Jump 1 ships are pretty useless

[Willie Dewitt]

Again, I don't see this as a derailment of the thread at all. You're playing the manner the rules of Classic Traveler Books 1-3 were meant to be played -- and in doing so find that a Jump-1 ship works great in play.

Your game is a terrific illustration of the game working properly. That's right on point.

The classic character creation did a lot to put a little meat on my notion of how the first couple of games would go. Not just the fact that the Merchant player ended up with a Free Trader (probably the most significant indicator of how things would pan out early on), but just the character backgrounds the players extrapolated from their successes and failures in the Chargen (I should mention here that I allowed entry into another service if they failed to re-up early on in a career). One female player, with high intelligence and education and who should have had a promising career, failed to reenlist in the navy early on. She blamed it on a sexual harassment complaint against a superior that backfired on her. Her anger led her to enlist, almost suicidally, into the Scouts. Another party member was a high social cast guy (a Marquis) who had a long and promising naval officer career (yet another female player also had a good naval career). Another was a streewise merchant (son of a sketchy used air raft dealer) who got the (20 year old) Free Trader. All these disparate personalities brought together to crew the ship.

Although I had the initial game or two sort of sketched out (edit: actually, I think I had planned several planetside games on that first planet until I had decided where the campaign should go...it was the presence of the Free Trader that made leaving sooner than later an imperative. The owner wanted to start making money), it was the Free Trader and these particularly (for Traveller) colorful characters that would help flesh out the skeleton of the ongoing games. That these characters would be generally out for themselves, in some cases a bit bitter, and that they would attract similar minded NPC's helped set the tone of things. Get this Free Trader going and let's make a buck. ▮▮▮▮▮▮ anybody else. Somewhat amoral characters (certainly not really heroes) when these same players would often run heroic types in other genres.

Yeah, I loved how the Chargen and the general implications of the CT original books guided me in many ways. As I had really forgotten the rules from my childhood, it was somewhat unexpected, and really helped light a fire under my a$$ as a GM. There gaming veterans kind of balked at not fully designing their own PC's. That the Chargen led to them making assumptions based on the results that emerged that then led to colorful characters coming out of a fairly simple system still sort of awes me. But it's that 1 jump Free Trader that really set the overall tone. And I actually originally considered denying them a ship should one come up. I'm glad I didn't!

 

[Murph]

Again, my point is changing fuel from 10% per jump to 5% per jump changes the economics drastically, and makes trading, and travel more economically "real" and plausible.

 

[flykiller]

changing fuel from 10% per jump to 5% per jump changes the economics drastically, and makes trading, and travel more economically "real" and plausible.

why not bring it down to .01? make it even more real and more plausible.

 

[Timerover51]

Again, my point is changing fuel from 10% per jump to 5% per jump changes the economics drastically, and makes trading, and travel more economically "real" and plausible.

It also means that you can jump into a system with the ability to jump back out of it without refueling, or make a deep-space jump and then another one to finish the travel. I fully agree with reducing jump fuel to 5% per jump.

 

[Terquem]

I agree with Flykiller, only make it FREE then it is even MORE economical and believable

 

[boomslang]

Again, my point is changing fuel from 10% per jump to 5% per jump changes the economics drastically, and makes trading, and travel more economically "real" and plausible.

Or... you could just change the arbitrary and unrealistic prices for travel and trading until they are more plausible in their own right.

Changing the Jump fuel formula has gigantic consequences for naval operations and architecture, and alters the entire strategic landscape completely.

 

[Ulsyus]

Again, my point is changing fuel from 10% per jump to 5% per jump changes the economics drastically, and makes trading, and travel more economically "real" and plausible.

Doesn't it all depend on what sort of game someone wants to run in YTU? Plus, it's still Traveller and not Merchant Bankers & Mining Magnates, or at the scale in this thread Free Traders and Troubleshooters. The economics could be used to support the game, and not the other way around. If the economic modelling was "realistic" would the luster may come off the game somewhat?

 

[flykiller]

Or... you could just change the arbitrary and unrealistic prices for travel and trading until they are more plausible in their own right.

easy to do, but the final prices turn out to be iirc about 8000 Cr/dton, which is almost half a year of average imperial wage. it makes trading non-trivial.

 

[flykiller]

it's still Traveller and not Merchant Bankers & Mining Magnates

true. but traveller is supposed to be at least semi-realistic sci-fi, not d&d magic in space, so players start looking at the numbers and saying "wait a minute ...."

 

[mike wightman]

The trade rules in CT were designed to be a minigame that was fun for a crew of a free trader.
If you got lucky and rich enough to pay off your mortgage, then you could very quickly pick and chose speculative cargo that would have you owning custom designed ships outright.
Make enough money with a fleet of free traders and you can pay for the crew costs, fuel and annual maintenance of your custom design and not have to worry about money again.
And then there is what really happens... pirates, bad trade deals, parts breaking at the referee's whim - all reasons to go adventuring rather than filling in a spreadsheet.

 

[robject]

I agree with Flykiller, only make it FREE then it is even MORE economical and believable

I agree with Terquem, only make all starships free as well. That way you don't have to feel weighted down by economics.

 

[boomslang]

easy to do, but the final prices turn out to be iirc about 8000 Cr/dton, which is almost half a year of average imperial wage. it makes trading non-trivial.

I think perhaps you do not recall correctly.

I ship at KCr1 per dton per parsec, and nobody goes broke nor retires early.

Ditto passage at per parsec (rather than per Jump) rates, and the yachtless wealthy travel in relative luxury while your low berths are usually full.

"Travellers" as such remain the exception rather than the rule as a result.

 

[robject]

My players never want to play merchant characters. As a result, I have a different class of problems entirely.

On the other hand, I find that Book 3's "trade roulette" is perfectly satisfying for Book 2 ships as-is. (Blatant shill: Or Traveller5 Adventure-Class Ships for that matter).

 

[mike wightman]

The trade rules are in Book 2 not Book 3.

 

[robject]

The trade rules are in Book 2 not Book 3.

I never remember. TTB.

 

[aramis]

The trade rules in CT were designed to be a minigame that was fun for a crew of a free trader.
If you got lucky and rich enough to pay off your mortgage, then you could very quickly pick and chose speculative cargo that would have you owning custom designed ships outright.
Make enough money with a fleet of free traders and you can pay for the crew costs, fuel and annual maintenance of your custom design and not have to worry about money again.
And then there is what really happens... pirates, bad trade deals, parts breaking at the referee's whim - all reasons to go adventuring rather than filling in a spreadsheet.

Given the numbers in Bk1-'77, it's average is profitable for a type A, not for a type R.

Add Bk7's trader and broker skills, and it becomes extremely profitable.

 

[flykiller]

I think perhaps you do not recall correctly. I ship at KCr1 per dton per parsec, and nobody goes broke nor retires early.

nah, hammered it down pretty hard, came up with 2kCr/dton for a bare-bones 400dton minimal crew j1 no-gun boat. presumed .8 cargo/pax loads though. for the 200dton j2 fartrader it came out to about 8kCr/dton. crew salary, annual maintenance, and life support just eats up everything.

 

[Murph]

And that is what happened in my game, one of the players wanted to play a merchant, and after discovering the the canon rules were hopelessly slanted towards staying broke, and interstellar economics were unfeasable, we tinkered to come up with the 5% rule, and some other minor changes, and suddenly, you could make money, you could have fun as a merchant, and adventures got interesting for the merchant characters. A nice change from roll in, blow stuff up, kill minions, wreck worlds, etc type of adventures.

The trade rules in CT were designed to be a minigame that was fun for a crew of a free trader.
If you got lucky and rich enough to pay off your mortgage, then you could very quickly pick and chose speculative cargo that would have you owning custom designed ships outright.
Make enough money with a fleet of free traders and you can pay for the crew costs, fuel and annual maintenance of your custom design and not have to worry about money again.
And then there is what really happens... pirates, bad trade deals, parts breaking at the referee's whim - all reasons to go adventuring rather than filling in a spreadsheet.