Decessor said:

BangBangTequila said:

There is no guarantee that the AAT will support the character in this manner. Asking them to do so might get the Astropath direct censure from the AAT (and they can easily exert as much power over a psyker as the Inquisition) if they too see his/her actions as heretical - and that's far more likely if the character continues to act up against the RT. If you make the AAT look bad by acting like anything less than a total professional despite some hasty reactions from a client (even the least of RTs are still Peers of the Imperium, and thus big fish), then you won't last long with them. Demonstrate loyalty, restraint, and contrition - these are values expected from a servant to his master.

HappyDaze said:

Sometimes this is a good form of metagaming. Also it's a polite way of telling this player that it's at least potentially impolite to kill the other character if it is a player character.

It's up to the DM to encourage or discourage behavior.

If my players wanted to spend a session killing Hobo's I'd have agents of the Chaos gods try to recruit them depending on their motivation. (Love of the Feeling of power over others(It's not important that I kill them it's important than I can),Love of Destruction(look at how they splatter LOL), Joy of Combat(Let's kill the soggy bottom gang these hobo's are BORING),Sadism(Stop shooting them in the head I want to do this more… slowly))

Or if it was in the nobles district I'd have Arbites show up, kick their ass, confiscate their weapons, impose HUGE fines. And throw them in jail a few years. They might even die.

In a more shady area they may have inadvertantly killed the mother of the local crime lord. the mother was a hobo who preferred to be homeless because of pride. "I won't take no money from my son" or because she knows what her son does and has principles.

I need to hurry up and get a job so I can run my game >.>

Cultadium said:

The "bad metagaming" is in treating a character differently based on whether the character is a PC or an NPC. For a player to have his PC treat an NPC far worse (or even far better) than he would treat the same character if that character were a PC is never good for the game. It's just as bad when the GM has NPCs treat PCs differently for no reason other than them being PCs.

Part of my thought process is I strongly believe the Capt. slot in rogue trader should belong to a player character.

It's too much fun to play as one. To delegate it to an NPC seems like taking away potential fun from your players.

Well if no one stepped up to play the part (either through creating a RT or just taking up the mantle via another class), then the GM is somewhat forced to.  I haven't had a group not have an RT in it yet.  Though to honest, I would encourage one or more players to be the head of the Dynasty and be the Cpt of the ship, instead of giving it to an NPC that I would have to play.  No matter what though, I always have all of my players have equal power/footing/status on the ship and, to an extent, on dealings within the Dynasty.  It's has also been like a council of peers conversing with each other, debating on the next course of action to take to benefit the group as a whole.  But that is just how my groups have worked, so I can't vouche if it's compatible for other groups.

HappyDaze said:

Perhaps I should make my logic more clear. The vast majority of the time, I try to pick the most plausible course of action for my own PCs from their in-game knowledge, personality and situation, regardless of whether this will screw themself over or not.

When having to choose between plausible options while playing a PC, I prefer to avoid ones that will completely ruin other PCs unless the tone of the campaign suits that action. Why? PCs are the sole character of another player. Yes. there is a metagaming element but I'm not going to deliberately ruin someone else's fun for the sake of a play in character. That said, if the GM and other players are fine with skullduggery, then it's fair game.

Nameless2all said:

I've played in a campaign where the rogue trader player changed characters to an astropath. We muddled on for quite some time without an active rogue trader which hampered the ability of the dynasty to make major decisions. Eventually the player and GM agreed to let the title fall to the seneschal player (being a blood relative of the rogue trader). 

As an astropath you have access to and ability to alter messages in transit. However many of those same messages are going to be in a cypher which you will have to break and then re-encode so it passes muster. Not impossible just something to think about.

lurkeroutthere said:

Altering messages is the highest form of treason an Astropath can commit. Consider if that's something that is an appropriate method of circumventing a grounding.

Can you cite a source on that? I'm sure it's bad form and you don't want to get caught but I havn't seen anything that implies it's an extra especially bad thing.

Rule Zero Always applies: Don't Get Caught

lurkeroutthere said:

Astropaths are psykers. They are allowed to live only so long as they fulfill their function. For Astropaths, that function is accurate and timely communications. Any Astropath fucking with that is a pariah among them all since it places the entire Adeptus at risk.

As for not getting caught, remember that the Astropaths police their own. There are Astropaths out there every bit as good as, if not better than, the PC. Give them a reason to suspect you're putting the Adeptus at risk over your petty squabble and they'll burn you so fast the Inquisition won't even hear about it.

Right so i'm hearing "Don't get caught"

Basically any transgression in 40k can be punished with death, any psyker messing up can be punished with death. You can't legitimiately say "Altering messages is the highest form of treason an Astropath can commit" When: !) All crimes are pretty much punished with death 2) There are actually crimes punishable with faites worse then death like colluding with chaos.

I think the only part of this discussion we've missed so far is that a Rogue Trader Warrant is usually passed on by genetic line. So while your Senechal might very well be set up to take over the dynasty from a "business CEO" side but he's not going to inherit the Warrant. In fact trying to steal it will likely get the entire crew purged by the Inquisition or far more likely by the family who actually own that specific Warrant of Trade.

and on a slightly different note…I think you can definitely treat NPCs differently than PCs. While I understand the argument that we should treat all NPC/PCs the same, when it comes to undermining and eventually killing a character, if the RT is an NPC, its different than killing a friend at the table. You've always got to remember that you have to hang out with these people afterwards and in different settings and that's why I see a huge difference between outright killing/replacing an NPC vs doing the same to a PC.

HappyDaze said:

Also while I'm on the subject. Actually the whole point of astropath transcendent's is they are the rare especially powerful members of the Astropath ars Telepathica so it presumes that while there are other members of the Telepathica on their power level they are few and far between. Somewhere of on Holy Terra it's not like one of the revered masters somehow looks up from the meditation as soon as a Astropath transcribes and decrpts a messages wrong and says "I have felt a great disturbance in the force." But even if they did, which presumably they don't your assumption seems to be that the Astropathic choirs first and only response will be to undercut their member over an outsider. My counter thought is that being psykers who are supposedly second class citizens but absolutely vital for the empires survival, and unlike the great unwashed masses have actually been exposed to the emperors divinity would create a bit of a seige mentality. So no I don't think their first thought if they did somehow become aware of such a transgressionw ould be to burn one of their own to protect captain Spobody Necial. I think like any other old and storied organization in 40k they'd want to hush the matter up. Hell they might side with their member, but require they keep their actions very very discrete. Remember this is 40k after all, even more so then usual the bureaucracy exists to protect the bureaucracy.

Also I really don't see the Inquisition getting involved in internal affairs of succession for Rogue Trader dynasties. They've got enough on their plate and barely the agents to cover it all let alone full inquisitiros which is who it takes to tangle with a Rogue Trader. More then likely it would fall to either members of the Administratum, Navy, or the Arbites.