Hello All!

So last Friday's game was a great success- ended on a great investigative epiphany of behalf of my players who managed to uncover the real connection between the horrifying Slaught and one of their agents- a Rogue Trader in Debt (Lynedia). Horrified that they came really close to selling back the latter an artifact that they themselves stole from her slaught employers, they've decided to exact the Emperor's Justice and Retribution themselves… by shooting her in the head.

The main leader of this initiative is a Malfian Noble Verispex Adept (Brand new character) who, outside of a crime-scene or investigation, tends to do most of his thinking with his gun (The highly Illegal and Proscribed Angelus Carabine Bolt Riffle. Specter Cell 17 is going to have a blast adding that one to their list of offences..) He's recruited into his little scheme a Metallican Gunslinger Fate-Eater, who uses… (I am know I am going to get flamed for this Two Godwyn-De'az Pattern Pattern Bolt Pistols… Yes! I realize those are also Highly Illegal so You don't have to worry about that ) and whose in it likely for the Divination [both of them are new characters, so they had… mostly a free run on what they could buy… with the Gunslinger's player, as always, finishing his character ten minutes into the game- but I am not worried about those, after all, whats two more illegal guns when I'd already allowed the Angelus as a trigger for the Vendetta.]

They've also recruited the Vermin-speaking Diviner, who intends to develop his "Dowsing" Capabilities in order to find the Rogue Trader and the Secutor-Tech Priest (the Only character to survive from Day 1, perhaps the Tankiest of them all- and with five fate points But now forced to stay at the front of the party ). Strangely enough, the only character who has YET to be included in this (So that later he can claim ignorance if things go to hell [Yeah right ] is the Moritat ASSASSIN!

In any case- back to the main story. The players had the epiphany only moments after the Rogue Trader walked out of the Turning Hand in Sinophia Magna [i had decided she was returning back to her ship to gather up her "Crew", maybe some extra security.]

Since the game has ended though, the players haven't stopped talking to me about it! Which is great! Shows they are having fun, interested in it and all that… the problem is: we have different ideas on how this assassination should go.

Whereas I am expecting them to use skills like shadowing, inquiry, setting up watches and finding out her routine and all that- most of them insist that, with the Psyker dowsing to find her, it would be as easy as waiting around a street corner (The Gunslinger on the "sidewalk" and the adept on a tower with his gun aimed and ready…) and when she passes by, shoot her full of bolts and run real fast. This should, for all intents and purposes, be resolved in a One or Two round combat encounter (that they even wanted me to run outside of "Game time" to later be plugged into the game so that we don't waste actual game time on it.)

I obviously refused- I believe this is an important enough of an event, which players have to invest time and effort into, that it shouldn't be glossed over. Still, a couple of them said that it would be a "Chore" and those things could be hand-waved.

So now my problems are three-fold: On the one hand- I don't want this to be reduced to a combat encounter. But I feel, and one of the players accused me of it when I was explaining this to him, that "It looked like I just didn't want my NPC to die!" Which is completely not true…

Second problem is- now that my players have spilled the beans… How far am I justified in protecting this NPC? I figured that when she moved around Sinophia Magna she would be using a Shuttle- so already there the players plans… are more or less hindered. What about some anti-psyker protection so they can't find her? Or what if her own Navigator could trace "Reverse" dowse the players and detect the Ambush before it happens? Or if she had a forcefield that could attempt to absorb the bullet?

Her crew would play a part in this, obviously, so they would need to be stated up… But I am worried as if it would appear as they were designed to protect her from a Sniper shot, you know? This is without mentioning the slaught who might have gifted her something in order to ensure she won't end up like their last agent on the planet (The Legate) [They still need a fate to handle their business after all!]

Third problem: Fate points! Touched by the Fates! Now the players are CERTAIN she has fate points. But they've been very careful not to call it that- using words like "Destiny." (In French…) I believe they are buttering me up - letting me know that "She burned a fate point to survive the attack" shouldn't be an option. What I was thinking would be that two shots would be required to kill her- the first burns her fate, but takes her "out of the game." If her crew is able to get her out of the battle-field, then she spends the remainder of the mission recovering from her wounds. But she'll only die- and they'll only get her divination if they managed to finish her off right there and then, either by killing her minions, or shooting her again. The only problem with this is that they intend to create a surprise round- and surviving all of those bolt shots MIGHT break suspension of disbelief… or bring back the whole "Snipers aren't effective in Table-top and can't be played on a such a small scale."

In any case, I am interested in hearing what you all have to say about this or how you would handle a situation like this. Should the details of the operation be hand-waved in favor of a straight up battle encounter? I am sure your all going to say no to that- but if its a no, how could I inch the players towards that direction without seeming to rail-road them seeing as they've virtually told me their plan. [Lets dowse to find her then wait around until she walks into our ambush and bolt fire….] How would the touched by the fates talent play into it? What about her crew?

Saldre said:

Might I kindly suggest not to openly refuse a plan for players but instead let them go ahead and face the fact that it does not work later? If I have a player who is basing a plan aloud on a wrong view of the situation, I correct his view. If a player asks what a character thinks of it I let him role the dice (INT or matching skill) and tell him any problems I do perceive based on the success. But I would never just tell him "this will not work" unless the player planned something the CHARACTER would now by 100% that it will never ever work.

Talking fate points: Burning a fate point makes you survive. Not like "okay, I now have to shot him a second time into the head" but more like "he will come back…". A reason while I am very reluctant to use them with NPC. Players end up annoyed oh-so-easy.

@the Situation
So, the PC "Dowse" a person. In a captial city. Read the Dowsing power again. Their will be some penalty. Even if they make it (it is not impossible, after all) it does not mean that they can setup the perfect ambush. While the NPC is moving, the PC will not know where she will be going, they will only know where she is. While they set up their little ambush, she could go somewhere else. As long as she is moving, the ambush is likely to need to to be "John-Woe-Style" (going in gunz blazing).

If she keeps in one place, it will either be business or her base of operation. If it is business, it might be somehwere with some security present. As well as her home base. Think about a schedule. And take into account which means she uses to go from A to B.

Think about this. If you are on a business trip in a capital city, do you strole around by foot? NO. You drive a car. In the case of somebody wealthy enough to be the captain of a void vessel, a skimmer carriage or Aquila Shuttle would be a good point.

This does not mean that the PC cannot stick to their plan.It just will not be the cakewalk the PC expect.

Of course- I wasn't very clear, but I was more so referring to the fact that I refused to run the encounter as "Downtime"- which is what they wanted. In other words, take him, the Gunslinger and the Psyker inside on say Thursday, have them do the roles- do the combat encounter- and, on Friday, when we actually play, wait until there find an appropriate moment to slip away from the Tech-priest and the assassin, "Plug in" Thursday's encounter as if had happened now- whether it had failed or succeeded (so the characters would either come back "Bloody" with her dead, or… Dead… and new characters would enter the game.)

For their actual plan- I told them sure, you guys can do that- but I pretty much game them the exact speech you gave. Dowsing isn't going to help as much as you guys think it will (they already figured out that she was on her ship anyways) and that she's going to be moving around in a shuttle-type craft so waiting around for her isn't going to be very viable.

The problem is, their plan boils down to "We wait until it happens and we run into her, then we hide quick and start shooting." So that would have their cake (ambushing the Rogue Trader) and eat it too (While still investigating the murders on Sinophia magna).

Saldre said:

If they want to hide once they find her and don't spend time preparing their ambush site they are going to have to mack concealment rolls and the RT and any bodyguards with her are going to get awareness checks to spot them…

I can't really see how they are justified in doing this in downtime… as you describe they will still have to make rolls to get it to succeed. So why not make it a combat encounter? If they want to snipe her let them go for it. Scoped up weapon with maximum aim and a bolt shell therefore likely hitting the target is going to do cause some harm! It sounds to me like they want "I hit her with a bolt shell, she must be dead now", which just isn't how the game works!

I personally would be very reluctant to give any NPC actual fate points. I know that it is done in some of the published adventures but I prefer to just make killing an important NPC hard, then if they succeed, they succeed.

In terms of protection she has got to be travelling around the city in a vehicle. She is very important as a RT and will definitely assume she has enemies (especially if she works willingly for the Slaugh), so she will have bodyguards, possibly including an arch-militant. That doesn't mean they can't snipe her - even the best trained bodyguard in the world can't jump in the way of a bullet they don't know is coming.

Oh!

And do not forget to give her a Forcefield an RT should have such kind of thing on person

I think an important questions is whether this rogue trader is a true Nemesis character for the players, or merely a bump in the road on their way to completing the campaign?
If the latter, then it really shouldn't matter how she dies - you can still make the characters do a few skill checks beyond just the psyker tracking her location - they'll need to scout the area, find a location to set up, wait for the right time etc. Then decide ahead of time on a stat block for her, her bodyguard and the vehicle she is in (they will need to disable a shuttle so would need something like an autocannon, lascannon or missile launcher). this would be straight forward enough.

If on the other hand she IS a major Nemesis for the players, then things get interesting. She will have Touched By The Fates, potentially more than once (i wouldnt give her more than 2 Fate Points or she'll be too hard to kill). The main thing to remember with burning a Fate is that it doesnt just negate the attack that would kill you, allowing the next attack to kill you instead (the players plan) but it completely removes you from the combat safely, though still critically wounded. In the instance of the rogue trader ambush, the players first attempt using the psyker to dowse her location can go completely to plan, untill they either snipe her or blow up her vehicle, only for her to be teleported back to her ship, or for her to be using a displacer field and get whisked away to safety, or for a hive gang to come along and cause trouble, or for an arbites patrol to notice and chase after the guys with illegal weaponry. Remember that the burning of a Fate point is a BIG DEAL and affects more than just the character who burnt it. Perhaps the rogue trader has grav chute equipped bodyguards that deploy from the shuttle when it is under attack. The shuttle can then burn back into space, bringing her to safety and the bodyguards will drop right on top of the players and cause a big ruckus with carapace armour, plasma and melta weapons, preysense goggles and that kind of level of gear.

A Rogue trader is not going to walk around on foot without ludicrous levels of protection, nor would they fly around in a tin can of a shuttle. Maybe the players could attack the shuttle only to find out it has its own void shield and is equipped with missile launchers?

There are any number of ways you can let the players have their cake without eating it.