Hi all,

I and some of my friends have been playing various rpg's for many years (In my case I started around 1993), Some of us have managed to play more or less regular while others are more busy. The issue lately is that while we had 4 somewhat regular GM's for various systems, only one is now regularily available so I've been considering starting as GM in a setting.

We've played about 10 sessions (i guess) with RT.The RT GM is quite busy and it took a year in real time from the sesstion we found the Light of Terra to we captured it in the next sesstion. It's now 8 months since that time and I don't expect we'll be playing for a while...

I think most of us found RT quite enjoable but the system appears really broken and unbalanced in general. I quite enjoy looking at the mechanics of games, so that might be fixed with a rather generous amount of house rules. I have to say that in our first encounter with RT and another pirate ship, the first thing our captain said was "lets board and capture it", only to find out how poorly these rules are. I've noticed how Errant Knight has a rather extensive set of house rules that I've just glanced over.

My bigger worry as a (potential) new GM is the freedom one has in RT to go anywhere and do anything. While the same thing really appeals to me as player, it's also a concern I have if i GM. In more regular fantasy, one can pop the group into a dungeon and they'll more or less stay there How do you solve these issues?

Also, I'm wondering how many official/premade adventures exist for this setting? Are there only a few?

Any suggestions or tips are great!

Even as an experienced GM I understand how you feel and how difficult it can be to have a cohesive story in RT.

You have to understand that this is part of the thrill of this setting. Being able to go anywhere when ever they want.

You need to be flexible as a GM. Always take lots of notes so you can keep things straight. This also helps if you end up in the same situation of long breaks between sessions.

Having the book where it walks you thru how to build entire systems for your party to explore is helpful.

I would randomly generate at least 3 and then just see how their warp travel rolls go.

There are some flaws with the system but it is not too broken in my experience (and remains one of my absolute favourite RPGs), with ship combat you need to as GM keep check on attacks other than the standard firing the weaponry, there are rules for other actions (such as boarding, ramming and hit-and-run) but they are often quite simplified and can be abused if the GM allows, I feel they are more meant as a guideline for when the players try less standard tactics. All careers have their own place in RT and each is very useful for a ship, make sure you minimize players taking the same role however (and count "Xeno" as a role for this) since it will be noticable in their effeciency if they lack roles.

For the freedom, this is what being a Rouge Trader is all about, there are few individuals in 40k that are free but Rouge Traders are. Let them live free, let them do what they wish but give them treasures to hunt and profit opportunities to exploit. Lure them into adventures instead of forcing them into them, and if they don't take the bait then so be it, let them choose their own endeavour. Be ready to think on your feet as a GM (always a good advice regardless) and don't worry to much if the players solve things in ways you didn't consider, sure it might be a bit sad to see your well thought out adventure destroyed by an orbital bombardment you didn't consider but trust me, that will make a fun story to tell later on.

While they're free to do what they want, you could always say "There is a warp storm in the way", or "Your search for pirates turn up nothing", or "The Eldar are blocking your way with a Craftworld that has locked weapons on you and will destroy you if you take ONE MORE VOID UNIT FORWARD I SWEAR TO THE THRONE GET BACK ON THE RAILROAD".

I actually recommend just settling down and talking with your players as to what kind of space adventures they want to run. Remember to discuss with them that even though one player is a Rogue Trader and in-game is in charge, s/he still has to consider the crews' needs, and as a group people should come to a consensus on what to do.

And remind them that sessions will go better if you know beforehand what sort of crazy shenanigans they want to get up to.

Even as an experienced GM I understand how you feel and how difficult it can be to have a cohesive story in RT.

You have to understand that this is part of the thrill of this setting. Being able to go anywhere when ever they want.

...

I absolutely understand and agree with this. The freedom is a big part why I personally enjoyed playing RT. I guess it's more that this freedom comes on top of my general worry of being a good GM. Starting with a regular fantasy adventure as first time as GM sounds just easier (stick the players into a railroaded dungeon crawl...). However we're currently playing Pathfinder somewhat regularly, and also 5e dnd and a very good homebrew fantasy game more occationally (like 2 times a year, but the whole weekend!). Thus I'd really like to do something different and RT was one of the most fun settings I've played in.

There are some flaws with the system but it is not too broken in my experience (and remains one of my absolute favourite RPGs), with ship combat you need to as GM keep check on attacks other than the standard firing the weaponry, there are rules for other actions (such as boarding, ramming and hit-and-run) but they are often quite simplified and can be abused if the GM allows, I feel they are more meant as a guideline for when the players try less standard tactics. All careers have their own place in RT and each is very useful for a ship, make sure you minimize players taking the same role however (and count "Xeno" as a role for this) since it will be noticable in their effeciency if they lack roles.

For the freedom, this is what being a Rouge Trader is all about, there are few individuals in 40k that are free but Rouge Traders are. Let them live free, let them do what they wish but give them treasures to hunt and profit opportunities to exploit. Lure them into adventures instead of forcing them into them, and if they don't take the bait then so be it, let them choose their own endeavour. Be ready to think on your feet as a GM (always a good advice regardless) and don't worry to much if the players solve things in ways you didn't consider, sure it might be a bit sad to see your well thought out adventure destroyed by an orbital bombardment you didn't consider but trust me, that will make a fun story to tell later on.

Maybe not broken but even as low level it seemed to me that certain parts gets out of hand quickly. I could be a tad negative here and reading too much into it, but i felt our group (see below) could totally annihilate any opposition we met within our "field of expertise". In my case piloting starships. Looking how the boarding rules are, I'd say our captain with some 100ish command (iirc) could try boarding a much bigger target and with good chance just take over the ship if the opposing captain has your average 30-40 skill.

Your advice on the freedom part I appreciate and agree with! I suppose a well though out adventure that got bombed can always be reused later with some changes later.

While they're free to do what they want, you could always say "There is a warp storm in the way", or "Your search for pirates turn up nothing", or "The Eldar are blocking your way with a Craftworld that has locked weapons on you and will destroy you if you take ONE MORE VOID UNIT FORWARD I SWEAR TO THE THRONE GET BACK ON THE RAILROAD".

I actually recommend just settling down and talking with your players as to what kind of space adventures they want to run. Remember to discuss with them that even though one player is a Rogue Trader and in-game is in charge, s/he still has to consider the crews' needs, and as a group people should come to a consensus on what to do.

And remind them that sessions will go better if you know beforehand what sort of crazy shenanigans they want to get up to.

You have some fair points how to push them back on track. The railroading shouldn't be too forced though. I've played adventures where I felt my character was just being pushed along the rails and what he did wasn't even relevant.

I'll strongly suggest to pick different roles. In the group we had there was a Rogue Trader, Void Master, Tech Priest and Arch Militant. I have to say the AM felt most useless.. He kicked ass in personal combat but outside that couldn't really contribute much.

Our GM flat out asked where we'd go the next time, it worked pretty well. However that was playing Lure of the Expanse (i guess it's the Lurel and all, I've avoided reading any of the adventures since we're technically still doing them Although I suspect our progress might take a lot of time with the current GM. The times he wasn't prepared the sessions were gruelling boring as he had to read up while playing I'd REALLY like to avoid boring my friends if i GM.

Yeah, I like the feel of RT for saying "your players will want to do this." I've played lots of games, through the years, and run most of them, but the same old tropes pop up: be the heroes, serve the king, save the nation, fight the Sith, stuff like that, and all of it, at least loosely, under the umbrella of the GMs story plan. You aren't the biggest fish, but those fish can't be bothered to stop their own problems, so you have to go do it, anyway. RT purportedly lets the players go where they want, decide what missions they want to take, and be who they want to be, so long as they can bear the consequences. In the realm of 40k, there are few individuals with as much personal power as a Rogue Trader, and thy know all such other individuals. You have access to the best gear, various relics, some of the best people, your own ship(s), to ply the space ways, and form your own little empire (in the name of the Imperium, of course). Few people in 40k are actually "good", but you can be bad, or they can be BAD!, and the system supports it, even partly expects it. If they don't want to go ______________, they decide not to. It might make GMing it slightly more difficult, but it has to give somewhere, right? And I'm not saying it doesn't have its own tropes, certainly. Lots of the published NPCs are written up at the lowest end of their possible scale, in case this is your first encounter, on the second day of your reign as Rogue Trader, so many of them can benefit from some judicious embellishments to their stats, so they feel like they've already been at this for 100 years, or something. Some of the ships, too. They do have their own little railways (published adventures), and they smack of less free choice, but I like the stuff in Lure-->Edge-->Warpstorm Trilogy, so it wouldn't bother me, personally, and the universe lends itself well to writing your own stuff, if you are capable of such things. Also, "treasure hunting", and finding yet another ruin of the Eldar, smattered with the same old stuff, and now we're not surprised by any of it, can be a problem, but still, I really like the feel of it all. If I could just trick my friends in gaming to want to play it, but oh well.

There are some flaws with the system but it is not too broken in my experience (and remains one of my absolute favourite RPGs), with ship combat you need to as GM keep check on attacks other than the standard firing the weaponry, there are rules for other actions (such as boarding, ramming and hit-and-run) but they are often quite simplified and can be abused if the GM allows, I feel they are more meant as a guideline for when the players try less standard tactics. All careers have their own place in RT and each is very useful for a ship, make sure you minimize players taking the same role however (and count "Xeno" as a role for this) since it will be noticable in their effeciency if they lack roles.

For the freedom, this is what being a Rouge Trader is all about, there are few individuals in 40k that are free but Rouge Traders are. Let them live free, let them do what they wish but give them treasures to hunt and profit opportunities to exploit. Lure them into adventures instead of forcing them into them, and if they don't take the bait then so be it, let them choose their own endeavour. Be ready to think on your feet as a GM (always a good advice regardless) and don't worry to much if the players solve things in ways you didn't consider, sure it might be a bit sad to see your well thought out adventure destroyed by an orbital bombardment you didn't consider but trust me, that will make a fun story to tell later on.

Maybe not broken but even as low level it seemed to me that certain parts gets out of hand quickly. I could be a tad negative here and reading too much into it, but i felt our group (see below) could totally annihilate any opposition we met within our "field of expertise". In my case piloting starships. Looking how the boarding rules are, I'd say our captain with some 100ish command (iirc) could try boarding a much bigger target and with good chance just take over the ship if the opposing captain has your average 30-40 skill.

Your advice on the freedom part I appreciate and agree with! I suppose a well though out adventure that got bombed can always be reused later with some changes later.

Yes, characters in RT tend to be very good at their specialisations, and they are meant to be. They are supposed to be high-ranking and good in their respective fields. The boarding action rules are not the best thought out and I suggest playing them in another way and as previously stated many of the non-standard attacks in ship combat should be monitored by the GM and seen more as suggestions on how to handle it than defenitive ways to do it, ramming and boarding may need to be modified if the players abuse them.

The characters should of course have fields of expertise they're good at indeed, so is it with all games in general. I just felt that we completely outshine even the opponents (other famous RTs we encountered) by a mile (or light-year) while being rank 1-2 ourselves I suppose that might have to do with what Venkelos said about that the NPCs are written up at the lower end of the scale.

Our GM is very good at narrative and creating an interesting story but not very strong with game mechanics, so I believe he didn't change much of the NPC stats and such to account for party strength/weaknesses (or system strength/weaknesses). I'm guessing I might've just gotten the slightly wrong impression due to that.

I suppose I'm mostly worried if I'll be a good GM at all creating interesting stories, good adventures and somewhat fair encounters. The open universe of RT is just an extra challenge on top. I guess I'll try reading up on the various GM related stuff, which I've avoided since I hoped our other GM would have time to play again.

Good campaigns take time to put together. A good storyline is only the beginning. You need to read and reread the rules until you feel comfortable with the rules likely to be the most in play in your game. If you want a horror-dominated plot then you need to understand the insanity and corruption systems. And you always need to be well versed in your character systems. Astropaths will be game-breakingly dominant by rank 3-4 if you don't understand the psychic system. And then there's preparation. You can't be over-prepared, even if your players take off on tangents. Published supplements aren't strong on maps, and as you've already pointed out, their NPCs are sub-par. Playing through a few starship combats on your own will introduce you to the few concepts you need to understand the balance needed in that aspect of the game. Also, you need to consider progression, both in your player-characters' ranks and in the party's PF. If either of those get out of hand early on, it changes the whole tenor of the game, and not toward the better.

And then there's play style, and that's where you need to sit down before drawing up characters and discuss with your group what game they'd like to play. Otherwise you'll end up with players that never want to get off the ship and players who think everything can be solved with a small landing party, both in the same group. And then those players will be upset with each other when their opposite doesn't want to play the game they way they want to play the game.

You can't go wrong by reading these forums. It's a bit overwhelming, all the material here, but skip through the threads about new starship and equipment. You don't need that until you've mastered what's already in the books. Don't even bother with the campaign monologues. They're great for ideas but you probably aren't, or shouldn't be at that level yet. At first, focus on the discussion just like this one, where a new GM is asking for advice. People here are pretty free with that.

....

I suppose I'm mostly worried if I'll be a good GM at all creating interesting stories, good adventures and somewhat fair encounters. The open universe of RT is just an extra challenge on top. ....

In my experience, most of my stories comes from the players. I don't know how many times I've made a random single named NPC for something minute, but my players took a shining to him/her and the situation and kept coming back/dragging the NPC around. Had to actually make character sheets for a few of them too to add to the group.

Having the open setting means you can't go wrong with anything. You want all dead planets with slumbering vile enemies, go for it. A highly populated world about to be wiped out, awesome! That beautiful magnificent system teaming with resources, but with a hidden virus that corrupts machines, watch out. All you have to do is create bait and see what the players run with. You can flesh them out from there.

Good campaigns take time to put together. A good storyline is only the beginning. You need to read and reread the rules until you feel comfortable with the rules likely to be the most in play in your game....

This. Know the rules before hand, but also know that no rule lawyer is going to knock down your door if you change them to better suit your campaign needs (prime example, Errant's house rules mix). Obviously, before you change them you need to know them to determine what will and what will not work. If everyone is having fun and coming back for seconds, thirds and so forth, then you are doing it right.

What I have also done is let my players create a few interesting star systems with plot hooks and twists. I then took out stuff, added other things from other players ideas and had a ready to go system with Endeavors someone was interested in. That player will then have bragging rights saying "I made that!" Of course, once you spring your evil twist on them you can sit there and smile and say "Someone else made this part up, so I'm just the story teller," and watch them point fingers trying to get to the bottom of it. Nothing like a good round of paranoia once in awhile to spice things up.

Thank you for all the advice and thoughs so far. I decided to just jump into it and email the 4 players what class they'd want to play. For the record this is old time friends that some are living a bit far away and we only meet like 2x a year to play (but usually go 3 days straight). This does leave me some time to consider, and make house rules on all the unbalanced stuff and create a sandbox

Most likely the group will end up with a Navigator, an explorator and a rogue trader. One will probably pick void master but they've not decided for sure yet, Seems to me like a pretty solid composition of roles with 4 players. It also saves me a bit on toning down the Astropath which Errant mentioned earlier was quite OP. I've played imperial psycher in DH1 a while and can completely outshine everyone else in combat... it's a bit over the top I think.

I've read through "The Whisperer" adventure which we played with our other GM. I found it surprisingly short actually and feel I'd like more stuff written down as options before I'd jump into GMing than that.. at least for a first try.

You're in luck, having those Four Roles might be the most solid covering possible in a four player group. Navigators can be extremely deadly but the collateral balances that. Just make sure the navigator knows how easily he causes friendly fire. You might also wish to give the navigator scrutiny as an Elite advance to make him useful in Space Combat.

Now I didn't say the Astropath was OP. I said if the GM doesn't know the psychic rules, then the astropath can get out of hand. If you don't know when to make that player roll for phenomenon and perils of the warp then they'll be using their powers non-stop. I find the astropath essential to the "perfect" party.

"Whispers on the Storm" is an excellent starting adventure. It meshes well with other published material, "Forsaken Bounty" and "Dark Frontier." Additionally, it has a huge amount of side-endeavors that can take up lots of time and investment, if you care to play them out. In fact, it can become the basis of a campaign by itself.

And btw, one of the reasons "Whispers" is such an excellent adventure is because it gives your players an anchor. They can win themselves a bunch of PF but then they have to protect it or lose that PF. One of the problems with a free-form exploration or trading campaign is that players can always cut-and-run when danger rears its ugly head. Once your players have that anchor, you can throw other types of adventures at them that might normally make them balk.

It seems we ended up with the following, although I had expected different players to chose different roles:

player 1: Rogue trader

player 2: Navigator

player 3: Void Master

player 4: explorator (playing RT in our earlier game)

No Astropath for now, which I feel eases my initial task of not having to fine-read all the psyker stuff.

Errant, I stand corrected. I somehow took your sentence and made it into "astropaths are OP" while thinking about it. I'm aware that the mishaps should be a limiting factor of power use. My VM in our other game took wyrdling and chose telepathy+mind probe. Unless I misunderstood the rules, I can run them on fettered even as unsanctioned and avoid any accidents. However as VM I almost never use them in order to avoid risk being noticed as unsanctioned psyker.

Leogun_91, I'll keep that in mind. I also agree (and most of the players) that covering these roles is probably the best setup with 4 players. As Errant pointed out, having a PC astropath would make it perfect.

Is there anything regarding character generation / ship generation I should watch out for? I don't want to hand them "the sabre", as player 4 and myself already had it and it feels quite "maxed out". Unless you start dragging in better quality components and stuff. I was thinking a trader, raider/frigate or maybe light cruiser. If the last one, I'd make it somewhat weak (not maxed out with space/power, or weaker components) in order to have some potential for upgrading and not making it too powerful at the start. But I'm guessing a smaller ship might be better for starters?

Alternatively I'm also considering letting the RT assist in building his ship.

That sounds like a good group for a standard gunship dynasty. You have your Face, Guide, Techie, and Helm/Gunner.

The problem with a VM and telepathy is that fettered means no bonus to WP, and VMs don't usually have good WP, which means they aren't going to plunder people's minds without notice, or any minds even with notice on a regular basis. A 50 WP vs. 30 WP opposed check isn't going to win very often and very rarely with maximum effect, and 50:30 is about the best that can be hoped for in that circumstance. Unfettered is asking for the eventual failure, and any attempt to push is likely to end up in disaster.

I have a ton of "not in my campaign" combinations I don't allow. It really depends on the rules you're using. RAW there's no reason to mount lances, and really no reason to not build a carrier/cruiser. That said, I'm big on allowing my players to build their own ship, but in my current campaign we started with 4 newbies to RT so I handed them their ship as a fait accompli, complete with background story. Much depends on your group and their current experience with the game.

I set up my current game (and one of my past ones) as a joint corporate venture with the players all being representatives of the investors. We established a Board of Directors that pretty much got to vote on Endeavors. In the past campaign they played the same types your players are so I made it: Rogue Trader (warrant holder and investor of 1/3 the total PF), Navigator (rep of the Navis House that also invested 1/3 the total PF), Explorator (Ad Mech representative that also has invested 1/3 the total PF), and Void Master (captain/owner/operator or the ship; that's his/her investment...the ship was "hired"). That was all done with player input and negotiated with them up front. Since the ship was worth 30 SP, the other characters had 20 PF each invested, so we attached the Finances in Arrears complication to the ship to even things out with the Void Master/Captain. This is just an example of negotiating with your players to come up with a good starting point for a campaign.

I'm quite sure they want some gunship action. The explorator (who played RT/DH before) is already drooling over BQ-muscle graft and powerfists.. He might be disappointed if he drops his tech use too hard though.

The RT rolled up a char already which I've barely glanced over. Seems to be quite balanced for the most and high focus on command/charm. He also rolled at 40PF/50SP start, so I'll let them argue over what ship to start with

I'm thinking to run the Whisperer adventure since your arguments for doing it seem quite sound. I'm just thinking to change it a bit, maybe use the generator to make a new (and slightly more interesting) system. The idea that they have an anchor and a place to develop appeals to me. Also said explorator already played it so some changes might be in order...

I'm not sure I mentioned or said it clearly enough, but I'll be using some variant of Mathhammer, and as far as I can see, 50SP isn't enough to start with a cruiser with carrier capacity. So that issue won't come up yet. I've not checked if MH deals any with the carrier issue.

50 SP means frigate, tops. They could go raider or transport and spend on goodies. That's also fine. Frigate is great for a first game though. Steer them into some sort of cargo component or there's endeavors they just can't perform. Other than that, it's hard to mess up a frigate. The Falchion has extra firepower. The Turbulent has that extra armor for Mathhammer. The Firestorm has that prow mount, and the Sword or Tempest are just all-round good.

I'm looking forward to see what they chose. Knowing them, I'm willing to be it'll be a gunned up frigate or raider. I agree on the cargo part, and it makes little sense to explore without some storage space for stuff you find laying around...

Do you usually make important NPC's from scratch as real characters? As i'm on holidays I rolled up an Astropath for them thinking to make one, and maybe I'll add in an assistant sceneschal which is their aide.

I'm pretty strict on party NPCs. The players get to decide the experience of their starting crew with SPs. Those skills and attributes can already get as high as 50. If they want something more than that I expect them to use acquisition checks to get them.

Thanks for the assistance so far.

As the ship is being created (we do indeed seem to end up with a turbulent after I explained the combat system, with extra armor and reinforced prow), the question came up if archeotech can be purchased in poor, good or best quality? I can't remember seeing anything in the book and a google search came up with several "yes" and "no" opinions on the subject.

To begin with, you can't "purchase" archeotech for a starting ship unless a ship option (machine spirit, history, package) specifically states so. That said, I've never permitted players to "acquire" such. It is implied, in places like craftsmanship (both in core and BFK), and its effects on morale, that this is not possible. I have permitted (once) my players to acquire damaged archeotech and repair it.

So in shorts, No.

I am aware that you can't pick archeotech without a reason. For me it seems that such tech is one more step over BQ regular items and probably should stay at that level. Thus quality levels doesn't apply..

Archeotech isn't easy to buy due to by definition being things people can't manufacture any more. Still that doesn't mean it can't be different qualities, an archeotech laspistol kept as a hereditary duelling Gun by a Noble family should probably be of better craftsmanship than an archeotech laspistol found buried together with some warhero in a now flooded tomb. Most of the time any archeotech I give is part of a treasure or the treasure itself so the players don't walk around buying it.

Leo, we can all understand and agree that items from the Dark Ages of Technology might have qualitative differences. Still, the modifiers given under Acquisitions for craftsmanship don't seem to stack. RAW trying to acquire BC archeotech would be much like trying to acquire a poor craftsmanship best craftsmanship item.

Leo, we can all understand and agree that items from the Dark Ages of Technology might have qualitative differences. Still, the modifiers given under Acquisitions for craftsmanship don't seem to stack. RAW trying to acquire BC archeotech would be much like trying to acquire a poor craftsmanship best craftsmanship item.

My book does not list archeotech amongst craftsmanship qualities. Maybe I missed something but I can't find a reference to it working like that.