General Why are Players doing the Ship's Accounting?

[Spinward Scout]

Are you a Player and your Referee says you have to do the Ship's Accounting by hand?

Why?

If you have a perfectly good 100+ ton starship that has a Ship's Computer, why would a person ever do the Ship's Accounting when the Computer can do it?

It should be software for the Main Computer. Even a Hand Comp can do it. Or at least the Hand Comp can keep track of spending and upload it all when you get back to the ship.

It just makes me wonder why in the Far Future that a person would do this.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Are you a Player and your Referee says you have to do the Ship's Accounting by hand?

Why?

If you have a perfectly good 100+ ton starship that has a Ship's Computer, why would a person ever do the Ship's Accounting when the Computer can do it?

It should be software for the Main Computer. Even a Hand Comp can do it. Or at least the Hand Comp can keep track of spending and upload it all when you get back to the ship.

It just makes me wonder why in the Far Future that a person would do this.

Because the referee doesn't know how to use Excel. Or doesn't have an O365 subscription and doesn't know about LibreOffice.

 

[Ulsyus]

Are you a Player and your Referee says you have to do the Ship's Accounting by hand?

Why?

If you have a perfectly good 100+ ton starship that has a Ship's Computer, why would a person ever do the Ship's Accounting when the Computer can do it?

It should be software for the Main Computer. Even a Hand Comp can do it. Or at least the Hand Comp can keep track of spending and upload it all when you get back to the ship.

It just makes me wonder why in the Far Future that a person would do this.

Well, most games that started with CT were before easily available computing, and the ones available back then wouldn't have been used for something as simple as a small-business management system. Roll that forward through the next few editions too. So it makes perfect sense now, with a account-bot managing all the incoming and outgoing for the ship, accessed as you said through an avatar on a hand comp until it talks to the main ship computer, to look after all the paperwork.

 

[mike wightman]

How does the ship accounting get done if the player doesn't take the responsibility to do it?

Should the referee be doing the ship accounts that the player can't?

There is nothing more complex than addy ups and take aways, you don't need a spreadsheet, you don't need a computer, you don't even need a calculator.

You need someone who can do addy ups and take aways.

 

[Condottiere]

In case the ship's computer embezzles the funds.

 

[spank]

Plus most of the numbers are known, Fuel, ship payment, crew salary.

Somewhere I ran across a there was a Ships's ledger and each jump had a line which you totaled across, wish I could find it again.

 

[spank]

LOL,
Reminds me of the ship from Murderbot.


"According to Martyn, ART is of course capable of doing its own accounting, but it always ends up with extra numbers that no one can trace. So now Turi does it and has to keep a hardcopy ledger because otherwise ART would alter their data. No one knew if ART was making up numbers for the hell of it or if these numbers represented actual credit balances that ART was hiding somewhere.)"

In case the ship's computer embezzles the funds.

 

[TamsinP]

I replied earlier on Reddit.

Is it the player or their character that the ref is saying has to do the accounting by hand?

If it's the former, it's because someone needs to keep track of the player's/party's finances. If not one of the players, then the ref would have to do it on top of everything else they have to do.

If it's the latter, how are they proposing it be done? An Admin task roll?

 

[Dragoner]

That is kind of my feelings too, as a ref, I am not doing it. Real life I am a Certified Financial Manager.

 

[Grav_Moped]

How does the ship accounting get done if the player doesn't take the responsibility to do it?

Should the referee be doing the ship accounts that the player can't?

There is nothing more complex than addy ups and take aways, you don't need a spreadsheet, you don't need a computer, you don't even need a calculator.

You need someone who can do addy ups and take aways.

They probably wouldn't even need to do gozintas!
(You know, two gozinta four, two times.)

 

[whartung]

Why?

As much as I'd like to will the numbers to add themselves up using the imaginary computer on the imaginary ship, they just don't. And, for whatever reason, we keep track of the balances of imaginary credits while moving imaginary cargoes and passengers through space to imaginary star system.

The numbers break the 4th wall and the burden falls upon us.

Same reason I have to add the dice up to see if something worked or not.

 

[Black Vulmea]

There is nothing more complex than addy ups and take aways, you don't need a spreadsheet, you don't need a computer, you don't even need a calculator.

In my belt mining/trading solo campaign, I keep the books for three different companies; taxes are folded into buying and selling, so the most 'complex' financial operation is keeping track of debt in the form of loans and making sure they're keeping up with loan and insurance payments, rents, and salaries.

At some point the adventurers plan to take one of the companies public, and I'll probably do some asset valuation and depreciation for that, but with taxes and duties for the most part handled invisibly, folded into purchase and sale price, it really is just, We bought this for this much and sold this for this much.

 

[bookwyrm]

Why are Players doing the Ship's Accounting?​

Because if the game is about the Characters spending Credits for a Profit/Loss or are in charge of earning the Credits to keep the ship flying or the Characters fed/travelling, the Players need to keep track of it. Otherwise, at some point, the GM could say something like 'What Credits are you talking about? You didn't say anything to me. Consider those Credits gone!'

If the game is focused on the Adventure, the Ship's Accounting is in the background and only becomes important to the Characters/Players if the GM deems it important for a certain part of the Adventure until taken care of by the Characters.

Are you a Player and your Referee says you have to do the Ship's Accounting by hand?

Why?

If you have a perfectly good 100+ ton starship that has a Ship's Computer, why would a person ever do the Ship's Accounting when the Computer can do it?

It should be software for the Main Computer. Even a Hand Comp can do it. Or at least the Hand Comp can keep track of spending and upload it all when you get back to the ship.

It just makes me wonder why in the Far Future that a person would do this.

Because the Player is in RL keeping track of their Characters earning/spending of Credits in game. And that ship's computer isn't going to help the Player very much, seeing as how it's in game while the Player is not. But this is only if you are tracking 'real' Credits in game.

If the Credits are in the background, then the Player only has to say their Character is tracking the ship's budget/accounting on the ship's computer. If there is a budget/accounting problem, the GM could give a hint early on instead of letting things get real bad before the Characters notice anything.

 

[Condottiere]

ouch ...

 

[Enoki]

Are you a Player and your Referee says you have to do the Ship's Accounting by hand?

Why?

If you have a perfectly good 100+ ton starship that has a Ship's Computer, why would a person ever do the Ship's Accounting when the Computer can do it?

It should be software for the Main Computer. Even a Hand Comp can do it. Or at least the Hand Comp can keep track of spending and upload it all when you get back to the ship.

It just makes me wonder why in the Far Future that a person would do this.

Now you know...

 

[atpollard]

Are you a Player and your Referee says you have to do the Ship's Accounting by hand?

Why?

Last game, I (Ref) started to do it, but after a couple of months (real time) of fussy bookkeeping, I decided that it just didn’t matter and just published rough WAG summaries at the end of each game month to provide “chrome” for the players about where they stood. I came to the realization “who cares?” about every last credit and if the game needs more cash, then the REF can generate adventures with more cash, and if the adventures need more “drama” then the Ref can generate events that draw down the cash. The players should have their characters focused on some goal bigger than just balancing the ledger.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Are you a Player and your Referee says you have to do the Ship's Accounting by hand?

Why?

"If it's not on your character sheet ... it doesn't exist."

If you have a perfectly good 100+ ton starship that has a Ship's Computer, why would a person ever do the Ship's Accounting when the Computer can do it?

It should be software for the Main Computer. Even a Hand Comp can do it. Or at least the Hand Comp can keep track of spending and upload it all when you get back to the ship.

To be fair, if you're playing a free trader merchant (tramp or not) ... "keeping the books" is one of the jobs of the steward/purser (guess why).

 

[Rupert]

Last game, I (Ref) started to do it, but after a couple of months (real time) of fussy bookkeeping, I decided that it just didn’t matter and just published rough WAG summaries at the end of each game month to provide “chrome” for the players about where they stood. I came to the realization “who cares?” about every last credit and if the game needs more cash, then the REF can generate adventures with more cash, and if the adventures need more “drama” then the Ref can generate events that draw down the cash. The players should have their characters focused on some goal bigger than just balancing the ledger.

I tried that, but Mr. Details kept niggling at me, so in the end I gave up and we do detailed ship's accounts and such like. Well, rather, he does them because I'm not going to.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Somewhere I ran across a there was a Ships's ledger and each jump had a line which you totaled across, wish I could find it again.

Is it this one?

https://www.reddit.com/r/traveller/comments/wwuqd5/fillable_traveller_mgt2_ship_sheet

EDIT: Sorry, it doesn't have anything about Ship's Accounting.

 

[Ulsyus]

I tried that, but Mr. Details kept niggling at me, so in the end I gave up and we do detailed ship's accounts and such like. Well, rather, he does them because I'm not going to.

Is he the sort of player who tries to take advantage of every credit he can get his mitts on? I've had a player like that, so it was easier to give him some numbers and let him play around with them, doing all the accounting. Not just detail-oriented, but a little less wholesome. When things were going too well, there was always the option of some sort of repair or replacement chewing up some very handy available funds.