How did you sell Rogue Trader to your group?

[HeavensThunderHammer 8]

Just out of curiousity, how did you sell RT to your group?

I'm curious how to succinctly sum up it's best points into a brief but gripping "sale".

[Badlapje 4]

Sandbox, spaceships, aliens, psychic powers, Daemons, Evil Gods.usoPreviewPopup

 

[Tantavalist 36]

My general summing up of Rogue Trader usually went like:-

"It's a bit like the classic Star Trek theme of heading out into unknown space to explore, finding the strange and wonderful in the dangerous Stellar Frontier. But when you find some 'strange lifeforms and new civilisations', you'll be acting more like the Spanish Conquistadores or the British East India Company. No Prime Directive, in fact you're obliged by the terms of your charter to subjugate humans and exterminate non-humans in the name of the God-Emperor of Mankind."

Maybe it just says something about my players, but that was all it took to sell the idea to them.

[Telosse 1]

 A friend of mine once said that I could sell ice to eskimo...  

Well, the fact was that I only collected a group of bored players (bored of other systems, bored of other games) and offered them a new campaign using a new system and a new setting. And that worked.

[Trooperist 0]

Like Dark Heresy, but you start with better stats, better equipment, and your own spaceship complete with tens of thousands of crew that follow your orders.

That sold them pretty quickly.

[MARVIN THE ARVN 2]

Well,

It depends on their play style and wants....

I sold it to one player as a big scale empire building game as he didnt want to play the typical tramp freighter hauling cargo type adventures. Knowing this I aimed the campaign in that direction and (I think) he's having a great time.

Another player really wanted to be the XO of a star/war-ship, so he's now the XO and gets to make all the difficult decisions  

 

[Alasseo 66]

 I just gave them a sample piece of dialog:

"Do you have a flag? No flag, no planet, them's the rules. I have a flag, and a ruddy great starship poised to rain nuclear fire down on your pathetic little world!"

[HeavensThunderHammer 8]

Thanks for the info guys, this is a great help. I've play with a few groups, and some are more skeptical than others. One guy I said,"Space Pirates/Privateers" and he was sold. Seriously, 3 words.

[Badlapje 4]

i'd be sold by that as well  

[Macharias the Mendicant 2]

Space Pirates is what I've called Rogue Trader since our first session.

[Aaron Foss 500]

We all know the background, and we knew that the game was coming out. I don't think we used any words at all - it was simply understood that once we had a clear slot in our respective gaming schedules, that we'd be playing RT.

[Deadline247 0]

Described it as a combination of Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean, and death metal.

[vastrix 3]

 Stood at the street corner with the books under my jacket. Told 'em I had the "goods" and offered up a couple pages as a sample, but if they liked the free sample then they would have to pay up and play  or not

[Braddoc 112]

vastrix said:

 Stood at the street corner with the books under my jacket. Told 'em I had the "goods" and offered up a couple pages as a sample, but if they liked the free sample then they would have to pay up and play  or not

 

Yeah- first time is always free.

Then they get hooked and need it to live.

Then you charge them for your GM-ing services

???

Profit

[Lyinar 0]

 Looks like others have had my idea on summarizing Rogue Trader.

"It's the Grim Darkness of the Far Future from Warhammer 40k, with a fair amount of Star Trek's 'boldly going' and bits of Pirates of the Caribbean folded into it.  Oh, and you're the command staff of a 4.5km long ship with 65,000 crew and its own fleet."

[Lord Steel 0]

Much begging Nuff said

[BossTroll 11]

My Pitch: Hey guys, RT has been released, roll up some characters and lets start

response: YAY! < group rolls up characters>

Easy as falling of a log ;-)

[Erretnorb 0]

For my current RT campaign (starting friday) it can be summed up by this

Me: You guys liked Dark Heresy didn't you

Players: Yeah.......

Me: Well remeber when we tried to play Rogue Trader

Players: We try not to but yeah.........

Me: Would you guys fancy another go?

Players: Nah I'll give it a miss.....

Me: X and Y won't be playing.....

Players: Well maybe......

Me: Oh and I'm banning PC navigators due to the..... "incident"

Players: What time and where?

 

Pretty much the same discussion with every player in my group

[Xagroth 2]

 Mine has been like this:

Me .- Battlefleet Koronus has been published and has rules for ship's squadron combat, space-to-planetary surface combat, and war (acquiring troops, military endeavours, etc...).

Players .- Well, we have a Deathwatch campaign, not to mention the Haarlok we wanted to start...

Me.- You can make a crusade if you want...

Player 1.- I'll do it.

Conclussion: we are planning to "re-play" the crusade to take the Calixis Sector (since there is so much info about it in the books), most likely with each player having a military faction while the GM has 4-5. For the moment, I've been thinking each players "fleet" should be made using 500 or so profit points (without acquisition rolls, spending them, and this includes void fighters and bombers). While this looks like too much, consider there are rules about craftmanship for components, and that damaged ships have to be repaired while stuff continues going on.
I'm trying to decide how much acquisition points will we have for ground troops, the rank of the "player's avatar", and making some Excel tables for quick reference of the profit spending process (a table for ship hulls with characteristics, another for past histories and backgrounds, another for weapons, another for components, another for space craft, another for planetary troops...).

Fortunately, it won't be me the one GM'ing this, so... ^^
 

[TheMadGM 0]

"I just got that Rogue Trader preview adventure downloaded off the site since they posted it, want to try it as a break from (other game)?"

"Sure!"

We haven't stopped playing since.

[Guest Not In Sample]

First get a bong then begin...

God is on earth hooked up to life support and his empire which is basically a cross between soviet russia and medival europe in space is the single must brutal totalitarian regime the universe has ever seen, these people are the good guys because everyone else either worships satanor is some sort of terrifying slime monster that wants to maim and enslave you and because everyone is so bigotted ignorant and generally stupid technology is considerd magic.  This is the single worst possible timeperiod you could ever have been born in for most people but not for you.  You are a multi-billionare with a city sized ship that sails through the stars using an alternate universe which is like an ocean made out of your worst nightmares all of which want to eat your soul.

If this is over their head just tell them it's pirates of carribian in space.

Show them a bunch of pictures while doing this and i'm pretty sure they will be dying to start a game.  The less they know about the setting the better because it will actually suprise them when the magic sword their using is actually slowly enslaving and degrading thier soul. 

 

[Guest Not In Sample]

Did I mention EVERYONE in this universe is a total badass?  Cause everyone totally is.  You aren't considerd a man yet untill you've pillaged and burned a few civilizations or blown up a planet or two.

[Shadowspaz 0]

I'm currently Working on getting a group of people who have never played 40k or rpg involving the 40k universe. They are just a group of D&D players, however I knew just how to reel 'em in. I showed them pictures of Tyrannids, Orks, Heritics, Space Marines, Psykers, Mutants, and Xenos. This group loves how brutal the 40K universe is. After showing them all these things, I simple said. SPACE PIRATES.

[Guest Not In Sample]

Here's a website with a ton of great art for 40k some of it's even thir most famous pictures (Like the Ahirahm the Soceror of the Thousand Son's) in colour which tend to be hard to find.   Also if your playing the 40k game i find it's great to play up the horror aspect alot, if your wanting to get them really into the game dark eldar make a great first enemy to fight of chaose reavers attacking a colony are really cool.  In any case what ever you do heres the website, it's got more then a couple gems on it!

www.moddb.com/groups/warhammer-40k-fans-group/images/ordo-xenos-witchhunter#imagebox

Good luck wtih the campaign!

[HeavensThunderHammer 8]

So at my Ars Magica session we were having a slower planning session than lots of RP... And I had some other RPG books out.

 

One player just looks at the cover of Rogue Trader core book and is sold. He says, "Wow. This game has everything in it, spaceships, retro-renaissance guns, cool armor, crazy cyborg octopus guy and.... ****."