Well met!

Some friends and I are about to try Rogue Trader for the first time this week and I was wondering if any of you had some tips for a first time GM. I have played many rPGs in the past (Star Wars, GURPS, Prime Directive and of course the granddaddy of them all, D&D) and was wondering how this game compares. I have played Warhammer 40K and am familiar with the universe as well and have even downloaded the Free RPGS Day intro adventure. Any key tips? Thanks!

PCs have massive freedom. The simple fact they have a ship means they can decide to go where they like. The PCs will also be pretty wealthy, even with a "low" profit factor. They may go straight for the best wargear or focus on more flashy acquisitions to show off their wealth and taste. Oh and be prepared for parties to loot potentially *anything*. The first group I played in managed to grab and hang onto an Eldar maiden world.

NPC starships that don't have a talented NPC or three onboard are not going to make nearly as much use of their weapons and engines as a PC-crewed starship. I strongly recommend the squadron rules in Battlefleet Koronus to make NPC ships a bit more of a challenge.

Have some ideas for planets for the inevitable time the party decides to just go exploring. Even an idea of what sort of worlds are in the spaces of the Koronus Expanse (or a different setting) will make your life much easier.

Enjoy!

Donjon's Random Star System Generator may well prove invaluable to you, if you need ideas in a hurry

http://donjon.bin.sh/scifi/system/

I use it regularly - you'll be surprised how many plot ideas it can give you

Drhoz said:

Drhoz - Thanks for pointing this site out, being able to have a whole system or 5 created with information and possible lure's is fantastic.

Layton Draxby said:

You're welcome

1) Prep! Prep! Prep! Rogue Trader and the other FFG games really benefit from the GM doing some advance work to set up the session. I've run 4e and it's in some ways a lot easier (not necessarily better) because it sets out all the stats and such for you, and gives you all the maps you need. With RT especially you need to make up any notes that you'll use for your session ahead of time, and get all your stats and such in a single location. I use Word to set up my notes and stats, and then I run combats using Excel.

2) Figure out the style of your campaign. My players LOVE using maps, so I make it a point to have maps for all my combat encounters (both in person and in space). For adventures like the Citadel of Skulls I actually drew up a "flowchart" style map with blank boxes that the party could fill in as they went. Your party may prefer to go a heavier narrative route versus maps. You also need to know how your group wants to run their Warrant. Do they like going "dark side" and skirting the law? Are they big into trade or conquest? Again, my group really likes to play it straight - they are big onto bringing the Emperor's Light to new planets, and not so big on dealing with xenos beyond what they have to. Knowing what style of play your group will enjoy most lets you tailor your set up, which leads to...

3) Know your players! The more they give you, the easier your job will be. Encourage (but don't require!) them to give you backstories on their characters, or even short stories or other fiction. Find out their goals for their characters, and see if you can get them to give you enemies, allies, rivals, anything. It's a lot easier for you (and more enjoyable for them) if instead of running into "Generic_Imperial_Captain_01" they run into their old nemesis, the honorable but vicious Captain Dolan Gyre, who foiled their attempt to salvage the Penitent Traveler in the Battleground. I can't stress this one enough - I have a player who LOVES the lore of Prospero (Thousand Sons destroyed homeworld) - I can literally get her hyper involved in any adventure by playing off this. In Citadel of Skulls one of the ways the Archivist attempted to seduce the players to Chaos was by offering her character rare Prosperan tomes that held the location of other "lost" Prosperans (not canon, but hey, it's my setting!) who survived the destruction of Prospero. When her character resisted the temptation, the Archivist started burning the books - her character wound up taking risks in the following combat that were both in character and far out of what she as a player normally did.

4) Don't over-estimate combat, or roleplay. We run combat heavy in my group - it's what they like. However, my group also agrees unanimously that the single most fun encounter they had was a noble dinner party that they attended where they had to broker alliances with different power groups. There was not a single die roll, but it made a massive impression. You want to switch things up, especially if you have characters with different interests (an RP focused player and a combat focused player, for instance). Give everyone a chance to shine.

5) Use the rules, don't let yourself be limited by them. The rules set is pretty good, but feel free to break it if needed for better gameplay. Just don't do so to screw the players unnecessarily, or to make things a monty haul for them - they will not have as much fun either way.

6) Players will BREAK your plans. Expect it, don't get set on an encounter running just one way. If they come up with something out of the blue, reward them! If it would break the adventure, use rule number 5 and modify things so it doesn't, but still give the group a benefit for good thinking. In the adventure in the core rulebook, one of my group hit on the idea of decompressing the bridge before entering for the final fight (which I made be against a daemon - they'd bested Lady Ash on Egaria Prime). This would have ended the final scene with no combat. Instead, I had the group of corrupted armsmen with the daemon get sucked out the hull breach, and gave some penalties to the corrupted combat servitors due to the atmosphere rushing past them while they shot. The group got a big benefit for "blindsiding" me, but they still got a good fight. Rogue Trader allows your party to approach things from infinite angles - do your best to give thought to likely possibilities, but be prepared to be surprised. That's part of the most fun for me as GM.

7) Download the character builder from http://www.blackmoor.org.uk/40k.html - this is an incredible tool, and it really helps set up your party. This lets your party email your their saved .rtc files so you can be fully aware of their capabilities and advancement as you go. This really helps for pacing because RT does not really have a way to rate encounter difficulty. Knowing how much will challenge your group versus how much will flat out kill them is a good thing!

8) Enlist your players to help you run things! If a player wants a neat item or custom advance, tell them to come up with a proposed set of stats. You still have final say, but they get to have input into their own progression and it takes some of the creative load off of you.

Whew! That's a bit of a list, but it's the stuff that I had to find out over time doing DMing and GMing for various systems. Good luck - being a GM is a ton of fun and helps you tell a really neat story for your friends.