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I'm running a Traveller game where it feels like this. Spreadsheets in Space... Luckily for me and our players I just hand wave a lot of it once it gets too cr

I'm running a Traveller game where it feels like this. Spreadsheets in Space... Luckily for me and our players I just hand wave a lot of it once it gets too crunchy.

mcv 3y ago
Traveller can be like that. I never got that far into it, unfortunately. In games like that (or maybe in all games) it's important that all players are happy with the level of crunch. It's fine if everybody engages with the Spreadsheets in Space, it's also fine if everybody prefers to handwave it. But if some engage and some don't, you've got a problem. I was afraid my players would consider Shadowrun too heavy and too much bookkeeping, but everybody was willing to commit to it and make it work. And I still handwave a lot because the Shadowrun rules are a mess.
whartung 3y ago
Traveller is notorious. The core "Free Trader" trope is very difficult from many levels. It starts with this "small band and their ship" meme. The problem is that the ship is worth $40M. Traveller economics are basically based on 1980 prices, so $40M is, you know, "worth something". Sure, the ship is mortgaged over 40 years, but that's part of the problem. Outside of the "milk run" markets (there are some trades, where if played straight by the rules, are just instant, large profits), it's simply the matter that folks are running around in a ship worth millions of dollars (Traveller uses credits, but we'll stick with dollars), that takes millions of dollars to repair and maintain. You'd think that the crew should be on the brink of disaster all the time. $400,000 annually just to maintain the ship. Pile on the mortgage payment, and you need an annual revenue of $2-3M. Show of hands who here would be content with a "small business" that's pulling in $2-3M a year? Encounter with a Pirate? Did they take out your turret as you raced to the jump zone? $4M in damage. The fundamental point being that if you were in this business, and had the $4M in the bank to handle these kind of repairs (well, better bump it to $10M), at some point you look and say "You know, I have $10M in equity in my ship, I have $10M in the bank just in case, what the heck am I doing jetting around the universe in the dangerous dark? Why am I not on the beaches of Gamma Hydra VI sipping margaritas?" If the cargoes are more mundane ("mundane"), say worth $200K, then a) is a pirate willing to risk millions of dollars of damage for $200K? b) is the captain willing to risk that? Why would a pirate bother with $200K of cargo when there's several million dollars worth of drives, weapons, computers, etc. on the ship. Heck, why not take both? Combat is very expensive, so make it worth while and worth the risk. The whole trading campaign is badly skewed by the economics and, perhaps, the lack of the players putting themselves in the position of the actual people, and just focusing on numbers. It would make more sense, in an advance technological and economic society, to lease the ship, insure it against damages, hire the crew, etc. But, boy, the ruins the adventure. "We're going to the lost planet to check out the ancient ruin for artifacts, you in?" "Yea gee, that sounds well, but I have to meet with the insurance inspector to renew the certificate on my ship." Yea, that's fun.
- mcv 3y ago
  But isn't that the point of Traveller? You don't actually have $10M, you've got $40M debt, and you'd better start making some money to make those payments. And if you get behind, well, maybe take some risk, like smuggling stuff past some pirates for much higher profit, but at much higher risk. Or maybe check out that mysterious derelict ship to see if there's anything worth salvaging that can put you back on track to paying down your ship. Piracy is a bigger mystery; I guess the only explanation is that they stole those ships, rather than buying them legitimately, because piracy is a poor investment. Or is it? Piracy was rampant in the Caribbean some centuries ago, and it still exists in some places. And privateering could be a profitable business. One thing that helped, is that neither side really wanted to fight. Often pirates would let the crew live and keep the ship as long as they handed over the cargo without a fight, and that would be a better deal for both sides than a fight to the death where one ship sinks and the other is badly damaged. But I also feel like the cargo has to be worth more. It's been ages since I've seen those rules, but if the merchant is making $200k on a trip, that doesn't mean the cargo is worth $200k, it means the cargo is worth $200k more at the destination than it was at the source, and the real value could be a lot more. And if the ship is insured (which means piracy is probably rare enough), it might not even hurt the crew much to surrender their cargo. Except of course that rag-tag band of former military people that's behind on paying down the mortgage on their ship and cutting costs where they can, but somehow also in possession of more weaponry than your average merchant.

I'm running a Traveller game where it feels like this. Spreadsheets in Space... Luckily for me and our players I just hand wave a lot of it once it gets too crunchy.

mcv 3y ago

Traveller can be like that. I never got that far into it, unfortunately. In games like that (or maybe in all games) it's important that all players are happy with the level of crunch. It's fine if everybody engages with the Spreadsheets in Space, it's also fine if everybody prefers to handwave it. But if some engage and some don't, you've got a problem. I was afraid my players would consider Shadowrun too heavy and too much bookkeeping, but everybody was willing to commit to it and make it work. And I still handwave a lot because the Shadowrun rules are a mess.

whartung 3y ago

Traveller is notorious. The core "Free Trader" trope is very difficult from many levels. It starts with this "small band and their ship" meme. The problem is that the ship is worth $40M. Traveller economics are basically based on 1980 prices, so $40M is, you know, "worth something". Sure, the ship is mortgaged over 40 years, but that's part of the problem. Outside of the "milk run" markets (there are some trades, where if played straight by the rules, are just instant, large profits), it's simply the matter that folks are running around in a ship worth millions of dollars (Traveller uses credits, but we'll stick with dollars), that takes millions of dollars to repair and maintain. You'd think that the crew should be on the brink of disaster all the time. $400,000 annually just to maintain the ship. Pile on the mortgage payment, and you need an annual revenue of $2-3M. Show of hands who here would be content with a "small business" that's pulling in $2-3M a year? Encounter with a Pirate? Did they take out your turret as you raced to the jump zone? $4M in damage. The fundamental point being that if you were in this business, and had the $4M in the bank to handle these kind of repairs (well, better bump it to $10M), at some point you look and say "You know, I have $10M in equity in my ship, I have $10M in the bank just in case, what the heck am I doing jetting around the universe in the dangerous dark? Why am I not on the beaches of Gamma Hydra VI sipping margaritas?" If the cargoes are more mundane ("mundane"), say worth $200K, then a) is a pirate willing to risk millions of dollars of damage for $200K? b) is the captain willing to risk that? Why would a pirate bother with $200K of cargo when there's several million dollars worth of drives, weapons, computers, etc. on the ship. Heck, why not take both? Combat is very expensive, so make it worth while and worth the risk. The whole trading campaign is badly skewed by the economics and, perhaps, the lack of the players putting themselves in the position of the actual people, and just focusing on numbers. It would make more sense, in an advance technological and economic society, to lease the ship, insure it against damages, hire the crew, etc. But, boy, the ruins the adventure. "We're going to the lost planet to check out the ancient ruin for artifacts, you in?" "Yea gee, that sounds well, but I have to meet with the insurance inspector to renew the certificate on my ship." Yea, that's fun.

mcv 3y ago
But isn't that the point of Traveller? You don't actually have $10M, you've got $40M debt, and you'd better start making some money to make those payments. And if you get behind, well, maybe take some risk, like smuggling stuff past some pirates for much higher profit, but at much higher risk. Or maybe check out that mysterious derelict ship to see if there's anything worth salvaging that can put you back on track to paying down your ship. Piracy is a bigger mystery; I guess the only explanation is that they stole those ships, rather than buying them legitimately, because piracy is a poor investment. Or is it? Piracy was rampant in the Caribbean some centuries ago, and it still exists in some places. And privateering could be a profitable business. One thing that helped, is that neither side really wanted to fight. Often pirates would let the crew live and keep the ship as long as they handed over the cargo without a fight, and that would be a better deal for both sides than a fight to the death where one ship sinks and the other is badly damaged. But I also feel like the cargo has to be worth more. It's been ages since I've seen those rules, but if the merchant is making $200k on a trip, that doesn't mean the cargo is worth $200k, it means the cargo is worth $200k more at the destination than it was at the source, and the real value could be a lot more. And if the ship is insured (which means piracy is probably rare enough), it might not even hurt the crew much to surrender their cargo. Except of course that rag-tag band of former military people that's behind on paying down the mortgage on their ship and cutting costs where they can, but somehow also in possession of more weaponry than your average merchant.