Living off making New Inventions?

[The Colonel]

Alternatively "Job: Product Development Engineer".

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Alternatively "Job: Product Development Engineer".

Yes, if you´re not willing to give them excuses to increase their wealth, just make it function like a regular job. There´s literally nothing else you can do aside of giving them independent income to represent their past inventions royalties.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Variable Costs (Discarded)
Finder’s fee (Finance/Propaganda/Merchant): 10/10/10% + w/o production line (parts/parts && labor): 20/100% || w/ production line (parts/parts && labor): 20/50%

Base Value (-6/10/14/22 to skill as appropriate)
100 || 10.000 || 1.000.000 || 100.000.000

Base Modifiers (Relative success)
Prerequisite
Roll Finance and Propaganda at the Base Value difficulty
"Success Modifier" = IF ("success by 3 or more";+1;IF ("success"; 0; IF ("failure by 3 or more";-2;-1)))
"Prerequisite" = IF ("Sucess Modifier" > -4; "Sucess Modifier"; "Failure")

If the "Prerequisite" value is "Failure", you cannot proceed to the Merchant roll.

Turnover
Roll Merchant and take the relative success/2 (drop any fractions) plus the "Prerequisite" value
5 || 7 || 10 || (unlockable by "success modifier"; lowers the maximum outcome)
15 || 20 || 30 || 50 || 70 || 100 || 150 || 200 || 300 || 500 || 700 (regular outcomes)
|| 1.000 || 1.500 (unlockable by "success modifier")

Final Outcome
Multiply "Base Value" by "Turnover"

3d6 Chances
1,62% || 5,79% || 13,04% || 23,15% || 35,49% || 48,77% || 61,65% || 73,07% || 82,48% || 89,51% || 94,29% || 97,22% || 98,84% || 99,61% || 99,92% || 100,00%

You may have some decent formulas there, but right now your first post is incomplete notes I can't understand. Actually, parts of it look like copy-pasted excel code (I understand most code, but excel is particularly hard on the eyes).

Here is what I do understand:


you have a base value determined by the complexity of what you're inventing. The more impressive the invention, the greater the base value, using powers of 100.

Then you have sales success, what you're calling "Turnover", which is generated on the size/range table. Multiple those two numbers together and you have your money.

Here's what I don't:

I'm not quite understanding how you calculate Turnover. I think what you're saying is that you roll a Finance roll that applies a modifier to the margin of success on a merchant roll. This combined number is applied to a table that gives the turnover. I think.

I'm not sure what a combined result of 0 gives for the turnover, but it may be 15, which is an odd choice.

I'm not sure why some numbers are red and some are blue. I'm particuarly confused by them turning red and then blue at the high numbers, rather than red and the bottom and blue at the top.

Also, both high and low numbers are unlocked by "success modifier"-- should one of them be unlockable by a failure modifier?

So some explanation would help.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Having your name on a patent does not mean that you actually created anything, it just is a legal fiction that owners of business use to make sure that they maintain personal control over the products or processes created by people that they hired. If I steal the design of a product from you and patent it before you, I am the owner of that idea, not you (unless you have proof that I had a legal contract with you that gave you the right to that design). I imagine that Jeff Bezos just slapped his name on products or processes created by people under contract to him.

For example, most employee contracts with IT companies nowadays state that the IT company owns any software produced by the employee, regardless of whether it was produced on company time or employee time. And IT companies are not actually that bad. I once worked for an electronics company whose employee contract claimed any product made by a former employee up to 3 years after they left the company. It is the legal processes by which the rich get richer by exploiting the power of their money over the rest of us.

"2870. (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides
that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her
rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an
invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time
without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities..."

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by ericthered

You may have some decent formulas there, but right now your first post is incomplete notes I can't understand. Actually, parts of it look like copy-pasted excel code (I understand most code, but excel is particularly hard on the eyes).

Here is what I do understand:


you have a base value determined by the complexity of what you're inventing. The more impressive the invention, the greater the base value, using powers of 100.

Then you have sales success, what you're calling "Turnover", which is generated on the size/range table. Multiple those two numbers together and you have your money.

Here's what I don't:

I'm not quite understanding how you calculate Turnover. I think what you're saying is that you roll a Finance roll that applies a modifier to the margin of success on a merchant roll. This combined number is applied to a table that gives the turnover. I think.

I'm not sure what a combined result of 0 gives for the turnover, but it may be 15, which is an odd choice.

I'm not sure why some numbers are red and some are blue. I'm particuarly confused by them turning red and then blue at the high numbers, rather than red and the bottom and blue at the top.

Also, both high and low numbers are unlocked by "success modifier"-- should one of them be unlockable by a failure modifier?

So some explanation would help.

Yes, failures in Finance (which could be substituted by personal Wealth) or Propaganda rolls which amount to higher than three automatically destroys any future perspectives, so the invention cannot even been sold using this system unless you find a way to roll Finance/Wealth and Propaganda again. You could sell the prototype in the regular ways though. Finance/Wealth and Propaganda successes by 3 or more unlock/lock the blue numbers and raise the minimum and maximum outcome of the Turnover Merchant roll, while failures lowers the maximum and minimum outcomes (unlock/lock the red numbers).

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Yes, failures in Finance (which could be substituted by personal Wealth) or Propaganda rolls which amount to higher than three automatically destroys any future perspectives, so the invention cannot even been sold using this system unless you find a way to roll Finance/Wealth and Propaganda again. You could sell the prototype in the regular ways though. Finance/Wealth and Propaganda successes by 3 or more unlock/lock the blue numbers and raise the minimum and maximum outcome of the Turnover Merchant roll, while failures lowers the maximum and minimum outcomes (unlock/lock the red numbers).

So under what conditions would I roll low red, under what conditions would I roll high red, under what conditions would I roll blue, and could you give an example of a hitting a "Locked" result?


Please give full examples. I'm trying to understand the scheme, but I need more data.

[gruundehn]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

For example, most employee contracts with IT companies nowadays state that the IT company owns any software produced by the employee, regardless of whether it was produced on company time or employee time. And IT companies are not actually that bad. I once worked for an electronics company whose employee contract claimed any product made by a former employee up to 3 years after they left the company. It is the legal processes by which the rich get richer by exploiting the power of their money over the rest of us.

In 1966 my father worked for GE. He gave me a couple of ideas to patent because ANY patent he applied for and received had to be assigned to GE. The mere fact that he was an employee of GE gave the company, according to his employment contract, full rights to anything he invented.

For the record, I did try to patent the ideas in the early 2000s but was unsuccessful.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by ericthered

So under what conditions would I roll low red, under what conditions would I roll high red, under what conditions would I roll blue, and could you give an example of a hitting a "Locked" result?


Please give full examples. I'm trying to understand the scheme, but I need more data.

I roll Finance at -22, fail for 3 or more (-2), then roll Finance again and success by 3 or more (+1). Then I roll Propaganda at -22 and fail (-1), so I need to roll again and I get to success (+0). I sum that all up (-2+1-1+0=-2) and I lower the maximum and minimum outcome by two steps. Had I failed by 3 or more again that would be (-2+1-1-2=-4) making the financial rounds and the advertising campaigns such failures that the invention is unsaleable or I lost any rights over it. Then I throw a regular roll of Merchant and starting from 7 to a maximum of 300 I get a success by 4, so I count four steps: 7 (+0), 10 (+1), 15 (+2), 20 (+3), 30 (+4). Then I multiply 30 by 100.000.000 and that´s the result, $3.000.000.000.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

I roll Finance at -22, fail for 3 or more (-2), then roll Finance again and success by 3 or more (+1). Then I roll Propaganda at -22 and fail (-1), so I need to roll again and I get to success (+0). I sum that all up (-2+1-1+0=-2) and I lower the maximum and minimum outcome by two steps. Had I failed by 3 or more again that would be (-2+1-1-2=-4) making the financial rounds and the advertising campaigns such failures that the invention is unsaleable or I lost any rights over it. Then I throw a regular roll of Merchant and starting from 7 to a maximum of 300 I get a success by 4, so I count four steps: 7 (+0), 10 (+1), 15 (+2), 20 (+3), 30 (+4). Then I multiply 30 by 100.000.000 and that´s the result, $3.000.000.000.

Huh. ok, I think I understand what you're proposing. A few questions:


Why are we taking the finance roll at -22? thats the penalty for inventing something, not financing or advertising it.



Rolling until you succeed is an interesting mechanic. I'd keep each failure at a -1 for simplicity, but that's just me.

[AlexanderHowl]

I think I would modify Finance by the company assets relative to the personal assets of the managing character. Characters would take a -1 to monthly Finance roll per doubling of their personal assets that the company assets that they manage represent when attempting to improve profitability, with the monthly profits of the company being modified by the margin of success or failure of the Finance roll times 0.1% of the company assets. A critical success would represent an increase in monthly profit equal to +2.5% of the value of the company assets while a critical failure would represent a reduction in monthly profit equal to -2.5% of the company assets. In general, a company should have a 'normal' profit equal to 0.1% of their assets per month, though this varies from industry to industry (service industries would have an adjustment of 0.2% of assets per month while utilities would have an adjustment of 0.05% of assets per month). Monthly revenues should average 10 times monthly profits, though that will also vary from industry to industry (service industries would have monthly revenues being 5 times monthly profits while utilities would have monthly revenues being 20 times monthly profits).

For example, a character with Average income at TL8 could manage $20,000 in company assets without penalty but would suffer -10 to Finance when attempting to manage $20,000,000 in company assets and -20 to Finance when attempting to manage $20,000,000,000 in company assets. Conversely, a person with Multimillionaire 2 at TL8 would only suffer a -7 to Finance when attempting to manage $20,000,000,000 in company assets. If both characters were attempting to manage a company with $20,000,000,000 in assets, had an effective Finance-25 (from assisting NPCs and from equipment), and rolled a '10', the character with Average income would decrease monthly profits from $20,000,000 to -$80,000,000 while the character with Multimillionaire 2 income would increase monthly profits from $20,000,000 to $180,000,000. While a character with Average income would only receive a salary of $2,600 per month and a character with Multimillionaire 2 would receive a salary of $26,000,000 per month, the character with Multimillionaire 2 would more than pay for themselves.