A thought occured to me that Rogue Trader is very similar in feel to a Western Genre, much like classic movies such as "The good, the Bad, and the Ugly", or more recent mediums like the game Red Dead Redemption. Many of the elements I find similar such as

1/ Very sparce populations: Port Wander is the "Big City" while most folks in Calixis sector have probably never heard of it. It is considered a minor outpost by battlefleet Calixis, and yet this is the major centre of Civilization in the Rogue trader game. Footfall is one step removed from that and has the lawless feel of some of the wilder towns from the American West (Dodge City?), or Mos Aisley from the Star Wars movies. Beyond that it is just "injun territory" and wild wilderness space. Most of the planets described in the main book are dead (and have been so for a long time). Probably the largest human populations are in the Heathen regions and the book describes that as about a billion souls (which, spread over several planets is probably not that much)

2/ Isloation: Most of the Rogue traders are a combination of a covered wagon, carrying their crew across the empty void and there is NOTHING close by. Even some aliens such as the Styix are described as being in "nomadic caravans" in space. Even the planets which have humans in the Heathen regions are described as nomads with very few stable cities.

3/ Lawlessness. Even in Port Wander, there is a miniscule Arbite presence (the Law) and a fairly large criminal element. It goes downhill fast as soon as you leave and enter Footfall, and after that the law is only the vast wilderness. Rogue traders are advised to carry a big gun and bring their version of Imperial rule to any areas that they settle since the rule of the Imperium has absolutely no reach there.

4/ Opportunism: It occured to me that a good Rogue Trader would have been Daniel Plainfield from the movie There will be Blood (played by Daniel Day Lewis). An absolutely ruthless bastard who will pull every resource out of a planet and crush anyone who stands in his way. No doubt the amount of competition between Rogue Traders is legendary and that their Greed knows no bounds. Similar to the Robber Barons of the Old west who built massive empires on the backs of cheap labour.

That is the beautiy of the game. Rather than being in the centre of the Imperium, it is on the edge of space in a totally forsaken region. There is something facinating about being in a very isolated part of the world with only scattered pockets of humanity. Individuals count for more rather than being another face in the crowd. Things are simpler, yet the challenges are larger because of the sense of being alone and no one is coming to help. Civilization is pushing itself out. The Western era has a very interesting appeal.

I think a better analogy is the Age of Exploration and the Age of Sail. Wooden Ships and Iron Men, and all that. Your point still stands though, and it is grat for it.

From the designer diary in April 2009:

"The Koronus Expanse is the core setting for Rogue Trader, a region beyond the Imperium on the rim of known space. The Expanse exists somewhere amongst the Halo Stars region, accessible through a (mostly) stable warp passage known as “the Maw.” In the Expanse, the Explorers can find numerous opportunities for both danger and profit!

"When designing the Expanse, I knew we wanted to get the “feel” exactly right. It’s a bit of a mix of the Wild West with the “Darkest Africa” of many pulp adventures. It’s looking into a dark room from a well-lit hallway. The open door projects some light into the gloom (in this case, the door is the Maw), but the further one goes into the room, the surroundings become more uncertain and mysterious. The Expanse is a realm of legends, whispered stories of fortune and horror, and cryptic messages: “Here be dragons.”

Yes the Wild West Trope was there from the start, though I GM my adventures more in the vein of 'Darkest Africa'. My take on the basic idea is that its a frontier of some sort where anything is possible and the normal background 40K canon is looser allowing you to create stuff and worlds that GW wouldn't really approve in their core setting of because it doesnt thematically fit in. Which is why I prefer RT over DH or DW. Its a lot more forgiving because when a player complains that its wouldn't happen because it contradicts thematically, you just shrug and say 'Koronus expanse were not in the imperium'.

...which then suggests that Firefly / Serenity might be a really good source to plunder?

Interesting topic! I hadn't remembered that quote from the designer diary, but it sounds like everyone is spot on. I see it as a mix of Age of Sail privateers (Mutiny on the Emperor's Bounty anyone?) mixed with the best romanticism about the Old West. I loved Firefly and Serenity, by the way (what geek worth his salt didn't?!), but I felt that some of the Western elements were a little too overt... although I suppose it would have been too similar to Star Wars if they had been more subtle. Whedon had some great ideas and as usual the characters were genuinely interesting.

My players must have picked up on it, too. Our Arch-Militant was closely modelled after Tuco from the The Good, the Bad and The Ugly and his recent one-shot side story was heavily inspired by Treasure of the Sierra Madre. There is a whole heap of inspiration to draw from, really, from Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves to Beowulf (or perhaps Eaters of the Dead), which is why Rogue Trader has become my 40K RPG of choice above Deathwatch and Dark Heresy (although both great backdrops as well). After reading Andy Hoare's Rogue Star, it occurs to me that the self-contained City-Ships are a little like massive submarines the metaphor isn't as striking, but there's even a bit of Das Boot in there potentially as well.

Although my group hasn't yet found the extra motif, there's also the potential for telling Call of Cthulhu style plots (a la Fading Suns) and, last but not least, Aliens is thrown in for good measure.

What has been your best inspiration so far?

Our Group didnt really go for the whole western theme. Ours was more Hernando Cortez Conquistadors and the East India Company with just a bit of Marco Polo.. But the PC's have taken different tropes from all over the place. Less Merchantry and more exploration conquest and Intrigue.

Our Seneshal player has developped like a female Version of Havelock Vetinari (Terry Pratchett) always in the Background and being very menacing and sarcastic and basically just making carefull plans and sending the dynasty minions to do her bidding.

The Arch Militant is a cross between Rambo (or at least in the characteristic loving the punishment) and Rick Deckard from blade runner, a loyal if slighly melancholic bodyguard/troubleshooter

The Navigator is quite curious, as the player is trying to create something between the wanderering Monk from the series of Kung Fu and the Alchemist character from the paulo Cohelo The Alchemist book. A guy who is on the search for enlightenment, quite different from the renaissance family/nihilistic navigator archetype that is in vogue.

Usually I GM, but when I do get to RP I play the part of the actual Rogue Trader, who I play as something like the Arabian Prince from the 13th Warrior or a obscure comic called Largo Winch, basically a quite gifted individual who has had the warrant thrust upon him who is struggling to come to terms with the power he now wields and the new enviroment he is in. Initially I wanted to play him as badass character like the anime Character Captain Harlock, but as I roleplayed him he became less mysterious and driven (after all the whole driven psycopath rogue trader has already been done in DH and borrying from the same source) and more of a renaissance man who has been well trained but is having to learn to be a bit more rough and tumble.

Theres another three less regular players who play respectively a jaded missionary, a survivalist lesser Rogue trader with a overly enthusiastic Kroot bodyguard, but these are less developped but may change as they progress.

Wow! I'd love to play in your campaign sounds like you have quite a good mix of characters and inspirations. I love that the world of Rogue Trader can accommodate all of these different angles. Harlock, are all or most of your players well-versed in the 40K-verse? Most of my group isn't but they're finding it relatively easy (and I hope interesting) to jump into.

Dune is a big influence on the original fluff, isn't it? But it seems too obvious to crib from it, although I do like how Metabarons puts some weird twists on the genre.

JonSolo said:

Two of us are, while the others have played tabletop 40k at one time or another and so know the settings, two of the less frequent players played the 'space crusade' boardgame in the early 90's and knew zilch about the actual setting. As a rough primer I direct them to this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Warhammer40000

Its tongue in cheek and not overly accurate but it gives ideas and tropes that players new to the setting can explore with examples from other media and narratives so that they 'get' it. I myself use the site quite often to filch and grab generic or interesting ideas. I tried even to created a random generator table for some of the tropes for the endevours, (though it ended up in one game with some absolutely barmy ideas which divert a bit too much from 40k- but if theres one medium you can do this kind of stuff RT is it)

Dune is a massive influence on 40K which borrowed ideas such as feudal planetary empires and navigators and the such like, but it was fused with other stuff like the starship troopers novel of Heinlein, the whole HP lovecraft mythos, 2000AD comics and of course JRR Tolkien (elves in space!) However I think that was in the late 80's when GW was a bit desperatly derivative with ideas from all over the space. Some of the early planets were even named after cereal brands. One was even named 'Birmingham- the black planet' which was described in the first edition of 40k as 'culturally backward' much to the chargrin of the good people of Birmingham. (GW has mentioned in the most recent 40k rulebook that contact has been broken with Birmingham after a dark Eldar attack- a wonderfull way of retconning youthfull misdemenours from its early days similar to the way which the 'abhumans which we will not speak of' suffered at the hands of the nids)

Now its far more a compact and recognisable cosmology and a good thing too, though I do sometimes dearly miss some of the older tongue in cheek stuff However I do wish that GW be a bit more hands on anout their about their setting. One crazy guy who runs a site called "Schola Progenium" reads all the Fluff rules and novels and is painstakingly recording and charting all the planets in teh 40k universe. Last time I counted them up and out of the 'million imperial worlds' GW has mentioned in its sources its coming up to nearly 5000 which is 5% of the whole.