So, RT browsers. I'mma hostin' on a campaign with a twist.

Now, I know that none of my group are registered with FFG, so I feel safe enough posting the plot twist here. I've worked out the crew of the ship, divided the crew into their appropriate roles (Ecclesiarchy, Mechanicus, Security, slaves, civillians etc etc) and I'm working on a 'territory' system.

The basic premise is that after every mission, I make a couple of secret dice rolls and adjust the territory of one group on the ship to show that they have gained more favour with the rest of the ship's inhabitants, por examp: more of the ship's crew are swayed to be more faithful to the Emperor after near-death experiences involved in a ship-to-ship battle. As a result, the Ecclesiarchy hold more sway over particular decks and the rest of the crew for an amount of time.

Another result of particular factions of the crew holding more sway/power is that it will affect the party's interactions with them. For example: One of my party is a Skitarii, and works closely with both the Mechanicus detachment and security forces on the ship, if either of those two factions lose power then they will become less inclined to work with the Skitarii party member.

With this territory/power/whatever you want to call it system worked out, when one faction gains a certain amount of power, then a ship-wide mutiny will occur, with that main faction and any others allied to them trying to take the vessel for themselves, be it for Chaos, insanity etc etc whatever. It will then be up to the party to get any remaining factions on their side and attempt to quell the mutiny with as little damage done to the ship as possible.

This entire thing is still in the tweaking stage of it's final design, but in the meantime the campaign has started with a few simple missions to get my group in the mindset for Rogue Trader.

So, thoughts/feelings/ideas? Anything you want me to explain/think you have a better idea for?

Trothael said:

It sounds promising so far and a bit inspiring as well! One little thing, however, is the mutiny aspect. You might want to keep mutiny tied in with Ship Moral as opposed to dominant faction. After all, if moral is high and one faction takes most of the territory from anouther, they quite possibly would feel that the ships captain and bridge officers have their best interests in mind and would like to keep things that way. After all, their moral is high, they just gained all that territory, things are going well for them. If the powers that be, however, come in and tell them to stop their shenanigans and give the Sacred Brotherhood of Toilet Scrubbers back their territory and duties to the Sacred Thrones of the 67th deck, then that could cause moral damage, and that could lead to the faction attempting a mutiny but they shouldn't mutiny just because they've gained more power. Those who are being trounced and abused stand a better chance of mutinying. Which makes me wonder, will you keep tabs of the individual factions moral as a percentage of over-all ship moral? Might be a bit much in the paperwork department, but if you really want to focus in on the factions and how each is perceived and treated, it could be a good way to go and help gage when one faction would get out of hand and mutinous or not.

This is a pretty cool idea. You can either flesh it out in great detail, or leave it loose and fit it to the storyline for your players.

The point of tying it to morale is a good one. For plot hooks, you can also have the dominant group begin to request things (like the missionary faction recommending you convert the natives rather than merely use them as a source of profit). When the players don't follow their suggestions, it begins to tip them closer to mutiny (in effect, lowering their morale). Any action of the ship can effect the "group morale" in such a fashion. Thus, the missionaries may become allied with the lower deckhands if both did not get what they wanted. And the players would become allied / supported by the "happier" sections of the crew.

Methinks I may borrow it for my game....

Okay, Graver you have a very good point. I'm still tweaking these rules a lot since I've got plenty of time until the campaign's climax. I do definitely need to tie morale in to this since it should play a large part of the factions rules.

If anybody wants the rules for themselves or would like to work on them with me, then me an e-mail at [email protected]

The reason I came up with this idea for the campaign is that it means I don't have to railroad the party along a specific storyline either They can do whatever the feth they want until the plot twist happens. I've got missions and things to do lined up for them so they can keep themselves busy, but my storyline will remain unscathed by the actions of a party that want to suddenly go LOLSPACEPYRATESTIME. Huzzah!