As a number of people have asked for some means of making characters more unique to one another, I thought I'd offer this little idea. Do note that I cannot take credit for this, as this idea comes straight from Mechwarrior (a.k.a. Classic Battletech RPG), which has a far more extensive life paths system than Rogue Trader.
Random Events Table
For a tier of paths on the Origins Path chart, the GM sets up a random events table for each path. A sample table might look like this:
Noble Born Events (roll 2d10)
2. Your house was found to be knowingly harboring a chaos cult, and was razed to the ground and all assets seized or destroyed. You managed to escape, but with Inquisitorial Witch Hunters not far behind. (Lose all peer talents, lose 2 Profit Factor, gain 1d10 Insanity Points and 1d10 corruption points, gain Enemy (Inquisition), gain Paranoia talent. Next path must be either Scavenger or Scapegrace)
3. A power play goes horribly wrong, and your allies turn on you. You managed to survive the subsequent assassination attempt . . . barely. (The Peer talent representing your house's power block becomes an enemy instead. Lose 1 Profit Factor, gain +1 Wounds, lose 1 Fate Point, lose 1d10 to two randomly chosen Characteristics, gain 1d5 insanity points)
4. You develop expensive - and illegal - tastes. At least the Arbites aren't on your tail . . . yet. (Lose 1d5 Willpower and 1d5 Toughness, lose 1 Profit Factor, gain Decadence talent. The character is addicted to an illegal drug of the GM's choosing and must take at least one dose of the drug per day. Failure to do so causes the character to suffer a penalty of -10 to all tests)
5. You come across a forbidden text and haven't been the same since (Gain a Forbidden Lore skill of the player's choice. Gain either 1d5+3 Insanity Points or 1d5+3 Corruption Points)
6. A political scandal causes you to lose face. (Lose a Peer talent. All interactions with the group from the lost Peer talent suffer a -10 penalty)
7. You develop a forbidden love with a scion of the opposition and you run away together. Needless to say, your own house and that of your Love aren't happy about it. (Add the character's own house as an additional Vendetta. As long as the character's Love is alive, the character gains a +5 bonus to Willpower tests. However, if the character's Love ever dies or goes permanently missing for any reason, the character gains 1d10 to 2d10 Insanity Points at GM's discretion.)
8. Infighting in your house results in lost opportunities. (lose 1 Profit Factor)
9. You meet somebody interesting. (Gain a single contact with limited/minor influence. If using the rules for contacts in the Inquisitor's Handbook, this contact should be worth no more than 50 XP. The player may spend XP to improve the contact during character creation at the GM's discretion)
10. Political Marriage (Gain either 1 Profit Factor or an additional Peer talent from the list under Supremely Connected. The GM should create an NPC representing the character's significant other. Should this NPC be killed, go missing, end up kidnapped and sacrificed by cultists, or some other negative event as determined by the GM, the character loses the point of Profit Factor or the Peer talent. Depending on circumstances (such as the character not making any effort to rescue the significant other), the GM should feel free to award an appropriate Enemy to the character)
11. You learn more about your allies. (Gain a Common Lore skill appropriate to your house's power base as an untrained basic skill)
12. Unlike your peers, you take your studies seriously. (Gain a Scholastic Lore skill.)
13. It was a good year. (Gain 1 Profit Factor)
14. Yours was a military family. (Lose 3 Charisma, gain 3 to Strength, Toughness, or Willpower. Gain the Command skill.)
15. You forge a new alliance. (Gain 1 Profit Factor and one Peer talent chosen from the Supremely Connected list that the character doesn't already have)
16. The allies of your house take note of your accomplishments and entrusts you with a priceless relic, resulting in an enhancement of your status. However, you draw the attention of your enemies as well. (Gain 1 profit factor, gain a best quality item that is representative of your power base, gain +3 to a characteristic appropriate to your power base. If your power base is Military, for example, the item might be a venerable and ancient bolt pistol and an appropriate characteristic might be Ballistic Skill. You draw some unwanted attention, however, and you gain an appropriate Enemy of the GM's choosing.)
17. Your house considers you to be such a valuable asset that they send a pair of veteran guards to protect you. (Gain 2 profit factor, gain a Good Reputation talent appropriate to your house's power base, gain the Talented talent towards a skill appropriate to your power base. If your power base was Mercantile, for example, you would gain Talented (Barter). The player and GM should work out the details of the two bodyguards, but they should be skilled enough and valuable enough that the player would think twice about pushing them through the meat grinder like they might with common grunts.)
18. At first glance, it appeared that you got the raw end of deal as you were apparently cheated out of hundreds of thousands of Thrones for a worthless scrap heap. You were about to send your house's assassin cadre after the swindler when the work crew boss called you over. Apparently, buried underneath all that junk was a priceless relic from the Dark Age of Technology! Maybe you didn't get such a bad deal after all, though now the Mechanicus is very interested in you. . . (Your group's starship may mount an archeotech component and becomes a Reliquary of Mars, in addition to any complications rolled for your ship. If the starship already was a Reliquary of Mars, you may install an additional archeotech component; however, the repair penalty increases to -30, and the GM should feel free to increase the attention of the tech priests of Mars accordingly.)
19. You are destined for great things, and the Emperor agrees. (Gain 1 Fate Point, gain 3 Profit Factor, gain the Master Orator, gain the Command skill, gain the Talented (Command) talent. Of course, all of this starts getting to your head, and you gain 1d5 Insanity Points as a result.)
20. (choose a single event or roll twice and apply both results)
[Designer's Notes:
The table above is a first draft, and will likely require some tweaking to even things out. In general, the lower results tend to have more penalties than advantages, while the opposite is true for higher results. Also note that the GM may have to make adjustments, such as multiple players rolling event 18 or 19]
A player must decide whether or not they wish to roll on the event table or tables prior to starting the Origin Path process. If they do not, they don't suffer any potential penalties, but neither do they gain the potential benefits. Alternatively, the player may choose to take the average result (11), though if they choose this option, they must take the (11) result for all event tables encountered.
If a player does not like a result rolled, they may spend 100 XP to reroll. The second result stands, even if it's worse than the first roll. Also, XP spent in this manner does not contribute to career advancement. If the player runs out of XP, they may burn (yes, BURN) a Fate Point instead. Spending XP/Fate Points for re-rolls is, of course, not available for anybody choosing to take the average result for all tables.
Some adjustment is allowable as long as the benefits and penalties are roughly the same. For example, a player rolls 14 on the table above. As the player wants the character to have a merchant background, however, the result is changed to: Lose 3 Toughness, Gain 3 Intelligence, Perception, or Charisma, gain Barter skill. The GM, of course, may veto any changes and otherwise has final say in the matter.
Anybody reading this is free to come up with their own tables (the above is just an example I pieced together), though be warned that doing so is a lot of work, and depending on what you include in the table, may drastically change the nature of the game. Also note that the more tiers that have these tables, the more unpredictable it gets. The player group may end up much more powerful than the GM intended, or they may end up crippled to high heaven. Incidentally, the table doesn't have to be a 2d10 roll; it can be designed as, say, a 2d6 roll instead. Again, the GM should be consistent across a tier, whatever they choose to do.
Of course, the events of the table should be appropriate to the path. All of the events on the table for Death Worlders, for example, should have something to do with basic survival. Also, the table should be designed such that character death isn't possible during character except under the most extreme situations, like where a character rolled so many events with negative Toughness adjustments that the Toughness of the character was reduced to nothing and, as a result, the character died.
-Kirov