Be weary of letting some of your players name their ship unless you completely trust them. During an old 2300 AD campaign I ran, I had to live with the players running around in a ship they christened the, "Poop Nut".
Naming Your Ships
The next edge game I run or play in, I think I will name a ship the Scofflaw.
Ummm.....poop nut...Why not not corny turd?
That is horrible man...
I think they all would have died in a fiery crash in to the USS Tidy Bowl.
As side note. In Star Wars, the ship name is registered with the Bureau of Ships and Services (BOSS), so why characters can call their ship whatever they want, it is what is in the registry that really matters. The engines give off a unique frequency that has the ship ID number imprinted in (like a car's VIN) and when other ships or space stations picks up that number and runs it, it gets the ship's name, among other things. It is possible to have other frequencies inside the engine, that would "masking" the transponder code. So you could have a couple of numbers that you could theoretically run at different times.
BOSS offices are system to system that connect up to the sector offices, which in turn link up to the regional and galactic offices. So while a ship might "get into trouble" for blasting out of a docking bay without proper clearance, or run afoul of an inspection frigate, that information will be lucky to make it to the Imperials any time soon. Like most local government jobs, the staff is under manned, overworked, and don't really get paid enough to care. By the time these reports make it out the higher offices, they are so buried by other requests from other Imperial ships, Sector Rangers, Local law enforcement and the Bounty Hunters Guild, it is just a file on the net. Yes droids and computers can help sort through all this stuff, but who is really going to take the time to check all this out. Even in America, you get stopped for speeding, they may only check local records, typically it would only be if you get arrested that they would check other cities, counties or states.
So anyway, you might get into trouble at Raxus Prime, you are probably pretty safe at Cato Neimoidia or Bespin. Anyway, not really about "ship names" but how they are tracked...Sorry...
The Flatulent Hutt?
Edited by Talley Darkstar
Kaosoe, I bet google is running this term overtime now.
Scofflaw:
Term coined during American Prohibition. It means those who partake of illegal alcohol. One who scoffs at the law.
Kaosoe, I bet google is running this term overtime now.
Scofflaw:
Term coined during American Prohibition. It means those who partake of illegal alcohol. One who scoffs at the law.
Considering that my players often find themselves on the wrong side of the law and hardly think twice because of it, I think the name suits well.
Even in America, you get stopped for speeding, they may only check local records, typically it would only be if you get arrested that they would check other cities, counties or states.
Your points are solid and you gave good information about BoSS, but the above is no longer completely true as of around a decade or less ago. Misdemeanor crimes, sure what you said is overall correct. But for a Felony, no. In my state at least, even Misdemeanors from throughout my state are checked on a routine traffic stop. Felonies are routinely checked nationwide.
There was a Naming your Ship article in the 1st issue of Star Wars Gamer if you can find it.
Is there a ship naming guide in one of the latest d20 Star Wars books? I recall the Campaign Guide had tables of character names divided by race.
If it was in any book I would think it would be in Starships of the Galaxy, but I don't recall any. An online article during Saga's reign maybe? I don't remember all the articles although i tried to keep up.
Blatantly stealing a page from the famed Schwarzenegger flick "True Lies", I named our YT-1300 the
Sand Spider
... "Because it sounds scary."
Just wrote up a pair of bounty hunter enemies with a Firespray called the Dirtnap.
The Bothan play in my group named their ship the Jastra. She said it's a Bothan word she found online.
Ship names I've used in the past:
The Persever (like sever the tendon, not like Perceiver :-D)
The Gauntlus
For factions I run naming themes appropriate to the feel of the faction, for individuals I name based on the owner (either name, personality or aspiration).
In one-shots that I run I name the group's ship based off something tangentially related to the plot of the adventure.
The players in my ongoing game were all about naming their YT-1300 the Red Wedding. They were so unanimously adamant about it I just went with it. While they haven't performed a mass assassination at a royal wedding yet, they have managed to take out the royal family and guests at a princess' birthday party. Baby steps...
Our Smuggler Pilot is a Duros, and he found the word "Remerel" meaning 'graceful dancer' in Duros, and named his ship The Sad Remerel.
Yeah, ship names can be tricky things depending on your players. I've had Fallen Angel (a Ghtroc-720 owned by a Twi'lek slave-turned-pirate-turned-smuggler). the Daring Dewback (owned by a Duros free trader in a d6 game whose initials were D.D. though I can't recall what they stood for), the Whodat (good for causing a bit of confusion when blasting out of spaceports to avoid local and Imperial authorities), and the Party Express (owned by group of teenage characters that were the children of the previous campaign's heroes in a game that generally would have fit better as an anime than anything Star Wars).
I've also had to deal with Dirty Sanchez and Corellian Steamer as ship names, as well as couple others that I can't even begin to think about citing without the post getting flagged for inappropriate content; I did make it a point to have those ships suffer catastrophic demises as a way of encouraging my group to be a little less racist/bigoted when it came to naming the party ship.
There was a Naming your Ship article in the 1st issue of Star Wars Gamer if you can find it.
Was going to suggest exactly that (I don't check this sub-forum all that often). Been thinking about typing those charts up into an Excel spreadsheet for ease of reference (and to cut down on wear and tear on the magazine itself).
It's proven to be pretty useful. Just roll percentile dice a few times, and you've got a random name. Though the GM could simply cherry-pick ship names for NPCs, or allow the players to do so.
We had "Leam Steam" (Leam was the owner's name). But the funniest so far has been "Homeless Chicken".
The story behind:
I used to teach in China, and as you might know translators they use are horrible, which results in so much laughter all around, especially in restaurant. In a menu I got (in a fancy Indian restaurant) there was a dish and a homeless chicken was listed as one of the ingredients. I guess they meant a free ranging chicken
If you're looking for something a bit different, try the names of the Culture ships from Iain Banks sci fi novels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Culture_series
Great names like:
No More Mr Nice Guy
Fate Amenable to Change
Problem Child
Honest Mistake
Hand Me the Gun and Ask Me Again
I Blame the Parents
Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
...and dozens others
A few names we've had in the past.
In a d6 game that was a little monty haul, we had 2 Ghtroc light freighters, and a medium freighter that the 720s could dock in front of to assume control. (I forget whether that was from a sourcebook or if the GM made it up) The 720s were called Dayhawk and Nighthawk (not terribly original) and the Medium hookup was Hawksnest.
We had also managed to steal a Lambda shuttle, painted it black and keeping with an avian theme, named it "Nevermore."
I'd mentioned a set of pirate ships before. When I came up with a pirate captain, I reached for a name, and of course came up with Captain Morgan. His ships were called Bottle o' Rum, Bootlegger, and the Hangover. After the Pirates of the Caribbean movies came out, I envisioned an adventure where the Bottle o' Rum disappeared, so that the adventure title would be "Why Is 'The Rum' Gone?"
In a Serenity rpg, I got to be the Captain, but we all came up with the ship specs, deciding to make its original purpose to be a mobile water reclamation facility. I dubbed it "Sayyadina" because "she changed the waters." Drawing on the Dune reference, our pilot started simply calling her Jessica.
In the current EotE, I've only had a few named ships. I used a plot element from "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" to introduce the PCs' starting ship, and it was named "Priscilla" until the players changed it. Since the Scholar (archaeologist leaning) is based a bit on Indiana Jones, they picked the name, "The Ark." (I argue that this can be a reference to how many characters are crammed in there, so it smells like Noah's ark.)
Because of the number of players, however, I am introducing a second PC ship that they will need to obtain as part of their mission. They are looking for the lost Ore Barge "Supremacy" (I derived the name "Supremacy" from superior. The ship is based on the real life "Edmund Fitzgerald", which sank in Lake Superior) The barge may end up actually becoming their base of operations, but they need to find it first. (and it's going to need some fixing) They found a pilot who used to escort Supremacy on its trade routes. For color, I had them notice the ship, but a worker passing by told them "Don't touch Rachel." This is a play on "Don't touch Lola" for those watching Agents of SHIELD. Why "Rachel"? Well the adventures up til now have led them to the pilot, and the ship's navicomputer is the final clue to lead them to the possible location of the barge. Technically, the barge is the Ark they are looking for, and the escort craft (a Firespray, btw) is like the headpiece to the Staff of Ra.
I've also used the old "look around the room and see what jumps out" random method.
I don't have a clue what we named our YT-1300 in my first ever Star Wars game (d6 style 15 years ago) but in this iteration of the game, I decided that I would name the ship something closer to my character than previous ships in previous games. We have a YT-1300 and I named the the Queen of Air and Darkness (-2 Face Card in a Sabacc deck). My Scoundrel is a sabacc player (and very excited about trying the new rules out from Suns of Fortune) and so I named the ship after the coolest card in the deck.
I'm in the process of "acquiring" a new freighter. I want more cargo space so I'm looking to get a Wayfarer that I'm going to name Drifting Tide.
That said, I hate naming ships.
I don't post very much anywhere, but this is a cool thread so I'll throw in my working list of ship names. I keep adding to it for an EOTE campaign I want to run for my kids. Some may not be original; I may be remembering established names I've heard elsewhere:
Badass Ship Names
Nebulous Dread
Vectus-1
Dread Spar
Talon IV
Centurion Vex
Aurora Vengeance
Fearsome Vigil
Peril Vector
Eon Fury
Venator
Archon Fury
Xenon Ray
Arch Raider
Pale Raven
Marauder
Betrayor
Defiler
Agitator
Arbiter Venom
Sceptor Strike
Antagonizer
Nefarious
Acquisitor
Parallax Fury
Grim Gambit
Oblivion-6
Phoenix IV
Teron Hawk
Tarsus Bane
Inquisitor
Regular Ship Names
Fierce Resolve
Glory Raider
Star Strider
Madrigon’s Whim
Zarian Lark
Ancorian Angel
Centurian Dawn
Starspanner
Stratem-9
Velostar
Pelloran Jest
Lectan’s Lure
Silver Storm
Dawn Trader
Rhyme Dragon
Perilous Gambit
Rantus V
Radian Spear
Cyclone Veil
Ascension Vector
Arvic Arrow
Axis Nova
Trident IV
Arc Wizard
Rinian's Ire
Military - Non-Imperial
Audacious
Chancellor
Challenger
Independence
Glory
Bellatrix
Intrepid
Halcyon
Refuge
Sanctuary
Military - Imperial
Invader
Incursion
Antagion
Infiltrator
Inquisitor
Arbiter
Conqueror
Warrior
Tyrant
We went with: Crate Draggin'
When you say it over the comms it sounds badass. Really, who doesn't want to name their ship Krayt Dragon? It's also worth it for the looks the Imperial officers give us when we have to spell it out. "That's Crate Draggin' because we drag crates from one end of the galaxy to the other. We're simple cargo haulers, not those mercenaries you're looking for."
One group's first ship was a beat-up old GR-75 Gallofree named the Surly Gungan . The were hired as deckhands, shipjacked it, used it to escape from the Imperial CR-90 Corvette Tears of Iego , and traded it to the Rebels, all in their first session.
It's replacement is the Lawn Dart , a YT-1300 with a surprisingly good track record for its name. One player also briefly flew a HWK-290 named Lucky Break , before freeing the Rodian siblings to whom it belonged and returning it to them.
The second group has a surplus Lambda-class Shuttle named the Cloudrunner , after an incident over Bespin. They've painted it in olive green so as not to be mistaken for Imperials after Rebels tried to commandeer it for unspecified reasons, giving up because "the codes are too old, they'll never check out".
The third group is flying the Albino Nexu , an ancient YG-4210 Light Freighter whose engineering spaces have already claimed the chief mechanic's favorite hydrospanner in repair attempts.
Cliches are awesome. Star Wars is full of cliches and it wouldn't be Star Wars without them. So, don't feel bad about embracing the cliches.
I named the ship my PCs received after an 80s cartoon: The Silver Hawk.
Cliches are awesome. Star Wars is full of cliches and it wouldn't be Star Wars without them. So, don't feel bad about embracing the cliches.
I named the ship my PCs received after an 80s cartoon: The Silver Hawk.
Star Wars is a veritable storm of cliches (even if it did codify many of those cliches for American audiences in the first place).