A very simple question, but hard to aswer... how do you run your game?

What goals do you give your players? what drives them? whats there motives? how much time do you spend on thinking about new adventures? how do you balance out players? how long are your game times?

Players start a campaign by giving me a list of three allies, three associates, and three enemies. They're encouraged to link these together with each other via small ingame bonuses (A naval officer turned weapons dealer on Footfall who mentored the PC voidmaster but took the fall for a tactical mistake by the Rogue Trader allows the voidmaster to skip the inquiry step for acquiring personal items). Before the game I ask the players what they'd like to do first, whip something up, and work from there. I rarely do 'proper' campaigns, I prefer to offer the players a sandbox and build consequentially from there. Each player will usually have a goal they want their character to achieve, and I can usually mesh those together into the semblance of a plot pretty well. Quite a lot of my GMing runs on instinct, I find planning gets in the way.

Balancing things for the players can be a little more tricky; I have one player who always minmaxes the origin path to achieve the best statistics he can for a particular goal. Currently, he's a Seneschal with 86 Fellowship. This trivialises many social encounters, so I have to be a bit more inventive. I base the difficulty of his encounters on what he actually says, with the degrees of success largely a measure of how well he said it. The upshot of this is that simply bartering with a dockworker for cheaper berthing has become dull, so now he's turning his talents to attempting to purchase space stations and exchanging pleasantries with people that make Eldar look graceless. It's all a matter of getting the players to think bigger. That said, I have no interest in making sure one player is no more powerful than the others.

My games tend to run at about 3 hours a week, we have wildly varying schedules and commitments so it's difficult to commit to anything more than that.

isnt 3h a week to little?

I mean we make 8h games sometimes 12-13h long too, and still find it to short...

I run my games based on the officiel published adventures. Modifications to the plot and the NSC cast come by itself. And when i have a good idea to add i just do it and go with the flow.

As there are seven SC in my group and i have a rather sh*tty working shedule as an engine driver i have to work with the people that can make it to the set gaming date. So i have to wing it somtimes when for example our Rogue Trader herself is not available. But they all have very different approaches to the game so i get caught off guard rather often . So you could say that improvising is my main job. I am often surprised what happens to the official plotline after my group is finished with it. But for me its the fun part.

The players all have their own motivation for the game ranging from just wanting to have a good time with the group to actually trying to get their character as rich and powerfull as possible. The Lady playing the RT does a real great job, she really IS the Captain of her ship and leader of a dynasty when ingame. Okay they tend to relay heavily on their personal armsmen and the PDF Battalion they have on board, thats something i have to thing about when designing combat encounters.

The games last arrount 4-5 houres as this is the maximum i can be concentraded and i just get the feelign the players also lose focus if you extend a session to long. Not included in that time is arround an hour before or after the game we handle stuff like leveling up and spending xp, explaing rules, and discussing the possibilitys of upgrading equipment and ships.

I'm our groups GM and love writing background, plot, NPCs etc for fun so my campaigns tend to be quite detailed.

My players tend to lack direction much and can be quite rowdy. We meet about once a week for 4-5 hours. One player has fibromyalgia and typically heads tobed a little earlier than the sessions end so i NPC the PC for the last hour or so.

Due to the way the in game group came together, some of the PCs consider themselves to be employees and the player playing the rogue trader tends to make a lot of the decisions. I've tried to get away from this but without much success.

I usually run my own stuff but use published material for inspiration. The notable exception has been Lure of the Expanse which was an excellent adventure that i merely tweaked.

I give my players a goal and let them go about working out how to fix it. Sometimes this follows heavily on from endeavour structures i've written other times my players find inventive ways around problems i hadn't anticipated.

e.g. Meta-endeavour was to start a crusade in the Jericho reach. Endeavour within that was to recruit space marines chapters to join the crusade. Objective within that was to recover a ring once belonging to the Primarch Sanguinis on behalf of a task force of Blood Drinkers. This will bring the Blood Drinkers, Blood Angels and a variety of successor chapters to their aid for the crusade. Problem. The ring is currently being use by an Ork freebooter Kaptain as an ornament on his beard squigs. No one knows this however. Luckily the players, many sessions before while murdering their old inquisitor boss (who had gone rogue) saved an Eldar temple containing a relic called the Well of Souls. This well was a scrying device and an eldar guardian/spirit/hologram/thing had promised that each of the party could use it to get one answer in return for saving the temple (and hence the relic itself). They remembered this with no prompting from me, used the well, found out that the Ork had the ring, found out he was going to raid an imperial planet in the expanse with his fleet and set off to intercept him. From here they developed a plan to lure the Ork's fleet in and allow the orks to make planetfall. With the warboss and the precious ring out the way, the Parol (their dynasty) fleet would destroy the Ork fleet. Meanwhile, the Orks on the ground would be engaging the worlds PDF and the not-inconsiderable Parol ground forces (some 30,000 men under arms and a tank regiment). After destroying the Ork fleet, they'd rejoin their forces on the ground, locate and isolate the Ork warboss, kill him, recover the ring and then use their army to destroy the Orks.

Of course their plan only partially worked and they were nearly defeated in space (Ork cruisers at short range are sick).

I had planned out where the ring was and what the Ork was doing, i knew they'd figure out using the well but everything else was off their own backs.

Sometimes they need a nudge, othertimes they follow my plots perfectlyas i intended. I find good preperation combined with a willingness to wing it allows me to let them go where the awesome lies. If they have an excellent idea then i let them follow it, even if it messes the plot up, i can always fix it behind the scenes without them knowing about it.

Rogue trader is ultimately a game about ambition and freedom, players might need a nudge but it should be sufficiently open that they can come at things multiple ways.

Khensu said:

Like I said, we're all busy with work, uni or other social commitments. It's basically that or nothing.

This question is one that I find very interesting myself. I too favor (in rogue trader and other games as well) a more player driven "by the seat of your pants" sorts of games. I prefer to sit back and let the players follow their goals, and let them know the details they need to get what they want, throw in curve balls where appropriate, and so on. I am actually working on a tool (software) to help the so enclined GMs organize campaigns, approaching it from this angle (the more player driven angle). If anyone has any ideas about what sorts of features you might want to see in a tool like this, let me know.

My group and I are usually so excited to be roleplaying in the 40k universe that it doesn't really matter what we're doing. To that end, whoever's up for GMing will usually pick up a published adventure and run the group through it. I've nominated myself the de facto Rogue Trader GM, so when I got the itch to be behind the screen, I picked up The Frozen Reaches and quietly waited until our DH game hit a good stopping point. Our first session is tonight.

I find the published adventures work well because, like Errant, my group has limited time to play. Going through something that FFG has taken the time to put together puts less of a strain on our GMs to tweak and balance a custom campaign and often has something for every kind of player. One of the things I love about them is that they cover the bare bones of what needs to be covered and still leave a lot open for GMs to add, subtract or alter various plots, NPCs or motivations.

Khensu said:

You're still in school aren't you?

Wait until you've graduated and joined the workforce and see how good 3 hours a week sounds then. =P

Khensu said:

Well, in ages past I have historically run so-called "storyboard" style games, where I develop a plot with specific hooks and then integrate the characters my players create into the framework I've already got. Usually I define a specific starting point (time and place) and tell everyone to come up with a reason for being there so the party forms up quickly, and we're off.

More recently I've been experiementing with sandbox style games, so I don't really have a defined method yet. I try to try something new each time I run a game and see how it works.

I work, and so does my friends too, so I'm familliar with having less time, but a good game should be a bit more then only 3h, so we allways dedicate our sunday to RPG, its a nice way of resting the work days...

Sure as a Gm it drains some of my time outside that of the game, but no matter, I like doing it

As for my players, they only need to be there and have fun

as for how I play?

I usually have a storry in my mind, work out details and try to push my players in that direction, sometimes they take the bait, sometimes they dont, if they dont, then some sandbox game untill I can push them in the right direction, a twist, or some personal interest are always good... then when they are in my line, I have some milestones that they need to reach to get mroe and more info about whats happening to them... we usually play 8-13h depending on if we have a sundays or a full saturday for ourselfs

I tried the pre writen stuffs, but they are not meant for my inbalanced players, as some of the parts need talk and greed, they have non of that, most chars are very low on fellowship, they dont really care about other ppl, and they dont care about money, only on a level thats related to them, the part where they get items... so I need to come up with DH style games, where they can fight, interogate and be mean to others, specialy xenos

Khensu said:

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. My weekly game usually runs from about 7pm to 11pm. Often times, this is broken up with smoke/snack/drink breaks and a far amount of off-topic discussion. Even so, everyone in my group loves every minute of it and we seem to get a lot done in the short amount of time we have. I often fantasize about doing long, 8 hour sessions on the weekends, but the smaller games seem to be more manageable and no one has to "sacrifice" a day on the weekend which could be kept open for family, other friends or even just other games.

There's never any wrong way to roleplay, though. As adults, especially, you find a system that works for you and the people you play with and stick with it.

I am attempting to do a web of events stemming from the actions of the players. As they do different actions and affect different events, npcs react. They do their actions and react to different things until eventually the players deal with the fruit of the trees they planted.

In other words...the players destroy the Cruelty of Fate, a Black Legion Strike Cruiser seeking to track down an artifact that can show the past (anytime, anywhere). They claim a map and begin searching for the relic, dreams of riches dancing in their heads. The Black Legion reacts by increasing their presence in the Expanse to track the players down. One the device is found, events lead to it's destruction at a massive battle involving many of the major players. A Radical Inquisitor declares the players heretics for denying him. A demon is released from the artifact and takes over the Rak'Gol fleet onsite for his own nefarious plots. The Eldar are driven away from the site so they cannot stop the daemon. The Dark Eldar had wanted the device and had planted a Kabalite warrior with the pcs (one of the players) and have promised to kill him for failure and to take a century to do it. And so on...each thread of the web spirals out and reacts with one another until the players intersect with them...some or all.

one more thing I like to know, if a players character dies, or goes insane, or is corrupt beyond help, so out of the game...

do you give them there exp back or need to start from 0?

I usually give them back almost all exp, they only loose a few thousand exps... how do you guys do it?

I absolutely hate XP loss in roleplaying games. It can create vast power gulfs between players and just generally leaves a sour taste in the collective mouth of my group. It hasn't come up yet, but if I were to lose an Explorer I would most likely present them with various options to take on the role of an NPC or have them roll a new character in the context of whatever they're doing.

For example, my group is lacking a Void Master, but I've taken it upon myself to jot down a few notes on an NPC VM that is on board in case they need one. If the Astropath PC were to bite it, then that player could easily take the reins of the Void Master or present me with their own idea for a new PC. There will, however, be some repercussions because any NPC that has already introduced will come with some immutable skills or talents and any completely new character will also probably have some pre-determined options based on where/when/how the rest of the crew picks them up.

Khensu said:

Average xp in the group = their starting xp if they are a medium involved player. If they are involved a lot and do lots of extra things (such as write out the contract between their explorator and the RT, or make models, or whatnot) they get more up to the amount their char had.

Another sub question:

how do you plan your Endeavours? how many points do you use? do you use it for main plots too or just misc stuffs?

I sit down woth the players have discuss with them what they want to do, we made an endeavor and I make a few secret ones over that to spice up things.

Anyway I am trying that now.

I find "seat of the pants" a bit difficult in RT do to the massive number of possibilities given what resources the payers have and the, well... rather destructive nature of some of my players. I also have a few players that really don't do well at the social challenge (despite me presenting bonus exp to players that role play as incentive, given there are a few out of my group of 6-7 that role play but about 3 just can't for the life of them).

So overall I find myself planning out several key NPC's, some big plot points as well as a general path I want the players to go on. I let them stray but try to reign them into not go to far from the path via in game hints or reminders from nearby NPC's (crew members) perhaps suggesting the path to the next objective. It doesn't mean it's completely structured as I don't like railroading, but structured enough that they're typically going to meet the planned big plot points. I feel it gives a more epic journey, and as with DH I feel I need these big plots to keep the game interesting and balanced. All in all I like the game to feel more like a great book than a sandbox video game where you run around achieving little to nothing other than quickly met obscure goals *shrug*.

I try to incorperate player plots and goals as well into these stories, interweaving npc's from their past (they generally submit backstories for their characters to me) as well to make them feel like they're really part of the world.

As far as meetings we tend to meet 1 time a week from 5pm-8 or 9ish at a small all you can eat buffee place where the owners love us (since we've been going every week for years). I'd love to have longer sessions but like others, work and conflicting scheadules to make that a bit difficult, not so much finding the times to meet but rather having the time to plan out that much content every week and keep it feeling interesting (because certainly throwing tons of fights are easy to plan and eat up a ton of time but I rather enjoy the roleplaying / decision making aspect more).

Given that I usually play Pathfinder adventure paths which are nice and railroady, with an easy guideline of how to challenge your players, I find the scope and freedom of the Rogue trader setting daunting to say the least. I am brim with ideas, but have a hard time transferring them into my games, since the power level and freedom of the players quickly can make a game get out of hand.

It doesn't help that my player's are a bunch of min-maxers and rules tweakers and experts at finding the most broken combinations of weapons, armor and gear. But my worst problem has been to stop my players from bringing a small army with them wherever they go. As I like to run premade adventures, and am fond of using miniatures and a battlemap, the challenge level of written encounters are usually a breeze and the logistics of keeping track of all those troops in combat is a nightmare. I also struggle to find a good middleground for space combat, which has either been a breeze or a near tpk every time I have tried to run one.

I have mostly played site based adventures so the sandbox nature of Rogue trader is new to both me and my players.I use to play pretty tactical games with a bigger focus on combat and a strict enforcement of the rules (yes I'm a Rules-lawyer, that's why I prefer to be a GM). I have found that the Rogue trader and other 40k RPG's have a much looser system giving me more freedom to improvise and risk going outside the rules as written.

I have had to reboot my Campaign twice now due to TPK's. It's been nearly a year since I last played, but I've recently gotten a new spark for playing after my Pathfinder game went on a hiatus. I have made a system for bringing small units of troops with you based loosely on the mass combat rules found in battlefleet Koronus (but much smaller in scale) and hopefully this will alleviate some of the issues with pc's bringing a small army with them. I'm also going to be more strict when it comes to Acquisition and upkeep rolls. Hopefully I can convince my players to choose their background traits based on their actual backstory and not to min-max their characters.

Now I only have to convince my players to start a new Campaign......

mortagon said:

The Rogue Trader gets talents like Air of Authority for a reason. Limit his bodyguard to his Fellowship Bonus. Tell him that while he can deploy more significant forces at his leisure, the logistical requirements of that mean that a) it's very noticeable and b) it takes a while. If he complains, ask him if he's really the sort of Rogue Trader that would cower behind a wall of bodies, and how he would handle the morale issues that arise from that.

Starship combat is an issue. I find it quite effective to increase the default skill by +20, give broadsides Storm, reduce Armour by 12 but have armour apply to each hit . It means that it's VERY hard to completely wreck a ship in one turn unless they're against overwhelming firepower. Your players will complain though.

Errant said:

Actually that is exactly what I was thinking about doing. In the unit based henchmen/bodyguard system I made I allowed each character to "Easily" control up to their fellowship bonus (or more if they have the right talents) number of "henchmen". He would still have to spend action on making command checks to keep them useful however. If he wants to control more than this limit he will take penalties on his command checks and has to spend more actions on commanding them around.

I don't have many problems with my players, since no one want's to br the RT. I simply play that role and tell them where we are going. The Endeavours I rather plan stricly for I like to have main point of each adventure. But I leave plenty of space for other encounters and "selfish" decisions of palyers, comming up with a twist on a spot is great and entertaining. When it comes to achivment points I create rather big adventures, they allow for more game flexibility. Once they encounter 7000 yeras old ship on warp travel beside's finding 2 torpedos with nukes, I said they found a BLOODLOCK BOLT (very interested in finding a way to open it without destroying item/'s inside) with the crest of family that is vasal to their/my Rouge Trader family. And all that while transporting incognito 10 JOKAERO to Footfall. If you got few simple ideas join them to form a life-long adventure for players with wariety of atractions.

Well they can have a lot of fun but I remind them of the task at hand and for some it is imoprtant to gain profit (started with 70 ship points and 38 profit factor). The Void-Master is great example, he is hellbent on getting Sentinel, and the Arch-Millitant wants to get Storm Trooper Armour. Yeah...profit sometimes is the best motor.

Sometimes it is also good to introduce them to real history facts and bounties for greater profit and unique eqipment or even new starships(a reward for finding the killer of late head of RT fammily that ruled over Port Wander) and so on.

"But the universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed..."

Norticus Noctum said:

Good grief, how on Holy Terra are they managing to keep the Jokaero locked up? The first thing they'd do would be unscrew the lightbulb, tinker with it, and blast their way out with their new pocket-sized conversion cannon. And then escape the ship in a customised vending machine.

Yeah, Iknow. I did that to them alot for 6 months of ingame time . Because of that I granted the Arch-Militant and Void-Master Paranoia and Light Sleper talents . The chief of guard (A-M) was so paronoid that he disambled parts of straships to make regular cages with gaint locks, kept them seperatly and 4 guards 24h for each monkey (his acting towards securing safe trips with them onboard was pircless acting ). But best point was when one of JOKAERO grabed a guard schock/tranqulizer guns shoot back and hit and then run, they also changed one of the small craft generators in "small" time bombs, boy was it fun to torment the crew with them. And once he got report of missing "silverware" the first thing he did was check the monkeys. And the best part was that I said that they could not put them in Stasis- or Cryo-stasis pod, for they would loose their superior mental and crafting abilities.

Norticus Noctum said:

*thumbs up*