I’m trying to wrap my head around the wealth system. I get that UW by default abstracts wealth to ‘lifestyle’, but is the intent that anytime a PC acquires something of significant value (ship, weapon, vehicle, etc) that you either use cargo as a boost in an Acquisition or you call in a favor/take on debt in order to acquire it? I think one of my issues here is that we have 6 players in our game; trying to give each person a share of the wealth from a job means I either need to have 6 assets awarded, figure out a way to break down rewards into chunks or have those awards go back to the PCs faction/team/corp and then dole out stuff to them from said faction/team/corp.
I can foresee my players wanting to become personally wealthy…how would this system handle that? Multiple favors being owed them by factions perhaps would be an indicator of wealth. A favor that explicitly says “Pick out any Class 3 ship and it’s yours!” maybe?
What if they’re just interested in stockpiling credits? I had considered putting a base price on each class of asset (e.g. Class 0/1/2 weapons are 10/100/1000 credits, Class 0/1/2 vehicles are 1000/10000/100000 credits, etc) as an exchange rate…berfore I even suggest it, does that break this system in some way I’m not seeing?
So, you can handle the players wealth fictionally. Best idea is to ask questions about their lifestyles and inject descriptions into the game that bring it to the fore… if you think your players are going to want to accumulate wealth, then you should definitely make this a fixture of your play-style.
When they’re in space, pick one of them and ask them where they crash when the engine gets too loud and they can’t catch a wink. When they land on a planet, pick one of them and ask if they’re going to have Protein Slop for dinner again or if they’re going out for a meal. When they do buy an asset, ask how they can tell its refurbished or second-hand.
Then do your thing as the GM and inject your own descriptions on top of things: make where they sleep instead of their bunk still pretty crappy; talk about the only place they can get space-chinese is this open air noodle bar in the middle of monsoon season and there’s only 7 seats and two of them are occupied by a Mandallan Star-beast; take what they say about the asset being refurbished and really emphasize how much better the new models look and what a bummer this is. Basically, go full Star Wars on everything. Make the galaxy lived-in.
As they do jobs and get paid (and I don’t even mean hand out Assets, I just mean fictionally when they’re handed a cred-stick or a bag of augrams or whatever), let it recur in the fiction. Bring it up again. When you start up a session after a successful job, ask them how they’re celebrating their newfound wealth. Let them rock out with the fictional details of the “company” they’ve rented, and the food they’re eating, and the spa they’re at, and the real actual food they’re stashing on their ship, and so on.
And let all of this fictional stuff really resonate: when they get paid well, they can rub shoulders with the uppercrust: what directions can the game go in now that they’re partying with the elite? What kind of moves do you make when they’re stuck shoulder-to-shoulder with the lower-class and the desperate, versus the upper-class and the powerful? Give them different story opportunities, open up different Markets to them, offer different jobs. And keep in mind that fiction comes first: if they’ve been paid really well, and their pockets are brimming with qubits, then they probably don’t need to roll to Acquire an Asset… you can simply use your GM moves and say they find it, but it will clear them out; or that they can get it for cheap but it won’t be perfect, and so on.
And conversely, if a job goes bad and they don’t make any decent money, go the other way: let them know how bad things are. Let them know things are desperate. In keeping with my above remark about how fictionally being loaded with cash can let you bypass Acquiring an Asset, being absolutely broke can also keep players from triggering the move. No way to refuel the ship, better take that local job, etc etc.
If money is important to the players, rather than get bogged down in the penny counting — unless they really want you to give them bank forms and tax forms and stock options — I would recommend letting money influence the way the fiction moves. What Jump Points you give them, what kind of NPCs they can shmooze with and what kind of Threats come their way… really make what you do as GM be a reaction to how well-off or desperate they become.
The way wealth is handled (or ignored) is actually one of my favorite bits about UW. Want to buy that shiny new plasma rifle? Great, roll acquisition. On a 12+: you’re still rolling in cash from that last job, and although it’s expensive you can definitely cover it. On a 7-9: You’ve got some cash around, but buying this rifle will take the last of your cash reserves. You sure you want to do that? (And then in-fiction it’s established that they are currently broke). On a 6-: Your covetous eyes do nothing to endear you to the shopkeeper, who can tell at a glance that you can’t afford a bath, much less any of his wares. He shoos you out of the store. (Establish in-fiction that you’re broke, AND you don’t even get the gun, AND you’re not going to be able to trigger more acquisition until you find a way to make some dosh).
I also like the flexibility: some players like to consider all their assets pooled, some don’t. Both approaches work nicely in this system.
Alfred already said a lot of excellent stuff, I won’t retread his post further. 🙂
Both good suggestions. I think they’re going to want something more quantifiable, but I’ll test the waters and see how abstract they’re willing to go.