I do starship campaigns when the players want to specifically be the crew of a starship doing something or the other. Usually trading or exploring. When they just want it for travel, but aren't interested in the idea of a ship itself or just don't want one, then we don't.
No Starship Campaigns
- Thread starter Vormaerin
- Start date
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
The idea of owning your own starship is something that rarely survives the balance sheets in space the game becomes.
My players have won their own starship many times, they invariably get sick and tired of tracking monthly costs, so they sell it and invest the money into TAS membership, new gear, and the latest money sink the insurance program introduced in T5
My Culture campaign is different - there is no need to track any costs, the Culture covers them. Having the ship be a PC help too
My players have won their own starship many times, they invariably get sick and tired of tracking monthly costs, so they sell it and invest the money into TAS membership, new gear, and the latest money sink the insurance program introduced in T5
My Culture campaign is different - there is no need to track any costs, the Culture covers them. Having the ship be a PC help too
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
There are tiers to not owning a starship in a campaign.
First one being, never leaving your homeworld, which the vast majority of Imperium citizens never do, and going by ShadowRun and Cyberpunk, is quite feasible to campaign in.
Second one insystem, since a spacecraft without a jump drive, costs a lot less.
Third one car ferry, where you pay for that spacecraft to be transported by one with a jump drive.
Fourth one, have an institution grant you the means to traverse interstellar distances without owning a starship, which includes Space Daddy patron, and the Scout Service.
The fifth one is that you either charter a starship, or buy passage, which if used prodigiously, can become relatively expensive.
First one being, never leaving your homeworld, which the vast majority of Imperium citizens never do, and going by ShadowRun and Cyberpunk, is quite feasible to campaign in.
Second one insystem, since a spacecraft without a jump drive, costs a lot less.
Third one car ferry, where you pay for that spacecraft to be transported by one with a jump drive.
Fourth one, have an institution grant you the means to traverse interstellar distances without owning a starship, which includes Space Daddy patron, and the Scout Service.
The fifth one is that you either charter a starship, or buy passage, which if used prodigiously, can become relatively expensive.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
How it was originally intended:
"Travelling
This volume of Traveller deals with the basic facts of interplanetary and interstellar travel, with the details of starships, their design, construction and operation, and with combat between spaceships.*
TRAVELLING BETWEEN WORLDS
Travellers travel. They move between worlds as well as on their surfaces. The distances such travel covers may be interplanetary or interstellar in scale.
Individuals who decide to travel to other worlds are confronted with the choice of the method and manner in which they wish to travel. Interplanetary travel is infrequent, but is possible using ship's boats, cutters, pinnaces, or other vessels. Because of the widely varying distances, a vessel must be chartered, at a price set by the referee or by the player-character who owns the vessel. Commercial travel by scheduled liner, when available, is provided at approximately 10% of the cost for similar interstellar travel.**
Interstellar travel is more rigidly defined, being divided into levels of passage with specific features and costs."
* take each statement after "with"
This volume of Traveller deals:
... the basic facts of interplanetary and interstellar travel
... the details of starships, their design, construction and operation
... combat between spaceships
**in system cruises cost 10%... so go for a cruise around your system
"Travelling
This volume of Traveller deals with the basic facts of interplanetary and interstellar travel, with the details of starships, their design, construction and operation, and with combat between spaceships.*
TRAVELLING BETWEEN WORLDS
Travellers travel. They move between worlds as well as on their surfaces. The distances such travel covers may be interplanetary or interstellar in scale.
Individuals who decide to travel to other worlds are confronted with the choice of the method and manner in which they wish to travel. Interplanetary travel is infrequent, but is possible using ship's boats, cutters, pinnaces, or other vessels. Because of the widely varying distances, a vessel must be chartered, at a price set by the referee or by the player-character who owns the vessel. Commercial travel by scheduled liner, when available, is provided at approximately 10% of the cost for similar interstellar travel.**
Interstellar travel is more rigidly defined, being divided into levels of passage with specific features and costs."
* take each statement after "with"
This volume of Traveller deals:
... the basic facts of interplanetary and interstellar travel
... the details of starships, their design, construction and operation
... combat between spaceships
**in system cruises cost 10%... so go for a cruise around your system
You keep saying this, but it is absolutely not true. Especially not when you pretend it is more expensive than shipping an entire ship via jump tender. What? (there is also the issue that 2 of your 5 situations are, in fact, owning a ship).
*Maybe* if you have a no mortgage ship and you change worlds every other week and your ship never, ever takes significant damage, you will save money compared to middle passage-ing around the galaxy. But that's not actually how things work unless your table just says "you have a ship and it mysteriously breaks even off screen". Which is fine, but a reasonable basis for comparison it is not.
No ship campaigns are not usually "Planet of the week" because they don't have a giant money sink that has to be traveling to pay for itself center stage. Sometimes you travel a lot, sometimes you spend weeks or months on a planet doing a bunch of adventures.
You can go middle passage everywhere, but there's no reason to do so. The game discusses the options, such as working passage, steerage, favor trading, and lots of other ways to travel. There's also this weird option called actually getting paid good money for the ridiculously dangerous/illegal/adventurous activities that PCs typically get up to.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
I tend to discredit the idea of a working passage.
I certainly don't want to give every Tom, Dick, and Harry, access to my starship, just because they can't afford to pay for middle passage.
In fact, I would find a group of armed humans onboard, who obviously had military training, and have weapons in their baggage, alarming.
Steerage is a recent inclusion, because, I suspect, someone came to the conclusion that not everyone can afford middle passage, and don't want to chance the low berth lottery.
A lot of this leans on pre-existing science fiction tropes, where the protagonists solve the transportation dilemma by signing on on some tramp steamer, that suddenly has a crew slot available.
And, the question tends to be, exactly how much interstellar traffic flows through any particular system, and of what type.
Maintenance costs of a spacecraft seems unrealistically low, at one thousandth of the construction cost, but at let's say Beowulf's fifty megastarbux plus, that's fifty thousand per annum, which is about five high passages.
I certainly don't want to give every Tom, Dick, and Harry, access to my starship, just because they can't afford to pay for middle passage.
In fact, I would find a group of armed humans onboard, who obviously had military training, and have weapons in their baggage, alarming.
Steerage is a recent inclusion, because, I suspect, someone came to the conclusion that not everyone can afford middle passage, and don't want to chance the low berth lottery.
A lot of this leans on pre-existing science fiction tropes, where the protagonists solve the transportation dilemma by signing on on some tramp steamer, that suddenly has a crew slot available.
And, the question tends to be, exactly how much interstellar traffic flows through any particular system, and of what type.
Maintenance costs of a spacecraft seems unrealistically low, at one thousandth of the construction cost, but at let's say Beowulf's fifty megastarbux plus, that's fifty thousand per annum, which is about five high passages.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Emperor Mongoose
Makes for a good agent campaign. Travel (mostly) arranged by the government or company whose agent you are. Of course they could (all or some) be double agents.
That's nice, I guess?
Btw, working passage exists because it was a real thing that used to happen when tramp steamers and sailing ships were the norm and you need to replace crew at whatever port you happened to be in. Obviously, today, you'd have radioed ahead that your crewman is sick/dead/fired and can you fly someone in to be waiting for us? Thanks!
But tramp ships don't have that luxury in Traveller and, frankly, most tramp ships are barely profitable as the setting is conceived of. So saving a salary for a month is not unreasonable.
Obviously taking a large party on as working passage is unlikely (though there are a number of Amber Zones and Patrons examples that are essentially that), but the game has adventures for solo and duo players just as much as it does for parties of a dozen. So ruling it out because you think a campaign means a big group of paramilitaries is not justified.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Emperor Mongoose
For a whole team definitely working passage is an issue. How often are you going to find a ship needing 4-6 crew with just the right abilities? But a ship whose steward (or whatever) is in jail for drunk and disorderly might well tell him "If your here when we come back we'll pick you up" and hire the cheapest person with papers they can get and if that person is willing to work for passage to somewhere you will go in the next few jumps must would hire him (barring obvious issues) and keep the wages to improve the bottom line. Might be for one jump or could be several, depends on what the person is after, a specific destination or just time off world while things cool down at home.
If you had good luck and had several high passengers and someone willing to do working passage as an entertainer (or an extra or higher skill steward) it might be worthwhile to keep those passengers happy so they take your ship when they want to return. Doesn't cost you much and at the least gets you happier passengers and at the best possibly future business thrown your way by people you impressed.
