Howdy!

It's just 2 short questions, but important ones to me:

I somehow miss a short summary/ review about the possible classes / races / careers, which can be chosen from in the main book (or however the characters are distinguished in creation...). Can anybody please help?

I am just not sure which system to pick: Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader?

Thanks a lot!

Cheers!

Nocturnus said:

What do you want the focus of the campaign to be ?

Answering that will allow us to recommend which of the games would work best for you because, while there are a lot of similarities between the classes in each game, the focus is very different.

The archetypes you can play are basically the same in each game. You have your fighter types and your talky types and your holy warrior types and what not.

What sets the two games apart are the power level and the style of play.

Dark Heresy is lower on the power scale, and revolves around a group of normal people trying to take on darkness beyond imagining. It has a play style somewhere between call of cthulhu and your average fantasy roleplaying game.

Rogue Trader on the other hand sees you as the captain of a massive starship. You don't go on adventures in the same way a normal roleplaying game might see you doing so. There are hundreds of thousands of people at your disposal in rogue trader. You have the money to influence the events of entire planets, if not regions of space. You're primary concern in Rogue Trader is growing the power and prestige of your dynasty, exploring the galaxy, and conquering worlds in the name of the emperor.

DH is more a blade runner style IMO. You are a few humans (sorta) running after more powerful beings then you and the fate of the galaxy and it's billion souls is always in the balance (in different scales). You are a shadow within humanity a cold shadow that keeps human in the line between damnation form the dark gods or enslavement or worst from the other denizens of the stars...

RT is more a Battlestar galactica meets star trek meets general Pashtoon meets Columbus. You have power vast amount of power and you shape the stars by your actions in the name of the Emperor (and yor personnal profit, goals, need) you claim, expand and gather resources for the realm of mankind and the god emperor.

Like the previous poster said, it is all bout the kind of game you want to play.

Both have teh same class 'archtypes', but the execution and feel is much different.

A first level gunfighter in dark heresy may specialize in revolvers, have 30 regular rounds on him, and 10 special round which he saves for very special occasions. Should they see a squad of enemies they will need to come up with a clever plan to defeat, or prefferably bypass them. A bolt-pistol would be a holy relic they one day dream of aquiring.

Their games will involve a lot of sneaking, tactics, and investigation. Resources are scarce, victories are rare, and death is always just around the corner.

A first level gunfighter in Rogue Trader will specialize in...all human weapons. He will carry a bolt gun, a plasma gun, grenades, and run around in power armor. They will battle swarms of human grunts, as well as send in armies, and call in orbital strikes that can crack continental crusts.

The Rogue Trader game will focus on building an empire, swashbuckling, conquering worlds, and starting crusades.

The games are night and day, and you need to decide which kind of game you want to play.

Keep in mind, Rogue Trader can be a very challenging game to GM. It is a lot easier to come up with a challenge for a group of 6 regular guys in a jeep than for a fleet with armies, battle ships, and transporters.

in RT a DM as to keep control over the resources he gives to his player much more then DH. In RT they can hold off moslty anything you can send to take it away as a circumvent. They are that powerful at times or to really threaten them you have to bring something capable of anyhilating them.

In DH it's much easier to over power your players to smooth out some errors on your part. (i.e. the Inquisitor simply asks for it, takes it, etc) In RT you can't do that since nothing can "over power" a RT without massive resources and proofs etc.