Hello everyone,
Here is the case: I am GMing Lure for the Expense and with a small seasoned party of gamers (playing a RT, a navigator and an arch-militant) and a friend of us is to join us soon. While she’s a seasoned LARPer, she’s quite new to the tabletop RPG and totally new to 41st Millenium.

I am in charge proposing her a PC, she let me free for concept except she does not wish to be the Face nor the “One” on whom the plot is built. My primary goal is everyone enjoys the game and has the opportunity to shine. So far I held the following analysis:
- RT : no we have one already (easy)
- Arch-militant : why not but the PC have to be different from the other one (doable)
- Astropath: why not, at very least you get fun with the powers but an Astropath is a pariah in imperial society
- Explorator: I am not at ease with the idea to give to someone who knows nothing about 40k as I fear she misses why AM is cool and get bored. But I can be wrong
- Missionary: rather a social career and you need to some notion of the Imperial Creed but it is a versatile career so why not
- Navigator: we have one already so if I wished to get one more s/he would be a Navis Scion but it would be much social
- Senechal: too much social, I think
- Void Master:
o Small craft pilot: why not but I tend to think the PC will have too few occasion to shine
o Other speciality: I can’t get where is the fun of them (if someone can explain, s/he is welcome)

I’d like to avoid using DH career because RT PC and DH PC don’t evolve at the same rate
So what do you think about my analysis?
Would someone have advice?

Void-master seems like a solid choice. In starship combat she gets to control the ship or the big guns, or deliver boarding parties onto an enemy ship. She is also important for getting the group safely onto and off a planet. (Comes up more than once in LotE...)

How do you determine characteristics?

Do you use Into the Storm?

Thoughts on your thoughts:

Astropath: I don't know that "pariah" is the correct word here. People often fear them, but in much the same way the fear wizards in a low-magic world. This doesn't need to be an X-Men "fear and hatred" situation where they are discriminated against and hunted, it is more of a Merlin situation where they are feared and talked about, but still a trusted, powerful, intrinsic part of imperial society. Peasants might discriminate or hide, but most of the people they are dealing with will be well aquainted with astropaths, while uncomforatble around them, deal with them as equals.

Explorator: I fully agree, never let someone new to40k play an explorator. There is too much they need to know, and a totally different mindset they need to work with.

Missionary: I have a new player playing a missionary and it is working fairly well. The Imperial Creed is very strait forward, and there are close parallels in our history for htem to model themselves after (just tell them they are like a 15th century catholic missionary). There are so many different creeds out there , you can just give new players a general overview of the religion and then let them come up with their own interpretation of the Emperors divinity.

Navigator: Probably only want one per group, yeah.

Senchal: Doesn't have to be that social in a "party face" sort of way. They can focus on information and contacts, and on coming up with new, sneaky ways to make money. They should have the ability to find lots of information and gather resources. You should also emphasize the leadership role, give them things to do on the ship, decisions to make, people to command.

Voidmaster: Not having occasions to shine? You must run a different sort of game than lots of the rest of us. Small craft pilots often end up very busy in many groups. Voidmasters are also excellent fighters and very useful in combat. Finally, with the voidmaster you really should emphasize the "leadership" aspect. They represent the crew and their interests. The crew looks up to them as their voice to the Rogue Trader. They are effectively a "villiage elder" and seen as "one of us", a unique position among the command crew. When something important comes up, they bring it up with the voidmaster, not the Rogue Trader.

I agree about leaving out DH careers, they don't fit well.

Thanks for your replies.
From your replies and some personal further thoughts I started to design a Void Master specialized into small crafts. The concept behind is the character is a smuggler who has a huge debt (like the price of a Guncutter) to a crime lord
- Hive born
- Scavenger
- Criminal (hunted by a Crime baron)
- Press Ganged (forced recruitment in a pirate crew)
- Fear (Ennemy in Ascendance)

I have presented the idea to the lady and she looks enthusiast.

@Iku Rex :
For the characteristics, we use the method of the points pool (100 points)
Yes I have Into the Storm.

I think void master might be more complicated than for instance an arch militant. Starship and other forms of vehicular combat is an additional ruleset to learn.

She will need to learn those rules anyway. At least being a void master makes her good at it.