One of my local groups has started playing Rogue Trader. We're all new to the game (though some of us have briefly played other WH40K RPGs and we all [minus one player] know the setting fairly well). Our GM is a good GM, but he's relatively new to it (this might even be his first time).

We've had two sessions, so far, but it's clear that the game is... Complicated. We're trying to find a good mix between investigative play and combat play, and that's been hard to do (the system doesn't seem [SEEM] to support investigation very well). Plus, we had our first space combat last week, and that was... a bag of crap. Our GM house ruled the space combat system (by giving us all free, specific skills) so that each player would have something to do during space combat.

So, two questions:

1. Any advice or suggestions to the Rogue Trader players?

And, less importantly...

2. Any tips I might pass along to our Rogue Trader GM?


Edit: Please forgive the typo in the thread title. That's what I get for rushing to finish a post while a diabetic cat is yowling at me.

The 40k system is highly complex. As we've struggled with it as well in the past, here's my basic rules of thumb when running 40k of any flavor:

1.) At it's core, the game is a simple percentiles based system. Whenever in doubt about a rule, or if a rule seems too complex, give what seems an appropriate penalty or bonus, make the roll and move on. Work it out later if necessary to figure the exact rule.

2.) Players should look for creative ways to apply their skills, and the GM should allow for creative use of the skill if it makes sense. If it seems dubious but possible, give a penalty to the roll. This helps with the "but I can't do anything!" problem that crops up from time to time. Interpret skills a bit more expansively, giving penalties where it starts to blur the edges into another skill.

3.) The math assumes that the players will be grabbling for bonuses via manuevers and talents. Remember in combat that if you're just trying to stab or shoot someone Aiming and Standard Attack give a +10 each, so "I hit him with my (power) sword" gets +20. Use that as a baseline for everything else if you get confused. If you're ever making an important roll with no bonuses at all, you're probably missing something.

4.) For players, create a list of your talents and exactly what they do and print it out. The character sheet is wholly inadequate for tracking this. If you are a psyker, also print out your psychic powers, conditional bonuses, focus power tests, etc. Our group's psyker has a spreadsheet.

5.) For the GM, I'd recommend mainly the first point and also I would say that if there's a point of confusion, I generally interpret it in the way that favors the PCs; I'd rather have one fight be a bit too easy than end up with a TPK for a mistake with the rules.

6.) If the group is comfortable with it, after the GM has some experience, then don't sweat all the various bonuses and such in the rules, but just kind of hand-wave or houserule most of it away and rely more on GM judgment than the hard and fast charts and tables for difficulty. This is easier once the GM gets a feel for the general difficulty of the game.

7.) Not rules based, but for the players, if you're a Rogue Trader crew then you're big, larger-than-life men and women. Act like it. Be bold, give monologues to your foes, spare someone just to show that you can, kill someone just to show that you can, push your lowly peons out of the way and declare "I will take care of this myself!" regularly, especially when you don't have to, and be a Glorious Bastard at every opportunity. That's the fun of RT

"Find a less crap system and play in that" is my honest thought, although that's not productive, so moving swiftly on...

Quote from: Géza Echs;775631So, two questions:

1. Any advice or suggestions to the Rogue Trader players?

And, less importantly...

2. Any tips I might pass along to our Rogue Trader GM?

GM's should be generous with situational modifiers whenever possible, and players should be proactive about going for them; fair odds are for suckers. Flat skill rolls should be reserved for difficult tasks, averagely difficult stuff should be getting bonuses. The system is designed for WFRP characters bumbling about in the mud, and doesn't handle experts like an RT crew well.

Players should get very familiar with the rules relating to their characters, because it is a crunchy system and the character sheets are rubbish. Make cheat-sheet cards with combat rules and what your talents do, so they're easy to reference (Just copy-and-paste from the PDF). If you have a psyker, they should just print off their pages of psychic powers.

Take dodge and use lots of cover.  Seriously maxing out the dodge skill and taking talented: dodge will make you last longer.  Your players should do every thing they can to get as many bonuses, or to flat out find a way to skip rolling dice.

Example:  On a planet that rains liquid gas and have strange xeno beasts that love to eat machinery my group manage to get to a cave.  The xenos were closing in and one player lit up a torch and flick it to the rain.  The resulting explosion burn away the xenos, but the crew was safe inside the cave.

Thanks for the advice, everyone - it's very useful!

So far the combat bonuses have been hard for everyone to keep in mind (thankfully, the GM is quite honest and loves crunchy math, so he informs us if we've forgotten something).

Skills are very narrow in their in-text presentation, and unforgivable if the player is on a bad streak with the dice (last session we didn't make much advancement down the investigation plot because my Missionary kept failing Awareness checks with his 39 Perception). I really do think we're going to have to play "outside the rules" with them.

Talents are confusing, too. I made a list of the talents and their effects for myself and my wife, but I don't think everybody else quite gets what their Talents allow for (ours mostly gave bonuses and minuses during character creation, plus extra skills).

Anyway, thanks! More advice would be well received.

Dark Heresy works for me, but Rogue Trader's ruleset was a bit much for me. My suggestion to your GM is to beat the system with a lead pipe until it behaves.

Quote from: Spinachcat;775752Dark Heresy works for me, but Rogue Trader's ruleset was a bit much for me. My suggestion to your GM is to beat the system with a lead pipe until it behaves.

We made it clear to each other than we would only be using the core rules for at least the first while, but now, three weeks in, we've already drawn pretty heavily from other books (specifically Into the Storm). Which I'm not a fan of - I don't have the free time to devote to reading through all the sourcebooks.

I've barely had time to read the necessary sections from the core rules!

Rogue Trader is a difficult rule set. We have been playing it for about 6 sessions now and it is a hard job not to let the rules suck all the fun out of the game. My advice would be to come to an understanding with everyone in the group that the rules shouldn't be exploited to their fullest.

I also knew a RT GM that designated parts of the rules to different players to help handle the complexity. But this was inevitably exploited too. As such, a GM really needs to become a loremaster of the rules pretty quick in absence of a wider understanding.

Quote from: Spinachcat;775752Dark Heresy works for me, but Rogue Trader's ruleset was a bit much for me.

Yeah, I 'get' DH... but I've yet to try to tackle Rogue Trader... despite it looking like it could bring a quite awesome game. I'd need to give it at least one more close reading... print up some notes and cheat sheets.
Really, I'd probably be tempted to manhandle the whole thing into some variant of BRP, being as there are already some similarities.

I think RT's rules being based on a small party of PCs entering into skirmish combat, yet necessarily commanding tens of thousands of people, reflects the core issue in RT's mechanics.

Case in point, we worked out in session 3 that the resource system allowed you to take a small penalty to obtain equipment that made nearly every attribute of the PC redundant in vast quantity. Shoulder mounted, interfaced Hell pistols for everyone!

Quote from: Géza Echs;775751Talents are confusing, too. I made a list of the talents and their effects for myself and my wife, but I don't think everybody else quite gets what their Talents allow for (ours mostly gave bonuses and minuses during character creation, plus extra skills).

I recommend when listing them and their effects to group them by when they're used for. For example, Combat Talents, Skill Talents, Social Talents, etc. Make it easy to find the applicable talent in the applicable situation.

Talents which do not provide discrete bonuses or active abilities can just be listed together.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;776557I recommend when listing them and their effects to group them by when they're used for. For example, Combat Talents, Skill Talents, Social Talents, etc. Make it easy to find the applicable talent in the applicable situation.

Talents which do not provide discrete bonuses or active abilities can just be listed together.

Thanks! We've all started building cheat-sheets for ourselves (the psyker's lists his mental powers, the master of coin lists his sneaky abilities, etc), but this will help streamline everything.

Speaking of, though... What actual good is the Missionary class? What's their closest analogue? Swashbuckler? Party-buffing Bard? What?

I ask because I'm playing one, and their purpose, so far, seems to be 1) fun to play and 2) remind everyone that our characters exist within a fascist theocracy. But nothing ability- or talent-based.

Quote from: Géza Echs;776622I ask because I'm playing one, and their purpose, so far, seems to be 1) fun to play and 2) remind everyone that our characters exist within a fascist theocracy. But nothing ability- or talent-based.

That is pretty much it.  Basicly when it comes to Rogue Trader you got normal guy, tech guy, danger psyker guy, safe psyker guy, and faith user.  The normal guys branch off to different paths, but that is nothing special.

The missionary is a faith user and not a strong one either.  Though if you use Blood of the Martyers your missionary can become the weird space magic guy.  Still nothing compared to the walking fortress that is the tech priest.  Nor the mighty cannon that is the psyker.  Not even the army destroying navigator that is god like.  Seriously they can kill a entire army with a single glance.  That is nothing to laugh at.

The only weak careers are rogue trader, arch militant, seneschal, and void master.  The missionary with excellent fellowship, wisdom, and access to faith powers make him middle of the road.  Of course that is just raw mechanics.  Role playing every thing is different.

The role playing pecking order is the rogue trader barely on top and the astropath painfully on the bottom.  Void master, arch militant, and seneschal work for the rogue trader so you know where they stand.  The only one that can really challenge the rogue trader is the navigator and the missionary.  

Navigators are rare powerful beings that are the only ones that can guide the ships through warp space.  Without them there would be no Imperium and the Emperor would be fuck.  Which is why the Emperor made them.  So yeah you got a mutant psyker with divine rights and the only one to guide your ship through the warp.  Not to mention even the inquisition does not want to fuck with them.  Your rogue trader should be mindful of that.  Navigators are not replaceable.

The missionary is a follower of what is arguably the most powerful organization in Imperium.  Missionaries do not serve the rogue trader.  They may work with the rogue trader, but they are not servants that the rogue trader can lightly boss around.  To piss off a missionary is to piss off the followers of the faith which is also all of your crew.  Wise rogue traders remember this for they while they are the rulers of their dynasty and command fleets the missionary can turn the people against the rogue trader.  A rogue trader with no one to command is no rogue trader at all.  Thankfully unlike the navigator a skilled rogue trader could assassinate a missionary if things get to dicey.

Quote from: Géza Echs;776622Thanks! We've all started building cheat-sheets for ourselves (the psyker's lists his mental powers, the master of coin lists his sneaky abilities, etc), but this will help streamline everything.

Speaking of, though... What actual good is the Missionary class? What's their closest analogue? Swashbuckler? Party-buffing Bard? What?

I ask because I'm playing one, and their purpose, so far, seems to be 1) fun to play and 2) remind everyone that our characters exist within a fascist theocracy. But nothing ability- or talent-based.

Might want to check this thread out:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/39747-looking-for-character-advice-on-a-missionary/

I dont have the book in front of me, but I recall Missionaries getting bonuses vs. fear tests and against tough opponents like psykers and daemons (or at least having access to advances that give those). When facing Chaos, Xenos, Daemons they're the ones leading the charge. Get yourself a flamer and Burn The Unclean.

Make sure y'all add whatever positive modifiers you can, so that your characters don't suck so bad.

Starting characters tend to have about a 30-40% chance to succeed on the things they're trying to be good at, going just by their own skills and stats.  You need to remember your laser sight, and your aimed shot bonus, and your point-blank-gunshot modifier, and all that stuff, in order to get yourself up into the "more likely to succeed than not" range.  The bonuses are there.  The bonuses want to be used.  The bonuses want your character to succeed.

But you have to remember them.