Money Money Money!

[whtknght]

You're assuming (fairly enough) that the setting doesn't have FTL communication. If that assumption is off, then it becomes a matter of a bank querry to their bank account.

Yes, we are assuming no FTL communications.

 

[whtknght]

With regard to lots of cash on board a ship. How exactly do your players trade or much else, do they have a local bank with the money it. Its all well and good having 50m creds in the bank but its not much use buying cargo to fill your ship if the money is 3 jumps away.

The thread "Day to day lives of starmen"
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=37897
had a discussion on how ships dealt with the money issues with such ideas as letters of credit, trade goods, precious metals, etc.

 

[tneva82]

There is nothing wrong with players getting additional ships or getting rich. The campaign could be about the characters building their own shipping company with numerous ships. Gathering the resources to equip a private army to overthrow the tyrant ruler of their homeworld.

Yeah. One of the most memorable campaigns I have played had PC's leading their own private army. With lots of high-tech gizmo's. And lots of troops(though comparatively little still. They concentrated for quality).

Then they decided they would become FILTY rich by effectively robbing a planet.

GM was cruel though and decided to remind you don't mess with Imperium. Sure they conquered rich backwater planet with low-TL(with high TL advantage, element of suprise, use of NUKES in the planet(yeah Imperium was pissed off) and whatnot).

Then PC's got careless and stayed there bit too long robbing the planet of it's resources until Imperial liberation front arrived :twisted:

PC's tried to stand and fight. They had their mercenary forces decide they aren't worth dying for and abandon lost cause.

PC's all got executed in the end :twisted:

 

[tneva82]

As a newcomer to Traveller myself I had the same reservations as you, but I think once you get actual play time you will realize a million Credits isn't that astronomical.

True. Our group(though wether we continue this campaign or start new one in Babylon 5 once the book arrives is another thing) has currently 2M or thereabout cash + cargo full of items that are likely worth 3M-4M more. I don't see cash as that big deal if PC's are running free trader operation. Unless you do something nasty it tends to mount up anyway.

What's fun is adventures. Trading and money there are just sidestory. Plus possible plot hooks.

 

[Merxiless]

Yeah really, it's a question of scope.

If all the players goals are is to retire with MCr 1 Mil, hey, capture a ship and retire the PC. Fine.

But a PC that wants to run an army, form a shipping corp, become a wealthy merchant price / Sustain the power as a noble, will need a lot of credits.

If the players are saying they need no less than 500,000 CR per job, that's well and good. some of those jobs are around, and they are scarring tough. But some weeks there are no such jobs.

Speculative cargo can be profitable. But say you go for a shipping company, you are gonna need escorts, especially if you are hauling to and from lucrative areas. Replacement ships, insurance payments, float money to pick up instant spec cargo, or to hold something that doesn't pan out on the arrival port market...and use ready cash for something else.

a crew of a type S, walking around with FGMP and battledress seems way cool and dangerous to the locals of a small D port of 10,000 people.

When the naval cruisers arrive after type S has shot up said port, marines in battledress aboard are not gonna think it's as cool.

Be careful as to what you allow and what you give permission by silence to.

Old vet refs have all seen the campaigns where a guy in illegal battledress becomes a NPC slayer. So send in the heavies, put him down, and roll a new PC that's better behaved.

Because nobody has the power of the Fleet, or the Emperor. As bad guys your crew might have a good run for some months. But the noose will tighten, and they'll get put down for it.

When a crew salvages a ship, to me, It's not like a 1st level PC getting a +5 sword...it's like a 9th level PC getting a keep. More than one ship = more than one keep, and eventually, the king takes notice.

Something like that.

 

[Walker]

What's fun is adventures. Trading and money there are just sidestory. Plus possible plot hooks.

Too true.

Way back in the CT days (1982 or so) I was running Twilight's Peak for a small group. They had a Type S and took odd jobs, hauled mail and cargo, and did some speculation to pay the bills while searching for clues to get closer to finding the GYRO CADIZ. After a while, one of the players decided to make use of all that time spent in jump space by writing computer programs (the character had a very high computer skill and so did the player :wink: ) Well, I couldn't figure out a reason for him not write and sell computer programs, and pretty quickly they had all the money they needed for their search.

It was an interesting solution and one of the best games I ever ran.

 

[stouty]

The issue of legality is a big one in Traveller. It's true there are pirates with illegal ships, but they're forced to stick to the backwater systems or lurk around the hundred diameter region of more populous ones, always poised to jump if a navy ship or SDB shows up. They can't just fly into a system and dock at any old starport.

So if the players are intent on seizing and keeping ships, they're going to have to do it legally or become pirates and spend the rest of their days running.

A ship can be claimed by salvage right, but there is a waiting period while attempts are made to find legitimate owners/heirs. If the ship has a mortgage, which so many do, the lender will claim the ship under repossession rights and the players can't legally do a thing about that. The same is true of a subsidized merchant ship - the company will claim the ship even if all the crew is gone.

If the GM determines that no one will claim the ship - after the weeks to months waiting period is over - then the players can claim the ship.

However....

All ships must be registered. This is typically a 100,000 cr fee (Double Adventure 1: Shadows/Annic Nova specifically mentions this registration fee). The ship won't have a mortgage, but the players still have to pay fuel, life support, monthly maintenance costs, repairs for damage or random equipment failures... all the little joys of owning your own ship :shock:

Anyway, hope this helps you with the ship salvaging issue.

Cheers,
Stouty

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

Stouty, even if someone comes to claim the ship, the players still get a payday - salvage law traditionally holds that the salvager can place a salvage lien on the vessel - the salvaged party is required to pay a fee (traditionally 10%) of the vessel, or else relinquish it's ownership, even if they are there.


Also, without FTL communications, finding an owning party to claim the vessel by paying that fee is unlikely unless it was salvaged in home waters. A reasonable peroid of time to wait would probably be a month to three months. With each FTL journey taking a week in transit, that amounts to a lot of time spent waiting, even if they send a courier to the vessel's port of registry. And of course, a lot of vessels will be flagged to some backwater craphole because they have extremely nice registration terms - just like how so many vessels IRL are flagged to some crapsack country like Liberia - they made it relatively cheap and with good terms to register in their country, because hey, free money!

Granted, this may all vary depending on the details of the setting. But still, tracking down the owners and having them show up, credits in hand to pay the salvage lien and recover their ship isn't going to be very easy in many cases.

 

[whtknght]

on the contrary, it could take years before the players actually get the ship. We all know how easy it is in the RW to tie things up in court. Without FTL communications, Those delays could really add up.

 

[stouty]

Like many games, it's something the referee will decide. My points, as well as those brought up by shadowdragon and whtknght, are valid. You just decide in your game how easy/difficult it will be. That will be based on what the players want out of the game. The needs of a small group of travellers are different from the group that wants to start their own merc company.

If it all goes wrong, well then hit the "Reset Campaign" button.

 

[ShadowDragon8685]

on the contrary, it could take years before the players actually get the ship. We all know how easy it is in the RW to tie things up in court. Without FTL communications, Those delays could really add up.

Unless everyone's independantly wealthy and taking anagathics, and thus, can say "Fine, we'll settle on the planet for a while and hire a lawyer," that's a really good way to ensure that the next time the players get their hands on a ship, they break out their forgery kits and rampiddle the transponder.

Lesson 1 of GMing: The game should be fun.

Lesson 1, Subsection 3, paragraph five: Thou shalt not screw over the players by denying them rewards fairly earned.

 

[Shiloh]

Also, without FTL communications, finding an owning party to claim the vessel by paying that fee is unlikely unless it was salvaged in home waters...

Not at all. Unless the ship was *very* new and had outrun the postal system. The "Imperial Registry" will be updated by X-Boat network in the 3I setting, and the owner (probably a bank which holds the ship mortgage) will be known immediately anyone checks.

A reasonable peroid of time to wait would probably be a month to three months.

It's 6 months before lost property can be destroyed in the UK now... An asset as significant as a starship will be kept for a lot longer. I'd say a minimum of a year.

tracking down the owners and having them show up, credits in hand to pay the salvage lien and recover their ship isn't going to be very easy in many cases.

In most cases the *owner* will be a large corporation with many agents empowered to act on their behalf scattered throughout civilisation.

Lesson 1, Subsection 3, paragraph five: Thou shalt not screw over the players by denying them rewards fairly earned.

Define "fairly earned". If your campaign is set up so anything salvaged is going to drop straight into the player's pockets, then "fairly earned" will mean something different to a game where "realistic" law applies.