Mustering out and Ships

[djpapasmurf]

Just went through creating characters 4 characters with friends. They all took between 5 and 7 terms. Although tough, they basically seem reasonable.

The only issue is the mustering benefit of receiving a ship (whether scout, merc, traveller etc...). It seems much too easy to get a ship and 3 out of the 4 characters ended up with a ship through mustering. YIKES! Now they all expect to fly around like their own little airforce, each in their own ship.

Am I doing something wrong in mustering out or is this fairly common. In fact, one of the players rolled very well as an Officer and had so many extra mustering rolls he actually rolled a ship 4 time!!! once for scout and rolled three 6's on the merc chart, getting another 3 ships! (ofcourse I know the rules about reducing open loan etc.... ))) .. but still ... it seems like the value attained by a ship is so much greater than the other player who basically go 5 free trips to the planet of his choice.

Whatcha think? Anyone else see this kind of problem.

SuperStar DJ Papa Smurf - Bringin' the Love!

 

[phyle]

Papa,

Don't forget how much money those characters are going to owe to the banks! One ship alone is worth millions of credits. Not to mention the cost that they'll be responsible for when hiring people to run the ship.

What I would do is have the group own a ship together, each time they gain a ship as a benefit knock off ten years of the mortgage.

If they're going to make money off the deal, I wouldn't give them a new ship, but maybe fill it with some sort of cargo for them to trade.

And if its still a problem, have a corrupt official impound the ships.

 

[Ellros]

What I would do is have the group own a ship together, each time they gain a ship as a benefit knock off ten years of the mortgage.

Actually, that was the rule in CT, and is also in T20 (p127 under Other Starships) especially for merchants. Scouts got their Scout/Courier free, but they are Always subject to recall by the Scout Service in time of crisis (hence it being called detached duty).

 

[aravain]

Not to mention that they will competing for the same cargos and same qualified personel to run their ships. What you should do is allow them to sell their individual ships (or their earned value per ship) at a discount (they get a little less than they put in) and pool their resources to buy a much bigger ship with a few bells and whisles. That allows the party to stay together, allows less work by the referee to hold each person's interest, and forces the party to put all their eggs into one basket. That being said, perhaps you are in a group that rotates players on a week to week basis due to real life conflicts. The multiship option allows for characters to disappear stage left and still allow the rest of the group to adventure. This prevents the "you made my character do WHAT!?" reaction when a player returns from a week's hiatus.

 

[themink]

I'm not sure why your characters have so many ships! What do you use as a term limit?

The rules aren't totally clear - but I think you only get mustering out rolls for your final service. So if you spent three terms in the marines then 1 term in academics, you only get 1 roll on the academic table.

If you read it the other way (that you muster out whenever you change corps) you still can;t apply your "+1 for high rank" retrospectively (or your gambling mod)

I think those are the only two ways to read the rules - but I've been wrong before.

 

[Liam Devlin]

I had this problem before..only in TNE...Eight players four ships (A Scout, A Gazelle CE, 300dt version-(no tanks), a Far Trader, and a Broadsword Merc Cruiser.

The MC was sold to the planet for partial payment on repairs on the remaining three. The second month later, the Far Trader was leased to NPCs by her owner ( let them run and maintain it!-paid her their rent/ shares of profits). They adventured with the Scout And Gazelle the rest of the time.

An imaginative GM can part a player from anything.. even if legitmately rolled up in "mustering out"...Yes, its a huge ship, lad...but she's at wear value 8 (out of 1-10, in sad sad shape_...needs lots of work to get her to trim...Cost$$$, ye might get a Scout ship fer that kinda money..."

Use yer head Papa, that thinkin cap can conceive of all kindsa things!!!!

 

[djpapasmurf]

thanks for the comments ... regarding the following though :

"you only get mustering out rolls for your final service. So if you spent three terms in the marines then 1 term in academics, you only get 1 roll on the academic table."

I did not read it that way, in fact doesn't it say specifically that you get "1" role per term and then additions per officer etc. I thought that meant you get really get a minimum number of mustering rolls as the number of terms.

On the rest of the topic, I think I am going to pool it together, adjust to make it sensible and have a co-owned ship. In fact I will let the one player who is a numbers geek, who loves to build ships put one together. I'll give them some flexibility and add ship-background and events to adjust anything I don't like.

Thanks for the feedback .. ciao!

Superstar DJ Papa Smurf

 

[GypsyComet]

Ideally, you should be mustering out of each service you are in before moving on to the next. That is the intent of the T20 system.

 

[djpapasmurf]

Ideally, you should be mustering out of each service you are in before moving on to the next. That is the intent of the T20 system.

Yes, exactly. In fact it is actually MANDATORY to muster out before hand as one of the benefits may be a stat increase, which in turn could effect your next terms results (i.e. Int Bonus may change your XP Bonus Check roll). This is the same reason why you must calculate your level increases as you go through terms as the level bonus attribute increases can effect your results.

SuperStar DJ Papa Smurf