Hey all,

I've recently had my players roll up characters for a RT game. I've GM'ed D&D 3.5, 4ed, WFRPG, Hackmaster, DH and the list goes on and on. I'm usually a common sense driven GM and I don't take to bad players or bull-shitterry very well...and I must say, I have yet to come into this sort of thing with my current group. One of my housemates will be playing both the Rogue Trader and the Explorator. I'm fine with him playing both because he's a good player and he's created the two characters so they won't overlap or hinder the rest of the group. I gave the group two months in-game time to prepare for their initial departure. I actually allowed the Rogue Trader to do some preliminary Acquisition Tests, they started with 20 profit and 70 SP's, so I wasn't too concerned. He tried to purchase things on a crew sized scale so many of his Tests failed, the tests that were made for himself alone on the other hand he succeeded about 15% of the time.

Now to my question; should I have allowed him to make Acquisition Tests this early (he didn't make any for the other players since he hasn't met his crew yet)? Should I have just called certain things off limits (he actually did this himself, which surprised the hell out of me since I didn't know I had such a good player at hand)? I didn't think that this would be a problem, mostly because he had such a low Profit Rating.

p.s. - He tried to make an Acquisitions Test to buy his entire 65,000 man crew Chronometers, I told him that if he could roll a success I'd allow it and he'd get a morale bonus of +1. He rolled a 98, I informed him that he actually infuriated the merchant and may have made a enemy of the merchant's family.

I think you handled the situation just fine. I allow my players to make acquisition tests at character generation and I don't know of a rule disallowing it. Even if there was, I feel that the ability to acquire unique (not the availability rating, mind you) gear for your characters at the beginning allows you to build more interesting backstories for them.

Thank you, Nerdynick. I was expecting a page citation informing me that I went completely off the reservation and now my Rogue Trader is overpowered. Thankfully enough, I doubt he's overpowered; that a really healthy fear of the warp by all players at the table. When he was rolling the Tests I was looking over the Fear and Madness rules, I asked him if he was ever to look unprotected into the Warp that he please inform me first. He glared at me and twitched a little...I laughed.

On char creation you get a free aquisition roll at +0 mod for any item.

Or rather, as part of character creation, every character may acquire a single item with a net Acquisition modifier of +0 or better without having to roll.

Aside from that, the core book recommends that the GM limit players' Acquisition checks "to appropriate junctures (such as visits to mercantile districts, time at port, and when dealing with local traders) and to downtime between play, such as the start or end of a gaming session." as well as stating that they may wish to limit or relax these further, as seems appropriate. So, outside of a session works fine, if you as a GM are fine with it.

Ultimately, the gear a party has is largely incidental- even a group that has had a stingy GM is going to be ridiculously overpowered compared to characters of equivalent level in, say, Traveller. It's a feature of the game.
Hell, I'd be very impressed if someone was able to "overpower" their character, relative to characters of similar rank in Rogue Trader. And inspired to put them up against even tougher foes- remember, in RT, there is no such thing as a "Level-appropriate Encounter"

Shouldn't you be comparing the players' power against the enemies they face in the campaign/system. rather than against players in another system.

Firstly, players aren't balanced against players even within ONE system. Thats why there isn't PvP in tabletop rpgs.

Secondly, the players are only as powerful as you make them through the enemies they face. Are you saying that in RT it is impossible to challenge players in combat? I find that impossible to believe. You can always throw more and better at them.

(actually now with Deathwatch you can use Hordes to great effect for this)

For example, your group annihilates say X number of Y enemy type. Try X+1 or X+2. If thats stil easy, why not go X*2? If they beat that, X*3, or X*4? Eventually they will be challenged and eventually they will be overmatched.

Different systems require different tactics to challenge PCs. For example, in DnD 3e multiple encounters in a row was deadly to a group relying on spellcasting (limited # of spells before resting). In RT it seems to be using a combination of numbers and coming at them from different directions simultaneously.

Actually, my point was more that thanks to the very premise of RT, Monty Haul GMing isn't a problem. Hell, a halfway competent group of players is capable of taking 3-5 times as much Profit away from an Endeavour as it is technically worth, if they're smart about their ship build (among other things). Given that, building up their Dynasty's power isn't massively hard, and in all honesty any uber-powering from Acquisitions before the campaign proper starts will be pretty much inconsequential after 2-3 Endeavours.

I'm not complaining about the system. I actually like the fact I don't have to worry I'm throwing too much at them, whether that's by some guideline/ill-defined "rule" from a core book or DMG, or whether it's because they'll complain that it makes no sense within the campaign setting.

And, yeah, dropping a couple platoons of praetorian battle-servitors, or a traitor astartes heavy cruiser on players is very fun, totally legit, and stuff I've actually done. The player's dynasty is thriving, although they were seriously challenged by the first, and fled unashamedly from the second.

Oh, and there are tabletop RPGs in which PvP is positively encouraged: Paranoia springs to mind, although there are others. Indeed, one of the openly stated goals of TSR when they were producing DnD was to introduce competitve balance between PCs, and members of that company, including the late, great, Dave Arneson have gone on record endorsing intra-party conflict (PvP).

Into the Storm has "advanced" rules on acquisition. The main one I recall that would be apt for your situation is that if they blow an acquisition, they can try again, but it's a -10 to their modifier, that stacks with each subsequent roll.

If the statistical possibility of him rolling a success ever reaches 0, it automatically fails. So....

Alasseo said:

The Dying Earth game, Polaris & Houses of the Blooded come to mind, also.

HtH

L

Well done...and it is good to be the GM...and your crew appear to be opening the door for you to get creative with their acquisition backstory...

Donovan Obray said:

That reminds me. Into the Storm also has rules for "attracting unwanted attention" because of bad acquisition rolls

Eskilius Quinn said:

There's the Ordo Chronos: A mysterious and incredibly obscure Ordos formed to investigate the potential ramifications potential time travel through the Warp, particularly the potential for deliberate manipulation of these phenomenon. Details on what the Ordo found in their investigations are virtually nonexistent as the entire Organization disappeared from the face of the galaxy, taking their secrets with them. It is not known how or why this occurred, or if it was voluntary on behalf of the Ordos or not, though whispers of the involvement of dark technologies, long forbidden, have surfaced over the centuries since this mysterious incident.

Errant said:

Errant, stop telling the children ghosts stories. You'll end up keeping them up scared all night.

Oh, and you failed to mention the Rogue Trader Erasmus Haarlock of Dark Heresy notoriety. His sole wish was to turn back the clock and save his wife and daughter. But, one cannot be one's own savior, now can they? Not without paradox.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Ordo Chronos you say? Hmm, very interesting. I hate to say it but I probably won't be going down that path, the game will only be going for about 4 months and that seems like a year or more endeavor. I do like the fact that this particular Ordo is FFG specific fluff. They tend to do a better job with their fluff maintenance than GW does.

Wait...I can actually work with this. The main villain for the campaign is, as of right now, a Rogue Trader dynasty that is also deeply rooted in a Cult of Slaanesh. Yet, this Ordo seems way more interesting than some Slaaneshi jackass with a grudge against my RT's family. So, besides the unusually large order of chronometers and the really pissed off watchmaker, what else would grab the attention of the Ordo Chronos...if they were still around that is? They might have gone into hiding, finding secrets that would turn the Imperium on it's head sounds quite heretical. I'll have to figure out if they found something or if something found them, sound too much like a Dark Heresy game?

Also, since I have people's attention and we're talking about time here. I recently made a several hour journey into the Poconos and while driving I had a really fun conversation with a friend, who will be in my game soon. Since the warp is a fickle mistress and it can land ships in real space minutes/days/weeks/months before or after they left or even just them out right one time, what happens when a ship is early? The example I used was; if a planet orders some supplies and an RT takes the job, they arrive at their destination two weeks prior to when the order was sent, what does this do to the economy of the Imperium? Does the planet still put in the order? Do they still pay the aformentioned supply dealer? My friend had a look on his face as if I had blown his mind...mostly because we both enjoy a good econ discussion but when you bring time/space travel into the picture the conversation can take a very weird turn.
We never spoke about there being two of the same person in the Universe now either, since the ship was two weeks early there should be an RT and his crew on the other side of the sector. That never came up because we just didn't care.

What do you think?

-Mike C

Chartist vessels (The vast majority of traders in the Imperium) make shorter hops along pre-defined, stable warp routes that have been plied for centuries, even millenia. This allows them to avoid much of the weirdness inherent in Warp travel. Therefore, no fun trips back through time. Unless a chaos cult happens to make its way onto the ship and redirect it, of course...

Eskilius Quinn said:

Interesting question. Assuming the planet actually then goes ahead and orders supplies (to preserve the timeline that is recorded in the RT's logs), then all that happens is that they get their goods a little earlier, and possibly a little insurance fraud (this cargo got lost in the warp- luckily we were only ordering it as a back-up).

If they don't, then we borrow a concept used very well in a webcomic - subjective causal pasts: essentially, if you saw it happen, then to you it is in your past, even if you then go back and change that past. In this case, the supplier doesn't get paid for goods he has (and simultaneously has not yet) sold. Essentially, there are two lots of said goods, one of which the supplier has not sold (and are still in his warehouses), one of which he has sold, and presumably been paid for, or at least given a promissory note. Unfortunately, he hasn't sold them yet, so he doesn't get paid for them until the planet makes the order and the RT (who hasn't yet gone back in time) pays for them.

And, to make matters more fun, the planet now doesn't need to make said order, so he can sell those supplies to someone else. The planet does, however, have to pay the RT (who has travelled back in time). Most intriguingly, if they haven't made the order, then no-one can have paid the Rogue Trader for the run, but if the RT was smart/obstinate enough to get paid in cash or goods in advance rather than accept credit or a promissory note, then they can not only get paid for taking the run, they can also sell the goods themselves (getting paid twice), but may not have had to pay for the goods in the first place (effectively getting paid three times).

The downside is there are now two ships with the same crew running around- and both drawing on and contributing to the same funds. The non-time-travelling ship will initially have no idea of the existence of the other, and probably won't find out until the realise that their operational funds and lines of credit are being expended at twice the rate they should be. Shortly thereafter, I foresee one of the weirdest cases of suicide posited in a while. (actually, the time-travelling ship, once they realise what has happened, may well initiate such a hunt and battle/suicide themselves).

The best bet is actually the timeline-preserving and insurance fraud-enabling scheme (assuming our time travellers aren't up for ambushing and murdering their past selves to keep their fortunes intact).

Essentially, don't worry too much about causality- this is a setting where a warlord has killed his past self to have two copies of his favourite gun.
Also- don't worry too much about the economic situation; from what is shown in the various novels, the Imperium mostly runs on a feudal-mercantilist structure. The planet would either have sent emissaries to the supplier with the funds to buy (who would then negotiate shipping with a third party, such as our RT), or they would have passed on a message to a willing trader, who would have bought the cargo from the supplier themselves and sold it on to the planet. In either case, the supplier would essentially be paid when he delivered the goods into the hands of the RT (if not before).

Eskilius Quinn said:

The captain and the entirety of the crew are executed for heresy. An example of this is in Edge of The Abyss. An Imperial Navy frigate and its captain arrived in the Koronus Expanse nearly 50 years before their ship was christened and nearly 100 years before the captain was born. The captain was imprisoned for heresy and impersonating an Imperial officer while his crew got spaced. So presumably the planet would be too scared shitless of an exterminatus to report the anomaly. Or alternately, if they aren't, the crew is executed, ship rechristened and pressed into service.

Also it's important to note that, despite its use as a deus ex machina to explain things like why the Tau are a serious competitor in the galaxy or why Sebastian Thor didn't get stomped before his rebellion could even start, this kind of thing is VERY rare, and should never be used capriciously by a GM.

Eskilius Quinn said:

Eskilius Quinn said:

Make your RT or one of his retinue a direct descendant of Haarlock ?

Hey all,

I'm probably gonna stick with my Slaaneshi RT family. I reread my writeup on it and it's a much easier story to stick with for a four month game. I definitely love the Ordo Chronos and I might slip them into the game somehow as an easter egg. Maybe an endeavor that has the PC's interacting with them while in in the Void.

I was thinking of having the my PC's interact with a planet touched by Haarlock in the Koronus Expanse and having a ship-to-ship transmission from what appears to be nowhere. I thought of having my Explorator make an Awareness roll to notice the binary coding on the right side of the live transmission and then a (tech use?) roll to notice that it's a rarely used, because it's ancient, binary code that states that the transmission is from several milenia ago but is still happening live. This man on the screen is actively asking and answering questions and making threats against the RT and his crew if they follow up on their current mission.

-Mike C