(or Hepl if you are a fan of the Jetsons)

My bad for not reading this in other threads.

This is probably mentioned in RT books; what are the effects of being outside the Astronomican/traveling through the Halo Stars for extended periods of time? Say for 15+ years. I heard there are side effects of being in the Halo Stars too long, or even short term. The reason for asking is because in my game the characters will be spending an unexpectedly long amount of time outside the Astronomican.

Anyone wish to provide an alternative belief system about the God-Emperor? This will be based about the Deus-Imperator from the Great Crusade. The world will have been cut off from the warp storms shortly after the disappearance of the Primarchs. The civilization is going to be extremely primitive but unknowningly (I know not a word) have access to a STC. Their actions are going to be indifference or bemusement as mentioned in another thread (Thank you very much! the documentary stuff sounds funny). The civilization will believe in "men that ride on lightning" and the great man uniting the worlds of the Imperium before once again being cut off. They landed on the world from the Dark Age of Technology. Then cut off for several millennia. Then re-united again, only to be cut off once again. Still thinking about the language barrier.

What do you guys think about bonus exp for writing up backgrounds for characters? Depending how much effort the players put into the background will determine how much bonus exp they get for their characters. So if someone writes up flimsy background they won't get as much of a bonus compared to someone that put a lot of work into it.

Melvin&Marvin said:

HUMOROUS ANSWER

The Astronomican is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

>What is a Grue?

The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the Warp. Its favorite diet is explorers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of the Emperor's Light. No grue has ever been seen in the reach of the Astronomican, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale.

SERIOUS ANSWER
The consequences of wandering around realspace in the Halo Stars? Aside from being killed by Rak'Gol, Eldar Corsairs, trampled by a WAAAAGGGHHH!™ , flying your ship into a sun on account of the Siren Star, being driven mad by a ghost ship or the Witch-Cursed World, getting blown up by a rival Rogue Trader, etc., not much.

The consequences of wandering the Warp outside of the reach of the Astronomican basically boil down to the consequences of a Hellish [+60] Navigation Test. You have a 1 in 10 chance of being thrown off course and being dumped in an uncharted system which could in fact be a black hole. You must make a roll for encounters every week you're in the Warp, which on a long trip with a botched navigation roll can be FOR YEARS. Your crew might starve, disease might break out, etc., there are a bunch of crisis' that can break out on your ship (explained on P.227)

The law of averages says eventually you're going to come up against something that you can't handle, like a Chaos Prince or a Gellar Field failure or a Warp Storm that shears your vessel in half, a reality distortion that melds your ship with a space hulk, etc.

Re: XP for well-written backgrounds

No. Give XP for playing a well written character. A character with a great backstory who always goes for the most ridiculously powered weapon and whose solution to everyone and everything he encounters is " EXTERMINATUS ! " is still a munchkin. And yes, well-written backstories can still be god-awful characters. That's pretty much the definition of a Mary Sue.

Fortinbras said:

I totally agree. I'd even go further: I've seen some players who did not write down even one sentence background and who presented a few of the best-played characters my group ever experienced, nonetheless. Those players simply knew what kind of character they wanted to play, how this character would behave and react – even without figuring out what those characters had experienced in their childhood or if they rather like strawberry icecream or chewing gum.

These lines should not engage people in NOT writing any backgrounds, but they should point out that an elaborate background is no guarantee for good roleplay.

In my opinion, a background should be primarily a help for players to understand who their character is and how he will behave. So it's a good idea to write down proper backgrounds because this is a good preparation for roleplaying, but long backgrounds should not be mandatory to get XP.

Completely agree, long backgrounds are not necessary. In fact if a player presents a multi-page background I'm instantly annoyed. It's about quality not quantity gamers!

Quick question regarding exp for roleplaying and not hurting gamers feelings. Again, I agree that players should be rewarded for good roleplaying. If one player is always in character while another isn't, the roleplayer will eventually be a level higher than the one who isn't. How would you handle the player whose feelings are hurt feelings because they believe they should be getting the same exp for not providing similar quality? The obvious is to tell the player to be an adult about it. When was the last time we actually saw someone who is adult by age but isn't behaving as one.

Regarding dangers of traveling through the Halo Stars I was thinking more internal, specifically psychological. Reason why I'm asking is because one of the players from the game I'm currently in mentioned that characters who spend time in the Halo Star can gain derangements. Do you guys know anything about that?

Thanks again.

Use fate points for remarkable examples of individual roleplaying. Distribute bonus XP to the group as a whole.

Your player is referring to "Disorders" which are taken for every 30 or so points of insanity a character acquires (out of 100).

Regarding insanity, characters can go insane from seeing scary things, like warp creatures, Rak'Gol, or Yu'Vath or being exposed to warp events like reality distortions or plagues of madness. But again, simply cruising around the Halo Stars is harmless in and of itself. It's that the deeper into the Halo Stars you go, the likelihood of seeing something madness-inducing like a ghost ship or the Siren Star, or whatever made the colonists of Rain go insane or whatever's on the Witch Cursed World increases.

Ok, don't reward extra exp for good roleplaying, go with Fate Points. How do I communicate to players who feel they should be given a Fate Point when they didn't roleplay as well as the players that did get one?

Let me understand this just hanging out in the Halo Stars won't cause a derangement? What is a Siren Star? Is there a page in the RT corebook that mentions it? Presumable Rain is a planet or a ship, what happened there? Again, if it's in the RT corebook what page?

My apologies for asking the extremely obvious questions. You probably can tell that I haven't read the RT corebook. The following question would be "Then why are you posting on this forum?" It's because I'm about to start running a Dark Heresy/Deathwatch game and wanted to get out of the view of the players in my game [sic]. Mentioned in this forum was a GM forum, can someone point me?

Uh, we mainly deal with Rogue Trader issues here, if you want help on Dark Heresy/Deathwatch unfortunately you should post in those relevant forums.....there's a lot of crossover of DH/DW fans with Rogue Trader but you should label your topic [Dark Heresy] or [Deathwatch] appropriately for that

Fair enough.

What is Siren Star and Rain that you mentioned?

Apologize for not proof reading an poor grammer.

What are Siren Star and Rain ?

The Siren Star is a system where a siren call floods your ship's radio and anyone who hears it has to make a willpower test to resist, or else be compelled to point their ship straight into the sun, where it promptly burns up. [Edge of the Abyss]

Rain is a planet colonized in the Foundling Worlds which went dark after a garbled Astropath message mentioning humanoid shapes in the rain and faces in the clouds calling out for blood. Creepy place, but then again a lot of the Foundling Worlds are. [Core rulebook]

Fortinbras said:

Neat, now I remember the place. I was wondering what "Rain" was as well. Good name for it.