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Post by Falconer on Jul 31, 2018 13:46:19 GMT -6
      It’s time we talked about a supplement that immediately jumped out at me as an essential one — Tramp Freighters. From the back cover blurb: 80-page book features:- Ship construction, repair and improvement rules.
- Rules for buying, selling, and carrying cargo.
- Rules for trading on the black market.
- Rules for loansharks, pirates, and Imperial Customs officials.
Also includes:- A complete setting—the Minos Cluster—where the Traders can begin their new careers.
- Pregenerated owrlds, characters, and encounters.
- A detailed outline of the Minos Campaign, pitting the characters at first against the merciless law of supply and demand—then against the even more merciless Galactic Empire!
Maybe it’s just me, but this is exactly what I want in a Star Wars adventure roleplaying campaign. I want autonomous player characters driven by their own desire to keep flying and get rich, and maybe help the Rebellion a bit along the way. (Even if the PCs are full-blown Rebels, I want them to basically constitute a self-contained cell, out on their own in hostile and somewhat unknown territory, doing whatever they have to do to further the cause.) I want a ship I can tinker with and improve. I want a self-contained sandbox with planets and personalities and quests galore. It’s all here! What are some of your favorite things about this supplement? If you haven’t seen it, google "Tramp Freighters 1st Edition" and see what you can come up with. Post links to any blog posts or other interesting websites related to it or the Minos Cluster. |
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Post by Falconer on Jul 31, 2018 14:11:52 GMT -6
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Post by boot on Jul 31, 2018 18:50:35 GMT -6
FUEL
Just FYI, The first edition GG6 includes rules for fuel use.
This was taken out of the second edition for the cited reason that it made the game too finnicky. I tend to agree. The fuel rules, as presented, do add detail, but I don't think what you get out of it is worth the work of keeping track of the fuel. Until The Last Jedi, fuel was never addressed in the films (or the books, as far as I can tell).
In the second edition GG6, fuel is considered part of the consumables number.
Recently (since TLJ), fuel in the Star Wars universe is now defined in canon, and it is not as envisioned in GG6 (battery power) but as three different types fuel.
Tibanna Gas - a gas that is used in blasters and starship turbolasers. The gas is heated to a plasma state and ejected from the weapon via an electromagnetic barrel.
Rhydonium - is a volatile fuel that powers the thrusters of starships. It is liquid and appears to be like chrome or heated mercury. It is dangerous when exposed to skin. It burns hot and is used in reaction-drives like that blue flame that we see in the giant thrusters of Star Destroyers.
Hypermatter - is used as fuel for the hyperdrive.
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Post by Falconer on Jul 31, 2018 23:14:25 GMT -6
Just FYI, The first edition GG6 includes rules for fuel use. This was taken out of the second edition for the cited reason that it made the game too finnicky. I tend to agree. The fuel rules, as presented, do add detail, but I don't think what you get out of it is worth the work of keeping track of the fuel. It’s the sort of detail I like in my games, so, I’ll try the 1e Tramp Freighters rule as written, at least in the “lean” early days of the campaign. I can appreciate that some people don’t want any kind of bean-counting whatsoever in their games. |
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Post by boot on Aug 1, 2018 7:48:47 GMT -6
I like some type of fuel accountability, too. I just don't think the rule in GG6 was written well and was in the spirit of the fast, Space Opera, slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am style of first edition D6.
For example, one fuel cell is used per month of real space operations. Given the Star Wars game, that's a real hard number to figure. This isn't Traveller where we can calculate how long it takes a ship to leave a planet and get to jump point. And, rarely, do we know exactly how long it takes a ship to go from one world to another in the same system (and this happens rarely). So, you end up with the GM just guessing, "Hmmm...I think the player's ship has used about a month of real space maneuvering...um....now. Take off a fuel cell."
It's a strange, hard to figure rule--not well written at all, imo--and, you've got to keep up with it over several hyperspace jumps (because it is realspace ops, not hyperspace operations).
The 1 cell used when making the jump to hyperspace is easy. I like that one. And, the 1 cell used per six hours in hyperspace is fairly easy, though probably requires bookkeeping, "Let's see. The jump to Celanon was 15 hours, that's two cells with three ours left over. Then, we jumped to Dyaggaa, which was 19 hours, so that was another three cells with one hour left over, giving us 4 extra hours..."
But, much of the rule is fairly hard to calculate and requires bookkeeping--
1 Cell = 1 month of real space ops
1 Cell = 1 hour of combat maneuvers
1 Cell = 1 hour of atmospheric flight
It just doesn't fit the feel of quick-n-easy 1st edition, and I agree that it should be taken out of the game. Assuming fuel is part of the ship's Consumables cost is fine for a game like D6 Star Wars.
Either that, or the Fuel rule really needs to be re-written to make it easier to use in a game.
All my opinion, of course.
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Post by boot on Aug 1, 2018 8:58:00 GMT -6
Further, about the GG6 1E Fuel Cell rules....
Combine what I say above with the fact that a standard light freighter has 50 fuel cells. I've used these rules, and in play, ticking off a few or even ten of the 50 fuel cells leave the ship at no risk at all.
50 fuel cells means 300 hours of hyperspace jump. If a ship replaces fuel cells at every stop (this is what my players did), then fuel is never an issue, and the GM or players find that they are keeping track of a resource that never expires. Unlike hit points or arrows or uses of a magic wand, the ship always has enough fuel cells to do what the players want to do.
The only way fuel is an issue is if the players are negligent and don't pay for fuel when they stop somewhere.
Fuel, under this system, is just power. My players made the argument that they should be able to re-charge their own batteries (fuel cells) using the ship's generator. That makes a lot of sense to me. Plus, as a ship add-on, ships can get solid fuel converters, fuel scoops, and solar converters added to the ship to make fuel replacement automatic.
And, even if a crew doesn't add one of these, the cost to replace the fuel is very, very low.
For example, if a ship jumps from one planet to another, spending 10 min. in atmospheric flight (starport to orbit), then 10 min. to jump point out of the planet's gravitational well (normal space ops), that's bookkeeping towards the 1 hour of atmospheric flight and 1 month of real space ops.
Then, the ship jumps (uses 1 fuel) and stays in hyperspace for 16 hours (uses 2 fuel cells with 4 hours left over for bookkeeping). Exiting hyperspace at destination, let's say that there's another 10 min. of real space ops getting to the destination planet and 10 min. atmospheric flight landing at the docking bay. That's more bookkeeping.
Once landed, the ship needs to refuel three (of 50) fuel cells (one for the jump, and two while in jump).
Cost.
How long are the players going to be on this world?
It will cost 15 Cr to recharge these cells in three days, recharging one per day.
It will cost 30 Cr to recharge these cells in three hours, recharging one per hour.
It will cost 50 Cr to recharge these cells in one hour, with a max of 4 per hour (so the partial cells could be recharged, too).
It will cost 1500 Cr to replace the three cells with new ones.
So, it's a time thing. And, usually, it's not a big cost to the PCs at all.
I can see why Second Edition rolled this cost into consumables.
I found, when I used this system, that I was doing the bookkeeping for nothing. The players never ran out of fuel. Cost was minimal. Like the example above, it's an additional 30 Cr for that jump. Add a little more to recharge the partial use cells, and you can get rid of the bookkeeping.
Easier.
It's a lot easier to just add a few credits to the docking fee or the consumables fee when a ship lands and forget about the bookkeeping. It's even more easier to go with the 2E idea and just consider fuel folded into the consumables fee.
Not once did I ever have my players come close to using all 50 of their fuel cells. So, counting, for me, is really moot. A player/GM should only count something if that something is a resource that could dry up and run out.
A good medium is to count a cell for entering hyperspace, and count a cell for every 6 hours or portion there of in hyperspace, and be done with it. That way, the extra spent on the hyperspace time rounding will more than pay for any realspace ops, combat ops, and atmospheric ops that the ship does.
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Post by havard on Aug 1, 2018 15:19:02 GMT -6
Tramp Freighters is amazing. It was the basis of my most successful Star Wars campaign.
-Havard
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Post by Falconer on Aug 1, 2018 15:57:27 GMT -6
Tramp Freighters is amazing. It was the basis of my most successful Star Wars campaign. Recap?  |
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Post by buzzcorry on Aug 5, 2018 11:58:08 GMT -6
I think it would be best to just use fuel as a cost spent moving from one location to another, so Tatooine to Alderan costs 6 points where Tatooine to Jakku only 3. Something like that. Also with charging a bit more fuel if the ship is traveling exceedingly fast, such as when being chased by ISDs.
Thus a ship's fuel tank would limit it's range although that would only really an issue of the ship was smuggling cargo or known rebels. Normally, a ship could just stop along the route to refuel. Finding and building up a list of "off the grid" fueling spots would be a priority for any Rebels or smugglers, which could easily lead to a variety of adventures.
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Post by boot on Aug 5, 2018 13:07:36 GMT -6
I think it would be best to just use fuel as a cost spent moving from one location to another, so Tatooine to Alderan costs 6 points where Tatooine to Jakku only 3. Something like that. Also with charging a bit more fuel if the ship is traveling exceedingly fast, such as when being chased by ISDs. Thus a ship's fuel tank would limit it's range although that would only really an issue of the ship was smuggling cargo or known rebels. Normally, a ship could just stop along the route to refuel. Finding and building up a list of "off the grid" fueling spots would be a priority for any Rebels or smugglers, which could easily lead to a variety of adventures. As I said above, I think it is easiest just to consider fuel part of the Consumables that a ship pays, and be done with it. To what buzzcorry says above: I suggested up thread, for those wanting to use the system in GG6, to just count 1 cell for hyperspace entry and 1 cell per six hours in hyperspace, and be done with it. Or, add 1 cell to any total a ship might have to account for overages. For example, if a ship enters hyperspace and jumps 14 hours, it will have spent 1 cell for the entry and 2 cells for the time in hyperspace, leaving 2 hours unaccounted for plus the time in atmosphere. Just add 1 cell. For this trip, the cost would be 4 cells (1 to jump, 2 in hyperspace, 1 extra). Still, I think this is moot. It serves no purpose in a game. If a ship has 50 cells as indicated in GG6, then using 4 of them is no great problem for the players. It's cheap to recharge the cells. And, I still think that ships under Star Wars tech would have some type of re-charging mechanism. It shouldn't cost at all to recharge fuel cells. That's why the newer idea of a liquid fuel makes more sense--reaction mass that burns to push the ship. Consumables still makes the most sense. Fuel shouldn't be a problem for Star Wars vessels--not unless it is a plot point, as it was in TLJ. Han never has a problem with it. And Consumables gives ships a limit. |
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Post by Starbeard on Aug 5, 2018 21:35:44 GMT -6
As I said above, I think it is easiest just to consider fuel part of the Consumables that a ship pays, and be done with it. To what buzzcorry says above: I suggested up thread, for those wanting to use the system in GG6, to just count 1 cell for hyperspace entry and 1 cell per six hours in hyperspace, and be done with it. Or, add 1 cell to any total a ship might have to account for overages. For example, if a ship enters hyperspace and jumps 14 hours, it will have spent 1 cell for the entry and 2 cells for the time in hyperspace, leaving 2 hours unaccounted for plus the time in atmosphere. Just add 1 cell. For this trip, the cost would be 4 cells (1 to jump, 2 in hyperspace, 1 extra). Still, I think this is moot. It serves no purpose in a game. If a ship has 50 cells as indicated in GG6, then using 4 of them is no great problem for the players. It's cheap to recharge the cells. And, I still think that ships under Star Wars tech would have some type of re-charging mechanism. It shouldn't cost at all to recharge fuel cells. That's why the newer idea of a liquid fuel makes more sense--reaction mass that burns to push the ship. Consumables still makes the most sense. Fuel shouldn't be a problem for Star Wars vessels--not unless it is a plot point, as it was in TLJ. Han never has a problem with it. And Consumables gives ships a limit. I like the idea of using consumable fuel, but I think you're right about the rules as they are in GG6. The way most players will fly about the galaxy, it will simply be added paperwork for something that they never have to worry about anyway. I would probably take a more streamlined approach like you suggest, and then either double the fuel rates (and thus doubling the cost) or cutting ship fuel capacity in half. Something so that they actually have to think about it before they just zip away anywhere. As for fuel being a plot point, I think anytime fuel starts to run low it becomes a plot point—since it was never a plot point for Han Solo, we can assume that he was always careful to be stocked up on fuel. That's the whole point of RPG and wargame play: the stuff that happens in the game drives the plot. So in that case, I think the GG6 fuel rules miss the mark, because the rules they add don't allow play to be affected unless the GM goes out of his way to make sure they do affect the game—in which case you might as well just not have the rule, since you're already using GM fiat to make sure that the rule can be applied. The fuel rules instead should be something a little more streamlined and more effective in day-to-day campaign play. |
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Post by boot on Aug 6, 2018 7:57:29 GMT -6
But, is that "Star Wars"? Having to worry about fuel doesn't seem to fit with the vision of the original trilogy. |
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Post by Starbeard on Aug 6, 2018 13:00:15 GMT -6
But, is that "Star Wars"? Having to worry about fuel doesn't seem to fit with the vision of the original trilogy. You've got a very good point, and I admit that I'm still on the fence on how I feel about it, and probably will be for a while. On the one hand, it's easy to see how it doesn't fit with the 'vision' of the original movies. They're never concerned with measurements: in which case, even the character weapon ranges seem bizarrely out of character: since when has being 400m vs 500m away mattered in a Star Wars story? Even the starship rules recognize this, and just use the Classic Traveller style abstract range bands. Why didn't they do that for character combat as well? Even the very idea that it's possible for the good guys to die and fail is against the vision of the original trilogy, but without that we don't have a game. Ultimately, I think the answer is that it's a game, first and foremost; not a 'Star Wars simulation'. Just like D&D. Neither Conan nor Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser ever had to worry about counting torches or rations, or making sure they pay out their hirelings coin by coin, but we do all that in D&D, because it's a game and that's part of the gameplay. The setting and action is drawn from the source material, but the gameplay is derived from what makes an interesting and tactical conceptual game for the players, rather than an exercise in appropriate storytelling for the setting. So the real question is how much 'game' should there be in a 'Star Wars game'. Right now, I'm thinking fuel consumption actually can fit inside the vision of the original trilogy, though. Sure, it didn't show up in 3 movie scripts, but that doesn't really mean much; it just means it wasn't a factor in those three particular stories. First of all, there were originally supposed to be 12 scripts, so we're only looking at a slice of the pie anyway. Secondly, Star Wars has its own source material it drew inspiration from, and my reckoning is that if it would work as a device in, say, a John Ford movie or a Buck Rogers serial, then it could work in Star Wars. Having to account for being low on fuel/supplies is something that I think fits that vision just fine, just like it fits a Conan story just fine to have him run out of torches while exploring a mysterious dungeon; so we translate that into D&D as a game resource that the players have to track. |
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Post by Falconer on Aug 6, 2018 13:27:34 GMT -6
I would offer two thoughts.
One is that a tramp freighters campaign is already different from a campaign modeled more directly after the Original Trilogy. I imagine it would be modeled more after the Han Solo Adventures, or Firefly, or Traveller, or even just what you might imagine Han Solo’s life to have been from when we meet him in Star Wars. Sure, the money he is promised seems insignificant to a Jedi Knight, or an Alderaanian Princess, or the Rebel Alliance… but for Han Solo it’s everything. He’s got to pay his debts, he’s got to repair his ship, he’s got to make improvements, and — it’s not stated, but I imagine — Han and Chewie need to eat; and the Falcon needs fuel to fly.
The other thought is that RPGs tend to have much more granularity than other genres—movies, TV, even novels. In D&D, you experience every 10' of every corridor in every level of every building. You find empty rooms; you search them and come up dry. You know exactly how many coins and rations and arrows and oil flasks are in your pack—and how much more you can carry. You wouldn’t want to read a novel which dwells on this sort of bean-counting—it’s dull and “slow” and irrelevant. We know this instinctually when we recap a RPG session—we retell the “good parts”. But our retelling might even include (say, in the lower levels of a campaign) the fact that we are driven to go out and find treasure by basic needs—lodging, food—and desires—better armor, say.
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Post by buzzcorry on Aug 7, 2018 11:02:27 GMT -6
As I said above, I think it is easiest just to consider fuel part of the Consumables that a ship pays, and be done with it. The consumables rules might work for you but I don't bother keeping track of time with such detail when running an RPG. So they are fairly unusable to me. As others have said, any fuel or supply rules should do one of two things: create immersion or provide a source of adventures. A daily payment does neither of these things. Han is shown fueling up the Falcon in SW via a big pipe and Luke's X-Wing is being similarly fueled up right before he leaves to attack the Death Star. So, I think the evidence points to a liquid fuel for SW ships. |
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