What's been your experience with this system? I'm about to run a campaign for it and I want your stories! Also starscapes, if you've got them. I like to make my own maps and I need a proper background to wow the audience.
>>94397661Have had several campaigns in it, used to be the most popular system for my play group by far. Main advice would be to avoid letting the party become a xeno-fest; the same way one guy is the RT, only let one guy play a xeno.
>>94397661It's a shitton of fun, if your group understands how it's supposed to work. Rogue Traders are not the good guys, they are not righteous, they are exploitative, opportunistic, and ruthless.
>>94397661Give players a way to stay active during every part of the game, or have players that are okay taking a smoko if they picked the wrong career and a void battle pops up or something. Not every career will have something relevant to do in every encounter, that's just how the game's designed, so keep it in mind when running. You could mitigate this by giving players a henchman in the vein of Only War or Ars Magica, a lesser character that they can switch to when they otherwise wouldn't be able to participate in a useful way, or you could just encourage players to find creative ways to influence the scenario with their given toolkit. Some careers are also overpowered by design, i.e. psykers and navigators are going to ruin anything they look at, if they didn't go out of their way to avoid those powers. Just something to keep in mind as well.
>>94397661As long as your group understands that you are not in this to be nice, but to make disgusting amounts of money and be ruthless. Exploitative, colonising if necessary. That's the point of the game.
>>94397661>What's been your experience with this system?I love it, it’s my favourite game to run. It’s also quite shit if I’m being honest.Be prepared for a lot of book keeping and houserules because you are going to find parts of the system you absolutely hate dealing with and parts you love.I love ship combat but in my experience a lot of people absolutely despise it. You’ll find similar opinions on the endeavour system, warp jump rules, and various other little things.You’re going to fuck things up a lot probably forever. I’ve been playing for close to a decade and still have to refer back to the books frequently because there’s a lot of information to remember.
>>94397661I'm playing in a rogue trader campaign now and having a great time.One simple houserule I'd recommend is to bump up the damage of plasma and melta weapons. They're shit compared to bolters.
>>94397661>I want your stories!What is it with people saying this lately?
>>94398168>bump up the damage of plasma and melta weapons. They're shit compared to bolters.RT Bolters can't do fuck.Shot-for-shot, Melta does double the damage and penetration.Plasma has maximal firing mode, and you give it to an expendable minion instead of firing it yourself.
>>94397661your ship is crewed by galley slaves and strange tribes that have never gone of the ship even once in their lives (the only difference between these two groups is the slaves get whipped and the tribals don't). so honestly you can just disregard the crew of the ship.Nobles are all evil bloodthirsty cunts that only care about their own amusement that hunt poorfags for sport (and yes the Imperium is okay with this) and eat lavish banquets for every meal as the impoverished masses toils and starves beneath themnormies don't matter they are all mere redudant cogs in the machinery that keeps the imperium running and you shouldn't get any silly ideas that these "people" deserve rights or better living conditionsdon't piss of the Mechanicus since they maintain all the complex stuff on your ship (and don't try and train your own crew to do these tasks since that's tech-heresy and they might just straight up kill you over it :D)you are rogue traders so you can actually talk, trade, and yes even fuck Xenos and the inquisition can't really do anything unless they can prove you are prioritising xenos above the imperiumand don't forget it's profit above all else! also if you want your players to do something specific to get the game going then it's perfectly okay and canon to just put in a stipulation in their Warrant of Trade that they have to say make sure every planet in X sector is under Imperium control
>>94398168Whatever you're smoking should be shared.
>>94398222Great writeup. >your ship is crewed by galley slaves and strange tribes that have never gone of the ship even once in their lives (the only difference between these two groups is the slaves get whipped and the tribals don't). so honestly you can just disregard the crew of the ship.Adding to this, there's some piece of fluff that describes a rivalry between two tribes that man adjacent macro-cannons. They have never left the ship and tens of generations of their ancestors have lived and died aboard the ship without ever setting foot on solid ground.
>>94398204>>94398249Perhaps he’s specifically referring to the heavy bolter which is the most broken and disgusting weapon ever designed even after getting nerfed. You are doing yourself a disservice not having a team cart one everywhere if you know you’ll be fighting.
>>94397661My most run system, and my favourite concept among the 40k games. The actual rules are painfully incompetently written and I've got 20 pages of house rules trying to address that, but once you figure out how to run it, it's the most fun you'll ever have in space.>>94398015>I love ship combat but in my experience a lot of people absolutely despise it. You’ll find similar opinions on the endeavour system, warp jump rules, and various other little things.This guy is damned right. The game also lacks rules for a lot of things you'd expect to have, like scanning planets, building any kind of infrastructure, and many more. A common thing to note is that the navigator's eye blast only has a range, there's nothing saying it's a cone, even though that would be the natural assumption. Personally, I run it as a 360 degree effect, because it's funny to me that no one ever wants to stand within 15m of a navigator.>>94398168The trick is to use the Sunfury plasma gun (Inquisitor's Handbook, page 177). The only plasma gun in the 40k range that's anywhere close to what it should be. Get a micro version if you need a pistol.Alternatively, you can get two storm bolters with organgrinder rounds and just critfish all day. Personally I ban this, because I don't want to watch someone roll 100+ d10s per turn.>>94398222>the inquisition can't really do anythingThis is never a correct statement.>>94398312You'd pick a heavy bolter over an assault cannon?
>>94399592>A common thing to note is that the navigator's eye blast only has a range, there's nothing saying it's a coneIt hits everyone that looks into their third eye. You tell me how you imagine the shape of that on a 2d map.
>>94399592>You'd pick a heavy bolter over an assault cannon?Even after they buffed it in the errata, I might. Assault cannons are impact weapons rather than explosive.
>>94399606>You tell me how you imagine the shape of that on a 2d map.They can write real rules or they can go fuck themselves.
>>94399633>Assault cannons are impact weapons rather than explosiveWhat difference does that make, other than requiring one point more critical damage for an instant kill on some body parts?
>>94399646No offense, anon (we all know these books are written like shit), But common sense would be the eye blast only hits people who can see it.
>>94398195So they can be read by TTS and put into a tiktok/youtube video
>>94399647They get the extra hit for free that the assault cannon needed to be buffed with devastating (1) to compete with and on top of that get access to all the fancy bolter special ammo that assault cannons don’t.I also believe assault cannons have triple the reload time for only double the amount of shots you can fire before reloading.Rapid reload on a heavy bolter with hellfire or metal storm rounds is truly disgusting.
>>94399650>But common sense would be the eye blast only hits people who can see it.Common sense also dictates tech-priests should get their tubes stuck on every doorhandle they walk by. In a game that doesn't have facings, I'm not going to work out where everybody's looking and come up with an arbitrary cone size for this singular ability. Besides, it's a warp ability, so I have no issue saying it's visible through the back of the navigator's skull.
>>94399665>They get the extra hit for free that the assault cannon needed to be buffed with devastating (1) to compete with and on top of that get access to all the fancy bolter special ammo that assault cannons don’t.Are you actually referring to anything in RT? I know all this exists elsewhere.
>>94399665What extra hit are you talking about?>I also believe assault cannons have triple the reload time for only double the amount of shots you can fire before reloading.That only seems to apply to the astartes assault cannon, and that seems to be the only one with devastating, as well. I don't play Deathwatch, so I wouldn't know. I guess that's a fair enough point, although I don't think I've ever been in a fight with anything that could survive so many rounds from an assault cannon that it would need to be reloaded.
>>94399659Actually, it's because I understand that drawing from history is the best way to make a functional product. Knowing what worked, knowing what didn't, and getting inspiration to revise another's story. That kind of stuff. If you want to know the specifics of the campaign I have in mind, I really want to write a sort of New World Exodus story where the PCs are torn between their duty to the Primarch and the hunt for the legendary treasure that killed their father. It'll be set in the Eastern Fringe, since that's got the best variety of xenos to play around with as allies, antagonists and everything in between.
>>94399715Explosive weapons gain an automatic extra hit against hordes. That might seem like a niche Deathwatch issue but I’ve used hordes in Only War and Black Crusade too.
>>94399592>>the inquisition can't really do anything>This is never a correct statement.inquisitors that care about the rules* (lol fucking nerds) can't really do anything because part of said rules is that you are allowed to consort** with xenos*** if you have a warrant of trade*****as in the actual legal laws of the imperium of what constitutes heresy and treason**for the purpose of exploiting them for the Imperium's benefit (note: it's the inquisitor that will determine if you are interacting in an appropriate way with the xenos and not you unless you have a lot of influence and dakka)***does absolutely not include Tyranids****does not apply to all warrants
>>94399766You need a few more asterisks in there. Plenty of Rogue Traders have been burned alive in the Koronus Expanse for participating in the cold trade.
Has anyone ever tried playing as a Knight or armiger pilot using the Rogue trader system before?
>>94399791Yes, there’s two homebrews to pick from.Chivalry Intensifies and The Fringe is Yours. Chivalry Intensifies is more for Only War type games while the Fringe is Yours is balanced more around individuals like Rogue Trader, though they essentially do the same thing. I’ve personally only used the Fringe is Yours.Nothing inherently wrong with it and it’s fun but you need to balance carefully around giving the knight pilot an excuse to hop in his mech and take down a big target while not leaving the other players bored to tears and also occasionally getting him out of the knight.
>>94399766>>94399592>>94398222The Inquisition legally can't unless it's within the borders of the Imperium. Nothing stops them from waiting until that happens of course, then making their move. Or trying to do it before then, but it'd be dumb to try on a RT's own ship.So in theory Inquisitors can do as they please, while in practice an Inquisitor can be shoved out an airlock without a pressure suit. It's not about can they give orders, it's about do they have the pull and evidence to get the RT to do what they want. Remember Inquisitors technically can't just order Space Marine Chapters around either. But some can get away with it, and some can't. It's all down to circumstance and the chapter. RTs are the same.
>>94400024>in practice an Inquisitor can be shoved out an airlock without a pressure suit.Do your GMs really have inquisitors come up to you naked and alone to make demands? And then have the rest of the inquisition back off when you murder them? If it were me and the players started making enemies of the inquisition, they'd find their family members and business partners suddenly under investigation for heresy, their assets frozen, chartists captains "randomly searched", banking houses and administratum officials withdrawing lines of credit, obstructing transactions and generally making life difficult for them until the RT cooperates (read, profit factor dropping). And that's the inquisition being nice - go too far, and you'll wake up next to an eversor assassin.
>>94399756>and Black Crusade too.Horde rules are in BC. They're intended for use vs space marines, while OW has other rules.
>>94400414I really dislike the combat squad rules in Only War. They somehow manage to be even clunkier than the horde rules.
>>94400430Agreed, although I don't find the horde rules to be particularly clunky. They even allow armsmen to be actually useful in RT, which is nice.
>>94400136>And then have the rest of the inquisition back off when you murder them?The Inquisition isn't likely to notice if an Inquisitor vanishes anon, especially if they have no reason to know it's murder. There are powerful and well-known Inquisitors, and there are nobody Inquisitors. Only one of those can coerce a Rogue Trader into agreeing - some of them, anyway, because some dynasties are simply too powerful or established to push around for the same reason that some Space Marine chapters can be pushed around and some can't.
>>94400024>The Inquisition legally can't unless it's within the borders of the ImperiumThey absolutley can. It's just no one will know that Rogue Trader fired upon him instead of following order. Inquisitors usually work within Imperium tho, only Ordo Xeno, work outside Imperium's borders.>Remember Inquisitors technically can't just order Space Marine Chapters around either. They can and they do, just most Inquisitors know that diplomacy works better on both Marines and Mechanicus because when they start making demands, it is met but there are often dificulties and red tape making compliance with inquisitor's demand slow af. And of course Inquisitors have other Inquisitors as rivals, meaning he can be overruled and have to watch himself.If you want curious combo you can be Inquisitor and Rogue Trader at the same time, usually it's done by Ordo Xenos, to work "undercover" and infiltrate xeno societies outside Imperium's borders, they have both rosete and warrant of trade.
>>94402804>The Inquisition isn't likely to notice if an Inquisitor vanishes anon, especially if they have no reason to know it's murder.Oh yeah, this guy went off to investigate a rogue trader, and now he's gone. What a mystery, I wonder what happened. Guess we'll never find out, it's not like it's our job to investigate stuff.If you are so dumb that you openly pick a fight with someone more powerful than you, on his own turf, and you have zero contingency plans in case you fail, you'd have to be a complete idiot and should never have been made an inquisitor in the first place.>Only one of those can coerce a Rogue Trader into agreeingAny inquisitor can take a bunch of navy ships and waste a rogue trader. It's not that hard.
>>94399756Only extra one hit if you're using the errata
>>94398195Nogames having nothing to contribute and wanting others to fill the content void. It's a minor miracle that this thread is about an actual game for once.
