market rules

Devil_Dante · 02-07-2016, 04:28 PM

ehy there, i was thinking about the finance skill
it seems to be very powerfull, and probabily unbalanced if you don t rule it good: play in wallstreet can give you a lot of $, especially if the player starts with a good wealth.
i was looking some examples of finance play, but didn t find anything
so, has anybody used it in his campaign for a TL8+?
how do you balance it?

Terwin · 02-08-2016, 02:08 PM

If you are trying to make a lot of money on the market, you will be competing against every day-trader and most stock-brokers out there.
Unless you have world-class skills combined with luck or super luck, others will roll better than you do almost all of the time.

Assuming 100K day-traders(a very low estimate for just the US from what I can tell), that gives 10,000/216 -> ~46 per day rolling 3's, and ~140 rolling 4's
Assuming an average professional skill of 12 and say 1 in 10 is higher skilled gives 3 rolled against a 13 half the time and 3 rolled against a 14 or better half the time. The 4's will usually be against a skill of 14, with the occasional 15.

This indicates that if you can reliably get a MOS of 10+ and it is a pure skill mechanic, you will win roughly half the time with a margin of victory of 1.

That is, of course, assuming an even playing field.
Currently I would not consider this to be the case.
There are High Frequency Trading systems where having a fiber optic cable connection one foot shorter than their competitor provides a sought-after edge. (Sounds like a +4 for best technology available to me)
These are generally owned by major trading companies employing hundreds, perhaps thousands of traders and huge research staffs trying to get any other edge they can manage(complementary skill bonuses here, I would think)

At this point you are probably looking at needing a MOS of 20+ to reliably compete, more if the 'world class talent' employed at these large companies might have skills over 20 themselves.

Finally, if you manage to game their systems and actually make money off of these organizations, they can go to the federal regulators and not only roll-back all those transactions, but charge you with a crime as well.

I have difficulty seeing how any character with skill levels similar to those that exist elsewhere in the game world could readily compete.
Even a PC with skills ~5 levels higher than the second most skilled in the world would need super-luck to stand any real chance of coming out ahead against these organizations on a regular basis(not accounting for their demonstrated willingness to throw said PC in jail of course).

Anaraxes · 02-08-2016, 02:45 PM

Finance isn't day-trading. (Neither is most Wall Street investment, for that matter.) The skill description:

Quote:

This is the skill of managing money. It is a practical application of Economics (p. 189), much as Engineer skill is a practical application of Physics. A successful skill roll lets you broker a financial deal, raise capital for a new corporation, balance a budget, etc.

What you're discussing is Gambling (Wall Street). And there, you're looking at Market Analysis rather than Finance.

Finance would qualify you for a job. The character's concept and Wealth level will influence whether that's a CPA scraping by doing filling out other people's tax forms, a comptroller in a small company, or a glad-handing Wall Street hedge fund manager.

If the game involves life in a startup, it might come up (raise capital, etc) in much the same way as a game involving life in a starship will need Engineering rolls to keep the plot, I mean ship, moving. Murder hobos sometimes like to invest their ill-gotten gains in more respectable businesses. It will occasionally fill in for or complement social skills when you need to make contact with another high finance type.

For adventuring purposes, you might also use it as forensic accounting, to help "follow the money" to find the bad guys or figure out what they're up to. (In typical GURPS fashion, skills are finely grained and somewhat overlapping; see the Accounting skill, which has a default from Finance.) Bold explorers like Sir Francis Drake might use the skill to fund their expeditions. On the shady side, you can launder money for the Organization, or run a long con, Bernie Madoff style.

The Skill of the Week series discussed Finance in this thread.

02-07-2016, 04:28 PM	#1
Devil_Dante Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: Italy, Rome	market rules ehy there, i was thinking about the finance skill it seems to be very powerfull, and probabily unbalanced if you don t rule it good: play in wallstreet can give you a lot of $, especially if the player starts with a good wealth. i was looking some examples of finance play, but didn t find anything so, has anybody used it in his campaign for a TL8+? how do you balance it?

02-08-2016, 02:08 PM	#2
Terwin Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Plugerville	Re: market rules If you are trying to make a lot of money on the market, you will be competing against every day-trader and most stock-brokers out there. Unless you have world-class skills combined with luck or super luck, others will roll better than you do almost all of the time. Assuming 100K day-traders(a very low estimate for just the US from what I can tell), that gives 10,000/216 -> ~46 per day rolling 3's, and ~140 rolling 4's Assuming an average professional skill of 12 and say 1 in 10 is higher skilled gives 3 rolled against a 13 half the time and 3 rolled against a 14 or better half the time. The 4's will usually be against a skill of 14, with the occasional 15. This indicates that if you can reliably get a MOS of 10+ and it is a pure skill mechanic, you will win roughly half the time with a margin of victory of 1. That is, of course, assuming an even playing field. Currently I would not consider this to be the case. There are High Frequency Trading systems where having a fiber optic cable connection one foot shorter than their competitor provides a sought-after edge. (Sounds like a +4 for best technology available to me) These are generally owned by major trading companies employing hundreds, perhaps thousands of traders and huge research staffs trying to get any other edge they can manage(complementary skill bonuses here, I would think) At this point you are probably looking at needing a MOS of 20+ to reliably compete, more if the 'world class talent' employed at these large companies might have skills over 20 themselves. Finally, if you manage to game their systems and actually make money off of these organizations, they can go to the federal regulators and not only roll-back all those transactions, but charge you with a crime as well. I have difficulty seeing how any character with skill levels similar to those that exist elsewhere in the game world could readily compete. Even a PC with skills ~5 levels higher than the second most skilled in the world would need super-luck to stand any real chance of coming out ahead against these organizations on a regular basis(not accounting for their demonstrated willingness to throw said PC in jail of course).