We’re back and I’m going to need to create a larger subsector and map it out. I’ll get to play with the Traveller tools I haven’t touched yet. Can’t wait.
Why do we need to know more? Because shit just imploded.
We ended with the crew of the Silver Dogstar’s crew coming to a space station above Hades-23 to get the rich-boy heirs the captain had to take back home to get paid. After a solid throw of dice on his Forward Observer skill, Ersatz could read data and comms and radiation discharge to realize one of the Destroyers docked to the Dreadnought they had been on, had crashed into the space station. Ship’s comms were howling with the alien whistling that was on comms anywhere near the alien-zombie-goo-disease.
What to do now? We’ll decide that next week.
Wait, so, did this game matter at all?
All of the important decisions will be made next week.
Long story short: the Silver Dogstar unlocks from the broken Dreadnought but not before taking in a stowaway marine, Private Esther Reed in a Low Passage cryotube. She’s infected with whatever space-zombie-black-goo nonsense that was running rampant through the Dreadnought. Dr. D’Turin (“He’s like a cross between Dallas and Bones (or maybe Bones).”) made a solid Medicine throw, making sure Private Esther was in a safe sleep. The crew talked about what to do over a meal in the ship’s mess.
Mess! Get it? Double meaning!
Dr. D’Turin left some electronic-missives at the prestigious Tonkin University. We learned that Ersatz hid the barcode on his chest and that he doesn’t want publicity. Don is rudderless without the direction the army gave him and needs to find out what he can do besides break things. The captain wants to do the right thing to a point but also has bills to pay.
We went in and out of game, figuring out what the players wanted, what the characters wanted. What did everyone bring to the crew potluck? Were the computers so cartridge-tech because of some kind of Butlerian Jihad? What was up with earth? Gravity on ship because space magic like Star Trek or quasi-gravity with thrust generated g’s like The Expanse?
This game didn’t just matter to me because we made throws (that is what Traveller calls dice rolls) that had consequence. It didn’t just matter because we talked about how we saw this science fiction world.
“What is happening with earth in this setting?”
“The book doesn’t say shit about it; we get to decide. It is a myth. I bet some people don’t even believe in it.”
Us, chatting
This game mattered because this session my dear friends, going in and out of game, sometimes describing their characters in third person, sometimes doing voices in first person – they became the crew of the Silver Dogstar.
I had a vague idea of what to do tonight and Jesse, who plays Captain Egon Starr, was not able to make it. I figured we’d bring the situation to as near a conclusion as we could and then continue next week as the Silver Dogstar doesn’t go anywhere without its captain.
Mr. Ersatz and Donald McDonnel were both mustering out from House Almanack’s army in the midst of their war with House Arlington. Ersatz grabbed a nearby private’s datapad and grabbed some fleet permissions that he still had access to with his major’s rank, stuck it in the ship’s data commons behind a password.
Dr. D’Turin was seeing if the Dreadnought would purchase much-needed medical supplies at above market value and they did but it was quickly clear that they needed medical personnel. D’Turin found himself in charge of a makeshift triage center and after a quick roll, it was clear that he was making things worse, rather than better; people were dying because of him.
He also discovered that several naval personnel, who were said to have radiation poisoning from an engine core leak, actually had something much stranger – some kind of black boils that led to intense vomiting and making whistling noises that somehow interfered with electronic communications. D’Turin got outta there – this Dreadnought was contaminated.
Then things got complicated. Jesse, who plays Captain Egon Starr, was out. I reckoned that the good captain was having dinner with the Fleet Captain in charge of the Dreadnought and the Destroyers linked to its hull, helping with the extensive repairs.
Ersatz tried to get a naval grunt to unlock a siege locker so they could pillage its weapons. He was going to make some rolls to see if he could get in electronically but he was rude af to the Naval Officer who debriefed him (McDonnell didn’t even go to his mustering out debrief – fuck that). I used the reaction table to see how disposed the grunt was to taking orders from someone whose Major’s rank wasn’t emitting any meta-data. Rolled responsive, so I reckoned he thought it was just part of the FUBAR nature of the ship under repairs.
Ersatz sent the nameless grunt to cordon off the triage center, armed and armored and the rest of the crew took the pistols, machine guns, ammo, armor and the siege locker’s centerpiece – a working laser carbine. Feeling guilty, Dr. D’Turin tried to get back to the triage center to see if he could help but was cut off by someone who was falling apart under the weight of the strange, alien disease.
He had some lucky rolls, decimated the whistling-black-goo-zombie, with a machine gun and ran away. That is where we ended it. I reckon if Jesse can make it next week, he’ll walk in after having an awkward but tasty meal with the Fleet Captain and her officers. If he can’t make it, the players will have to rescue their captain from the brig so they can get Captain Egon to thumb-print the ship’s engines on so they can get outta there.
It has been a rough and gameless couple of weeks with lots of half-finished blog posts lurking in my drafts folder. Saw a request for ship names in a Facebook Traveller book, so let’s get this one out into the world.
Unspace was different. Things from real space—such as humans—had a tenuous existence there. It was a terrible, lonely place, until you sensed something… other.
Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky
What does a jump through space look like in your Traveller game?
Classic Traveller is a toolbox for making a certain range of science fiction campaigns. I know that there later editions with thousands of pages of setting information but that doesn’t interest me as much as the classic RPG, the Little Black Books (LBB’s), the Fascimile Edition.
I like how this gives us space to make our own vision of the future and inspires us to use the tools provided to inspire that vision when they are needed. It leaves interesting questions that need answering.
Folks playing Traveller are given lots of space to dig into what blades or vacc suit helmets look like. That can be interesting stuff. I’m not here to answer those questions for anyone.
I’m writing this to show how I thought about what jumping across light years of space worked, what it felt like and the bits of houserules I’ve made around the answers.
What does jumping across light years of space feel like, look like?
What do the engines sound like when they are straining?
Are the engines made from reverse engineered alien tech or were they made by an engineer whose advances are lost to time? Or is the engine called the Mukherjee Engine called as such in honor of Preema Mukherjee’s engineering advances that shattered Einstein’s theories to bits?
What happens if you exit the ship out of the airlock while jumping? Or even just peeking out into the void?
What pieces of media are inspiring your answers?
I didn’t answer all of these questions; I just daydreamed about them. I thought about what theories scientists who studied jump travel might have – inspired very much by Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Final Architecture series, where unspace has a Lovecraftian menace to it and conventional wisdom in the scientific community says that any perceived threat in unspace is just the human mind trying to fill in the void of nothingness, like hallucinations in an infinite sensory depravation tank.
I asked them to roll 2d6 but it wasn’t based on any stat or known skill.
I’d give a positive DM for taking drugs designed to guide these temporal hallucinations, having psionic powers, or maybe even having a guide of some kind. If you aren’t sure what they see, think back to character creation. Were there any close rolls on Survival Checks? Any years where they were passed over for promotion? Any skills that were particularly interesting or items acquired upon mustering out? Or perhaps they said something, like when Captain Egon Starr from our Thursday Night Game said, “I’ve only lost 6 passengers…” Now’s the time to dig in and learn more about that.
8 is a success, meaning that they will see something useful – a clue about the situation they are heading into, a tidbit from their future self or a piece of lore from their past. DM of +1 could be due to Psionic training or experimental black market drugs designed or maybe even using a guide of some kind:
“Hello, I will be your holographic <INSERT CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE TITLE HERE> for this jump. If you have connected my cartridge to the ship’s navigational computer, I will begin as the ship’s automatic jump countdown begins. I can see that you have not yet chosen a culturally appropriate title for me, let’s do that first. Please go to the menu and choose one of the following based on the cultural identity that best affirms you during this jump: Guide, Shaman, Doctor, Spirit, Elder…”
A failed roll means they do not see anything of use. If you can’t think of anything strange, roll or pick something from the Hyperspace Encounter Table.
How are hyperspace hallucinations linked to psionics? Are the stories of spacers perishing during hyperspace jumps when they stay awake true or just a Traveller myth? Is the secret to time travel in that hyperspace jump somewhere?
I’ve got theories but I’m not exactly sure and that is fine. I bet it will change based on the vibe and science fiction inspirations at the foundation of the campaign.
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Okay, so some sketchy thoughts about the Traveller guy I rolled up:
I think the multiple passages thing he starts with, a combination of high and low, suggest not that he’s trying to get somewhere but that he’s trying to stay away from something – on the run so to speak- and able to change accommodations and destinations quickly was a goal. This also makes joining a merchant ship worthwhile for him. Also, I think the forward observer thing is probably hugely dangerous, and I think he volunteered for the duty.
I think he’s a medical clone, created to harvest organs and other tissues from, to keep his ‘original’ alive and healthy well beyond the range of normal/non-wealthy human years. Something happened – a power outage at the facility or something – and he and his brothers escaped, and were recaptured/killed off until he’s the last one in the wild. Made joining, and rejoining, the space army a viable option. And I think when some of the soldiers in his unit found this out, he was not exactly blackmailed but chose to take on the forward observer role so they wouldn’t have to be volunteered, and thus he bought their silence.
Also I think his chosen last name is Ersatz. Still working on the rest.
Drew, on our Thursday night gaming FB group
My reply was to say that I didn’t think anything more was needed.
I was going to be late to the game but we decided to meet up anyway and if nothing else, chat and catch up. Folks had been on vacations and a colleague had been through a hectic day. Seemed like we all needed to see each other’s faces.
We talked gaming, as one player and I had been in the previous Thursday Night Science Fiction Traveller games but the other 2 players had not. I talked about how much I was enjoying the game and how the game had ended with a dramatic duel and soldiers leaving a dangerous last stand on the ice-moon known as Hades-23. With about an hour left, we decided to roll up those soldiers.
The Free Trader Silver Dogstar had just picked up a group of nobles with their mechs and support teams. We decided the characters would be army-folk serving with the battlemech teams. We got a promising pair of soldiers, one made it to Lt. Colonel before perishing due to orbital bombardment and a mechanic died in a rocket attack. Several more characters died in the army. Hades-23 was dangerous, it turned out.
A scout also died and then we get our soldiers – a sniper and a Major, maybe in charge of a mech support team (or was he the artillery spotter?). We’ll discuss names and a little about where they came from, whether they were in a noble’s personal army or were enlisted from a local militia or maybe a mercenary hired to support the mechs that nobles pilot. One character had a Middle Passage and two Low Passages. What does that mean? Is this soldier so far from home that they need several tickets to get home? Is their planet wracked by war or eco-disaster? Were they sending money home?
In the past if we hadn’t gotten past character creation I’d say something like, “We’ll play next time,” but Traveller has taught me, chargen is play. Every time a character died, we fleshed out some awful part of the war. It was a fun session.
My only regret, the player who already had a character, Captain Egon Starr, was quietly making characters without sharing them. He should’ve just joined us, kept the extra characters as back-ups or potential NPC’s.
Our Thursday night group is usually 7 people but due to summer vacations and lots of other real-life stuff, it was just the same three of us again. We talked a bit about Traveller and the way we are making our own setting, riffing off of chargen. Felt like the players felt a little more empowered to mention things in play (more on that later).
It was a single jump to Hades 23, the war-torn ice-moon where two planetary ducal heirs were going hunting and Captain Egon was dropping off ammunition to the side losing a space war. I wanted hyperspace to be a little strange, to have room for some trippy 2001: a Space Odyssey and 2010: the Year We Made Contact stuff, also inspired by The Final Architecture series (I’m currently reading book 2).
It was a quick jump to Hades 23. I asked if their characters wanted to take sleep meds or face hyperspace and have a trippy vision. They both elected to have a vision. I asked them to roll. Captain Egon Starr failed – he had a rather toothless vision of his past self, asking if he should stick with his gig with the Merchants. Inspired by the chargen process, when Egon was considering leaving but then got a big promotion to captaincy.
Dr. DeTurin saw himself in the future, covered in blood, trying to save the ducal heirs, who had been mauled by a megafauna on Hades 23. Tam warned them, begging them not to go but they scoffed and went anyway.
They bribed their way past House Arlington’s blockade with a successful Bribery roll of 10. I need to use the reaction tables more.
They dropped the heirs off on their hunt and I rolled to see how their battle with the megafauna went. They did well; the ranges were in their favor. Their house huntress was a little more careful than she would’ve been after the doctor’s warning.
Then they went to the drop-point for House Almanack, where there was a refugee camp made of the nomads who call Hades 23 their home but the migration patterns of the herds they pattern their lives after has been demolished by warring mechs and orbital bombardment. Major Sara was there to meet them and Dr. Tam asked about getting these doomed people off this planet. The Major was ready to die for the cause. Her officers were not. She was challenged to a duel, stabbed unconscious from her opponent’s mono-filament cutlass. Dr. Tam saved her life.
Captain Egon explained how many of the 50 soldiers they could take. Major Sara limped out from the ship’s medical bed to say that while her soldiers could leave, she was staying. Some stayed with her.
Dr. Tam’s player will be gone for nearly a month. We decided he was invited to live it up, celebrating a successful hunt with the Ducal Heirs while Captain Egon took the deserting soldiers.
My friend who plays Captain Egon Starr has been gaming with me since undergrad Ars Magica in the mid-90’s. I think we’re on the same wavelength.
At one point he said, “I’ve only ever lost 6 passengers,” after making a Stewardship roll to see how well he’s serving the Silver Dogstar’s passengers. 6 passengers! We’ll learn more about them.
He was role-playing with Dr. Tam, talked about taking passengers to hunt asteroids in the Sheba System. In the chat I wrote, “Belt Wolves.”
Next week, the Silver Dogstar will take soldiers and their mechs to whatever’s left of House Almanack’s navy – the officer who own the duel has an encrypted channel they can use once they get past the blockade.
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The first session was fun but we didn’t name much. I know there is a war between noble houses and one just won a naval engagement in space above a frozen (but habitable) moon with alien megafauna. Nobles pilot mechs like medieval knights and samurai road horses. We’ve got religious pilgrims whose messianic figure left the system, promising to return at the head of an alien army or with angels, depending on how you read it. And there is a cartel of gun-runners who front ship mortgages that need fleshing out.
Let’s start with the cartel because space criminals are fun. They are a banking and weapons cartel that runs a civilian shipyard. Maybe the founders were old school spacers who were out in the zero-g void before gravity-propulsion and brittle-bone treatment came along. Now they move about in gel containment units like the Navigators in Dune but with crab/spider legs and their units are also whoop-ass, armed robots. A side effect of this gel containment treatment is that these old spacers are incredibly long lived.
The temple is a minor faction but (and I only got this idea when I wrote that the cartel above builds civilian ships) the temple’s holy engineers are the only ones who can build mechs and warships.
They are science-minded, often tutors and scholars. Three decades ago one of their most gifted scholars turned prophet and went out into unmapped space, saying they’d return with the holiest of aliens.
There is proof of alien life to be found on most planets but no first contact yet.
Let’s look around and think about a look that isn’t Catholic Cathedral in space, maybe taking inspiration from some other religious space without being a jack-ass about it.
Royal Houses – let’s model one after some mythical bullshit idea of the Founding Fathers of the United States – powdered wigs to cover skull plugs to wire into their mechs, cavalry mono-blades, powerful and rare lasers that look like scifi black powder weapons. The Arlington Clan, whose main holy relic on their family shrine is a piece of the grave of the Unknown Soldier. The well engineered planet the Arlington’s rule has a clime that runs between Virginia and upstate NY.
When we need more houses we’ll look to U.S. Founding Fathers for inspiration (yeah, I’ve done this kind of thing before). Maybe House Arlington is warring with a house inspired by Ben Franklin. Might name them House Almanack unless I come up with something better.
Reckon I’ll name the frozen moon that they are headed to, Norfolk. Will I need ship names? Maybe. Will I need more place names? Definitely.
Do I need to grab Stars Without Number (REVISED/FREE VERSION) and write these factions up as full-on FACTIONS for the faction-game? Do I need to take this and houserule my own version of it that works more in line with Classic Traveller?
Don’t think I need to yet. These systems are there for inspiration and I’ve got plenty of that for the moment. I’ll futz around with it when/if I need something more substantial down the road. Until then – daydreaming and note-jotting.
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Summer vacations have taken a toll on the Thursday night group. We had decided to give Band of Blades a try but looking at upcoming trips, that might not happen until August. So, time to muster out and travel into the stars. It was only 3 of us tonight but that is fine.
We made characters and Captain Egon Star was born, enlisted among the merchants, he served on Free Traders, learning how to Steward and leading rich High Passage clients in zero-g star-walks along the ship’s hull to see the beautiful nebulas. Just as Egon was about to muster out, thinking he had gotten as much as he could get he attained the rank of Captain – did his newfound skill, Bribery, have something to do with it? Maybe. Then we rolled double-6’s, this means you can’t muster out, even if you want to. I decided that war had broken out among the mech-piloting nobles and Egon’s skillset couldn’t be lost.
The other character was a naval officer who went from a medical evac pilot to a medical evac pilot who also fixed the mechs the noble class took into combat. Finally, he was leading a medical evac team as a Lieutenant Commander. And then…as can happen in Traveller chargen… he died.
The player was laughing as the dice betrayed him and decided to play the dead character’s son – out to avenge his father who was killed in a barroom shoot-out. Tam DeTurin eventually avenged his father, killing his father’s murderer and getting his father’s blade. He also had 50,000 credits and a 14 Education skill.
Captain Egon Star had earned enough to put a down payment on his own Free Trader, the Silver Dogstar. The mortage was bought from the gun-runners Egon worked with for years among the merchants. The gun-runners offered a monthly payment as long as the Silver Dogstar would take a shipment of missiles into the war.
This was all from character creation.
The Silver Dogstar listed itself for passengers. There is a good d66 table, Random Person Encounters and #’s 61 to 66 are blank. I wrote in AWOL Soldiers, Spy, Assassin, Cartel Agent, Bounty Hunter and Planetary Ducal Heir. Then I rolled 66 twice – a pair of Ducal Heirs. I also rolled a hunter – a pair of rich kids out to hunt mega-fauna with their court huntress.
The other roll was a pilgrim and a religious group. The pilgrims were on their way far out into the void to see a holy site where their messiah had last been seen before leaving system to gather an alien/angel army and return. The rich kids were going into a war-zone on the sly to hunt giant alien beasts and bring back trophies.
Tam’s player asked if they wanted to kidnap these kids and ransom them? No, Egon is an honorable captain. He wouldn’t even sell info on the heirs to the paparazzi.
We made rolls to see what they could learn about the ducal heirs, getting past their sound baffles and Tam wanted to learn about good hunting spots. The player described it as an internet search but he aced his Education roll (14 and stats only go up to 15). No, he found academic papers on megafauna migration patterns.
Captain Egon made Social Standing rolls (DM +1 for his time as a Captain) to hire a Pilot and Engineer – solid rolls got him Maheera and Mads from his days among the merchants. He bribed his way to getting a data cube to bring to one of the armies for some extra credits.
The Silver Dogstar is headed to the gas giant, Gorgon’s ice-moon, Hades and its hub station, Cerberus. I said that the war is between noble houses – rolled some d6’s and decided from the results that one side just won a space naval battle and now controls orbit but mecha armies still war on the moon’s surface.
“How does Captain Egon plan on dealing with the fact that he has to deliver 82 tons of mecha-missiles to an army whose navy just lost control of orbit?”
Captain Egon’s player told me his plan. We’ll see if this glorious mess of bribery and fancy flying through a war zone will work next time.
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Some of the older colonies still ran their own currencies but the Polyaspora had wrecked any wider human economy. The entire fugitive culture had been living from day to day for decades on a barter-economy. Largesse had started when people began swapping skills and services for whatever necessities could be gleaned. Colony kybernets had formalized it into a credit system, at least nominally backed by Hugh. It remained rough around the edges, intentionally shadowy, a cobbled-together system for a cobbled-together civilization.
Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Largesse is how much spending power a Traveller can cobble together out in the far future’s cold galaxy. The main stat referenced is Social Standing but on some worlds, Education or Intelligence or Psychic Ability or even Strength might play a part, adding to the roll.
Generally, when rolling Social Standing is the primary stat with the following Die Modifiers (DM’s) based on how high the Traveller’s Social Standing is.
Social Standing = 0-5 – only roll one die
Social Standing = 6-10 – roll 2d6 (traditional Classic Traveller throw)
Social Standing = 11-14 – 2d6+1
Social Standing = 15 – 3d6, add them all together
When a character is rolling to purchase something using Largesse, the amount of currency is discussed in-game as usual but there is no need to count it up. Let’s think of it as follows:
A paycheck = +1 to next Largesse roll.
Paycheck for rare skills or a very dangerous gig = +3.
A small fortune – a knight’s ransom on a world with hundreds of manor-satellites orbiting a gas giant = d6 that is added to the Largesse roll.
A fortune – planetary baron’s ransom = 3d6.
Finding that target number. How do you know what to roll to buy what?
Like all of the throws in Traveller, a good Referee will find that consistent line through play – rolling when failure offers interesting results by putting pressure on the Travellers in ways that inspire fun and often desperate decisions.
Rolls should never take the place of context and flavor. If the currency is digital what is the sound of the beep when a deal goes through and money goes into and out of your account? If the currency is physical, what does it look like and feel like? How do pirates fiddle with it when they are nervous? How hard is it to break the plastic chit to make change and what does it sound like when it pops?
When a Largesse roll is failed, the Referee has plenty of options beyond just, “You can’t buy that,” which is also a fine option that might very well put pressure on an ambitious Traveller. Context and setting might give more than are listed below but here are some ideas:
The purchase can’t be made. Market forces have made the price higher than the Traveller had anticipated. Get a loan or get a job or get more spending capital and circle back around to it. Maybe lose some money to get the merchant to hold it for you a while.
The item purchased is clearly not the quality or quantity desired. Travellers sometimes walk away from the deal all together.
You can push through and get what you asked for but you need to get on a desperate gig in a big hurry or else those who the Traveller’s owes will come looking aggressively. Everything about this deal costed more than anticipated.
The Referee gives the Traveller further options that could allow them to leverage their full social coin.
Examples: You’d have to get your uncle, The Duke of Bilprun Moon, to co-sign.
You can buy this but you’ll be in debt to some bad, bad people.
Your Social Standing is -1 until it is paid off.Socialites will be whispering about your debt.
How can Social Standing go up?
Make a checklist or a clock. Every substantial Largess roll is a check on the clock. When you are at Social Standing of 9, 10 checks to get to 10.
Above 10 means in-game work of purchasing a title. On some worlds this might mean serving a knight or marrying a non-heir or shepherding a baron’s ransom in cattle to your rival in the next valley or who-knows-what.
Referees might suggest in-game work for any Social Standing increase.
It is just like training as depicted on pages 40 and 41 of Book 2 Starships.
Examples:
Carlysle the Knife: Carlysle has landed on the Akrayez Station and is hungry. I go buy some noodles. No roll necessary.
He sees the group of ne’erdowells he flew in with, playing black hole poker to pass the time while the transport waited for gate permissions to go through. He wants to earn some good will, maybe see if anyone has a lead on a gig. “These are the best noodles in the System! Noodles are on me, you savages. Least I could do after taking your money at poker while the gate visas were processed.” Social Standing of 8, he got a +1’s worth of creds that he took with a lucky-ass gambling roll playing poker. He rolls 2d6 and gets a 3+1=4. Shit, can I not afford noodles? Carlysle can afford the noodles but it costs a bit more than he had anticipated. The credit to bone-chit (the currency name, roughly translated, on Akrayez Station) is not as good as you thought.
Shit, is Carlysle broke? Nah, he’s not sitting pretty but he just doesn’t have enough left from that poker money to really help him buy beyond his Social Standing. You aren’t busted but you aren’t sitting pretty. I’m not going to put you in debt over some noodles.
Months later, after some rocking campaign play, Carlysle is made a huge profit and is sitting on 3d6 – which is represented by a stash of Laz-Crystals he smuggled off his friend’s ship. During a big firefight, everyone thought all of the Laz-Crystals got destroyed but this one, Carlysle was able to save.
Carlysle is going to put a down payment on that Free Trader that was handed over to the station authority. That was a sweet ship, even if local Traveller lore says it might be a bit cursed – he’s not superstitious – all nonsense. That is a huge roll. Let’s say you need a throw of 17.
2d6 from an 8 Social Standing. Add in 3d6 from that fortune in crystals and I’ll add +2 from the pay from the gig.
Wait, let’s talk this out a bit before you throw dice. Where are you unloading the crystals? Those things are rare and everyone you just worked with thinks the batch they fought to obtain were destroyed.
Carlysle’s not going to the buyer the folks from the gig were going to sell to. He’s going to contact the buyer’s rival. The gang from the surface cities who were trying to contact us during the job.
Their agent is still on-station.
NOTE: I imagine a short mini-adventure here, talking about setting up the drop and maybe grabbing a trusted friend to run security for him. Lots of science fiction smuggler-crime color. Finally, the roll to purchase the ship.
Carlysle takes those credits and bone-chits and puts that down-payment on that ship!
2d6 from an 8 Social Standing. Add in 3d6 from that fortune in crystals and I’ll add +2 from the pay from the gig. All 1’s on the d6’s +2 is 7 total.
You’ve got the ship but taxes, registration and docking fees costed way more than you had anticipated. You’ve got no crew and no money to pay them but the bank that mortgaged the ship sends an e-missive with a possible job to hold off payment for a few months. Seems like an easy repo, some settlers who haven’t paid a cred since disappearing into the wreckage cloud from that space naval battle folks are always salvaging in….
I’d be dishonest if I didn’t cite my sources and mention that this system is entirely inspired by years of playing Burning Wheel and making use of its Resource system.
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Githyanki Diaspora 
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