From time to time, you will encounter issues among your players on how to divy up the loot. weither it is after an epic fight or the looting of a captured ship, how do you as Gm's or as the moderators that exist within the party. how do you decide who get what bits and ends and how much, and what portion is used to boost profit factor AKA the Rogue trader( only reason is that the RT is the only character with the profit factor resource)

Void_onion213 said:

First of all, PF is totally different from loot. It represents an ongoing profit or reputation boost. For the most part PF boost should be the result of setting up new business ventures and trade routes. Things that return income for years. You can't "sell" a weapon for a PF boost, though you can set up an archeological dig at the site of a treasure. And often you can keep an item and STILL gain a PF boost. Your reputation and influence can grow due to carrying around an ancient relic. For the most part there should be no conflict between PF gains and items.

Secondly, the GM has nothing to do with this, it is totally up to the players. This isn't WoW where where everyone is out for themselves, they are a crew, all working under the Rogue Trader, who can give them orders and should be ensuring everyone is well equipped. Ideally they should be working as a crew to maximize their abilities, and for the most part that means they will be spreading new items around so that everyone can maximize their ability to contribute.

Thirdly, PF (while technically assciated with the RT) is actually a group resource, not the Rogue Traders. You don't track individual incomes, they don't purchase things with their own resources. It is like working for a big company, you don't buy your own computer and tools.

Finally, from a GMs perspective, "looting" should not be a major concern anyways. Again, this isn't WoW, or D&D. For the most part the PCs can afford almost anything they want right from the get-go, and many of their most important aquisitions (troops, new components) are going to be the result of increasing their PF and contacts. There will be the occasional item wrested from their fallen foes, but the types of items they cant afford/find are rare, and thus should only come up rarely.

Their goal shouldn't be "cool gear", they start with that. They need to be focused on building their power base, increasing their reputation, undermining their enemies, and exploring the void, not "ph4t l3wt!1!"

I agree with riplikash wholeheartedly.

I would only add that in those rare cases there is some special relic that can only benefit one person (the owner holder), the loot must be divided up according to the players wishes not the characters (use random roll, round robin, etc). Even if how that is makes little sense in the game. For one character to pull rank and decide how that goes can cause problems amongst the players.

Honestly though, I think that works out pretty much the same way in all games though.

only reason i mentioned this is because of the past groups i'v been in. undermining the enemy not so much, mostly our individual goals ended up undermining each other. i matters not what system it is, the fact that not all players will act in a unified order. what riplikash said, to an extent is true but only on paper. most players will try to individually benefit from an encounter or endeavor. most but not all, last RT group had one player that started a mutiny on one of our ships. you only see the issue based on how the book handles it or you might have a group with no internal issues.

Hmm, you might have bad players. I typically eject the odd player who acts like that, but most are good about it. But lets see...

One thing that should help is that they should create their characters, group, and ship together. RT is a bit different from D&D, the characters aren't supposed to be created and played as disperate individuals with their own goals and loyalties thrown together by the whims of fate. They are a CREW, a leader with trusted advisors, tied together by bonds of trust, loyalty, and respect and they need to create characters that reflect this situation.

They PCs should already know eachother well, have served together for years, saved eachothers lives, and formed bonds. A Rogue Trader isn't going to accept an unknown, untrusted individual into his inner circle no matter how talented.

As the GM you need to occationally discourage anti-social character ideas. Just because someone wants to make a player who is secretly plotting to overthrow the ship doesn't mean you have to let him, and just because someone wants to make a overbearing ruthless captain doesn't mean you have to let them. Sometimes (not always) you need to veto character concepts for the good of the game.

If you can handle it some interparty conflict can be fun, but as a generally it should be discouraged unless you have very mature players and you are a very experienced GM.

from my personal experience mature players are a type of rarity. some were good, another sealed one of the RT in a room with a melta weapon and handed the ship controls to a mutinus officer. that other player in question was another RT. i understand were you are comming from, but i never have had the luck of a coherant group, mostly because it is the only local game. never was able to get anyone for a game of my own.

Well, you got a problem then. For a group like yours I recommend playing Paranoia. Where players plot against each other as much as they like but where the random actions from the Computer decides their ultimate fate.

RT is a game where you are forced together or fail miserably. Especially when you enforce that akk NPC crew are muppets who can't even tie their own shoelaces. Work together or you will end up without any profit. Onky advice I have is to throw them into situation where not wortking together means losing FP's rapidly. Perhaps that will give them the idea.

I'm afraid I have to agree. The problem is your group. If you have an immature group there probably isn't a lot you can do in most cooperative games. An RPG is only as good as the people playing it.

You can try some of the suggested strategies to train them, but usually a bad group is going to be a bad group. There isn't a lot of help we can offer you if you have an immature group.

And remember, sometimes the GM has to be the bad guy for the good of the group. It is the GMs job to kick out trouble players and invite in good ones. That can be hard to do, especially with long time friends, but it is all part of being a good GM.

And mature players aren't that rare, at least once you get past 20 or so. You just have to know how to look for them.

On possible answer would be for the GM to make sure there's an external ennemy to wled the party under pressure - give the PCs something they hate more than each other and they'll hopefully set aside their quarrels until it's our of their hair. The cooperation might even linger after the problem's solved.

Though I'd first ask the players about what they want - if they have more fun plotting and and backstabbing each other than cooperating, mybe it's time to pcik another game and schedule things around that plotting and backstabbing.

If it's a matter of the characters holding a vendetta amongst themselves 'I did this to him because he did that to me' 'but I did that in reprisal of those' 'And those were payback for...', a solution to break the cycle could be to have a powerfull third party (maybe their dynasty's seniors or whoever granted their warrant of trade) get fed up with their bickering and doing some sort of boot camp stage before giving back their positions and perks. Ot whatever other situaion requires them to cooperate or pay dearly (with the possibility to get replacement bits, removing a limb or three can get the point home in an effecitve but not definitive way).