Greetings and salutations, fellow players! My name is Chacha and I hope you could all spend a moment on this post of mine. It's a long one, so please bear with me!

I've been lurking around the forums for some time now, seeping in good advice and taking notes of the various ideas. However, I couldn't find a direct answer to my current predicament, so I decided it was time to join and ask away. See, I am currently participating in a Rogue Trader game taking place over Skype. The game has been going on for roughly a year or so and I really like the characters and the campaign. However, I still find myself in a very troublesome catch-22 situation.

You see, I'm a freeform roleplayer by some six years or so, having played a fair bit over IMs or forums. This Rogue Trader was my first stint into more organized, rule-based games. As such, I took the safe route back when we made characters and went for a sneaky, combat-y Kroot so that more experienced players could do the thinking. All was quite well and we had a good time... until our GM disappeared on us. The game ground to a halt for a couple of months until I took up the mantle of GMing. This... half-worked. On one hand, I still to this day struggle to understand the rules and the stats, often finding myself overwhelmed by the mechanics themselves. On the other hand, I believe i did a good job in the actual meat and bone of the campaign, providing NPCs and plot hooks while still keeping the players' freedom as a top priority.

Alas, the rules proved to be too much for me and I passed the torch to a willing player who had a much firmer grasp of the rules than I did. So I brought my Kroot back and continued to do the sneakin' and killin'. And for a time, all was well. However, I soon found a very troublesome problem: I had developed a knack and a liking for the planning and the plotting. That and I found all the social and the teching to be much more fun than getting stuck in with the combat, especially since it was much less rules-intensive. However, my Kroot was an Int 20 moron with almost no lores, so i could not actually have him make the suggestions and ideas I had. Instead they often came up in OOC talks with our Rogue Trader player, which... is kind of cheating.

So I opted to make a new character. Someone who could actually contribute to the party aside from being the dangerous, filthy, mistrusted Xeno. And i found myself completely stumped on this no matter what I tried. You see, our party is highly specialized. Our Rogue Trader is a Fellowship-god, specializing in talking, lying and having contacts everywhere. Meanwhile, our Explorator has every Lore known to man, a god-like Intelligence and has pretty much all relevant skills for it. Meanwhile, the GMPC is a very competent Astropath. So basically, the only player niches availible are "Killing stuff in combat" and "Ship pilot". Not.. .exactly what I want to do, both being very low on characterization and very rules-heavy.

Now, we've also recently converted to using the Black Crusade rules, as we found them much more fluid than the Rogue Trader ones. Characters still use the Origin Path and their class' starting package, but are then free to advance using the system in Black Crusade. This opens up a lot more options, of course, but I am still stumped on what kind of character to make. It seems to me that I am either stuck playing a combat-specialist or a generic, sub-par jack-of-all-trades.

So what I am asking is simple: Am I missing something here? Is there something else I could possibly do? Or should I just suck it up and go with the roles open to me?

Well if you're wanting plotting, then you've completely glossed over the Seneschal for some reason. Aside from being the master at finding stuff, sneaking around, he's essentially the go-to guy when you just need someone who's a dirty shitbag that'll do the terrible things all the smart, friendly and respectable people won't touch with a 40ft pole.

Spying, assassination, social situations, outright theft and anything else which isn't covered by the group. Though, ditching the RT character ruleset and using the BC mechanics is a good start to occupying the somewhat huge hole they don't have.

Well, I did actually consider the Seneschal. The problem is that almost all skills he has, another player can do better. He has social talents, but the Rogue Trader has better versions. He has tech, lore and language talents, but the Explorator can do it better. He has some sneaking feats, yes, but I've noticed a distinct problem with sneaking:

I am often sent off alone to take care of some hi-risk thing. This suits me just fine. However, it also leaves the other players waiting as the GM focuses on my part of the game. And well, I don't see how that could be fun for them. That and, as said, we kinda need a pilot and all.

There is a pilot achertype you could pursue. It's the daredevil rakehell. Particularly suited to smallcraft rather than big ships. More likely to start fights than end them, get drunk and generally cause trouble but occasionaly able to pull off the stunning feat that saves the party from hot water (that he led them in to). Often has a Naval background and contacts.

A noble idea, indeed. However, I have never been able to fully immerse myself in the role of the devil-may-care maverick who nevertheless pulls off insane, helpful stunts. That and well, they wanted a Void Master explicitly for space combat.

That and well, I still don't get to do the plotting and scheming. Such a character would be more inclined to hang out in the bar until he's called into action and while this is fun and all, the most fun in this campaign so far has been all the insane plans. Such as the time we installed an Abominable Intelligence on a rival's ship. Or that one time when we lured an Arbites Judge with a grudge against us into a deep-space ambush.

Personally, if i were you, i'd go with one of three options in this situation:

1. a seneschal

2. a genetor

3. a missionary

Here's why.

Playing a seneschal basically means you can become the confidante of the rogue trader. Your RT may have insane fellowship, but he is the head of the ship. His time is extremely limited. Also, as a figurehead, there are appearances he needs to entertain. If you are also a high fellowship seneschal, preferably with some skills on the dark side (charm, deceive, intimidate, disguise kinda things), then you can play off of eachother in rp situations. You can enhance whatever the other is doing by timing right and doing either the opposite or reinforcing with more of the same. You would remain in his shadow, most likely - at least partially, but it would allow you to plot and scheme and whatnot. You could entertain being a master of whispers via disguises (issue yourself a false identity aboard the ship for example, get a secret passage to the quarters of your alter ego and voila: you're set) if you wanted or be a flamboyant seneschal who seems to enjoy the fruits of life but in reality is a master interrogator and schemer.

Playing a genetor allows you to take a radically different approach to the current tech-priest aboard. Yes there's overlap, but assuming he's a traditional admech you could play a more innovative genetor. Lots of fun to be had rp-wise there in trying to plot against eachother for control over the ships AM contingent. When interacting with others it gives a wealth of opportunities when two tech-priests take opposing views. It gives you a lot of skills that are usefull for social situations, but still allows for your personalised approach and intrigue.

Playing a missionary is something that doesn't seem to be present in your group yet. The ecclesiarchy is a very big power in the 40k universe, and the faith powers are very cool (if your gm allows stuff from blood of martyrs). Socially speaking you open a wealth of doors (and close just as many). You are of course out to instill the right faith in those aboard ship and to ensure that the actions of the retinue are according to the dictates of the God-Emperor. Basically: i think this one is the option that minimises overlap while still allowing you to be very active outside of combat.

However, one thing that i would NOT EVER do if i were you is play a role in the party that you don't like, just because the party needs one. That's what npcs are for. That's what a gm is for: to compensate for certain things that a party may lack (or abuse them when the time is right to increase the challenge and fun in overcoming that). If your party specialises and you do not want to be doubling up on skills then you more or less have to be combat oriented. Specialising in that is something you don't want ... so why are you even considering it?

Every char in RH (except those alien scum) is meant to be somewhat charismatic. They are the commanders of the ship after all.

And similar every char is meant to be able to hold his ground in combat.

In addition there will be times when your group splits up or the one best at some job fails never the less.

So the fact that your rogue trader is very good at social interaction doesn't mean that you can't.

Just having some peers he hasn't can help a lot when dealing with those people.

And the Trader can not give himself his +10 bonus, but he can give it to you.

Together with some peer or good reputation that would be a +20 or +30 bonus he doesn't have.

And we've had situations, where it was smarter to have someone else than the rogue trader himself deal diplomaticly with someone. If only to have the option to postpone a decision by saying: "I'm not in the position to decide that. I'm going to talk it over with my rogue trader."

So yes, the seneshal or the missionary seem to be good choices.

I forgot that you use the BC rules thou. You should talk to your group's rogue trader and try to reach a consensus about which peers he learns and which he stays away from so that you can cave some that are like unique to you.