Ok, I'm a relatively new GM, I've only GM'd a campaign (rather short, only about a dozen sessions) of Dark Heresy, and got roped into GMing Rogue Trader.

A few things first:

1) I enjoy playing more than GMing, just getting that out of the way.

2) There are, at current count, 8 players in the group. A Rogue Trader, 2 Seneschals, an Ork, an Arch-Militant, a Voidmaster, an Explorator, and a Missionary.

3) I enjoy space combat….the players hate it because it takes them an hour just to decide to go forward and not bank left, so they say it takes too long and not everyone can be involved.

4) The Arch-Militant is a That Guy. If I'm not paying specific attention to him, he gets loud and demanding.

5) The Ork and Missionary player are constantly trying to piss each other off, In-Game and Out-of-Game.

6) Half the party is absent at any given session…and we only play every other week.

7) At the suggestion of some people online, I allowed them to roll a percentile for their starting profit factor and ship points….They rolled 100 and 80 respectively.

8) The Ork player is a min-maxing power gamer.

Now, here's where I'm at campaign wise:

I've created a nemesis Rogue Trader + Seneschal + Arch-Militant for the party. They're a piratical Rogue Trader, and they are several levels higher than the party. They've already disrupted one of the Nemesis' attacks on a merchant ship as well as been asked by the Imperium to put a stop to the Pirate's actions in the area (but they don't know who's behind it).

They curerntly have, as a guest on their ship, one Captain Severanus of the Luna Wolves. Pre-Heresy Luna Wolves. Found in stasis. After nearly killing the crew upon them telling him that his Primarch and Legion fell to Chaos….he listed off names of allies. The only living one being Bjorn the Fel-Handed of the Space Wolves. Upon contacting the Space Wolves, the party was told to meet at a certain planet at the edge of the Calixis Sector. I have yet to decide what to do here, but there are several options available depending on what the players do.

The Arch-Militant has been given a Daemon Weapon in the form of a rifle that does insane damage (enough to outright kill the Ork player), but at the cost of corruption and insanity (1d5 each) per soul harvested (sentient-soul-having being killed). The Daemon who gave it to him will be back once a certain tally has been reached.

They are currently on a planet where, unknown to them, there is a Necron tomb starting to awaken. They've fought Necrons before (I altered the GM Kit beginner adventure to use Necrons instead of the Whispers). Due to the Ork having a Power Klaw….the Canoptek Spyder they fought went down fairly easily.

Honestly, I'm starting to not have fun GMing due to player problems and the fact that they're completely disorganized. I get the feeling that they're starting to not have fun either because I'm not catering to each individually the entire session.

What would be the best way to just end the campaign where it stands? I'm talking total party wipe.

Preferably so that I can use what happened to them as a hook for a Dark Heresy campaign for the smaller group that would stick around for that.

Guardsman Stern said:

Seeing as they're pretty heretical, you can always give them a visit from the Officio Assassinorum. That takes care of most things. An Eversor with some custom stuff can kill an entire Deathwatch squad. At max level.

If you want to make it to be necrons, treat them as a horde, see rules in Black Crusade if I remember correctly. A horde of, well, anything with ranged weapons, can take out almost ANYTHING.

Give a necron lord a Tachyon Arrow. It does 10d10 with an enormous range and the lord holding it will probably have Fate points and thus can trigger Righteous Fury.

Other ways:

Send them daemons. Lots of them. Great Unclean Ones are probably one of the toughest enemies in all of the game, and you can always throw more at them unil they die.

Psykers with Psy Rating 15 or so.

A Void Kraken. Or four.

The ultimate one-hit killers:

Sabotage. Their plasma drive or warp core detonates, everybody dies.

Your rival appears from nowhere and blasts you from orbit.

Eldar, aware of the necrons, blast the planet from orbit with the explorers still on there.

Or, you know, the best way to solve this.

Guardsman Stern said:

Talk to them, tell them what you think, and if they refuse, kill them and leave. You're the GM, you have that power.

Oh, and a tip from me: Never even accept more than five players.

What you have going on with your Ork is basically what I feared I'd end up getting with mine at the start but I lucked out, he actually roleplays it properly it's amazing he does the voice/accent and everything which is good because with his toughness bonus that guy is NEVER going to die. Likewise what you've got going on with your missionary is why I'm glad I have yet to have anyone want to play that class, I'm sure it can be done it a way that works but that class just hands a player every excuse in the world from lore and RP perspective to be a collosal **** to other party members all the time. Also two senschals? Why is that class so popular? Why does nobody play Navigators? Lidless stare is brutal.

Honestly dude it kind of sounds like you've been trampled, how many of these people did you personally know before you started your game? If there are two or three in the group you enjoy working with then I suggest you get with them organize a new game and give everyone else their walking papers. My first experience with pen and paper rpgs were the kind of pick up games that strongly resemble the mess you've described and they turned me off to the whole thing for years.

SirFrog said:

I dunno if you have a very cohesive on task and functional group of players I figure you can go up to six…maybe, but yes three to five is definately the sweet spot. Eight is obviously completely insane though I agree.

Severanus sees Daemonic soul-harvester weapon. Severanus meets up with Bjorn and a few squads… maybe a company of his Space Marines. Maybe the First Company. Severanus mentions Daemonic soul-harvester weapon. Cue final battle…. and if they flee to their ship, it's their own fault they initiated space combat with a Battle Barge let them cut down some Scout Marines or something if you want to throw them a bone first, but then the Devastators and Terminators (and Dreadnaughts, oh my) come out to play, gaining squad mode bonuses from Bjorn's leadership and with Severanus acting in solo mode as a spec-ops lone wolf, getting behind the Explorers and cutting off escape routes and ruining attempts to dig in or pull off little stunts.

I agree with SirFrog that the best way to do this is to be up front with them, tell them that GMing isn't working out and that you want to start over fresh. Reduce your group down to a manageable size, and if there are players who do not get along in real life then tell the two of them that they need to work it out or not come back.

Once you've made your situation clear, segueway into how you want things to go down. Have everyone make a suggestion for what they want in the big finale and do your best to throw it all at them so that the campaign ends on a high note. You might end up with a five-way space battle or a race through a forgotten temple in search of a forgotten artifact where people keep falling one at a time, but you should try to end the campaign on something that gives everyone's character the exit they'd want so that they come back to Dark Heresy on a high note.

I see other people have already suggested the nuclear option. Hey, I did that last year and still haven't found a new group, but I'm picky. I had some problem players and I'd rather wait a year or two to find a new game than play with a bunch of schmucks.

Still, some suggestions. Narrate the space battles. I find actually playing them on a board to be silly. I can always remember when Richtoffen's War (Avalon Hill) came out about 40 years ago…one player went and maneuvered to the rear of their opponent's airplane and fired at it. Then the next player went and maneuvered to the rear of his opponent's airplane and fired. A continuous loop. Silly, eh? Rogue Trader space combat aren't quite that ludicrous, but they are pretty bad. You're going too fast and can't fire at the opponent as you pass them from the rear because you can't fire till the end of the turn…plain silly. You can't fire at someone from range while trying to run away because if you let them go first they close the range and pound you and if you go first you make the distance too great to fire…plain silly.

Instead, let both ships make their speed and simply lay out the distance between them and state if that distance is increasing or decreasing. Let the side with initiative fire first. It goes faster this way and removes the outright silly.

Don't let THAT GUY play the arch-militant. Don't let him play the rogue trader, either. Heck, don't let him play. THAT GUY in our group was a very good friend. At the end of the first session I told him he was going to have to let the other people play and have fun, too. He didn't get it. He wasn't invited to the third session. We still drink together. It's just a game.

If players are trying to get under each others' skin OOC lay down the house rules (i.e. it's my house and my rules). Quit being putzes.

We played only once per month but we're all career and family people so that's okay by us. You need regular players or you need a different game. Might I suggest Deathwatch? You can play search & destroy and extraction type one-offs and it doesn't matter who shows up and who doesn't. Each game session is another mission. Rogue trader is a campaign style. It doesn't work too well with one-offs.

Rolling percentiles for starting PF? That was not wise advice. Play by the rules, especially when you are new to a system. There's a reason the company suggested it, and you might give them the benefit of the doubt in play testing.

Rogue trader is actually a fine game for min-maxers. It shouldn't be a problem. I even appreciate those players in the game. They know the rules. My group wanted to play the game and didn't want to be bothered to have to read the rules.

I'm sorry to have to break the new, but you made some serious rookie errors. Space Marines in your first few adventures? No. Demon weapons? No. Predestined insanity and corruption? No, unless you are really going to make it stick, which means the party is going to kill that player's character and that doesn't make for good party politics. Rogue Trader really needs a party that will work together if they are to succeed. Playing the characters off against each other will end in a broken game.

I recommend ending the game the same way they would end their rivals. BRing down their shields and have their rivals teleport a nuclear device on board.

GM'ing should not be a burden. If you're not having fun something is wrong, and this will likely cause players to not have fun.

Talk about it with your group, be mature and state the reasons you stated above. Discuss it like the adults you are, if people are petty, assholeish, shouty, or abusive, show them the door.

As others have stated your group is rather large, I tend to prefer 3-6 players and I find that with 3-4 you get character personality really coming to the fore and blooming.

I'd only do the kill-everyone-and-break-their-stuff if I'd OK'd with the players beforehand, springing it on them with no real warning is a **** move, don't be a ****! Another idea could be that their warrant of trade is revoked and you have a final session deciding how each character reacts and what plans they make having been branded renegades or heretics. Don't do rules, don't do rolls, just create an epilogue for each character to nicely end-cap the campaign and tie up any loose plot threads that are left dangling.

And remember, No Gaming is better than Bad Gaming

Errant Knight said:

Both at once? I couldn't do that. I kind of have a career starting to go on right now and the **** thing almost destroys my ability to get anything else done all by iteslf but that's the catch 22 I need the thing to get me the money to do anything else. A family though? ****, I don't even have a girlfriend but that alone would kill the remaining time and energy I have in my life if I did, I can't imagine putting up with the bull of an actual family.

I also gotta say man , once a month? I run mine every week barring holidays or natural desasters and by the time I get there I still end up forgetting **** and getting my dumbass corrected by players when I can't recall who is on what spaceship after who did what to who post the most recent combat.

Honoustly…pick the players you do want and just stop with your current campaign.
Start an new campaign and start to have fun again.

Well Larry, it's been almost a year since I've posted here, so you can see how well I balance things. Our newest RT campaign is going strong, though. Career makes it tough. Family makes it much tougher. And that's why I can only play once a month. It's probably also why I GM these days and don't play. The gaming group is involved in other games that I just can't make it to. Funny thing about GMing, though, the game never runs without you. Heh.

Glad you have a good group. I keep moving around due to my job, and once I find a good group I'm moving again. Happy gaming to you all.

Severanus sees Daemonic soul-harvester weapon. Severanus meets up with Bjorn and a few squads… maybe a company of his Space Marines. Maybe the First Company. Severanus mentions Daemonic soul-harvester weapon. Cue final battle…. and if they flee to their ship, it's their own fault they initiated space combat with a Battle Barge let them cut down some Scout Marines or something if you want to throw them a bone first, but then the Devastators and Terminators (and Dreadnaughts, oh my) come out to play, gaining squad mode bonuses from Bjorn's leadership and with Severanus acting in solo mode as a spec-ops lone wolf, getting behind the Explorers and cutting off escape routes and ruining attempts to dig in or pull off little stunts.

One itty bitty problem here... Severanus would have no idea what a Daemon Weapon is, if things are as they have been told that is. If he knew nothing of the Heresy and his beloved Primarch and Legion going all Traitor he would still be in the glorious Imperial Truth days.

Ergo, the God-Emperor is no god cause the Emperor said so and he yelled long and hard on the dudes who invented the Lectatio Divinatus(ie the Imperial Creed, religion bit), those dudes were Lorgar and his Word Bearers(you know, the most fanatical of chaos worshipping traitor astartes), for even coming up with such a stupid idea.

Daemons and Gods do not exist, such things are just pure superstition which should be stamped out with Bolter and Chainsword and replaced with the Imperial Truth.

Imperial Truth =

Mankind is superior

Science and reason ftw

Religion is bad

Xenos are bad

- Short version, but still partially the opposite of how the Imperium turned out... Just as planned, by Tzeentch.

//And once more I did not note the start date of the thread...

Sounds like you've got some - albeit over the top - plots interweaving. That's the sign of a good GM - the ability to have many threads running through the campaign simultaneously. The fact that your players aren't holding up their end of the bargain suggests to me that its time to call it quits before you waste any more plot hook on these people - the Nuclear Option, if you will.

Just a few parting words of advice:

1. Don't give Daemon Weapons that do "insane damage" to "that guy" - you're only enabling him/her.

2. Space Marines should mostly be "fluff" - i.e. the people that get talked about, but never seen up close.

3. Subscribe to the "3 strikes" rule. Miss 3 sessions without letting the GM know ahead of time, you get kicked.

Even ten thousand year old marines can sense weird, exotic devices and know something is up. Remember it was a carefully orchestrated plot within the high-command of the Legions that led to half of their number rebelling during the Horus Heresy. Blind devotion to their Primarchs, genetic modification and hypno-doctrination led the Legionnaires under their command to follow them - remove that leadership and a freshly awoken Legionnaire is likely to operate on the Imperial Truth still, notice something unexplainable and heretical is going on and attack the PCs wielding daemon weapons

Ok, I'm a relatively new GM, I've only GM'd a campaign (rather short, only about a dozen sessions) of Dark Heresy, and got roped into GMing Rogue Trader.

A few things first:

1) I enjoy playing more than GMing, just getting that out of the way.

2) There are, at current count, 8 players in the group. A Rogue Trader, 2 Seneschals, an Ork, an Arch-Militant, a Voidmaster, an Explorator, and a Missionary.

3) I enjoy space combat….the players hate it because it takes them an hour just to decide to go forward and not bank left, so they say it takes too long and not everyone can be involved.

4) The Arch-Militant is a That Guy. If I'm not paying specific attention to him, he gets loud and demanding.

5) The Ork and Missionary player are constantly trying to piss each other off, In-Game and Out-of-Game.

6) Half the party is absent at any given session…and we only play every other week.

7) At the suggestion of some people online, I allowed them to roll a percentile for their starting profit factor and ship points….They rolled 100 and 80 respectively.

8) The Ork player is a min-maxing power gamer.

Now, here's where I'm at campaign wise:

I've created a nemesis Rogue Trader + Seneschal + Arch-Militant for the party. They're a piratical Rogue Trader, and they are several levels higher than the party. They've already disrupted one of the Nemesis' attacks on a merchant ship as well as been asked by the Imperium to put a stop to the Pirate's actions in the area (but they don't know who's behind it).

They curerntly have, as a guest on their ship, one Captain Severanus of the Luna Wolves. Pre-Heresy Luna Wolves. Found in stasis. After nearly killing the crew upon them telling him that his Primarch and Legion fell to Chaos….he listed off names of allies. The only living one being Bjorn the Fel-Handed of the Space Wolves. Upon contacting the Space Wolves, the party was told to meet at a certain planet at the edge of the Calixis Sector. I have yet to decide what to do here, but there are several options available depending on what the players do.

The Arch-Militant has been given a Daemon Weapon in the form of a rifle that does insane damage (enough to outright kill the Ork player), but at the cost of corruption and insanity (1d5 each) per soul harvested (sentient-soul-having being killed). The Daemon who gave it to him will be back once a certain tally has been reached.

They are currently on a planet where, unknown to them, there is a Necron tomb starting to awaken. They've fought Necrons before (I altered the GM Kit beginner adventure to use Necrons instead of the Whispers). Due to the Ork having a Power Klaw….the Canoptek Spyder they fought went down fairly easily.

Honestly, I'm starting to not have fun GMing due to player problems and the fact that they're completely disorganized. I get the feeling that they're starting to not have fun either because I'm not catering to each individually the entire session.

What would be the best way to just end the campaign where it stands? I'm talking total party wipe.

Preferably so that I can use what happened to them as a hook for a Dark Heresy campaign for the smaller group that would stick around for that.

perfect opportunity for a hrud infestation