So I'm an aspiring RT GM, I've picked up nearly every book and I love the fluff. What I don't get is how the rank system affects player "power". By this, I mean the adventure modules state that they are either "suited for players of all levels" or it says nothing. I'm used to systems that guide you on what level ranges are best suited for the adventure. I don't want to start a campaign and not know whether a module is appropriate difficulty. So, does it matter whether the PCS are rank 1 or rank 5 if I take them through The Soul Reaver? Same for Lure of the Expanse? Maybe there are some conversion or scaling rules I am missing? Thanks on advance for some insight on this!

The only advice I can give is this: Rogue Trader is not crawling into a dungeon to thump some orcs and then search their pockets for loose change.

Pretty much any level player can manage any adventure - the Frozen Reaches/Citadel of Skulls/Whatever The Last One's Called included, provided you do them in order.

The key thing is that unlike a basic 'dungeon crawl' your players are not required to fight anything. Certainly not in person, anyway. Political intrigue, acquiring resources and coming up with a devious plan, or just plain old saturation orbital bombardment makes a mockery of any easy guide to difficulty.

Thank you for the response. I am also concerned about things like opposed skill checks for negotiation, not only fighting. It sounds a bit more sandboxy, which I like, but I'm looking for a way to tell if I should avoid an encounter or not. Or just simply let the PCS fail at certain things which means they will have to just go somewhere else in search of profit.

The way I like to see it, though I get sad to have to see it, is that MOST books in the line will treat it as baby's first adventure. Some lines like to bully you into buying all of their materials, and if you didn't, later books can make you suffer, but this line didn't often do that; they assume you only have that book, and the core book. Many of the NPCs, be they rival Rogue Traders, their retinues, their ships, or the dregs many Rogue Traders deal with, on a daily basis, have little more than the barest minimum of stuff, and rarely ever appear optimized, if you will. In this way, you don't NEED to be a party of ass-kickers, or bringing the galaxy's best mouthpiece along, in order to succeed. In fact, due to the separation of some books, some ships, and NPCs, DON'T have things you'd imagine they would, and you might catch yourself making little lists of "upgrades"; for instance, you might think it makes some sense for Lord Admiral Bastille's Colossus to have torpedo tubes, being that he is a rather well-to-do RT, and his ship is a dedicated warship, captained by a militant-themed master.

As for Ranks, yeah, they are a bit weird, if you are used to D&D/d20 systems. In this case, your "level" determines how quickly you will gain access to your various advances, based upon your career, and how much they cost you. Before you get one on your chart, you'd need to get an Elite Advance, which the GM can deny, or maybe offer, but at an exceedingly inflated price. My problem is that, while they do give us NPC stat blocks, they DON'T give us a comparable Rank for that NPC, and, in fact, NPCs aren't built quite like characters, so they can have whatever, regardless. For example, as a military leader, used to fleet actions, Lord-Captain Sylvia Locke has Void Tactician. You can't get that in several jobs, and the one that is most like her, Rogue Trader, doesn't access it till Rank 8, or Rank 6, for Void Masters, and she feels like neither a R6 VM, nor a R8 Anything.

Mostly, anything they officially wrote will be appropriate for a starting group, as I've read it (YMMV), except for parts of Warpstorm Trilogy, which you'll want to run later. If you go Core (R1) --> Lure of the Expanse (R2-3) --> Edge of the Abyss (R3-4) --> Warpstorm Trilogy (R5-6), with a smattering of other stuff, your own, or the other books, I'd think you will do well, and you'll want to pad out many of the encounters, to cater to your party's style, and how quickly they level up, depending on their side mission completion. I always think they are on the softer side, so you can crank them up, rather than making it tough, and you need to turn it down. Maybe someone else will disagree with me.

Don't forget the GM's kit adventure. That's actually a rather good one. For that matter, the 'intro adventures' are rather good, too.

But yeah, it's very much open-ended.

Thank you for the response. I am also concerned about things like opposed skill checks for negotiation, not only fighting. It sounds a bit more sandboxy, which I like, but I'm looking for a way to tell if I should avoid an encounter or not. Or just simply let the PCS fail at certain things which means they will have to just go somewhere else in search of profit.

Always be prepared to let the PCs fail. The thing to avoid with Rogue Trader isn't letting them fail, it's putting them in a situation where failure (of whatever the check is) is irrecoverable death.

Remember that failing in a negotiation check isn't necessarily "you have passed the port the wrong way. You are banished in shame and can never return", it's "you have annoyed them, and they are (much) less receptive to your proposal". This means the price will be higher, and the small print nastier, but as long as the deal makes sense, they should still be interested.

As long as you're dealing with someone who's interested in making a sale (or purchase) there's almost always a way to recover the situation, and it's the "yes.......but" which is so good at generating new plot hooks for the GM to hang endeavours onto.

Yes, the Imperial Navy drydock at Port Wander can repair your ship.

But....Horne isn't inclined to let you do so (failed fellowship test) -after all, the Passage Watch needs to prioritise its own warships first - unless you would be interested in helping the navy out with a small matter?

You would? Excellent. Then perhaps we can come to some agreement after all.

This! One of the most important things in the life of a Rogue Trader and Co. is who they can rub elbows with, and, preferably, survive doing so. So much of their power, their wealth, and their future is tied up in who they know, who they owe, and who they control; even the greatest treasure needs a buyer, or a guard to turn the other way, for just that one moment. If you take the adage "you learn from your mistakes", failing SOME checks can be a great way for additional plot opportunities to introduce themselves, and while some people don't care for the Achievement system, especially with a ship optimized to max these out, if you do use them, they can make the difference between breaking even, after a particularly harrowing enterprise, and claiming enough profit to upgrade your ship's weapons, after repairs, in a reduced amount of time (you greased some palms).

Very much so. I understand on a micro scale ("I want a plasma pistol") why Profit is a 'stat' - there's no question of you not being able to afford it, merely whether you have the funds on hand, in this system, to do so today .

By comparison, macro scale ("I want to establish a colony", "I want to repair the mile-long starship which is the key engine for this entire campaign in less than umpty-ump months") the players do still need to be prepared to permanently burn profit to do things. It's not like experience - it's a dynamic value which will go up and down (admittedly hopefully mostly up) during a campaign.

My prime way of seeing if an adversary is a worthwhile opponent or TPK, is to take the most highly skilled/armed/trainer person in the group and compare him/her/it to the opponent.

Example: The basic Rak'Gol maurader vs Archmilitant. Maurader has TB of 8 with like 8 armor, weapon stubber of 1d10+4 pen 2. Archy has a TB 4, armor 5, and a bolt pistol for 1d10+4, pen 4. So, average roll of dam for Maurader is 11, vs 9 TB and Armor of Archy means she will take about 2 dam per hit. While Achy does average of about 10 vs 16 of the Maurader. She is in for a tough fight, so simply going DND style will not work. She needs to fight it tactically and intelligently, not just head on.

Same can be said for the negotiation deal mentioned above. RT deals with a lot of hand waving, guessing, and leaving it for GM and player interpretation. There is no black and white in this game. There is color and a whole lot of different shades of gray. With that said, as a GM you need to be able to sit down and discuss possible outcomes with your players, or offer them other avenues to succeed than just one option most games present. Wasting the deamon cult from orbit is good, but who is to say that deamon did hide in a hole in the ground only to plague the PCs years from now, in a more devious and sinister manner than before?