Campaign Suggestions and expanding on ideas

[Leximoor 0]

Hello

 

I'm going to be gming a rogue Trader game and Gming for the first time, I've spent some time getting the players's characters generated, their documents and images ready, and spent some time getting an idea of what they want to do in the campaign. So far here are some of the suggestions from players

 

They wanted to or open to doing smuggling, but not much into piracy

 

Some want to get into Xeno Tech and Archeotech

 

 

 

And according to the Rogue Trader player he said

 

 

"I want to get a sector for the dynasty that runs within the rule of the Imperium"

 

 

 

 

I still feel, I'm honestly not sure how I could structure the campaign, can I have some ideas to help expand upon these suggestions.

 

 

Also since there won't be a Navigator Player which Warp Travel rules should I use for the campaign, Navis Primer or Core rulebook, and also should I give the group the chance to make warp charts and let them have profit factor from them?

 

 

So please any suggestions right now could be very helpful.

[Erathia 648]

So, a few comments on your statements.

 

1) Warp Time - If there's no PC Navigator, or even if there is, they don't have to be the ones doing Warp Jumps. Without a PC doing the jumps, you can decide how streamlined you want to make a Warp journey. You can take the time ideas from Navis Primer, you can look at a map and transform "distance" to "days" as you see fit, or you can just leave it as narratively appropriate. Using the books, a PC-charted warp journey can quickly derail an entire mission with one bad roll that leaves you halfway across the Expanse. Without a PC Navigator, you can do that once (mayyyybe twice) before your players stop wanting to go anywhere.

 

2) Should you allow your players to make Warp Charts if they aren't a PC Navigator? Depends. The Navigator house is making its own charts and selling them. A Navigator House does not serve a Rogue Trader, they enter into a business arrangement with that house. They could very well say that they'll guide them in exchange for charting out the Expanse for their own House, and that's that. Also to do charting involves going off of the well-travelled routes which can get... dangerous as noted above. 

 

3) Running a sector - This is a bit of an odd request, but I'm assuming he means he wants to bring a Sector into the Imperium (that's good!) and then run it himself (that's bad!). The Imperium creates Rogue Traders so they have people to function where there isn't an Imperium. Once everything obeys the Imperium, the Adeptus Terra sends its legion of tax collectors and they do their level best to take all the fun out of an entire sector. Also a Rogue Trader would never be made Lord Governor of a Sector, because then they wouldn't be Rogue Trading anymore. They stay on a planet and deal with politics, and that makes for a terrible RPG. If your players wants that to be the end goal, then that's the end of the campaign.

 

Are you playing in the Koronus Expanse? If so there's a simple reason why that place isn't part of the Imperium: A lot of Rogue Traders spend a lot of time making that an unprofitable idea compared to the alternative of playing ball with them.

[Leximoor 0]

in response to your points 

 

1, yea I could use the Navis Primer to get an good idea for warp time.

 

2. I'm thinking right now they don't get Profit factor for warp charts, but a npc navigator house agrees to give the group a copy of the warp charts on the condition they don't sell them, which as a Gm I shall try to control.

 

3. That's a good thing to look into more, I mean the group is into doing stuff like trade routes, smuggling, xeno tech and archeotech collecting. So I'll try to look into other ideas.

 

And yes we are playing in the Koronus Expanse but I'll do much later have the option for the group to be able to go to Calixis Sector but only in specific and rare cases.

[Erathia 648]

Outside of a Navigator, a PC has no use for a Warp Chart except to sell. You can say that your Navigator is making the charts and will be using them to make warp jumps easier, but they're not going to turn them over because the only use a Rogue Trader would have for that is sale, or for giving them to another Navigator House which would weaken the original's position.

 

For trade routes, you could start off small. Perhaps set up a trade route for food with Footfall or some other major organisation. Someone has found an old data entry indicating that a planet in an unmapped region would be suitable for Imperium-level food production. For a small cut of the profits, they'll give them the basic positioning for your players to travel there. Once there, you can either establish a colony or just sell the location of the planet for a small profit of their own. They might have to scout it out, which could introduce a threat in the form of a small Xenos race that must be pacified, or an archeotech base that has to be explored, or just another Rogue Trader looking to sell the same planet.

[Leximoor 0]

Ok I've had some talk with the group and so far the idea of making colonies for the dynasty is on their mind right now, which subsector should I look to finding some suitable generated system to make for this idea to take off.  

 

Any Suggestions?

[Erathia 648]

A brief breakdown of the "regions" inside of the Koronus Expanse

 

The Cauldron - This is what you run into when you exit from the Maw into the Koronus Expanse. It's been pretty thoroughly explored by Rogue Traders, and there are likely a large number of existing colony worlds, or at least bases, for Rogue Traders and pirates to set up.

Winterscale's Realm - The most profitable worlds have been claimed by Winterscale, and setting up colonies here if they get too profitable will probably result in a visit by him, but it might also be one of the more politically interesting alliance scenarios.

The Foundling Worlds - Chorda attempted to turn this into her own Winterscale's Realm, but it all fell apart. Lots of abandoned efforts in here, so an enterprising Rogue Trader could pick up the pieces. Slight Chaos infestation.

Ragged Worlds - Galactiaclly North of Winterscale's Realm, this is a tucked away corner of Winterscale's Realm that recently underwent a huge prospecting rush by Rogue Traders, that seems like it's starting to not pan out.

Heathen Worlds - Lots of worlds suitable for human life, already populated by humans unenlightened by the Imperial Truth. This would be a good one if you want lots of interactions with feral tribes of primitives whose Gods fear the Emperor.

Cinerus Maleficum - A largely unexplored frontier, yet still close enough that there might be some stories or plot hooks here. Unfortunately you will be rather close to the next section.

Accursed Demesne - Your problems start with the small Orkish empire in your borders. They probably get worse from there.

Unbeholden Reaches - Almost completely uncharted. Here be monsters.

[Leximoor 0]

So from that list you mentioned, and talking to the group,  I think the best place right now would Cinerus Maleficum since its conveniently in the center of the expanse but also near potential threats to the Group's plans of expansion. However I think the group would be either wanting to explore stuff southwards to the unbeholden reaches or the Foundling Worlds, or maybe take on a Rival Dynasty for power like in the Winterscale's realm.  

 

Any other advice you can suggest Erathia?

[Erathia 648]

Try to use Footfall as a useful base of operations to start from. It depends on how in-depth they want to do the actual rules of colony building, so at some point you just have to jump in and then tailor things to your group. How we did our first colony setup

 

1) Secure a food source. My group did this by founding an Agri-World, but you could do it on a small scale. They allied with a Magos Biologis who had some "unique" ideas on how best to cultivate food, which won her trust by hunting for some various Xenos species that could be found in the expanse. Once done, she helped set up the world that would keep your colony fed. 

2) Find colonists - Depending on the type of colony you want to found you need people to actually live there. If you want a Shrine world, perform some sort of retrieval of an Imperial relic. Founding a fortress? Go fight some Orks or do something impressive. Just a general colony? Find a treasure horde to make it look like you're fabulously wealthy. Convince people that they WANT to go live under your eternal domain.

3) Defenses - You're either going to need to find some more ships (which are itself expensive) or ally with some mercenary companies to keep your forces secure. Either spend a lot of money at the Breaking Yards (and survive the experience) to get your fleet up to snuff, or get drawn into a gang war to get your defenses.

4) Pick a kid in the park to play with - You're going to need to establish relationships with ONE of the major powers. If you have Edge of the Abyss there are five good Rogue Traders to mention, but you should at least nominally establish relations with one of them to legitimize your worlds and keep your power base secure.

 

The more work they put into founding the colony, the more contacts they will have that they can leverage and exploit, and the more invested (hopefully) they will be. That's what my group of players did, and it would also help if you have a basic Wiki, like I do on ObsidianPortal, to track all of these characters.

[Leximoor 0]

Ok this has been very helpful and those ideas you listed now and before will help a lot thanks!

 

Another thing, I'm planning to maybe have some major Rogue Trader dynasties out to challenge their Dynasty's power but as well as finding Xeno tech, making a colony and a mighty fleet. What should I look into as a campaign wise, like should i have a major threat? a common enemy of the Imperium? Or what should I include as an incentive to make a large fleet and find xeno tech to use for to combat said threat.

 

Is there a topic that can help with this or do you have ideas with this? Since if I get this sorted all that's left is to put the campaign together

[Erathia 648]

Representing a Rogue Trader's sphere of influence can be tricky. Certainly someone like Winterscale has more Thrones at their disposal than you could believe possible, but they also have to spend that on keeping their system defense fleets operational, exploring new business ventures, bribing Adeptus officials and keeping their best officers well-paid (or the people holding them hostage well-paid) or they'll lose them. If you just take the rules as they are written, you'll find your players are going to shoot up the profit factor ladder very, very fast. Especially when it comes to fleets, I say that keeping a ship active represents a permanent drain on Profit Factor depending on its class, so that having a fleet also feels like an appropriately expensive prize.

 

As for a Major Threat, I would hold off on them because right now your players shouldn't be able to fight off a Major Threat. Just have them run up against a few small scale enemies of different types, see who your players like fighting against best (if possible try to have some survive the first encounter), and then develop the best among your players into their recurring nemesis. You never know who players are going to latch onto as being behind everything, so don't try to force a nemesis on them. Let the hate grow organically.