Affording a spaceship?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

If such items must be purchased using the standard wealth/starting equipment budget rules, then they are guaranteed to "happen", in the sense of players voluntarily and freely (without "hints" or more overt pressure from the GM) going for such options.

This is where you lose me again. How does it guarantee any such thing if the GM isn't allowed to establish a premise for the campaign? If I can't say "This is a game inspired by Firefly, characters will the the owner-operators of a small independent freighter" then what guarantee is there that any characters will own a ship or be qualified to operate one?

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

If you as a GM gets to decide what kind of things the players' characters own at gamestart, why stop there? Why not also decide who they're going to be, what kinds of characters? Why not create their characters for them? Why not play their characters for them too?

Heck, why have players at all? If you want to create a story, sit down and write a novel!

Conversely though if all a "sane" and "competent" GM can do is describe a world without giving any kind of premise for a campaign or any requirements for certain character types how can you expect to have a coherent campaign? Why have a group of players at all? You are just going to be running individual games for characters that have no reason to even know each other.

[Flyndaran]

You should know by now that Mr. Knutsen GMs very differently from the rest of us prefer.

[fifiste]

I had a thought that maybe for these situations there should me a method for MAJOR discounts for items bought at character generators with a condition that they are not to be sold abandoned etc.
As really a family heirloom rare diamond costing many M$ should cost much less for a character to have than many M$ when you absolutely and definately will not ever never sell or trade it for anything.
Also some cost should be levied for a charater to have the benefits of said item - I do not know for certain family heirloom bling maybe status, reputation etc. with gadget limitation :D.
For as spaceship - hmm a possibility to move themselves between action scenes hmm.
From stuff proposed here I kind of like the headquarters solution - you have lodgings and transport etc. advantage and that's it - easy and on budget.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

You should know by now that Mr. Knutsen GMs very differently from the rest of us prefer.

That's obvious. What I don't understand is how he gets the players to for instance all own and crew the same spacecraft.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

No he's saying if you want PCs to own a ship you should only do it in a setting the supports the type of ownerships that you want the PCs to have.

Exactly. Spaceships cannot reproduce the sort of economy that exists in, say, Firefly. Mal buys his ship with what little money he has. It's a real fixer-upper, but not even the rules in Spacehips 2 will let someone of, say, Struggling Wealth to be able to afford any kind of spaceship priced according to Spaceships, using starting wealth. That's because Spaceships assumes a realistic price for spaceships, which only nations and corporations can afford, while Firefly assumes that anyone with a bit of cash can buy a rust bucket. So if you're playing in Firefly, spaceships must be cheaper.

So first, determine who should be able to afford a ship. Then decide whether the prices given in Spaceships and other places meet that criterion. If they don't, you have to change the prices.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Exactly. Spaceships cannot reproduce the sort of economy that exists in, say, Firefly. Mal buys his ship with what little money he has. It's a real fixer-upper, but not even the rules in Spacehips 2 will let someone of, say, Struggling Wealth to be able to afford any kind of spaceship priced according to Spaceships, using starting wealth. That's because Spaceships assumes a realistic price for spaceships, which only nations and corporations can afford, while Firefly assumes that anyone with a bit of cash can buy a rust bucket. So if you're playing in Firefly, spaceships must be cheaper.

So first, determine who should be able to afford a ship. Then decide whether the prices given in Spaceships and other places meet that criterion. If they don't, you have to change the prices.

I must quibble, Mal doesn't buy Serenity out of a Struggling man's pocket money. He buys it with money from selling the family farm, IIRC. Serenity is probably worth several times as much as every other thing Mal has had legal claim to since buying her put together.

That said, prices definitely do vary by setting in big ways.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

…you can't easily go gallivanting across the galaxy if you just sold your spaceship.

I think that's a bit overstated. If there are commercial liners and tramps you can easily go gallivanting around the galaxy as a fare-paying passenger, or by chartering.

Lots of people gallivant pretty effectively on liner jets without owning private planes. It's pretty uncommon for characters in thrillers and action stories to own private jets.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

If you as a GM gets to decide what kind of things the players' characters own at gamestart, why stop there? Why not also decide who they're going to be, what kinds of characters?

I thought that most GMs do this. Whswhs is unusual in offering a slate of different campaign premises. Most of us announce something like "I'm going to run a spies game, who wants to play?" or "I'm going to run a Mysteries game for PIs working for the Continental Detective Agency in San Francisco in the 20s", or "I'm going to run a sort of John Carter sort of thing for Aussie infantry transported to Mars from the battlefields of Pozières". If someone expects to play a starship captain in one of my fantasy campaigns everyone will look at him funny.

Why not create their characters for them? Why not play their characters for them too? Heck, why have players at all? If you want to create a story, sit down and write a novel!

Because they aren't fun.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

(1) Where? I confess that I am not a huge fan of the Spaceships line - I do not like being told that all ships must contain X systems any more than I would like being told all characters must have Y skills.

It's like being told that a spaceship will total to 100% of its mass.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Brett

I thought that most GMs do this.

As far as I can tell "most GMs" are also either "insane" or "incompetent" to do so. According to Peter, as far as I understand him, which admittedly isn't very much, all the "sane" and "competent" GM is permitted to do is describe a setting and specify a location in which the game starts. So he can say, for example, "It's Flat Black" and "You all begin in the main Spaceport on Margulis" but not a thing more.