How to handle ship ownership? - Page 2

sn0wball · 11-24-2017, 06:07 AM

If there is one ship shared by the group, and it is clear that the ship is not just some piece of equipment to be sold when convenient, I would not have any or all characters pay for it with character points. If all pay for the ship together, this simply lowers the starting points total, if only one pays for, the player might - rightfully - expect some special role in the campaign, as it was already pointed out. Also, this leads to the probably unwanted effect that the captain/owner is always less competent than his crew.

If the campaign happens on the ship, there will be a ship available to the players, through whatever inplay reason you as the GM devise. This gives you the most flexibility and doesn´t lead to balance problems, should the ship need to change or be destroyed.

In my current campaign, a diverse group of organisations and individuals have sponsored a ship for the PCs, including some NPC crew members. There is a long running basic mission, and side missions supplied by any one sponsor, whenever the GM feels like it, all while leaving the potential for private side endeavours from the PCs. Of course, the players are not in control of the finances of the ship, but since nobody is interested in that, this is fine for anyone.

SteveS · 11-24-2017, 09:55 AM

It's possible to have an interesting campaign where the players fly commercial. That can work for a mercenary team, a corporate fix-it team, undercover agents posing as something else, people on the run, etc.

Kallatari · 11-24-2017, 07:01 PM

Normally, it's financed and the players have monthly payments to make. Or they take it from bad guys.

The most interesting approach I've had was when one of the player characters was the ship. He was an IA in a nearly fully-automated ship, with Payload for the other PCs to hitch a ride. He could teleoperate little drones/robots to go with the rest of the group on other missions as direct support, but mainly his role was hacker/researcher/coms (and I guess wheelman).

I don't remember how many points that character was and no longer have the character sheet, but it was a fairly high-level game the character joined into. I'm guessing around the 500 ballpark.

11-24-2017, 06:07 AM	#11
sn0wball Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Schleswig, Germany	Re: How to handle ship ownership? If there is one ship shared by the group, and it is clear that the ship is not just some piece of equipment to be sold when convenient, I would not have any or all characters pay for it with character points. If all pay for the ship together, this simply lowers the starting points total, if only one pays for, the player might - rightfully - expect some special role in the campaign, as it was already pointed out. Also, this leads to the probably unwanted effect that the captain/owner is always less competent than his crew. If the campaign happens on the ship, there will be a ship available to the players, through whatever inplay reason you as the GM devise. This gives you the most flexibility and doesn´t lead to balance problems, should the ship need to change or be destroyed. In my current campaign, a diverse group of organisations and individuals have sponsored a ship for the PCs, including some NPC crew members. There is a long running basic mission, and side missions supplied by any one sponsor, whenever the GM feels like it, all while leaving the potential for private side endeavours from the PCs. Of course, the players are not in control of the finances of the ship, but since nobody is interested in that, this is fine for anyone. __________________ No unconsenting english phrases were harmed during the writing of this post.

11-24-2017, 09:55 AM	#12
SteveS Join Date: Nov 2013 Location: near Seattle WA USA	Re: How to handle ship ownership? It's possible to have an interesting campaign where the players fly commercial. That can work for a mercenary team, a corporate fix-it team, undercover agents posing as something else, people on the run, etc.

11-24-2017, 07:01 PM	#13
Kallatari Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Ottawa, Canada	Re: How to handle ship ownership? Normally, it's financed and the players have monthly payments to make. Or they take it from bad guys. The most interesting approach I've had was when one of the player characters was the ship. He was an IA in a nearly fully-automated ship, with Payload for the other PCs to hitch a ride. He could teleoperate little drones/robots to go with the rest of the group on other missions as direct support, but mainly his role was hacker/researcher/coms (and I guess wheelman). I don't remember how many points that character was and no longer have the character sheet, but it was a fairly high-level game the character joined into. I'm guessing around the 500 ballpark.