Affording a spaceship?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by dripton

Old-school Traveler had two ways a character could start with a starship.

I seem to recall that they both appeared at random, regardless of the players' wishes or the group's intentions for the campaign.

If I wanted to run one of my SF mystery campaigns under Traveller I almost certainly could not get a party consisting entirely of experienced detectives, and might have to make do with a party consisting of a retired Navy commander, a retired Army brigadier (despite there being no Army in my setting), a retired Scout with a Scout ship (despite there being no Scout service either), and a merchant captain with 30% equity in a tramp steamer (there are no privately-owned interstellar spaceships in my setting) and a stringent mortgage repayment schedule to meet. You might get no ships when everyone wanted one, or you might get two with powerful incentives to go different places.

A retired Scout could start with one, but it was still actually owned by the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service. So the retired Scout could be expected to report back anything interesting he saw to the Scouts periodically, and the ship could be called back into active duty in an emergency. (And taken back from the character if he did anything they didn't like.) So, some level of Duty disadvantage. No Wealth required since it's not actually his ship, but maybe an Unusual Background or something to be lucky enough to get to borrow one.

Sounds like an expensive Patron advantage.