Ship Shares - how do they work in your Traveller Universe?

[HalC]

Hello Folks,
How many of you have, as GM, dutifully generated characters along side of your players, and followed the rules as posted? OK, those of you who were GMs or Players who have loved the concept of Ship Shares - can put your hands down. Now lets see the show of hands regarding "how many of you Traveller GMs have ever wondered how to make those ship share concepts work in game play as if it were the real deal?"

For instance - we all have heard of subsidized merchants and subsidized Liners right? But how does a ship share come into being? Is it a financial tool in which someone takes their discretionary pay when they're 22 years of age, and acts as an investment that grows with time? Are ship shares financial instruments in which other organizations buy ships with no money down of their own, and then relinquish their ship to the rightful owners who invested in "ship shares" some two or three decades earlier?

A ship share for a Yacht is worth more than a ship share for an Empress Marava class ship or a Beowulf class ship right? So - how does this work in your game universe other than "get a ship free" kind of thing (and how does one explain how a single character somehow gains five ship shares?)

Just asking.

 

[mavikfelna]

They can be used in creative way if you allow it but it's outside of RAW. Within RAW, you can apply them to the cost of purchasing a ship, addons and upgrades for a ship or ship's locker equipment, things like purchasing a Fabricator.

Outside of RAW, you can use them as Portfolio investments from JTAS 13 or as investments in a trading concern that generates a small pension based on the number of shares.

You can allow them to be cashed in at 1/10th or 1/100th value.

You can trade them for property or Aslan clan shares.

One of my sons, during character creation got a gambling event that gave him shipshares and then also got shipshares from mustering out for a total of 8 shares. I'm having him put them towards arming their "free trader" with particle beam turrets so they pirate in the PoD campaign.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

A ship share for a Yacht is worth more than a ship share for an Empress Marava class ship or a Beowulf class ship right? So - how does this work in your game universe other than "get a ship free" kind of thing (and how does one explain how a single character somehow gains five ship shares?)

Just asking.

Ship shares are worth 1 MCr. It doesn't matter if it is the dingiest old Seeker or a brand new luxury cruise ship. You can't however redeem them for cash. You can also gain a 1000 Cr pension for each ship share you own.

Now by the rules if you own some multiple of 25% of a ship that varies depending on the ship. I however set that at 10 MCr not 25%. That way the players could decide to buy a larger or smaller ship with the 25% times X that they have + any ship shares. So if they want a Seeker or a Subsidized Merchant so long as they have at least enough money to equal a 25% down payment they could buy it.

I believe it was a Seth Skorkowsky video I saw where the one PC had a LOT of ship shares and whenever they needed help he would find out which ship in port was one he had a share in so he could call in a favour even if it cost him that share.

If at some point they want to sell a ship they might get ship shares instead of cash.

 

[Vormaerin]

I adapt the T:NE system to Mongoose. The players pool all their ship shares (I replace the "you have a ship" with more ship shares, usually a 1d6) and roll on the ship ownership and ship type charts. Ship shares convert to Cr10k if the players don't want to have a ship.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft and ship share benefit(s) is one of those Traveller game mechanisms that I close an eye to.

The odds that you can acquire a spacecraft that comparatively easy, besides the requisite mortgage payments, or a stake that large in one, are sort of minuscule.

The point being, that the character party, as a whole, has a means of transportation, in a science fiction setting.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I ignore them completely.

If I run a game where the players have characters that are ship crew then they have a ship.

Traveller - the clue is in the name, the player characters travel from world to world to have their adventures and make their fortunes, or come to a sticky end.

Third Imperium: Ethically Challenged Merchants - not such a catchy title.

 

[OriginalCaruso]

I GM my game and rolled up a Noble NPC in Session 0 who owned a small ship. One of the PCs had shares in a ship too, neither ship was suitable for their needs so they cashed everything in, took out a mortgage and bought something more suited to their needs. I did not go with RAW in similar manner to @Sigtrygg

 

[Anstett]

We combined all four options for Ship Shares for ease of use. At some point I think I need to include the Aslan Corporation section here too. I am certain that if/when Merchant Prince comes out it will influence this.

Dragonslayer Space | Main / ShipShares

 

[Grognardia]

Ship Shares have always felt a bit odd to me. The rules say they are worth a million credits each but you can’t ever sell them for cash. In real life you could totally offload something like that. You might not get the full million, but there would absolutely be a market. Some broker would buy it for a cut, maybe ten to fifty percent of face value, then resell or bundle it when a crew needs a down payment.

Picture an old ex-marine cashing out his share for a couple hundred thousand and a banker turning that into a tidy profit later. Honestly, it is easier to believe in jump drives than to think the Imperium would pass up a chance to make money on shares like that.

 

[OriginalCaruso]

For me, the ship shares “thing” is all about establishing player agency - giving the Travellers the opportunity to travel the stars. My players want to cross the heavens and a spaceship is their vehicle of choice. Other groups may prefer to use commercial liners or stick to a single planet, mine don’t.

So far, they are satisfied with their J2 research ship, but they have almost acquired something far better

Like everything Traveller, the loose framework provides opportunity for most playing styles, and rule 0 always applies

 

[Saladman]

Ship shares represent contacts, credit rating, savings and favours owed that a Traveller can put towards ownership of a space vessel...

[core book, italics mine]

Hard to sell a contact or a favor owed to a broker, much less your own credit rating.

It's not so much that RAW doesn't make sense, it's that the name is counterintuitive. A character creation ship share, by RAW, isn't literally part ownership of a ship... yet. It's any of several things whose best use is conversion to part ownership of a ship.

But then we did lose some focus in 2e. 1e assumed combining ship shares toward a party ship, 2e removes that by saying one player gets a ship, the rest get jack a modest yearly pension, described as deriving from part ownership of a commercial vessel. But the numbers for the pension don't really match the value of a quarter of a ship, so either you should sell that immediately or that part ownership isn't really one quarter after all. So this later section does imply something at odds with the plain language of ship shares, but I still go with the plain language of ship shares.

 

[swordtart]

If you consider the game mechanic rather than the name, the ship share is MCr1 off the purchase price of a ship. For that to be the case it need not be worth MCr1 today. The full purchase price is only paid on the 40th anniversary of the ship and that is point the ship share is worth MCr1. That might also explain why it is only worth KCr1 per year if you treat it as an investment.

Consider a ship costing MCr10. Monthly payments are in the order of KCr42.
The same ship with a ship share applied is MCr9. Monthly payments are the order of KCr37.5

Your ship share is therefore worth the difference (around KCr4 per month). I can envisage any number of investments that might generate that sort of income* but that would not be worth 240 times that if sold on the open market as the buyer needs to have the patience to wait 40 years for it to pay for itself.

This thread might give some clues as to why the actual value of the ship might be as closely related to price paid and equally why a MCr1 ship share may not be worth MCr1 in cash (it might for example partially represent several complex financial products that make buying a ship possible).

*My Solar panels for example generate round £1000 in benefits a year. If I sold them they would be worth about £3000 based on second hand value I would absolutely not get £40,000 for them

 

[Vormaerin]

Ship shares exist because the game does not know what sort of campaign you are going to run. So they are unduly generic. If you are running a campaign that doesn't need a ship, you should probably use ship shares for vehicles or other resources the players might want. Or just replace them with other benefits before they muster out. If they are definitely playing a trader campaign, they need a tradeship, so ending up with a scout/courier isn't gonna get it done.

I like the T:NE style system because ship shares have a defined value if the players aren't interested in a ship. And they give the players options towards spending their shares on the type of ship they want and making choices about various trade offs. But that works for me because I'm generally running a sandbox and am fine with the players deciding if they just want cheap transport or want a specific style of ship. Or maybe they want small craft or to not bother with a ship at all. Any of those outcomes will normally work fine for the game I'll be running.

But, obviously, if I were to ever decide to run some kind of published campaign like Secrets of the Ancients or Singularity (or some homebrew equivalent), ship shares would be irrelevant and I'd take them out of the mustering out tables. I've done that when running single system campaigns where the players are going to spend all or most of their time on one world.

Part of having a general purpose rules set is that it lets you do all kinds of campaigns, but you have to customize the results to what you are actually doing.

 

[Condottiere]

Part of the issue, is, that starship passage, outside of getting frozen, is rather expensive.

 

[swordtart]

I have also considered allowing the player to choose whether to take the non-cash or cash benefit after the roll (subject to the usual max 3 cash results). It allows a little flex without bending the rules too much.

The equivalency points up how random the distribution of ship shares and ships among the careers. Rouge gets as many as 2D shares per term. With lucky rolls you could do better than a trader (as 25% of a Free Trader is only 12 shares).

The main benefit of the ship share is that it is an excuse to allow the player to buy a ship, the ship share being the down payment. Getting the free trader only reduces the mortgage by 25% (KCr47 per month for the free trader). With the option to design your own ship you could probably get something more efficient than a default Free Trader which has a reduced mortgage but also comes with d6 quirks.

Even if one of the players already has a ship, ship shares can be used to customise it beyond the default (or reduce the mortgage further).

 

[Vormaerin]

Part of the issue, is, that starship passage, outside of getting frozen, is rather expensive.

Compared to what? An issue for whom? If you are concerned about PCs being able to move about, you control the rewards they get. Pay them enough or include transport in their expenses or have them do working passage. Or steerage or low berths if they are that hard up. Or stowaway. Or scam passage. Lots of options.

Travelling commercial is certainly cheaper than keeping your own ship in operation, especially if you want the freedom to go spend a month in the outback looking for ancient ruins or running a scam to steal antique Terran stamps or whatever.

 

[OriginalCaruso]

Pros and cons

My group prefer the flexibility to travel according to their desires - and occasional GM influence.

I prefer to support player agency by facilitating the style of game my players want to play. I’ve seen GMs run a different style of game than the players want to play and it never ends well.

I don’t let the rules get in the way. I have never understood why ship share conversion to credits should be restricted. There’s no point in playing an ultra high net worth character but not have a ship. Within reason, credits (or gold in AD&D) aren’t a motivating factor. Good game play and edge of the seat excitement are far better motivators for players to want to return for the next session.

 

[Condottiere]

Compared to what? An issue for whom? If you are concerned about PCs being able to move about, you control the rewards they get. Pay them enough or include transport in their expenses or have them do working passage. Or steerage or low berths if they are that hard up. Or stowaway. Or scam passage. Lots of options.

Travelling commercial is certainly cheaper than keeping your own ship in operation, especially if you want the freedom to go spend a month in the outback looking for ancient ruins or running a scam to steal antique Terran stamps or whatever.

Usually it's proportional to the reward, monetary or otherwise.

At default middle passage, sixty five hundred starbux, for a one parsec jump, would be the equivalent of a administrator/one's four months salary. or three months for administrator/two.

Assuming that spacecraft wages are the same for those dirtside.

Which means that once you start adding up the numbers, having at your disposal your own transport starts looking really attractive, even with a mortgage.

One difference being, that without being saddled with a starship, the party doesn't have to constantly hustle to pay off expenses.

However, unless you constantly score big, the party isn't going to go very far.

And, you don't have the leverage that actually having access to a starship, would give you.

 

[Vormaerin]

I don't know any structure in which adventurers get paid on the same scale as worker drones. People generally are not paying PCs to go to the office every day. They are paying them to do something dangerous, possible illegal, possibly deniable, or whatever. So they are going to get paid pretty well, but sporadically.

If your players are really keen on playing Firefly or Blake's 7 or the Expanse or whatever ship based style of game, obviously, go for it. But you don't need a ship to give the players freedom. It's not different than international travel stories in modern day fiction. Most action heroes don't own their own 747.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I don't know any structure in which adventurers get paid on the same scale as worker drones. People generally are not paying PCs to go to the office every day. They are paying them to do something dangerous, possible illegal, possibly deniable, or whatever. So they are going to get paid pretty well, but sporadically.

I think he was referring to the standard wages of a Pilot, Astrogator, Engineer and so forth not the "extras" they make on adventure. Has to be enough extra to tempt that Pilot etc. Has to be enough to help pay off the ship.

The players don't have to go on long adventures. They might while their broker is searching for a cargo get an "opportunity" for quick bucks or the cargo the broker finds might need to be "liberated" in some way (recovered from the Stellar Mafia for example) which is your adventure. The adventure might take mere hours not days or weeks.