Repo man campaign

[Madarin Dude]

I want to run a campaign where the PC's are repo men for starships. I am coming up with different scenarios for it. The players will be working for a large insurance firm that wants to get some money back on their investment. First scenario is a ship was captured by a low tech government that has undergone a revolution and the original crew is imprisoned. So there are a number of approaches for them to get the ship back. Negotiations or guns blazing are both options. I am using this as a way to get non traveller players into the game slowly.

I need to lead them around by the nose a bit first because traveller is generally to open ended for those who are normally a D&D player etc. The idea is that they get paid for their jobs a percentage of the value of the recovered ship and then later once they get enough they can get their own ship and cause their own trouble.

So some more ideas for repo man type scenarios would be nice and any sort of comments or ideas.

 

[aramis]

Ship had a temporal disconnect in jump; arrived two weeks n-space time later, having experienced 20 years personal time.

It was recovered as derelict, and reregistered, based upon 20 years decay of everything aboard.

It flagged in the local system register, and is on their hot sheet... having finally just missed payment #3.

 

[Madarin Dude]

That is an interesting one can take a few directions with it. Paranormal of course is one or a simple fight over the salvage rights with a local salvage operation. For that matter both of those directions. Also looking into anything unusual with the drives and what of the crew? Did they take a cold nap and get revived or are they dessicated corpses.

 

[Gadrin]

Let's see ran an PBP game for a non-Traveller RPG, using a bounty hunter
out to recover a ship.

Found the ship on a remote world and watched as the pilot (had bots helping
him) launched an escape pod and land on a world with a dangerous atmosphere.
Since the escape pod was more or less a one-way trip, the bounty hunter left
it for the time being and went over the ship, which the skip (as in skipped
out) had damaged. This forced the bounty hunter to find a repair crew and
replacement parts, bring them in and fix the ship. Meanwhile the bounty
hunter went down to the planet to find the skip. The skip remained inside the
escape pod and used FAST drug to lower life support and tough it out (this
was a FTL comm setting so, he'd eventually get rescued, you'll have to change
his motives for Traveller). I had a scene arranged where the bounty hunter
and pilot she'd hired dropped down to the surface and eventually found the
skip and she grabbed him by using an EMP to knock out all electronics
(including life support) which forced his hand.

Meanwhile up at the ship, a patrol from a 3rd party (hostile) arrived and
tried to take the ship. It was a small but well armed ship, and they boarded
the freighter and eventually succumbed to the PCs defense. They were fairly
slick technicians and mercenaries in their own right.

>

 

[Gadrin]

Here's a writeup for an NPC that revolves around a mutiny/theft type of scenario
(also written for another space RPG, but adaptable).

Mezxel
Golgan Technician

Mezxel can't wait to get to a neutral port. He just found out the company he
works for has gone belly up with the break up of the Golgan Republik, so he's
out of a job, and out of money. As a crewman on the freighter OMAZA, the plan
is to loot the ship for all the backpay (2 months worth) that's owed to them.
Lost also is each crewman's retirement/pension, but things are ok. Mezxel and
his 2 assistants plan to disassemble the fusion reactor after shut-down, and
sell the remaining plasma supply. They've also got their eye on the ship's
tiny, 6 person shuttle, which they surreptiously disconnected its avionics
and computer. This ought to get them a cool 2 to 3 million or so, which
they'll split 2 ways (Mezxel gets 50% the others 50%.) The biggest problem is
they don't have the paperwork for the shuttle and may have to settle for
less. The other problem is that the OMAZA's security chief (a Seljuk) and his
partner, the captain, have had their eye on it and they've got all the ship's
weapons in a locked safe...and Mezxel wants to avoid a fight. The good news
is that the gravity net inside the shuttle bay can be controlled from inside
engineering with Mezxel's handcomp. He's sure he can trap the others on the
bridge and in their quarters under the pull of 3 or 4 Gs while he and his men
make good their escape with what they feel they have coming to them.

Quote: "Yes, but its the craftsmanship that you're paying for. Why do you
think I bought it in the first place?"

the actual landing and breakup of the OMAZA...

<hasty, secret meeting in his cabin with the other technicians>

"Gentlemen, my apologies for hijacking you from your duties, but I've just
been informed by the captain that Barlak Enterprises, our employers have gone
broke."

<moans>

"Calm yourselves, all is not lost. Yes, it means we'll not be paid our two
months back pay, but also that all our pension monies, health care and such
have shipped out too."

<cries>

"Easy, easy."

<quiet>

"I have a proposal that will recoup our losses and then some,"

<holds hands up at the stateroom they're conducting their secret meeting in>

"Meaning that this ship has many systems, we're all intimately familiar with
that can be dismantled and sold."

<others exchange looks, smiles develop, mouths begin to water>

"Now, I suggest we take our own systems. I'll need Galvot and Pankgy to
gather four plasma containers from the cargo bay and get them to engineering
about an hour before we make orbit and land at our destination. As soon as we
set down, Galvot and I will shut down the fusion reactor and the ship will
fallover to battery backup. We'll engage the coolants and magnetic bottles
and start transfering the plasma to the containers. These we can sell easily
for 3 or 4 thousand each."

<moans>

"Yes, I know that's not enough, but it's only part of my proposal. The
shuttle is worth 6 million credits, plus it'll help us get away. Pankgy will
be our pilot."

<eyebrows raise, fast talk erupts>

"Quiet! The trouble is that security chief Torgam was in the shuttle bay
studying our prize, right after the captain informed the senior staff. I'm
sure he and the captain have worked out some sort of security plan."

<groans>

"Yes, I know he controls the crew's weapons, but we can tap into the closed
circuit TV system and keep an eye on the Armanent Safe. More importantly..."

<holds up his handcomp>

"...I can rig the internal gravity net to respond to my commands remotely. We
can trap the bridge crew on the bridge and the security men under 3 or 4 Gs
while we have a clear alley to escape. The only problem is, we'll have to cut
through the shuttle bay doors to fly out."

<nodding and happy banter>

"All right. Get the heavy plasma cutters ready, along with four vacc suits,
and your personal belongings. Pankgy setup a feed from the security system.
I'll begin linking the gravity system to my handcomp. By this time tommorrow,
we'll be off-planet, travelling first class."

That last line was paraphrased from Alan Rickman playing Hans Gruber in Die Hard

>

 

[Gadrin]

Other ideas:

A group of ne'er-do-wells who lease equipment from time to time and if they
like it, go back and steal it after returning it, this way they can assess
it's value first hand. They can use it or sell it from that point.

Another was a stolen ship, that was a prototype (or important component)
taken thanks to industrial espionage/corruption/pay-off. A veritable inside
job. This might be nice to get back the equipment or the scientist, or both
if the players need to do more of a manhunting job than usual. Obviously the
opponents know enough to protect him, but you can modify to your own liking.
I had planned to have the ship under heavy guard, but the scientist moved to
a remote spot under moderate guard (secrecy more than guns) and the PCs could
track him by studying x-boat transmissions (once they get a warrant) and
discover something that sticks out. You can turn that into a tip by a tramper
who visits the system or whatever.

I always liked the skip tracer doing A and comes across B scenario where B is
more lucrative. He can still fulfill his job for A, but then turn attention
onto B. Such as the ship he's recovering has 50 bars of stolen platinum in
it's hold and comm-traffic recorded on the ship's computer has them talking
about buying up some "platinum label wine" that's talked about in weight, not
liters or something equally screwy. I'd offer this to the players if they'd
done well in other scenarios.

I have others somewhere, but we'll let someone else get some posts in
edge-wise for the time being.

>

 

[Madarin Dude]

Some really great ideas I like the ideas of a ship being taken apart there so that some other skills can be used to get the job done get the ship back in one piece. The prototype scenario is cool too rescue the scientist and get back the valuable component that is needed.

Some great adventure seeds there. Lots of ideas for other campaigns too. Thanks for them.

 

[samuelvss]

One word: pirates!

Low level thugs have grabbed the ship, and are trying to set themselves up as a band of pirates. Their attempts to grab ships have used distress signals and ruses. They have a far trader with two double turrets, one missile, one pulse laser, and a gig with a beam laser.

They have a base with a shot-up Type-S and a advanced base.

They look a bit like:

Pirate Sergeant 579982 Age 30 3 Terms Cr 110000
Brawling-1, Electronic-1, Engineering-1, Forgery-1,
Mechanical-1, Pilot-1, Streetwise-1
Accelerator Rifle

Pirate Sergeant 457A26 Age 34 4 Terms Cr 12000
Blade-1, Brawling-1, Engineering-2, Gambling-1,
Laser Carbine-1, Gunnery-1, Mechanical-1, Zero-G Combat-1
Laser Carbine, Blade

Pirate Sergeant 378774 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 51000
Blade-1, Brawling-2, Zero-G Combat-1
Low Passage x2

Pirate Corporal 868576 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 0
Brawling-1, Gunnery-2, Mechanical-1, Tactics-1, Vacc Suit-1

Pirate Corporal 358768 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 100000
Brawling-2, Gambling-1, Shotgun-1, Gunnery-1
Shotgun

Pirate Corporal 7779AA Age 30 3 Terms Cr 10000
Cutlass-2, Brawling-1, Mechanical-1, Tactics-1,
Zero-G Combat-1
Cutlass

Pirate Henchman 687787 Age 30 3 Terms Cr 0
Brawling-1, Computer-1, Mechanical-2, Tactics-1
Low Passage, Shotgun

Pirate B79B73 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 50000
Blade-1, Brawling-1, Pistol-1, Zero-G Combat-1

Pirate 67B5B9 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 0
Brawling-1, Forgery-1, Pilot-1, Vacc Suit-1
Low Passage x2

Pirate Henchman 9456A9 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 100000
Brawling-1, Computer-1, Gunnery-1, Navigation-1,
Streetwise-1

Pirate 749659 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 0
Dagger-1, Brawling-1, Gunnery-1
Middle Passage

Pirate 748936 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 50000
Brawling-1, Engineering-1, Pistol-1, Mechanical-1

Pirate 989393 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 0
Brawling-1, Pilot-2

Pirate Henchman 757778 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 50000
Brawling-1, Gunnery-3, Ship Tactics-1

Pirate 887837 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 60000
Blade-1, Brawling-1, Gunnery-1
Blade

Pirate Henchman 7AB982 Age 26 2 Terms Cr 0
Brawling-1, Engineering-1, Gunnery-1, Pilot-1, Streetwise-1
Snub Pistol

 

[Jame]

My group is actually doing a repo-men campaign now.

 

[Madarin Dude]

The old phony distress call gambit that is a classic. Also the bogus customs inspectors is another of those pirate scams that have been run before. I think it is a good campaign because of the ability to drive the players and keep i ton a smaller scale. Lots of opportunities for everything from starship combat to investigations.

 

[Gadrin]

The old phony distress call gambit that is a classic. Also the bogus customs inspectors is another of those pirate scams that have been run before. I think it is a good campaign because of the ability to drive the players and keep i ton a smaller scale. Lots of opportunities for everything from starship combat to investigations.

I used a variation of the "Candy-gram" from old Sat Night Live on a PC in the Vilis sector. Had him sign for a package at the starport by a uniformed courier, and the pen turned out to be a stun baton that shocked him into oblivion.

Had the "fake team o'medics" nearby to carry him out. And they got a ransom demand later in the afternoon.

>

 

[CosmicGamer]

My thoughts on Repo / Bounty Hunter

I have not been in or run a Repo or Bounty Hunter type game, only salvage / recovery of damaged / abandoned ships. I have, however, thought a little about this in the past and here are a few of my thoughts which I'm still mulling over and working on.

Premise
Ships and people that are 'wanted' will most likely be 'on the run' and not staying in any one place for long. There could be some extensive time, travel, and expense involved before you hunt down what you are searching for.

1) It takes a long time for information to travel.
By the time some person, company, or government puts 2 and 2 together and determines that there is a problem, the trail will be fairly cold and you could be chasing after your 'prey' always a few jumps behind them. To me, there are many plausible possibilities for catching someone. Ship gets impounded, break down, missjump and so on; and while these are all good plots, I believe this is pure chance or GM contrived to allow the prey to be caught. In my opinion, a 'hunter' would never leave things up to just luck and it would not make sense to be given a job unless they have a faster ship than the 'prey'. This way when you get the lead that the 'prey' is making two jump 2's to get to system x, you can get there in one jump and make up some ground.

2) It is very expensive to travel.
Fuel, Life support, Ship Maintenance, and Crew salaries are maybe 50,000cr/mo. If you have a mortgage, it could easily be another 100,000/mo. If you are hauling passengers and cargo you would hope to make a profit, so some monthly profit needs to be added in. 250,000cr/mo to track down your prey?

That is a big upfront cost that the company hiring the adventurers needs to cover with no guarantee that the ship / people will be recovered and losses will be compensated for. Do you trust a bunch of nobody adventurers with all this money up front? Do the adventurers cover the cost hoping for a big payday?

Remember, the company needs to recover costs from all the failed attempts to recover ships too. Determine IYTU what the recovery rate is. 5%, 10%?

Example: A Far Trader that is worth 40mcr after depreciation. Lets say 1.5mcr per ship is spent trying to recover 10 ships (average of 6 months expenses) and one is recovered. A 5% (2mcr) bonus is given for the recovered ship. After some other administrative and auctioning costs the original mortgage holder gets 20mcr. This is not profit for them. They are still out 20mcr on this ship and 40mcr on 9 others. Their original 400mcr in losses was mitigated a mere 5%.

(I'm no math wiz. I'm sure there are errors in this. My point is that it may not be plausible for companies to pay big credits up front.)

One of my thoughts is that information on wanted ships and people would be sent as an 'all points bulletin'. I have not worked out the details. Do these 'wanted' announcements go to every system? or maybe just along the x-boat routes and Recovery experts / bounty hunters from more remote areas go get the latest listings from time to time (like going to the post office to check the wanted posters).

My point in all this: I see less running after criminals and ships and more localized Recovery experts / Bounty Hunters (and Naval vessels) who check incoming traffic to their system for ships and people that are wanted.

My thoughts for the original poster:

The players will be working for a large insurance firm that wants to get some money back on their investment ... I need to lead them around by the nose a bit first ... normally a D&D player ...

You could instead have the players work for a local company that specializes in recovery. Why? If a message to your 'boss' takes a month round trip your adventurers have to be independent. A local company / boss can 'lead them around by the nose'.

For those D&D players, treat the ship deck plans like a dungeon and give them some room to room searching and combat. Don't forget 'traps' (altered gravity, decompression) and treasure (hand computers, software, weapons, armor and high tech gadgets left in staterooms).

In place of D&D experience, traveler typically gives items or large sums of money. So that the D&Ders get the characteristic and skill increases they are more familiar with, consider expert computer programs and implants or state that a certain amount of time goes by between adventures and either give them a new skill package before the next adventure or allow them to train as per the rules on learning new skills.

Future possibility : Give them a little more freedom by having an adventure in an adjacent system and maybe there is a single NPC representative of the company working here in case they need guidance.

 

[Madarin Dude]

I have not been in or run a Repo or Bounty Hunter type game, only salvage / recovery of damaged / abandoned ships. I have, however, thought a little about this in the past and here are a few of my thoughts which I'm still mulling over and working on.

Premise
Ships and people that are 'wanted' will most likely be 'on the run' and not staying in any one place for long. There could be some extensive time, travel, and expense involved before you hunt down what you are searching for.

Well ships are worth considerable sums of money and companies can be patient and wait for a while for their ship. People after a while will fall into certain patterns and will visit certain systems because of things they like or where there is some decent trade etc.

A group who skip out on their payments and never stays in the same place very long will likely find it hard to get caught but after some time might fall into a routine and visit certain worlds in a pattern. If the holder of the ships deed waits a few years that is OK the cost of the ship is worth it and it is possible that they will not be sought out until after a certain time. Also reputable sales of ships might have to wait until enough time has passed to be sure that the ship is not hot. If the ship is chopped and sold for parts might be a bit more difficult to track down.

Remember also the criminal element is not necessarily geniuses they tend to make mistakes and might do something completely stupid that gets them caught.

I did think of that angle and it is true but look at it from the other side there is no criminal enterprise that is certain to succeed.

This campaign is training wheels till the party can work on their own and make their own adventures. The plan is to give them a percentage of the wholesale value of the ships that are returned. Once they have enough for a ship then they can buy their own and run cargo or do this as independent contractors.

The expenses of travel can be lowered by skimming and refining your own fuel. A few other things can lower the operating costs having the party be shareholders and forgo wages will lower costs and motivate them.

 

[Gadrin]

You might have to give some thought as well to the SPA as well as having lots of Financial Institutions who give loans to ships.

So this may mean that after a certain amount of time, xboat communiques relay who was in what port, when and so on. Obviously on systems further out, this information may not make it as quickly as full-on x-boat lanes; but the SPA might mandate that info be brought to some sort of distribution center whenever possible (the traditional Traveller mail feature).

I also favor nano or micro-marking equipment on ships with serial number and composite numbers (probably of many, many digits) such that parts and such can be researched. So it might follow that banks have people that visit Crazy Luishiggi's Used Ships and look at seats and hatches and valves and ducts and check the numbers versus the architects final databases (several) of any missing ships to see if it's been parted out for cash, which is another option.

"Boy 4 staterooms of grav plating for 1/2 price!" could bring in a nice credit or two.

>

 

[rancke]

I also favor nano or micro-marking equipment on ships with serial number and composite numbers (probably of many, many digits) such that parts and such can be researched. So it might follow that banks have people that visit Crazy Luishiggi's Used Ships and look at seats and hatches and valves and ducts and check the numbers versus the architects final databases (several) of any missing ships to see if it's been parted out for cash, which is another option.

In addition to marked equipment, "owners" of skipped ships faces forensic examination. "The materials used to build ships at Gashidda shipyards differ subtly, but detectably, from ships built at other shipyards. The Gashidda shipyards only built 36 Beowulf class ships. Your ship was built at Gashidda, whatever your papers say, and dating indicates that it's one of six possible ones. According to the latest ship listings, five of those are accounted for. The sixth skipped two years ago. Would you mind telling us where you got this ship and its transponder?"

Of course, few port administrations would bother with a forensic examination unless the ship aroused suspicions first ("Your ship is supposedly the Lancelot, built at Yard no. 17 58 years ago. Yet this listing indicates the Lancelot is operating in the Duchy of Alderamin, or was eight months ago... How did you get from Alderamin to the Marches in eight months? Ah, a misjump. Maybe so, but I think we'd better have a closer look at her.") Such an examination would probably cost a lot of money and require a sophisticated laboratory.


Hans

 

[Gadrin]

Well it seems unlikely that anyone would target a ship like that unless they've been ordered to by the SPA or their own government for whatever reasons.

Time will be on the side of most skips, since they'll probably always have at least a week's head start, concievably more if the others don't notice until...whenever.

Most con-men know to break it up quickly and cash in and disappear, and the TU makes it that much more appealing. The middleman might be in the driver's seat if they know how to work the system.

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