I’m bouncing back onto the wealth topic, and I’ve been mulling a few things around in my head that I wanted to toss out to the community for advice.
First, I think the abstract wealth system works in theory, but in practice my players are repeatedly asking “How much does X cost?” or “How much can we get for Y?” Example:
Last night they docked at a Hutt controlled spaceport. The Hutts keep trade taxes low, but charge tremendous docking fees. I described it as such, but the players immediately were trying to ascertain how much is “tremendous”…and I had no good answer for them. Mechanically, I treated it as an acquisition which I think RAW is correct. I explained abstract wealth, and we did work it into the fiction (they wound up finding a “friend” that worked in the port authority that allowed them to bypass the fees rather than spending cargo on an acquisition roll, but owed this friend some favors), but it felt incorrect to me.
Later, one of the players wanted to replace his blaster. Again, acquisition roll (though I think he could have just received one sans roll as it was just a Class 1).
Towards the end, the players wanted to pick up goods to trade with the mining facility they were heading towards (DataNet assessment, the facility needs Fusion Plant materials). They rolled two acquisitions, one success one partial so I ruled they got two cargo; one Class 2 parts, one Class 2 parts that was slightly unstable. They’re going to want to sell these at the next station and, potentially, not pick up new goods…how would we handle selling goods without getting anything for it (i.e. cashing in)? I’ve considered favors, credits, etc but I’m not convinced I’m going down the right track with any of them.
Possibly because I loved Trade Wars 2002, and I picked up ‘Suns of Gold’ for SWN the other day, I’m flirting with implementing the trade system from SoG. It’s decidedly not abstract, but has anyone employed something similar to that (fixed cost trading, basically)?
Advice/Criticism welcome. As a side note, we took the advice from my thread last week to heart and had a much better time with combat and conflict this week; explaining consequences went a long way in helping me adjudicate and helped both me and the players understand what they were trying to overcome.
Traditionally, Cargo is the major way of handling trade, and cargo takes up a unit of cargo space in the ship. However, if people really want money, it won’t break the game to do one little thing: when they make the Barter move at the next location, let them trade their Class-2 Parts for (whatever the resulting class is) Ridiculous Amounts of Cash. They now have a stack of Credchips, Credsticks, Augrams, Silgrams, whatever.
It won’t take up a spot in the cargo hold (unless, I suppose, you wanted to suggest they install a safe for their Class-# Ridiculous Amounts of Cash), and it can be broken up… so if they have Class-2 Cash, they could break it up into two Class-1 Cash units. They can use it on Acquisition rolls as normal, just fine. If they ask why they keep burning through so much money buying things, remind them that half the time Acquisition doesn’t need a roll, and even then using Cargo is meant to get exactly what you want… and getting exactly what you want with money will take a lot of it.
Some random thoughts: I’d be tempted to say that you can never “cash out” Cargo for Class-4 Cash (honestly I’d be tempted to say that you can’t cash out above Class-2 but that’s just me). Class-4 stuff is ridiculously unique and incredible and I just don’t see turning Cargo into loose cash worth that much: there’s a reason incredible items of value are called “priceless” and you can’t get what they’re really worth in Space Bucks.
If you follow through on this idea, the party will need to move a lot of Cargo to give everyone a “fair share,” which may incentivize dealing in bulk goods over fluid cash… not an intended goal, but a nice side-effect that I see no problem with.
Alfred Rudzki very close to what I had been thinking. Trying to stay as close to RAW UW as possible, I figured some form of Cred that could be used as Cargo in place of acquisition/barter rolls would make sense.
On that note (and if this is in the rules, I apologize), but is an Acquisition intended to only give Class 0 Cargo with the intent that you then need to Barter to get better stuff? I had been trying to shoehorn a “worth” system into what my players are acquiring (ie the system has Fusion Plants for sale, which are roughly Class 2 items), but it would be hella easier if they could just acquire Class 0 then had to move it to get better items.
Take a look at page 126. A full load of Class-0 is a standard Acquisition, sure — but Major Markets can give you Class-1 Cargo. There’s also mention of salvaging or finding unique or impressive materials, and those can be Class-1 or Class-2.
Okay, I need to go reread that section, thanks. I might just houserule that acquisitions are Class 0, find places to Barter for better, then convert to Cred (effective +1 per class, as Cargo) if you want to empty your holds. I think that’s reasonable without bending RAW too much.
I think the best and simplest option is to simply give one of them a free favour from the faction they sold it to. If they’re insistent on it being cash just write “money” next to it and keep that in mind. They can cash the favour in for free acquisitions, bribes, anything money could usually do.
I’d be tempted to say that the game should have a system where money is treated like favours that aren’t tied to a faction but I think that’s the point. You can’t make large transactions in the world without getting tied up with the major factions and their business. It helps keep things interesting.
Matthew Browne I really like the way you put it !
To me, Money should be a favour (or a debt) tied to a Faction called “The Bank”, or The “Pawn Broker”, or whatever financial institution works best in your setting/planet.
Matthew Browne Philip Espi I think in many campaign settings your ideas would work. We’re playing something akin to a hexcrawl/space western where the buyer might be “Sid’s Metal Hut”, a junkyard on a remote system with no contact with anyone that only gets sales via word of mouth. It’s difficult to reconcile calling in a favor with that guy to provide you with services when he’s intentionally disconnected and in the middle of nowhere.
Even in our case, it could be a favor with limited usage (he’s willing to be called in for a new starship, but not to acquire landing permits on a spaceprot half a galaxy away), but I want something that isn’t arduous to track and still gets the job done. Cred, to me, is an abstract version of what you’re talking about about but is still more concrete than the general feeling/level of wealth.
But who is issuing those Credits ? Zach Swain
And what institution is backing their value with “real” assets ?
If you can’t cash them somewhere for something useful or valuable, then your Credits are worth nothing (as any paper money).
Philip Espi That’s partly what I meant by abstract; we could go through the process of trading horse tongues for the local currency, which is metal lathes, as per the SWN SoG supplement, and I think a couple of my players would even dig it, but when we’re short on time or those folks aren’t there, “Cred” is universal. It doesn’t necessarily mean “bank backed notes”…I think in our world it would probably mean fuel or firearms.
If we want to fall back on shipping 3 horse tongues for 2 metal lathes, it’s as simple as “Cred isn’t accepted here”, but I did want to be able to quickly sub in something that everyone would understand for a more concrete, but still abstract, concept of how much something cost.
OK. I grok that.
I didn’t realize you meant local (planetary) credits. I thought you were talking about galactic credits.
If they haven’t actually made the sale yet, then just don’t let them trade it for credits when they get there. Perhaps the store can only repay them in other cargo, or an asset, or a favour from a faction the guy’s friendly with. Better yet, ask the players. “He doesn’t have the liquid assets to make that kind of trade, but what can he pay you with instead?”
It’s also worth mentioning that getting two Class 2 cargo containers from the market just for a couple of rolls is pretty valuable, so make sure there are consequences for carting around two big crates of valuable and possibly dangerous engine parts.