Congratulations you won!

Alright, I finally got another bee in my bonnet. Therefore another rambling post emerges.

So I'm playing in a system that abstracts much of the game. It's a homebrew based on the white wolf system. It's been altered to fit his own needs so I am unaware of how it originally was 'supposed' to work. Regardless it's not about what's behind the facade to me, it's about the camera side of the set.

Regardless, my intent was to play a captain of a ship. Therefore I chose to spend 8 points of my 16ish background points buying a ship (5pts) and a crew (3pts.) Then, seeing myself as a son in a prominent merchant family, I gave myself resources 3 (3pts) to represent my wealthiness. (5 being the ceo of a successful international company in modern terms. and 3 being the max to buy at character creation.) (for the record all advantages like this range from 1-5pts 5 being amazing.) Other players spent these points on enchanted weapons, big guns, powerful spells, amped up defenses and magical pets.

Unfortunately, this plays out rather poorly in functionality. The flying ship so far has only managed to give us the advantage of not having to get over a town wall once. The pet another player has (for 5 or less points) has scouted out various locations, tracked down enemies inconspicuously, killed several minions and has a psychic bond with its owner. I have a flying boat that occasionally makes an appearance. Oh and that crew of 4 people? They are slightly better skilled than a janitor, demand pay before going into any kind of fight, and sap all the cash I get periodically from my resources. Meaning, I have absolutely ZERO spending money except what we get from adventures. The alchemist's dog never gives him shit when they get to payday... Never mind the fact I probably wouldn't be allowed to even USE the ship without the crew.

And here we arrive at the core problem that has arisen. Here I am purchasing an advantage for myself, and devoting half my character to making it work from creation, only leaving me with absolutely NO cash, little unrelated skills and a bunch of documents detailing things that will rarely come into play. All the early bookkeeping coming to naught. As a player this is frustrating. It is just like getting a letter in the mail saying I won a million dollars, so long as I just send them my credit card information and get drawn out of a list of 1000 other entries... I've bought this advantage, now I have to pay for it until the one day it may become useful.

That isn't so say that once anything is bought it should not have upkeep at all. However, it's utility should be equivalent to it's cost. In Dungeons and dragons, the greatest upkeep for a starting adventurer, is likely the sustenance of self, and perhaps a horse. At level one this maintenance can be restrictive. However, owning a horse should not bankrupt the player. Especially considering the degree of benefit granted. Currently one could look at my character as thusly, to get my 'horse' I sacrificed all my money aside from bonuses indefinitely, a couple weapon proficiencies and some movement speed. Reasonable cost for reasonable benefit is almost the essence of balancing in these games, and I basically payed an arm and a leg for a leg.

Would I be in charge of the game, I would make the assumption that by owning the background advantage, you also own the means to support it (ala Rogue Trader.) I'll keep playing this game with this setup, because regardless of my unrest, I'm going to make it work, or lose the ship and the crew while trying, and gain a net bonus of cash.