Free Trader benefits question

J

Jump 6

Mongoose
Greetings Fellow Forumites!

I am starting a new Traveller game, and one of the players is a little power gamey / cheaty (hides dice rolls, that sort of thing).

All that aside though, I have a question regarding benefit rolls – when you roll a Free Trader 4 times, you have the ship with no mortgage, but what happens if you roll it 5 or 6 times? For Scout Ship, it says duplicate rolls are re-rolled, should the same apply here for excess Free Trader rolls?

Thanks all!
 
In the unlikely event that happens, maybe upgrades, worth a couple of ship shares.

You should always listen to the dice gods.
 
Condottiere said:
In the unlikely event that happens, maybe upgrades, worth a couple of ship shares.

You should always listen to the dice gods.
Click to expand...
Already has happened!!! And they are claiming each extra roll = 1/4 the cost of the ship. Far too much I think,
 
It’s implied that every benefit roll is ten years of age on the ship, thus it has Quirks… I believe it’s one quirk for every ten years of age. So the two additional rolls could remove a few of the SIX bad things going on with the sixty year old ship.

Then yeah, upgrades. I’d start with the generic, plug-n-play things like computer or turret improvements, adding weapons or maybe a vehicle like an air/raft or ATV.
 
Jump 6 said:
they are claiming each extra roll = 1/4 the cost of the ship
Click to expand...

Jump 6 said:
one of the players is a little power gamey / cheaty (hides dice rolls, that sort of thing).
Click to expand...

As already pointed out there's a guideline in the rulebook for what those are worth. So you're not just being powergamed you're being powergamed in bad faith. And even if you went another direction it's still a GM call not a player.

More generally though, Traveller has some corner cases that require GM ruling not player powergaming. If you have players coming in trying to play the rulebook not the campaign that's a problem, it means that, just as a function of the ruleset not whether they intend to, they're going to make a beeline straight towards things that are going to be aggravating for you and, in the long run, sabotage the fun of other players.

All told you've got two of what I consider red flags on a player just in character creation. If I were GMing for him I'd already be thinking I wouldn't enjoy running that any more than he'd enjoy my GM calls, so better to drop him early than act surprised when we're going through something like this every session and it becomes a problem. But you may have a higher tolerance than I do.
 
There IS a cure for cheaters who get huge starting benefits...
Pirates. Lots of pirates.
Can't power game a ship that has been blown up by pirates... and the PC's sold to the company that is in the adventure Deadlined. They won't even remember they HAD a ship for a while...
 
It's d6 quirks, and yes, it's 25K/year each time you get it again after the 4th, handled as a pension but actually representing investment income. (Sidebar on Page 48.)

Re the player's desire to have it be a mountain of cash, if this is a case of "new players, new GM" then it may be more a matter of overenthusiasm (and not knowing the rules yet) than anything malicious.
 
You need a 6+ on the Benefit roll in order to get a Free Trader. I would say on average a Traveller has 6 to 8 mustering out rolls. Most would like to have some cash, so it is likely that some of these rolls are assigned to the Cash table. If using the maximum number of three rolls on this table, this would leave 3 - 5 rolls for Benefits. How likely is it that four sixes turn up on these rolls?
You can only get a DM+1 to Benefit rolls if you get it through an appropriate event. In that case you would need a 5+, which is still not that likely.
I would get sceptical if the dice of a player turn up with high numbers more than usual.
Depending on the campaign/setting having players have their own ship(s) can be problematic to begin with. In that case the referee has to come up with some compensation/solution should a player roll a ship.
 
Last edited:
1. Shirtless.

2. Two dedicated cameras, one on the player, one on the dice.

3. Glass bowl.

4. Transparent casino dice.
 
Powergamy and rolled 5 or 6 ship rolls on the benefit table, I lean towards bs and your player outright cheated.

However, there are just some characters that were created lucky. Years ago I was part of a GMing team for a game run online. This was long before the era of VTT games. We had a player make a character we dubbed the luckiest man alive. He never failed a roll. You may be suspicious of that, and with good reason. Except that there were times that myself or the other GM's needed to make rolls for this character. None of us ever made a failed roll for this character. Hell, I will admit that I even cheated a little bit and had other players, unknowingly make rolls for this character and none of them ever failed one of those rolls. It was insane.
 
Faelderg said:
However, there are just some characters that were created lucky.
Click to expand...

This is why I positively like rolling in the open, in the center of the table, as a player as much as a GM. If I roll three 18's in character creation in D&D I want that to be an awesome moment not a dubious one. If I get a ship free and clear in Traveller I want that to be an awesome moment. If I'm GMing and the monster/alien keeps missing by 1 when the party is almost down I want that to be seen, not just a give away.
 
Sorry for the necromancy but for future people looking this up...

At a suggestion, since your game is virtual create a free Discord server instance and install the Avrae discord bot for dice.

Personally I use Foundry and Roll20 is another option but both are more work than Discord.

Finally, based on probability the odds of a single player getting 5 ship shares beggars belief. A group of players? Possible. A single player? no way.
He is either cheating or did not understand character creation rules (and they are easy to misunderstand).
 
honestly at this point if a players is that desperate to "win" the trust is broken between players and GM and I would ask said player to kindly rethink turning up at my games
 
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