How to run a Trader Game

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Refplace

The setting mostly.
Trade is a viable reason for traveling and interaction in almost any setting. Going in and killing things and looting the bodies, not so much.
So a merchant based campaign makes a good background or reason for the PCs to be there. However it cant be all about the accounting or boredom will ensue.

But, as others have noted, a horrible reason for the PCs to engage in the things the players want them to.

If you want a game inspired by Firefly, say, you don't want a trader game. Mal may have at some point intended otherwise, but very nearly the only legal business the ship gets up to is transporting Inara. They certainly aren't buying adventure cargo - if they're carrying goods it's usually something they stole or salvaged, or occasionally a paid cargo run.

There's potentially a similar motivation of getting what you need to keep flying, but much less accounting involved.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It really seems to me that the obvious answer would be not playing a trader game with players who find trade uninteresting. Is there some reason to want to make it happen despite this?

But the thing is, the players chose the campaigns in question, and in the fantasy campaign, they choose to play trade pioneers; I didn't tell them, "Okay, you're all going to be partners in owning a merchant ship."

And this is at least twice I've run campaigns where the PCs were a merchant ship's crew, and they were almost completely different player groups; only one person played in both campaigns. Twice isn't a conclusive trend, but it may be more than just happenstance.

[chandley]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I tried to run a game with this book. It was dismal and didn't get past the first session. I don't think it got past rolling for speculative cargo. This is exactly what Bill is talking about with a detailed system for trade being at odds with what the players are interested in doing.

If all you want is cargo/freight that drives the plot, why in the world would you roll on a table you hate to do it? Just write it into the introduction for the adventure and off you go. And, I think it is sound campaign advice in general to make sure your players want to play the campaign type you are suggesting...

There is a whole chapter of advice on running merchant campaigns in that book, and one of the best pieces of advice is on p.105: "Use every die roll as an excuse to roleplay". Who runs the local spot market? What kind of being is it? Does he like the PC looking to buy? Where can the PCs go to find information on their next market? Is it trustworthy? How many others have access to that info (are they talking to a shady smuggler in a bar, or just pulling up weeks old market data for free on the net... or are they hacking a megacorps market information database?). And so on and so forth. Don't just grind through a bunch of tables. Trader games are about the gritty details. They are about having the pilot's player actually get to say "Copy control, squawking 6500, passing through orbital now, watching outbound heavy". They are about scrutinizing freight contracts for the crucial details both bad ("Hi, we need you to deliver this to domicile on Quarren" "Isn't Quarren a radioactive wasteland? Handling fee better be astronomical!") and good ("Aha, 30 tons headed to the same place we just learned has a shortage of fidget spinners, let's pick that up and see what else is going there"). Hand outs can be awesome for this (make secret Administration or Merchant rolls to alert _players_ to details they might miss but their characters should catch, but a lot of fun to be had riffing through contracts). The only time players should get away with a simple freight handling rolls is because you have nastier things planned for them. The tow boat my friend works on, she's watched a seasoned hand walk up to a tow during a lock transition, slip, and slide between the boat and the tow. And then everyone got to just sit there and listen to him scream for a minute before he was crushed to jelly. THAT is what a freight handling roll can mean. You are dealing in units of tons. Humans are fragile. Space is unforgiving. And oh yeah, time is money so if you are getting a positive TDM for time spent, you are probably going broke... but maybe if you shave some time off for a penalty, you get the jump on that rivals departure...

Trader campaigns are in every way the opposite of DF campaigns. Or Action or Monster Hunters (though the Investigation rules in MH could be looted to good effect for market research, obscure speculative cargo, and freight contract details!).

Really, a new Trader campaign book should have a chapter that is just roleplaying ideas for each roll in the book.

[sir_pudding]

The players also chose it in my case. I suspect they want to have trade be the driver of adventuring without having to spend hours rolling on tables to see if grain is cheaper than bulk hydrocarbons.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by chandley

Trader games are about the gritty details.

No doubt. But my experience, and not only mine, is that players who want their characters to be merchants actually are not very interested in playing through the gritty details. And perhaps that means that they don't want to play trader games. But they wanted to play merchants, perhaps because merchants (a) have a reason for being in space and (b) don't have to obey orders from a military high command.

I would not recommend having "trade and profit" be the mission statement for an actual space opera campaign.

[Ulzgoroth]

Well, since I have no access to any of the three sets of players in question, I'm in no position at all to guess what they were hoping the game would actually be about.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by chandley

There is a whole chapter of advice on running merchant campaigns in that book, and one of the best pieces of advice is on p.105: "Use every die roll as an excuse to roleplay". Who runs the local spot market? What kind of being is it? Does he like the PC looking to buy? Where can the PCs go to find information on their next market? Is it trustworthy? How many others have access to that info (are they talking to a shady smuggler in a bar, or just pulling up weeks old market data for free on the net... or are they hacking a megacorps market information database?). And so on and so forth. Don't just grind through a bunch of tables.

What happened was they went to talk to her, they roleplayed all that stuff, and then we needed to find out what she actually had available, at which point Far Trader tells you to grind through a bunch of tables. It was going fine up until then (other than another problem with the players deciding it would be simplest if they were all working for one of the PCs rather than part owners, which I think was a mistake).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

What happened was they went to talk to her, they roleplayed all that stuff, and then we needed to find out what she actually had available, at which point Far Trader tells you to grind through a bunch of tables. It was going fine up until then (other than another problem with the players deciding it would be simplest if they were all working for one of the PCs rather than part owners, which I think was a mistake).

Is that just a GM workflow problem? That is, the mechanics aren't creating undesired fiction, but taking the time to resolve them when they arise is disrupting play?

I don't know the Far Trader rules, but in SS2 (which is similar at least in concept) you could easily pre-generate a few lots of cargo. It would also be easy to automate if you do that sort of thing, though I don't know of pre-existing automation.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Is that just a GM workflow problem? That is, the mechanics aren't creating undesired fiction, but taking the time to resolve them when they arise is disrupting play?

I don't know the Far Trader rules, but in SS2 (which is similar at least in concept) you could easily pre-generate a few lots of cargo. It would also be easy to automate if you do that sort of thing, though I don't know of pre-existing automation.

Sure, I am not saying that the failure wasn't largely mine, but I think the players weren't interested in the results anyway. They really wanted to be fighting space pirates or negotiating with buyers and getting side jobs, not deciding which of a long list of boring things they were going to buy to try to sell at a profit later. To the extent that I offered to solve the workflow problem and refused.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Rindis

I would also like to see broader-scope version of the book.

If you haven't already, you should pick up the 'companion volume': Corporate Shadowfiles, by Nigel Findley

This sourcebook for Shadowrun covers the roleplaying aspects of high-level corporate maneuvering: stock raiding, hostile takeovers, espionage, etc.

On the other hand, Spice and Wolf does have trade drive the plot in several places.

I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of basic economics, but following all the intricate twists in these novels frequently hurt my head. Great stories, fantastic characters, but very dense.