No Starship Campaigns

[Condottiere]

The tone set in any role playing game is set by the group playing it.

In ShadowRun, I tend to have my characters opt first for non lethal disabling of most mooks, since my character is actually breaking the law, and they're just doing their job.

Until they decide to open fire.

That's not how it started out, but developed on reflection.

The essential skills required onboard a starship are pilot, astrogator, electronics, mechanical, and engineering.

Optional are coolie, steward, gunner, security, and medical.

Astrogator could be replaced by outsourcing the job, not by getting a tape by the starport, but by a local freelancer, who will do it for a lot less.

Electronics and mechanical maintenance could have a local garage do it.

Which means that the true bottleneck is if you don't have a pilot or engineer, qualified or not.

The rest are sort of nice to have.

 

[Vormaerin]

Actually, since the topic is non starship campaigns, you don't actually need a pilot, astrogator, gunner, steward, or engineer at all. They might be useful once in a while, but that's true of any skill.

I would say that Electronics, Medic, and Mechanics are, in fact, the only essential skills mentioned in your entire post, since they are likely to be relevant at least some times in any style of sci fi campaign. The others might or might not be useful.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Admin, Streetwise, Computer
Medic, Electronic, Mechanical
Bribery, Forgery, Vehicle

 

[swordtart]

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.

Or travel agents

Actually I had a board game called Blue Water Shipping. I think it was a custom made game for corporate team building as the premise was somewhat dry. You played managers who ensured shipped goods got delivered (it wasn't a trading game, you just managed the delivery). Periodically an event would require you to deploy an agent (the Blue Water Shipping agent) for them to troubleshoot a particularly thorny issue.

That could form the basis of a game, corporate agents unblocking labour disputes, legal issues, personnel issues etc. You could take any of those published patron adventures set on random systems and just make the patron your parent company. You wouldn't need your own ship as you could just hop on the next company vessel going that way.

 

[swordtart]

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.

I agree entirely.

Gunner positions on an armed merchant are ideal for working passage. Any navy dropout has the skills and the pay is so low you'll find a better job first chance you get. 99% of the time it is just sitting around. I had a captain that was ex-Navy and he had a policy of employing carefully vetted ex-Navy who had washed out after basic training to give them a second chance. That gave them three jumps worth of travel to get somewhere they might have a better chance of finding work where their reputation was unknown and they could start afresh and a reference.

Some crew positions may be mandated by regulations, but the captain might not be able to afford to staff them. I had another captain available for charters who had all the necessary skills but just needed extra warm bodies signed on for the audit trail. 90% of the time they would be doing nothing during the trip or at best standing a watch (with the computer being trusted more).

One way to make that monthly cost is to reduce your outgoings. If you don't actually have to pay a few tens of thousands a month for crew costs that is less you need to make in freight and passenger fees.

Auxiliary crew, even if they are military, will not be carrying their guns on them whilst on the ship. They will be locked away if the captain is sensible. It is of course a referee decision if they want to make it trivial to hijack ship, but I would tend to assume any captain taking on casual crew will have taken obvious precautions.

 

[swordtart]

A 1 in 6 chance of death is Russian Roulette and is, in fact, completely insane to do.

That's why we have the Mix-Corp low berths

To be fair the chance of dying isn't nearly as high as it is made out (for a healthy person at least). With care even a half-way decent Medic with the right tools can revive most people successfully. The main risk is if the revival is in an emergency. In an emergency however everyone has a chance of coming to grief.

 

[swordtart]

Actually, since the topic is non starship campaigns, you don't actually need a pilot, astrogator, gunner, steward, or engineer at all. They might be useful once in a while, but that's true of any skill.

I would say that Electronics, Medic, and Mechanics are, in fact, the only essential skills mentioned in your entire post, since they are likely to be relevant at least some times in any style of sci fi campaign. The others might or might not be useful.

And available to every character as background skills (assuming your have the EDU to take them all). I'd add Admin to that list though.

 

[swordtart]

Obviously, you have to either make them more reliable or take them off commercial vessels. Or assume the Imperium is even more dystopian because transporting people in a thing that kills you regularly is perfectly normal and folks are bad enough off that they take that chance.

And once you add in that Frozen Watches are a thing... the reality is that they are not failing on any chance that is able to be modeled on a 2d6 roll

Emergency Low berths are a completely different thing in the RAW.

I assume that there are plenty of reasons for even risky low berth travel. A system might exile criminals in lieu of a death sentence by just deporting them to a random system in low berth. Terminally ill patients might low berth to a system with advanced medical care. They might be clones or organ donors being delivered. Some might prefer it to a lingering death on a hell-world after their indentured service is over. Militaries might offer that as the only route to repatriation after service (harsh but economical).

Also with only half-way decent medical care the chance of death is greatly diminished, and that is at the point of revival, so you could have excellent facilities in some star ports rather than relying on a maybe dubious ship's doc.