Hi Everyone,

My players requested that I come up with a system to add a little more crunch to the aspects of owning and operating a starship. They wanted to run a more "Firefly" slanted story where they are always against the wall trying to "Keep Flyin". I put this little guide together to help me keep things consistent. It's still missing the aspects of fit and provisioning the ship, but I wanted to get this into the wild so you all could take a look at it.

Comments and suggestions are most welcome

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/45811452/Starship%20Management.pdf

I've updated the document to include Maintenance and Provisions.

Firstly let me say that my personal preference is largely not to worry about such prices since I have found that can shift the emphasis of the game from the cinematic action of Star Wars to an exercise in economics. That said, having looked at your work I like it a lot and would be tempted to use some of it mainly the docking and provision section. I am not sure about the fuel consumption as most journeys seem to be a few days at the most potentially down to a few hours.

Lastly I have to say, nice work.

E

I completely agree on the cinematic nature of star wars and disregarding trivial elements like fuel consumption. However, my players wanted a "firefly in the Star Wars universe" experience, so I'm gonna give 'em one

As I've been going over this in my head, I have been amazed at how easy this system would be to port to a true Firefly setting.

Mal - Mercenary Soldier with a smattering of Pilot

Zoe - Mecenary Soldier

Wash - Pilot

Jayne - Assassin / Mercenary Soldier

Kayle - Mechanic / Outlaw Tech

Inara - Politico

Book - Politico / Scholar

Simon - Doctor

River - "Force Sensitive" with a BIG obligation of "Leaky Brainpan"

Consider this smuggled away. I was considering adding fuel requirements myself. Thanks for doing the work for me. Please update if after play testing you make some changes.

Smuggle away! I've updated the guide to fix some typos as well as change the 5% variable to a 10% variable. This will result in a wider swath of prices, but it will keep the math easier, which I prefer.

I've also added a link in my signature

Yeah wow, nice work! I can see GMs using this information as a guideline to create some really creative and interesting decision points within the campaign for what systems the Crew visits, what heists they take and which ones they pass by based on the numbers, etc.

I am worried that this might backfire on you a bit. Firefly is about staying just on the edge. They barely have the fuel their ship flying, forcing them to make due with patch-jobs and jury-rigged repairs rather than really doing the full (manufacturer recommended) repairs their ship needs.

The problem with quantifying it all down to actual money amounts is one of two things is likely to happen. One they have plenty of money and they pay for what they need and move on. This pretty much eliminates the whole point of tension that you wanted. The other option is that your PCs really run out of money/fuel/food. This could be fun if it happens at the right place ad right time, but it could b e disastrous if it happens at the wrong time.

There is the added difficulty that you have tried to make a fictional economy and it might be hard to see its flaws until you play with it.

My recommendation is to just point out that the campaign will be like Firefly where keeping the ship running and keeping supplies up will be a major concern. Then you have one of two choices. First you could Just as a GM tell the PC's when they are running low on something or need to make repairs. These simply become challenges for the adventure. You could keep general track how well the PCs are doing financially and how hard they are using the ship and take these factors into account as you make you GM calls.

The second option allows the a little more chance. Basically you begin each adventure or session with a dice roll to see how well they are doing. I think the Star Wars Dice system would work great for this. Start out an adventure with a dialogue about your situation. It could go something like this. PCs "we just got paid" +1 blue dice. "We sold all that storm trooper armor we stole" +1 blue dice. GM "You got shot up pretty good by those TIEs" +2 Black Dice. "You used your hyperdrives a lot" +1 black dice. "All that dogfighting you did used a lot of fuel and put some strain on your ship" +1 black dice.

Then roll. Successes vs failure could represent how much cash you have on hand (again it would be an abstraction). Boon vs Bane (I don't remember the real names for these symbols) could represent problems with the ship.

I really like the second option it adds the narrative elements that you like (I think better than keeping track of money) and it really doesn't take much book keeping.

(I will admit that I don't usually keep track of money in my games.

I would love to see that list of price but the link the OC provided no longer works. Does anyone still have it somewhere?