Enjoyable Speculative Trade
- Thread starter robject
- Start date
selunatic2397
SOC-12
My players haul cargo so rarely that even with the 1000 cr. per ton per parsec variant, they still don't do it often.
The LBB2 style seems to work well for their needs...
Though I am trying to tempt them with how well an academic/poet does with the little 5 ton bay in the formerly their little elint/recon scout.
At least 1 player seems interested...who knows maybe I can get a merchant prince out of MR. Wizard yet!
The LBB2 style seems to work well for their needs...
Though I am trying to tempt them with how well an academic/poet does with the little 5 ton bay in the formerly their little elint/recon scout.
At least 1 player seems interested...who knows maybe I can get a merchant prince out of MR. Wizard yet!
Last edited:
T20. (It's not just Bk2 with more entries, but adds quite a bit more to haulage as well, and increases the number of lots for sale, but nowhere near as much as Bk7 does.)
I also strongly prefer the 3d Actual Value Table.
Any my players DID haul cargo... in most of my campaigns. The exceptions have been "active duty" campaigns.
My preference would be for MT with variable base prices per ton by type of good (rather than the flat rate used in canon MT)
I also strongly prefer the 3d Actual Value Table.
Any my players DID haul cargo... in most of my campaigns. The exceptions have been "active duty" campaigns.
My preference would be for MT with variable base prices per ton by type of good (rather than the flat rate used in canon MT)
Last edited:
T20 speculation for me, too!
We had a good time with the speculative cargo rules in T20.
My favorite cargo was when, for various very good reasons, we had to assassinate our current Captain (you would have, too, under the circumstances). Because my fellow conspirator and I were handling his cargo brokering, we embezzled the money to pay for his assassination by hiding the transaction as a few tons of advanced medical supplies but which were actually placeboes. Thus we used the Captain's money to pay for his own assassination (and got our money's worth, to boot).
Even better, to this day, the player in question has no idea that we were responsible, he insists that the referee had it out for him.
We found that the best cargos were also good sources of adventure.
This time around, we are going mission based, and avoiding the whole cargo issue. Less time consuming.
Smeelbo
We had a good time with the speculative cargo rules in T20.
My favorite cargo was when, for various very good reasons, we had to assassinate our current Captain (you would have, too, under the circumstances). Because my fellow conspirator and I were handling his cargo brokering, we embezzled the money to pay for his assassination by hiding the transaction as a few tons of advanced medical supplies but which were actually placeboes. Thus we used the Captain's money to pay for his own assassination (and got our money's worth, to boot).
Even better, to this day, the player in question has no idea that we were responsible, he insists that the referee had it out for him.
We found that the best cargos were also good sources of adventure.
This time around, we are going mission based, and avoiding the whole cargo issue. Less time consuming.
Smeelbo
Tell me more... is T20 more-or-less a descendant of Bk2 then?
I'd also like to see an 'inverted' MT.
T20 is very definitely Bk2 version 2....
Major differences:
table linking starport type to number of cargos available for purchase
task to find cargos for purchase
100 items on trade goods table (rather than 36)
addition of new freight types (security, priority)
Addition of fees schedule including warehousing for those who like to leave an agent in place....
3d6 Actual Value table (instead of 2d6) (Reduces power of high modifiers slightly, and increases central tendency)
Broker Bonus used requires a task to succeed; on fail, no bonus.
addition of double occupancy rates for mid and high passages.
Major differences:
table linking starport type to number of cargos available for purchase
task to find cargos for purchase
100 items on trade goods table (rather than 36)
addition of new freight types (security, priority)
Addition of fees schedule including warehousing for those who like to leave an agent in place....
3d6 Actual Value table (instead of 2d6) (Reduces power of high modifiers slightly, and increases central tendency)
Broker Bonus used requires a task to succeed; on fail, no bonus.
addition of double occupancy rates for mid and high passages.
I prefer LBB2 with its different types of goods for the sake of flavor - LBB8 (Merchant Prince) is too generic for my taste. I've also thought about moving to a trade-card system as it doesn't limit the number of goods types available (unlike tables) and allows for speciality goods (one card per world would be revealed and always available).
Out of curiosity
Hi,
I hope this isn't too far off track from the original topic, but out of curiosity for those who have indicated that they don't find speculative trade enjoyable, how do your player's fund there adventures?
Although I haven't really played Traveller in years (actually decades), one of the things me and my friends tried to make sure of was to have a ship with enough cargo space and at least one player with some broker or admin skills to make sure we had the money we needed to buy fuel and make all our other necessary payments so that we could travel about freely.
Regards
PF
Hi,
I hope this isn't too far off track from the original topic, but out of curiosity for those who have indicated that they don't find speculative trade enjoyable, how do your player's fund there adventures?
Although I haven't really played Traveller in years (actually decades), one of the things me and my friends tried to make sure of was to have a ship with enough cargo space and at least one player with some broker or admin skills to make sure we had the money we needed to buy fuel and make all our other necessary payments so that we could travel about freely.
Regards
PF
Travelling without trading
This time, we've decided to avoid trading all together. How will we afford this? First of all, there will probably be about 40% discount off the new price for age, reputation, maintance and other issues. Second, the crew will be in it for shares, not salary. Third, each character is bringing a stake, essentially a credit against the purchase price, which will reduce the loan amount due. Fourth, I intend to attempt to borrow enough to be able to make the first 4 to 12 loan payments, and make arrangements to have those payments made before we leave. Finally, we will be doing mission based adventures, and will be aiming to make our money that way.
But yeah, without flipping cargo, it's really hard to make those payments.
Smeelbo
This time, we've decided to avoid trading all together. How will we afford this? First of all, there will probably be about 40% discount off the new price for age, reputation, maintance and other issues. Second, the crew will be in it for shares, not salary. Third, each character is bringing a stake, essentially a credit against the purchase price, which will reduce the loan amount due. Fourth, I intend to attempt to borrow enough to be able to make the first 4 to 12 loan payments, and make arrangements to have those payments made before we leave. Finally, we will be doing mission based adventures, and will be aiming to make our money that way.
But yeah, without flipping cargo, it's really hard to make those payments.
Smeelbo
There are several ways to do so. Doing side jobs for occasional patrons works well for the merc types (who excel at high-stakes well-paying paramilitary jobs) and retired scouts (who get the ship for free and fuel/maintenance for cheap); piracy works well for others; and finding a sponsor (government, corporation or private) works well for many.
The mercenary ticket, as mentioned earlier. Or just plain "doing jobs for the Man (i.e. a patron) and getting paid for it".
If one player is a baron (or better), then s/he might have plenty of money or connections to get and keep what's needed.
Alternately, there's always crime.
I once ran a supposedly non-merchantile game (TNE rules, mostly, Early Reign of Strephon setting)... I gave them a Rift Cutter (2J4) Called the Emperor's Amusement... One of the PC's was Strephon's Mistress. And only one wasn't a noble.
They traded anyway. Ship was paid off, by the emperor, and they could draw on imperial accounts, and they still traded anyway.
They traded anyway. Ship was paid off, by the emperor, and they could draw on imperial accounts, and they still traded anyway.
Last edited:
Jeff M. Hopper
SOC-14 1K
Yes!
(Not trying to be silly, but whether to use LBB2 or LBB7 speculative trade rules is one of those decisions that I make when planning out the campaign. Both have effects on the play that results, and I use LBB2 when I want to keep things more towards the space opera end of the scale and LBB7 when I want things to be more towards the realistic end of the scale.)
Maladominus
SOC-14 1K
In my current online campaign, the PCs actually LOVE trading... sometimes in preference to "adventure" and other heroic deeds. 
Their main logic is that I have already provided them a company-subsidized starship (300 dtons, decent sized courier), and they do not pay for any mortgage. They just pay for the fuel. Having a Merchant with Trader-3 skill aboard, they pretty much will make a huge profit every now and then... just by looking at the statistical mechanics of the LBB2 trading tables. Buy low, sell high, they understand this extremely basic concept. There are about 6-7 active players, and all the characters *invest* into a large pool of money during the Buy Phase. So every single character ends up with a nice share of the profit when it comes time for a profitable sale.
Their logic has now become: "Why the heck would we risk life and limb trying to be adventurous, or trying to save another lunar colony from am impending asteroid collision (like they did months ago).... doing that deadly stuff and the patrons only pay us several thousand credits each! But when we hit jackpot profits with trading, we can rake in close to half a million credits in profit... easily done when selling profitable radio-active ore, precious metals, high tech components, etc! We already figured out some pretty good trade routes!"
gah!
Their main logic is that I have already provided them a company-subsidized starship (300 dtons, decent sized courier), and they do not pay for any mortgage. They just pay for the fuel. Having a Merchant with Trader-3 skill aboard, they pretty much will make a huge profit every now and then... just by looking at the statistical mechanics of the LBB2 trading tables. Buy low, sell high, they understand this extremely basic concept. There are about 6-7 active players, and all the characters *invest* into a large pool of money during the Buy Phase. So every single character ends up with a nice share of the profit when it comes time for a profitable sale. Their logic has now become: "Why the heck would we risk life and limb trying to be adventurous, or trying to save another lunar colony from am impending asteroid collision (like they did months ago).... doing that deadly stuff and the patrons only pay us several thousand credits each! But when we hit jackpot profits with trading, we can rake in close to half a million credits in profit... easily done when selling profitable radio-active ore, precious metals, high tech components, etc! We already figured out some pretty good trade routes!"
gah!
Last edited:
working on mine, too.
:smirk:
Word to the wise: never let a PC have Gambling-5; they'll soon figure out that they can walk into a casino with Cr100 in their pockets, and walk out several hours later with a six-figure bankroll -- even when backing off to Gambling-3 to avoid suspicion of cheating.
Plenty of opportunities for drawing the ire of organized crime that way, but it's probably not the adventure you had planned... all that identity-changing and wild party-throwing. A PC with money is a loose cannon indeed.
:devil:
Just because speculative trade isn't (in and of itself) interesting doesn't mean the characters aren't engaged in trade, it just means that engaging in trade is background stuff. Other than that, well, I don't expect the PCs to deliberately go out on adventures that don't pay for themselves.
