It seems rather odd giving the players a shiny new ship when they are such a rag-tag bunch. It would seem if they own a ship, it would be have some serious problems.

For those of you who have run games, how did you handle the ship given to the PCs?

The idea is that the ship probably ties into one (or more) of the PC's Obligations.

This is all spelled out in the book in the character creation chapter.

Our ship is a PoS held together by duct tape like the "Millennium Falcon", except she DOESN'T have it where it counts.

We named her the "Century Hawk".

Couple more pieces fall off and she'll be the "Decade Crow" in no time.

I am not saying it isn't...I just haven't seen it.

How have you handled this with your players or how was this handled in the games you played, Rikoshi?

JaWaMike...How have you handled the falling apart? Mechanically? Just narratively by fiat for what works best for the story?

For those of you who have run games, how did you handle the ship given to the PCs?

Backstory. Also, the Beginner's Box plays through an acquisition. If you're as fond of origin stories as I am, you could even play through this part at the kick-off of a campaign until you're comfortable enough to include the shippy stuff.

For those who don't know the power of origin stories, consider how important it was to this movie.

For those of you who have run games, how did you handle the ship given to the PCs?

Backstory. Also, the Beginner's Box plays through an acquisition. If you're as fond of origin stories as I am, you could even play through this part at the kick-off of a campaign until you're comfortable enough to include the shippy stuff.

For those who don't know the power of origin stories, consider how important it was to this movie.

I don't want a Star Wars campaign that will make me cry like a baby in the first ten minutes.

Well..I don't own the Beginner's box, but maybe I will get to play through it at Gencon.

I realize I wasn't clear in my original statement....

Let me rephrase...... When starting a game do you start with a shiny new ship or do you start with one that has problems? If you start with a ship that has problems how do you handle those problems (mechanically with dice or just a narrative device to motivate or ground players for adventures)?

By RAW the ship is cherry. There's no particular reason to start with a lot of damage -- they'll pick that up running blockades and such.

I don't want a Star Wars campaign that will make me cry like a baby in the first ten minutes.

How else do you expect me to drive you to the Dark side halfway through the campaign? Cookies?

Got it. I didn't think about it that way. Nice.

I realize I wasn't clear in my original statement....

Let me rephrase...... When starting a game do you start with a shiny new ship or do you start with one that has problems? If you start with a ship that has problems how do you handle those problems (mechanically with dice or just a narrative device to motivate or ground players for adventures)?

As said above by the RAW it is a cherry ship, but how fun is that? The way we are running things our ship needs CONSTANT repairs. Our Mechanic gets a lot of fun out of fixing crap and yelling at us for breaking things. It is his goal to someday have the ship all in working order and like new. That... will never happen, but he has so much fun with that. He really is the boss of the ship when it comes down to it.

The stats for the YT-1300 indicates that it is not a 'stock' version as it has a second weapon mounted on the ventral surface and it has (combat effective) shields. This, along with the fact that the line is over 30 years old and supplanted in production by newer models, means that the PCs' ship is unlikely to be new. However, it is in 'good as new' shape when the game begins.

There are no mechanical problems with any ship offered... but when PCs are doing stuff on the ship, they're going to roll some threat, and maybe some despair. That's when things start to break, and it's easy to flavor it as "Yeah, the hyperdrive motivator blew out again."

Our ship isn't very important to us in our campaign. We don't have someone who is really Pilot focused, so, for the most part, we are terrestrial (very little space combat).

Our ship was passed down to me from Pash (my beginner game character) when he was arrested by the Empire for smuggling arms for the Rebel Alliance (my back story had Pash take me off of Tattooine and teach me the ropes of smuggling after I repaired his ship) and as a hand me down, it's not in tip-top shape.The falling apart bit is more for RP than Mechanics.

Maybe I'm not the norm, but I'm having my players earn their ship.

I've given them a restricted credit line of 100,000 credits with which to buy a ship, and having them run through various shady vendors who will offer fairly gimped ships that need a lot of mechanics checks to bring up to the base stats of the book (i.e. a YT-1250 with less encumbrance, handling, strain, and hull than a YT-1300).

They also have the option to purchase a starting-ship equivalent that they can only afford if they take odd jobs for store credit from loan-sharky vendors.

Our ship is a PoS held together by duct tape like the "Millennium Falcon", except she DOESN'T have it where it counts.

We named her the "Century Hawk".

Couple more pieces fall off and she'll be the "Decade Crow" in no time.

Century Hawk didst thou spake?

I don't know why you'd want to play a game where you fly around in a ship doing odd jobs, and not start with the ship.

People are treating it like it's some special privilege, when it's the thing that enables the game.

I did the option of letting my group pick their ship up to 120,000 credits. They took the Sorosuub Luxury 3000 Space Yacht. Their goal is to get pirates to board them, beat the crap out of them and steal their stuff. I kind of like that idea quite a bit.

My players are on their third ship. The Krayt Fang got renamed as the Ion's Rum or something and then got sold. They hijacked a modified YKL-37R Nova Courier cargo ship during the Long Arm of the Hutt and crashed it into the roof of Teemo's palace to break in (long story...). They are now employed by a Rodian trader (PC) named Chivo, flying a TL-1800 named the Doda Newoongal owned by said PC. It's used, cost him 25,000c and a 15pt Obligation (Debt), and will hopefully last a few sessions before they do something stupid with it.

I don't know why you'd want to play a game where you fly around in a ship doing odd jobs, and not start with the ship.

People are treating it like it's some special privilege, when it's the thing that enables the game.

Because old Traveller habits are hard to shake?

I gave my party a 120,000 budget to start off with and told them to have at it. After about a weeks worth of sporadic debate, they resigned themselves to the YT-1300. Then when they started pluging in attachments, they realized the wonder of it. they even made the roll for the .5 hyperdrive. I believe they went with the ECM, Targeting computer, smugling compartments, Ion drive, and hyper drive.

I realize that it seems like I'm just giving away somethiing they should "earn" but I'm fairly unconcerned. If/when they get involved in starship combat, all those wonderful toys just give me an wider array of targets for system damage, then they have to come up w/ the cost of repairs, etc. If they don't get involved in starship combat then the ship is just a conveyance, and what does that matter?

But that's just my take on it.

Nothing says they HAVE to start with a ship. If the table agrees, then let them earn or steal the ship just like in the beginner game. My campaign over at StrainThreshold.wordpress.com starts this way, with the group NOT having a ship but they will get one by the end of the intro. I feel that by having them get the ship this way, its more personal to them and almost becomes another entity or player character in thier minds. plus theres an opportunity to incur obligation to the party for the acquisition of the ship.

I don't know why you'd want to play a game where you fly around in a ship doing odd jobs, and not start with the ship.

People are treating it like it's some special privilege, when it's the thing that enables the game.

Because old Traveller habits are hard to shake?

As is the "swords & sorcery" mentality, where the goal of the game is to kill stuff and acquire loot. To a S&S person, being handed a ship is like getting a holy avenger or staff of the archmage at 1st level.

Instead, the ship is the vehicle, literally and metaphorically, which takes the heroes on their adventures. It is a plot device. Most of the cost, upkeep, complications, and rewards for using the ship are grounded more into story than into mechanics... for the most part. At some point, PCs will want to upgrade their ship. At some point, the ship will get damaged, which will take time and credits to repair. Thus they have to earn some extra money to put towards these goals, which can be the motivation for even more adventures.

Give them a ship, wait until the worst thing that could happen is a disabled ship, THEN hit them with the problems. Watch them have a blast trying to figure out how to get their ship working at the worst possible time.