The Act of Smuggling

[Jinumon]

Hello Everyone!

Yet again I've come to call upon the community for aid. Please and thank you in advance for your answers.

So I've decided to run a Star Wars Campaign, set just after the events of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. The basic idea behind it is to bring back the mystique of the Sith and Jedi. Both have faced recent near-annihilations, and as such will be rare; something that will leave an impression.

The flavor for the campaign itself is sort of Firefly-esque, with the characters owning a ship and essentially trying to keep flying whatever way they can. I'm pretty much using the universe as a cool sandbox for the PCs to play around in.

Unfortunately, I'm notoriously stingy with Character Points, and have been trying to find a way to balance the act of starting out with a ship; giving them an equal point value of mandatory Advantages/Disadvantages, financing, etc. At best, they'll have to gross about G$170,000 a month, and could need as much as G$300,000.

Which finally brings me to my point. I assume that, sooner or later, the characters will turn to illicit activities in an attempt to make cash. I have no problem with this, as it should make for some interesting situations. However, there don't seem to be any rules for pricing smuggled goods or passengers (aside from Speculative Trade). Say some Hutts want them to smuggle illegal stims in from the Outer Rim. The Hutts own the stims, but the players are responsible for avoiding the law, getting past customs, etc. It's definitely not Speculative Trade, but it's also a helluva lot more risky (and thus lucrative) than Shipping Freight. I've looked in Spaceships 1-3 (Basic, plus Merchants and Piracy), Ultratech, and the Basic Set, but I can't seem to find anything.

What I'm looking for are solutions, both RaW and suggested, and would be eternally grateful for anyone who could help me out.

Jinumon

PS: If they buy the ship used, it's cheaper, but requires 1% of it's cost in maintenance per month. The ship has a mechanic, though, and I'm wondering how much that could potentially cut down on costs (some base percentage modified by margin of success/failure on Mechanic rolls?)

Originally Posted by thrash

Spaceships 2 discusses Low-Legality goods in the box on p. 39, illegal goods as a complication on p. 42.

It only lists rules for Speculative Trade, however, that is receiving a penalty for looking for a buyer but a bonus on the negotiation process. It says for Freight you assume the shipper already arranged bribes, alibis, etc. But I don't think that's always realistic, and there are plenty of times that smugglers charge a risk premium. The big question is: how big is that premium?

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

This, I think is entirely subjective. Let the players charge what they want.

I get that and can respect it. Granted, plenty of negotiation is going to be happening. It's just that as the GM playing the potential client, shouldn't I have something to go off of to say whether or not what the players are asking is ridiculously over- or under- priced?

I could try figuring out average profit margins for the owners of the goods, and then give the players something of a finders fee. Thus, if they're delivering stims to a stims-starved world, and the Hutt selling them will be making more money as a result, their premium will be bigger.

What percentage is standard for a finder's fee? And should smuggling be more or less than a finder's fee?

A potential system I worked out for anyone else who had similar questions.

So let's return to the hypothetical situation where a Hutt wants the players to smuggle some illegal stims.

First, let's say that Gihrada the Hutt wants them to smuggle 1 ton of the stuff. It's a relatively small ship, and he doesn't want to risk losing more of it if his smugglers are caught. Pharmaceuticals are valued at G$1,000,000 per ton, and stims are pretty much pharmaceuticals. Now, Gihrada has been in the stim business a long time, and he creates his own product with an assembly line of chemists, indentured laborers, and slaves. As such, we'll allow him a bit of a discount from the usual 50% cost to create a product, down to 40%. Gihrada creates a single ton of illegal stims with a G$400,000 investment. The Hutt wants the players to deliver these stims to the planet of Corellia, a Rich, Industrial world on the Inner Rim. There, he has a buyer lined up, ready to take it off his hands for 210% it's market value (100% standard, +3 for Industrial, +4 for Rich, +4 for Low Legality on the Actual Price Table in Spaceships 2), or G$2,100,000. His net profit on this venture is G$1,700,000, nothing to scoff at. And now he just needs some people to get it there. Gihrada offers 20% his profit margin to someone who can transport it safely, or G$340,000. A victory in a Quick Contest of Merchant on the part of the players raises it to G$374,000, and Gihrada assures them that if those stims never reach Corellia, they had better hope they don't either.

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

If the smuggler isn't involved in the production and sale of the product, then there isn't any reason for them to either know what they're carrying, nor to charge based on the potential profit of the product.

I don't know. There are certainly times when the smugglers aren't aware of what their smuggling, but there are also plenty of times where they ask because they want to know exactly how much trouble their likely to run into. Usually if it's a "no questions asked" kind of job, theirs an additional fee for the smuggler's cooperation. But I would say that a fair portion, even a majority of the time, they do know what they're hauling.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Sounds pretty good, although 20% as an initial offer seems a little high.

Also, after thinking about it, I figured I agree. I think the standard rate should be about 15%, adjusted by 1% x Margin of Victory/Failure. If you were to role-play it, they'd probably make an initial offer of about 10% (everyone low-balls), and after a good dickering section you'd end up with the 15 +/- Margin amount. I mean, you'd have to screw up pretty bad (failure by 5+) to actually cause them to lower their original offer (via gratuitous insult or idiocy). The final result would be somewhere between 5-25% of the profit margin.

Yet another option.

Debates about the logistics and protocol of smuggling aside, I'm getting at least a fair number of folks who are saying that it matters less about what you're smuggling, and more about where, and the legality in that region. With that in mind, here's another possible take on risk premiums for smuggling.

(5 - LC) x (Highest CR on route) x G$5,000 + Expenses

Granted, this is going to make it so that smuggling certain substances or to certain places simply isn't worth the cost, but I suppose that isn't necessarily unrealistic. Additionally, you simply can't smuggle things to an area with a CR 0 (anarchy), because no one is going to say "Hey, that's not allowed here!" Although, if it truly is a lawless, violent place, you could simply treat it as freight with additional hazard pay.

Once again, what do you think of the formula? Should the price be raised or lowered? An exponent used in place of simply multipliers?

EDIT: Quoting numerous later posts so it's easier to see the back and forth.