Character generation question

[hemulen]

Hi,

Was going through a PC generation last night, and an interesting question came up. PC did 2 terms as a belter, but made little progress (2 terms and still 1st level!). Left to join the Marines for 3 terms, ending up as a sergeant.

Did the Belter mustering out 2 rolls on leaving the Belters, PC got Weapon, and Ship (Seeker). Now, potentially, the player has to pay the mortgage on the Seeker, about 142,000Cr/month, which PC couldn't afford, so I let them change it for a roll on the cash table instead. But also, if going on to then do 3 terms in the Marines, how would the mortgage be paid in that time?

Or should we only do mustering out rolls at the very end of PC generation?

As a side note, I was wondering how anyone ever affords a new seeker, Cr 142,000/month for 40 years, given the dreadful rolls on the Belter survival table (Belt Fringe - 18 for survival???).
If you made the money to pay that kind of dosh over, wouldn't you just retire instead? (Ok, I know, PCs aren't those tyoe of people!).

cheers,

Mark

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Mark B.:
Did the Belter mustering out 2 rolls on leaving the Belters, PC got Weapon, and Ship (Seeker). Now, potentially, the player has to pay the mortgage on the Seeker, about 142,000Cr/month, which PC couldn't afford, so I let them change it for a roll on the cash table instead. But also, if going on to then do 3 terms in the Marines, how would the mortgage be paid in that time?

From what I`ve understood, you can only muster out of your LAST term. I may be wrong, but from your example you should`ve rolled on the Marines table for mustering out.

As for the question of "How to pay $$$$$$ in mortgage?", well... ADVENTURE!

 

[jfwking]

In the example above you will get five mustering out rolls taken at the end of prior history.
Three on the marines and two on the belters.
Three in total can be cash, the others must be taken as benifits.

So taking two belter benifit rolls means you can take all three marine rolls as cash or take them as you wish.

The rules don't seem to be worded to cover characters who multi class which is strange as the single class characters seem to be in the minority.

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Captain Jonah:
In the example above you will get five mustering out rolls taken at the end of prior history.
Three on the marines and two on the belters.
Three in total can be cash, the others must be taken as benifits.

Hum... I'd have to re-read those passages, since it's really not the way I've understood it.

Maybe Hunter or Martin could pitch in?

 

[Rover]

Originally posted by Mark B.:

Was going through a PC generation last night, and an interesting question came up. PC did 2 terms as a belter, but made little progress (2 terms and still 1st level!)
Mark

Hi mark,
After two terms you should have had a minimum of 8,000 XP and been 4th Lvl.

You get 4,000 XP for each term.

You don't just get XP's when you roll on the bonus XP section. You get 4,000 a term no matter what. See Item 2 survival pp 125

FYI

 

[hemulen]

Originally posted by Rover:

Hi mark,

After two terms you should have had a minimum of 8,000 XP and been 4th Lvl.

You get 4,000 XP for each term.

You don't just get XP's when you roll on the bonus XP section. You get 4,000 a term no matter what. See Item 2 survival pp 125

FYI

This is true, but unfortunately he missed BOTH survival rolls on the fearsome Belter table (one was 18+!), and according to the notes on p125, if you fail the survival roll you don't get any XP for that term, AND you don't get any commission, promotion or XP bonus rolls. Luckily (?) the PC continued, but had all his money stolen. So he gave up on being a Belter...those Survive DCs are truly frightening. Maybe a better bonus than +1/term?

BTW, as an aside, I've been assuming that any PCs assigned to Training automatically get 4000 XP since there is no DC (well, the DC is effectively 0).

cheers,

Mark

 

[hemulen]

Originally posted by Captain Jonah:

The rules don't seem to be worded to cover characters who multi class which is strange as the single class characters seem to be in the minority.

Yes, quite right, the rules are a bit vague. I just ended up assuming that you did everything at the end, in the same way as you mentioned.

cheers,

Mark

 

[hemulen]

Originally posted by Sandman:
As for the question of "How to pay $$$$$$ in mortgage?", well... ADVENTURE!

This is true and good...encouragement...for PCs, who would otherwise laze around all day like Vargr after a full meal, but I was really thinking about the economics of it, given the huge amounts of cash per month, no Belter is going to be able to afford a new ship - they can't all be old wrecks, because after all, 1 roll on the table means a 40 year mortgage. Mr Normal isn't going to make Cr 142000/month with a 35 ton cargo hold.

cheers,

Mark

 

[far-trader]

Again I reach back to the foggy realm of my CT days, ah the memories ...sorry where was I, oh yes, PC ship muster rolls. I too figured it was more than passing strange that one character with a single lucky roll and few terms would be given a loan for a brand new ship, while the luckier (?) character who rolls ship a few more times has an aging ship but say only 10 years to pay off. Most games aren't going to run that long so unless the PC hits the jackpot and pays off early the rolls seem wasted. Even then the ship is older and presumably less reliable and valuable.

My solution was two fold.

First - The initial roll indicates a loan approval for a 10-60 year old ship (roll 1d6). Each subsequent roll the player may apply a +10 or -10 years to the age of the ship approved or is granted one systems overhaul (see below). Once all rolls are done calculate the ship's current value using -10% new value and an additional -10% per 10 years of age. Use this value for the 40 year mortgage. So for example a PC with 3 rolls for ship acquisition could have an initial loan approval for a 30 year old ship (rolled a 3 on 1d6), and after a little more work on his/her prospectus (two more ship rolls) manages to get approval for a slightly newer ship that was a little better maintained (one roll to reduce age to 20 years old and one roll applied to a systems overhaul).

Second - Used ships are abused ships. All used ships (the only kind the PC is likely to get) have been at least slightly neglected in upkeep and suffer a -1 to all rolls with an additional -1 for each 10 years of age. This can be temporarily negated by routine maintenance at a rate of one -1 per engineer beyond the minimum required. For example a 30 year old ship will have a -4 to all rolls. If it were a Seeker, which requires no engineers then 1 engineer would reduce the penalty to -3 and each additional engineer would reduce the penalty one step further so that 4 engineers would have the ship running like new through constant vigil. If the ship had a required engineering crew of 3 then 4 engineers would reduce the penalty by one, 5 engineers would reduce the penalty by two, and so on. It takes one month of work to reduce the penalties (but you can fly in the meantime) and if the engineers are then scaled back the penalties return at -1 per month till they reach the lowest of either the current engineering level or the original full penalty level.

Alternatively these penalties can be permanently eliminated by a complete systems overhaul at a rate of one per overhaul. Each overhaul costs the same as twice the annual maintenance and takes twice as long in port. An overhaul must be scheduled at least 6 months in advance. The exception to this is if the player applies ship rolls (above) to the overhaul, representing the previous owner did the required maintenance.

Naturally a combination of the two also works. And of course its very much MTU so use at your own risk.

 

[hemulen]

Must admit that I like your ideas, and they can serve to give interesting tweaks to older ships. I was thinking vaguely of some system involving rolls on the internal damage table (say 1/10 years old) where the ship had problems and then loosely winging it from there. You could alleviate these problems by replacing the part/s involved.

Hm, I can feel a steal of your ideas coming on...thanks!

cheers,

Mark

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by Mark B.:
good...encouragement...for PCs, who would otherwise laze around all day like Vargr after a full meal, but I was really thinking about the economics of it, given the huge amounts of cash per month, no Belter is going to be able to afford a new ship - they can't all be old wrecks, because after all, 1 roll on the table means a 40 year mortgage. Mr Normal isn't going to make Cr 142000/month with a 35 ton cargo hold.

I agree that the mortgage is rather high, but then Starship costs a lot and it`s not everyone that can afford one. IMHO, it`s just a background device to push players into barely legal trading instead of playing "UPS: The Courrier RPG".

After all, Traveller is all about Adventuring/discovering/putting pcs in dangerous situation

You might play around the actual monthly mortgage value and tone it down a bit, explaining this as having made a bigger down-payment, leaving players with more room to breath the week payment is due...

 

[lightsenshi]

I recall (as someone else has my copy of T20) that you can do mail courier for like 25k (and requires 5 tons). With 2 jumps a month, that's a nice chunk of your mortgage.

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by lightsenshi:
I recall (as someone else has my copy of T20) that you can do mail courier for like 25k (and requires 5 tons). With 2 jumps a month, that's a nice chunk of your mortgage.

I don`t remember the actual price, but I remember that you`re paid even if there is NO mail to deliver

Can`t do that for too long tho, else the players will get bored QUICKLY...

 

[MichaelL65]

Bulk cargo alone will go a long way towards the mortgage, priority and hazardous will almost take care of it. Speculative trade can make you filthy rich. The group I'm in made several millions on speculative trade over a couple months of game time. Know where you need to sell it and you can just rake in the dough.

 

[Gaming Glen]

Originally posted by MichaelL65:
Bulk cargo alone will go a long way towards the mortgage, priority and hazardous will almost take care of it. Speculative trade can make you filthy rich. The group I'm in made several millions on speculative trade over a couple months of game time. Know where you need to sell it and you can just rake in the dough.

This type of fast cash should attract the attention of legit businesses and, um, the less savory types (i.e., other "businesses", pirates, tax collectors).

Why do you think that young flirting lass at the downport bar was interested in the grubby engineer?


Glen

 

[MichaelL65]

Originally posted by Gaming Glen:
This type of fast cash should attract the attention of legit businesses and, um, the less savory types (i.e., other "businesses", pirates, tax collectors).

Why do you think that young flirting lass at the downport bar was interested in the grubby engineer?

She was interested in my mind (my int score is 20). Besides, in my gaming group, we are a legit business and we pay our taxes. Although there are rumors of pirates...