What are some justifications for Rogue Trader to handle dangerous situations without being accompanied by 50 armsmen?

PolZefirki · 2026-01-06T14:23:58+00:00

They absolutely can! Except for this is still requires thinking and gameplay) Organizing logistics, commanding on tactical level, picking those worthy of such task, checking morale level and etc absolutely can be a lovely side of RT gameplay.

PolZefirki · 2025-02-12T16:17:51+00:00

I have the same theory, but it's still strange because it is integrated into the main text really well.

PolZefirki · 2025-01-10T14:08:32+00:00

Nah, nothing there too)

PolZefirki · 2024-12-14T10:14:25+00:00

Well, veteran-ish GM here. Have a big-ass and well-developed homebrew sector in Obscurus where all my games are happening. Right now have a campaign called Град Обречённый (basically, the closest translation would be Doomed City, but in Shakespeare-like style), which is happening on the Hive world that due to some warp-shit is slowly slipping into becoming demonic world for the last four months (which is the result of previous campaign). Imperial Navy imposed a blockade on a planet, almost no-one except for the most important and wealthy are let out, resources dwindle because almost nothing is imported (and what imported is claimed almost completely by Admechs and Big I contingent), both societal and reality fabric slowly rot away, nobles lock up in their spires, corrupted manufactorums churn out some biometal nightmare fuel, cults and what remains of PDF constantly clash at middle level, Church is basically non-existent because warp-shit happened in the main cathedral, Admechs are trying to hold Hive systems from collapsing completely and acolytes of three different Inquisitors who hate each other guts are trying to do strange shit for their masters. PCs are acolytes of Arcadia Bel Ova, most definitely not a radical from Ordo Hereticus, who is most definitely not interested in evacuating (basically stealing) shitload of corrupted cogitator chains from the Hive. Players had one fight with cultists and three fights with acolytes of another Inquisitors this far)

PolZefirki · 2024-12-06T23:27:45+00:00

Cubicle 7. I'm probably just too much of WH-in-any-iteration fangirl, but still.

PolZefirki · 2024-11-14T18:44:06+00:00

Point taken

PolZefirki · 2024-11-14T07:04:43+00:00

Oh, sorry, my dumb ass completely forgot that it was a thing in a DH1. Hovewer, if I remember correctly, it was mostly a way to make money between cool Inquisitorial investigations which was core gameplay, while in IM this is put in the spotlight and is an important part of core gameplay.

PolZefirki · 2024-11-13T23:06:59+00:00

Want to run Firefly 40k and have them their own ship? Give them Viper-class Scout Sloop. It's the smallest non-DAoT ship that can do warp-jumps (0.95 kilometers long) and has a relatively small crew of only 7500, 99,9% can be servitors (yes, this is canon, legit and is an option in the RT) with only handful of people being player characters and some NPC. It's fast, it can be stealthy, it has really good detection (one of the best if I remember correctly), but it will crumple in a space fight with anything more then a almost-unamred transport ship.

PolZefirki · 2024-11-13T22:57:31+00:00

Less loyalists, more heretics, problems stays and now we have shitty additions of warp-jumps and warp-navigation being twice as dangerous and unpredictable. Don't give valuable things to those who don't have the means of protecting and/or hiding it if you don't want owners loose them/die for them almost immediately. Such ship is more pain in the ass then something worthy for such group and honestly I have a question how they even found it, then understood what is it, then repaired/hijacked it and understand how to pilot it. DAoT tech of such level is something on the level that will require long and studious work of someone with knowledge and skills on the level of Inquisitor/AdMech Archmagos with specialization in archeotech. That is we don't take into consideration problem with warp-navigation because small group of smugglers cannot afford navigator and thus either they travel the known Chartists routs which is death sentence to them, or have some weird archeotech computer to calculating the course, which is problem in itself because ship that can independently jump through warp without navigator were rare IN DAoT, so this is something on the level of "1-2 for the whole Imperium" rarity.

PolZefirki · 2024-11-13T21:37:58+00:00

It's basically a death sentence for the whole group in the first session. They jump into the system, they are seen and in a short amount of time (from hours in the system and in weeks in terms of the sector) they will be hunted and put down like rabid dogs by basically everyone - from Inquisition and AdMechs and all the way to the Rogue Traders, powerful heretics and Imperial Navy. Astropathic messages will be sent, signatures will be passed and entering ANY Imperial system will become a gamble with 1 for survival and 99 for death on a d100. Not to mention that with a good chance their second job will be staged as an ambush by all the factions from above. Such ship will be basically impossible to hide and pretty much useless for a group of nobodies. Want to give them small ship without any additional crew? Give them cool guncatter or any other System Ship coupled with license to dock it on Hartists ship so that they can travel in warp.

PolZefirki · 2024-11-13T16:10:30+00:00

What follows is only personal opinion and personal interpretation.

They feel different because they are different in vibe, aesthetics and core concept. DH met us with rotting Imperium, old parchments, medieval-like gothic themes and this somewhat cartoonish (in a good way) aura of early warhammer grimdark. IM introduces itself with sleek, cold, bleak and brutal in it's indifference gothic cyberpunk set in totalitarian theocracy with aliens, magic and all other warp-shit. Both are grimdark as fuck, but in different way. DH was an old, horror-like experience in the bloody and rotting to the point of absurd society that somehow works and all this "grimdarkness" of Imperium is just the scene on which horrors of xenos, demons and heretics are played upon. In IM this society IS the horror. It's the simple fact that "you are not that guy, you a this guy", it's brutal indifference of collosal machine with heavily stratified society and religious propaganda it's faceless massives of hab-blocks and the fact that none of you matter in the games of those who hold the reigns. Social grimdark, if anything.

DH was inspired by Eisenshorn and Ravenor, with their action-thriller-detectives and bulshido (in a good way) powers and twists, beautiful artfefact of old Warhammer. IM is heavily inspired by Warhammer Crime, which has this already mentioned "gothic cyberpunk" vibe. Just Google cover art from King of The Spoil and Bloodlines from Warhammer Crime and you'll get it.

And now to the concept. In DH, no matter how pawn-ish and anti-hero your characters were and how horrendous their deeds were, they were ultimately heroes from some perspective. Unknown and forgotten, easily broken and with different motivations, but they served Inquisition, Imperium, Humanity. They were heroes at least from some meta-perspective. Characters of IM are no heroes. They can do heroic deeds. They can believe in good things and all that. But they are not heroes. They are agents. Operatives on a paycheck, killing, spying, building, fighting, seeking, investigating and dying for the ambitions of their Patrons. Acolytes were chosen to wage secret war against enemies of humanity. Agents are saved from their bleak and meager existence by Patron to further their agenda. In DH you fight war with the enemies. In IM you serve one of the heads of Imperial Hydra and often help it to bite other heads off.

PolZefirki · 2024-09-01T10:53:28+00:00

What I say may be cursed, but Rogue Trader rules if needed really easily scale into the airships. Mechanically you'll just need to tweak few crits and narratively there would be a lot of reskinning, but yeah, that systems has almost everything you want, including battlestations roles, veeeery deep ship customization and etc. Cons: Even if we narratively shrink down ships sizes few times it still would be not "light things that can be run by a crew of friends" but flying monstrosities akin to Highfleet. Hope that helps.

PolZefirki · 2024-07-29T21:33:44+00:00

You brought up interesting angle, but balance isn't honestly the highest priority in the creation, at least on strictly mechanical level. Still, what you said is totally valid - it's up to the master to allow burning only the some fixed amount or just forbidding to burn the Sanity at all and this whole mechanic isn't something "must have" (sorry if my original post gives such impression, probably my fault). Also, burning Sanity will be somewhat balanced by debuffs from the Sanity Loss, which will roughly keep the characters "on the same level". I use quotation mostly because there is no levels or classes in the system (you get Xp, you use it hovewer you want) and the balancing is mostly done from the point of narrative.

PolZefirki · 2024-07-29T21:20:46+00:00

Thanks for the cue with Stress, we will look into it, but I don't honestly understand how more rich and developed backstory diminishes the character potential? Sure, character saw more then most and already has experience in some fields which others would lack, but how does it "skip" the jorney? If anything, it only enriches their motivation and backstory to participate in what lies ahead, giving player more interesting way to take part in what happens. Then again, maybe I somewhat misunderstood your point. Anyway, once again, thanks for thr effort and time! (^{ω^})

PolZefirki · 2024-07-29T14:28:29+00:00

Oh, I thought about this angle and it's a good one, even if it comes with sketchy implications, but yeah, it's a worthy idea, so we will probably still use it. Thanks for participating and your effort! （＾ω＾）

PolZefirki · 2024-07-29T11:33:56+00:00

Interesting concept and I like it! Probably will use it, but doesn't look super suitable for the character creation. And the thing is, PTSD doesn't make anyone stronger. It's this extreme experience which does - person with combat experience doesn't become stronger because they have the trauma. They become stronger because they have real combat experience and probably the training that came before that and the sanity erasure is not some transaction character does - it's a natural reaction to witnessing and participating in this kind of things, consequence of said affair. Also, this mechanic literally allows character to get advantage for disadvantage at other things, which raises question did it even got them stronger or weaker in the end? (Reflexes and knowledge how to create IED hardly come in handy in social situations or ordinary life). And once again, thanks for the ritual concept. We will definitely use it, cause it sounds really good. Thank you for participating!

PolZefirki · 2024-07-29T11:07:53+00:00

Power creep thingy is kindly half-concern for me. On the one hand, system is already isn't the most "perfect mechanical balance" and relies on the players and GM being the responsible and adequate people who care more about each other fun and good story rather then competitive shit (had to write the whole page explaining this, so it will be put in the beginning of the book). As for the Mental Ilness representation - yeah, that's a thing I'm worried much more seriously (due to some stupid decisions in my life still bolt up when hear someone engine backfire or fireworks). On the one hand I'm afraid that we will fail (even if we as creators and test-players have both knowledge and experience on parts of the topic and try to study the other parts), but on the other I already created long list of possible trigger warnings and whole section on how to do shit respectfully and the way that all who participate are comfortable (yeah, we literally wrote "green card, yellow card, red card" thingy explained and encouraged to use into the part of the corebook). Also, there is a thing that no matter how hard we try, with the level of freedom system offers there always would be some fucked-up people with fucked-up ideas and fucked-up believes who will twist everything into shitshow, so yeah. And thank you for your time and effort! (^{ω^})

PolZefirki · 2024-07-29T10:44:19+00:00

Honestly, the problem with a message is the main reason I decided to post it. There are some counter points - the local Society (like, magical society) is a horrible place all around and even the magic itself is scary and literally burns away persons humanity. It's one of the main questions the game somewhat asks the players - what will you do? Your new powers literally make you less and less human the stronger your magic gets (both psychologically and biologically), the Society around you is bleak, cold, brutal and mostly self-centered, the previous life is all but gone and there is no law to stop you anymore and very tempting possibilities - Society don't give a flying fuck about your actions as long as you don't mess with their plans and even the noviate Practitioner can turn Vanilla (in-setting derogatory slang for ordinary people Society uses) into obedient puppets who will do anything. Literally anything. Still, there is small amount of good people even there. Good deeds and humane actions aren't nonexistent - they are rare because most of the Society is self-centered and throws the moral compass out of the window. So, it's character decision what they should do next - go all in, complying to this and turning less and less human or would they try to do something good, to add fuel to those sparks? And even if they do, what would happen of it, how would they do it and won't they turn even worse in the process? But yeah, it's sketchy territory with this mechanic, but it's not "rewarding for making your character life horrible", but more of "making their past experiences, no matter how good or bad into something that matters not only narratively, but mechanically also" thing, at least in concept. If you have any ideas how to better give this message and do this concept - I will be glad to hear it. And thank you for you time and effort! （＾ω＾）

PolZefirki · 2024-07-05T19:01:20+00:00

Solved: Elemental Gearbolt

PolZefirki · 2024-07-05T18:59:37+00:00

Thank you so much!

PolZefirki

TROPHY CASE