How do you deal with Cargo, and Trading?

[kinnison 850]

Long story short.  Next "arc" of my campaign has the players taking a wayfarer around on a tour of the minos cluster, and they are going to have to haul cargo from planet to planet in order to maintain the ship and pay for repairs.

 

I am really really hesitant about making it a bookkeeping game using Nevermind's Trade Route Economics Tool Version 1.1 and i doubt my players would be able to fill the cargo hold of the wayfarer.. nor sell enough of the cargo to cover the cost of maintaining the ship, refueling or docking fees

 

[HappyDaze 10,108]

Do you want the arc to be about trading and cargo? Do the players?

 

If everyone is into it, then it can be done. However, if it's not something that everybody wants, then expect this to be a joy-killer.

 

It's not too hard to get a NPC patron and a few droids that handle this in the background while the PCs concentrate on adventures to be had in the various ports of call.

[Braendig 831]

There can certainly be a ton of accounting with the trade in this game.  However, if you don't want to make that the focus of the game, it'd be easy enough to abstract it to a single negotiation or streetwise check to determine how profitable (or not) a certain run was.  Successes yield X credits / encumbrance of cargo provided over and above maintenance costs.  A single mechanics check before that could provide a modifier to that number to account for good (or bad) maintenance being performed by the party mechanic.  That way it doesn't become Spreadsheets and Calculators instead of Dungeons and... er Star Wars.

[kinnison 850]

Do you want the arc to be about trading and cargo? Do the players?

 

 

The ship will have a NPC skeleton crew of 5, as well as a traveling troupe of a 4 person band, and 5 other performers and a "Manager" who is way over his head trying to take charge of everything.

 

I really don't think the players are going to be into it, and I am going to be trying to have each planet be in 1 or 2 sessions.  So the less boring bits of ROLL playing are not needed

[HappyDaze 10,108]

So go with a droid NPC that specializes in speculative trading and bookkeeping backed up by a (non-present) patron that takes the financial risks and makes the profit. The PCs will be on a ship and going places, but the cargo operations are entirely peripheral to their adventures.

[korjik 688]

Long story short.  Next "arc" of my campaign has the players taking a wayfarer around on a tour of the minos cluster, and they are going to have to haul cargo from planet to planet in order to maintain the ship and pay for repairs.

 

I am really really hesitant about making it a bookkeeping game using Nevermind's Trade Route Economics Tool Version 1.1 and i doubt my players would be able to fill the cargo hold of the wayfarer.. nor sell enough of the cargo to cover the cost of maintaining the ship, refueling or docking fees

If the players dont want to do the cargo stuff, why are you making them do it?

 

It sounds like you should just have them be a charter, and just give them a set amount of credits to go to each stop. 

[KRKappel 2,024]

There are a few ways to handle this. 

1.) The manager can be a trader or entrepreneur spec, and the various talents there can represent the money generated off-camera from moving cargo around. 

 

2.) You can adapt the Business/Homestead rules found in Far Horizons to represent the business that takes place on the ship. Note that this could require a LOT of tweaking, as the benefits and upgrades are specifically built to make the party feel like they aren't missing out overtly by giving up a party starship. 

3.) You can just ask for a single negotiations check. To set this up, I'd keep it simple. Assuming the planets you're coming from and headed to have full planet stat write ups in the game line, you can look at the list of exports at the planet you're leaving, and the list of imports at the planet you're going to. If they match up, make it an easy or average check (depending on how well they match up). If they don't match up, make it a Hard or Daunting check using your judgment. You can make this check while rolling destiny points at the start of a session, or as a roll after hyperspace jumps (assuming they weren't under fire and had time off camera to get a new cargo). I'd reccomend giving the party (not each player, but the party total) 50 credits per net success, and 25 per net advantage, and subtracting the same amount per net failure and threat after accounting for fuel and maintenance and food on the ship. Despairs and Triumphs might mean something about the cargo goes horribly wrong, or there's a surge demand for it, doubling or halving the final results. Be sure to decide what the cargo is before a hyperspace jump, so that if they get in a space battle, you might use negative dice results during it to cause cargo to get damaged, lost, or...escape! You might add 1 boost for every ship silhouette size over 5, and a setback for every ship silhouette size under 5. 

4.) You can really get into it with some of the fan created materials, and micromanage the hell out of it, but really, this game system doesn't lend itself toward bean counting, and it doesn't sound like that is the experience your players are looking for. 

5.) At the other extreme, you can just assume everything more or less balances out, but there isn't really much in the way of profits to speak of.

6.) Maybe when you roll destiny, give each player 10-50 credits for every light side symbol they roll, and subtract 10-50 for every dark side symbol, perhaps even putting them into the Debt Obligation by 1 point per dark side symbol if they're out of credits if you're feeling particularly nasty. 

So yeah, lots of simple ways off the top of my head to handle this really fast so players get the feeling that things have happened between sessions/adventures or while moving from one planet to the next, but without bogging them down with a lot of checks or bookkeeping. 

[HappyDaze 10,108]

The gambling rules can be used to determine the outcome of speculative trading. You put your investment in, roll the test to see if there's profit, loss, or an even break.

[copperbell 617]

If you don't want to micro manage the cargo side of things then don't.

 

Simply make it a side note that the ship delivered its cargo and then have their adventure be about their interactions at the spaceport or wandering around this world they've delivered their cargo to then occasionally remind them by having them receive potential cargo for delivery elsewhere and let them decide which one they want to deliver making note that if they play silly beggars then the authorities and I don't mean just the empire will come looking.

 

See how they deal with this before making up your mind how to handle this it should make matters much easier for you.

[Sunseeker 16]

I'd automate it if the players aren't into it.  But I'd give them a cookie if they're willing to dip their toes in an get involved, but I'd also start including a stick if they got too involved.

 

I'm assuming that the details of the cargo transfers are all pre-arranged yes?  If that is so, then it already is automated.  The players get paid X provided they make it from A to B in time.  

 

If the players dip their toes in and say, aid with cargo transfer, provide protection (even if unneeded) or get from A to B faster than expected, I'd give them a bonus of 10%.  No more.

 

If the players dive in head first and take things over from the NPCs, start aggressively "bartering" to renegotiate the deals or take reckless actions on their flights that may cut time, I'd add in some risks of pissing off local businessmen, the "hired help" NPCs and other such things.

 

As a GM, I want to keep my workload low, but I don't want to stop my players from playing the game.  But I also don't want them to arbitrarily increase my workload in an attempt to take advantage of me.  So I give them a cookie for participation, and I give them a stick for giving me a headache.

[Desslok 13,571]

Counterpoint: We did a traders game when GG#6 first came out and had a blast. Oh sure, we mixed it up with all kinds of wacky adventures at the same time, but the trading part was fun too.

[kinnison 850]

The main point is I liked to know how others really deal with "cargo"  if the follow the RAW, or jsut have a roll and get profit

 

I am trying to make my players hungry and use a bit of the stick to be a bit ham fisted with the plot since my players are not ones to knock down doors or look for trouble.  The reason why the cargo ships needs to make a profit is that I have a few.. okay several... flaws on the ship

• Ship is painted a garsih color.  That kind of thing happens when you have a Nosaurian in charge of repainting
• Landing gear is a bit rusted and the hydraulics are leaking making it impossible or very difficult to raise the landing gear
• THe communications is on the fritz to disguise an Advanced Subspace Encryption Array

•  The ship's inertial compensators are damaged, and attempt to navigate hazards the crew takes strain unless they brace

• Glitch navicomp, only able to plot course to other major planets in the Minos cluster or along the rimma trade route.

• Bare bone amenities, all resilience checks add a setback die.. etc

so along with the basics of refueling, restocking, and docking fees.  they need to make a profit to get repairs done, and turn their rusted ole scrapheap into a something that is livable... and (plot spoilers) get it stolen from them.

[R5D8 420]

One of the highlights I make sure to include in as many adventurer/operator RPGs as possible, is to "Smokey and the Bandit II" them. You can do it in any RPG, but I've found the most success with Star Wars and Shadowrun.

In Smokey and the Bandit II, one promoter overhears another talking about this shipment to be delivered, so he figures he'll get it there first. "The crew" get hired to run in and grab a crate from a warehouse, crate 1444 to be exact, and deliver it to some far off location. "Sure sure.", is the answer. The promoter has no other details about the crate except it's crate 1444. They break into the warehouse and have trouble finding it at first, because they confuse the crate with the wall, it's so massive. Inside the crate, is an elephant. Hilarity ensues. Also, during the trip, it's discovered she's pregnant. Guess how far along she is?

So in my RPGs, I just make it the large dangerous creature du jour, whatever the party can barely handle. Make it a Rathtar if you want. Or a Rancor if your group is high leveled enough. But it's always fun when the party brings their landspeeder van to get this crate from the warehouse and you describe it as a 8mx10mx10m crate weighing 3 tons. Hilarity ensues.

(Say what you want, but twenty 18 wheelers vs fifty cop cars filmed in "Dukes of Hazzard" style, is entertaining!)

[JalekZem 420]

So in short, your plan is to make your players do something that they are not interested in or wanting to do (Speculative trading), in order for them to fix up their ship which has several flaws, that you the GM, added to make their ship less than perfect.  Then after all of this, you plan to have their newly fixed up ship stolen from them....

 

Sounds like a total **** move...

[Sunseeker 16]

The main point is I liked to know how others really deal with "cargo"  if the follow the RAW, or jsut have a roll and get profit

 

I am trying to make my players hungry and use a bit of the stick to be a bit ham fisted with the plot since my players are not ones to knock down doors or look for trouble.  The reason why the cargo ships needs to make a profit is that I have a few.. okay several... flaws on the ship

• Ship is painted a garsih color.  That kind of thing happens when you have a Nosaurian in charge of repainting
• Landing gear is a bit rusted and the hydraulics are leaking making it impossible or very difficult to raise the landing gear
• THe communications is on the fritz to disguise an Advanced Subspace Encryption Array

•  The ship's inertial compensators are damaged, and attempt to navigate hazards the crew takes strain unless they brace

• Glitch navicomp, only able to plot course to other major planets in the Minos cluster or along the rimma trade route.

• Bare bone amenities, all resilience checks add a setback die.. etc

so along with the basics of refueling, restocking, and docking fees.  they need to make a profit to get repairs done, and turn their rusted ole scrapheap into a something that is livable... and (plot spoilers) get it stolen from them.

 

I have to agree with JalekZem on this one, it sounds like this is something you want your players to do and really, for no other reason than for troubles that you placed upon them.  Yes, I get it as GM it's your responsibility to place troubles upon your players, but it's not your responsibility to resolve those troubles for them or force them to resolve those troubles when you want them to, or in the manner you want them to.  If the players are aware of the problems and consider those problems needing to be fixed, they'll fix them.  Trust your players.  But your players will fix them just as soon as they feel they need to be fixed.  

 

But I'll make a point here that perhaps your players are feeling that you may not have considered: they're driving an ugly car with bad suspension, poor steering, a broken TomTom and the interior lining has been torn out.  As a person who has owned many cars throughout my lifetime, there's a point where there is simply too much to fix and it is not worth the credits, where you give up and either run your vehicle into the ground and sell what remains for parts and buy a new one, or you sell the still-working but in terrible condition vehicle in hopes someone will give you enough to combine with your life savings and buy a newer, if not perfect, but newer and less faulty vehicle.  

 

I currently own a 1987 Pontiac Fiero.  I love that thing but it is a money hole.  It was the car I wanted.  I love it because I bought it.  I fixed it.  I still love it and I still pour more money into it to keep it running.  But if this ship isn't your party's Fiero, don't push it on them.  They'll reject it even worse.  Don't give them a new ship, give them a chance to find their Fiero.  And I'll promise you once they do, they'll do everything in their power to keep that baby flying.

[Ghostofman 8,319]

Wouldn't this be one of those situations where you'd have multiple cargoes similar to smuggling jobs?

 

Like a mission cargo supplied by a contractor/guild/company/quest giver type as part of the adventure, that takes up X enc with a schedule and drop point, and a certified payout of Y. The players can then buy on additional commodities to fill the remaining Enc and make a little money on the side, making a guess on what they can get at location A that will be of value at location B. So the contract is for 30 enc of distilled Gungan tears and a certified payout of 5,000 credits upon delivery, so the players use their own money to buy up another 50 enc of canned Ewok farts betting they make a profit on the open market at the drop point. Also... if the players don't have the kind of money 50 enc of Ewok farts costs, they can cash in some obligation betting they make it back on the other end plus a profit...

 

I think the only real thing you'd need to hash out is intersystem rarity within a defined sector. Existing rarity seems to assume fairly long hauls for maximum profit, with moving in the same sector often zeroing out. Tweak that and you'd be good to go.

[kinnison 850]

Um.  No... having the ship stolen isn't a **** move.  When you give the players an opportunity to prevent it.  Also it is suppose to be a redeeming scene for the captain (who is an incompetent annoying jerk) when he is finally humbled and owes the players a HUGE favor by rescuing the ship

 

In the minos cluster, the situation pretty much all trade is done by Tramp Frieghters.  Not enough profit for big hauling syndicates, and too little imperial presence to make the risk worthwhile. 

 

In my game session the players came to an understanding that it isn't their ship, and they don't have skin in the game.  Tho they are thinking of negotiating for a small share of cargo space to make some extra income to upgrade their amenities.

 

The adventure kind of de-railed when the Captain of the ship requested all weapons to be logged, register, and secured into a cargo crate.  When one character refused, and made sure to flaunt his dual blasters. No attempt was ever made to hide their weapons, and the Captain much later had a fire evacuation drill (it was still planetside, and the captain needed to secure the ship) and the gunslinger refused to leave the ship, then refused again to relinquish his weapons.  As a GM i had to take a timeout because he was basically attempting to mutiny twice against the captain who was key to the adventure arc, and i didn't want to follow through on the repercussions of that action

 

in a nut shell.

Players agree to be crew on a ship as a obligation favor

Players arrange to gain a positive reputation to aid in that happening

Players are told Weapons will have to be secured and locked while on a ship

Players do not attempt to hide their weapons

Players refuse to evacuate as per captains orders

players refuse to give up weapons as per captains orders

 

Sure we will join as crew for the ship, but we are going to mutiny and take over the ship.. and give the finger to the GM

[Sunseeker 16]

 and i didn't want to follow through on the repercussions of that action

 

Well, there's your problem.  You're not willing to follow through and your players know it.  

 

Either tell them "hey, if you do this, it's game over, you have ended the campaign." or follow through with the appropriate consequences and keep playing.

 

It's one of the difficulties of playing through a "story".  What happens when the players decide to burn Minas Tirith to the ground and join Sauron's army?  What happens when Leia decides to give herself to Vader to save Luke & co?  Either you the GM say "No, that's not how the story goes." or you go with it and Leia becomes Vader's dark apprentice, the rebellion may be defeated, there's a cool showdown between Luke and Leia, blah blah.

 

That's your duty as the GM, to tell your players "NO" when you need to.  Otherwise you're going to be beholden to their whims.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Sunseeker

[korjik 688]

Um.  No... having the ship stolen isn't a **** move.  When you give the players an opportunity to prevent it.  Also it is suppose to be a redeeming scene for the captain (who is an incompetent annoying jerk) when he is finally humbled and owes the players a HUGE favor by rescuing the ship

 

In the minos cluster, the situation pretty much all trade is done by Tramp Frieghters.  Not enough profit for big hauling syndicates, and too little imperial presence to make the risk worthwhile. 

 

In my game session the players came to an understanding that it isn't their ship, and they don't have skin in the game.  Tho they are thinking of negotiating for a small share of cargo space to make some extra income to upgrade their amenities.

 

The adventure kind of de-railed when the Captain of the ship requested all weapons to be logged, register, and secured into a cargo crate.  When one character refused, and made sure to flaunt his dual blasters. No attempt was ever made to hide their weapons, and the Captain much later had a fire evacuation drill (it was still planetside, and the captain needed to secure the ship) and the gunslinger refused to leave the ship, then refused again to relinquish his weapons.  As a GM i had to take a timeout because he was basically attempting to mutiny twice against the captain who was key to the adventure arc, and i didn't want to follow through on the repercussions of that action

 

in a nut shell.

Players agree to be crew on a ship as a obligation favor

Players arrange to gain a positive reputation to aid in that happening

Players are told Weapons will have to be secured and locked while on a ship

Players do not attempt to hide their weapons

Players refuse to evacuate as per captains orders

players refuse to give up weapons as per captains orders

 

Sure we will join as crew for the ship, but we are going to mutiny and take over the ship.. and give the finger to the GM

The moral of that story is: Dont try to take away the players guns.

 

Quite frankly, most players would consider your actions to be giving them the finger. What, did this Captain think he was hiring a bunch of pacifist nuns as crew? Is 'Gunslinger' too subtle a title to make someone think the character may be armed most of the time?

[kinnison 850]

The moral of that story is: Dont try to take away the players guns.

 

Quite frankly, most players would consider your actions to be giving them the finger. What, did this Captain think he was hiring a bunch of pacifist nuns as crew? Is 'Gunslinger' too subtle a title to make someone think the character may be armed most of the time?

 

 

*sigh*  I would have allowed the gunslinger to keep his guns.  If he did something besides say no.  Like talking to the captain for an exception.  or saying "Hey how about I be your enforcer, or security?".  Or having the player playing the Face character negotiate on his behalf.

 

But he did nothing... and look what happened

[korjik 688]

 

The moral of that story is: Dont try to take away the players guns.

 

Quite frankly, most players would consider your actions to be giving them the finger. What, did this Captain think he was hiring a bunch of pacifist nuns as crew? Is 'Gunslinger' too subtle a title to make someone think the character may be armed most of the time?

 

 

*sigh*  I would have allowed the gunslinger to keep his guns.  If he did something besides say no.  Like talking to the captain for an exception.  or saying "Hey how about I be your enforcer, or security?".  Or having the player playing the Face character negotiate on his behalf.

 

But he did nothing... and look what happened

 

So it is automatically his fault cause he didnt play his character the way you wanted him to? Is he supposed to be a mind reader now?

 

He did nothing, and neither did you, apparently. When things started going off the rails in a totally unexpected way, you should have fixed it then. Explain to the Player what was going on and hint/suggest/flat out tell him that he should be negotiating, not be stubborn. Sometimes players will fixate on the color of the drapes, instead of paying attention to the Rancor in the middle of the room. 

[JalekZem 420]

Also it sounds like you have created a campaign that the PCs are not interested or have a vested interest in.

Since you have already stated that neither you or the PCs really want to play a campaign of a Cargo hauler/ Horse trader, then why do it?

I would suggest taking a session off and having a frank discussion with the group about what THEY would enjoy playin, what THY would like to see unfold and so on. Then see if that is something you could enjoy running and work with them to forge a concensus about the campaign.

There are probably a few forms available on the web for you to use.