From the books description.

• Fast character creation to get you into the game quickly, including a lifetime of possibilities with an expanded origin path system.

Sounds similar to Dark Heresy, making me believe you won't be "more powerful" as that does not usually equate "fast" character generation. Probably a few quick add ins to give you a more varied character, such as add +5 ot characteristic of choice, add these bonus skills and so forth.

Though the expanded origin path system has me psyked. Any chance of a preview of this ROss?

• Dynamic rules for all eventualities that let you handle everything from social interaction to deadly fast-paced combat, starships and psychic powers to a system of profit and influence.

Combat should be same as Dark Heresy, no not a selling point for me as I already have those rules, same goes for Psychic powers, though navigator and astropath powers will be new. Social interaction, starships, profit/influence rulse, look forward ot them.

• Comprehensive background on Rogue Traders, written by Warhammer 40,000 novelist and GW Design Studio member Andy Hoare.

Cool, always love fluff and background.

• Build your own starship or begin play with one of the six pre-generated vessels.

Boring. To me at least.

I too am eager to see the new rules for social interaction and profit/influence. The income system in DH isn't that great, and I'm hoping Rogue Trader gives me something more developed that I can port over easily. The rules for influence would also be useful for a DH GM running the group's Inquisitor in the background, giving some sort of guidelines for the profit and peril of politics in Calixis. But regarding Rogue Trader itself, I'm hoping these will be useful and fun. The rules of social interaction I'm especially intrigued by. I'm wondering if it will be a fully fleshed out social "combat" system, with varying degrees of success giving concrete results, or something rough and sort of hand-waved like it is currently in DH. Don't get me wrong, I expect my players to roleplay regardless, and I'm not looking for social interaction rules as a crutch or replacement, but I'd like to see a framework that makes a character decked out for socializing as potent as a character fine-tuned for combat.

One way they could make starting characters more powerful while retaining the current speed of random character generation would be to simply up the starting stats you roll off of. For example, having starting Agility be 2d10 + 40 instead of the current 2d10 + 20.

But honestly, what I'm looking forward to the most with this game is the starship section! Maybe I'm in the minority though. I know I'm the only person in my circle of 40k gamer friends that has any interest in Battlefleet Gothic, or starships in RT. Heck, I'm also the only fan of pirates or the Age of Sail in the group, for that matter, dooming all my pirate RPGs to never-played, coffee table status. Regardless, I can't wait to see the RT starship section. I'm curious to know what classes of ships will be available, and what sort of historical parrallel they'll be using in the game. I'm hoping for more than just Battleship, Cruiser, and Escort options, but instead a range ship classes somewhat inline with what Warhammer Historical did with their upcoming Trafalgar game. I want everything from a 1st Rate Ship-of-the-Line to the 40k equivalent of a Xebec! But I suppose I don't really expected them to go into that much detail... maybe in a supplement. Anyway, I always like rules for customizing things, and so the combination of that with my starship love has me really eager to see the ship construction rules too. What that also indicates to me is that starships will indeed be an important aspect of the game. I'm wondering how they'll handle starship combat. What do you guys think, will it be more on the narrative side of things, or a RP-ified version of BFG? I'm also curious to see how they handle fleets of starships, and combat between said fleets.

I guess the kind of game I want to play with Rogue Trader is something akin to a 40k version of Sid Meier's Pirates!

theDevilofWormwood said:

You may be in the minority but you are certainly not alone

I am really looking forward to this section (being a fanatic starship junkie) and I hope it answers some of the long running questions about travel times (both in the Warp and out) and ship sizes once and for all.

DW

Lets hear it for the starships!!!

Big fan of the old BFG and I am very interested in the ships and how they will handle ship to ship conflict.

Im interested in starship travel, starship deckplans, trave times, warp travel rules and what not.

Just not interested in Starship construction rules.

Well, as an inveterate naysayer and general cynic i'm also very interested to see what Ross comes up with in the ship arena.

Much of my griping has basically been prompted by my personal perception that the core DH mechanics are incapable of modelling the excesses of the 40K setting so i'm genuinely eager to be proved wrong by things like the starship rules...

If done right, for me anyway, then the ship should be more than just nuts and bolts...but rather another character.

CharlieBananas said:

Amusingly that's the approach taken by GURPS 4e ! I miss the old gear-heading, though.

Kage

GURPS is great for finding gaming-related reference materials on different subjects. I've yet to every want to play a game using it, but that's my personal opinion.

Although treating a craft as a character can get a bit far, it definitely can't be a "stock" cruiser or whatever. There should be numerous random quirks (both positive and negative) scattered about the vessel, as well as special things specifically chosen by the GM or player. I mean, when you own a space craft, more than likely what you're owning is something that's traded hands, hand to hand, for generations, and perhaps for millenia, each owner making adjustments, adapting it to new situations, then counter-adapting it to other items, etc. Legacy quirks would be the rule.

Pneumonica said:

Oh, no worries there. I was merely pointing out that in the system that they have at the moment, ships, vehicles, etc., are all purchased in the same way as characteristics for "normal" characters. Personally I prefer the gear-head approach of treating them as equipment with quirks, rather than characters with quirks, but that's just me.

All is well on the western front... <grin>

It would definitely be nice, though, to see solid information about the kind of thing that it is the stock and substance of Rogue Traders, rather than have it brushed under the rug of Imagery and "Rule of Cool." Not that imagery or cool stuff is a bad thing, understand.

Kage

I used to really love the Generate a Super Agency elements of palladium games.

Also the create a Covenant element of Ars Magica.

Create the Calixian Conclave would work well.

--

So the important things are something like:-

Space to Space Combat Ability

Cargo Carrying Capacity

No. Mook NPCs

Equipment Resources

Tech Resources

--

Spring, Summer and Winter Rogue Trader Fleets:-

Spring is new and enthusiastic. Long on enthusiasm but light on hardware and influence. Summer Traders are at the height of their powers. Great Wealth gives them power, but they are less flexible than spring Trader fleets. Winter Traders are stuck in a rut. Vast Resources held back by stratfication and internal politicing.

I think that one of the ships detailed will be the Crucible class, purely because it's mentioned in Creatures Anathema and I don't think I've ever heard of one before. The context is also interesting, as it's the ship one of Gelt's former acolytes runs, so it could possibly be one of the example ships, to help tie the two games together.

Dragonlover

Part of me is like "Cool Starship construction"... then part of me is like "Wait, since most starships are hodgepodge affairs with entire sections of the ship having been welded off allowing mutants to flurious (aka Misercorde) how exactly do you drag that concept into starship construction which generally builds newly constructed ships.

Ship Generation rules are great, but ship generation rules is not what made the Serenity such a great ship. It was the hodge-podge of wiring that Kaylee made the engine room into, the little nooks and crannies that they had created, it was the christmas lights surrounding Kaylees room, and the dinosaurs on the control panel.

And Serenity was a small ship. You kind of saw the same thing when you got to see the colonization ships and the reaper ships and all the little do-dads and the things they had to do just to keep the ship alive.

Ship creation is all great and well, but ship creation fails miserable usually in making a ship a living breating character of a system. I'd love to see how they capture that mechanic.

I'm also looking forward to the Starship rules. I suspect, however, that both the ship creation and the operation rules will be rather bare-bones affairs, with a later sourcebook giving more detailed versions. This makes sense from both a practical (limited space in a core rulebook) and marketing (people into this will have to buy another product) point of view, and given that the fanbase already seems split on how important the Starship creation rules will be, I can't see how they'd go any other route.

As for bringing the starship to life- something like GURPS Vehicles won't help at all with that, I agree. But I suspect what we'll get will actually be more akin to the systems Dezmond mentioned- a set of advantages and flaws to customise a base template. A "Virtues and Flaws" system is, as I see it, the only way to model the fact that no two starships in the 40K setting are identical, with even ships of the same class accumulating unique upgrades and modifications over the centuries.

When they first talked about the three W40k books that were planned Rogue Trader was the only one I didn't immediately say "YAy! now I can play campaign x, y, z" that I had previously dreampt up and sheled.

Lately I have been considering what sort of game I would run and the very beginnings of an idea have been forming...

With that in mind here's what I am hoping will appear in the game or at least in a supplement.

I would like to see a similar level of power to Dark Heresy, I dont see the need fo the people and occupations in RT as being more powerful, just more diverse and unique reflecting the different setting.

I hope they do a similar path for RT like they did with DH, that is, your people start out as one among many, perhaps higher up the chain of command than in DH. But I don't really want one of my players to HAVE to be the Fleet Captain, their are so many pitfalls to that, I would probably ban the occupation (y group might actually be able to handle said situation to begin with but sooner or later it would get to them). However if it starts out with the players being in charge of individual vessel in a fleet or departmental heads and eventually they work their way to bigger and better roles I would be happy for an RT equivalent of Ascension to eventually appear, byt then my players characters should have developed into individuals where someone could become a Commander type.

A couple of people have mention Battlefleet Gothic, man I loved that setting, the game was a bit blah, but I like ships and big guns, broadsides, boarding actions and slow tactical maneuvering for position. I do hope that FFG is able to come up with an RP system that gives the feel of 18th century sailing vessels (well their 410th century equivalents) squaring off without the need to resort to markers and miniatures, tables of endless calculations on turn rates and all those other devices which basically introduce a tabletop game into an RP. Its just to distracting to break out figures in my games, it ruins my narative flow too much. I know its a lot to ask but I really do hope this happens...

In addition to the Character gen and ship building rules I would also like to see some form of planet/culture generator, basically extend out the Xenos generator a bit so if needed there is some sort of simple resource to build a world in 5 minutes. While I fully intend to design a plethora of worlds I knwo that at some point im going to need to stall my players with a "random planet encounter" and my brain isnt going to be up to the task.

- Raith

Dezmond said:

Dezmond - I am beginning to agree with you Excuse me while I go and lie down somewhere until the feeling passes....

Seriously though I agree with everything (except the mook npc bit but I can be convinced on that) and the idea for "Spring, Summer and Winter Rogue Trader Fleets" is pure genius and one I really hope they go with!

DW

Tantavalist said:

Which is exactly how GURPS does it, out of interest. The GURPS Vehicles rules never made its way to 4e, even though it does have its own merits.

Kage

I agree. The ship that our "crew" will be on should be more than 'nuts and bolts'. It should have a character and feel all its own, after all it is the ship that was worthy enough for our "crew".

And a Trait list ala Dark Heresy would seem to be evocative without actually describing anything, so right back in the territory of GW material.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

GURPS Vehicles was essentially a collection of numbers and formulae. If you happened to have the program someone wrote for it then it was actually fairly good, but working out things with a pad of paper and a calculator (not optional!) was just frustrating. It was essentially a product intended for people who wanted to play at being an Engineer, and min-max optimal sizes etc. Not very good at all in other words. It was the old GDW's Fire, Fusion and Steel Traveller New Era supplement adapted for all tech levels.

4th Edition GURPS Spaceships is a much better idea, it gives 20 "slots" for any ship and then modifiers based on size/TL. I still think the Ars Magica Covenant design system, especially 5th Edition, would be the perfect thing to base ship design in 40K on though.

Erm, it sounds like I'm just arguing for the sake of it, but here we go.

Tantavalist said:

Yes, I know that. It has functionally remained unchanged since 2 days, and while it can be used in 4e it is not inherently designed to do so. Personally I found it reasonably easy to use and far more satisfying than the Star Wars -esque approach of throw some made up statistics into some categories. Sure, ultimately they produce the same information, but it felt more satisfying. I knew that the numbers were being pulled from the ether, but would have less of a sense that they were being pulled from someones a**e.

Not quite Fire, Fusion & Steel for those who knew both products, although the aim of both was clear: to give people the toolbox rather than sell them shiny catalogues of equipment.

Tantavalist said:

It's a much simpler design sequence, which has some advantages and disadvantages. While it allows you to throw a ship together fairly quickly, there are some strange conventions used, up to and including a mass rather than volumetric design sequence. If anything, it shares more in common with the GURPS Traveller approach.

On the other hand, the GURPS Spaceship line takes the more crunchy approach than the core rules, which allow a ship to be built in the same way as a character, as stated in my previous posts.

Tantavalist said:

It would certainly suit the more hazy approach that many feel comfortable with in the 40k universe, though obviously some people prefer a bit more... heft to their creations. (And one can see where Dezmond got his terms for the various types of "Rogue Trader" he advocated elsewhere.) Parallels can also be found in the World of Darkness systems and probably more that I'm unaware of. Indeed, you get similar descriptions in Pendragon ...

Each to his, her, or its own, though. While I would love to have a bit more information about ship design in the 40k universe so that it could be applied to the 'fluff' rather than generic mention of "plasma drives," or "Can make the trip to the warp zone in 50% of the time" or whatever, I certainly don't expect to get that. Something quick and easy is the more likely situation, and I'm not saying that is a bad thing.

Kage

The most recent incarnation of D6 space had a supplement called D6 Spaceships (clever eh?) but based on the example design rules from the D6 Space rule book, I was immediately turned off this kind of book. The design rules were clunky, unimaginative and not very flexible. I much rather also have plug and play ships then "deck four, section 8, halls A and B have 2000 tonnage, is 4000 cubic feet, runs on plasma Plus +2 Duracel super AAA batteries, has yellow walls and 8 red claxon alarm lights, except light number 5 in hall B is broken and often flashes on at random intervals, causing little real issues but ignoring Armsman J'Jones who pulls shift guard from 0300-0700 in that area."

Vehicle design rules like the ones found in Ninjas and Superspies (reprinted in Road Hogs and Heroes Unlimited) or even Redline were better, more detailed and little more open/flexible, but still involved a great deal of number crunching, calculations and keep track of.

I also prefer the more generic Star Wars D6 plug and play methods. Insert information here.

The Star Wars scale system also works well.

I do agree that the ship should have character as in flavour, but it should never really feel like a extra PC/NPC. In a D6 Space Game I did run, the PCs had a ship that was haunted by a poltergeist made up of a group of pilgrims who were massacred on the ship while enroute to a hold shrine world. The poltergeist was overall annoying and non threatening, but it caused minor annoyances like mission items, occassional unplanned light speed jumps, some insanity inspiring visions and nightmares. The biggest problem was the ghost of the princess who was also haunting the ship. She promised the pilgrims sanctuary and safety and then they were executed by her own house guard, accused of heresy and kidnapping the princess. The princess later committed suicide on the ship.

Occassionally the poltergeist would try to destroy her ghost. That caused all kinds of issues.

However, as a possessed/haunted ship it did have some advantages. The ship would heal itself, the ghost crew could occassionally lend an helping (yet ethereal) hand and give a +1D on certain actions and so forth.

Overall, the Peaceful Pilgrim was a good ship.