I'm extremely new to DMing so its been hard enough starting as it is, but it seems every player is min-maxing with no regard for background or roleplay potential. I wouldnt care if we were only doing battles here and there, but trying to put a story together is increasingly difficult with their lack of cooperation. thoughts?

If my players go totally overboard with minmaxing, i'll simply play on their weaknesses a lot. If players are mainly concerned with combat ... well: RT isn't just about combat. There's a shitload of important stuff happening outside of combat. Even if you minimise it to just acquisition rolls.

But to be honest, as a gm you mainly have to cater to your players imo. They don't need to get everything they want, but if it's a group that's mainly interested in the killing fields then adding in a lot of roleplay will simply make them run away from your table. So don't overstep it by only going for rp in that case. Instead just add it in every once in a while so they slowly learn to value the skills / characteristics / talents which they are now ignoring.

in the Mykybe's Veil campaign, Tech-Priest Marzu is the biggest problem - particularly since his intelligence and and various enhancements mean he can pass intelligence-based checks by 12 degrees of success, and sometimes more.

I've decided that all the other players get to roll a check first - they might not pass, in which case they can fall back on Marzu, but at least they don't feel completely superfluous.

Typically I limit skill bonuses to +30, or +40 in specific situations (ie, you have a +30 maximum to Tech-Use, but Binary Chatter allows you +40 when commanding Servitors) but even that won't slow down min-maxers that much.

Honestly, it's a question more of scale than anything. A senior Explorator shouldn't need to bother rolling Tech-Use to unlock a door, simply describe how he breezes past the locks. On the other hand, it should be far more difficult for him to multi-task the delicate balancing act of keeping a warp engine from overloading whilst rebuking the tech-daemons that are attempting to breach the core cogitator's firewall defences...

Cornwallis said:

Stopping twinky players from min-maxing is almost impossible to do. That's probably one of the things that makes it so annoying to deal with, IMHO. The bottom line is that you need to keep the game fun for everyone who's playing, and some people won't have fun if they can't min-max. Badlapje is right on the money about that.

You could always try looking at their character sheets as you prepare your next session. Make sure the important rolls that your story hinges on are hard enough that they won't breeze through it, and come up with reasons why the target numbers are so difficult. (You should also prepare some idea of what to do if they fail these rolls, since the backlash of making it possible for them to fail is that sometimes they will - usually when you least expect it.)

As for the less important rolls - the ones that set up plot hooks or are otherwise minor in relation to the story you want to tell, don't even bother statting them out. Let the players roll so they feel like they're doing something, and then just tell them they succeed. If they roll poorly, wince and describe how they just barely make it work (twinks will no doubt attribute this to how awesome their bonuses are.)

In short: Don't waste time writing out stats and numbers for all these things you know the players will just breeze through anyway. Flesh out the descriptions and the atmosphere, but let these things collapse quickly, as expected. Only stat out the things that are really important, and as I said before, make sure those things have stats that will stand up to the players, no matter how good they are.

You can try to fight against the twinkery with twinkery of your own, but that will most likely only frustrate you (and possibly also them, depending on their personalities.) You can try to railroad them into role playing situations, and that sometimes even works, but in my experience the die-hard min-maxers will just find a way to apply their awesome skills to everything - even if that means holding a gun to the head of an NPC who was otherwise trying to help them.

One last idea: When they roll really well on something they've pumped a lot of points into, let them describe how it plays out. Offer them extra XP for getting creative. Let them relish in the awesome min-maxed character they spent so much time crafting and maybe, just maybe, they'll start role-playing without realizing it. They might wonder at how you let them describe insta-kills and super-cool combos, but if the enemies they're fighting are just mooks who were expected to die in a couple more combat rounds anyway, what are you really giving up? You always have the right to veto the normal rules for really important bad guys, and that goes for whatever house rules you mix in, too.

There has to be minions that are fairly easy to kill and then there has to be the important NPCs that has to provide a challenge. Whatever stats required to meet these goals are OK in my book. If the PCs are experts at min/max-ing it just means that the NPCs has to be balanced accordingly.

The biggest challenge comes when there is a huge difference between the players, then you as a GM will be need to make sure that you have something interesting for each player. If some players can't excel in combat, make some story lines that have those players in the center.

Bear in mind, you are the Hammer of the Emperor. If they're min-maxing, say for an epic BS, then you get to drop a badass melee fighter with a jump pack out of the sky onto his head. You're also not only not obligated to provide stats or numbers for your NPCs and minions, but I would say obligated to NOT and instead judge each attack independently for the good of the story. if they kill your bad ass NOC of doom in one round, turns out he actually has a toughness bonus of 10 and he's more or less unharmed instead. Surprise!

If their min-maxing would ruin the story in any way, slaughter them ruthlessly and prevent it in the next round of characters by enforcing a maximum stat level. You're the only one who does not get to make a character, which means you should be treated like a king for sacrificing your time and effort to make a story. if the worms don't appreciate your majesty and grandeur, crush them under heel. If they can't have fun the way you need to run a game to have fun, you're an incompatible group and it's a big waste of time anyways.

If they want a numbers game, they should go play Oblivion.

What could be fun if it is guaged right is to give your Tech-Priest player some form of tech virus that causes him to menally calculate some great breakthrough, which for the stroy arc limits his intelligence (because he is constantly doing calculations) he would be limited but it would give the promise of a greater prize at the end of storyline).

On idea for the virus is that he has been infected by a virus from a broken warp gate and at the end of the story his calculation will lead to them being able to activate it (the Tech-Priest would need to use his other skills to achieve this meta endeavour - maybe even thing he would never normally do)

You cater to it, occasionally.

Players get something out of it so let them shine, just occasionally. Explain to them there are other options open and then when they can't do something normal you don't punish them, you show them they needed it and they CHOSE not to take it, not your fault, "look how well you crushed those orks though, neat wasn't it" and if they min maxed as a group thats what the group wants, cater to it, just not all the time.

Nothing is to big or powerful to be lost, broken, taken away or defeated - if even to make a point, then given back.

Once they defeat every military endeavour and crush all resistance they need to make trade ties.

Oh look you can't, you slowly erode your capitol by fixing your ship, supplying and paying your troops. It's not mean, it's life. The circle of trade keeps everything moving including profit. If you don't pay them, feed them they leave, or even lead a rebellion, then they can't put down the revolt, or keep the orks down they come back, then they need to make profit to hire more troops.

Just make it exciting, and fun for all, people like to be challenged, not beaten upon. You do your job they will love you all the more for it.

Cornwallis said:

There's a reason the rulebook is large and hard-back. It's to provide GM's with a potent disciplinary tool for coercing recalcitrant players. A few good thwacks with the rulebook will normally set a player straight.

Well I'm GM and also PC so I know both points of view. If your players making min-max they give them challenge which can be done in few ways. They could unlock doors by using security or they can use stealth to get to armory and steal demo charge or they can fight they way through other doors. After sesion they would think "well, this fight was hard If I only had security i would unlock this doors and didn't need to figt 100 terminators let's buy this skill".

Don't punish them because they want their char to be great fighter or mechanic. Talk with them what you don't like and try getting agreement. Remember that it's not PC vs GM it's PC and GM making cool story and they all should have fun.

BangBangTequila said:

This is absolutely NOT the way to run an RPG of any kind. "If they don't do it my way I'll summarily kill them and force them to roll new characters until they play the way I want them to!" No, no, a thousand times no! Players and GM should be cooperating to tell a good story, not fighting each other via the game mechanics to try and force the game to go the way they want.

Sounds like you want to be a player rather than the GM, if not being allowed to make a character is such a big sacrifice. If that's your position, I would highly recommend NOT agreeing to be the GM in the first place. Better to spend more time looking for someone who WANTS to GM than to force someone who doesn't into the role. Role-playing is not an adversarial process, and making someone GM who doesn't want to is only going to make the whole process degenerate.

Lastly, and not to belabour the point, but just because you're the GM doesn't mean you can't make a character. There's a reason DMPCs persist in RPGs throughout the ages, and they exist for those GMs who want to be "part of the team" as well as be the big boss. Personally I dislike the idea as I find it distracting to be playing both sides of the fence, but if you can manage that, you should do so. It might help alleviate some of this pent up aggression over not being able to be one of the players.

Edit: Nor are the players under any kind of obligation to "play the way the GM wants or else they're incompatible." The only person in that scenario who's incompatible is the GM who's too stubborn to think of his friends and insists on playing his own game with or without them. RPGs are a cooperative effort, and that applies just as much to the GM as to the players. EVERYONE needs to consider what the others want of the game and try to find some common ground. If anything, the GM should be considering what kind of game his players want and tailoring the story to suit their needs (to a point, of course. I'm not suggesting the GM should throw out all his own desires.)

If you find you have difficulty seeing eye-to-eye with your players about what kind of game you want to run, the very first thing you should do (even before character gen) is sit down and TALK about what kind of story you all want to run. Agree on the atmosphere and general setting before anyone wastes time making characters or NPCs or story points. Maybe have a couple of movie nights where you rent movies that exhibit the kind of story you want to tell to get yourselves in the mood.

I don't disagree with you on most of that. That said, I know I had trouble for years with finding any sort of real life grouping in my area, and most of the time it was just a small group of friends that made up every game session. This meant that we all, out of necessity, were the GM at some point, despite all of us wanting to be players. It appears to me, however, that this GM wants to GM, but the players don't really want to play. They seem more prone to rolling dice then trying to roleplay.

The fact is, the GM puts in 5x more work then the players combined to run a campaign. Between notes, maps, statting up villains and writing the background information on the various settings, the GM has more invested in the specific type of campaign then anyone else could. If they decided they're running a certain type, let's say a morally upright crew of crusaders desiring to bring worlds under the thumb of the Imperium, and this if followed by great writing on the GM's part and then nothing but min-maxed characters who simply throw d%'s at the problems, well only one person is getting screwed. The players and the GM have to be on the same page, or else people will wind up unhappy and dissatisfied with their experience. If they aren't looking for the same game, then a change needs to be made, and lets face it - no GM wants to play a purely numbers game, it's not fun to write or to execute because victory just means you stacked the deck too heavily in that Greater daemon's favour. They shouldn't be fighting via game mechanics, but the players should not be rewarded for min-maxing if it's having a direct and negative effect on the story - which it is, by the GM's statement. Burning the fate points of the players unwilling to bother roleplaying until they play the game is certainly not the catastrophe you've painted it. If you put a puzzle into your game, and some players tried to simply walk away from it, would you not have that action bear consequences? This is no different.

Hopefully that clarifies my statements.

From the top:

Be honest with your players. Tell them you have a problem. Ask them what they want to do in the game. Find out what attracts them to Rogue Trader, why they want to play this game. Get them to talk to each other, in-character, out of character, just get some communication going. Communication is vital.

Find out what they want. Establish why they don't have it yet. Decide on an obstacle, or a rival, or a situation. Be clear about it. Let the players consider what to do. If they decide to do nothing, move to the next goal. If they don't motivate themselves, have the obstacle become more prominent, the rival act against them, the situation draw them in whether they like it or not.

(Players) We want to get rich on the Cold Trade!

(GM) But you have no artifacts to trade, and no contacts to trade them with.

(Players) Oh. Whatever.

(GM) ...maybe you could get some?

(Players) Sounds like work. Maybe later.

Time passes as the players fail to commit to actually doing anything. Then...

(GM) The local arbites are kicking on your airlock hatch. They say they have evidence you're smuggling xenos tech and a warrant to search your ship.

(Players) *£$&?

(GM) They show you a vid of boxes you don't recognise being moved into a cargo bay you do. Someone seems to be trying to use your ship to hide their contraband, and the cops are blaming you. What do you do?

Side note: I'm totally going to use that idea at some point myself!

About min-maxing:

I have a brand, brand new gang for my game. One of them managed to get his BS to 70 by strategic use of Origin choices (thank you, Into The Storm) and starting XP. You know, I looked at it, and I thought "Naah, something's bent here." I looked at it, traced the build path, it's book-legal, so I let it pass. I know with a scope and a little sense he's likely to be able to roll against 100 when the safety comes off, but I still let it pass. Want to know why?

Because it's not my story. It's our story. Actually, it's their story. I am a facilitator, set dresser and casting agent. If I am the director, I haven't given anyone a script, so I don't feel I should have a negative reaction when the players drive their characters in the direction they want. A high Ballistic Skill will not break anything in my game, because as far as I'm concerned, everything in the world is a potential target. The player has established that this is "his thing", and he is awesome at it. I will give him opportunities to display his talent and awe his friends, I will call attention to it in the world, and surround him with followers both adoring and envious. And if I have an idea for something sneaky to fox the gang with, I will make darn sure it's not vulnerable to a ballistic solution.

All these things will be consequences of the player's choices, and the character's actions.

BangBangTequila said:

I agree that the GM puts way more effort into a game than the players do. That's why most of my suggestions for the OP were aimed at minimizing the amount of work he does on aspects of the game they won't care about anyway. The first step in avoiding all this wasted effort is making sure you and your players agree on where you want the story to go. The second step is finding ways to bring the world to life around them, rather than spending 6 hours statting out enemies who will die in the span of 20 minutes of combat.

The best way to negate min-maxing is to fire the imaginations of your players. Get them thinking along non-mechanical lines when they make decisions about what to do. An excellent example of that would be the recent thread (either here or in DW) about the "cool guys don't look at explosions" rule. Rolling dice for flavour reasons gets mechanically oriented players thinking along flavourful lines, which will only increase role-playing in the long run.

Like many things in this world, however, that's much easier said than done. Some players will stay focused on the numbers no matter what you do. You can either accept it as their play style and work around it, or you can stop inviting that person to game. "Punishing" that player by repeatedly killing his characters until "he learns his lesson" in the real waste of time. All that accomplishes is to generate real hostility between you two over a stupid game. Probably, it will also encourage him to min-max even more in the future to attempt to avoid grizzly death.

BangBangTequila said:

100% agree. However, that doesn't mean the players always need to change to match the GM's expectations. Sometimes, sure, but the GM should also be flexible. If the GM finds himself spending all this time writing plot hooks and role-playing opportunities that go by the wayside, perhaps the GM should consider writing different plot hooks geared toward the kinds of adventures the players seem to go looking for. (Please note, writing combat-oriented, loot-promising plot hooks does NOT mean you're giving up the role-play. You can write role-playing opportunities right into the middle of a firefight if you want to.) It's a two-way street, and nothing helps to resolve conflicting interests in a situation like that better than good old fashioned communication. The GM doesn't need to talk to his players exclusively through his NPCs. He can pause the game and just say what's on his mind.

BangBangTequila said:

This is just my personal opinion, of course, but having the greater daemon defeat the party does not constitute "victory" for the GM. RPGs are not the sort of game that anybody "wins" or "loses." It's a cooperative effort. Just because the GM sits on the other side of the table and controls all the enemies does not mean he's working against the players. The GM also controls friendly NPCs, after all. He controls the entire universe, and the universe (particularly in a sandbox-style setting like Rogue Trader) should always be neutral. The real "victory" that everyone should be aiming for is to tell an entertaining story - "entertaining" being defined by group consensus, not by one player's desired outcome.

BangBangTequila said:

Consequences, yes. Repeated and unending TPKs until the party decides to go back and solve the puzzle, no. Perhaps solving that puzzle would have lead to great and powerful loot for the party. In that case, walking away from the puzzle bears consequences in that the party does not get said loot.

I might deliberately avoid giving the players similar loot from other sources for a number of game sessions.

If I wanted to make sure the party understood the consequences, I might make up a small group of NPC adventurers who have the loot from behind the puzzle and then make a point of having them brag (within hearing range of the party) about how they solved the weird puzzle and found all sorts of awesome loot behind it. (And if the party tried to take said loot by force, I would absolutely override the dice and make sure these NPCs walked away with their kit. I wouldn't have them kill the entire party, though, unless the players insisted on fighting to the death.)

You talk about wanting to see players role-play rather than "roll play" and spending all this effort writing a cool story, but when the players defy you, you respond by killing them. Mechanically. You resort to the dice to teach them that they shouldn't be resorting to the dice. "Do as I say, not as I do." You should be using role-play and story elements to show the players what they're missing by keeping their heads firmly stuck in the sands of min-maxed dice rolls.

Cornwallis said:

Firstly, with no co-operation from players, you are always going to have a rough time of it.

Try to get them to explain what their characters' Personality is like, and how they got to where they are. Then you can move on to "What sorts of thing do you want to get up to? Trading? Exploring New Worlds? Fighting Xenos? Challenging the Ecclesiarchy?"

Let them 'Win' an adventure, showing off all of their Max-Power. Ask them if they want to do that again, or try something challenging.

Don't just up the numbers (more orks to kill, ships with bigger gunz), change the playing field. Kommando Orks, rivals feeding the foe intel. Political manouvering leaving the players with no permits, while rivals scoot off with the Lootz/reward.

Have important/celebrity NPCs care about the PCs, and then get into trouble. PCs get judged by their response.("Mr Governor, I'm Very Sorry your daughter, who has pics of me all over her walls, has got kidnapped by Chaos Cultists, but I'm off to trade this semi-legal lootz for a fat profit. Maybe some other guy can help you")

Let your players min-max their characters! And then look over the 'min' parts ... everyone ditched Fellowship? So they smell like wee and have no friends! Low WP? Incoming Fear, Pinning, Psychers! Perception lagging behind? Shame you won't spot those assassins/thieves/spies.

They will have Origin Paths. Make them interesting, and build them into the Story.

If they have Rivals and/or Enemies from Origins, don't just "-10 to a roll". Have the Rival hail them from across the Void, resplendent in his Jewel-encrusted Battle-Shorts: "Hi there Suckers! I see you still haven't found the Secret of Planet Bletchley! I'm so close, I just had to tell someone, and who would appreciate it more than you! Smell ya later!"

As mentioned, don't do all this to punish players, do it to make interesting stories, based on the players Origin Paths and what the players say about their characters. Have the players make interesting choices.