I've a few questions regarding Endeavours, in order to help me wrap my head around the concept, as a gamemaster. So as I understood, it's a system to help facilitate the transition between adventure and process. It's a very meta-concept however, and adviced to be developed between players and gamemaster alike. How does this work practically, however? Let's say our players are at Port Wander, they want to start their adventure to go look for profit and fortune.

As Rogue Traders, nobody is going to give them clear missions, as is more common with other RPGs. In Rogue Trader, they are the ones creating the missions themselves. I as a gamemaster can only throw them a few bones, such as outside factions aproaching them and offering them agreements and deals. A high bishop may want them to find a lost human colony for them to bring back to the light. I can only throw them so many bones, by giving them rumours of trade opertunities, maps to uncharted worlds or lost spaceship graveyards, or factors asking them to colonize worlds, but eventually it's them who have to figure out how to make a profit out of these ones, no?

I guess the more prudent question is, how do I get my players to start taking their own initiatives on building up their own profit? They have the resources(albeit low right now, their profit factor is only 26) and opertunities to carve out their own small empires, colonizing new worlds under their command, and acquiring the loyalty of captains, armies and organisations.

So, in the process of play, the players gain a few rumours, offers of deals, and then pick one to start with. Let's say they rolled a few rolls, talked to some people, and acquired the map to an old spaceship graveyard, ripe for salvage. Then I, together with the players, build up an endavour around this. Now, first thing, they don't know what they might be expecting, they could have some estimates from rumours, but how much profit they gain is entirely dependant on what they find. The endeavour system lists the profit gain from how big the endeavour is. Im thinking, this sort of adventure couldn't take more than a session or two, so it should be worth 1-2 profit points. But if I decide there's something really worthwhile there, should it be worth more, without the players knowledge?

Okay, I'm geting ahead of myself. The endeavour, as is written, has a few achievment points that is divided between objectives. Typically three, sometimes more or less. When performing an objective, they gain achievement points for working towards that. I suppose this could be used if you have sub-objectives, or go out of your way to detail many various ways they can complete a mission, some more worth than others. But in reality, it seems too tedious to give them points based on how far into an objective they've come. If they manage to convince the Techpriests to aid them in their task, the objective is complete, and they gain the points for it. I don't get this system at all.

What I do get with the achievment points, is that you can award more of them, thus gaining extra profit at the end of the endeavour. Is this to be given for a job well done? I suppose this is if they do an extraordinary good job at their objectives, they should get some more. If they negotiated a clever contract, or found some extra salvage, for example, looting an enemy ship they destroyed, or doing some good rolls, or smart ideas, to do something better. Examples on this would be nice.

That also begs the question, can you lose potential profit, by doing badly? You're trying to salvage a space hulk, trudging through it and clearing out warp-ghosts and orks. A stray shot makes a ship go critical, you barely escape with your life, a sizable chunk of the spacehulk is blown away. Should impose a few negatives on the end profit earning. How to handle this, there was pretty much no explanations given on if you do badly.

Lastly is misfortunes, which are rather straightforward. When they should incur is not really explained very well either. It seems to be random troubles, rolled a little bit at random when the GM feels like it. Or, if the players managed to do something stupid and the GM feels a need to punish them, I guess?

Hope someone can help clear up my confusions about the Endeavour system!

Well, RT is more like a 'shared story in the 40K world' than perhaps DH is and the endeavour system is indeed co-operative in nature; both the players co-operating with each other and the players all co-operating with the GM. However, if you want to get them started nice and quickly rather than making them think up endeavours before they've really had a chance to get a feel for their characters and your interpretation, give them an endeavour right off the bat with the warrant. For example, in the game I shall shortly be playing in (as the RT), my character's uncle, from whom she inherited the warrant, was killed by a rival RT, with whose dynasty we have 'history' and my house fortunes are at an all time low. Our first endeavours are to take revenge and fix the immediate financial issues facing the house. My overall aims are to bury this opposing dynasty and take over all their former holdings, whilst exploring new avenues of profit and I'm also something of a Xenophile so later I might wind up looking into that more.

Right on. My own players are of a new dynasty, they basically only have a ship, and a bit of resources, albeit their profit is really low(26). They are currently at Port Wander, trying to figure out what to embark upon in the Koronus expanse.

I looked at the example adventure that came with the GM screen, and the idea of an "Endeavour hub" came to me. Perhaps an uncolonized planet, the explorers colonize it and it becomes theirs, and then one can form more endeavours around the hub, such as opening a trade route, striking pilgrimige/colonist deals, and working towards making their little planet into a real jewel of the Koronus Expanse. This would give them a tangible proof of their hard work to base themselves around, as they essentially have no other resources outside their ship as it stands.

Sounds ideal to me; from out-of-game chat with my GM and the copious notes and background he's written, I know that Port Wander is my dynasty's hub and we've had extensive holdings there for a long time, so ultimately I'll be looking to dominate that and it's probably where many of our endeavours will start.

The endeavour-system is really a great thing. Your option as GM are to either give your players something big to achieve and let them figure out the steps to get there, or you handle it the more classic way, by planning out the path to reach that objective yourself and let them follow it step by step, giving them some ditch here and there so they stay on the path. The starting adventure in the RT-Rulebook clearly uses the more classic advance. The path is pretty clear with not many options to stray away from it. Letting the players choose their own path to reach the given objective(s) is far more challenging of course and requires a lot of flexibility.

To find the general themes for your adventures you can either listen to the plans and ideas of your players and flash them out as endeavours with sets of goals and objectives to reach, or you offer them some nice oprotunity by your own, like it is done in that starting adventure. Someone might approach the PCs with an offer, or maybe some System- or Sector-Govenor got something todo which might require a rogue trader and his crew. Colonizing a planet is just one thing rogue traders can do and can lead to lots of great adventures. The rulebook got a lot of great ideas for endeavours to start with and I'm sure your players will have alot of thrilling ideas, too.

Just found the thread through the search function and thought it's better to ask here instead of starting a new thread for my question.

Maybe it's a stupid question, but do you tell the players how many Achievement Points they need for fulfilling the Endeavour and do you tell them what every Objective is worth in Achievement Points beforehand? So, is an Endeavour more some kind of abstract meta-level thing in the background that helps the GM to calculate whether the PCs had success or not, or is it really in the hands of the players to see what every choice of action would lead to in regard to Achievement Points?

Thanks for any help.

Luthor Harkon said:

Probably depends on the GM but, as my game goes, I do to a degree and it's almost mandatory if it's an endeavor that one of the players wrote up ;-)

I did when introducing the system and to get them accustomed to the idea of the more work they put into an objective, the greater the possible payoff will be, though I only gave them exact numbers the first session or two so they knew what was happening behind the curtain so to speak. After that, I used an NPC (the sour-faced Mrs Carwn, the Mistress of Manifests, a humorless former Administratum adept who kept the books and records of ship stores) to let them know what the objectives were to an endeavor ("If this is going to be in any way profitable, there are a few steps that we are going to have to fallow -I've outlined them here, here, and here and if you'll have a look at this pie chart...") how important it is (how many points in comparisons to the other objectives it had), and how far along on it they are ("according to my figures, if we continue as we are, a few more days of this 'purging' should see the colonial sites cleared of enough hostiles -the colonists should be able to take care of themselves and any remaining threats... that is if your reconnaissance was accurate...").

If they come up with the endeavor, then they rate each objective in it (Unimportant, Important, Crucial) which tells me how to divide the points for the PF they want between the objectives. Crucial getting more then most other's while Unimportant gets less then the others, etc.

In summery, I guess I see the Endeavor system being as much a tool for the PC's as it is for the Players and treat it as such.

I agree with Graver. The nest way to handle endeavors seems to be, to devellop them together with your players, building the steps/objectives to complete it and how important each step is and the like. For the first few times, you should also play with open cards and reveal all the numbers. This way you and your players should both get a good feeling for the system and how each of you want to handle it. Once you are all more comfortable with the system, you can hide the numbers again. Just make sure to take notes about each step, so you don't mess them up later.

Btw. such notes about endeavors should you give plenty of nice new adventure hooks and ideas for future sessions. Your players messed with some crimelord here? Great, he won't forget about that... and you as the GM don't do either, thanks to your notes. :-)

One trick I like to use for Endeavours is the buy time via combat or "mischance". I have a number of backup space, ship board, and station/planetside encounters. That way the PCs can come up with what ever they crazy scheme they want to, do initial planning, and prep their ship. Then they get jumped by something, something goes wrong with their ship, or their other interests have issues. This means the rest of the session gets used up. Now I've got all week to figure out the Endeavour from the input the players gave me during the session.

That's a good idea Dalnor provided the players don't twig to what you're doing.

MDMann said:

Why would they care? As long as they enjoy the "random encounters". Better yet if you make them part of the overall arc or theme of the campaign. If your players don't want to give you time to flesh out Endeavours then there is something horribly wrong with your group dynamic.

Examples:

-Some horrible secret from the PCs ship's past surfaces. What do you mean there is a deck 66.6?!!!?

-Some prior foe resurfaces. A Rogue Trader they tangled in the past decides to even the score or maybe the PC decide to. Maybe that Orc Boss that they allied with against a worst foe is assaulting the station they are on.

-Some future threat appears. Maybe a genestealer cult or a 'Nid scoutship.

Ok, I thought you meant completely randomised, such as a pirate raid or unsuspected plasma leak. That fits better.

Giantmoth said:

I laughed heartily when I read this - My poor GM is a little over-whelmed by the fact that as the seneschal of our group I started writing out our Endeavours! Obviously they would be options I would present to the captain... I've come up with about 20 or so - so far, some are dependant on others working, others are fall backs if some fail, etc... (yes I got a little carried away...) He's thrilled that he doesn't have to do any work!

"Necessity is the mother of invention"

You can force them into really really needing to make profit and keep reducing profit factor. Running a ship is expensive. Paying the crew, keeping the crew happy all takes profit. A RT crew that is not seeing money coming in the door is going to start getting somewhat concerned about not being paid or fed next week. This leads to all kinds of problems... Eventually something important in the ship breaks down/ sabotaged /is damaged in an attack and well with a profit factor of 26 the odds of them being able to repair the warp drive are not good unless they make a deal with the devil who sends them on the Endeavour to hell and back. Extricating themselves from a debt with a Navigator House (or frankly any group) would be virtually impossible. Desperation is a very strong motivator.

We used to play Star Wars (WEG) (yes a long time ago) and some of the most fun game sessions were where the characters really really had to leave the planet, but in order to leave we needed to repair the ship but with no money we had to steal the parts or something with which to get money which meant we then attracted the local constabulary which again meant we really had to leave the planet... you get the idea.

My GM smacks us with the occasional bone, and from this we work out the endeavours as a group. We have all our Endeavours mapped out beforehand and the Gm ok's the achievement points. My very competent and dedicated seneshal takes his job very seriously and keeps them all written up with exquisitely detailed notes. As Captain I find it really useful as we have clear objectives and goals and a plan for what we are trying to do. Knowing the achievement points is not to mini/max on points but it does help us make a decision on what voyage is likely to be more profitable for us. With misfortune rolls, my Gm ties the results back into the game so for example, if the roll says our profit factor is reduced by 2 its because someone got compromised or something was damaged or another ship we are meeting is delayed or whatever - it always has some impact on the story.

Alternately, you could always sit the players down for some table talk and ask them what kind of game they want to play. If they like, they can all walk into a dwarven bar where a weird crusty old man is sitting in the corner talking about some lost treasure in a dungeon not far from here.... (which is cool if thats the kind of game they want to play - the crusty old void master in the corner bar in Port Wander is the only one who really knows the secret of how to find the Righteous Path...)

.

Not the weird old crusty Gnome plotline! LOL!

I agree totally - Using the 'upkeep' rules means the more you have the more you have to keep it funded (repaired, crewed, whatever) - tie that directly into the plot line and the GM hardly has to do anyhting! The players will be running around themselves tyring to fix their own problems (trhe GM just has to make it harder!)

MY suggestion is that, with brand new Rogue Traders, in some cases, people will be offering you jobs (such as an Tech-Priest Magos asking your RT to take him to this lost planet, supposedly covered in technical wonders, and he'll cut him in on the profit) and things like that. That could prod them into, after a few such missions, taking their own initiative.

Make sure to have plenty of rumours and the like spreading through Footfall that they can hear, and possibly start looking into. You can't expect the players to do everything off their own back, of course.

I had a lot of trouble getting my head around the endeavours subsystem, and I was this close to dumping it entirely, but I decided not to worry about it, especially as I have no idea how long we'll be playing RT . In the first session, the players thwarted an assassination attempt on their Trader, and went exploring the abandoned sub-levels of a void station in order to find a starmap. I let them know that since they had exclusive access to the starmap data (because they stole it from the void station and took it to their ship!), they could set up an endeavour based on "renting" the starmap data, but they didn't seem interested. Instead, they wanted to explore, and so in the second session, they noodled around the map looking at systems, before making a visit to one marked as an old colony. There they discovered that the local priesthood were in fact robots, and the explorator told them that robots were rare and ancient technology, and that they would command a high price if sold.

So now they have come up with a plan to disable these robot priests and sell them back, either to collectors, or the Mechanicus. They did this themselves with no prompting from me, except to tell them how rare robots were (I made no mention of price). Now they have a plan, I've come up with an endeavour chart for the world, but I haven't told them the criteria for scoring the profit points.

So for me it was a very organic process, and as such I can't give much in the way of advice. I couldn't prepare the endeavour ahead of time, because I didn't know they'd settle on the robots as a source of income; it was all done in response to what they came up with at the table.