Pretty important to have the books before you think about running a game.

Not necessarily.  The desire often comes before purchase.  I want to run a game of... therefore I want to buy the books.

Sorry.  I'm extremely negative at the moment so it's tainting the way I look at things.  The game felt like a good idea this morning.

About the only way I can see it working with your intital concept would be a bit of...flashback/pre-history combined with some accomodating players who would all be connected through the Rogue Traders family.

The initial startup would have personalities but you'd be playing the great-great-great-grand parents that decided to commission a new ship for the Dynasty.  In a number of short scenes you'd leap through time (and people) as they make decisions about the ship based on their influence and assets...kinda like giving a pseudo storyline to the ship through the histories of the player characters ancestors decisions.

Then when it gets to the ship being christened and taking to the Void you'd have the 'present day' crew all decendents of the ones that were part of the cadre that advised and served the Roge Traders ancestors.  It'll give you the bit of story as well as help solidify the crew through background of service...which is where the accomodation would have to come in with the players considering their similar service.  There of course is flexibility in they could have served on other ships/endeavours leading up to the game but they would have been tied into the Family.  Theoretically it could make for a really tight crew that helps push things along well...or you'll have a bunch of resentful players if they don't all agree up front on some of the basic bits.

*shrugs*

Could be really cool or crash and burn hard.

Or, you could have the players as their characters planning a ship for the dynasty, then through some sort of warp incident or cryogenics accident, they're flung forwards in time a century or two, in order to take possession of their ship.

Also true :D

While building the ship from the ground up would take far too long, another option is that they could be repurposing a vessel, so while they would have lots of options of outfitting and shaping the final outcome, there would be a lot of choices.  So more like buying (or being given) a fixer-upper than building one new.

I only GM'ed RT once, and I ran the promo adventure, it's sequel and then started in on the adventure that came with the GM's screen before the game fizzled.  I altered the adventures somewhat and had lots added in to flesh them out.  One of the big motivations of the game however was when they came upon a derelict cruiser rather than loot and leave, they were very intent on salvaging the ship and rebuilding it.  This became an endeavor on its own, running parallel with the other main plot lines.  So they first had to find a way to get it back to where it could be repaired, and then salvage and/or finance parts and labor.  Their original vessel was a raider, and while they never got their crusier void worthy, it was something that motivated them to work towards.

At first I discouraged them a bit, or at least made it clear that it wasn't going to be easy to do, but when they put so much effort into it, it was clear that this is the path they wanted to pursue, sometimes more than the standard plot hooks for the adventure I was running them through.  It also made void combat fun because while they wanted to defeat enemy vessels, they also had their eyes one what might be usable for their other ship.

While I have played RT the least of the four systems, I think it has the most potential for being a player driven game, and the most open to an epic campaign.  I also think it would be the most difficult to run on RPoL, though I haven't had enough experience with all of the systems here to say for sure.

I suppose in part what might be driving me is the practice and theory is that, from the Ciaphas Cain novels (and Titanicus, which I am rereading), the ships, battlecruisers, escorts and similar probably had battle honours and histories older than the regiments they were carrying and I wanted to reflect part of that onto the players by making them care about the vessel that made all their adventures possible.  The only way I could see of doing that was by making it "theirs".

I agree, the ship Should be a character in it's own right, and not just something to get the crew from point to point.

Can't really say much more, as I've not been in a Rogue Trader game yet that gets very far (Or at the least, my characters inevitably wind up being useless because of my infamously bad dice luck).  It's something I'd like to try sometime though.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:06, Sun 11 Mar 2012.

I'm looking forward to this: http://www.fantasyflightgames....e_news.asp?eidn=3133

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Kabaltie Warrior as a career. As a Dark Eldar player this is great, but I don't know how it would fit into a semi normal crew.

Probably wouldn't, Dark Eldar are probably the Least crossoverable race in the setting.  They actually have to be torture-loving maniacs or they're killed by THE CORRUPTION.

True.

I'm interested in it for the background material not much for the option of playing one. I doubt the career is diverse enough to make a whole command crew of a ship, but who knows.

I really don't see them a long term crew on a Trader ship. As mentioned, they need to feed on agonies of others or wither and be harvested by SLaanesh.

I agree, having an ork Freebooter aboard is much better than having a Dark Eldar running about. At least with the ork you can keep him from killing things by tossing him some teef, junk, or copious amounts of beer if he gets too hyper.

Though it might make it easier to rejigger it to have a PC Craftworld Outcast/Corsair.

Or you know, some way of making a race actually playable in an RP that isn't what amounts to grimdark Paranoia.

Seriously, even the fragging Necrons got redone to be three-dimensional in some ways.  Dark Eldar as written are a one dimensional race that's forced by the universe to continue being one dimensional supervillains.

I thought their last Codex did a lot to make them more interesting but as-is they're fairly straightforward, yes.

I agree that Corsair makes much more sense as a Career and I'm surprised they didn't include it along with Kroot and Orks. But it's certainly simple enough to houserule.

Finally the Senior Cardinal Ignato finds something useful to do with the heretic spies of google earth, fun for all aboard hovering over the cowering masses!

http://www.voidstate.com/rpg/40k_ship_visualizer/

That is actually amazing! Thanks for sharing =D.

So just throwing this out there, I haven't run any numbers yet on the viability of this: How well would a rogue trader arena game be received where each player starts with a set amount of points to buy and outfit their ship with, a set amount of PF, and the arena is space battles only? There'd be no PCs, only the ship.

The rules would need to be houseruled to Mathhammer combat rules, which most of you are familiar with. If not, find them on the FFG Rogue Trader forums. This would keep battles from being "I go first, I win".

The players would only have enough points to start off with a smaller craft such as a Raider. They'd need to slowly increase their PF to buy bigger ships. There'd also be some sort of trade-in value system for getting rid of your current ship to buy a new one.

Just brainstorming here.

Why not use the good old tried and proven game of the Battlefleet Gothic system?
Not that I would participate mind you, just sugesting.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:34, Tue 03 July 2012.

I would have said, and would play, BFG (but got beaten to it - cheers Gwen). It has the added bonus if being less complicated, free and a deicated space combat system. Vassal has a module for it, but it can just as easily be played on a grid or homemade map.

Not to mention the fact you take away a vital part of the game. Mainly being the biggest space bastard you can be.

Arenas aren meant for much RP. And key reason for not using BFG is that I've never played it.

With free rules, maybe now's a good time to start.

Seeing as how there's no 40k presence in my area of residence, there'd be no real purpose to learning BFG. It sucks... that's the only reason I play on RPoL.

Why not play on rpol then?

From what I've seen, there's not as much customization to BFG ships as RT ships. BFG you get a bunch of ships that anyone else could have. RT you actually get to customize each individual ship. I could be wrong, but this is what I've gathered from my hour or two spent looking over some BFG material.