6 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Considering how often PC starships get used for target practice, I weep at the idea of flying classics around. In the case of almost all standard SW campaigns, the PCs are trying to stay inconspicuous. Flying around a classic makes that very hard to plausibly pull off.

Of course, it would totally depend on the group. Might be appropriate for a group focused on the Colonist, Technician, or Explorer in the party rather than the Smuggler, Hired Gun, or Bounty Hunter.

Another suggestion here, but what about Firefly style? Essentially pick up an old beater, and the first adventure involves the mishaps of getting it fully operational again. You could even incorporate this into the party forming, as the captain travels across a planet tracking down leads on parts and slowly assembling a ragtag crew.

I just realised this was essentially @Darth Revenant 's suggestion. Guess I led us back into the tail of the conga line.

On 10/30/2018 at 4:01 AM, ExpandingUniverse said:

When our GM did a campaign reboot we came across a cave network... which opened up into carved corridors with rooms etc and then we found the docking bay which had our previous PCs ship sitting there, unused for 5 years... we shouted and looked around but our original PCs never showed up,,, free ship!!!

This is actually not far from what I've decided to go with after all: the ship is part of an "inheritance" hidden away in the wilderness. The party won't know exactly what waits for them until they get to the hangar; all they'll know is a location on a datapad once they deal with the dead father's murderer. Legacy is a big theme I'm working on, so it just fit better.

Yet all the suggestions are still appreciated -- we've got critical mass here...

On 10/12/2018 at 4:41 PM, Ahrimon said:

You should have someone mysterious person simply walk up and hand them the BOSS pad with their name listed as the owner(s) then simply walk away. Every now and then when they mention their ship roll some dice. Or simply describe the occasional uneasy feeling about the ship. Let the players imagination run wild and they'll feed you with a ton of ideas on what to do with the ship, and when one of their ideas turns out correct they'll be extra excited.

I like this. I could have a lot of fun as a GM using this.

In the game I'm running, the characters were part of an assault on a criminal's estate, working for another criminal. The first one (Tarja) had a Clone War era walker (AT-PT? The one with the mass driver cannon) as well as battle droids, but the forces of the PCs' employer were gaining the upper hand.

Then the Empire crashed the party....

The characters saw a YT-2400 being prepped for takeoff, and gunned down the criminals fleeing toward it. They grabbed it and fled. Paid some money to have the title and whatnot changed to their name. And then a Hutt came along and said it was his, took it back from them, and said he'd let them keep it after they'd worked off the price. Unfortunately, as of right this minute, he may not have been entirely honest with them, because they still don't have a ship (nor do they really have a pilot, just a rank or two of Pilot: Space among the 3 of them).

It may be too late to respond to this thread, but here are a few ideas:

1) For may years, I ran a Star Wars campaign. At the outset, I offered the PCs the option to be captain, but none of them wanted it, so I wound up doing this: the campaign started with the players all making their way to the same planet onboard a massive low budget passenger liner. They did not know each other, and each had their own reasons for traveling. The ship was set upon by pirates, forcing the PCs to band together and eventually abandon ship together.

The only planet within striking distance was a snowy wasteland. They saw signs of what they thought was some sort of base, and traveled overland (facing weather and critters), only to find that it was actually an buried spaceship. The ship had a single occupant: a droid waiting for his long-dead master to return.

The PCs convinced the droid to leave the planet, and (due to documentation left behind by the dead captain), the droid NPC became captain of the ship. He eventually died in the "first season finale," leaving the ship to the PCs.

It was a good set up for multiple reasons. The players had diverse - and often contradictory - goals, which helped fuel the story, and the short-term NPC captain helped them provide some structure and a reason for them to stay together early on (although the shared adversity they'd faced in the first session or two also helped.

2) A very similar but perhaps simpler model could be to have the PCs defeat the pirates and then the authorities reward them with the ship for their good deeds.

3) Our current campaign (Firefly universe using the Star Wars rules) is a bit simpler - one player chose to be captain, and she bought the ship at auction prior to the campaign - but I considered a few different angles. One option would have gone something like this: The campaign begins as all players wake up to hear a blaring alarm (shades of DARK MATTER). They quickly realize that they are on a bounty hunter's ship, and each of them was taken as a bounty. The ship is damaged (the alarm) and either the bounty hunter is dead, or the PCs must defeat him. In the aftermath, they have a ship - but can they trust one another?