´t RT Rulebook yet, what´s on page 290?

It says that if multiple PC's want to be rogue trader then the GM can:

Make the players all in the same family, cousins, siblings, uncles, etc. Maybe make an NPC head rogue trader with the warrant, and the others are assistants and heirs to the warrant.

OR

have multiple small ships and each has a ship, split the profit factor between all the ships

OR

Each are a rogue trader on hard times and they pool their resources to purchase one ship and each is a shareholder.

Mainly just suggests to ease the process of multiple captains.

The Rogue Trader career also doesn't necessarily have to represent an actual Rogue Trader. While the fluff at the top of the Voidmaster writeup suggests that the Career can represent smugglers, Chartist traders, or Imperial Navy officers, the actual Skill and Talent list fits Imperial Navy officers to a 't', and smugglers hardly at all. A Voidmaster could be just about any pilot or bridge officer from Battlestar Galactica (if they had Carouse...), but not a Han Solo. For that kind of character, I'd use a Rogue Trader.

I have to agree with Katsue on his most recent post re: Rogue Traders vs. Voidmasters.

I dunno. Han Solo was a pretty hotshot pilot, you know, and most of his stuff on foot is basically just straight BS tests. You could probably play him as a Void-Master easily enough. He's probably got Mastery of Space.

nick012000 said:

I dunno. Han Solo was a pretty hotshot pilot, you know, and most of his stuff on foot is basically just straight BS tests. You could probably play him as a Void-Master easily enough. He's probably got Mastery of Space.

Voidmasters don't get Commerce, Barter or Evaluate, and have a bad Fellowship progression, which makes it kinda hard for them to represent a smuggler or other trader in any way. You really don't want to be buying up more than one Skill with Elite Advances.

When did Han Solo ever buy or sell anything? Mostly he was just having assorted hijinks and adventures, in between running drugs for crime lords. Then he became a Rebel, and went for the adventures full-time.

But he was still an Adorable rogue and a charming scoundrel, captain of his own ship and a wheeler and general dealer before he hooked up with that heretic scum and rogue psycher.

Hahahahaha... Han Solo is totally a Rogue Trader. Chewie is the void-master, btw, you'll note that he left Chewie to pilot the ship when he and Luke went to man the guns.

So Chewie is obviously the better pilot.

And they SO could have used a Navigator. Their warp-jump history just plain SUCKS.

-S!

From what i can tell both from reading the core book and ingame experience having multiple rogue traders in the fleet has it's pros and cons.

the cons being that the group won't benefit as much from the supplemental class types.

the pros being that each Rogue trader can afford to have specialized ships, example one rogue trader can have a combat focused ship instead of a generic that may cover more fields but no real edge in any one area. as well as the fact that if one RT goes bust it won't financially kill the fleet. (unless you kill a wayfarer station) happy.gif

Jarrion_Zukov said:

From what i can tell both from reading the core book and ingame experience having multiple rogue traders in the fleet has it's pros and cons.

the cons being that the group won't benefit as much from the supplemental class types.

the pros being that each Rogue trader can afford to have specialized ships, example one rogue trader can have a combat focused ship instead of a generic that may cover more fields but no real edge in any one area. as well as the fact that if one RT goes bust it won't financially kill the fleet. (unless you kill a wayfarer station) happy.gif

Assuming, of course, you go the route of each RT having their own ship.

That would be the idea, other wise it would be a waste of the starting ship option. It would be interesting to see a rogue trader with a profit rating of 100 at the start. This counting that he has no profit tide up in ship maintainence or othe forms of upkeep cost. in short a man that can equip the party with the best items in good number. funny but wrong happy.gif

Jarrion_Zukov said:

That would be the idea, other wise it would be a waste of the starting ship option. It would be interesting to see a rogue trader with a profit rating of 100 at the start. This counting that he has no profit tide up in ship maintainence or othe forms of upkeep cost. in short a man that can equip the party with the best items in good number. funny but wrong happy.gif

Wait a minute, let me see if I get this straight:

So if you have a group with several Rogue Traders and each is supposed to have his own vessel, wouldn't that sort of leave the group with nearly nothing in starting PF and probably a bunch of pretty useless ships? I mean, each ship will still cost ship points, which are deducted from the total starting PF. Affording one ship can sometimes be hard enough, but two or even three at the start? Somehow I get the feeling that the group's starting PF would be below zero in the beginning if you went that route.

Or would your idea be to give each Rogue Trader his or her own starting PF? (i.e basically spoiling the PC's like hell, because the starting PF isn't the Rogue Trader's personal fortune, the starting PF is something generated by the entire group not just the Rogue Trader or Rogue Traders)

the idea of the multi RT setup is each one having thier own independant vessel but still part of the same RT house. The player with either the largest ship or most profit factor occupies the relitive position of Grand Admiral or group leader. This can change as the head of the family grades the party and it's leader after each endevor.

Jarrion_Zukov said:

the idea of the multi RT setup is each one having thier own independant vessel but still part of the same RT house. The player with either the largest ship or most profit factor occupies the relitive position of Grand Admiral or group leader. This can change as the head of the family grades the party and it's leader after each endevor.

Or all the RTs being on the same ship and sharing the warrant amongst them (each owning a share).


UncleArkie said:

But he was still an Adorable rogue and a charming scoundrel, captain of his own ship and a wheeler and general dealer before he hooked up with that heretic scum and rogue psycher.

I doubt the Falcon is bigger than a gun cutter. Solo could be a void master, just one who wound up with better shooting stats rather than piloting stats.

Another thing the Op could do is explain that everyone is technically a space pirate or privateer. Make them roll for the Rogue Trader spot, and tell them a diverse crew with a wide range of talents will fare a lot better.

I ran a game of Rogue trader for the very first time just yesterday, so this might be a little ambituous, but I would allow each player who wants to be a rogue trader start with their own personal profit factor and ship seperate from each other. I would tell them all "You each have 100 points to build your own ship, whatever you don't use on your ship, you keep as your starting profit factor." I would give each player ample time to build their own vessel and I would introduce the scene:

In the 41st millenium there is only war... your respective houses included. Each of you have been granted the fullest representation of your house and have the right, power, and ability to obtain it... unless someone else obtains it first! Welcome to RTPVP!

I would then build at least one scenario outline for each player (allowing all players to hear and choose all scenarios) allowing them all to pick which to go after, and if multiple people go after the same one, they can fight each other, team up, or whatever they want to do. Hooooray roleplaying!

Or you could do what my husband did when he started running our Star Wars campaign. "I'm only allowing one of you to be the Jedi. Everyone else has to pick something else."

It worked. I've had a blast playing a former holovid star who has now taken, not only her initial noble levels, but levels in soldier and medic as well. My character likes to tease the deadpan Jedi who doesn't get most of her jokes.

If you're the GM, you can tell the players NO. Just sayin'.

the most my group has done is that each individual has his own ship and profit factor even if they are part of the same house, and we had 3 of them.

not you can also go the route of multiple rouge traders and 1 ship, and use only one rogue traders profit factor. a little confussing but should work. never really did much on that end, we just have our own profit factor and ships and every thing has worked so far