I ran my first game the other day and one encounter was a ship to ship battle. The group consisted of a Void Master, Missionary, a Rogue Trader, and an Astropath. During the encounter it was the Void Master that did the bulk of the work. He piloted the ship and he fired the guns (though never both in the same round) while the Rogue Trader operated sensors and gave his "atta boy" speech to increase the Void Master's skills by 10%. The Missionary and especially the Astropath had very little to do during the encounter. The Astropath didn't contribute anything to the encounter nor did the Missionary until the very end when he made an Intimidation roll to get the other ship to surrender after it had been crippled. He got four successes so I ruled that the crew read the writing on the wall, mutinied, and surrendered with a gift offering of the captain's head to the RT.

I really hate the idea of some players being left out of an encounter. Especially when it can drag on for a while. Any idea on how to involve all the PCs in a ship to ship fight?

Marc

Well, not everyone in the group got allways something to do. That's absolutely normal and there is not much you can do about it. The trick is to let everyone have their moment at some time during the adventure and try to spread out such moments as evenly as possible. That does not mean, that every encounter everyone will and need something overley important to do. While in ship to ship combat some of your players will have all their hands full, there should be other encounters and tasks in your adventures, that should give your missionary and astropath their moments in the spotlight.

Also the characters of your players will develop over time. So have a look out for skills and talents, that might come in handy, but that are not covered by your group yet and encourage those players to pick such talents and skills (if possible). In our own first RT-Adventure, we found out, that we got no one to properly use the shipscanners for example, so the next xp were invested properly, allowing another player to do some rolls during shipcombat, too.

Hi,

Look at table at page 217, and compere it with character sheet, maybe this will show some oportunities. Its hard to advice anything without info about char abilities, but having in mind just carea paths: Astropaths with scrutiny (level 2) can do 'lock on target', missionary can act 'put your backs into it' (he probably have charm).

Astropath can also learn some divination powers like Foreshadow.

Another trick, create some NPC, and when player gets bored then he will swich to him. (for example some crew Techpriest )

I generally make sure everyone has at least one skill to contribute. Even if it means giving a PC an elite advance or a skill a rank or 2 earlier. (Keep in mind that many skills are basic skill, and a PC can use them at 1/2.) Sensors, the various morale based check, and tech use are all basically free to try. Lastly the PC get an number of free roll at crew skill level. Let the less ship inclined roll them.

I think the best option to truly play and enjoy Rogue Trader when you are using the ships seriously is to play the way Ars Magica suggested, specially if you have a reduced group: each player makes several characters, one of them is "his" PC, and the others are "the pool" who belongs to everybody (if the group is mature enough, or communist enough, or just enjoys challenges and don't really care if another one messes up killing his favourite character you can make all of them part of the pool).

The pool consists in:

• A Rogue Trader (who doesn't really need to be the captain of the ship, but owns the letter. So at least he's the economical boss). This is the captain or the first officer. Note that Rogue Traders are the second best in almost any role if they specialize in it. I would put him to roll command tests anyway.
• A Pilot (Void Master are the best in almost anything, specially here and gunnery).
• A Gunner (who can be a tactical officer too, but not in charge of security teams. Best Void Master, followed by Arch-Militants and in third place Rogue Traders).
• A Navigator and an Astropath are needed, but they will spend most of the time as NPC's probably, unless a lot of roleplay is done in the table.
• Engineering officer (Explorator, but a Techpriest leveled with 5.000 XP might be better, but maybe too much specialized), which will spend most of the time toying with the engines. He can double has medic if needed and trained to.
• Some Arch-Militants (the muscle for adventures out of the ship, probably with the Rogue Trader and maybe some other social/knowledge experts). One of them assigned to lead the security teams against and on boarding actions.
• A Missionary for morale and medicine.

If your group has 4 players, then they can make 2 characters each to rotate. In combat they will have the RT, pilot, gunner and one of the backups (nearly never the navigator or the astropath, at least in the first ranks), and in landing missions they'll probably get one or two of the arch-militants, the pilot and the RT. This also gives more chances for roleplay inside the ship, but forces to make a "quick sheet" for every character sheet so the players can get into the character quickly. It can be confusing and hard, but incredibly rewarding, and has the good point of allowing for more room into any aspect of the game, no matter how narrow it looks (and also it gives the players an ecnouragement to roleplay some of the nameless NPC's who run the sheep from time to time, for example a quick flashback to the infirmary and/or the engine room during the combat, with the missionary and the explorator directing the other players, who are using extras, to try to save the day).

Thanks for the ideas, folks. I'll think about it and get back to you.

This might also help you:

www.darkreign40k.com/general-tips/rogue-trader-careers-and-ship-combat-actions-3.html