So my group and I are gearing up for our first ever foray into Rogue Trader. I am concerned that nobody will be a navigator and am just wondering how to work travelling through the warp without one? Since when you have a navigator there are a bunch of tests to make and then different things that would happen if said tests are failed, I would hate to just skip or gloss over all of this since the party doesn't have a navigator. Anyone else run into this or have suggestions on how to do it?

You have several options. The first is to have one of your players create a navigator character and use it only for the purposes of getting your ship around or make it yourself. Give it half experience or something. There are a couple of ship components around that allow you to navigate without a navigator, but they're all quite rare and limited.

Personally, I use this: http://darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/index.php/component/docman/doc_download/376-autonav and handwave away the Navigator. In my current game, the Navigator has been hidden away in a forgotten recess of the ship, his ancient body crippled and withered within the suspension tank that provides some semblance of life. Connected to the ship via a series of augmetics similar to the captain of the Light of Terra, the superstitious crew consider the vessel to be guided by a dead man's hand. It can be quite fun for me narratively, especially since I can explain getting lost in the Warp as the Navigator redirecting the ship on his own quest for vengeance.

Funny, my main concern with my campaign was that someone WOULD play a navigator. Given how vital they are, it's seems a real stretch that they would go on "away missions" that involve gun fights, ravening xenos, and other life threatening endeavors on a regular basis. If they die, then what?

I came up with a near-servitor like Navigator Secundus (much like that mentioned above but rarely active) so that the PC playing the Navigator would not have "plot immortality". He needs to be able to die just like anyone else - I don't want to be bending the rules so that the whole campaign doesn't derail if the Navigator PC catches a lucky shot to the head.

Ki_Ryn said:

Or... you notice that the game does point out that the PC Navigator is just the one closest to the captain - the ship has a few others, as pretty much no ship will go into deep space without multiple navigators for redundancy.

Like MILLANDSON said, and take the crew's skill (normally 30) as the navigation skill of any NPC navigator. The low skill number is also a good indicator that it's usually a better idea to have a PC navigator then an NPC navigator. Of course the players might start rolling the acquisition dice to recruit a better skilled navigator (and there's nothing wrong with that ).

fourtykiller said:

How about you run all of the normal checks but if the checks fail then the pc's have to do their own bits in order to overcome them. Keeping the crew calm, fighting off invaders, repairing the ship, appeasing the machine spirit, etc etc. That way you do a little bit of work and then the pc's have to do a bunch of roleplaying and work in order to set things right again.

They can, of course, limit this by getting a higher crew rating (or a set of higher skill navigators), getting ship components to boost the checks, getting items for their navigators to boost the checks, or other options laid out in the books. It is possible to buff up the numbers enough that the npc navigators will be making basically all of the checks if they are worried about it. With a base crew rating of 40, best quality crew improvements (+5 crew rating), one of the pc's being the ships boson (+5 crew rating), warpsbane hull (+10 nav warp tests, roll twice on travel encounters and choose result), almanac astrae divinitus (+10 nav warp), and a rogue trader yelling in your ear for the occasional +10 gets to having a very nice chance of a quick, smooth voyage. After that there are archeotechs and xeno techs to really boost it and there are other items and ship components to pick up anyway.

Having said that, I've found that all you really need for a good warp trip is the warpsbane hull, a miloslav warp engine, and a super high awareness. If the pc's can find a way to get the gear above and at least one npc navigator to have an awareness of over 100 you can pretty much just hand wave away warp trips that arent specially scripted by you.

I tend to think of a Rogue Trader game slightly different. It seems most people want everything as a focus, regardless of what classes the players have picked. For me, I tend to focus on what they have picked, and sideline or reduce the detail on some of the others.

So, for example, in my group I do happen to have a PC Navigator. So warp travel is a big deal in my game. I've built a lot around that. They do not however have a PC Explorator. So the Mechanicus are very behind the scenes and only used when I need them for a plot device. My group is a Rogue Trader, Void Master (small craft), Navigator and Seneschal. None of them are very combat-geared so my game tends to not have a lot of combat. Earlier on we had an Arch-Militant instead of the Void Master and I did run more combat so he didn't feel useless in a mostly social game.

In your group since you do not have a Navigator, I'd simply make Warp Travel a portion of the plot itself. Incursions or shoals happen when you want them to for the story. Otherwise, keep the travel descriptive but not rules-detailed. Instead devote that time focusing on what you do have with PC's so they feel like they really belong in the group.

Otherwise you end up having to do a lot of NPC rolls for warp travel and whatnot which can bog the game down. Same as if you don't have an Astropath, would you roll for every transmission they send? Or just keep it descriptive only?

Hope that makes sense.