The "What If More Than One Person Wants to Be the Rogue Trader?" sidebar in p.290 of the core book gave several ideas on how to handle multiple PC Rogue Traders, but it didn't address something that I thought of..

1. The holder of the Warrant of Trade and head of the Dynasty is an NPC.
2. Each PC plays a Rogue Trader who is a member of the same Dynasty and answers directly to the Warrant holder.
3. Each PC has a ship, which forms part of the Dynasty's fleet.
4. Each PC starts with the "Child of Dynasty" home world option in the Origins Path.

How would Profit Factor and Ship Points be handled in that case especially if we take into account the Warrant and Ship Origin Path? Does that mean everyone will have the same amount of Ship Points?

When I sort of brought this up, it was mostly met with negative criticism. One of the points of epic adventure is supposed to be that the players don't have to answer to anyone, most of the time, even each other. The Rogue Trader is master of his ship, but he is NOT master of the Tech-Priests, Navis Noilite, and some others who call the vessel home. Any one of them slighted, feeling that they have been abused, stepped on, or what have you, could bring about devastating repercussions down upon the whole crew, the whole Dynasty, if they had half a mind to. You not getting your messages, or having "mishaps" with the equipment, maybe not having the smoothest trip through the Warp, or any at all, could cause problems, while bringing the wrath of the Navy, the Administratum, the Ecclesiarchy, or the Inquisition could bring an end to you. You are supposed to not have to answer to the distant Inquisitor, being his gopher, and have full access to the limitless funds of a Dynasty.

I know you already know all this, but it's what I got tossed at me. One of the primary aspects of RT is supposed to be freedom, to go wherever, whenever, and do whatever. The GM could be prodding you in a specific direction, and the group could easily say "nah, let's sail in completely the opposite direction, and see what's out there." I don't think you'd have a big problem with your idea, but the ship still needs a Captain, and things run more smoothly when they don't have to get permissions from the aged, Scrooge McDuck, who is miserly with his Thrones, because they are currently at just the right depth for ease of swimming in. A player really should just accept leadership roles, and play the Captain (Warrant Holder). So long as they know that they really aren't above every other player in authority, even if they might feel they are on paper, things should run smooth, and most groups have one, boisterous, arrogant braggart, who likes to hear himself speak, or maybe someone with genuine leadership skills .

Let's see what other people say. Other times, my ideas rewritten by others get acclaim, because someone else said it…

What the…?

Well, after that odd little hissy fit I'm a bit nervous about saying anything at all, but anyway, I'll risk it…

…Speaking as a GM, it sounds like a nightmare to me.

So now instead of coming up with memorable NPC officers and crew for one ship, I have to do that once for every player? Five people in my group, so I get five Rogue Trader PCs and need to invent five NPC Arch Militants, five Void Masters, five Explorators, five Seneschals, five Astropaths, five Navigators and five Missionaries? And I still have to make them all interesting and distinctive? That's before we even get to more minor ones. Sounds like I'm the one who's going to be doing all the role-playing here.

What if they all decide to go in different directions? Are these PCs even going to ever see each other? It's going to be one-on-one role-playing with four people sitting around being bored for four fifths of the time, not really a group exercise at all. Would be better if they all came on different nights I think. I just simply don't see how this would be anything other than a lot less fun for everybody than having one ship with the PCs all on it.

You might find ways to make it work, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to GM it. The ship points thing is entirely up to the GM. Do whatever you need to do to make it work. The ship points and profit factor are going to be spread pretty thin if you have to split them five ways, after all.

Warrant and Ship Origin Path really would only work if everyone is on one ship (the ship whose origin you're outlining) unless you kept the Warrant-specific parts the same for everyone and just changed the Ship-spcific parts. The individual players would all be relatively even-keeled compared to each other but some would have more Profit Factor and a worse ship (indicating less money towards a ship or a younger member of the dynasty) and others would have grander ships but less PF (indicating more money spent on the ship)

After that, Plynkes two objections do have some weight.

A) That's a lot of work for the GM, especially if the ships all go in different direction.

B) It isn't likely to work for an in-person RPing group unless everyone stays together.

To answer this, I suggest playing by post on a forum. It allows for individual threads (each player can do their own thing, and they can make a new combined one when some players meet up), and it allows for more lag-time between responses (the GM doesn't have to be ready for everything and can respond as the players do so those who are intersted stay interested).

(I know you didn't ask, but I'll throw this in too as a curious though for a split-up group - if they're working for the same dynasty, what one does to increase or decrease PF will affect all the others. However, if everyone just starts with the same PF and whatever one RT does ups it for everyone, there's no incentive not to just take it easy and enjoy the spoils of all the others. Interesting quandry, no?)

Wow. I didn't expect that the forum had such strong opinions on this topic.

I was thinking more along the lines of troupe-style play like Ars Magica.

For those not familiar with Ars Magica, each player creates a Magus, a Companion, and 3 Grogs. When a Magus goes out of the Covenant they go out in the company of other Magi or the other players can play their Companion and/or Grogs.

So even if the PCs split up the other PCs can still participate in that PCs adventures and vice-versa.

Oh! And about PCs not having incentive to increase the group PF, well there's the Warrant holder to answer to. (S)he could very well loose h(er)is ship if (s)he does not perform.

Malakh said:

Oops. Sorry, perhaps I did come over a bit ranty myself there.

I could see that minor character thing working. We used to have a similar system in our Star Trek role-playing years ago, where everybody had a "redshirt" character as well as their main. It avoided that Trek situation where all the most important people on the ship always needlessly beam down to the very dangerous planet together in a bunch.

Thing is, for this Rogue Trader business, I still don't see what we're gaining by doing this. Sure, it is much better that my four other players are getting to do something instead of twiddling their thumbs and disrupting the game, but I'm pretty sure they'd rather be playing their main guy, the one they have thought out a detailed background and history for, not one of four minor nobodies they aren't really invested in. They still aren't going to be playing their hero character for much of the time with five RTs jostling for the limelight. And I think it would also be a bit dull that everyone is the Rogue Trader, with mostly the same skill set. It seems like each player is the star of one of five connected games running continuously, rather than us having one game we're all playing. And I don't see how this is more fun than the PCs being a tight-knit crew on a single ship.

I guess that is my main objection. What are we gaining from all this extra work and disruption? We seem to be ending up with a less enjoyable game for our efforts, as far as I can see. I think all I'm really saying here is that I don't think this is for me. If it works for you and your gang, more power to ya!

It is hard work for a GM but it works just fine for each player to have their own ship points and profit factor… assuming you have a friendly group and want a really big game. You just need to note – very carefully – that this is a completely different sort of game to your usual Rogue Trader business.

The “friendly group” part is the most important factor, as it’s really easy to be a jerk to the GM if you each have your own ship and can wander off at will. That works OK on PbP but not table top, because no matter what you do with extra characters/lackeys you might as well be playing separate games. However, if your players promise to stay together as a fleet it’s fine. And can be great fun.

Multiple ships mean big battles everywhere, especially if they gear for heavy combat. Running these engagements is a super pig, so you may find yourself streamlining a lot of rules on the fly just to stop the game from lagging. One thing you need to remember, if the PCs are solo-boating, is that they can use NPC actions to fill in their own gaps (it’s actually pretty nasty not to have enough PCs on-board for extended actions).

On Rogue Traders… why are you bothered? Let them play whatever they want, then just come up with a fluff reason. Can’t a Void Master be a Rogue Trader too? He’s just an RT more focused on ships than trading. A Navigator? Ok… not a Rogue Trader maybe (although it’s not impossible) but a scout captain sent by his House to map some routes with the aid of a Rogue Trader ship for protection (they are in a business deal, so even though any Trader in your group “out ranks” him he can’t order a customer around). Tech-Priest? Explorator captain tagging along for the tech… Astropath? Telepathica guild remote communication relay ship sailing the Expanse to improve comms for Navy patrols… whatever. It’s 40K – you can explain anything with five minutes of sci-fi thinking.