Multiple Player Ships & lots O' Money

[Willie Dewitt]

So when you have several new characters being created there is a pretty good chance for somebody to have a ship at the start of the game. Maybe multiple players!

In my case, one character started with a Free Trader. OK, fine. I had a couple or so sessions pre-prepared, and it involved characters not having a ship of their own and also very little of the money they ended up with at the end of the creation process. So I basically just told them that as it was the frontier rim they had a certain amount of credits handy but their many thousands of dollars in savings would take some time to transfer to the more local banking institution (First Bank of The Greater Continuum). They didn’t really know Traveller, so they didn’t care really. As I had built into the scenario that they would be passengers on a Free Trader going to a Harvest Belt planet, the Merchant player with the rolled-for ship and I hit more or less simultaneously on the idea that this would be the ship he was waiting for. I already had in the scenario that the NPC Captain was an older man and the ship was 20 years old, so it made sense. The character was there to be present for the Captains last trip (he would be retiring on the planet to own a large farming operation) and to take possession of the ship and the debt.

OK, fine. It was easy to move the campaign in the direction of the Merchant player having a ship, and the other players being crew (he got to know them on the initial trip). No problem.

So it seems that you have a couple of options as a GM in a new campaign. One is to have little prepared to wait and see what comes out of character generation (such as ships), or to basically control what they get. Maybe you want them to be broke and with minor possessions at the start of your campaign. But clearly some players who rolled up a ship or maybe tens of thousands of credits at muster could be a bit miffed at not having what they got in the creation process.

Anyway, I was just wondering what thoughts you seasoned CT GM’s have on this subject. Who knows if I’ll ever do another new Traveller campaign (this one is just an alternate for when our D&D games have a low players count and we’ve played maybe 4 sessions of CT in a year), but it would be interesting to get an idea of how I might approach preparation for a campaign that could include ship ownership but not necessarily. I got lucky and it worked out smoothly, but I imagine it is not always thus. A player having a ship could undermine your plan for having them be out of work mercs looking for a few bucks planetside, for example. Do you just tell the player who mustered with one “sorry, no can do. I’ll let you pick a skill you don’t have instead.” A player could consider that cold comfort.

 

[flykiller]

if you're actually going to let them roll for a ship, then you'll need to have some idea of what to do 1) if they get one, and 2) if they don't.

players with a ship can do pretty much whatever they want, and if you're not used to the game this can get out of control real fast. one good approach is to make them earn it. for example, it's broken and they have to spend some time fixing it. or their ship "just happens" to have skipped mortgage and if they want it they have to go repossess it (this works whether they muster out with a boat or not). this allows you and them to get into the swing of the game and build up their role in the setting before they can sail away on their own.

that's for a long-term game. if you're doing a one-off or a string of a few adventures then skip the rolling-for-boats part and just give them one (or don't) and set them at the adventure immediately.

 

[atpollard]

My first bit of advice is to set the expectation up front. If everyone wants to play a down and out Mercs stranded on a planet adventure, then they will 'get it' when some random roll threatens to mess that up during chargen.

The easiest thing to do with muster out cash is convert it to something better that is not cash. Your Merc has a suit of Combat Armor.

For the ship, convert his ship shares (since he probably only owns part of a ship and the bank owns the rest) into something else. Easiest swap is probably a TAS membership which is hard to get, offers prestigue and gains him/her access to patrons and free tickets to other places and more adventures.

Another alternative to the ship could be something with a good old fashioned 'cool factor' like +2 dexterity because of his cybernetic neural implants that speed up reflexes. Or he has a drug kit imbedded in his body that allows him to shrug off the first 6 points of damage for calculating injury or unconsciousness.

They are little more than a different muster benefit, but with some descriptive chrome added. Whatever engcourages the player to get into the character and have fun.

 

[Whipsnade]

But clearly some players who rolled up a ship or maybe tens of thousands of credits at muster could be a bit miffed at not having what they got in the creation process.

Chargen should be guided by the type of campaign you'll be playing.

If you pitch a sandbox campaign, then "unguided" chargen is part of the "Let's see what happens..." play style. If you pitch a campaign with any sort of "theme" or "focus", then the players should understand that chargen must follow that "theme" or "focus". If you've pitched a merc campaign, a player shouldn't insist on rolling up a merchant. If a player doesn't understand that, they're the one with a problem and not the group.

After spitballing a few ideas with my group, I ran an active duty IISS campaign once. Because they'd been involved in choosing the type of campaign, they didn't then turn around and grouse they had to play scouts. I ran another campaign which began with the players being dismissed as the crew of a subsidized merchant. Again, they knew that from the first and so rolled up characters which would fill the roles of such a crew.

(In that second campaign the idea was that the players would work as freelancers as a way to earn their own ship. Early on the players decided they were less interested in earning a ship than they were in continuing to work as troubleshooters and so the campaign's "focus" changed.)

 

[flykiller]

If you've pitched a merc campaign, a player shouldn't insist on rolling up a merchant.

that actually sounds pretty good to me. a merchant/merc with socC/D, does on-call assignments for the imperium, has a squad of trusted associates to back him up, used to "steer" ongoing events one way or another.

 

[Willie Dewitt]

if you're actually going to let them roll for a ship, then you'll need to have some idea of what to do 1) if they get one, and 2) if they don't.

players with a ship can do pretty much whatever they want, and if you're not used to the game this can get out of control real fast. one good approach is to make them earn it. for example, it's broken and they have to spend some time fixing it.

I was going with chargen in a "let the chips fall" mentality. I knew the initial game or two was mine to do what I wanted with, cause I would just deny them access to money and ships they might have gained.

A reason for the merchant to have his ship sooner than I thought raised it's head, and we went for it. Planetside, they still didn't' have full access to their cash, so they needed 1) some work to keep busy and make some beer/better equipment money 2) to figure out how to get some product to haul somewhere (in this case it was a planet that exclusively grew corn) and 3) wait for money for fuel and some repairs (I declared the ship was in mostly good shape but needed a few things. It only had one active turret and that was only at 50% working order). So we had a couple of games worth of dicking around before they would end up going anywhere. The all decided to run the ship a bit like a co-op, with the other PC's pitching in some cash for needed things, so I eventually freed up their cash reserves and they had fun getting ready for the new chapter of their lives - freelance traders.

Much like the character personalities and rich backgrounds that emerged extrapolating a bit from the fun chargen process, the direction of the campaign sort of took shape with only a little bit of nurturing.

If I had another shot at a new campaign, I think a situation that would appeal the most to me would be having the party start out a group of hand-to-mouth Dumarest types, essentially starting the first game with a blade and a few credits. But this current one is fun. Ship and cargo micromanagement. I would never have thought that would be much fun, but it seems to be for both me and the players so far

(what I really need to do is get to play it more)

 

[flykiller]

(what I really need to do is get to play it more)

don't we all. go for it.