Rogue Trader: Forsaken Bounty

The Sovereign Venture - Magnus Locke's flagship vessel.

Over the holidays, I had the chance to catch up with a few friends and run them through Fantasy Flight Games' introductory Rogue Trader adventure - Forsaken Bounty. This adventure was part of 2010's Free RPG Day and is available for download on FFG's website. Make sure to grab the extra characters and the follow-up adventure, Dark Frontier.

With a case of beer in hand, we headed over to my friend's place and assembled the cast:

Devon - Rogue Trader Magnus Locke

Down on his luck and looking to rebuild his dynasty, Magnus Horatio Locke is an exquisitely dressed, sherry-swirling, mustache-twirling noble who believes that he knows the answer to everything.

Michelle - Missionary Makalia Burtin

Owing Magnus a life-debt, Makalia purges heretic and mutant alike with fire and scripture. 

Matt - Void-Master Dominik Van Goren

A no-bullshit, take-no-prisoners, ruthlessly efficient pilot, Van Goren shows any opposition the barrel of his naval-patterned shotgun.

Eve - Arch-militant Thornhallow

Tactical genius and Locke's military commander, Thornhallow also serves as the Sovereign Venture's Quartermaster; overseeing arms, equipment, and combat personnel.

Kristin - Seneschal Nathalya Tsanthos 
Tsanthos is an eccentric tech genius that is seemingly unable to communicate or explain detailed concepts to the simple-man.

The characters were all pre-made characters provided by Fantasy Flight so that we could get into the adventure fairly quickly. We found that they offered enough variety and that the adventure provided opportunities for each player's unique skills to really shine. 

Rogue Trader is a great gateway-drug for those unsure about
the 40k universe.

Forsaken Bounty offers a pretty straightforward premise: find a derelict ship and salvage it. From here, the players developed a salvage plan, boarded the vessel, and determined the cause of its demise. Without spoiling anything, Forsaken Bounty offers some decent combat, a few scares, and some very simple puzzles - all with the intent of teaching new players the game system and expose them to the 40k universe.

With that goal in mind, the adventure was definitely a success. Players quickly caught on to the ins and outs of the system (albeit a very stripped down version). In fact, three of our players had never even played a tabletop RPG before. Everyone (including myself) found Forsaken Bounty extremely fun. The interactions between all of the characters gave us some hilarious and entertaining moments. My only critique is that the adventure is structured for an almost guaranteed player success. Obviously that's something good to have in an introductory game, but there was very little in terms of an actual challenge - especially during combat.

Regardless, we're soon hoping to run the follow up adventure, Dark Frontier, and delve much deeper into the system - especially ship creation.

Fingers are crossed that Rogue Trader (arguably the lighter side of the 40k games) continues to please.