Hey everyone,

About to get my first Rogue Trader campaign underway and I'm having those first game frights. This is our first time getting a non-D&D game going, and the players aren't very knowledgeable about 40k lore, but do like the sounds of Rogue Trader. So I'll be easing them into the majority of themes and what not as we go. I'm hoping for some suggestions or comments on my first few ideas for starting the game off. Its been a year or two since I've run anything substantial and I'd like to see this one actually go somewhere!

The crew is; Rogue Trader, Seneschal, Void Master. With a light cruiser as their ship. The void master is a noble (with rival: rogue trader), while the other two are from imperial worlds. They all have savant and their origins lean heavily towards intelligence and academics with a strong dislike (and one or two with enemy) of the Ecclesiarchy.

The Void Master is a member of a powerful noble house on a planet in the Calixis Sector. The set up I'm going with is that an equally powerful and rival house, whom is a rogue trader dynasty has severely wronged the void master's family (my current idea is a dupe of a marriage involving the void master, that saw a large portion of the void master's family funds go into the coffers of the opposing family). With such a formidable enemy the family had to find some way to claw back some of their own power or find new resources. They form an alliance with an off-world rogue trader dynasty that has been on the decline, promising support, supplies and other investors. The void master (female) is sternly told that she's to do whatever she has to to ensure the loyalty of this rogue trader.

On the other hand, the rogue trader has just inherited an ancient and wise light cruiser along with his warrant of trade. His family is slowly on the decline, so he may be their last chance for greatness. With his trusty seneschal side kick, they set off for the wealth.

Both families see this as too good to be true. The dynasty has another chance to repair, rearm and replunder the stars. The noble house has a chance to prop up a dying family in hopes that by scratching the dynasty's back, the dynasty will scratch the enemy house's eyes.

The RT book mentions a first endeavour being taken on behalf of the imperium or other investors. So I'm thinkin' the first endeavour may be to set up an imperial colony or discover a trade route, both with substantial resources being provided by the noble house so that they can spread their influence further and make sure their name is stamped on any flat surface.

In addition to this, to give the seneschal a bit of the spotlight I was going to use his Peer talents to kick in Forsaken Bounty. Using the adventure for the most part as is, except that the ship would be a rogue trader vessel commissioned by the Administratum, with the side mission being to recover data banks and return them to an Administratum agent, without any real worry about the leftovers of the crew.

I'm not all that certain what I'd like, but perhaps some tips, pointers or suggestions would be great. I wanted to have the group come up with their own endeavour first, but I'm now thinking by including the first endeavour it gives them a point to start from, rather then just pushing them out of the airlock and hoping they can warpswim.

Any thoughts are much appreciated!,

Goodwin

Edit: Ah, ha! I think I've got another idea as well. Perhaps the trade route can be made a little more interesting by it requiring the sabotage of enemy house's merchandise first. Since both noble houses are from the same world, its likely they may deal with the same exports. It would likely be hinted at that their competition is indeed stiff and somehow leveling the playing field would certainly help both the dynasty and the noble house. This could give the rogue trader at least three different approaches; sabotage the house's manufactorums within the hive through direct action or more subtle methods, go to consumer world X whom imports these goods and convince them otherwise, or be real risky and hunt down the transport vessel in imperial space. This should also give the rogue trader a way to do things nicely (diplomacy with world x), or meanly (sabatoge manufactorums), or really meanly (blowing up a ship). How's that!

I fully support having the first endevour be a cake run for the PCs. Look at their strengths and the ship's strengths then tailor the first run to that set of strengths. It'll give them a decent payout, a good amount of confidence and it'll allow you to rachet up the left field requirements over time as they could possibly meet them.

Just don't underestimate your players and their ingenuity on that first endevour. In my experience they tend to surprise you.

And characterise the rival as someone your players will love to hate A memorable NPC can come back again and again.

Thanks guys,

My idea for the rival is a rogue trader (of the bad noble house) married the voidmaster. The bad noble house got to keep all of the dowry thing, under the assumption that the new joint family would be much stronger, but then they kept all their own balls and wouldn't leave none for the good guys to play with. The next day the rogue trader left with a chunk of resources and hasn't returned since. So now the voidmaster's family is left holding the bag, and she's got egg on her face. Its left her family weakened and the other family much stronger. I'll then of course bring the naughty rogue trader to throw a wrench in plans later down the line. I'm going to do my best to stress that openly attacking the rival family is a very bad idea though, as if the two families start fighting it'll be very bad for the entire planet. Making subtle actions and diplomacy a better way to harm them then lancing their estate.

As a background endeavour I'm now thinking:

"Rival Houses of Sigrud IV"

Greater 1200 AP

Requirement: Ensure no activities can be linked back to the noble house or the rogue trader dynasty, lest a civil war break out between the factions. AP can be gained in a few ways. Each has a bit nicer of a method and a more rogueish. This is how I'll start to get a feel for how the group wants to play.

Pirateering - The rival house has several markets, but its largest are centered around the mining worlds of Puragory of Soubraus and Dalthous. Capture, cripple or destroy a ship en route to damage the family's profits and reputation. Alternatively, protect one or more of your allies transport vessels as they make their way to the mining worlds, allowing a flood of goods to reach the markets safely at one time.

Sabotage - Subtly or directly damage or impede key manufactorums owned by the enemy house. This can be done through bribery and espionage leading to worker revolts, or directly by the explorers risking themselves to destroy important installations. Either way, it cannot be discovered that the explorers are behind this.

Diplomacy - Convince Purgatory of Soubraus or Dalthous to sign a contract of exclusivity with your ally.

Each can obtain about 300 or so AP, with the Diplomacy action potentially leading to much more as the explorers have to find ways to gain the trust and support of the two worlds.

The above can be a background endeavour and doesn't need to be finished right away. Alternatively, or additionally, I was going to use the core's Establish an Imperial Colony to have the explorer's set up a colony in the Koronus under the name and with the backing of the good guy noble house (good only due to association). Both or either of these will happen at the same time as Forsaken Bounty, which will hopefully be the first direct action the group takes.

So, is this too much? Should I stick with one of the Imperial Colony or Rival Houses endeavours as the payment the voidmaster's house should expect due to backing the dynasty?

I'm afraid!

This all sounds good, keep it up! Its better when players don't know much about 40k then you can use more of the cliche stuff that any 40k fan would never fall for and still suprise them.

Hey again!,

After playing our first session there's some questions as to just what a ship has on board! We only have the core book, as a heads up. However, we did Forsaken Bounty and the players were curious; how many salvage vessels do they have, how many guncutters do they have, how easy is it to get the prefabricated buildings to start setting up a colony!

I can't really find anything in the book to give me the answers to that. Is this covered in some of the other books? How many vehicles of each type a ship may have, such as landing craft and transports? Do they need to make an acquisition roll to see if they can afford the necessary components to set up housing? Or is this all up to me?

I'm scared and confused! Help!

Prefab structures are in Into the Storm. In most cases they would simply be an endeavour requirement, so you'd have them go to the Administratum or Mechanicus and requisition some in addition to petitioning for the appropriate forms and materials to establish a new colony. So you're quite free to decide what they have to do for that. Settling a temperate earth-like planet? A hundred jovian-pattern hab domes will be fine, make an acquisition and fill out some forms ceding ownership of the planet to the Imperium and you're set. Attempting to colonise a borderline uninhabitable deathworld that ate your last five scout operations? Better make a detailed shopping list of the things they'll need...

Battlefleet Koronus lists a handy guide for how many craft you have aboard your vessel: a useful guideline is that a ship has room for one lighter, shuttle, or heavy lifter for every 5 points of Space its hull has. In general, these vehicles shouldn’t be larger than 50 metres. However, if a ship has a cargo hold component (such as the Cargo Hold and Lighter Bay), they should be able to hold an additional four vehicles.