So except er fightin', just what does an Ork bring to the table?

What are good roles for the Ork to take, and how can he (it?) contribute in other endeavours than those of application of force?

I'm playing a Mekboy in our RT campaign, and so far we've had more than our fair share of encounters with imperials in the Koronus Expanse. And they're not too keen on Xenos, obviously.

And then there are all the undiscovered worlds, where the appearance of a "monster" may freak the locals out. (Of course thet's also true for the tech-priest).

What are your thoughts? Experiences from other xeno-players most welcome!

The biggest advantage the Ork has (other than providing lovingly hand-crafted bespoke violence) is his ability to use Intimidate in place of Command .

An Orky Arch-Militant can pull off 'Put Your Backs Into It!' to...err...motivate the crew very effectively, along with leading boarding actions, etc.

Mekboyz and Wierdboyz can be very useful - If I remember correctly, the Navis Primer potentially allows a wierdboy to act as navigator.

Dealing with Imperials is, obviously, difficult. But pirates and independent worlds are common enough. For that matter, consider reversing the equation; there will be Freeboota and Blood Axe outposts in the vicinity of Da Undred-Undred Teef where 'oomies' would be more-or-less tolerated, but a friendly green face would go a long way to making things go smoother. Either hiring mercenaries, or paying off raiders (to attack someone else's shipping instead of yours). Plus, whilst orky weapons aren't exactly exportable back to the Imperium, they will have some stuff to trade - looted salvage from human ships, or raw materials like metal ores.

In theory, you could even set up a trade route for high-quality fungus beer for any other orks operating out of footfall. Be warned that Glensquiggoth can be ruinously expensive to buy, though, and humans are generally put off the drink by its cripplingly neurotoxic qualities.

I have an ork in my group, that's not you is it? Well if it is the party took down the final boss today and get well soon. By the way you failed your fear check and spent the entire combat hiding.

In any case it can be a pain because skills and social interactions are what matter outside of combat and orks are obviously at a huge disadvantage there the vast majority of the time. I really like the ork mechanics and the ork player class but I've told my group a few times that I think it's probably better to go all or nothing, Either do an all ork campaign on an ork ship or just don't bother with it at all.

Speaking of all Ork campaigns I suggest starting everyone at rank 4 so they can all grab oddboy alt ranks if they want them and establish they're already running the Kroozer, then just let 'em go nuts on the setting banging around being orky and loot'n.

Like all the Xenos archetypes, the ork brings almost nothing to the table that a human PC can't already do. In addition, it brings far more problems than it will ever be worth.

Other than that, they're awesome.

No, Mr. Amazing, that's not me

As for saying they bring "nothing" that a human can't already bring, that's like dismissing all alternate ranks and other specializations by "these roles can already be filled by the base-games classes".

They're a different species, a different mindset. In WFRP we play dwarves and elves all the time, and in addition to their physical characteristics, such a character brings their culture and mindset into the game, for better or worse.

In DH, playing a Xenos would be pretty much impossible, and I guess we're still sorta locked into this worldview. So I guess I'm just shopping for inspiration: What would a Mekboy aspire to amongst a human crew in the Expanse? Why would a Rogue Trader take him on, other than for his exceptional skill at bloodshed? How does he work most effectively with the rest of the Traders "command crew"?

Speaking of all Ork campaigns I suggest starting everyone at rank 4 so they can all grab oddboy alt ranks if they want them and establish they're already running the Kroozer, then just let 'em go nuts on the setting banging around being orky and loot'n.

"Waaaggh! Trader" is awesome fun.

In DH, playing a Xenos would be pretty much impossible, and I guess we're still sorta locked into this worldview. So I guess I'm just shopping for inspiration: What would a Mekboy aspire to amongst a human crew in the Expanse? Why would a Rogue Trader take him on, other than for his exceptional skill at bloodshed? How does he work most effectively with the rest of the Traders "command crew"?

For the same reasons (broadly) as he'd hire anyone.

1. Competence. I can see this being much more along the lines of "he saw the ork's competence being used against him and decided to hire him for himself". If you've seen Firefly, then the way Mal hires Jayne springs to mind. For a mekboy, the ork might have been the principle krew-ork of a raider or gun-cutter type thing.
2. Contacts. If he has under-the-counter dealings with Orks, an ork is useful. The whole "sanctioned xenos" thing can mitigate a lot of the problems, but historically the shadier bits of the imperial fringe have had dealings with Xenos Mercenaries where necessary. Blood Axe Freebootas are the most common example.
3. Resources. The Astropath Transcendant is assumed to lead a small astropathic choir. The Explorator's engineerium decks are manned by a small army of servitors. It's not unreasonable that an ork might come with a small squad of bully-boyz.

What would the Mekboy aspire to? Standard ork desires of Teef, fighting, and more fighting, and for mekboyz building and useing awesome stuff. A capital ship lance is the sort of toy orks dream of, and aquiring cool 'bitz' to weld into his designs (by looting them from other human or xenos ships)

How he'd get on with the command crew depends on the rest of the krew. Orks are pretty predictable, emotionally. They are pre-programmed with 'might is right', so they'd be surly if they get treated like a servant unless they've learned the hard way that the person giving the orders is capable of beating the **** out of them (and hence learned that size is not everything for humans).

But some rogue trader crews act pretty much like detached imperial navy (It's an alien! Burn it!), whilst others are more or less legalised pirates. The latter would probably be fine with orks (aside from the smell).

Like all the Xenos archetypes, the ork brings almost nothing to the table that a human PC can't already do. In addition, it brings far more problems than it will ever be worth.

Other than that, they're awesome.

Actually Orks are somewhat an exception to that. They make incredibly awesome Boarding leaders (due to the ability to use Intimidate ad Command). They also make really goid techies with the Mekboy alt rank. You'd be hard-pressed to make a human that fulfills both these roles and combat at the same time.

Like all the Xenos archetypes, the ork brings almost nothing to the table that a human PC can't already do. In addition, it brings far more problems than it will ever be worth.

Other than that, they're awesome.

Actually Orks are somewhat an exception to that. They make incredibly awesome Boarding leaders (due to the ability to use Intimidate ad Command). They also make really goid techies with the Mekboy alt rank. You'd be hard-pressed to make a human that fulfills both these roles and combat at the same time.

Meh, an explorator CAN do that, but there isn't much need. Each career fills a specific set of roles with some crossover. That wad the design intent of the developers. Xenos careers were an afterthought, and never really fit all that well into the framework of the system - mechanically or story-wise.

To my mind adding an Ork to the mix adds hilarity, tension, flexibility and a new perspective.

Hilarity because while all other characters have some sort of agenda, complex schemes and plans and complex interpersonal interactions (unless of course they choose not to play the characters that way) and the Ork doesn’t. The other characters have been brought up to revere technology and the Ork hasn’t, in fact the Ork thinks that technology works better the more you abuse it. This is even funnier when the GM gets on board and the Ork occasionally turns out to be right, heretically cramming tech together in nonsensical ways to solve a problem in a way an Imperial citizen never could. Plus in the right group having a disruptive character (but not player) is a lot of fun.

Tension because every time the players want to deal with the Imperium they are going to need to either hide the Ork or convince the officials that the Ork isn’t heresy on legs. This can often mean attempting to lock the Ork in a room and keep him busy with something while ship inspectors wonder what that loud banging is.

Flexibility because having an Ork opens up the possibility of doing things that those without an Ork crewmember can’t do (or can’t do easily) like negotiating rights to trade in weird squigs from the Ork held world of Tusk, gaining safe(ish) passage through the ‘Undred ‘undred teef or even putting a captain’s hat on the Ork and having him try to convince other Orks that this ship is already looted.

By far however the most useful thing you gain is a new, non-Imperial point of view. The Ork player can suggest things that are so crazy (and just outright alien to those raised by Imperials) that they just might work. Essentially The Ork can be (perhaps ironically for a race that is supposed to be the comedy relief) the straight man that points out the foibles of the Imperial way and 40K in general. As long as you have a GM with imagination I would say getting an Ork on board is well worth it.

Mechanically the Ork could fill the same role as the arch-militant (or the Navigator if you go for a Weirdboy).

Like all the Xenos archetypes, the ork brings almost nothing to the table that a human PC can't already do. In addition, it brings far more problems than it will ever be worth.

Other than that, they're awesome.

Actually Orks are somewhat an exception to that. They make incredibly awesome Boarding leaders (due to the ability to use Intimidate ad Command). They also make really goid techies with the Mekboy alt rank. You'd be hard-pressed to make a human that fulfills both these roles and combat at the same time.

This. Orks are potentially the past-masters of Command checks, especially once you realise that Intimidate is essentially a Strength check, and orks get Unnatural Strength.

Time to re-read Unnatural Characteristic (RT, p. 368) if that doesn't scare you.

About the nastiest I have ever seen in RT space combat, was an Ork Terrorship with a competent (read: PC-style designed) named NPC ork for a kaptin.

So it sounds like the biggest "plus" in all of your minds is the swap out of intimidate for command - and the major benefit it would give for said checks. As such, this sounds like more of a min/max sort of debate than a fluff/RP one.

I suppose if people are looking to make characters that will be "dominant" near-Mary Sue level PC's, then something like an Ork Freebooter, or better yet, a Mekboy/Weirdboy, would be appealing. This, of course, completely ignores the fact that a human crew would be highly disturbed by being commanded (read: intimidated) in battle, and perhaps even unlikely to follow said orders when it mattered most. Especially when there are numerous non-xenos officers to lead them on the ship. A simple 2 or 3 point reduction in crew morale being the only mechanical consequence of having an ork (or other xeno) aboard simply isn't enough to simulate the effect having one on the ship would have on its crew.

...and this doesn't even mention the consequences/attention the RT and his/her crew would incur by not only having xenos around, but placing said xeno in a command position. To do the situation any justice whatsoever, the crew would simply be forced to hide the existence of the xeno from pretty much any kind of "authority." And good luck doing that with 10's of thousands of crew on 1 ship alone.

End of the day, I'll stick to the old standard line when one of my players wants to roll a xeno PC:

"If you were to play said character properly, you'd end up being the biggest headache aboard the ship. There would be nothing you brought to the table that a human character couldn't do other than your min/max'ing certain skill tests and the complete hijacking of the campaign required to cater to the reality of having a xenos member of the RT's senior staff. In other words... roll something else."

Traejun, that might be true for a DH game, but in the fringes of civilised space?

You're basically dismissing half a book with the statement that the designers don't know what they're dealing with.

Sure, Xenos are bad, and you should kill'em all.

Just like all witches are bad. Except for the sanctioned psykers, we need those!

And just like all the mutants are bad. Except for those sanctioned Navigators, we need those!

The Imperium is a wonderfully hypocritical organisation, and the "All X are bad! Burn them!" approach is what they take as a fall-back, default dogma to teach all those brainless masses that can't be allowed to think for themselves. Then they go ahead and "sanction" those things that are somewhat useful.

And if a Rogue Trades finds an Ork useful, nobody on board is gonna contradict him.

You're also overlooking the potential for being just a massive tool to other Rogue Traders or people you hate. Just take your pet Ork down to their planets, walk him around the place a bunch and just let his spores settle in. A few generations down the track and hey look your rival has all these feral Orks to deal with and your dynasty is going from strength to strength.

Nobody is going to openly contradict the RT, certainly. Then again, the RT can't be everywhere at once. And in the heat of battle - like repelling boarders - its likely that "things" would happen.

Oh and those...

brainless masses that can't be allowed to think for themselves

...are what makes up about 99% of the voidsmen/armsmen on the ship. You know, the brainless masses that think...

Xenos are bad, and you should kill'em all.

Admittedly-totally-subjective examples of personal experience incoming:

I have permitted players to roll xenos PCs on 2 separate occasions.

The first time, I treated the PC as just another member of the crew, with the players incurring only the mechanical consequences of having xenos aboard - i.e. a morale hit. We threw in a little "flavor RP" in the form of keeping the ork on-ship and FAR away from formal functions and allowing the character (an Ork Freebooter) to do some especially fluffy orky RP when the crew ran across other orks. By the 3rd month of the campaign, the Ork PC was no different than any human PC, except he had a cockney accent and every 3rd word was "git." It was funny as hell, but that's really all it was.

The second time, I decided to impose all kinds of - in my belief - realistic consequences/ramifications upon the group for having a Dark Eldar crewman, in addition to the normal, mechanical penalties. I had a long, fluff-related discussion with the player to ensure that she understood what it meant to be a Dark Eldar. Then we began the campaign. Between the unwanted attention that the RT got from various Imperial adepta/organizations and other private entities, the Dark Eldar's need to sate her need to inflict pain on others to stave off "she who thirsts" and a few other fluff-realism RP-related issues, the other players were outright begging the DE player to reroll. In other words, keeping it fluff-accurate essentially required an inordinate amount of time focused solely on the DE PC and the other PC's need to "deal with it."

From that point on, I pretty much said no to xenos PCs whenever it was asked. I am still waiting for the right pitch from a prospective player to change my mind.

I doubt that will ever happen. Read into that what you will.

Honestly I think you may be underestimating the power of cognitive dissonance. Initially there should be some fairly significant downsides to having an Ork on board but in the same way a Rogue Trader can’t be everywhere at once neither can the Ork. Given the size of a ship in 40k it is quite possible for someone to live their entire life in one section of a ship and never see anything else. This is especially true of ratlings.

What that means is that a portion of the ship’s population is going to be forced to interact with the Ork but for most of them he’d just be a rumour and considerably less worrying than say the meaningless toil that comprises their entire lives. For those that do interact with the Ork regularly it will become less horrific over time eventually they will probably just think something like. “Look at that poor stupid xenos, he’s like an animal. He doesn’t even know the captain is using him. Did you hear that they pay him with his own teeth? Man I’m glad I’m not that guy.”

Now if the Ork is leading troops in combat this should again be fraught with peril the first few times but assuming another PC works with the Ork the first few times and perhaps makes a point to show the other troops the Ork taking all the hits that might otherwise slay them it would again slowly become less horrific. Remember that the Rogue Trader is mandated to act outside Imperial law so his crew have got to be the sort of people who would accept this somewhat more readily than they average Imperial citizen.

And if all that fails… servitor crew!

Like all the Xenos archetypes, the ork brings almost nothing to the table that a human PC can't already do. In addition, it brings far more problems than it will ever be worth.

Other than that, they're awesome.

Actually Orks are somewhat an exception to that. They make incredibly awesome Boarding leaders (due to the ability to use Intimidate ad Command). They also make really goid techies with the Mekboy alt rank. You'd be hard-pressed to make a human that fulfills both these roles and combat at the same time.

Meh, an explorator CAN do that, but there isn't much need. Each career fills a specific set of roles with some crossover. That wad the design intent of the developers. Xenos careers were an afterthought, and never really fit all that well into the framework of the system - mechanically or story-wise.

The explorator can do command? by ahving the most expensive advancement scheme for Fel and only getting command at rank 7?

The problem with each class filling a specific set of roles is that you are not guaranteed to have enough player and/or willing to play what's needed to fill all roles. Sometimes you really need a class that can fill multiple roles just as well (IIRC the minimum player number suggested in core is 3), and Ork does that just fine for command/combat/tech role.

As for fitting (or not) story-wise, the Warrant of a Rogue Trader allows him to deal with Xenos as he sees fit, and that includes having some aboard his ship.

Like all the Xenos archetypes, the ork brings almost nothing to the table that a human PC can't already do. In addition, it brings far more problems than it will ever be worth.

Other than that, they're awesome.

Actually Orks are somewhat an exception to that. They make incredibly awesome Boarding leaders (due to the ability to use Intimidate ad Command). They also make really goid techies with the Mekboy alt rank. You'd be hard-pressed to make a human that fulfills both these roles and combat at the same time.

Meh, an explorator CAN do that, but there isn't much need. Each career fills a specific set of roles with some crossover. That wad the design intent of the developers. Xenos careers were an afterthought, and never really fit all that well into the framework of the system - mechanically or story-wise.

The explorator can do command? by ahving the most expensive advancement scheme for Fel and only getting command at rank 7?

The problem with each class filling a specific set of roles is that you are not guaranteed to have enough player and/or willing to play what's needed to fill all roles. Sometimes you really need a class that can fill multiple roles just as well (IIRC the minimum player number suggested in core is 3), and Ork does that just fine for command/combat/tech role.

As for fitting (or not) story-wise, the Warrant of a Rogue Trader allows him to deal with Xenos as he sees fit, and that includes having some aboard his ship.

Well aware of all this. Number of players can be a problem, but by the looks of things on this forum, Roll20 and a few others... finding players is easy. GMs, another story altogether.

At the same time, that changes nothing for me. Xenos are more trouble than they are worth - other than the jack of many trades sort of thing (especially for Orks), which plainly was not the design intent of RT.

Reasonable minds can differ, and this is one of those times. So, while I love contributing to this discussion - even if it is me kind of being a hater - I don't do so to troll. I'm giving an honest opinion, supported by reasonable arguments and personal experiences. As are you and some others in this discussion.

For me, no xenos. For other groups and GMs, obviously the opposite opinion. That's perfectly fine.

I appreciate the input, positive and negative!

But I'm already playing the Ork, so saying I shouldn't is not helpful for me at this time

However, your first experience with the almost-human-with-cockney english Orks is not so far from where I hope we go. It's how most elves/dwarves end up being played in fantasy-games too. It's kinda hard to hold on to this alien mindset.

I'm playing the ork like a biker with ADHD. Always ready to rumble, always with da need for speed. Apart from that, he's inquisitive and somewhat restrained for an ork, having realized that humies don't settle ALL their arguments by stomping each other.

Here is a thing that me and my Rogue Trader have been discussing, its not really a benefit that an Ork bring, more of an unexpected hazard:

AFFS has been added to the Life Support System. Takes no extra power or space, is effected by anything that effects the life support and can be sabotaged interdependently.
Anti-Fungal Filtration System.

Simply put, it stops our Ork doing a Wet Gizzmo impression... at least thats the hope.

Ill just leave that there...

Well aware of all this. Number of players can be a problem, but by the looks of things on this forum, Roll20 and a few others... finding players is easy. GMs, another story altogether.

At the same time, that changes nothing for me. Xenos are more trouble than they are worth - other than the jack of many trades sort of thing (especially for Orks), which plainly was not the design intent of RT.

Reasonable minds can differ, and this is one of those times. So, while I love contributing to this discussion - even if it is me kind of being a hater - I don't do so to troll. I'm giving an honest opinion, supported by reasonable arguments and personal experiences. As are you and some others in this discussion.

For me, no xenos. For other groups and GMs, obviously the opposite opinion. That's perfectly fine.

Roll20 and forums don't help at all with RL games. My RL group for example has such issues. We are few (and with no immediate growth perspectives): only 4 players, one of which has no interest in playing anything else than a pure combat arch-militant, so the 3 of us that are left have trouble fulfilling all the roles (we rely heavily on NPCs).

It is of course fine to have an opinion that's different than mine what I have an issue with is generalizations and broad statements; take the bolded part from above, Unless you worked on designing Rogue Trader or have read statements of actual game designers to that effect, I don't think you can state that as a fact, especially since the Rogue Trader, a class present in the core rulebook is sort of a jack of many trades too(can do some combat, social skills, piloting etc.).

Well aware of all this. Number of players can be a problem, but by the looks of things on this forum, Roll20 and a few others... finding players is easy. GMs, another story altogether.

At the same time, that changes nothing for me. Xenos are more trouble than they are worth - other than the jack of many trades sort of thing (especially for Orks), which plainly was not the design intent of RT.

Reasonable minds can differ, and this is one of those times. So, while I love contributing to this discussion - even if it is me kind of being a hater - I don't do so to troll. I'm giving an honest opinion, supported by reasonable arguments and personal experiences. As are you and some others in this discussion.

For me, no xenos. For other groups and GMs, obviously the opposite opinion. That's perfectly fine.

Roll20 and forums don't help at all with RL games. My RL group for example has such issues. We are few (and with no immediate growth perspectives): only 4 players, one of which has no interest in playing anything else than a pure combat arch-militant, so the 3 of us that are left have trouble fulfilling all the roles (we rely heavily on NPCs).

It is of course fine to have an opinion that's different than mine what I have an issue with is generalizations and broad statements; take the bolded part from above, Unless you worked on designing Rogue Trader or have read statements of actual game designers to that effect, I don't think you can state that as a fact, especially since the Rogue Trader, a class present in the core rulebook is sort of a jack of many trades too(can do some combat, social skills, piloting etc.).

Well, given how few careers have much cross-over capability beyond very basic ability to perform X (poorly in comparison to the career intended to do X), it does not take much for me to conclude that design intent was basically, players pick a class and serve one role well, perhaps 1 or 2 others passably, at best. The Orks, especially the Mekboyz/Weirdboyz, seem more capable of serving many roles fairly well than any other career/race choice.

Again, my issue isn't so much about the Ork archtypes' ability to do more than almost any other career, but on the fluff/RP related issues.

Well aware of all this. Number of players can be a problem, but by the looks of things on this forum, Roll20 and a few others... finding players is easy. GMs, another story altogether.

At the same time, that changes nothing for me. Xenos are more trouble than they are worth - other than the jack of many trades sort of thing (especially for Orks), which plainly was not the design intent of RT.

Reasonable minds can differ, and this is one of those times. So, while I love contributing to this discussion - even if it is me kind of being a hater - I don't do so to troll. I'm giving an honest opinion, supported by reasonable arguments and personal experiences. As are you and some others in this discussion.

For me, no xenos. For other groups and GMs, obviously the opposite opinion. That's perfectly fine.

Roll20 and forums don't help at all with RL games. My RL group for example has such issues. We are few (and with no immediate growth perspectives): only 4 players, one of which has no interest in playing anything else than a pure combat arch-militant, so the 3 of us that are left have trouble fulfilling all the roles (we rely heavily on NPCs).

It is of course fine to have an opinion that's different than mine what I have an issue with is generalizations and broad statements; take the bolded part from above, Unless you worked on designing Rogue Trader or have read statements of actual game designers to that effect, I don't think you can state that as a fact, especially since the Rogue Trader, a class present in the core rulebook is sort of a jack of many trades too(can do some combat, social skills, piloting etc.).

Well, given how few careers have much cross-over capability beyond very basic ability to perform X (poorly in comparison to the career intended to do X), it does not take much for me to conclude that design intent was basically, players pick a class and serve one role well, perhaps 1 or 2 others passably, at best. The Orks, especially the Mekboyz/Weirdboyz, seem more capable of serving many roles fairly well than any other career/race choice.

Again, my issue isn't so much about the Ork archtypes' ability to do more than almost any other career, but on the fluff/RP related issues.

Mekboys don't seem to me better multirole characters than Rogu Traders, and Weirdboys are just astropaths with some combat skills (and even then; they might not be better at that role than an Astropath with Warp Weapon). The Navigator bit is a joke. Between the -20 penalty and the lack of Survival +10 and+20 they end up about as bad as NPC Navigators.

As for the RP aspects, everything I've read about Warrants of Trade seems to indicate that RTs have the liberty to deal with Xenos as they see fit outsude Imperial borders. This means there might be some RTs out there who have Xemo crew members. Now, if you don't want that kind of RT in your games that's fine, but other people do and as such I feel the inclusion of Xeno careers is important for the full RT experience. Personalky I wish thete were more (mainly Eldar, Tau and Tarellians).

From my own experience as a player i have interacted with Ork and Kroot players, but not Dark Eldar nor any of the later supplements (weirdboyz for orks etc) so my comments are based on that experience:

I have a dislike of the comedy-ork. To me they aren't space-chavs or space-cockneys, they don't comically misunderstand everything on purpose to entertain others and they aren't functionally retarderd. They are strong, both physically and willfully, techno-barbarians that happen to grow from spores, are green skinned and have a gestalt group meta-subconscious that pushes them to be violent.

I was playing an explorator who had gone down the walking tank route and when the group's Ork mekboy was constantly walking up to archaeotech, looking at me, then purposefully jamming his finger into all the mechanisms i calmly leveled my lascannon at him and demanded he cease his current activities. The comedy aspect of his behaviour wasn't adding to our campaign so it was merely annoying. Now had he used his smarts (because mekboyz do have smarts) he'd have known not to do that kind of thing while my character was around and instead work his orkish tech ways on the low down.

I did once play an ork for a brief amount of time and while i avoided the comedy ork routine i don't know how the other players felt as it was a short lived game. I was working towards ork kommando so was focused on sneaking and combat and my time was spent offering blunt advise whenever tactics were discussed and wading into the thickest parts of combat looking for the biggest opponents to fight. Taking a noble from Calixis on a dinosaur hunt was a great opportunity for my ork to get some trophies and scare the weak willed human with my blood lust.

Kroot on the other hand have been handled like the native american indian trackers and rangers they were seemingly always meant to be - keeping to themselves, preferring not to sully their ways with alien technology and social ways. No problem with them at all.

Dark Eldar - ive not been too keen on the most recent rules and fluff set for them from GW and as this is what FFG has used i've generally avoided them. The concept of player characters having to constantly inflict suffering on others to appease their (ultimately misguided) goal of keeping their soul intact is... just too out there and not conducive to good group role-playing. It'd be like a party of paladins, rangers and monks in D&D accepting an orc warlord into their midst...

Dark Eldar - ive not been too keen on the most recent rules and fluff set for them from GW and as this is what FFG has used i've generally avoided them. The concept of player characters having to constantly inflict suffering on others to appease their (ultimately misguided) goal of keeping their soul intact is... just too out there and not conducive to good group role-playing. It'd be like a party of paladins, rangers and monks in D&D accepting an orc warlord into their midst...

Of course, the paladin might be the one out of place if the monks and rangers are all evil

Dark eldar aren't fit for all games, but then no <insert built-in mechanic or fluff bit that pushes your behavior in a certain (extreme) direction> is. Constantly inflicting suffering might be out of place for some groups, bot not even noticed by others (for example if you have a group that approaches Rogue Trader like traditional D&D, aka find stuff to kill and take their loot).

I like to think that I've got some expertise when it comes to Xenos in Rogue Trader, given that I wrote the Freebooter and Weirdboy careers, the Kommando and Mekboy alternate ranks, and 85% of the material for the Dark Eldar (all the non-adventure material in Soul Reaver, but not the extras in the web expansion). That in mind, I'll add a few thoughts. The only Xenos I didn't write was the Kroot, but it follows the same conceptual lines (the Non-Imperial and Suffer Not The Alien talents being common to all Xenos PCs).

Xenos PCs aren't for everyone. The books state as much, and this is acknowledged from the outset. Xenos PCs can be disruptive, inconvenient or problematic for some groups.

Thing is, that's little different from a hard-line Explorator in a group inclined to dabble in Xenotech and Maletek, or from a Missionary in a decidedly impious group. The idea of disruptive ideology or personality isn't exclusive to non-humans - the secretive agendas of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the baroque politics of the Navigator Houses, the complex and precarious balance between the various forces, faiths and factions in the Imperium... are all sources of interpersonal conflict in Rogue Trader.

Physiological and metaphysical differences are another matter, yes, but Navigators, Explorators and Astropaths aren't entirely human either, and are often the subject of mistrust because of it (Tech-Priests are deliberate outsiders, and the machines they venerate and minister to are regarded with caution and suspicion by Imperials; Astropaths and Navigators are warp-touched mutant witches, given sanction by necessity).

Orks... the comedy can be overplayed, yes, but it comes from an important place. Orks aren't the gruff, no-nonsense, Proud Warrior Race Guy . They're loud, excitable bullies and adrenaline junkies with a short attention span and a physiology that allows them to survive all manner of reckless stupidity. Orks are carefree, straightforward beings whose desires are simple and easily achieved. An Ork wants good fights, loud noises, driving (or flying) really fast - everything you'd find in the average action movie. Oddboyz tweak that archetype in some ways - Mekboyz love to create things that drive fast, make loud noises and kill in the most violent manner possible, Painboyz are intensely curious about the worky-bitz of living creatures, Kommandos are obsessed with being sneaky to allow even more sudden violence... and so on. Ork Freebooters exist because some Orks understand that not all non-Orks are just enemies to fight (Orks don't consider 'enemy' to be a bad thing; Orks prize strong foes, because they get better fights that way), but often a means to getting better loot and better fights.

Dark Eldar are intelligent, calculating, ambitious and possessed of an arguably justifiable arrogance. They're cruel and self-serving and lack any sense of taboo, morals or ethics, and thrive both physically and spiritually on the suffering of others. They're long-lived enough and intelligent enough that Dark Eldar society cultivates complex and ruthless politics that aren't too dissimilar than that found amongst high-ranking humans. If a Kabalite Warrior or Trueborn - a being of relatively high station and higher ambition - can attain some goal through consorting with lesser beings like humans, then there is literally nothing to hinder the pursuit of that goal. They're extremely mercenary, and circumspect enough to delay gratification and satisfaction for a greater pay-off later.