PCs Not Affecting Timeline

[JohnWFox]

Hello everyone:
Setup: You are GMing and have 4-5 characters (pcs) who start out running a second hand far trader. It takes them a couple of years to do stuff like go up in skill level, earn enough money to get really neat toys, maybe upgrade the ship or get a better ship. This continues for a couple of years (game time). So at the end of 3 to 5 years the pcs have a ship paid off , lots of toys, money in the bank, lots of skills.
If they have lots of money, most people would retire or start a buisness (new freight line, whatever) Then it becomes a game of corporate boards, planning and buiness. I do not think the players will want that. After all the hot shot pilot wants to fly not read memos.

What next?
How do they keep having adventures and affect the timeline (assuming OTU) as pc without them getting to be high level nobles?
The pcs could be trouble shooters for the Duke (archduke, who ever). How do you get them into that relm of power without some serious handwavium?
Even if they start a new freight line, they will not get near a mega corp for a long while. Then things go to strategic planning level, not the hands on that the pcs like.
How do you keep it interesting after they have the money, toys, saved a couple planets etc?

Thanks in advance
John W. Fox

 

[AndrewW]

If they do decide to run a corporation they could be running around to trouble spots. They may want to open up a new market and have a diplomatic mission to work that out. Perhaps there's a pirate problem effecting their shipping they need to eliminate. New world they want to exploit and have to establish a colony to take advantage of it. They may be owners but hire others to do the day to day running while they work on expanding the business and solving problems.

Noble wise, this opens up lots of high level scheming they might get entangled in. Might be some power struggles and as they take sides they might be taking more direct action, or it could focus on diplomacy. Maybe finding out some secrets of someone on the rival faction, find a lost item to curry favor. Maybe someone has information that would bring down one of the major supports of the other side, but wants this 'little task' done in exchange for the information.

 

[BP]

That's actually real simple - start a new campaign - with new characters.

A PC is just a tool for adventure. If there is no more adventure, well the tool is unneccessary...

If their only goal is to get rich, titled and settled - then once that happens its game over. And unlike some other RPGs - the goal was never to 'gain skills' - that is what char gen was for. Don't get me wrong - as a side-effect of adventure - some skill advancement is relevant, just not a goal in itself.

If you can't enjoy roleplay-ing it then drop it... and start with something you can. Basically, it should either transition into something they enjoy or its time to hit the reset button.

Players should have the opportunity to enjoy creating new characters and using their prior ones as contacts, mentors, benefactors and patrons.

This is why I started first time players with multiple, low stat-ed/low skilled PCs to roleplay. In the course of events - death in real adventures is a high probability. Once players learn that this is the case and avoid being overly attached to a particular PC - they tend to roleplay more and take risks and not excpect to be invulnerable, super geniuses, with X-Men style physical traits. Roleplay is similiar to acting - and actors who stagnate in a stereotype role or one character during their carrers tend to be very unhappy with the situation.

 

[alex_greene]

You face them with challenges which only they can solve. And you pit them against their own complacency.

A PC who sits on his laurels is going to get a little stale. So when faced with something which requires him to get back in the field, you saddle them with a couple of unexpected negative DMs here and there.

Nothing much - a -1 here and there, and only once or twice, max - but always at a critical moment, and always in circumstances where they believed that they would ace the check because "they've done this before."

For instance:-

- The hotshot pilot's skills are tested by a sleek new helm layout;
- The ship's medic encounters a patient suffering from a disease he has never seen before, and which refuses to respond to his usual ministrations;
- The ship's engineer may be of the same TL as the engine, but that doesn't mean he can understand what that new blue box thingy is doing tacked between the reg couple and the grav shaft moderator. All that he knows is that it's some kind of fancy new governor, and it's essential, but damned if he knows what it's doing: only that, when he tried to remove it, he left the ship without power or drives, drifting in space, until he put it back.
- The computer guy hates the new, committee-designed, patronising OS user interface that spends most of its time trying to anticipate what he wants - and getting it wrong.

Then, once they have solved the problem, you confront them with worse issues back home: a hostile corporate takeover, the missus threatening to leave, a tax audit, their daughter has just run away and boarded a Free Trader heading Out There Somewhere - and it's only gone and skipped on its mortgage.

This leaves them with a choice: the irresistible siren lure of new adventure, the whizz of bullets, the snap of lasers, deckplates under their feet and nothing underneath that, or headaches and paperwork.

It's up to them, then, what they wish to do. If they decide to go back home, fend off the corporate takeover, go to Relate meetings with the wife, get their tax papers ready, hire a repo team for the ship and a bounty hunter to go and retrieve the kid for them, then you can shuffle your papers, look them squarely in the eye and ask them if they'd like to play White Wolf's World of Darkness next week. Stick a fork in them. They're done.

 

[PrinceYyrkoon]

Crash landing on red zone planet

The Trader misjumps

Credit crunch, no more markets

Payload seized/impounded

Players detained

Authorities want the players to spy for them on the Zhodani

Players offered deal-of-a-lifetime to transport one little princess to her destination.

Players caught up in war zone

Player receive pleas from underclass/slaves for help from a religious dictatorship

Players next payload is from the bio-weapons division (oops)

Whilst skimming a gas giant, the players notice a strange wreck

The players are tasked with a behind-enemy-lines delivery

Players craft impounded to resettle refugees

Players hear tales of the Jewel of Anzalia, its as big as your head...

Players double-crossed in a trade deal

I could go on...

 

[Mongoose Pete]

The best campaigns are never about gaining wealth and stuff. Its about tweaking the character's motivations and relationships. Once they've reached financial independence you should be engaging them with revelations of their past mistakes, the reappearance of enemies and rivals, or old patrons calling in debts. After five years of trading and adventuring they must have made innumerable contacts with which you can mess with their morals.

If however your players remain materialistically motivated you can simply have a disaster occur which wipes out their resources, be it corrupt tax collectors, an ex-wife seeking punitive alimony or their ship being confiscated during a war.

Also there is the concept that you can never be too rich, since there are just bigger and better things to splurge your wealth on. The forthcoming Dilettante book will give dozens of new ways of gratuitously blowing money for a taste of the high life and the social standing it can grant you.

 

[kafka]

Who made up the rule that the players cannot change the timeline...ok, the players, the players could teleport into Dulinor's throneroom knock him off and only start the GT timeline early having maybe Dulinor's brother seek revenge on Stephon's temporal crack team.

I always use the Doctor Who notion of time...that certain points are fixed and others are mutable. As a good referee, you should know which is which. Plus, keep players ignorant of their role. It is not D&D whereby characters become uber.

 

[JohnWFox]

Hello Everyone:
Thanks for the replies on PC not affecting the timeline.
Let me rephrase the question.

The PCs start out owing money with a far traders and tading just to make ends meet. After a couple of years and hopefully some good trading, they start to pay things off, make a profit , get nice neat toys. Eventually they may pay off everything and have money to burn.
How do I get the PCs to be movers and shakers within the Imperium. I realize they have to get into nobility. They may even get knighted or some other lower nobility. I realize that PCs will want to have the adventure and do things, not just push paper, go to galas/dances and assign people to get things done.
How do I run a campaign where they are trouble shooters or independent operatives of the higher nobility? They will want to do their own thing and not have a leash around their neck. What would be the best way to have them be gentlemen adventures who go out, solve a problem, have fun, and live the carefree life (with a few enemies, unknowns, women after them, surprises and general where did that come from everynow and then)?
My idea is to have a general time line and put them into it. As they get higher up (better known, more power, whatever) they start to do things that affect the time line. They can get some assignments from nobles "James, it would be a great service to me if you and your crew could looking what is going on with this situation. Get me information, if it can be cleaned up, do it."
They have an assignment and how they get there and get back is their business. Of course if they have fun on the way, make some profit that is good also. I do not plan of giving them the farm right away. They will work their way up the technology/political/social/skill ladder as they go along. As long as stuff does not backfire (too much) they can do what ever.

Does that seem like a resonable solution?
Input is desired.

Thanks in advance
John W. Foxare

 

[rust]

To move the characters up the social ladder and into the nobility you
could have them knighted as a reward for some especially important
mission for one of the higher nobles.

As minor nobles of the Imperium they would have improved connecti-
ons among the nobility, some resposibility to go on important and po-
tentially delicate missions for those above them, but still some more
freedom than mere employees.

 

[BP]

Ah - they need a benefactor...

Someone who can provide them with things they can't buy - titles, extreme tech, and missions of highest priorities to the Imperium. Heck, they can even be setup up as fleet commanders and such on an as needed basis.

Nobility is about titles and having someone higher up the chain to vouch for you - in something the scale and scope of the 3I, such things will be extremely hard to track.

What I'm saying is that they don't actually have to be nobility (Soc. standing doesn't have to change drastically). Their benefactor can provide them with everything they need to be mix with nobility - including verification by local and section wide nobility.

And they don't need to know who their benefactor really is - it could be a direct aid of Imperor maybe the Imperor himself...

 

[AndrewW]

Secret agents

Historically intelligence services recruited through the "old boys network" (and sometimes ended up with a lot of reds) Exactly the system that second sons and heirs to minor titles will end up in. So maybe the characters get recruited by the "Imperial Regency Intelligence Service" or the "United Naval Commands for Law Enforcement". And then they are given a cover identity to roam the galaxie looking for trouble. Maybe as travelling (high class) entertainers/circus show. Or as "Zero-G Handball bums". Or businessman working for Imperial Im/Exports.

Imperial Ministry of Justice could be a good fit for this. Alternately could be working for a family owned (maybe not wholly) megacorporation. Or even a rival megacorporation and pass information on to the family.

Agent would be handy to have if going this route.

 

[JohnWFox]

Hello Everyone:

Thanks for your input.
It gives me a bunch of ideas.

Thanks
John W. Fox