If there were a player group of two, what roles would you pick/recommend?

Hmm, depends on the game you wish to run. I'd say any of the following would work:

Rogue Trader
Seneschal
- Lots of trade dealing and whatnot.

Rogue Trader
Explorator
- Mechanicus/Exploration focused

Rogue Trader
Missionary
- Heavy with Imperial Creed

or, focus on Ship Role instead:

Lord Captain (Rogue Trader)
First Officer (anything)

2 players would be a bit hard, I would strongly suggest your players start with improved ship crew since so many actions will be done by non-players. I would also shy away from Navigator and Astropath as I think they are too focused for a small party like that.

Rogue Trader as NPC.

The characters as troubleshooters or something like that. Arch-Militant, Missionary, Void-Master etc...

Perhaps the GM would consider allowing the players to play two characters each with such a small group? Or have a few NPCs built with PC classes to fulfill vital but not necessarily foreground tasks (e.g. a NPC navigator can easily remain in their quarters and be a vital member of the ships crew). Or just handwave these NPCs as "doing their jobs but not helping you do yours".

Judging by my past character, Explorators can make for very versatile characters. Mine had solid combat abilities, a bunch of knowledges and technical/medical skills. Seneschals are a great example of how non-combat characters can be incredibly useful, to the point where a reskinned seneschal could fulfil the role of Rogue Trader without touching that class.

Game can be any type (ie characters dictate game, not the other way around IMHO).

No xenos though, for the sake of simplicity.

There are some guidelines for playing without a rogue trader in the core book. That they're incapacitated, fond of a "hands off" approach, etc. If that's unappealing, I personally see no problem with a PC rogue trader being from a class outside of the rogue trader itself so long as they understand they'll have a different set of abilities to a "standard" rogue trader. An arch-militant rogue trader is obviously keen on advancing their dynasty through force of arms, that sort of thing.

Or two Rogue Traders, brother/sister of each other. That would make it a 50/50 split in "power" and retain the core concept of the game I'd think.

kenshin138 said:

Well I'd assume the GM would let them have some named NPCs with higher than crew rating skills on the ship, because even with improved ship crew, rolling vs. skill 40 for warp navigation is going to lead to alot of frustration.

Edit: Also, I have to disagree with you about the Navigator and Astropath, without one of them you're going to leave yourself very vulnerable to enemy psykers and deamons especially if you're going for say an Arch-Militant + Seneschal group.

Really, with 2 players you can't avoid having huge gaps in competency, and you're going to have to adapt the game to the roles the players chose and give them some NPC help every so often, so I'd just let them go for whatever they think sounds fun. If that's going to be a game about a navigator and missionary who overcome their differences in their service on a rogue trader ship (or don't and are forced to work together despite mutual animosity), then so be it. In this example you should probably put them up against obscales they're good at, like psykers, cultists, and deamons, while for the Arch-Militant/Seneschal group you'd go for a splitt of mercantile and martial challanges.

Blargh, pressed quote instead of edit.

navigator & explorator hands down. If there's a third add him to be a seneschal/rogue trader. A fourth should be arch-militant/voidmaster/missionary.

Navigators are awesome at combat and have high willpower plus have a very nice skillset.

Explorators are medics, with a bit of tweaking can be very dangerous in combat and are very usefull for all things tech-related (not surprisingly that's a lot). Make the explorator take the rite of duplessence and become a genetor (with regeneration, sonar sense and brute) and if you choose right you can end up with an explorator with toughness 70 or even 80 + a more then decent weapon or balistic skill, moderate dodge and very nice intelligence (60 something + good Q cortex implant = you'll kick arse).

I still would not run without a Rogue Trader.

Navigators are one of the easier ones to NPC. Warp Encounters only happen when the GM wants them to for story reasons. Plus its easy to have the Navigator just hang out on the ship without it feeling too odd.

Astropaths are similar. Just have the NPC one be pretty reclusive.

Explorator is easy to NPC as well. I have a personal soft spot for Mechanicus so I would tend to lean towards this before some others, but that's just me. The Mechanicus are easy to NPC and be aloof/private/etc.

Arch-Militant can fulfill a lot of rolls on the ship so isn't a bad choice.

Seneschal is another one that is a great PC, but can also be a good NPC for the GM to use.

Missionary can be as important or non-important depending on how your game runs (ie: how devout they are).

Void Master again fills lots of rolls so is a good choice. Going with Master of Small Craft means he would likely be the pilot for any shuttles the Rogue Trader would take, and thus be a good reason to "always be there".

So my personal preference would be Rogue Trader and Void Master (Master of Small Craft). These two can get along great and never feel too "Star Trek" with always going planetside (like you can get with Navigators and Astropaths).

However, it would require some strong NPC's for your Enginseer Prime, High Factotum, etc. to make the ship feel alive. But I think its a solid background. Could even try to get the players to both pick something like Battlefleet as their Home World, so they know each other from the Navy or something.