Hello, this is my personal rant about the Ship Point/Profit Factor system that's used in Rogue Trader after reading the origin path for it in Into the Storm and not being able to use it.

First of all, I have to say I partly liked how it was handled in the core rulebook. You had 10 options from the starting dynasty that has one weak ship but great financial backing to the ancient dynasty that once had a great fleet (all that's left now is a cruiser) and is almost ruined. Playing anything else wouldn't make much sense, where's the fun in playing a dynasty at the height of its power, or one that is completely ruined and has a weak ship and a weak profit factor? Now the two things I didn't like:

1) Rolling for it. I don't like deciding character backgrounds with the roll of a die. And that's what the system does. If I want my Rogue Trader to be the founder of his own dynasty, I don't want to roll that I'm the scion of an ancient one. Easy way to fix: Pick instead of roll.

2) There's one rule that completely destroys the distinction between young and old dynasties. You can add all your left-over ship points to profit factor. Meaning that someone who rolled that he's the heir of an old dynasty with barely any money left can just outfit a freighter and start with the same financial backing as somebody who rolled the opposite. Meaning that the system in fact isn't as balanced as it looks. The older the dynasty the more choices you have.

Now to the origin path. Okay, I have to admit I'm crazy, and I make crazy characters that often break rule systems. For example I made a Dark Heresy character who is an Adept from a Feral World (serf of a space marine chapter who worked in the library). What I wanted to create with the warrant and ship origin path was something for a cross-over setting, it already worked with the third option of the core table, but I thought, "Hey, maybe it will work even better with the origin path."The concept is an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor who got a warrant and a ship to get her and a Deathwatch team out of the way of her colleagues after the Deathwatch didn't observe proper protocol when handling a heretical inquisitor (they shot him in the face before denouncing him) and the Inquisitor backed them up. They are supposed to end up with a frigate-sized ship and a bit of financial back-up due to their remaining allies.

So let's start. The warrant is so fresh the ink hasn't even dried yet. So I choose "The Waning" for warrant age. I have two options for Fortune & Fate. Since the game is meant to be build around a ship with a very competent and mixed crew from all three game systems I choose "Rising Star". The other option "Ascending" would have worked even better, because the crew isn't really that interested in acquiring riches, but that would mess up the next line, acquisition. Since they were practically sent into "Exile" that's what I choose. Thank the Emperor that leads me to the only fitting choice in the sanction line, "Halo Artefacts". All the other events sanction refers to took place before the warrant was issued. Selling alien artefacts isn't really something a former Ordo Xenos Inquisitor would do, but it can be rationalized as being rewarded for clever bargaining when handing them over to the proper authorities. Now the contacts. Pirates? Most certainly not. "Merchant House" is the only other option that can be chosen, even though for a former Inquisitor Adeptus Mechanicus or Battlefleet would be better. Warrant Renown? "Unknown" since it's new.

36 Ship Points, 54 Profit Factor. Barely enough ship points for the weakest of raiders but better than average financial backing. Not exactly what I imagined. And again on the left side of the path you are forced into a weak ship but get a great profit factor. On the right side you aren't forced into anything. Choose the ship you want and convert the rest of your ship points into profit factor.

As a GM I hate randomness, I prefer to have controll of my campaign and I determine the parameters for the start of the campaign.

So in my campaign:
1) I throw out the character creation system
2) I determine how many ship points they have or just outright give them a ship I made
3) I determine their starting Profit
4) I determine how many point they gain for their starting profile
5) I determine if a character suits my campaign

This might sound a bit rigid but it does allow me to mold the story the way I want to....

For example:
My current campaign started at the funeral of the Rogue Trader characters father (determined by me) they inherited the Golden Dawn (ship by my design), the trade in was that they started with a Profit of 45 (which is nice) and an Archeotech Frigate.

I gave them these parameters well before character creation so they could think what kind of characters they wanted to play, how they would fit into the group and how their relations were.

So now we've played 5 or 6 sessions the group has formed, they are using and abusing each other and the ship is the backused to make the characters look cool, they are very proud of their ship.

Point being, random is not always good, the books are toolboxes to be used by the GM however he sees fit...

Santiago said:

You should never GM again, ever, if this is what you truly think is the right thing for the GM to do.

I've been thinking about this for a long time, too. I don't actually dislike the system as much as you do, but I do think there are some issues with both the original RT system and the system set out in Into the Storm.

I think some of the problems stem from the fact that we are trying to develop the history of an entire Rogue Trader dynasty (a very complicated thing) using only two characterstics: Profit Factor and Ship points. To misquote Hannibal Lector "Do you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?"

And I'm not sure the underlying mechanic of a trade off between the two characteristics actually makes much underlying sense. Why should an ancient dynasty have a powerful ship but reduced funds?

However, it is very difficult to come up with a robust workable alternative. I know because I tried! I started writing up some rules for an alternative Warrant of Trade generation system, (before the publication of Into the Storm) but I had to admit that my rules swiftly became unworkable because they were overcomplicated. My system was effectively random generation, but it stalled because I tried to give players a bit of choice over certain aspects. This was too impractical to manage. After about 8 pages of incredibly complicated tables, I gave up on it. It did have rules for a Warrant of Trade personally issued by the Emperor or a Primarch, though...

I think for there to be a workable system, you'd need to have more initial characteristics that players can "trade off" against each other to get a more nuanced balance that suits their interpretation of their Dynasty. You could also have a flaws/merits system that would impact purely upn the dynasty itself.

In terms of those extra characteristics, one that struck me as being quite suitable for a characteristic to add to the Profit Factor/Ship point system was morale. At the moment, morale is purely a function of ship combat mechanics, but if you think it though, it would actually make a sensible prime characteristic for a Rogue Trader dynasty. A dynasty with low morale, rather than just being poor at ship combat, would be prone to mutinies, intrigues, assassination attempts against the Trader himself...perhaps with rival claimants to the warrant waiting in the wings etc. Perhaps to distinguish this concept from ship morale, you could call ti something else like cohesion, but you'd need some mechanic to allow it to interact with the ship combat morale system: perhaps by a simple rule saying morale can never exceed cohesion.

Another prime characteristic might be one that reflects the dynasty's existing commitments, such as family trade routes, planets under their control, chartered routes within the Imperium, palaces etc etc. These may or may not generate profit (on a random basis) but are vulnerable to external attack, and must be protected by the dynasty to ensure profit and prestige.

And a further one might be a characteristic which reflects the glorious history/skeletons in the closet (Legacies) of the dynasty: dark secrets, external enemies, ancient weapons, heirlooms etc.

So perhaps you could have a system where the players start with a pool of 175 points to spread as they choose amongst:

• Profit Factor
• Ship Points
• Morale/cohesion
• Legacies
• commitments

So for example, if you want to play an ancient dynasty riven with internal conflict but possessing a powerful ship and many ancient heirlooms, you might have 50 ship points, 40 legacies, 35 in commitments and 25 each in Morale/cohesion and Profit Factor.

Or if you wanted to play a brand new dynasty with no history at all, but with excellent morale due to a charismatic and popular Rogue Trader, you might have 85 points in Morale/cohesion, 30 points each in Profit Factor/Ship points and 10 points in legacies and commitments.

And so on.

I recognise that's far from perfect (the morale/cohesion thing would need some solid game mechanics to link it to ship combat) but it would give players a lot more choice over the type of dynasty they have.

Furthermore, with a robust merits/flaws mechanic, you could have a lot of further options. You could have a system whereby you "buy" things with morale, cohesion and commmitment points in the same way that you "buy" a ship. With Commitments, for example, you buy a portfolio of investments from a list of different types: trade routes, planetary systems you control etc etc. If you choose "flawed" commitments, you might get additional commitment points, but they come at the price of, for example, taking on a trade route that runs right past the lair of some infamous pirates. With legacies you could increase the number of legacy points by buying enemies and so on.

I recognise that it's still a "trade off" system that at its root isn't that different to the existing one, but I think it could become a lot more flexible with additional basic characteristics.

Anyway, just a few thoughts!

If you dont like it, dont use it.

In the game I am starting, I had the idea that the Rogue Trader was the heir apparent to a very ancient lineage of 'Traders. He was given some seed money and a sweet ship and told to go make a fortune or dont come back.

Yet when we went and made characters, when the roll was made to get SP and PF, the roll was to have a huge PF and minimum SP. So, I talked over my idea with the players, and they much preferred to do my idea over the roll. So we dont use the roll.

My void master wants to use a shotgun (for close encounters, of course ). I will prolly just give him basic weapon SP for free so he can use it. Rules dont allow it, but so what?

Any game system has its odd bits. If you dont like them, do what you want.

Kalec Fash said:

Santiago said:

Oh, but that's part of the fun... mediocrity breeds ambition, ruthlessness and desperation, all of which are valuable traits for any Rogue Trader dynasty to cultivate and all of which are fun for a GM to work with... at least in my experience.

My group is led by a Child of Dynasty Rogue Trader, so he didn't have the option to swap his spare Ship Points out for extra Profit Factor. With the group having picked an ancient but much-faded warrant, they ended up with a decent number of Ship Points - used to purchase an extremely well-equipped and well-crewed Cobra-class frigate that dates back to the Great Crusade - and a mere 28 Profit Factor to go with it. The group are consequently always plotting, scheming and trying to figure out how to squeeze every last opportunity out of a situation... which is exactly the point, in my opinion.

Okay, by now I read Lure of the Expanse and have to say... The authors ignore their own system. Jeremiah Blitz one of the rival rogue traders won a favor from a sector lord in a game, wished for a warrant of trade and got it together with a cruiser a year and a day later. New dynasty with a cruiser.

@ Lightbringer

Personally I don't think adding even more characteristics would be a good idea. I would rather allow free conversion of profit factor and ship points into each other and decouple the values from the background. My idea for a replacement for the ship/warrant origin path would probably run into the same problem as yours, being too complex. Instead of ship points and profit factor you practically would get dynasty traits. For example if someone got his warrant of trade as a means to send him into exile he will probably have powerful enemies but will maybe have an easier time when dealing with his enemies' enemies. Someone who has an alliance with the Adeptus Mechanicus might for example get reduced repair costs at forge worlds but has to ferry around a bunch of NPC explorators who wouldn't like it if he deals with heretech or wants to install xenos components on his Omnissiah-blessed ship. Somebody who comes from an old dynasty might have hidden assets like worlds his ancestors conquered he can rediscover but also old obligations he has to honour, while somebody from a new dynasty has neither. Of course in a system where profit factor and ship points don't matter the whole path would have to be reevaluated. For example there would be no reason to disallow warrants granted as rewards in the Age of Waning but trading alien artifacts still wouldn't make you the favoured child of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

@ All who say I don't have to use it

I still think the idea of a dynasty origin path has a lot of potential.

I houseruled it that unspent SP became Dynasty Points. Basically, the players could request that their dynasty have certain chattels, features or history, and I'd put a DP cost on it. A permanent home on Footfall might cost 1 DP and allow them particular bonuses while there, while a network of spies throughout the Expanse could cost 2 or 3. Close ties with a forgeworld would easily be worth five DP, or they could put it towards a Dynastic legend of a planet filled to the brim with treasure and a strange bronze sphere in the Trader's personal effects...

Whatever the system, I do think there is some scope for some dynasty generation rules, in the same way that we have character generation and ship generation rules.

I wasn't speaking of mediocre characters...though they can/may be mediocre the should excel at something, they are the heroes of the story, but I was talking about the story itself.

I prepare my campaign months ahead, I hate adjusting things to random side events, players should cause those, not their sheets.
Plus I prefer my characters to start out at the same level.

When we played Warhammer Fantasy back in the ninties some characters were great at everything, lucky dice rolls, we had wizards which could wield a sword better than the Warrior, which is stupid.
So we always use fixed point character creation, whether it is RT, DH, DW, D&D or WOD, we have no problems with raising or lowering the amount of creation points for higher or lower powered characters.

Santiago said:

Went in and out of the pre decided over rolled over the years. Both have their ups and down.

Personally in the last few years I have started to be less and less into the same Xp and same pre decided stats. In D&D I used to let player roll a D4 of random level difference.

Gives flavour to the party, a veteran warrior with an apprentice wizard etc.