How to run a Trader Game

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by thrash

Merchants, by their nature, are risk-averse: danger implies unnecessary costs.

This isn't really true. Merchants (as a group) are averse to risks that don't have corresponding rewards, though specific merchants generally specialize.

Originally Posted by thrash

A campaign about successful merchants would be tedious and dull, because that's the way merchants remain successful.

That has more to do with success than with being merchants. Physical risk is generally something the wealthy figure out how to hire someone else to undergo, but taking financial risks is a normal part of business.

The obvious implication for PCs is that it's better for them to be the guys who get hired to take the risks the money man doesn't want to take. This can still be a merchant campaign, it's just that the actual buying and selling will likely be done by a patron unless buying and selling is itself hazardous (commonly because it's criminal activity).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

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.

Ah, so while there may have been a workflow problem, that wasn't the main issue.

I would have said 'maybe they're just not into adventure cargo, give them freight allotments instead', but you mention negotiating with buyers. Any insight into why they want to negotiate with buyers but don't care about deciding what it is they'll be trying to sell?


I'll note that SS2's system (which is possibly quite different on this point) only gives you at most three speculative cargo allotments to choose from at a time, and normally one or two, which is hardly a long list.

I'd also note that to my mind, choosing speculative cargo shouldn't be boring - it's essentially deciding on a mission to undertake, with the added stakes of having to pay in at the start. You don't really want to take the stuff on unless you have (or think you have) a scheme worked out for what to do with it.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I would have said 'maybe they're just not into adventure cargo, give them freight allotments instead', but you mention negotiating with buyers. Any insight into why they want to negotiate with buyers but don't care about deciding what it is they'll be trying to sell?

Because figuring out that the buyer has mob ties, or is looking for a lost child, or is a fan of an obscure artform and using this to get a better deal or get captured by mobsters or looking for a missing person or tracking down a lost archive on a derelict ship is interesting.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Because figuring out that the buyer has mob ties, or is looking for a lost child, or is a fan of an obscure artform and using this to get a better deal or get captured by mobsters or looking for a missing person or tracking down a lost archive on a derelict ship is interesting.

That sounds like they didn't really care about selling the cargo either, just about having an excuse to go on an adventure. Does that seem fair?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That sounds like they didn't really care about selling the cargo either, just about having an excuse to go on an adventure. Does that seem fair?

It seems fair to me. But I'd also note that it's true of nearly all the SF I've read about merchant starfarers. Hardly any of it gives detailed invoices of what's being bought and sold at each port!

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That sounds like they didn't really care about selling the cargo either, just about having an excuse to go on an adventure. Does that seem fair?

Yes, I think that is my point. Players, as Bill says, want to play space merchants because they want to tool around in a spaceship without a boss, and they want to have some sense of desperation rather than be wealthy tourists.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It seems fair to me. But I'd also note that it's true of nearly all the SF I've read about merchant starfarers. Hardly any of it gives detailed invoices of what's being bought and sold at each port!

Some stuff actually goes into the trade fairly seriously - though it does seem to invariably derail from that into the 'main plot' at some point.

I honestly can't think of all that much SF about actual merchant starfarers who get into repeated trouble while staying merchant starfarers rather than dedicating themselves to whatever the new plot is.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yes, I think that is my point. Players, as Bill says, want to play space merchants because they want to tool around in a spaceship without a boss, and they want to have some sense of desperation rather than be wealthy tourists.

I guess I really don't see why they wouldn't go for expressly smuggler/adventurer/criminal rather than nominally merchant play, with that goal.

I mean, wanting to play Han Solo (minus that pesky Hutt obligation perhaps) or younger Lando Calrissian is totally understandable, but they're really not merchants...

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I mean, wanting to play Han Solo (minus that pesky Hutt obligation perhaps) or younger Lando Calrissian is totally understandable, but they're really not merchants...

They think they are, and in the context of Star Wars they are. It is just that in a universe run on narrative, a merchant is either a swashbuckling scoundrel or a background character, and trade is a thing that mostly is just assumed to be happening without any examination.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

They think they are, and in the context of Star Wars they are. It is just that in a universe run on narrative, a merchant is either a swashbuckling scoundrel or a background character, and trade is a thing that mostly is just assumed to be happening without any examination.

I just can't agree with this understanding, frankly. I don't think either of them imagines themselves to be a merchant. Smuggler, scoundrel, adventurer, perhaps occasionally privateer or even pirate (probably in jest)...but merchant? No.

Merchants aren't characters in Star Wars, really, but it doesn't pretend that they are.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I guess I really don't see why they wouldn't go for expressly smuggler/adventurer/criminal rather than nominally merchant play, with that goal.

Well, because it puts you outside the law, and not everyone wants to play people whose adventures involve being outside the law. In both my campaigns where the PCs were merchants, the main point was to explore strange new worlds (or islands and waterfronts) and encounter new cultures. If they wanted to come ashore and enrich themselves without worrying about local property rights it would have been a pirate campaign, or maybe a conquistador campaign, which isn't the same thing.