So, if I was to wish to run LotE, two questions I would ask. First, is it a good idea to pretend that the other books (Into the Storm, Hostile Acquisitions, and Battlefleet Koronus) don't exist? Without some heavy modifications, many of the cool things in those books aren't drawn upon by you opposition, and being the only group with a battlecruiser, torpedoes, Nova Cannons, and Alternate Career levels smacks of unfair, while twinking each foe to have some of that is a lot of work. Second, is there a suggested "level" where players should be for it? Hadarak Fel has an improved stat block from RT, so some time has passed. What's the expected PC range in LotE? I know that this system doens't like to set things up that way, but I still wonder about it; it helps me to think.

I really like LotE, and if I were to get to sucker some friends into playing Rogue Trader, it's a run I'd like very much to put them through.

Level 2-4 is a good place for the group to be. You probably don't want them to start it with more than 30 or 40 PF though, as some of the gear you can get would severely unbalance many of the potential fights.

As far as the ships go, remember that most of the other Rogue Trader's would not hesitate to team up against a slightly superior enemy. If Bastille and Blitz were to team up together they could put some hurt on any other vessel. The stronger the PCs are the more the other traders should be working against them.

I don't see a problem with allowing BFK or ItS additions. Generally those give the PCs more options rather than staight up increasing their power level. As far as balance, the book doesn't tend to tell you exactly how many opponents the PCs face, only general guidelines -- so you can balance any encounter by increasing or decrasing the number of opponents rather than "twinking" them.

Having read Lure (but not run it) it looks well written, fun, and solid. The only scenario that I think is poor is the one with the Light of Terra battleship, I think I will either remove it or re-write it significantly. Also I think the final rewards need to match the level of effort the players put into it, so I plan on using the rewards as only a guideline and give them plenty of profit factor if they spend 6 months+ playing the campaign.

We ran Lure of the Expanse a few months ago. It worked very well, and a good time was had by all.

The Light of Terra chapter was a bit strangely written - my group (like pretty much everyone else, it seems), shot Captain Roth and then sold the ship to the navy. That was the most extreme case, but quite often I thought that the writers hadn't thought out what an 'average' group might do - it doesn't matter as such, and one can remedy it easily.

My group used an Orion Star Clipper (an ItS ship) with lots of little gadgets and gizmos from various other books - and it worked fine. In terms of competition, the other rogue traders can team up as much as you see fit, but also, perhaps more pertinently, they should be able to use their ships as cannily as PCs - very often a weak, cleverly used ship is at least as deadly as a bigger, stronger, but unimaginately commanded one.

Also, some of the NPC rogue traders command smaller ships which haven't been given profiles - you could always use torpedo (or otherwise upgraded) vessels here, and also perhaps allow some of the rogue traders who are not written to have multiple ships some extra ones, or higher crew ratings etc, if that is needed to make things a bit more dangerous.

One thing I made my crew do was try to impress upon them the length of the journey they were embarking upon and that time was a factor. We made a rough inventory of what they carried on their ship, and this, quite naturally, ran down quite a lot over time. I kept a close eye on food stocks (and one particularly brutal battle they had, above Dross, was with another Rogue Trader who had a smaller supply of food, and whose crew was starving). On the battle on Quppa Psi the players' crack company of household troopers lost over half its strength, and two of their four gun cutters were wrecked for the campaign, etc. This made them shepherd their resources somewhat, and gave the impression of being on an epic expodition of discovery.

I think one thing I would like to avoid is the 'computer game timing' syndrome, whereby it feels that the time one spends doing things has no impact on the rest of the world/the NPCs. I would run all five of the little adventures on the heathen trail as they are a lot of fun; I suppose the PCs need to know that time waits for no man, and if they nip back to a base to get more men or guns they might lose their prize.

Anyway, best of luck running it, it is a great campaign.

All best,

David.