Hello,

My gaming group are big fans of Dark Heresy and I have been eyeing Rouge Trader for a while now. I have noticed that it looks like it is kind of like running a business more than space swash buckers kind of stuff. Despite the fact that it looks like they have done their best to keep the crunch down as far as the business side of endevours and running your ship, I am not sure if that part of this game appeals to me or even my players more than the exploration and stuff.

Are endevours the main theme of this game or does the rules give ways you can run this game without the whole having the players keep track of the business side of Rouge Trader? Or is the rules so easy that does not matter? Or am I just missing the point and most likely this game is not for me?

Thanks and I'll take my answers off the air

Cheers

Ultimately, Rogue Traders do what they do for power and money, so the profit and business sides of the game are fairly important (it's integral to the entire "economy" of the game, such as how your group buy things, hire people, fix their ship, and the like). Whilst Rogue Traders do do exploration, it's always tied with trying to figure out how to exploit what they find for their own profit. If that's not the sort of thing you're into, I'd probably say a large chunk of this game isn't going to be for you.

If you just want exploration and the like, there are more suited games out there, like Traveller.

Tes profit is a concern - but it also depends on the focus of the group - an explorator group could be focused on searching for a specific lost piece of technology (the 'Grail STC'), a clerical group could be searching for long lost colonies of mankind to bring back to the light of the emperor, a rogue trader under contractor to a Navigator house could be there for mapping the warp laneways, a rogue trader could even be charted by a group of outcasts to find them a colonisable planet to hide themselves on...

You could take the Imperial Navy angle with a long range scout ship like a light cruiser, but one of the most appealing things about being a RT is that you are free to make decisions and in the IN, you're not going to have that same level of freedom in decision making as a player character RT- all the applicable classes in RT will more or less transfer over into the game as Imp Navy roles

Thats not to say that RT's answer to no one, their primary purpose is the exploration of lost space to reclaim it for humanity- something you should bear in mind amidst the profit factors if they want to keep that writ and in the good books of people who indirectly support them.

I wouldn't be put off by the endeavours system, Dustin, it's actually really flexible, and is primarily designed to encourage interesting adventures. RT is much more like a swashbuckling game of adventure and excitement than Sim Small Business! It's kept deliberately simple and abstract to avoid players getting bogged down with the minutiae of running a dynasty. As a Rogue Trader you've got servants to deal with all that boring stuff!

There's two parts to the Profit Factor system: Gaining it and using it.

The Endeavor system is relatively simple - you just assign values to certain objectives that might play into your adventures, then gain Profit Factor when enough of them are fulfilled. It's really more of a background thing the GM should keep an eye on.

Using your PF to buy stuff on the other hand side should be understood by the players, but since the modifiers for the test fit in a single table, it shouldn't be too hard either.

All in all, the whole PF system generally slides into the background as much as you wish. If you're more into exploration than pure commerce, then you'll probably derive your PF more from Exploration objectives than Trading objectives, but that's almost all there is to it.

Simply put, swashbuckling adventures are what Rogue Traders do for business. You're not just some merchant carrying tons of spice across established trade routes, you're the guy who travels outside of charted space, find a planet with a spice not yet seen in the Empire space, avoid being sacrificed to Great Cthulhu by locals, and then haul the spice through the warp route only you know of. While doing that, you'll battle with space pirates, dodge the Imperial Fleet, negotiate with Imperial Governors who might be interested in your services, and romance their daughters (just hope that it doesn't involve ballroom dancing ).

Endeavours are just a tool for your GM to put all this in a framework, as the activities of a Rogue Trader are a bit harder to grasp properly than what the Acolytes in DH are doing. Plus, Endeavours make the difference between being randomly awarded with Profit Factor by your GM's whim and being awarded adequately to what you did. Which is another nice help for the GM because the Profit Factor is a very artificial and arbitrary system otherwise.

Thank you everyone for your comments and information on this. Our Dark Heresy GM has been hinting off to me to run this game to give it a try.

I have looked at the **** book so many times and don't know why I have not bought it. The only other sci-fi game we have played (other than DH) has been Serenity, but RT is on a HUGE scale compared to that

It did not occur to me to try running the demo adventure first to see if it is up to what my players want to play before buying the book (I love how FF puts out those adventures). I did want to see if my observation on the endevour system being really important was true and it looks so.

Rogue trader can also be combined with Dark Heresy. example: cart around inquisitor and his retinue. though with the new xeno race choices coming soon, things are bound to get interesting with an inqusitor on board. easiest thing to remember for an endevor, keep it simple, flowing, and add some challenging combats to spice things up. if you have the creatures anathema, you can add hostile vermin to break the leisurely walk through a hive city.

anyway, have fun and take pride in the psyker mishap table. lol

You can ignore Endeavors altogether and the GM can just award PF raises when he sees fit to reward various things you do that would earn money.

When I GM'd it, I made up a bunch of planets and let the players explore and exploit them as they saw fit. If you want an exploration game, then your GM can do that too- as players you just need to keep moving instead of settling down and exploiting the natives.

SJE

I use the Expanded Star System Generator developed by xodusprime and Giuas Novus Khan located here:

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I then generate interesting story / back-story for them to explore out in the Hecaton Rifts.