Wow. Somehow I missed that. What a weird place to put it.
Beginning Play After Chargen
- Thread starter alex_greene
- Start date
Gavain
Banded Mongoose
I didn't replaced all the ship ownership benefits with 2d ship shares. The opening of the game was a bunch of strangers getting on a Subsidised merchant for the last leg back to their home in the Torpol Cluster. The players RPed their entrance to the ship. The 3 military types (army medic, navy pilot and marine) all came rolling in together still drunk from their send off party. They only coalesced as a group when the ship was attacked an boarded by pirates. They were the only passengers to help fight off the pirates. The mixed crew of Aslan and humans were killed, but not before the male Aslan spiked one of the travellers with his dewclaw and registered the traveller as crew. A Mardak judge was happy to award the travellers the pirate ship as a prize but wasn't going to touch off any icident by getting Aslan law wrong so she sent them off to Kitoria to solve the issue.
alex_greene
Guest
If you, as a referee, can't think of a way to wrap up chargen, I just put together two handy 2D tables.
Career Ender
2D Event
2 You've peaked. Promotion is never going to happen.
3 You are offered a desk job.
4 Your new boss is a vile specimen. It's loathing at first sight.
5 You're the last of your graduating class. All your old buddies have moved on, retired, or died.
6 You finally got your pension. Time to hang up your boots and go and make some real money.
7 At your age and rank, you're only good for trotting out on display on graduation day like an old warhorse.
8 You wake up alone, and suddenly realise your achievements have meant nothing.
9 You're being taken off active duty and offered a new position training young shavers barely out of their diapers.
10 Budget cuts. You've got your pension and Benefits, but you're first to go in the big downsizing purge.
11 Your buddy just called offering a sweet, lucrative position in the private market. The money is mind boggling.
12 There have been sweeping changes at the top. Your services are simply not required.
Joining The Travellers
2D Event
2 You can't remember the last three weeks. You have no clue where you are. It must have been one rough bender.
3 Your family sent you some really bad news.
4 Your family sent you some really good news.
5 You find yourself standing on a departure platform with cases in hand. But you've nowhere to go any more.
6 Everyone around you is a total stranger. You've lost track of everybody you have ever known.
7 You wake up alone in a TAS hostel room parsecs from home, with no loose cash. Last night's companion cleaned you out.
8 You wake up alone in a TAS hostel room, and you realise you haven't spoken socially to anybody in six weeks.
9 Somebody told you there's a warrant out on you, and you have good reason to believe them.
10 You wake up after a really intense poker game. You've won a ship. You're its captain. You're in the Master's cabin and it's already in Jump.
11 Your silver tongue just landed you a free High Passage ticket on the first ship outta here.
12 You feel the call of the stars, and the money in your pocket is screaming for you to spend it on something fun.
Career Ender
2D Event
2 You've peaked. Promotion is never going to happen.
3 You are offered a desk job.
4 Your new boss is a vile specimen. It's loathing at first sight.
5 You're the last of your graduating class. All your old buddies have moved on, retired, or died.
6 You finally got your pension. Time to hang up your boots and go and make some real money.
7 At your age and rank, you're only good for trotting out on display on graduation day like an old warhorse.
8 You wake up alone, and suddenly realise your achievements have meant nothing.
9 You're being taken off active duty and offered a new position training young shavers barely out of their diapers.
10 Budget cuts. You've got your pension and Benefits, but you're first to go in the big downsizing purge.
11 Your buddy just called offering a sweet, lucrative position in the private market. The money is mind boggling.
12 There have been sweeping changes at the top. Your services are simply not required.
Joining The Travellers
2D Event
2 You can't remember the last three weeks. You have no clue where you are. It must have been one rough bender.
3 Your family sent you some really bad news.
4 Your family sent you some really good news.
5 You find yourself standing on a departure platform with cases in hand. But you've nowhere to go any more.
6 Everyone around you is a total stranger. You've lost track of everybody you have ever known.
7 You wake up alone in a TAS hostel room parsecs from home, with no loose cash. Last night's companion cleaned you out.
8 You wake up alone in a TAS hostel room, and you realise you haven't spoken socially to anybody in six weeks.
9 Somebody told you there's a warrant out on you, and you have good reason to believe them.
10 You wake up after a really intense poker game. You've won a ship. You're its captain. You're in the Master's cabin and it's already in Jump.
11 Your silver tongue just landed you a free High Passage ticket on the first ship outta here.
12 You feel the call of the stars, and the money in your pocket is screaming for you to spend it on something fun.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
alex_greene
Guest
Kirk: Well, my previous career was as a juvenile Rogue.
Bones: That's nothing. Before I came here, I was a leader of an army of horse-mounted barbarians, and before that I was a Mega-City Judge.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
JonMarkHicks
Mongoose
We used to create characters as a group and as they went through their terms of service and different things happened we'd make up stories of how the characters new each other or met throughout the years, using the events as a basis.
As they went through their careers we'd make up stories how and why they met - that noble became friends with that soldier? How? Well, that soldier was on security duty and saved his life, or they spent a lot of time together and ended up being friends, that kind of thing.
We even had a group of PCs bond over one of the characters who died during character generation, and that death kept them loyal to each other as they adventured in their memory.
As they went through their careers we'd make up stories how and why they met - that noble became friends with that soldier? How? Well, that soldier was on security duty and saved his life, or they spent a lot of time together and ended up being friends, that kind of thing.
We even had a group of PCs bond over one of the characters who died during character generation, and that death kept them loyal to each other as they adventured in their memory.
alex_greene
Guest
Which boggles the mind when you consider that Travellers are often saddled with having to find work to pay a mortgage, as if they were no better than the wage slaves chained to their desk back home.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
1. Traveller characters are undergoing a midlife crisis.
2. In theory, an entrepreneur career can only be ended involuntarily by bankruptcy and/or boardroom coup.
2. In theory, an entrepreneur career can only be ended involuntarily by bankruptcy and/or boardroom coup.
"The Mortgage" is convenient shorthand for all the expenses that a small business owner has that aren't particularly fun to deal with. Like taxes, insurance, registration and licensing, and of course the cost of the ship.
Traveller's default for ships is simulating the skin of our teeth, barely making it tramp trader doing odd jobs to make ends meet. Like Firefly. The idea is that adventuring is fun, running a space trucker business is not. So it is deliberately set up to ensure that players need to go on adventures to keep their ship in the air.
You don't have to run it that way. You can just Millenium Falcon it, where Han can afford to go where ever he wants without the least concern about actually having cargo to pay for it. Or maybe Leia was paying for everything? Just say "unless you screw up big time, your ship breaks even. If you want anything fancy, take a side job (aka adventure!)."
Unless you find space trucking interesting, in which case its definitely possible to do a deeper dive into actually running a tramp freighter/smuggler operation than Traveller does.
Or, you know, you don't bother with the PC's having their own private ship. That makes life a lot easier for everyone. Only Scout, Merchant, Scholar, and Noble actually have ships as a benefit (though quite a few more have ship shares). So its not like it is guaranteed that someone has a ship (even if Scout and Merchant are among the most popular careers).
Or, if the PCs do have a ship, do it like they did in The Traveller Adventure. PCs have a larger than usual ship (A 400 ton Type R instead of a 200 ton Type A, but the ship is subsidized so the PCs aren't paying the mortgage. Instead, they pay the owner 50% of the gross and have a route they have to service. The Traveller Adventure assumes a 70/30 split between mandatory route time and "PCs can go whereever they want" time.
Don't know how its possible to have "overpowered" gear at chargen. The limit of tech 12, Cr1000 for weapons and tech 12, Cr10000 for armor (Cr25000 if you roll it twice) really makes anything annoying be out of reach.
I'm also super not a fan of taking away players' mustering out benefits just because. If you don't like something they got, talk it over before play starts and swap it for something else. Or, even better, modify the table before they roll so they can't get things you don't want in the game.
I have started players out in prison, on a crashed ship, and any number of other reasons why they don't have their gear on the first adventure. But I make sure that it is either part of the rewards for that adventure, waiting for them when they get home, or otherwise made available to them shortly after situation or adventure is completed.
Last time it came up I concluded I was in the minority for using the book limit on how much you can spend out of starting credits before play begins. But it is a good rule. That's another thing it's good to prep new players on before they even start rolling though, so you're not coming across as taking something away if they speed-run through the book on their own.
alex_greene
Guest
I am also partial to the idea of one player acquiring a new Type R subbie, no mortgage, and having to send out ads for a decent crew - which happens to be the rest of the Travellers.
I like the idea of the characters being lean and hungry, but seriously I don't believe in holding debt over their heads like a noose. Debt is for the stay-at-homes.
I like the idea of the characters being lean and hungry, but seriously I don't believe in holding debt over their heads like a noose. Debt is for the stay-at-homes.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
Did the same thing with my group in Flatlined. Right before they got home, flashbacked to a year before, and when they went to meet their big bad, where they left their stuff was where it was when they returned.
alex_greene
Guest
I just created a table with possible explanations why that brand new trader or subbie is mortgage-free.
Why No Mortgage?
2D Reason
2 Sudden Death: Rich owner paid for the ship in cash, and died suddenly before he could collect it.
3 Government auction: the previous owner defaulted, the ship was repossessed, and to the bank it's loss adjustment.
4 Red tape: The government commissioned a fleet of subbies, but they were lost in red tape after the election.
5 Budget cuts: The department had to sell off these brand new ships or face having their budget slashed next year.
6 Abandoned: The vessel was abandoned after 24 hours. Nobody knows why. The crew just up and walked out.
7 Deserted: The vessel was commissioned. It has never been claimed.
8 Prize: The vessel is winnings in a poker game.
9 Lotto: The vessel is a prize in a state lotto. The lucky jackpot winner went for the cash prize instead.
10 Mixup: The ship was built for a crew who ended up in another ship, thanks to a typo.
11 Surplus: The organisation ordered ten ships. The shipyard misread the brief and built eleven by mistake.
12 Mystery: Nobody knows why this ship is there, mortgage fully paid, just waiting for someone to lay claim to it.
Why No Mortgage?
2D Reason
2 Sudden Death: Rich owner paid for the ship in cash, and died suddenly before he could collect it.
3 Government auction: the previous owner defaulted, the ship was repossessed, and to the bank it's loss adjustment.
4 Red tape: The government commissioned a fleet of subbies, but they were lost in red tape after the election.
5 Budget cuts: The department had to sell off these brand new ships or face having their budget slashed next year.
6 Abandoned: The vessel was abandoned after 24 hours. Nobody knows why. The crew just up and walked out.
7 Deserted: The vessel was commissioned. It has never been claimed.
8 Prize: The vessel is winnings in a poker game.
9 Lotto: The vessel is a prize in a state lotto. The lucky jackpot winner went for the cash prize instead.
10 Mixup: The ship was built for a crew who ended up in another ship, thanks to a typo.
11 Surplus: The organisation ordered ten ships. The shipyard misread the brief and built eleven by mistake.
12 Mystery: Nobody knows why this ship is there, mortgage fully paid, just waiting for someone to lay claim to it.
Are you replacing the mortgage with anything? Or scaling down the revenues? A fat trader can make about Cr290000 every two weeks. Expenses with a mortgage are about Cr270000. At least, according to the Traveller Adventure, too lazy to do the math myself. So if the ship doesn't run 100% capacity on high passengers and cargo, it probably loses money. Hence the subsidized part of the name 
But the mortgage is about Cr210000 of that. So they have the ship free and clear and run a full hold, they can easily clear half a million a month.
Neither of those situations is really particularly exciting for the average player group. Which is why the Traveller Adventure recommends replacing the mortage with a 50/50 split of gross profits with the subsidy giver. And a 75/25 split on free time. Its a pretty good set up for a campaign. 3 months per year the PCs can go whereever they want, the rest of the time they are running their regular route of probably semi backwater worlds full of recurring characters, long terms situations, and other fun things that folks often say are hard to have in Traveller.
But the mortgage is about Cr210000 of that. So they have the ship free and clear and run a full hold, they can easily clear half a million a month. Neither of those situations is really particularly exciting for the average player group. Which is why the Traveller Adventure recommends replacing the mortage with a 50/50 split of gross profits with the subsidy giver. And a 75/25 split on free time. Its a pretty good set up for a campaign. 3 months per year the PCs can go whereever they want, the rest of the time they are running their regular route of probably semi backwater worlds full of recurring characters, long terms situations, and other fun things that folks often say are hard to have in Traveller.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Horses and wagons don't really cost that much, and you only need as many horses as the party size.
Or you can walk.
So a starship is a pretty big capital outlay, and someone needs to pay for it, or owe a couple of big favours.
Or you can walk.
So a starship is a pretty big capital outlay, and someone needs to pay for it, or owe a couple of big favours.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
A lot of people can not be bothered with tracking mortgages and engaging with the trade game to make ends meet,
Unless being an ethically challenged merchant is the centerpiece of the campaign why bother micromanaging the ship?
If all it is is a means to get the PCs from adventure to adventure it may as well be replaced with a wormhole/stargate/teleportation system.
Alternatively all ship travel is handled between games - you book passage/hire aboard/stowaway ready for next week's adventure.
Unless being an ethically challenged merchant is the centerpiece of the campaign why bother micromanaging the ship?
If all it is is a means to get the PCs from adventure to adventure it may as well be replaced with a wormhole/stargate/teleportation system.
Alternatively all ship travel is handled between games - you book passage/hire aboard/stowaway ready for next week's adventure.
