What can you do with 10,000 Credits?

Why ten thousand credits? No profound reason. It is a common amount of Retirement Pay. It shows up in a few places in TTB as a cost of things (see below). Looking at the Mustering Out Tables, 10,000 is not hard to come by. But it can go again quickly if a PC is not careful. I also figured this would be useful to Referees in determining how much to pay the Travellers for their current job. Don't be a cheapskate, but don't Monty Haul them either.

In terms of Long-term Subsistence, 10,000 Credits will pay for almost an entire year, at the High Living level, to give you a sense of scale. But remember this game was written in the 1970’s when a decent starter house might only cost $10-20,000. Oh, how times have changed.

Is it really an adventure if there's no treasure involved?

I combed through the Traveller Book and my blog for any reference to paying for things. Here's what I found: 10,000 Credits will buy a Traveller:

• One High Passage
• One Middle Passage with change
• Ten Low Passages
• One Vacc Suit, any TL
  
• A ground car, and no other vehicle in the list
• Any weapon, plus plentiful ammunition
• Any Non-Military Armor (no Combat Armor or BattleDress)
• A 4-ton Pre-Fab cabin (living quarters)
• Virtually any tool, sensory aid or item of personal equipment
• Any medical drugs except Anagathics
  
• Psi-drugs, up to one dose of Psi Special
• One or more tons of 15 types of Trade and Speculation goods
• Ten tons of cargo space aboard a starship
• 20 tons of refined starship fuel
• Life Support for five, for two weeks
•  A berthing slip for your ship for several weeks 
•  A standard Hireling for most of a year.
• An Entry or Exit Visa to most worlds
•  A decent chance at Bribing someone
•  A one-square-kilometer plot of land
• Absolutely nothing when it comes to starship or small craft components
• A one-shot, Jump-1 program cassette for Generating a flight plan
• A chartered 100-ton system ship, for 100 hours, or a 400-ton ship for a day
  
• By derivation, a chartered 10-ton ATV for 1,000 hours

It might take a little creativity, but an adventurer can get up to a lot with only 10,000 credits to work with.

Most Travellers exit their Prior Service with several times this amount. Scouts in particular get well paid for their dangerous service.

Perhaps as a follow-up I'll look at what 1,000,000 credits will buy.

 

Image Credits: Pixabay