Well rogue trader (according to the web page) will finally add a few new careers and space rules and interaction rules for Dark Heresy.

As far as Im concerned, thats what Im looking forward to the most.

Oh, and more xenos.

It's the space rules that I'm most looking forward to, hopefully making some coherent sense out of the melee that has formed with regards to transit times (both sublight and supralight). I have a fear that it will not do this, but still I can hope and make my desire for such materials known.

Overall though, it must be hard for Ross et al . to balance the desire of some for "substance" and for others, perhaps the majority of others, the "style" that has become such an integral part of 40k, perhaps even definitive of 40k.

Luddite said: As for pointless speculation, I suspect 'start-up' Rogue Trader groups will be more 'Firefly' than 'Star Trek.'

What's wrong with either style of play, to be honest. I cannot help but think of the Janus Darke character from King's Farseer . There you have a character that builds up a huge fleet of ships (and doesn't even sound like a proper, honest-to-gods Chartered-by-the-Emperor "Rogue Trader"), then through poor fortune, lost the fleet to have a single ship left, and even that is impounded. Then through a lucky hire, the ship is refurbished and he has somewhat of a crew back, including a Navigator who was more partner than contracted employee, mercenary friends, etc., etc.

So, there you've got your Firefly .

At the same time, there's nothing wrong with seeing the Caesar-esque inspired Rogue Trader. Ostracised from the Adeptus Terra by the High Lords of the Senatorum Imperialis for fear of their growing influence, they become a Rogue Trader with a fleet of ships destined to bring the Emperor's light to the distant worlds of the Eastern Fringe. Almost a Crusade, the fleet is comprised of the Rogue Trader themselves as Fleet Admiral, and then junior commanders under him, whom he keeps a watchful eye on as their ambition burgeons the further from Holy Terra they travel. This can support either the distant patron approach, with characters fighting up the ranks to become one of the junior commanders, and perhaps even to the lofty title of Rogue Trader, or multiple character groups.

In short, whatever twiddles your biscuit.

Kage

I would imagine there would be things like:

Imperial Navy characters: Boarders (or somesuch equivalent to a storm trooper), interceptor pilots, and officers.

Privateer Characters: Space Scum

Tech Priest Explorators: Xenobiologis, etc

Imperial Envoys: Like that little dude in that picture from the Tau codex that has the imperial fist in it with the huge fur cape on.

Xeno-Hunters: Guys going for big game on un-named planets to bring back to the fighting pits...or the Beast House.

Plus, I'm sure they will also come up with stuff that would never occur to me, because they seem to be pretty good at that.

DH had 8 classes:- Adept, Arbitrator, Assasin, Cleric, Guardsman, Imperial Psyker, Scum and Tech Priest.

So far we've heard of 5 classes from RT:- Rogue Trader, Navigator, Arch-Militant, Astropath, and MIssionary.

On the basis that I would say that the writers of RT would regard DH as a successful precedent as to how to run a 40k RPG, I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and suggest that there are three of the mystery classes Ross refers to.

Again, assuming that RT follows the broad template set out in DH, I would suggest that the writers will try to put together a spread of character classes that covers similar ground.

Speculating further as to what the character classes are going to look like, I'd guess:-

Rogue Trader - very much like the scum character, I reckon this will be a potentially multiskilled class, but with a high degree of technical knowledge and high social skills. Probably will be a very well balanced class, with an even split between combat, technical and social skills.

Navigator - I reckon this will come off as a cross between the psyker and adept skillbase. The psychic skills will be limited to flying the ship and smiting things with the warp eye, so more will be needed to pad the class out. I'd suggest that the character will start off as a low-level psyker, develop into an adept-style character and then on into a scum style character.

Arch-militant - This sounds like a pure combat class. What's interesting is that the description section seems to leave many options to players as to what sort of combat background the arch militant has. As such, there'll be, I imagine, a complex ranking structure within this class to reflect different backgrounds.

Astropath - this will be similar to an Imperial Psyker, but with differences. The description section hints that their abilities will be less powerful (in combat, anyway) than DH psykers, but I imagine that there will be compensations. I reckon this will work as a combination of Adept and Imperial Psyker.

Missionary - sounds suspiciously like it will be very similar to a cleric to me!

So what are we missing? What are the three unnamed classes?

I'd guess that we're certainly looking at one technical class, like the techpriest. Possibly an Explorator Techpriest? Certainly a character with the knowledge and ability to run the ships engines. The classes set out above probably don't have a lot of mechanicial/technical knowledge, except some perhaps for the Rogue Trader. This class would balance that requirement out.

I think it looks like we might be a little light on combat classes so far, so I reckon there may be one more combat class of some description. This will probably be a little bit less combat heavy than the Arch-Militant - maybe a scout class, or spy class. This class would be to the archmilitant what the assassin is to the guardsman.

And finally, the third class....Hmmm. Tricky. Ripper's idea about an Imperial Envoy is a good one, but I reckon that sounds a bit too much like the Imperial Adept, and I reckon that much of that class's role will be swallowed up by the Rogue Trader, Navigator and Astropath. I reckon some sort of adjunct to the arbitrator is more likely: a setting specific investigator, as that skill set is absent from the current RT classes... Perhaps a local guide with mid-level combat abilities? I think we could see all sorts of things in this class: xenos guides, a sort of local "scum" class, voidborn ship security... stuff like that.

Anyway...those're my thoughts...

Maybe, in place of an Investigator, you'll have some sort of Seneschal, which (in terms of historical significance) would include judicial and investigative roles but also be maintenance of a household (or in this case, a vessel) - not the command of it so much as the administration of it. It would be the kind of role that Sebek plays (the purser onboard the Brazen Sky in the Illumination adventure). Sebek wouldn't be high-Rank, but he'd be in that Career.

So much for hoping that the forum for a game not even released yet would be spared the tired old whinging about Dark Heresy not being what the particular poster wanted that they have to repeat over and over again.

Kage2020 said:

Nothing at all!

I've played both styles in other settings and systems and they are both highly enjoyable.

If RT supports both, or indeed facilitates progression from one to the other, well...that would be jolly fun...

Thought so, but just thought that I would check and give some examples that people might like, or hate, shoot down or expand from.

Kage

I don't see why it wouldn't support both, and my guess is its going to fall somewhere in the middle, and then you can push it to either extreme you like.

Since technology is failing in the current timeline, my guess is most Rogue Trader ships are patch worked messes similiar to Firefly and half your time is going to be spent just trying to keep flyin'.

Then there is the other half which is to explore strange new worlds (to exploit), to seek out new life (to exterminate) and new civilizations (to conqure), to boldly go where no man (or mutant) has gone before. Though admittedly I see it being more of a Voyager setting or a orignal series setting then a Next Generation setting, since Next Generation which I see as more of a Imperial Navy style.

And quite possibly you can switch between the two in the same game group. One day you're on a strange new planet killing Xenos and trying to convert the humans to the Imperial Creed, and the next group your fuel pump has copped out and you need to find a new one before all your oxygen has run out.

Heck you couldn't even do a Battlestar Galactica maybe where you and a rag tag fleet of (Trader Ships) are running a fighting battle against overwhelming odds against some deadly Xenos just trying ot get back to the semi-mythical Imperial Space that no one in your generation has seen.

Just wanted to say, since I found it, this having to use another interface to paste text into the FFG forums is yet another point against the forums. Are the web people actively trying to reduce the useability of this forum or is there something else going on? As it stands, though, even though I laud the community aspects, this has now become the single worst forum that I have ever had the mispleasure of trying to use. It sucks more than a base Drupal install, and that says much.

Sorry for that rant, I needed to get it off my chest. Perhaps I'll make it in the "Support" forum as well, though I don't think that does any good. If anything, comments on solutions to the problems have worked to reduce the flexiblity of these forums.

Nyargh. Sorry, I'm ranting again.

Xathess Wolfe said:

I would imagine so. Even if Dark Heresy took one stance over the other, it remains hopefully that Rogue Trader will be a tad more flexible, encompassing both the "gritty" low-level campaign and the slightly higher level, bombastic Elizabethan-style one that I'm reminded of looking at the artwork.

Xathess Wolfe said:

I really hope that we can avoid the whole "calcified technology" approach in Rogue Trader . While I see it as a part of the universe that appeals to many, it equally doesn't appear to many others. Golden Ageism, in short, would hopefully not be definitive in a cloying sense.

Xathess Wolfe said:

And the Farseer example shows this can be potentially encompassed in a single campaign.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Well you have to offer it. Its a staple of Warhammer 40k, and it needs to be offered, but can just as easily be ignored by a good GM as accepted on principle.

Can we confirm that RT is going to use the same system for game play? Dice conventiond and such is what I am asking ?

Corporal Chaos said:

If you go here and go to the last paragraph under the section heading "Ambition Knows No Bounds", it pretty much spells it out.

Corporal Chaos said:

I'm at work, so I can't listen to it right now, but I think this podcast says as much too.

http://www.thegamesthething.com/index.php?post_id=409282

It should be the podcast of the interview with Ross if I have the link right and all. Now for some reason I can't get the link system to work on this forums this time, but if I remember right Ross says that yes it will be the same system.

Course I may be wrong since I'm at work.

Luddite said:

Redshirts? Excuse me, but I already fear the epicness of DH when my players begin to lay their hands on Plasma Pistols and Melta Guns while wearing Full Carapace or Power Armour and are being protected by Refractor Fields and Rosarii. How does that compare to a Redshirt? I don't get it. At the moment my players are happy as hell getting hold of a Carnodon or a Thollos and thats great. Epicness must be someting, well, epic; otherwise it becomes mundane rather fast and thus boring. Its like having children spoiled by too many presents they get ('Boooooring, one more +5 Holy Power Armour for the closet...'). They won't have any delight in anything anymore. It is like when you throw alpha level Psykers at them at every corner. This way they would not be something special, something worthy to fear anymore. I fear it is a rather childish (or actually animalistic) behaviour to want everything at once (and then wonder being fed up rather quick).

Except there are 200+ Inquisitors in Calixis (a very quiet sector in the context of the Imperium and it has practically 1 Inquisitor per world! ), and they have a 'chapter house' so presumably work together out of that? Also...acgkh...old arguement...water under the bridge...

Actually, that's mainly because Sci Fi Writers have no sense of Scale

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Planetville

So let's say there's one inquisitor on the planet (and ignore the fact that he can spend several months in warp-travel when his inquiries take him off-world). Would you say one man and his network of contacts could tend to all the important heretical tendencies on a planet with the population of, say, modern day Earth?

Now take into account that the Inquisition is actually partitioned into three parts which at least prefer to stay with their primary interest (heretics/xenos/daemons) and thus have to travel around to meet their respective foes and you can easily have inquisition-free planets.

You know for additional careers the Master of Etherics and Seneschal, which I believe has already been sugested, that are mentioned in the stroy along side the product description both seem like possible careers. Maybe the Master of Etherics is the techpriest type character and the seneschal the adept?

Luthor Harkon said:

Interesting points, but i don't want to derail this thread so i'll just point you at a relevant discussion elsewhere (thred now locked)..

A discussion of 'epicness' darkreign40k.com/forum/index.php

The vignette mentioned a Scholar-At-Arms. I want to think of it as a kind of buffed-up Adept with bulging biceps, but I could be wrong.

Scholar-At-Arms is, I suppose, sort of homage/reference to Vinge's novel A Deepness in the Sky, second novel in his Qenq Ho 'cycle', where one of main characters Pham Nuwen holds title of Programmer-at-Arms. It is quite good space opera and one that can possibly be used as a basis for Rogue Trader campaign.

The impresion I got was the the scholar at arms the rogue trader was talking about was the senshel(sp).

1) Bounty hunters already exist in Dark Heresy. There isn't a specific class that says bounty hunter, but they clearly fit into Assassin, Scum, and especially Enforcers. The section on Hive World Assassins specifically mentions that many of them are bounty hunters.

2) Someone who thinks that Dark Heresy characters are "red shirt trash" has no idea of what he's talking about. Skills start low, but those are for challenging tasks, those that are likely to be failed. Bonuses stack up. Those numbers get pretty high very fast, which they would know if they played the game instead of whined about it. My players are around the 4000 xp mark and are slaughter machines. One Guardsman, who isn't the deadliest character in the group, dropped two ogryns and a slaugh in hand to hand combat in a climatic encounter.

Let me repeat: at 4,000 xp one of the mid ranked combat characters in my group killed ogryns and slaugh back to back. He wasn't even using the best melee weapon he owned. The game goes to 15,000 xp before Ascension kicks in. You can call my players a lot of things, but red shirt scum they are not.

Again, Ascension says nothing about kicking in at 15K XP. It might, but we dont know that for sure. Im hoping to largely has alteranate ranks for mid level characters to be more interesting. I dont want a book that I can only use at 15K+ XP and have to spend hours spending XPs to build an Ascension characters.

I would be pretty sold on the idea of various "Talents/abilities/whatever" that you bought and modelled some of the other aspects of the 40k universe. Fancy being an Inquisitor? Then have these prerequisites and then spend 2,000 XP on "Rank: Inquisitor" or whatever.

Kage

I wonder if the Explorator is going to represent the Adeptus Mechancius or we get some kind of xeno-technologist (not that familiar with the RT lore, sorry.)

I'm also a bit confused with the class descriptions, are they "captains" of their own ships or different officer types of the same rust bucket?