So how did the game go?

Well that's today's Rogue Trader session finished and the players all safely off home, it was the first try of my 'simplified' space style rules (as mentioned in this post) - so, sat here after the session has finished and the dust has settled I find myself asking the question "so, how do I think the session went?"

Space Combat

I think the simplified space combat was definitely a step in the right direction, it certainly flowed better than our attempts at using the original FFG rules space combat; however, despite my best attempts there were still moments when some of the characters were not involved very much in the events unfolding because they were limited in how much they could effect the space combat. I've had some frank discussions with my players at the end of the session and my current thoughts on the matter suggest the following options:

• Expanding the repertoire of potential actions available to include more characters - this is one possibility but also involves adding an additional layer of complexity to the combat that I am keen to avoid.
• Have the players who are not involved take over the parts of named NPCs who are influencing the combat - again a possibility although i'd really love to keep players as their own characters as much as possible.
• Reduce the combat to a single roll or short series of rolls allowing all the player characters to contribute fate points - this is currently my favourite option since it reduces the length of combats meaning that players wouldn't be sat out for so long but the potential of a single drastically bad roll would be mitigated by the potential fate point expenditures.
• Run each space combat as a series of small encounters involving all characters, the result of each encounter adding to the overall success or failure of the overall combat.

I have a month to think about it before the next session, so i'll definitely be giving some thought to potentially using one of the above options when we next have cause to run some space combat.