 June 6, 2016 - 1:53pm | In the basic rules, players are rewarded with credits to pay for equipment and healing. These are measured in the low hundreds: in the storyboard at the front of the rule book, the adventurers think two hundred credits is a lot. But in the basic game, there's very little to buy, and there is no cost of living charge. Now go to the expanded game. The same kinds of characters and adventures are generally assumed here: "Players in STAR FRONTIERS games play characters who perform special jobs for companies and planetary governments. They may work to prevent trouble, solve a mystery, explore a new planet, or perform any other sort of dangerous task." As freelance adventurers who have to spend half their income on cost of living, what are reasonable monetary rewards for missions? How much do player characters get paid? I don't think the NPC Wages table should work for this. "NPCs are not like player characters, who face danger and death constantly without worry or fear." The table is for hiring someone to just do a job, a hireling. |
 June 8, 2016 - 10:57am | Bottom line the rules are guidelines and each referee will do as they please. Modules assume a mix of skills because they don't want to mandate a doctor, a driver, 2 shooters and a technician lest you get a player committed to something odd. The reality is most experience players understand the need for a mix and most will look at a party and realizing that there is already a demolitions expert and a robotics expert will steak out a different role. But the in-game patrons, if presented in anything like a realistic manner, are going to hire a team based on the basket of skills they need to accomplish the mission. They aren't just going to hire random people just because they are PCs. Modules are written around "balanced" teams for the because that is the model that works for the widest number of scenarios. And 99 out of 100 GMs are going to balance out any shortcomings in a particular group with NPC to cover the gaps, so a balanced party (defined by the proposed scenario is going to follow the standard pattern with only minor deviations. They HAVE to, otherwise there is a good chance that the party will fail. |
June 8, 2016 - 11:04am | There is no difference between your calculation and mine. Both have 10 Cr per skill level calculation, therefore both encourage "swiss army knife" skill selections.
The NPC Wages table has 10 Cr per skill level beyond the base pay for the highest skill with no pay for danger; pay for player characters has 10 Cr per skill level for every skill, plus danger pay. That's quite a difference. NPC Roboticist 3/Sharpshooter 2/Medic 1 Roboticist 3 = 80 Cr Sharpshooter 2 = 20 Cr Medic 1 = 10 Cr Total = 110 Cr PC Roboticist 3/Sharpshooter 2/Medic 1 Roboticist 3 = 30 Cr Sharpshooter 2 = 20 Cr Medic 1 = 10 Cr Danger Pay = 10–100 Cr Total = 70–160 Cr 110 Cr is close enough to the middle of that scale that it's good enough for fast calculations. Why would a PC be paid less than an NPC of equal abilities in any event? |
 June 8, 2016 - 11:52am | When you're hiring boss is Scrooge, you might make less than a NPC. Joe Cabadas |
June 8, 2016 - 12:31pm | This statement, btw, is wrong. The highest pay is for P-S 1 (80 Cr/day). Five other skills at L1 add another 50 Cr/day for a total of 130 Cr/day. BS 6 and no other skills gets only 90 Cr/day.
What part of PCs not NPCs do you people not understand? Never mind, I'm done. |
June 8, 2016 - 4:00pm | When you're hiring boss is Scrooge, you might make less than a NPC. Hiring bosses like Scrooge are exactly why "swiss army knife" characters can find places in adventuring parties. The real problem is that such characters are always worse at what they do than the more specialized kind. |
June 8, 2016 - 4:04pm | This statement, btw, is wrong. The highest pay is for P-S 1 (80 Cr/day). Five other skills at L1 add another 50 Cr/day for a total of 130 Cr/day. BS 6 and no other skills gets only 90 Cr/day.
What part of PCs not NPCs do you people not understand? Never mind, I'm done. Since you are undable to articulate a solid reason other than "PC, not NPC" for refusing to use the existing rule, there is very little for me to "understand" to begin with. Sorry, but that's just the case. |
 June 8, 2016 - 5:42pm | I don't see why a PC can't be paid under NPC guidelines. Alternately they can be paid in a different manner because they're adventurers braving untold dangers. It all depends on the game the referee sets up. In fact if you had down time between adventures PCs should be allowed to hire out for mundane-ish jobs (NPC): security, computer tech etc. Do the math for the number of weeks, exact half as per cost of living and add money to character sheet. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 10, 2016 - 12:32am | Just to clarify on my post earlier about my players being security guards: this was just a segue enabling them to be in a certain place at a certain time, as brand new employees of CDC. They came from a CDC training college as starting characters, and were put on a routine duty just to smooth the transition from student to employee. It was also a useful way for me to introduce them to the starting element of the adveture, namely an attempted robbery of a CDC currency storehouse. |
June 10, 2016 - 7:58am | I don't see why a PC can't be paid under NPC guidelines. Alternately they can be paid in a different manner because they're adventurers braving untold dangers. It all depends on the game the referee sets up. In fact if you had down time between adventures PCs should be allowed to hire out for mundane-ish jobs (NPC): security, computer tech etc. Do the math for the number of weeks, exact half as per cost of living and add money to character sheet. Which is why the rules say that GMs should assume that the characters find enough work to live on between adventures. Re examining the wage tables, I realized that lower-level PCs earn better using them than not for routine work. Higher-level PCs get a bit short-changed after a certain point. |
 June 10, 2016 - 5:17pm | I will assume Refs will do what makes logical sense to them as far as wages. I want to address a comment someone made at the beginning of the thread about trying to keep PCs from getting too rich too fast. Some thoughts: Taxes, fines, fees, compensation, tickets, bribes, and permits. In RL we have entry and exit fees to countries... maybe such annoying things can occur in space? Toll Roads... The planet the PCs are citizens of might annually tax them? Each world might enjoy auditing PCs that worked on their planet just 1 day. Shooting up/blowing up a neighborhood to save the locals from the 3-Eyed 10 tentacled SEU/electricity eating monster might result in fines, repair bills and compensation demands and tickets/arrest... Gathering information or acquiring permission to be some place might be pricy... A company might try to weasel out of paying employees by billing them for damages to say that cool all terrain hover vehicle with the laser cannon on it that got blown-up or engine failed in the course of the adventure (obviously the driver misused it!) Obviously if taking this approach you will want to keep it simple enough and easy enough for you as a Ref. Accountants & Custom Agents could become more feared than the Sathar... PC's might need Lloyds of London type insurance for all the law suits... Just some thoughts, to make PCs have to work to get ahead.  "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
June 10, 2016 - 7:13pm | Another way to suck money away... er, get them to invest it wisely... is maybe the PCs need to join some sort of adventurers guild and/or other professional organizations to "get ahead." For example, in the much loathed Zebs, there's the vague reference that each profession has reference centers, discout houses and hotel-like facilities associated with each profession on major worlds... well, we certainly know about all sorts of RL associations that are just like that. Alumni associations, veterans groups, etc. It costs money to belong to these groups to get the "discounts." Or an NPC might suggest the players join some pricy athletic club membership "to connect with the right people" to get on the Mission to Alcazzar might gobble up credits. Joe Cabadas |
June 11, 2016 - 12:13am | It was me who made the 'too rich too quick' comment. Yes, you could have various things in the bureaucracies that want to take some of that cash away, but I tend not to see Star Frontiers as a battle between the players and acountancy  Such things could also bog down play as bickering starts between the players and the referee about various points WRT deductions etc. To my mind that's not what I'd call the most exciting angle an RPG could go for  And who's to say, as was bought up by one of my players many moons ago, that all the monetary numbers, price lists, etc in SF are the after tax cost and that tax has already been paid... |
 June 11, 2016 - 1:53am | The Volturnus trilogy also offers a "get rich quick" angle with the ore from Slave City One...250K worth. Granted the players might have to barter a means to transort & sell the stuff ("hey, we have this Sathar automatic cannon we can give you to study...we'll even show you how it works"), but it's another shining example of how the canon modules offer a sizable chunk of change to the players. |
