Minireview: Rogue Trader
When the Dark Heresy game book came out, one of the most common complaints was that the power level was too low; you were playing low-level Acolytes serving a higher-up (Inquisitor). While it seemed fine to me, apparently most of the WH40k fiction has characters with much more power and some people were expecting that. Fair enough.
Rogue Trader is the next game in the line, and it has you playing Rogue Traders (duh). In the 40k world, these are individuals with ancient “warrants of trade” which give them power to do as they please (within limits). In the 40k universe, where most things are static and individuality is usually a sin, this is a big thing. A very big thing. And yes, these guys are much higher on the power scale than Acolytes – your typical Rogue Trader is captain of a huge (and I mean Huge) starship, commanding hundreds if not thousands of crew members and possessing vast wealth.
This has several important implications. First off, in a normal game this means that one player will be playing the Rogue Trader with the others staffing senior crew positions (think “bridge staff on Enterprise” sort of thing). I think that’s a cool feature, but of course does mean that one player is the leader. This may not sit well with all play groups, but it’s not a showstopper; the book suggests several ways of dealing with this situation. First off, the players could all be senior crew members, with the Rogue Trader played by an NPC. Or many of them could be Rogue Traders, sharing the trade warrant and command via some agreement.
Secondly… well, let’s go back to that Star Trek comparison. Star Trek always has the bridge crew rushing off to explore new worlds (and get into trouble). Realistically, that doesn’t make sense, but it does make for fun stories. Rogue Trader expects the same, it expects the PCs to get personal and head all exploration etc. But what if players try to get smart and send their hordes of underlings to do everything? Well, they can do that, but fortunately there are game world elements making that a non-optimal idea. Most importantly, there is reputation: Rogue Traders are all about rep, and someone who sends underlings to do his work tends to get a rep of “coward”… which can be bad. Secondly, the warrant of trade and associated documents actually say that a Rogue Trader has to personally do all sorts of things (claim a ship as salvage, claim a new world, or whatever), otherwise the claim is not valid. And of course there is the fact that many situations require negotiation. Nobody wants to negotiate with a flunky, that’s a sure-fire way to insult people. So… in case your players try to stay safe and use their low-lever crew members to do the important stuff, you have lots of ways of having that backfire on them.
So what’s the game about? It’s sort of like a dark 40k version of Star Trek. Explore strange new worlds, exploit the natives for resources, battle chaos entities (or deal with them for profit), bravely go forth and make a profit. I mention the profit motive here a lot because the game makes it explicit; profit is one of the most important game mechanics for the PCs, as it determines a lot of things. There is a new mechanic of “Endeavours” which is how the PCs generally increase profit, and it’s very nice. Pretty much anything can be made into an Endeavour. The players get the idea of shipping the exquisite wood from planet X to some Imperial hold, to be made into ultra-expensive furniture? Great. Make it an Endeavour. They want to negotiate with Death World natives in order to guarantee a supply of Groot Eggs for resale? Endeavour.
It reads like a lot of fun. I suspect it does need quite proactive players, but otherwise this should be a lot of fun to both run and play. It’s very different from the Dark Heresy game environment, with more room for heroics and player free choice. And let’s not forget that the players are captains of huge floating space cathedrals, with thousands of crew members. Someone else always cleans the floors.
Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:26 Posted in Books, Games
Tags dark heresy, rogue trader
