My First Starship

[spank]

I had an idea for a traveller supplement, a smallish boxed set or book or series of books. Introductory adventures that involve acquiring, thru nonstandard means a ship. They are intended to be lengthy forming the opening of a campaign, not just first couple of adventures.
As an example the PCs learn of a ship crashed in a swamp on a primitive planet, enhabited by some hostile sentinent aliens. They travel there, salvage the ship and ferry it to a shipyard for repair.
There would be room inbetween the different phases of this adventure for side quests, for example after the PCs had made the ship space worthy, but not jump ready they park it on a moon. They could then go do something else for a while to gather funds and resources. Then after gathering the resources needed the could jump the ship to a shipyard, and again they would have time to go do a side job, possibly to "facilitate" getting the repair financed. Then they would have time for another side job before the repairs were done.
I know there other other scenarios that are not just rehashings of the find a ship, salvage and repair it scenario. But that is the one I have been playing around with.

 

[robject]

I like the idea. I haven't seen a campaign with a twin focus of (1) getting a junker ship spaceworthy while (2) adventuring on a planet. #1 seems to provide a good motivation (at least a "push") for #2.

 

[Commander Drax]

or how about the financial collapse of the ship yard whilst the vessel is in it being repaired, everything is locked down whilst local authorities inventory everything with access being denied to all until the job is complete

violent revolutions on planet are always interesting as well, have the government change when the ship is in port and the player characters are away from it. on their return they can be denied access as the vessel has now been 'nationalised' and effectively belongs to the government, players can recover the ship by legal or violent means or by joining a counter rebellion.

Just ideas...

 

[Plankowner]

Throw the Imperial Representative into the mix as well.

SURE the Starport (and the shipyards) are Imperial Space, by treaty, but the new government hasn't signed that treaty yet. The players are caught on the wrong side of the extra-territorial line and that keeps them from their ship. No work is being done on ship since 90% of the workers are locals and don't live on the starport.

Now the players, as important imperial citizens (ex-Military types) are contacted by the Imperial Representative and asked to "help" with a little matter that will normalize relations...

 

[robject]

I really like the "financial collapse" aspect. Provides nice background, justification, and plot hooks.

 

[ravells]

I had an idea for a traveller supplement, a smallish boxed set or book or series of books. Introductory adventures that involve acquiring, thru nonstandard means a ship. They are intended to be lengthy forming the opening of a campaign, not just first couple of adventures.
As an example the PCs learn of a ship crashed in a swamp on a primitive planet, enhabited by some hostile sentinent aliens. They travel there, salvage the ship and ferry it to a shipyard for repair.
There would be room inbetween the different phases of this adventure for side quests, for example after the PCs had made the ship space worthy, but not jump ready they park it on a moon. They could then go do something else for a while to gather funds and resources. Then after gathering the resources needed the could jump the ship to a shipyard, and again they would have time to go do a side job, possibly to "facilitate" getting the repair financed. Then they would have time for another side job before the repairs were done.
I know there other other scenarios that are not just rehashings of the find a ship, salvage and repair it scenario. But that is the one I have been playing around with.

Funnily enough I'm writing an adventure set in Gateway which pretty much is in line with this, it's in two parts of about 40 pages each. Part 1 is pretty much finished and Part 2 is in draft. It was in play-testing, but after initial reports the person playtesting it didn't come back to the boards.