Who needs stewards anyway?

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

Sundry thoughts:

- I always viewed the "One per eight" rule as more of a meta-game construct and less of an in-setting detail. It was meant to indicate to a the GM and/or ship builder the level of personal service high passengers will expect and not to imply the existence of the Furious Fighting Fruitbats of the 151st Armored Steward Auditing Flotilla (Provisional). If the players were going to carry high passengers or if a liner was being designed, there would have to be stewards in at least a one-to-eight proportion to the number of high pax involved.

- As for licensing issues, we had many indications of various licensing bodies even before GT:FT and GT:Starports explicitly described those bodies, their certificates, and testing requirements. However, a prospective steward's licensing would most likely be less important than his resume, c.v., and personal references. Unlike pilots or engineers who can be tested on explicit technical knowledge, a steward's profession involves a much less tangible, but equally difficult, skill set.

- When the players arrive at a world and roll for passengers on the proper tables, the process that models from the setting's "fictional reality" what is not as cut and dried. A GM can certainly run a passenger "hunt" that simply, but the "real" process is far more involved. Canon mentions passenger brokers, but any ship would have a working relationship with those brokers before pax were sent their way. Cap'n Blackie and the Running Boil aren't simply going to show up at Mora one day and automatically get passenger references, just as they wouldn't automatically get freight contracts.

- Part of the working relationship the players would have to build with pax brokers would undoubtedly include "walk through" inspections of their vessel's pax accommodations. There's nothing official in all these visits as health and safety inspections are usually handled by the larger ports both during normal layovers and annual maintenance, but the visits are vitally important nonetheless. The broker or brokers' organization want to see the ship they'll be sending pax aboard and meet the crew manning that ship.

- This bit is vitally important. While the details I've discussed undoubtedly exist, along with many more we haven't touched upon, a GM need never bother with them. All they have to do is require the proper steward-to-high pax ratio and everything is done. They can either roleplay the details I've mentioned (and never got my players to roleplay) or just quote the ratio. The level of detail, and the level of work, is entirely up to them.

- Aramis' depiction of passenger routes is canonical as far as I'm concerned, because it is wholly historical. Scheduled passenger service to lightly populated regions is a historically recent luxury and one that depends on relatively cheap transportation such as busses and aircraft. Starships in Traveller are not cheap, so a similar situation is not possible.

- A wealthy individual in the OTU wishing to travel between Glisten and Tarsus, and who also doesn't own their own ship, would first take scheduled liners between Glisten and Collace. The level of service aboard those liners would be well known and dependable, it would be part of the lines' advertising after all. For the final Collace-to-Tarsus leg of their the journey, our wealthy traveller would visit a pax broker or broker organization and get a list of ships scheduled to leave for Tarsus. They'd then send an agent or servant to the vessels on the list to inspect them and choose the best transport. The players would end up with His Grace the Duke of Earl aboard because they'd been inspected and chosen and not because their steward had a framed certificate hanging above his bunk. Of course, as above, a GM need not model His Grace's trip like that at all, but it's how the trip would occur in the OTU's "fictional reality".


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

No, Hans, the point about moderns is that, on a tramp, unlike a megafreighter, you CAN arrange for HP...

And modern liners are NOT about going from place to place. They are about the trip itself, not the destination; in fact, most only accept full route passengers A->B->C->A.

Therefore, unlike the canonical liners we see in CT, which, like the whitestar liners of 1870, are about getting people from point A to point B, the modern liner is not a viable model for ANY travel other than pleasure cruising.

Bill: The certificate might not be the reason His Grace chooses the PC's, but it sure would be a prerequisite for being inspected.

 

[saundby]

S4 and Epicenter have it pretty well spot on from my perspective.

For literary examples, check out the Dumarest books Lallia and Derai by E.C. Tubb. There you see in one case Earl being chosen as a travel attendant (Steward). Mayenne also gives a good example of group travel on a small ship in the first part of the book (though I think the end of the book isn't so hot. It was written to get Earl out of a corner that he'd been painted into, I think.)

Overall, the whole series gives a good model of small ship, no established lanes travel. And we know it had a huge influence on Traveller's design.

As to the Furious Fighting Fruitbats, they're out there, they're just stretched a bit thin. It's an idea too good to not have them show up in YTU at some point...

"Dear Lord, we're being boarded by the Furious Fighting Fruitbats! And they're loaded for bear!"

"FGMPs and space armor?"

"Worse! Handcomps and green eyeshades!"

 

[BlackBat242]

Supp 4 is dead on.

I take it from there a bit differently, though...

Remember, in the real world, there were many different classes of passengers.
One list is as follows:http://www.gjenvick.com/PassengerLists/ClassificationsOfPassengers.html
# Saloon Passengers
# First Cabin or First Class
# One Class or Cabin Class
# Second Cabin or Second Class
# Tourist Third Cabin
# Tourist Class
# Third Class
# Steerage or Between (Tween) Decks

Saloon, first, and second classes had their own lounges & dining areas, while tourist & third classes ate in their own rooms and had no lounge. Steerage often had to bring their own food, and if the ship provided it it was of barely edible quality. Additionally, steerage was not even allowed onto the open decks... they had to remain in their own section below decks.

This was usually simplified to:
# First Class
# Second Class
# Third Class
# Steerage

These would correspond to:
# Luxury class [not a Traveller designation]
# High passage
# Middle passage
# Low Passage


In actuality, most passenger liners lost money on saloon/first class (due to the high overhead), broke even on second class, made some money on third class, and paid most of their bills on the revenue from steerage (despite this being the cheapest).

I require ships carrying High Passengers to have not only a Steward, but also separate passenger lounge space... 2 dtons* minimum, and an additional dton per 2 HP staterooms above 2. HP staterooms may be either 4dtons* for single occupancy or 6dtons* for double.

Middle passage only requires the staterooms, but these must be at least 3dtons* for single or 4 dtons* for double. HP rated staterooms are often booked at MP rates if there is no Steward.

Luxury is normally found only on large liners and high-end yachts, etc. Imagine the suite the Vanderbilts had booked on Titanic.


*see most deck plans... due to allowance for corridors, life support, etc., staterooms are rated at 4dtons, but occupy 6 - 1.5m squares, which equals 2 dtons.
A "3 dton stateroom" would occupy 4 squares on a deck plan.
A "6dton" stateroom would occupy 8-9 squares.
The lounge must occupy the full volume specified... 6 squares plus.

 

[Whipsnade]

Bill: The certificate might not be the reason His Grace chooses the PC's, but it sure would be a prerequisite for being inspected.

Aramis,

Exactly. His Grace sent his man along to check out the ships on the list provided by the brokers and the players are on that list to begin with because they had the proper licensing, did well during the brokers' walk-through, had references from other brokers, have a working relationship with the brokers on Collace, and several other intangibles.

The various steward-to-pax ratio rules in the various versions are just a quick & dirty way to model all of that. A GM can roleplay it, if his players want to and mine rarely if ever did, or he can just apply the ratio and move on to something his players prefer, which I did more often than not.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

- I always viewed the "One per eight" rule as more of a meta-game construct and less of an in-setting detail. It was meant to indicate to a the GM and/or ship builder the level of personal service high passengers will expect and not to imply the existence of the Furious Fighting Fruitbats of the 151st Armored Steward Auditing Flotilla (Provisional). If the players were going to carry high passengers or if a liner was being designed, there would have to be stewards in at least a one-to-eight proportion to the number of high pax involved.

Yes, that's what I assume too. What I then assume is that there's a difference between the service and comfort one can expect from a small Free Trader and what can be expected from a regularly sheduled liner, and that prospective passengers would be fully aware of that. Also, I feel that the difference is big enough to be significant in roleplaying terms, should any player feel a desire to explore it.

- As for licensing issues, we had many indications of various licensing bodies even before GT:FT and GT:Starports explicitly described those bodies, their certificates, and testing requirements. However, a prospective steward's licensing would most likely be less important than his resume, c.v., and personal references. Unlike pilots or engineers who can be tested on explicit technical knowledge, a steward's profession involves a much less tangible, but equally difficult, skill set.

And as you have no doubt noticed, I expressed my doubts that the importance of a prospective steward's licensing would be high enough to give the Imperium an interest in regulating it, but accepted Wil's suggestion for the purposes of argument.

- When the players arrive at a world and roll for passengers on the proper tables, the process that models from the setting's "fictional reality" what is not as cut and dried.

And what I suggest is that the rules are so crude as to create a false impressions of how things would really work in the case of the average PC-run Free Trader.

A GM can certainly run a passenger "hunt" that simply, but the "real" process is far more involved. Canon mentions passenger brokers...

Where? I can't recall any mention of passenger brokers that send passengers to Free Traders. IIRC, company factors that sell tickets to sheduled future departures were mentioned in FT, but that's one of the differences between sheduled liners and Free Traders.

...but any ship would have a working relationship with those brokers before pax were sent their way. Cap'n Blackie and the Running Boil aren't simply going to show up at Mora one day and automatically get passenger references, just as they wouldn't automatically get freight contracts.

But that's exactly what the rules say does happen. There's nothing in the rules about needing to have visited any world before, no mention of hiring people brokers. The basic situation portrays a ship arriving, selecting a new destination, and leaving five days later with so-and-so-many high, middle, and low passengers.

- Part of the working relationship the players would have to build with pax brokers would undoubtedly include "walk through" inspections of their vessel's pax accommodations. There's nothing official in all these visits as health and safety inspections are usually handled by the larger ports both during normal layovers and annual maintenance, but the visits are vitally important nonetheless. The broker or brokers' organization want to see the ship they'll be sending pax aboard and meet the crew manning that ship.

The trouble with this picture is the same one I have with your "Duke sends his man to inspect the ship" scenario. See below.

- This bit is vitally important. While the details I've discussed undoubtedly exist, along with many more we haven't touched upon, a GM need never bother with them. All they have to do is require the proper steward-to-high pax ratio and everything is done. They can either roleplay the details I've mentioned (and never got my players to roleplay) or just quote the ratio. The level of detail, and the level of work, is entirely up to them.

I agree completely, up to a point. That point is when (or rather, if) the players want to explore the possibilities of doing without qualified stewards and/or the point when the players ask "Who are these high passengers and why are they booking passage with us?"

- Aramis' depiction of passenger routes is canonical as far as I'm concerned, because it is wholly historical. Scheduled passenger service to lightly populated regions is a historically recent luxury and one that depends on relatively cheap transportation such as busses and aircraft. Starships in Traveller are not cheap, so a similar situation is not possible.

But that's what I've been trying to point out. These rules are applied equally to routes where no sheduled ship has ever been seen and to routes where dozens of passenger liners are fighting like sharks for market shares. Which is a level of abstraction that, IMO, lies considerably above that employed in most campaigns. I'm not saying you can't ignore this crudeness and get on with your game (people, including me, have been doing that for 30 years). I'm saying that if you don't want to ignore it, the rules are inadequate and, in some cases, downright inapplicable.

- A wealthy individual in the OTU wishing to travel between Glisten and Tarsus, and who also doesn't own their own ship, would first take scheduled liners between Glisten and Collace. The level of service aboard those liners would be well known and dependable, it would be part of the lines' advertising after all. For the final Collace-to-Tarsus leg of their the journey, our wealthy traveller would visit a pax broker or broker organization and get a list of ships scheduled to leave for Tarsus.

IICC (If I've Calculated Corectly ), the Collace-Tarsus route would (per FT) have between 5,000 and 10,000 passengers per year. Let's call it 7,500. Allowing for non-perfect booking, that would mean that ships with a total passenger carrying capacity of around 240 can find gainful employment on that route. If the companies employ ships like the Stellar Class, each ship can carry 41 passengers (21 High or Mid, 20 low). Let's call it 40[*]. That'd would be 6 ships regularly employed on the route, or one every 3.5 day on the average (assuming a regular ship can do 35 jumps per year). If we also assume that those pesky tramps "steal" some of those passengers, maybe it's only five regular ships, so once every 4 days on the average.

Now, why would anyone chose to travel by Free Trader instead of a real passenger liner based on comfort level? Sure, if someone is in a hurry to get to Tarsus, he'll go by Free Trader tomorrow rather than liner in three days, but that has nothing to do with the presence or absence of a steward.


[*] Actually it would be 62, because it's legal to carry people two to a stateroom. But let's not open that can of worms here.

They'd then send an agent or servant to the vessels on the list to inspect them and choose the best transport. The players would end up with His Grace the Duke of Earl aboard because they'd been inspected and chosen and not because their steward had a framed certificate hanging above his bunk.

The problem with that scenario is that it is a very limited one. If we're on a low-population world and heading along a low-volume passenger route, the duke[*] has no choice (except to stay on the world for months until another Free Trader shows up). If we're on a high-population world and heading along a high-volume route, he has an abundant choice of regular, comfortable passenger liners, so why would he be contemplating going by Free Trader? Whatever reason he might have would certainly have absolutely nothing to do with comfort levels.

Somewhere in between those two situations lies the one where your scenario would work: When the duke has a choice of several Free Traders, but no liners at all. Would you say that this would be the default situation a Free Trader would face? I certainly wouldn't.


[*] I take it the duke's yacht is out of commission?



Hans

 

[rancke]

No, Hans, the point about moderns is that, on a tramp, unlike a megafreighter, you CAN arrange for HP...

HP = High Passage? I don't understand what you're getting at here.

And modern liners are NOT about going from place to place. They are about the trip itself, not the destination; in fact, most only accept full route passengers A->B->C->A.

How about not-all-that-far-back-in-history liners. Like the ones just before transatlantic passenger airplanes provided a viable alternative to crossing the Atlantic by boat? An alternative that has no analogue in Traveller star traffic? There were dozens of liners employed between England and America, and if there wasn't one leaving tomorrow, there was certainly one leaving the day after.

Bill: The certificate might not be the reason His Grace chooses the PC's, but it sure would be a prerequisite for being inspected.

Unless there were other reasons for wanting to travel by Free Trader. Like, for instance, the fact that it was the only one leaving within the forseeable future.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Exactly. His Grace sent his man along to check out the ships on the list provided by the brokers and the players are on that list to begin with because they had the proper licensing, did well during the brokers' walk-through, had references from other brokers, have a working relationship with the brokers on Collace, and several other intangibles.

"So, Travers, did you inspect the Running Boil?"

"Indeed, Your Grace. It's small, it has no suites, the so-called passenger lounge is smaller than your closet and you'll have to share it with the other passengers. There's not even a separate work-out room."

"But the steward is competent?"

"Indeed, Your Grace. I inspected his Certificate of Competency myself."

"Well then, that's all that matters. I wouldn't want to rely on your services during the jump, Travers."

"Who would, Your Grace?"

The various steward-to-pax ratio rules in the various versions are just a quick & dirty way to model all of that. A GM can roleplay it, if his players want to and mine rarely if ever did, or he can just apply the ratio and move on to something his players prefer, which I did more often than not.

And what I'm asking is what that quick & dirty way actually covers and what the rules might be for the slow and refined way?


Hans

 

[Space Hamster]

"So, Travers, did you inspect the Running Boil?"

"Indeed, Your Grace. It's small, it has no suites, the so-called passenger lounge is smaller than your closet and you'll have to share it with the other passengers. There's not even a separate work-out room."

"But the steward is competent?"

"Indeed, Your Grace. I inspected his Certificate of Competency myself."

"Well then, that's all that matters. I wouldn't want to rely on your services during the jump, Travers."

"Who would, Your Grace?"


Hans

:rofl:
Yes the ship would need to be quite comfortable also.

You would assume they are more technologically advanced than us. After the first few high passengers complained about the accommodations and service while giving them one star on the exclusive club rating system. The free trader would start to find it hard to get high passengers. Any high passengers that they managed to get are probably running from something.

 

[aramis]

Those late 1800's liners, Hans, didn't generally take reservations. You booked while they were docked or shortly before. (See the White Star Lines adverts.)

The White Star liners were big, and the luxuries were at the expense of the 3rd rate passages. (Quad Occ. and no access to commons!) They also carried cargo (CF the titanic's load of china). And were not out of range price wise from smaller ships.

 

[rancke]

Those late 1800's liners, Hans, didn't generally take reservations. You booked while they were docked or shortly before. (See the White Star Lines adverts.)

The White Star liners were big, and the luxuries were at the expense of the 3rd rate passages. (Quad Occ. and no access to commons!) They also carried cargo (CF the titanic's load of china). And were not out of range price wise from smaller ships.

I don't know what the practice was in the late 19th Century, but I'm fairly sure that booking passage was costumary in the early 20th Century. But be that as it may, I've completely lost sight of what it is you're trying to prove with this line of reasoning. It's some sort of analogy with Classic Era shipping, but what? Is it the Free Traders or the regular liners that are akin to the White Star liners, and in what way? And what are the other kind akin to, if anything?


Hans

 

[CosmicGamer]

From another thread, but applicable here too.

Nah, we don't really have an equivalent to low berths any more. See, low passage treats the passengers as cargo, something which hasn't been legal since the days of the Middle Passage - no, not the ticket. But unless you've been crated up and loaded into the cargo hold with the rest of the checked baggage, you're not traveling low passage.

I do believe you are right. We do not have anything like low berths today. We also don't require life support during most forms of travel. Any comparison of traveling in Traveller will never be equivalent.

But let's say the technology was available today for something like low berths. Using methods of travel available to us today, how applicable would low berth be?

Low berths cost 50,000cr to install per passenger vs the cost of a seat (or crate ).
Low berths require 1/2 ton space. How many passengers would be in the same amount of space on a typical plane, train, or bus?

My point is that all these comparisons to steam liners, sail, airplanes, trains, submarines, and whatever else will always be flawed and open to argument. I'll add one more reason: most forms of travel today do not have the expenditure of providing life support.

For the original posters questions:
Who needs stewards anyway?
Needs are something specific to the individual and their situation. For me, you don't NEED a steward. Certainly not in the same way that you need air, food, water...

Who WANTS a steward? Perhapses high passengers?

Who is REQUIRED to have a steward? Perhaps in some corners of some peoples universe it is required by law.

One thing to consider is that even if you don't have someone with steward skill doesn't mean passengers won't have wants and yes, NEEDS. Someone may have to interact with the passengers in an unskilled capacity. Things that would not be given a second thought suddenly become part of the game and require task rolls in whatever manner CT handles unskilled tasks.

What self-respecting High passenger is ever going to travel by Free Trader unless he has no other option?
What Mid passenger would travel by Free Trader unless he has no other option?, What passenger would choose low passage on a Free Trader vs a well known and respected liner with excellent medical facilities and well trained doctors unless they have no other option?

The way I see it, pretty much all passage on a Free Trader is as a last resort.

Why would the absence of a properly trained steward make any difference? In context of the paragraph this was taken from: No steward would result in a much more unhappy passenger if they payed for high passage and not mid passage or some other discount.

If someone really has no other option, charge them 10 times the high passage price and stick them in the low berth.

ok, I'm being a bit silly, but the rules are usually designed to handle the most common occurrences and balance things in a general way. You generate passengers under a set of assumptions, pricing and staffing being some of them. There is no reasons you can't tweak things, but you should also tweak the rules and rolls to see how many passengers and of what type you find.

A ship with no steward should entice fewer passengers than the same one with a steward. It increases the chance of someone saying 'I'll wait for the next ship'

Throw a bunch of luxuries and twice the number of stewards as needed onto a ship and you also break the standard assumptions and results. This ship should attract more passengers. Perhaps add together the steward skills and luxuries to determine the number of passengers?

I'm not as familiar with CT rules and how it generates passengers. Perhaps in CT this isn't explained already?

 

[RKFM]

And what I'm asking is what that quick & dirty way actually covers and what the rules might be for the slow and refined way?
Hans

If you are looking at rules for a slow and refined way to deal with Stewards/High Passengers, then you are also going to have to start messing with passage rates. As it stands, ALL HPs are Cr10,000 and ALL MPs are Cr8,000. If you had known and advertised steward ratings among the large commercial liners, you would probably have to have some kind of price competition as well.

I think I could justify the rules as they stand (we've all had to shape some wacky UPPs in our time) with regards to how Free Traders get HPs and why they NEED stewards along these lines:
There is probably no serious legal issues with carrying HPs without a steward, but perhaps a disgruntled HP might complain, "I didn't get any food during the week long Journey thru jumpspace!" and the port could levy a small fine. Maybe as these citations build up and propagate thru the SPA grapevine the fines would get larger, or maybe cut off that ship access to the passenger boards. IMTU, an HP (indeed most folks travelling between worlds) are not the run of the mill sorts. They usually have some social/economic/political/cultural power so their opinions matter.

Really, the only objective requirements of HP is meals, and a larger baggage allowance. "Better meals" and "better service" are rather subjective. And again, you might then have to introduce price competition of some sorts.

 

[Maccat]

Of note the steward requirement is for the Imperium only, the various alien books have differing requirements (ex: Aslan Purser). Also the steward requirement for High Passengers, and they having priority always spoke to me the high passage was the standard.

It's expected in essence that there be a steward for carrying passengers. there was a write up of vilani cuisine in mileieu 0 for T4, which summed up for me what and why a steward is neccessary. If the steward is "overloaded" then only mid passage level of service could be supported.

With the problem in CT of profitability of ships, that extra 2k is significant. Raises the question of if high passage is available, then it is required. Mids are filled after the highs, in essence steerage. EVERY merchant in CT has stewards, significant to me.

Also on the adventuring side (what it IS all about after all!), working space available working passage as a steward allows people to get passage, travel the stars! who aren't all those highly technical sorts. LOTS of careers do not provide ship crew skills, and steward is the only option for them, no?

Then again lol maybe the steward requirement is a Noble's cheap way to get free passage for his servant/butler/charge d'affairs! Or the noble himself, drunk and "regaling" the other passengers in the lounge.

 

[Whipsnade]

What I then assume is that there's a difference between the service and comfort one can expect from a small Free Trader and what can be expected from a regularly sheduled liner, and that prospective passengers would be fully aware of that. (first snip from one of Han's usual thought provoking posts)

Hans,

Yes, there should be a difference between the tramp and the liner. However, we know that pax do pay higher prices for something so, even if they are aboard the Running Boil they're expecting something for there money. Not what they'd get aboard an Al Morai MK-class transport, but something.

Also, I feel that the difference is big enough to be significant in roleplaying terms, should any player feel a desire to explore it.

Agreed. It should be explored IF the desire is there. It's when the desire is lacking that the rules need to step into the breach. As we'll see below...

And as you have no doubt noticed, I expressed my doubts that the importance of a prospective steward's licensing would be high enough to give the Imperium an interest in regulating it, but accepted Wil's suggestion for the purposes of argument.

I've many friends and acquaintances in the "hospitality" industry and I'm riffing off their experiences. I'm also not suggesting that the Imperium, via the SPA or IISS or other body, directly regulate steward licensing. I am suggesting that the licensing is done at one remove. Bare with me here, I've got to tell yet another of my interminable stories.

We've a technical college of sorts here in the US with campuses scattered from Maine to Florida. It's called Johnson & Wales and is headquartered in Providence. It's provides graduates for the hospitality industries, everything from cooks to concierges and beyond. The programs involved don't always result in an actual degree, but they do result in various certificates and licenses that inform prospective employers that, yes, you do know your way around a kitchen, a hotel lobby, a tour office, and other jobs.

Now, just how well you're going to do those jobs is going to depend more on you and less on the certificate. There is something innate to being a good chef, for instance. I could take J&W's courses and still burn water while others can take the same courses and begin a culinary career.

What I'm driving at is that Cap'n Blackie and the Running Boil are going to hire a steward based on a couple of things. First, is he the product of some training program? Did he attend a school like J&W? Receive some sort of training by a merchant line? Or learn it on the job as an apprentice under another steward? Second, Cap'n Blackie is going to want references. Where has he worked and who has he worked for?

The second part is the most important: His licenses and certificates are going to prove he's been trained but they're going to say nothing about his actual skills. His job history is going to provide the really important information.

As for recurring licenses, the many, if not all, US states require some sort of food handling safety training if you'll be working with food. For most people, it's perfunctory. For those in supervisory positions it actually includes classes and a test. In many, if not all, states at least one person in any establishment serving food must have this supervisory level training. It's a public health issue and there is a fairly low hurdle for compliance.

Using that as a model, I can easily see a similar "public health training" certificate being part of a steward's (or other crewman's) resume. The certification could be handled yearly during annual maintenance and a ship found to have no personnel aboard without it would be subject to fines. The certificate would be part of the ship's papers customs inspectors are always asking for.

The training gets the steward in the door, the annual license/certificate allows them to keep their job, and their skills alone tell us how well they work out.

(continued)

 

[Whipsnade]

(continued)

And what I suggest is that the rules are so crude as to create a false impressions of how things would really work in the case of the average PC-run Free Trader.

Yes they are. The rules are also so crude as to not overly detail cargo handling, fueling, life support recharges, systems maintenance, and several thousand other things. The rules are crude so that a GM can pick and choose what he wants to concentrate on and what he wants to let slide.

I could, if I wanted to, detail freight handling to point of hiring stevedores, bribing unions, scanning barcodes, filling out paperwork, arranging for ground transport, examining warehouse space, juggling bank drafts, waiting for checks to clear, and a thousand other details, or...

... I can roll a few dice on the freight tables.

The same holds true for passengers. We can roleplay all the nifty details that have been discussed in these threads or we can roll some dice on a table and on aboard high passengers if there's a steward skill aboard somehow.

Where? I can't recall any mention of passenger brokers that send passengers to Free Traders. IIRC, company factors that sell tickets to sheduled future departures were mentioned in FT, but that's one of the differences between sheduled liners and Free Traders.

GT:FT and other places. There's mentions of passenger "brokers" in MT adventures IIRC. Passengers are the same as with freight. Scheduling can't be perfect, so brokers use tramps to move lots of freight that otherwise would be left dockside because no shipping line asset is available to move it. Scheduling can't perfect, so brokers use tramps to move passengers that otherwise would left dockside. These ticket "brokers" might not be called brokers, but they'll run their business pretty much the same and, like their freight brethren, they'll send passengers aboard ships they know and trust.

But that's exactly what the rules say does happen. There's nothing in the rules about needing to have visited any world before, no mention of hiring people brokers. The basic situation portrays a ship arriving, selecting a new destination, and leaving five days later with so-and-so-many high, middle, and low passengers.

You're right, there's nothing in the rules about that at all, nothing in those crude, quick, and dirty rules that allow GMs to ignore the things they wish to ignore. There's nothing in the rules about hiring stevedores or having someone aboard who can handle freight either, but do you want to argue that those two things don't occur?

All the rules say is "Roll On This Table", but we know that isn't what really happens. That's just a crude approximation that good GMs can and should embellish with various examples taken from real world history and experience.

That point is when (or rather, if) the players want to explore the possibilities of doing without qualified stewards and/or the point when the players ask "Who are these high passengers and why are they booking passage with us?"

That question is best answered by the needs of the particular adventure or campaign and not by the rules. All the rules do is provide a quick and dirty way for a GM to send passengers and freight their players' way. The details are deliberately left out.

But that's what I've been trying to point out. These rules are applied equally...

The rules are crude. The rules are only an approximation. The rules are skewed to model the activities of tramp starships and not shipping/passenger lines. What is that famous quote from the TML? Something like; Using Traveller's economics model to derive information about the high volume trade within the Imperium is like using Indian Ocean dhow traffic to derive information about container ship trade between the EU, US, and China.

You're asking to much of the rules. They were never written to provide the information you wish to derive from them.

IICC (If I've Calculated Corectly ), the Collace-Tarsus route would...

I picked Tarsus out of thin air because I wanted a lo-pop world near a hi-pop one and not because I ran the actual pax numbers. Forget about Tarsus and the pax traffic between it and Collace.

The example from the 19th Century still stands. Use Inchin, Talos, Singer, or some other backwater instead. Passengers will travel aboard scheduled liners between large ports and then arrange for transportation to less popular destinations aboard vessels more likely to be owned by the players.

Now, why would anyone chose to travel by Free Trader instead of a real passenger liner based on comfort level? Sure, if someone is in a hurry to get to Tarsus, he'll go by Free Trader tomorrow rather than liner in three days, but that has nothing to do with the presence or absence of a steward.

No one would usually choose a free trader based on comfort levels. As you noted their choice will be informed by other issues. However, if they want to pay high passenger prices they'll travel aboard a vessel that can provide high passenger service.

The problem with that scenario is that it is a very limited one. If we're on a low-population world and heading along a low-volume passenger route, the duke[*] has no choice (except to stay on the world for months until another Free Trader shows up). If we're on a high-population world and heading along a high-volume route, he has an abundant choice of regular, comfortable passenger liners, so why would he be contemplating going by Free Trader?

In my example, which merely expanded on the excellent historical example Aramis had shared with us, the Duke travels aboard those comfortable passenger liners when he can. It's only when there's no liners, that he goes shopping for a "comfortable" free trader.

And, yes, if he really needs to get somewhere he'll go by low berth if there's no other options. Players with a steward and a good reputation can give him that other option however.

Somewhere in between those two situations lies the one where your scenario would work: When the duke has a choice of several Free Traders, but no liners at all. Would you say that this would be the default situation a Free Trader would face? I certainly wouldn't.

The default situation? No.

A plausible reason why something like a free trader is going to be offering High Passages in the first place? Certainly. The players aren't going to be competing with Al Morai for high rollers on the Mora-Lunion run, but they are going to be able to pick up "leftover" pax just as they pick up "leftover" freight and with a steward aboard they'll have their pick of those leftovers too.

Crude rules that don't model anything aside from numbers, that's what we have here. All our speculating is about how GMs can dress those rules up if they so choose.


Regards,
Bill

 

[robject]

Not quite. It's rather that I don't think anyone would travel by Free Trader if a more savory alternative (ie. a regular liner) is available. So, given that the prospective passenger is motivated to travel by Free Trader in the first place (implying the lack of a reasonable alternative or some compelling reason not to avail himself of any such alternative), what are the odds that the lack of proper service is going to make him change his mind?

[...]

The only thing I'm comparing is going from A to B on a regular passenger liner and going from A to B on a Free Trader. The setting description (and some of the rules too) do distinguish between Free Traders and various types of shipping lines, so that's perfectly canonical.

Hans

Well then, that doesn't sound like a problem. A free trader isn't a liner, but a steward is a steward.

And, absolutely stewards are "accredited", as much as any skill-based role: if a task roll requires steward skill, then his level of accreditation indicates his probability of success.

When it becomes a problem is when you figure that interstellar travel is commonplace.

IICC (If I've Calculated Corectly ), the Collace-Tarsus route would (per FT) have between 5,000 and 10,000 passengers per year. Let's call it 7,500.

Well there's your problem in a nutshell.

 

[Supplement Four]

Of note the steward requirement is for the Imperium only....

Yeah, you definitely want to stay away from Vargr transports. I'm still scratching in places I didn't know could itch.:smirk:

 

[rancke]

What self-respecting High passenger is ever going to travel by Free Trader unless he has no other option?

What Mid passenger would travel by Free Trader unless he has no other option?, What passenger would choose low passage on a Free Trader vs a well known and respected liner with excellent medical facilities and well trained doctors unless they have no other option?

But according to the rule, a High Passenger will decide not to get aboard after all if the requisite number of proper stewards are not enployed by the ship. The mid passengers take the ship regardless. The rule create the discrepancy that High passengers are under some sort of pressure to get on that ship, but the pressure is not enough to make them overlook the absence of stewards.


Hans

 

[mctesla]

But according to the rule, a High Passenger will decide not to get aboard after all if the requisite number of proper stewards are not enployed by the ship. The mid passengers take the ship regardless. The rule create the discrepancy that High passengers are under some sort of pressure to get on that ship, but the pressure is not enough to make them overlook the absence of stewards.

Couldn't you also say that folks simply aren't willing to pay High Passage fares for Mid Passage service (i.e. not enough Stewards)? The rules don't track individuals, only tickets, so you could interpret it as someone who would normally pay High Passage rates, and would prefer to travel High Passage, understands the reality of travelling on that Free Trader, and then either waits for a High Passage opportunity (which most of this thread is about) or switches to a Mid Passage for that leg of the journey.

"Hir Grace, although the timing is right, the journey won't be pleasant, they are missing many of the expected amenities."

"Damn the luxury! I need to be on that ship! Purchase passage immediately... of course, we needn't be foolish and encourage such nonsense- book at a reduced rate."