So I have a quick question regarding negotiating in a world without real currency. How would you handle, say, cutting someone in on a deal? If I’m making a deal to trade some illicit cargo to a guy, and want to hire some muscle for 20% of the take, how do you translate this into UW? Should it be phrased differently?
So I have a quick question regarding negotiating in a world without real currency.
So I have a quick question regarding negotiating in a world without real currency.
Not sure if this is helpful or not. But in fantasy games where barter is currency I often use the generic term of “a days wages”. It seems to work because it’s both time and currency. A gun worth 3days wages could be traded for 3 days labor, or maybe only 2 days of skilled labor.
So personal wealth is one of the topics I feel I might not have conveyed well enough. Basically, the idea is that you have [handwave] credits to your name, where [handwave] is your lifestyle and position in society. Rather than nickel-and-dime, you are “wealthy” or “scraping by” or “tightening your belt” or “pissing away your inheritance” or “living hand-to-mouth” or the myriad other financial situations a person can be in.
When offering cash/credits, you can simply say “a 20% take, which will be more than enough for a comfortable life for several months, or a really awesome two weeks at the Xianxang Resort”.
Often the offered wealth will give a free, limited Acquisition. Just frame the wealth in what it can do for the character, even better if it’s a need or luxury tailored to the character’s personality or desires. Ex: “[Pilot], they’re offering you enough money to upgrade your Fighter’s heavy weapon” or “[Analyst], the bounty is hefty enough that you could probably upgrade all the screens in your Workspace to CyberStruct3 holo-displays with kinetic feedback”.
Ok, that definitely helps.
I think it’d help if Acquisition used “Wealth” instead of Cargo. There’d have to be a bit of a section on that, and some conversion between Cargo and Wealth. I might reformulate the text for my main game.
I cannot for the life of me remember where, but somewhere on here I tossed around the idea of treating “Cash” as just another type of Cargo that characters could carry around. It didn’t occupy Cargo slots, but “Cash” topped out at Class-3. Cash works pretty much anywhere you go, but you’ll never be rich just carrying around Cash. Interstellar economics is too wild to get by without a network of investments and so on… Physical goods are a much better system.
/sub for goodness.
Alfred Rudzki pinging hoping that you remember what you did here.
I will probably give each player some level of “Credits” (1, 2, or 3) based on their archetype and allow them to spend it on acquisitions.
I would probably stick to 1 or 2 per player.
I imagine, when using cargo, players will probably only start with four units of Class-1 or maybe a Class-2 (or otherwise acquire them quickly). I wouldn’t let them start with 3 Credits just because then they’re walking around with all the buying power on the scale of unique, powerful cargo.
Otherwise, I don’t think there’s too much wrong with the “credits only” approach if your game just isn’t about cargo. If you give it a go, report back how it shakes out?
I think my guys want to do a more military/explorer sort of thing. Which means Cargo might be sparse.
As for Credits, I was actually thinking 1 Credit converts to 1 CLASS of Cargo. So 3 Credits = one unit of C3 Cargo for the purposes of Moves, or purchase from the right Market.
You’re right, though, starting off at 3 is high. I will probably do 0 or 1 starting with an occasional 2 for the merchant-prince types.
Aaron Griffin knows first hand how I struggled with a similar concept while running my first session of UW. On a 7-9 Assessment roll, a contact wanted to wet his beak on the ensuing deal. The bargain struck as a result of a complication resulted in the PC assuming a debt to a previously unestablished faction. Not the worst result in terms of potential future fiction, but not a precedent that I want to set and repeat going forward. Otherwise the faction debt system loses meaning.
I’d may approach this type of situation with added wealth tracked as specialized data points to be applied to future Acquisition rolls in place of or in addition to cargo.As the fiction permits.
Michael S heh yeah, I posted this after that situation, because I know it’s going to come up in my game, too. My normal players seem to love buying allies 🙂