So after feverishly setting up a new RT campaign and running through the introductory adventures I've come to a bit of a crossroads, need a little help.

I'm curious what other GM's have come up with to advance the storylines?

I'm finding it difficult to imagine what would motivate a character to go out and seek more riches and wealth when they already have so much within the 40k universe.

Just off the top of my head:

Blackmailed by the Inquisition to go do some errands for them.

Looking for something that will let them compete with even more powerful rivals.

Simple curiosity.

On the run from enemies in the Imperium.

Pursuing an enemy who's fled the Imperium.

Greed, there's no such thing as too much.

Ambition, empire building is a good way to live forever in legend.

Lost in uncharted space after a brush with a fluke warpstorm.

And if all else fails, use all those plot hooks the PCs ought to have waiting for you. That Origin Path stuff is good for backstory and complications, y'know.

Is anyone of your players the Rouge Trader? If you're not using any special rules for the Origin Path, all Rouge Traders must have the Motivation Prestige, and that creates alot of ground work for you to build upon. Those seeking prestige will do almost anything to improve their standing in the Imperium of Mankind, all you need to do is let them hear rumors of unexplored or forgotten worlds, places of untold riches or powerful and important groups needing help with any sort of endeavour. The Rouge Trader (if played correctly) would very often sieze such an oppertunity if he or she thought there was a possibility to take one step closer to the top of the ladder. And it's not like the Rouge Trader's ship is a democracy.

And if you don't have anyone playing the Rouge Trader, then it'll be as easy as under an Inquisitor in Dark Heresy: they'll be told where to go, what to do, and when to die.

Like xenobiotica mentioned, looking at a players motivation could be good inspiration to get some ideas. The game is sadly- player driven. It's a sandbox game. They do what they want, and you make it happen. Sometimes you do need to prod them in the right direction though.

Here are some random plot elements I've collected:

-The PC's make a simple trade run to a Frontier World that has ordered an absurdly large shipment of Lasguns. Upon arriving on the planet, they discover that the Lasguns are being bought to repel maurauding parties of Orks, the same species that destroyed and massacred the inhabitants of (Any PC)'s home planet.

-The PC's recieve a notice telling them that their Rogue Trader's brother has died. Looking into the circumstances surrounding his death, they learn that he was driven into bankruptcy by an extremely powerful Rogue Trader whom he slighted. Too powerful to take on directly, the PC's must now covertly sabatoge his power base in order to enact their revenge.

-An Eldar Farseer has a vision of one of the PC's causing massive destruction in some future event, and sets out with the intent to assassinate the explorer. The PC's could have to deal with his interference in their missions, hunt him down and kill him, find out why he wants to kill one of them and fix the problem, or some other course of action.

-An assassin sabotages the group's ship's warp drive in the middle of the empty void. Stranded, they must defend the warp drive against further attack while attempting to ferret out the saboteur.

-For whatever reason, the PC's lost contact with their ship while dirtside. They must find their own way off world or re-establish contact.

-Rogue Traders can go where others can. Most ships operate under limited charters. (Thus these lesser traders are often called chartists.) They might only be able to run a limited trade route. Or trade only in a given sector. The Rogue Trader operates any where.

-Rogue Traders have heavily armed warships. Sure they are aren't as impressive as a battleship or most cruisers they are far to tough a nut for most pirate, or raider. Also a RT can act as a private military. Need a pirate base rooted out that the Navy doesn't have time to find. Hire a RT. Need that rebel station brought back into line... Need a troublesome merchant vessel that has flouted local laws once bought to justice. The Navy doesn't care about your local laws. A RT might be willing to commit a little rightous piracy for the right price. Depending on the ships, and what is in them. A RT might effectively have a troop transport with army, a carrier with fighters and bombers, orbital bombardment platform, a merchant raider, a Q-ship, or any/all of the above.

-Rogue Traders can trade with non-Imperial humans, and Xenos. A Chartist does this and it's Heresy. A RT only needs to be careful what he is bringing back. Sure in theory he should be scoping out the Xenos for extermination, and the humans for conversion, but that is harder to quantify.

-Rogue Traders are better trained and gear to loot artifacts from fallen human, and Xenos worlds. In fact short of a tech priest ship they are the only ones to be able to do so. Yes they really should be turning over questionable stuff to the tech priests, and the inquisition, but again who is to stop them.

-Rogue Traders are at times hired to assist the Imperial Navy with their experince as much as the ships. The same with Tech Priest's looking for lost technology. Lastly it's not unknown for a Rogue Trader to join or lead a crusade.

froo said:

You might as well ask:

"Why do certain corporations in the world who already have filthy rich executives still stay in business and try their best to acquire even more wealth and power, when they could simply retire?"

The "Lure of the Void" and "motivation" aspects in the Origin Path should give all the player characters ample reasons for why they should pursue more riches and profit. If the players just go:

-"Screw it. We're so rich already, let's just settle down somewhere in a private castle and live out the rest of our days as the filthy rich magnates that we are."

Then they wouldn't be roleplaying their characters properly.

I suggest you take a look at what the different Motivations and Lure of the Void that the PC's chose during character creation, and try to implement something that has to do with those into your scenarios.

Mine's very much work-in-progress at the moment but will look something like this -

3 years ago Inquisitor Vownus Kaede and warparty (the pc's) headed into the Kronus Expanse on-board their two ships ( Kingslayer and Nemesis) in hot pursuit of a dangerous daemonic presence after what will in later years be known as The Duskan Disaster. They were never seen again...

For 3 years a Rogue Trader named <Name not decided> has been hunting for his old friend Kaede, bound by a pact of friendship and mutual respect. Today <Name not decided> has finally found the Kingslayer , engines disabled and atmos breached. Life-support stasis pods were also discovered, and inside these 6 of Kaede's most trusted retainers (the PC's) had been shoved - presumably to keep them alive. In gratitude for being awakened from their slumber, they agree to swear allegiance to <Name not decided>

Now the Rogue Trader has Kaede's inner cadre and one of his ships, the hunt for the Nemesis can continue..

Revenge is a great motivator, and mystery makes for a great story. If profit is made along the way, it will simply be a bonus.

Well generally what I do is make the players do the heavy lifting for me.

Make them write up character back grounds.

1)Each Player must explain his connection to the RT or another character with a connections.

2)Characters must have a reason to want to explore the galaxy.

3)If you fail to write a background the GM may write it for you. It may not be pleasant. IE you may have a daemon whispering in your ear, or be a mind wiped pawn of the =][=.

4)If you fail to write up a background you work for the RT. If you write up a background you are a voting member of the ship's council. IE You are an investor or investor's representative in the ship, or some part of the crew are beholden to you.

5)Characters may give themselves one free talent and one free skill that is in any one Rank 1 starting class.

6)Additional xp, skills, talents, and gear is awarded for good plot hooks, enemies, and generally outstanding background.

If your player aren't setting up thing ahead of you can buy time with the demo adventures, adventure in the main RT, the adventure in the DH creatures book, 1st tattered fate book, or just shoot the players shuttle down and have them hoof it to a space port to steal a shuttle. Now your player should have weeks to complete their backgrounds.

Some ideas I had for plots have already been shared on this thread. But here's some more general-type advice I've been giving:

In Dark Heresy, many of my plots were largely event-driven. Players were responding to situations and circumstances outside their control, which made sense, because they were relatively un-influential individuals with little resources or power. However, in Rogue Trader, this is not the case. The explorers are free people with enormous influence and tend to control events, rather than be controlled by them.

For this reason, I would focus, when making your plots, on other things, particularly character-driven adventure. Rely on personality and emotion to provide a driving force behind the problems. Make your PC's flesh out their backgrounds with plot hooks you can use to pull them into situations they would otherwise ignore and move on. Recurring villains have spectacular potential in this context, so they make excellent plot bases as well.

Tidomann said:

I REALLY wouldn't call it sad that the game is player driven. More like one of the greatest developments amidst a sea of railroaded follow-the-numbers RPGs out now.

Some stuff I do to keep my players driving the game forwards. Every session I hand out a 'secret' sheet to each player. On the sheet there are 3 sections. Rumours, Lore and Abilities.

Rumours are things they've come to find out. Usually shipboard stuff. I've constantly got intrigue going on aboard the ship and they should never be sure if they can trust everyone aboard 100%. In fact, I started my entire game off with a mutiny. Rumours could also lead to endeavors as well, if for example they discovered a rumour that a new trade route was opening up in a certain sector or that a secret cargo was being smuggled somewhere and so forth.

Lore is stuff about the 40k world that might nudge them in different directions:

E.G. I gave the following snippet to my Rogue Trader player:

- Your family has a legend that is spoken of only on rare occasions. Apparently several millenia ago, a rogue trader in your family's line, bearing the same writ of trade that you bear now, went missing near a world called 'Ritammeron'. The legend says that he was carrying an object of sacred value from beyond the known expanse. Whatever the cargo was, he had been charged by a chapter of the Adeptus Astartes known as 'The Mentor Legion' with its safe return to Scintilla.

Your ancestor's ship, a large transport, named 'Reason of Terra', modified to serve as a blockade runner was at one point the pride of your family's fleet. Extremely reliable and rumored to have been blessed by one of the Emperor's saints it was a great loss to your dynasty, both financially and as a point of pride.

Additionally, this failure apparently caused great enmity between your house and a certain company master of the chapter, destroying a possibly profitable and beneficial connection.

To my Navigator player I gave the following

- For a while now you have been studying the legends of a little known world out in the uncharted black of the Koronus Expanse. You have gained knowledge of a small feudal world by the name of 'Ritammeron' near a celestial phenomenon known as 'The God Emperor's Scourge'. Apparently every 300 years a vast entity appears in the local space of Ritammeron, causing a period of religious fervor upon the world. Rites lasting an entire year are performed to ensure good fortune for the next 300 years.

From your studies, you have come to believe quite strongly that the entity is in fact the rare occurence of a space hulk, and a very large one at that, locked in a time loop through the Empyrian.

This phenomenon is expected to appear again in the next 7 months.

Now if the two players at some point sit down and confer.. they'll discover that they each have a piece to a puzzle. This would hopefully send them off towards Ritammeron to salvage the Rogue Trader's ancestor's vessel from a lost space hulk.

If they ignore it... well, other characters have different leads. For example my Seneschal player has a rumour that if pursued would send them in an entirely different direction. It's entirely up to the players where they go, I just make sure they have plenty of directions to choose from.

If in some hypothetical situation my players decided to just sit there like a bunch of morons with their thumbs up their rectums and look at me asking where to go next I will calmly close the book and tell them to go and play tiddlywinks. I rely on my players to bring active minds to my game. If they want a game that railroads them from encounter to encounter they're playing the wrong RPG.

Lastly, abilities are random things I toss around which they could find useful in that session or 5 sessions from now, or possibly never. For example one of my characters might have the ability to really get under the skin of a specific crew member, any time they wanted. Kinda knowing exactly where all their buttons are.

Another character might have figured out the ins and outs of a Mechadron Pattern Class D light gunboat, to the point where she can find her way to any point on the ship blindfolded and even knows of a few secret routes. If they ever find themselves incarcerated on a Mechadron Pattern Class D light gunboat, she'll be really useful to have around.

Point is, this game requires the players to drive it as much as the GM. If they're not doing anything to drive the game forwards, assuming you're giving them the tools, then perhaps the game isn't for them.

Dont sell what they are doing as just accumulating wealth and trading, they are Adventuring, going where no man has gone before. really pump up the explorers into the void thing and get your group going out because they want to see the wild sights at the end of the rainbow. Its not an investagatory game its a swashbuckling one. think Sinbad, or Errol Flynn.

And like others have stated, getting fully formed backstories is key, in my game, one of the characters is a mole for the inquisition, another has serious mental trauma from seeing into the hive mind once. Rogue trader is really a game that needs enthusiastic players and gamemasters who love getting into the setting and exploring the fun side of the grim-dark of the 41st mellenium

@ Plastic Rat - thanks for the excellent suggestion regarding Lore, Rumors and Abilities. I like a lot of intrigue in my game, and giving each player a different set of info is an excellent technique.

Godwinne