Hello all.

So I've been working on compiling a ship/crew culture quirk table (the culture and history of ships in RT being possibly my favorite part of the game). While I love the quirk and machine spirit oddities in the core rulebook, they left me wanting more, so I've been compiling an expanded table. I've mainly been doing so with the assistance of the traditional games board (/tg/) over on 4chan, since it is fairly quickly moving compared to forums, but now that it is a bit further along I thought I would try bringing it over here.

It's supposed to be a random d100 table, and it currently has 111 entries, so if anyone would be interested in looking it over, I was hoping to get some feedback/new ideas. Basically I could use:

1. More quirk entries. While there are a lot in there now, they certainly aren't all golden, and i would like to get rid of some of them and replace them with better entries
2. improvements on existing entries
3. Any comments on proofreading e.g. misspelled words
4. Votes on which entries to to remove (right now we have 11 too many)

I'm hoping other people enjoy generating ship history as much as I, and that this will be a useful, or at least interesting resource.

A few guidelines on entries:

1. Entries should be long established situations, not one off encounters. It shouldn't be something that happens once, or has started happening recently, but an accepted part of ships life.
2. Frank the Carnifex of Deck 107 is an extremely divisive entry, and I fully sympathize with anyone who thinks he breaks canon. But he has gotten enough love from enough people that he is probably sticking around, and we can avoid any further debates on the matter.

Here is the link to the current version of the PDF on Google Drive

If there is a better way to share it, please let me know.

Anyways, hope you guys like it and have some interesting feedback ideas.

Not bad....... But I really can't take any of these seriously. You have Ship Quirks mixed in with these (Entry 14, 36, 37 and probably more but I stopped there), not to mention Entry 21 makes no sense. Well, the entry is legible and it clearly states it's intent in the game, but logically it makes no sense in game. And the Carnifex would so be better if it was a Clawed Fiend, instead of a Tyranid type creature. Nuff said on that.

Well you have obviously put a lot of work in this. I think that many of these entries could realistically happen within the setting, depending on a group's playstyle.

Since you asked, I must level a bit of critique at some the AI-related entries such as numbers 14, 26 and 41. I would point out that an Imperial ship's cogitator is not alive; it does not think; it does not feel. It is a computer and a machine, nothing more. Sometimes it may do some very odd things, but it remains a machine nonetheless.

In the Imperium, to create or harbor an intelligent AI would be heresy of the worst and most punishable sort. And if your ship *has* somehow developed a thinking personality, well, it is probably cursed by Chaos and you've just entered Event Horizon territory. Then you've got bigger problems.

Are these the ones form the /tg thread a few days ago? they are awesome.

Are these the ones form the /tg thread a few days ago? they are awesome.

Yep. And I want to make sure it's clear that while I have compiled these, I'm only personally responsible for maybe 20-25 of the entries. So thanks again to the elegan/tg/entlement who helped me make this.

Thanks, and I hope others will understand that playstyle does come into account. Some of these are a bit lighthearted, some take the universe very seriously, and others are quite GrimDark ™. I think it is important to keep in mind when dealing with the 40k community that the game doesn't have a single feel. Many people (myself included) played 1E and 2E, which had a much lighter tone (and to a certain extent, a lot of the Rogue Trader RPG harkens back to those days). 4E and 5E took things VERY seriously. And even within those two tones there are a lot of sub-tones. Some people love the down to earth, grim and gritty tone of the Forge World Imperial Armour books, others to focus on powerful characters, etc.

For myself at least, I like to include a bit for everyone, and I think that happens naturally in a collaborative effort like this. There are definately several tones going on, and I consider that both a strength of this table (which I'm growing increasingly fond of) and the setting itself.

...I must level a bit of critique at some the AI-related entries such as numbers 14, 26 and 41. I would point out that an Imperial ship's cogitator is not alive; it does not think; it does not feel. It is a computer and a machine, nothing more. Sometimes it may do some very odd things, but it remains a machine nonetheless.

In the Imperium, to create or harbor an intelligent AI would be heresy of the worst and most punishable sort. And if your ship *has* somehow developed a thinking personality, well, it is probably cursed by Chaos and you've just entered Event Horizon territory. Then you've got bigger problems.

While that is the official stance of the AdMech, it's not necessarily how things work in reality. Numerous entries in the codexis, novels, and FF books indicate that a fair amount of true AI actually does still exist in the Imperium, either recognized and covered up as having a "string machine spirit" (Land Raiders that can operate independently and avenge their crew, titans, ancient ships), unrecognized emergent AIs (which FF has indicated could be the case on some ships), or unrecognized ancient true AIs that largely get ignored as long as they don't cause any problems. Two of the big problems the AdMech has in relation to AIs is that a) they aren't actually very good at identifying what is and isn't an AI, sometimes destroying something that isn't and other times never recognizing things that are and b) there is a powerful underground segment of the AdMech that actually reveres any technology that advanced. In the end if something is rare, ancient, advanced, useful, or holy enough, the admech will often turn a blind eye for as long as it can. Finally, many of those things, while indicative of AI, don't ACTUALLY have to be AI. They are machine spirit quirks, emergent behaviors caused by the accumulation of experience and bugs over thousands of years. Just because we can humanize those behaviors (the ship is a gentleman and prefers blonds) doesn't actually indicate any true intelligence, at least not enough that the AdMech is going to destroy a holy artifact of technology.

Taking all of that into account, and adding on the general tone of Rogue Trader and their ability to ignore or put off most of the standard rules of the Imperium, I at least feel the entries mentioned fall in line with the fluff of a Rogue Trader ship.

So that is my justification. However, as I have indicated, one of the big points of this is to get feedback, and several entries that initially raised some fluff concerns have been re-written in ways that have not only made them more palatable, but greatly improved the entry. If you, or anyone else, as re-write suggestions or would like to re-write it themselves, I am very interested. This list is a collaborative effort, after all.

Not bad....... But I really can't take any of these seriously. You have Ship Quirks mixed in with these (Entry 14, 36, 37 and probably more but I stopped there), not to mention Entry 21 makes no sense. Well, the entry is legible and it clearly states it's intent in the game, but logically it makes no sense in game. And the Carnifex would so be better if it was a Clawed Fiend, instead of a Tyranid type creature. Nuff said on that.

As I mentioned in my first post, while I sympathize, and even agree with any who feel "Frank" isn't totally kosher fluff-wise, he was highly popular with those who helped write most of this table, even generating a couple fan-fics. I do feel his entry fits the feel of most Rogue Trader games very well, and that most games do bend fluff a little bit where it is interesting. All that being said, Frank gets to stick around if only as a tribute and thank you to those who helped compile the list. I fully understand and agree he bends the fluff to the breaking point, but I think a single entry of a 100 entry table can be ignored by the few who (again, very understandably) dislike him.

i'd suggest to keep adding to your list. any entries that don't appeal to certain users could swap them out for alternatives. it's simple enough to not like 5 entries roll the third that you don't like and count down three on the alternate list and take that instead.

Actually, that's a great idea. It's become very hard to find ones to eliminate at this point.

Maybe move the more heretical ones (AI, Frank, etc.) to after 100?

I don't know that I would use the table itself but there are certainly some cool/funny ideas that I would pilfer as a GM to make the character's lives more interesting.