Endeavour List

By vastrix, in Rogue Trader Rules Questions

Is there anyone who has done a work up list of the types of Endeavours that can be done? As in generic types and a couple of examples each. That way I can print it out and hand it to the players as in "These are some of the types of things you could be doing if you want to. What you want to do today?"

I of course would have a copy of said report and a number of endeavours written up in advance for usage.

For a start, there is a section in the Rogue Trader core rulebook, pages 276 - 284, that discusses endeavours in some detail and has eight sample endeavours. You can always start with one of those, or read the forums for ideas. There are game diaries and suggested endeavours scattered all throughout the forums. If you have some of the other books, the gazetteers all include adventure seeds.

Now, each endeavour has one (or more) of the five basic themes: exploration, trade, military, creed, criminal. Your players probably won't dabble with all five. They'll find a theme or three that they like and focus on them. Also, it is very difficult to design a ship that gives bonuses to all five themes... meaning that some endeavours will be far more profitable than others. Take a look at the ship they built and that will tell you what your players are interested in doing. Of course, an endeavour can switch types... If that profitable new trade route becomes plagued with pirates, then you have a military challenge. Or, if you are exploring and find a lost human colony, then the ecclesiarchy may be interested in converting the heathens; meaning the exploration just became a matter of creed.

Rogue trader is very much a sandbox game. The players have a lot of leeway in deciding what they want to do. One of the biggest decisions is actually "Do we follow others or strike out on our own?" If they follow a rumour or get a task asked of them by a peer, then they are likely to find something valuable but are certain to face competition from rival rogue traders after the same prize. On the other appendage, if they decide to head into an uncharted region of the expanse they may well find nothing but are much less likely to have to fight off human challengers. (Xenos could be another matter entirely.) In case they do decide to go "second star to the right and straight on until morning", or have a badly off course warp jump, it's wise to have a few pre-generated star systems on hand.

One last piece of advice. Your characters have backgrounds, right? Work those in. A past ally, or rival, can show up to offer an interesting tip, ask a favour, threaten them, attack, or otherwise derail plans.

Cheers,

- V.

Oh I know where they are in the books. I own the pdf versions of several of them. I attempted a cut/paste operation to make up a document as a hand out for the players to look over (as it stands we only have a few books between us), but the attempt went foul when my images I copied kept moving for some reason to be on top of each other.