So this is a tale of our gaming party's Rogue Trader and her failures. I just wanted to put this here for you to read and learn from. Feel free to comment.

Some background:

-Campaign takes place in our GM's oddly built sector, Sector Oxhibilis

-Our RT has been invited to a religious party.

-Our RT's player knows nothing of the 40K universe. And I mean NOTHING.

With that said, let me begin my story.

So, the Rogue Trader of our party had been invited to a ball/play, hosted by the members of the Ecclesiarchy. First my Astropath was supposed to be her escort, but since he got shot.... simultaneously by the ship's kingpin of hookers (laugh not, because she could've bested most of the Adeptas Sororitas). Anyways, our RT (Alexandria). Decides to take a NPC to the gala, that being her first mistake (since when do GM's really care about their players?).

At the surface of a Hive City, where the party was to be held, my alt character, Missionary Justus Bale, hunter of Witches and the guy responsible of purging the main Hive's Underhive from Witches, had arrived to the party, and was waiting for the show to start. In a few moments, Alexandria and her NPC avec arrived. The party had two parts, first a religious play, and then an after-party, where people were able to socialize. Now let me clear this up: the party was for the nobility of that Hive World, and for some selected few of the Ecclesiarchy. The play went okay, with Bale and Alexandria discussing about the possibility of taking the Missionary onboard the RT vessel. When the play was over, it was time for after-party.

Bale and Alex got separated, and they both had some interesting time. Bale got another job as a Witchhunter in another Hive, whereas Alex met an old courter of her's. She didn't really enjoy the conversation, but little did she know that her night was to be ruined.

Suddendly the roof opened, allowing a small aircraft to land on the scene. After a few heartbeats, the hatch opened and an old man accompanied by two arco-flagellants and a comissar walked down the ramp, sitting in the middle of the room, and starting to examine the party, while telling people to go on.

In this point it was clear to me that the guy was an Inquisitor Lord. Everyone in the room bowed their heads and didn't make an eyecontact in effort to avoid intresting the old Inquisitor. However, our Rogue Trader, completely unaware of the importance of the old man just stared at him with mild annoyance. This, of course, got the Lord Inquisitor's attention, and he commanded our RT to approach him.

So, with our RT totally unaware about the true potential and the dangers a simple conversation with this odd guy could cause, she started to talk with him. Answer his questions, and ask him some quetions in return. The first really big mistake was to be rude to a Lord Inquisitor. She had harsh tone in her voice, she didn't answer his questions truthfully, and she would've insulted anyone in the room with such implies as she did. She even got so far that she said she did not fear Inquisition, and that the old man couldn't possibly give her any need to fear nor worry.

After this, the Lord Inquisitor started to ask questions about the hidden past of Alexandria. She lied to her. To his face. Now that's cool with most dealings with NPC's but not with Lord Inquisitor. She failed to bluff him, and in the process, she kinda admitted of once being a part of some secret cult.

At this point, she had had to burn two fate points just for not getting shot first, and another for not getting captured right away and getting mind-cleansed.

Finally understanding her mistake, she left the party in hurry. Bale, my alt character, followed her. Bale and Alex decided that Bale would follow her to her ship in a minute, after getting some of his stuff from the Temple of Sanquinius. The ship was to leave the Sector as soon as possible.

The only problem was that half of the crew was on a shore leave, and they would have to be left behind. Also, the ship's Senechal and Arch-Militant were still on planet, recruiting and commercing. So leaving the planet in a second would seriously decrease the Profit Factor, not to mention Ship Morale, populace and efficiency of the ship. So leaving was a terrible option.

On planet, Bale asked a word of advice from a local Bishop,who strenghtened Bale's beliefs, that to go with Alexandria was to act against the will of the Emperor, and so he sent a simple vox-message, in which he declined the offer and wished her luck.

Aboard the Rogue Trader vessel, Titania, my Astropath was having a panic attack after Alex had told them what had happened at the after-party. A good Terran Astropath as he was, my Astropath decided to abandon the ship, since he didn't want to deal with such idiots. After regaining his conciousness from failing a Fear-check, he Compelled a sec-op to let him go to his room and leave. The sec-op told this to Alex after he had regained the control of himself, and Alex went to stop the cowardly Astropath.

Needless to say, she failed miserably, and again, my Astropath had to use Compel, this time on another PC. After Alexandria regained a control of herself, the Astropath was almost inside of one of the escape pods. Ignoring all of the Rogue Trader's pleads, the Astropath left the ship in an escape pod, taking with him the only person onboard capable of receiving or sending Astro-telepathic signals.

Understanding her blight, Alex foolishly decided to return to the party and plead for her life and ship. Well... she did meet with the Inquisitor, where the RT's dedication to her crew caused the Inquisitor to give her two choices: serve him with the same devotion, or die for her sins. Completely missing the whole offer, she kept saying that she just liked her crew more than anything, and so her fate was sealed. The comissar was ready to execute her, but with quick reflexes and Quick Draw Alex managed to shoot the poor Comissar with her plasma pistol. Comissar, however, did not die, and instead killed Alex with a clean headshot. Alex's player burned her last Fate point to save her ship, thus killing the doomed character right there. Some other random **** happened, but that wasn't as important.

So in one session all this happened:

-RT annoyed and insulted a Lord Inquisitor

-RT told about her kinda heretical hobbies

-RT didn't get the clue at all, and caused herself to become a villain in the eyes of the Inquisition just for being stupid

-Both my characters left the game for good

-The ship is now without an Astropath, in addition to other roles we missed already

-I was chosen to be the next RT

All in all, that session was a very good example of good roleplay and how even discussions can be dangerous. It was really enjoyable.

Aww... I guess that this tale has no happy ending.

-T

While it is good that you feel that everyone did great roleplaying, I would personally consider this a failure of a GM. Reading your story, the player who didn't know about the universe, and was playing the Rogue Trader seemed to be penalized by whoever was running for not knowing the ins and outs that their character should know. The GM should have told the player what the inquisition was and specifically the dangers of talking to a high inquisitor. Even giving the character an intelligence check to know this info would have been preferable to the outcome you presented.

It seems like the Rogue Trader understood, albeit to late, the mistake and tried to make amends, but I maintain that the player should never have been put in that situation without being made aware of some of the dangers.

I think I can honestly say that I would not have found that enjoyable at all had I been a player.

If it hadn't been for the burning of all the fate points, sounds quite fun. Sometimes the players mess things up, and whilst this was maybe a little harsh, they need to learn from their mistakes.

I have a group of 7 playing my RT game. I am the 8th and the GM. I chose the only female playing to be the RT. I also chose another player to be a RT (they were brother and sister). The girl that played the female RT had no understanding of 40k what so ever. She also has a weak personality in real life and was quickly taken advantage of by the other players. The other player killed the other RT PC and became the single RT's command staff. I personally love how dim witted the RT is and go to all lengths to inform her about the 40k universe. My RT acts exactly like the female RT you talk about. My players constantly have to save her from saying something stupid or talk for her. I wouldn't have it any other way. It makes role-playing fun and stressing for all. Not to mention I love having NPC speak with the RT when no PCs are around. She stumbles through words or is plan rude to them for no reason. She is constantly rolling read lips or awareness skills to see people talking about her. Somehow she gets in situations where you expect a leader to make a speech or rally the troops. Every time the words that come out are like a grocery list of words. As you can expect PC normally step in for this too.

+++Incoming Astropathic Transmission+++
+++Authentication Alpha-42 Yellow+++
+++Origin::Oxhibilis Sector+++

+++Astropathic Relay: Port Wander+++

+++Thought for the day: Punishments are the wages of heresy+++

My Lord Tenax.

A prime example of starship capital has been made available in this sector due to bizzare circumstances whereby a Rogue Trader Dynasty has been made effectively leaderless and its ship effectively inoperative. I understand that you are looking for an new starship to aid the Goldrake in the surveying of the windy paths star cluster. I do not know what class she is but if you want us to requesition it it on behalf of house Tenax in order to futher facilitate "the expansion the borders of his holy emperors realm" the you have but to say the word and I will begin to make arangements . Our adept on Cypra Mundi has already been made aware of the situation and will pull some strings in the administratum the momement we hear from you. We need to move fast as we have no idea how much longer the junior officers of the ship will stay harbour side. There is also a problem of a preety stern Inquisitor Lord is is the cause of this whole debacle, but i think he we are fast we can sidestep him, after all he has other duties. May I add that these are sad times where these sour rosette wearing puritans can counternance a Rogue Trader with impunity. Is there no longer any respect for a holy Warrant of Trade? Why your ancestor Montangelus Tenax would have shown him the buisness end of a macrocannon battery until a more reasonable discussion would have followed.

I hope that this message finds you well in the Koronus expanse. I am given to understand that you are still surveying the last of that star cluster and that you have already found orks - (is there no where in the galaxy where they cant be found?). I on the other hand will continue to hang about these tedious partys and balls on this Hive world, of which the unfortunate Rogue Traders ridiculous death was the only amusement The nobility here have no style and taste. Dross hound scavengers every last one of them.

I await your orders

Your Loyal House Retainer

Chevalier Tancredi Tenax.

++Transmission end +++

If the RT's player enjoyed the session, it was an excellent one. If not, however, the GM dropped the ball big time. What's worse, the ball dropped straight on the RT player's head.

There is always the danger with well-established settings that the GM will assume their players know all the relevant background. Fortunately for me, when I started running my Dark Heresy campaign to WH40k virgins, the only thing I forgot to describe properly was bolters (one thought it was something akin to a nail gun...).

I've found it to be good policy to repeat important details (such as the powers of an Inquisitor, or the pyrotechnic nature of bolters) whenever they turn up, just in case someone's forgotten. I also actively promote asking questions about the setting, just in case someone's forgotten something.

Overall, your story sounds like the game was quite a lot of fun! Personally, I would've given the RT lots of good karma for the sheer balls of standing up to an Inquisitor Lord! Whether they did it out of ignorance or otherwise, that is (in my book) just the kind of daring and initiative that experienced Inquisitors would reward! But then again, I like my Inquisitors devious and manipulative chessmasters who view people as either A) too inconsequential to bother killing or B) too promising as resources to execute out of hand. The dead make poor pawns...

But anyway, any game where everyone enjoys themselves is a good one!

PS. @Captain Harlock: Good one!

Alrighty, it's time that the player himself accounted for his actions.

So hi everyone, I am the PC of the now deceased Alexandria Vindictus, former Rogue Trader of the starship Titania.

First off I'd like to straighten out some things in Tylran's story. The important thing is that in fact I did not lie in the least to the Lord inquisitor. I told exactly that which we had discussed with the GM, and nothing further. I may have had to invent something on my own because it wasn't thought through that deeply. Second, my idea in going back to the Lord Inquisitor to apologize was simply to save my ship and my crew, and if I had to die in doing so, I (or Alexandria anyway) was willing to accept that fact. Calling it foolish at that point was a little out of line, I think. Everything else there was more or less true, especially me acting true toward the Lord Inquisitor xD still haven't stopped laughing at that...

Anyways, my main point was to evaluate the game (or this one game scenario anyways) as a whole. I had a lot of fun at the end of the game because the tension in the air was literally almost tangible, and it was a really cool experience. Role-playing and acting-wise the whole thing was worth it's weight in gold. Plus I got a whole sh*t-load of experience points to spend on my new character, so in that respect it was a great experience.

However I still think that the scenario was in fact quite unfair, because, as Tylran already pointed out, my knowledge of the 40K universe was limited to the main, really big plot points, and absolutely none of the subtleties of the world. I though it would have been justified to at least pass me an Intelligence or Common Lore: Imperium -check to determine the depth of the **** that I was in. And if I indeed had known exactly who and what a Lord Inquisitor was, I would have probably tried to keep my head down as far as I could.

Our group of players - except me - are all more or less immersed in the 40K universe, and so i think the GM really did in this case (well throughout the whole game, really) expect everyone to know all the ins and outs of the world - except me of course, and in the end that got to be extremely frustrating, because everyone else clearly had an advantage to the game over myself. So for future reference, just for the sake that everyone has a good experience, I suggest that anyone who GM's this game makes sure that at the very least, if someone goes up to a Lord inquisitor, you give them an Intelligence check before they get themselves killed.

-Zaphkiel

Thanks Z for clearing out some facts. It's hard for others to learn about other PC's secrets, especially since my Astropath wasn't around to scan Alex's mind. =D

I think that the idea behind the choice of making Zaph a Rogue Trader was to limit the power of us 40K-sages. In some ways it worked, and in some ways it backfired. The advisors became babysitters and to increase the depth of **** our entire crew was in, we lack a bit of everything. Titania's crew is totally ignorant of any leadership (GM trademark), they're free-thinkers (GM trademark), and our possibilities are pretty limited at all times, unless we follow the plot (GM trademark). All in all, it's not a bad game, it's just over-challenging. Even I have a really hard time surviving in our own ship (or I was, since we haven't played since my characters departured). I mean even my knowledge feels insufficient. And I know our GM and I know the grim dark future of the 40K pretty well.

Anyhoo, if my RT's reign ends like Alex's, there will be Story of Failures 2.

-T

Tylran said:

Mine do, all six or so of 'em.

Zaphkiel said:

Most certainly agreed. The 40k universe is so rich and heavily detailed that it is nigh impossible for someone to simply step into the game with minimal knowledge and be expected to perform appropriately in any delicate scenario - especially one which could challenge a veteran of the game. I'm glad to hear you had fun and the incident didn't turn you off of 40k - hopefully your future adventures will be more successful.

Jack of Tears said:

Well put all.