I posted on this, search for gentleman trader.
Character Motivation
- Thread starter Vernonator
- Start date
Well, either you play ‘first world problems’ at a higher level, or they have ceased to be Travellers and it’s time to roll up new characters.
Don’t forget to use the opportunity to guest star former Travellers as patrons or helpers/opposition.
Hairy Jim DeGriz
SOC-12
Adversaries, Enemies and Allies. You have a moon? Ha Ha. I own all of the moons in this subsector and now I want your moon too. I am stronger than you! How could you possibly defeat me <Evil Laughter>. You have a trade route, I will undercut you on price until you beg me to buy your worthless company <Different Evil Laughter>. Your Friends who helped you grow your trade routes and buy moons? They are "Missing" <More Evil Laughter> Or maybe just a rivalry. Or Maybe I just go around destroying moons. Who can stop me?
Someone is always going to be chasing the same star (or moon) as the PCs. Competition keeps them on their toes.
In video games: Boss, Bigger Boss, but since you want to keep them engaged never "THE BIGGEST BOSS"
Also come at them from different angles, it doesn't have to be mercantile or violent competitors, it could be a legal threat, or a threat to the entire subsector: bad aliens, extremists who want to dismantle society, the destruction or reduction of resources.
I'd like to think that these are the things that keep my players thinking between sessions
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It's often much easier to become a real world adventurer if you are very wealthy.
rlmercad069
SOC-12
I once used, in a AD&D campaign, the loss of beer, ale and mead ingredients for a multi world and plane campaign. None of the players cared that food in their area had become scarce or that the folks at the source of ingredients where dying of multiple diseases, but raise the price of ale and no mead. I couldn't get them to the area fast enough.
And just to add a bit of sauce I added that the price of beans had gone up a hundred fold. The groups Monk arrived 2 days before the others! 
Now that's what I call motivation. 
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Chris Barlow
SOC-10
So alcohol and coffee are more important that food. Yes that sounds like a bunch of RPG players.I once used, in a AD&D campaign, the loss of beer, ale and mead ingredients for a multi world and plane campaign. None of the players cared that food in their area had become scarce or that the folks at the source of ingredients where dying of multiple diseases, but raise the price of ale and no mead. I couldn't get them to the area fast enough.
Chris Barlow
SOC-10
This talk of character motivation, reminds me of the old Hollywood joke on this subject. Actor "What is my characters motivation in this scene? Director: Your motivation is if I do not like your acting, I fire you and your never work in this town again."
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
If you are thinking of that, you might want to check out some of the Louis Becke books on Project Gutenberg. A lot of the stories cover trading amoung the South Pacific islands. You can also find them on Project Gutenberg Australia. They are public domain and free to download. They read pretty well, as I enjoy them. Note, he also likes to fish a lot.
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Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Here would be a good possibility to use for such a campaign.
By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories, by Louis Becke
By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories
www.gutenberg.org
One of the stories is as follows: A CRUISE IN THE SOUTH SEAS—HINTS TO INTENDING TRAVELLERS
Interesting -- as expected, an artifact of its era, but with enough between the lines to help avoid caricature when used as a resource.Here would be a good possibility to use for such a campaign.
By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories, by Louis Becke
By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories
www.gutenberg.org
One of the stories is as follows: A CRUISE IN THE SOUTH SEAS—HINTS TO INTENDING TRAVELLERS
Sounds like half the guys I went through basic with...
And most of the zoomies my dad worked for.
I always intended to sandbox indefinitely but most players aren't cut out for that. Not that many people care enough about the setting or their character to do sandbox. Most players want some laughs, some battles, and some loot without worrying about all that "roleplaying" jazz.
Trouble is, once they have more space loot than Space Smaug the Space Dragon can sleep on in his space cave, they have a hard time staying interested. They've already "won the game". And of course they don't want to be into the setting enough to pay the bills that keep the lights on in their space loot palace, so there are no challenges to keeping it. Except for fighting off contrived attacks by npcs, there's nothing left they can imagine striving for. It's not surprising, it's the same battles laughs loots mentality that has been in rpgs from the beginning. But in the end it leaves people with the same feeling of being unsatisfied the way a poorly written movie does, with plenty of meaningless action sequences but no character development that gets people to care about what happens.
More like an episodic campaign, since true sandbox needs players who are really into the setting and roleplaying. Same characters doing one self contained adventure per session.
RogerD
SOC-12
Borrowing from other systems could be helpful here. One of the more interesting systems I've seen to help with Character Motivation is the Icon System from the fantasy system 13th Age. The key to the system is that characters get points to assign to "Icons" which are Heroic, Ambiguous or Villainous. The player chooses their relationship and strength for each icon which can be positive, negative or conflicted. At the beginning of each session, one die is rolled for each of these and each 6 gives an advantage, each 5 gives an advantage with a complication. It is up to the GM to decide how to work these in. In the Traveller universe, you could have the Icons be various Megacorporations, The Imperium, the Psionic Institute, each race and so on.
The other interesting bit is that each character gets to choose (with GM approval) "One unique thing" - nobody else in the universe has that same unique thing.
The Hero system has a bunch of ideas about users buying disadvantages that could also be used. For example, a "Dependent NPC" that shows up in an adventure based on a die roll (similar idea to the icon roll).
You don't need any of these systems to have character motivation of course - but it can be helpful for inspiration for a player to figure out their motivation.
You can also discover motivations later. I once had a Living Greyhawk D&D character who originally was "combat optimized fighter with no motivation" until we were in a bar, talking to a slaver and I realized "Rask was a slave and hates slavers" which guided the rest of his career.
Then again, I was playing a Traveller one-shot at Origins once and I was told "You are the village priest" and I was completely stumped as to why I would ever leave my flock to become a Traveller. (Did not like that particular adventure)
rlmercad069
SOC-12
OK Shepherd Book.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
MichaelSTee
SOC-12
That's where coming up with a motivation comes in. Why would you leave your flock? Maybe you were disgraced, or maybe you betrayed your flock in some way, and now you seek repentance.
You were playing a one-shot so you have to play a character that fits the adventure, but you could spend a minute or two to give some backstory to the character. As rlmercad069 points out, even Shepherd Book had his reasons (and his story in the Pilot episode surely didn't explain ALL of his reasons).
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