Hey Everybody, I've been running a Rogue Trader game for a bit now. I've run into the situation where the players feel a little too big for their britches. Well.. that is an understatement. I need an idea for how bad one of their decisions may have set them back. To give an idea of how far I'm thinking of going, is the Cult Mechanicus literally pulling all hands off the Rogue Trader vessel.

They've already killed one of the senior members of the Cult Mechanicus aboard their ship. (It was a hostage situation. Navigator's reaction was to Warp Eye Murder the twenty guys in the room. Even with the telepathic warning.. the Tech priest perished. The cult doesn't know he was killed by 'friendly fire' just that the senior officers went in, and the tech priest didn't come out.) Recently the explorator, rogue trader and seneschal basically traded away Cult mechanic secrets (The How to guide of Melta Weapons) to a group that didn't have melta technology. All for the Moneyz. They didn't inquire with the Mechanicus aboard at all, or request permission first, or see if the mechanicus had it's own agenda.

This realistically needs to bite them in the butt. I've slowly been scaling up consequences for their actions. This does need to be a big one. They already had their Profit factor reduced to reflect significant increase in Tithes to the Machine Cult from the Dynasty. Any ideas?

I'm not sure, under normal circumstances, that a RT should be able to trade any form of technology. Gear yes. Producing Melta Technology requires both the pattern and the equipment to do it. The cult doesn't recognize technology, a body of knowledge, as such. Instead you have blueprints, production equipment and rituals of maintenance. If somebody can produce melta weaponry from basic information, that means that they have a pattern (potentially unknown) and that your PC's should probably sell the location of the group to the Ad Mech.

As an aside, if you're playing Lure of the Expanse, the material basically specifically states that this transaction falls within what is allowable for the Rogue Trader.

As for the Tech Priest, I'm surprise that there are any functionaries aboard that outrank the PC Explorator. Unless this was a visiting Ad Mech dignitary I can't see it being a big deal. Starship combat can lead to literally tens of thousands of dead crew members. One Ad Mech biting it, isn't going to cause much of a stir.

In short I think you're overreacting. Nothing really seems to a scale that would get the cult angry (well unless your players gave away a newly discovered template, but at that point the Ad Mech would probably just invade the world).

Make it into a plot for your players to enjoy.

i.e. Mechanicus is pissed, they send an emissary who, very politely, informs them that they have transgressed, that he is sure they didn't mean to do it and that if they will perform this one service for the Ad Mech, then all will be forgotten. Of course, if they don't do the service, then he will take no further action at all, in fact the Ad Mech will demonstrate their continued good wishes by leaving the rogue trader alone. Entirely alone. They will respect his intentions by leaving his ship.....all of them. This should obviosuly be clear to the players that they MUST do this favour or lose their tech support and be dead in the water ("Er....guys....anyone know how to start a skyscraper sized plasma reactor?")

Of course the favour will be something juicy, reclaim a dead tech-priests body off an ork world, clear a genestealer infestation from a hulk to allow the ad mech to salvage it, etc. If they manage to do it, the emmissary can thank them, reassure them that they have satisfied the Ad Mech of their noble intentions and thats it.

Now i'm typing this i can just picture the emmissary, a really slimy, conniving tech priest, very unaugmented, arrogant, oh you could make your players really hate him.

I love your idea Gribble. I think that yes you are absolutely right. One thing should be clear though. The Explorator should be one of those to abandon the RT as he is part of the Cult. If he refuses, well he can be declared a Heretek. In which case, they will add his head on a silver plate as part of the repayment.

To bad that my RT had more sense then to make those same mistakes as yours did

For an intresting character moment you could test the Explorator's loyalty, having the slimy emmissary basically say He will be branded a heritek if he dosn't follow the Cult Mechanicus descions.

For what exatly the penance would be , I could see them going after a rouge Tech priest, or even reclaiming a ruined ship that is now pirated by Orcs

I don't think that either of these actions deserve sanction. Selling of technology is within the rights of a Rouge Trader, and he could then turn around and sell the location of the world is question to the AdMech , as a sort of study in the wild.

As for the Tech-Priest getting fragged, honestly, **** happens. You sign up on a RT vessel, and the odds are not good that you're coming back if he's feeling even slightly adventurous. The life of one Tech-Priest vs the chance to discover lost tech while traveling aboard ship does not favor the single TP. And if this particular TP was so values by the AdMech, either he shouldn't have been there, or a certain House Navis Noblis is going to be getting an angry letter in the future, provided the attack was without the RTs consent. Either way, I can't see the AdMech making a stink over one member, unless the AdMech is angling to get the ship for themselves do to some Arcaotech aboard that they really want and are only using this as a pretext.

I think the cult should ask for some "compensation" to forgive these "transgression". Some profit factor loss to compensate the death of a skilled magos (1 or 2 max) and some dirty job to compensate the leak of cult secrets (like smuggling some very dangerous and very forbidden alien artifacts to a cult resear... umh.. "purification" station).

AdMech talk about pulling out (Lathes I would guess?) Have the Tulhes offer their support. There are many admech hives and factions...

Now being on the side of the Thules means other things, cold trade, etc.

Xalendar said:

I like the idea of compensation, but your idea of compensation is IMO off the charts. There is no way the AdMech could justify a compensation of 1, let alone 2 profit factor for anything less than the RT "accidentially" hitting a orbital research station with their lance 24 times, and the subsequent accidental plundering of everything salvageable.

I'd like to remind you, and anyone considering such a compensation fitting, that even 1 profit factor is an IMMENSE amount of money. Really, mindblastingly, unbelieveably, unrealistically many thrones!

The grand cruiser of Lorcanus Ryn, The Righteous Path, had it's gundecks and launchbays torn out. The ship was basically stripped of anything except the framework, warpdrives and armorplating, and FILLED, positively CRAMMED FULL of xeno-artifacts, relics, gems, art, and the rarest and most valuable of metals. The ship was litterally STUFFED with valuables. A grand cruiser, STUFFED!

If the PCs plunder the ship of all it's richess they get +3 profit factor.

I'll emphasize that.:

+3

In other words, If you crammed the most valuable xeno-wonders, great art, holy relics and mountains of diamonds, and whateverthehell you can imagine being valuable, into 1/3rd of a cruiser, you'd get 1 profit factor.

Now think about that when the Admech asks for a compensation of about 1-2 profit factor for the unexpected loss of ONE of their priests. I'd quite literally tell them to get stuffed, and use the 2 profitfactor to bribe the ecclesiarchy to call a hunt for the magos responsible for handling the case of the dead Techpriest, and have him burned as a heretic. And I'd still have money leftover to aquisition a blowjob from the hierophant and every Adepta Sororitas in the local sector-shrine.

About the punishment.... don't. If you sign up on a Rogue Trader vessel you're signing up to take care of the ships systems and the holy plasmagenerators until your life is forfeit or you get reassigned. Losing one, or two or fifty techpriests counts as nothing but drops in a bathtub when we're dealing with a Holy, warp-capeable miracle of the Omnissah, owned, captained and controlled by a man with authority to rival that of a Space Marine Chapter Master and the more freedom than the most radical inquisitor. All, of course, santioned by the unquestioned power of the High-Lords of Terra, as decreed by the Emperor himself.

If however you insist that they should at least get their hands burned, then i'd suggest you make it fit the setting and go with something along what Gribble suggested. Something down to earth and well-played.

Just a quick way to tie in both big ideas here - the AdMech demanding restitition AND the AdMech not caring because space travel is ever uncertain to begin with - I'd suggest making it a little political. Have the AdMech emmisary rock up and claim that due to their infractions against teh Adeptus Mechanicus, the dynasty is required to make amends. Make sure you play it that the AdMech don't care about the tech or their fallen brother, they're only using it as an excuse to strong-arm the RT into doing something they can't be caught doing. Hell, you could turn a 'punishment' into an endeavour - objective one, be blackmailed by Adeptus Mechanicus and recover the [object] they desire from a [random evil] held [space station/world/starship/pre-school]; objective two, seek independant verification of the nature of [object] from scholars and the ancient librarium of [rival RT dynasty]; objective three, blackmail the hell out of the AdMech emmisary using the true nature of [object] to wring every damned throne out of him.

After all, this is Rogue Trader. Even in punishment lies profit.

I'm not understanding what happened and what went wrong. It sounds as if they didn't do anything bad. If they murdered a Tech Priest and stole and STC, I could see some butts being hurt, but I can't see what they did that was wrong.

Xalendar said:

I'm going to re-emphasise Nearyn's point. No way they should lose profit factor for the accidental death of one magos. Hell, in my campaign, I had an Explorator crash **** near every cogitator, data-loom and machine spirit in a Forge World's orbital docking station (would have been on the Forge World itself if the NPC's hadn't been quick-thinking enough and made their roll) because he was too dumb/weak-willed to realise compiling random code he'd heard in one of the seedier parts of Footfall was a bad idea, and then deliberately pass it on to the ship and refused to do anything about it.
What did that cost them? Social checks with that faction/branch of the Mechanicus and its political allies got 2 degrees harder, and they treat their profit factor as 2 less while at that Forge World (to represent the resentment of those Mechanicum citizens and vassals who almost had their lives/livelihoods wrecked because someone installed Windows ME).

I have to admit, getting the AM to use it as an excuse to squeeze free work out of a Dynasty is rather tempting.