I was approached by a few friends to be the rogue trader for a campaign that would be anywhere from 4 to 6 sessions. The first 2 sessions I'll admit the first two sessions were exciting and engaging and I felt like we had a great hook that brought us together and a mission and purpose. In our first session, we established everyone's role and since this was my first time being a player for any campaign I went into this experience thinking there would be a grand adventure with a plot and objectives. We enter a space station and had 3 mission options. 1. someone requested for me specifically. 2. a cargo mission for any random rogue trader. 3. a delivery mission to transport people to another space station... I took the first objective as the train track to the main story hook. I went into this with the expectation that there would be a plot or objective that would motivate and push my team forward. Unfortunately, there is no clear progression or purpose. I have lost interest in the story because there is no story with purpose. We go to the guy who asked for me specifically and we get ambushed during the meeting because the guy was holding an encrypted message and his rogue trader dynasty leader has been missing/kidnapped and no one knows where he has gone. I saw this as an opportunity I save a rogue trader and have him owe me and my dynasty, considering I am a new rogue trader in RP standard. So we take the mission and go on the hunt.
We end up warp-driving to the next area on the hunt for more information in regard to the missing/kidnapped rogue trader. We enter an ancient battlefield and find a whole bunch of dead people who froze to death in space. I wrote in my lore that I was a scavenger in my past life so picking through a graveyard of destroyed ships from war is nothing new to me. We stay there for 1 session and push to the next zone in the next session.
We get to this place called the Hermitage. There seems to be a cult fight or something happening on the hermitage but I saw the issue as something we shouldn't have to meddle in. I didn't care for any of the cult causes and I didn't want to participate in supporting any of their messages and sides. This caused friction with everyone because I am the captain of the ship and they wanted to pick sides. I got into an argument because I looked at it like meddling in this affair that doesn't matter to me is unnecessary and completely optional. They said that my not wanting to pick a side was robbing them of role-play opportunities. I got really annoyed because to me it felt like what we were doing was completely pointless! and it didn't push the story forward. There were no stacks, I had no motivations other than to focus on helping this other rogue trader. They asked me what my ultimate goal was. I explained what goal should I even have! We are not playing an endless and pointless game without a goal. I ended up just leaving the Discord call because If we are only playing 4 to 6 sessions why are we prepping for what could be an endless adventure without major plot points?
My experience in D&D so far has been being the Dungeon Master for a group of friends in the sword coast universe. We have done a full campaign for the MOP and we are halfway through our continued campaign completing DOIP. So far my approach for MOPs was on the rail pushing them forward with purpose and meaning. I allowed the party to get invested in Gundren and his brothers before the goblin ambush and developed their search for Gundren because he was a good friend to them. Sildar did political things in Phandalin with his investigation into the red brands and his hunt for Iarno. I had the black spider nearly kill a member of the party for a special key given to the characters for safekeeping this made the party hate the black spider and pushed them to defeat them. Gundren mourned the death of his brothers because one of them was killed by the black spider. The stakes felt high and the story had direction. They needed to find this cave before the black spider and stop the black spider from gaining access to the ultimate power in the cave.
I guess I like control and purpose and motivational reasons to push forward... Tell me if I am doing something wrong with the rogue trader roleplay and what is your opinion.
I also want to apologize for having the writing jump around and hope I am making sense.
You seem awfully concerned about finding and following the plot hooks, only to completely ignore the obvious cult plot hook thrown in your face.
I'm also not sure what a 'rogue trader' is - at first I thought it was just a descriptor but you're using it in such a specific way that I'm thinking maybe it's a character class in a different TTRPG?
I get being the DM and switching to a player role, and having trouble buying into the story. However, it seems like there was a clear path indicated before you and you didn't want to follow it. Of course, part of that could be that your play style and the new GM's don't mesh. But you can't get around the fact that you yourself argued with your fellow players because they wanted to investigate a plot hook and you just....didn't.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I can agree with what you're saying to a certain point but there is no meaningful investment in the cult plot hook. It isn't necessarily something where my immediate decision could settle it served me as the captain of this enormous spaceship with no meaningful reason to participate. There were no stakes or meaningful reasons to participate in the matter. All I could see were the potential consequences of meddling. We support one cult and then have to fight the other cults. We support no cult and we don't have to fight any cult. It served no purpose other than cannon fodder. What's the reward for participating you might ask? to gain an ally and here is the kicker. Gain 1 ally and 4 enemies. There was no reason to rope that type of punishment into our story... + I also would like to add they are all shitty cults and no one was inherently good enough for me to want to join. I also feel I have every right to seek that plot point because all the players told me "You are the one who moves the plot of our adventure forward." The style of GM is definitely not working for me I suppose.
Thank you Van Zoeren for at least giving a possible reason.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I was approached by a few friends to be the rogue trader for a campaign that would be anywhere from 4 to 6 sessions. The first 2 sessions I'll admit the first two sessions were exciting and engaging and I felt like we had a great hook that brought us together and a mission and purpose. In our first session, we established everyone's role and since this was my first time being a player for any campaign I went into this experience thinking there would be a grand adventure with a plot and objectives. We enter a space station and had 3 mission options. 1. someone requested for me specifically. 2. a cargo mission for any random rogue trader. 3. a delivery mission to transport people to another space station... I took the first objective as the train track to the main story hook. I went into this with the expectation that there would be a plot or objective that would motivate and push my team forward. Unfortunately, there is no clear progression or purpose. I have lost interest in the story because there is no story with purpose. We go to the guy who asked for me specifically and we get ambushed during the meeting because the guy was holding an encrypted message and his rogue trader dynasty leader has been missing/kidnapped and no one knows where he has gone. I saw this as an opportunity I save a rogue trader and have him owe me and my dynasty, considering I am a new rogue trader in RP standard. So we take the mission and go on the hunt.
We end up warp-driving to the next area on the hunt for more information in regard to the missing/kidnapped rogue trader. We enter an ancient battlefield and find a whole bunch of dead people who froze to death in space. I wrote in my lore that I was a scavenger in my past life so picking through a graveyard of destroyed ships from war is nothing new to me. We stay there for 1 session and push to the next zone in the next session.
We get to this place called the Hermitage. There seems to be a cult fight or something happening on the hermitage but I saw the issue as something we shouldn't have to meddle in. I didn't care for any of the cult causes and I didn't want to participate in supporting any of their messages and sides. This caused friction with everyone because I am the captain of the ship and they wanted to pick sides. I got into an argument because I looked at it like meddling in this affair that doesn't matter to me is unnecessary and completely optional. They said that my not wanting to pick a side was robbing them of role-play opportunities. I got really annoyed because to me it felt like what we were doing was completely pointless! and it didn't push the story forward. There were no stacks, I had no motivations other than to focus on helping this other rogue trader. They asked me what my ultimate goal was. I explained what goal should I even have! We are not playing an endless and pointless game without a goal. I ended up just leaving the Discord call because If we are only playing 4 to 6 sessions why are we prepping for what could be an endless adventure without major plot points?
My experience in D&D so far has been being the Dungeon Master for a group of friends in the sword coast universe. We have done a full campaign for the MOP and we are halfway through our continued campaign completing DOIP. So far my approach for MOPs was on the rail pushing them forward with purpose and meaning. I allowed the party to get invested in Gundren and his brothers before the goblin ambush and developed their search for Gundren because he was a good friend to them. Sildar did political things in Phandalin with his investigation into the red brands and his hunt for Iarno. I had the black spider nearly kill a member of the party for a special key given to the characters for safekeeping this made the party hate the black spider and pushed them to defeat them. Gundren mourned the death of his brothers because one of them was killed by the black spider. The stakes felt high and the story had direction. They needed to find this cave before the black spider and stop the black spider from gaining access to the ultimate power in the cave.
I guess I like control and purpose and motivational reasons to push forward... Tell me if I am doing something wrong with the rogue trader roleplay and what is your opinion.
I also want to apologize for having the writing jump around and hope I am making sense.
You seem awfully concerned about finding and following the plot hooks, only to completely ignore the obvious cult plot hook thrown in your face.
I'm also not sure what a 'rogue trader' is - at first I thought it was just a descriptor but you're using it in such a specific way that I'm thinking maybe it's a character class in a different TTRPG?
I get being the DM and switching to a player role, and having trouble buying into the story. However, it seems like there was a clear path indicated before you and you didn't want to follow it. Of course, part of that could be that your play style and the new GM's don't mesh. But you can't get around the fact that you yourself argued with your fellow players because they wanted to investigate a plot hook and you just....didn't.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I can agree with what you're saying to a certain point but there is no meaningful investment in the cult plot hook. It isn't necessarily something where my immediate decision could settle it served me as the captain of this enormous spaceship with no meaningful reason to participate. There were no stakes or meaningful reasons to participate in the matter. All I could see were the potential consequences of meddling. We support one cult and then have to fight the other cults. We support no cult and we don't have to fight any cult. It served no purpose other than cannon fodder. What's the reward for participating you might ask? to gain an ally and here is the kicker. Gain 1 ally and 4 enemies. There was no reason to rope that type of punishment into our story... + I also would like to add they are all shitty cults and no one was inherently good enough for me to want to join. I also feel I have every right to seek that plot point because all the players told me "You are the one who moves the plot of our adventure forward." The style of GM is definitely not working for me I suppose.
Thank you Van Zoeren for at least giving a possible reason.