The fact 200 of them will buy you 100 dtons of holovideos (without the video player nor power for it) seems to hint opposite to this :devil:.
Free Traders - stuck in star clusters?
- Thread starter nathanbibb
- Start date
The fact 200 of them will buy you 100 dtons of holovideos (without the video player nor power for it) seems to hint opposite to this :devil:.
Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
who says they are planning to use them? they could just as well sell the whole lot on to the next trader.
who says you can't run a ground based trader on a TL2 world, espically if it's on a main?
In any case it's unlikely for them to have the money to pay for it.
And, assuming MP is used, the cost it would have for them is (let's asume starport D, as any planet with better TL is unlikely to be TL2, and Lo being its only trade code) 4000 + 1000 (Lo planet) + 2000 (starport) + 200 (TL)=7200 per ton, while they're likely to have payed 5000 + 100% (TL effect, assuming TL 12 source planet, but being holovideos the most likely source is TL 13+, but let's make numbers easy) = 10000 Cr/ton.
And any buyer would count them as TL2, so also a bad busines if they intend to sell them to a Hi TL planet (where the holovideos can be played), due to TL effect...
How long will they stay in business?
Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
*shrugs*
depends how good theirfast talk skill is.
depends how good theirfast talk skill is.
Anyone have house rules regarding population and trade?
DonM has a variant rule for MT that fully changes it, and takes the Knightfall idea about selling a product being a task whose difficulty increases as the pop is reduced.
It also adresses the TL effect problem (it can be positive, none or even negative).
You can find it in through DonM signature
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Ah, the good ol' trading post. Some wiley entrepreneur opens up a little store to trade metal knives and pots to the locals in exchange for the pretty yellow nuggets and crystals they bring in, and he sees an opportunity to make some money off your vids by shipping them off to his cousin Rawley at the naval base on X, where they'll eat those things up.
As said above, with the MP rules, this trade post would count as TL2 for the TL effect on prices, making its goods worthless in TL12+ planets (in fact, from TL13 on you should pay for them to accept you cargo :devil
.
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To begin with, the locals have met galactics before1. They have some notion of how much those pretty yellow nuggets and crystals are worth.
1 Though come to think about it, why is this world not interdicted by the Scouts to protect the indigenous population from nasty exploitation?
Thirdly, how is he going to ship the stuff? It may be months before another free trader comes by and when one does, the wily captain may refuse to ship those videos as freight but instead offer to take them off the trader's hands for a really very generous sum, circumstances taken into consideration.
Any trade system needs to be able to distinguish between raw materials and manufactured goods.As said above, eith the MP rules, this trade post would count as TL2 for the TL effect on prices, making its goods worthless in TL12+ planets (in fact, from TL13 on you should pay for them to accept you cargo :devil
(Incidentally, allowing the world stuff is being transshipped on to affect the nominal TL of those goods is so egregiously bad that I lack the words to express my hatred, ridicule, and comtempt for the notion. :nonono::nonono::nonono
Hans
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Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Glass beads, if you're planning on settling down and doing some homesteading.
At which point, we're back to ninth level fighter erecting a frontier fortified manor house.
At which point, we're back to ninth level fighter erecting a frontier fortified manor house.
Fully agreed, that's why I'm in favor of DonM variant rules...
(Incidentally, allowing the world stuff is being transshipped on to affect the nominal TL of those goods is so egregiously bad that I lack the words to express my hatred, ridicule, and comtempt for the notion. :nonono::nonono::nonono
Fully agreed again, that's why I said using MP rules, as they don't allow for this transship, and that's one of the (many) reasons I hate MP rules system and I cannot understand how have they gone through so many Traveller versions (AFAIK, CT, MP, MT, TNE, T4, and I'm not sure about T5, but as I've read here, too), being, IMHO, one of the worst of the whole Traveller.
I guess it's not the first time you read this from me.
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MP = Merchant Prince. Ah, right. Took me a few minutes, not one I run into much.
(Just an aside, I'm not up on my trade, certainly not up on my MP. Most trade involves acquiring local goods and then taking them someplace else. However, if a low-tech world buys high tech stuff from offworld and then sells it to the next guy that comes along, that's not local goods, no? That's speculative trading. I wouldn't apply a local tech level DM to goods that weren't manufactured at the local tech level. If a player comes shopping for high tech gear on a low tech world, he's going to pay a premium - if he can find it - because they're having to ship it in from elsewhere. Why should some inbound trader then get a bargain for it?)
When push comes to shove, the game-master has to have a role in things. Rules are fine, and I will gladly add my voice to the call for better rules, but at some point rules become an abdication of responsibility. Your players land with full cargo at a world with 200 TL2 people. Do you follow the rules, however insane they might be, leaving your players wealthier but vaguely disturbed at the unreality of it all? Do you drop the rules and impose a stiff dose of reality - "Really? Now? You couldn't have mentioned this BEFORE we left the starport and jumped here??" Or do you exercise that magnificent piece of wetware between your ears and come up with some of the clever innovation the game is famous for?
If you are going to allow the absurdity of a TL2 200-person world hanging between two high tech trade worlds to exist in your own TU, then you had better go into the game with some idea of why 200 people are hanging out at TL2 on a trade route between two technologically advanced systems, and it had better be something a lot better than, "Oh, that's what the book says."
You're free to edit out whatever absurdities crop up, and it's not terribly hard to do that on the fly: "Oh, no, that's TL12; the library database has some errors in it."
(However, as a courtesy to players, sufficient advance notice to prevent screwing them over is always appreciated.)
If in the final analysis you allow it - "Oh, them? they're that SCA recreationist group! Strange lot." - then you had better come up with some roleplay interaction that satisfies your players' trade expectations without poking holes in their willing suspension of disbelief. That's your job, not the rulebook's. The rules are there to provide the skeleton - it's your job to flesh it out without making it look like Frankenstein's monster.
"Wait, the guy with the sword and the poofy hat is buying the whole lot?"
"Yeah!"
"But - how - with what?"
"His father's a subdirector in Hortalez. Heck, there isn't a body on this planet that couldn't buy your ship outright out of their yearly allowance."
"But what's he going to do with a hundred dTons of -"
"You don't want to know. Something to do with a red-zoned religious dictatorship somewhere. Apparently these are banned there. Anyway, the less you know, the less you can get in trouble over it."
(Just an aside, I'm not up on my trade, certainly not up on my MP. Most trade involves acquiring local goods and then taking them someplace else. However, if a low-tech world buys high tech stuff from offworld and then sells it to the next guy that comes along, that's not local goods, no? That's speculative trading. I wouldn't apply a local tech level DM to goods that weren't manufactured at the local tech level. If a player comes shopping for high tech gear on a low tech world, he's going to pay a premium - if he can find it - because they're having to ship it in from elsewhere. Why should some inbound trader then get a bargain for it?)
When push comes to shove, the game-master has to have a role in things. Rules are fine, and I will gladly add my voice to the call for better rules, but at some point rules become an abdication of responsibility. Your players land with full cargo at a world with 200 TL2 people. Do you follow the rules, however insane they might be, leaving your players wealthier but vaguely disturbed at the unreality of it all? Do you drop the rules and impose a stiff dose of reality - "Really? Now? You couldn't have mentioned this BEFORE we left the starport and jumped here??" Or do you exercise that magnificent piece of wetware between your ears and come up with some of the clever innovation the game is famous for?
If you are going to allow the absurdity of a TL2 200-person world hanging between two high tech trade worlds to exist in your own TU, then you had better go into the game with some idea of why 200 people are hanging out at TL2 on a trade route between two technologically advanced systems, and it had better be something a lot better than, "Oh, that's what the book says."
You're free to edit out whatever absurdities crop up, and it's not terribly hard to do that on the fly: "Oh, no, that's TL12; the library database has some errors in it."
(However, as a courtesy to players, sufficient advance notice to prevent screwing them over is always appreciated.)
If in the final analysis you allow it - "Oh, them? they're that SCA recreationist group! Strange lot." - then you had better come up with some roleplay interaction that satisfies your players' trade expectations without poking holes in their willing suspension of disbelief. That's your job, not the rulebook's. The rules are there to provide the skeleton - it's your job to flesh it out without making it look like Frankenstein's monster.
"Wait, the guy with the sword and the poofy hat is buying the whole lot?"
"Yeah!"
"But - how - with what?"
"His father's a subdirector in Hortalez. Heck, there isn't a body on this planet that couldn't buy your ship outright out of their yearly allowance."
"But what's he going to do with a hundred dTons of -"
"You don't want to know. Something to do with a red-zoned religious dictatorship somewhere. Apparently these are banned there. Anyway, the less you know, the less you can get in trouble over it."
tim_manley
SOC-12
I look at it this way.
A TL2 world with a pop of 200 tells me they're colonists or employees of someone. The TL2 isn't their knowledge, it's their production capability. So they may very well be in the market for luxury goods, depending.
A TL2 world with a pop of 200 tells me they're colonists or employees of someone. The TL2 isn't their knowledge, it's their production capability. So they may very well be in the market for luxury goods, depending.
But that's not the real problem. The real problem is, why are the PCs going to that world expecting to be able to sell 100dT of videos? The players are meta-gaming their little hearts out...
Tom: "Hey, guys, where shall we go to try and sell our 100dT of self-playing naughty videos?"
Dick: "Let's go to that TL2 world with the 200 people over there."
Harry: "What makes you think we can sell them there?"
Dick: "How should I know? That's up to Frank1. He's good at that sort of stuff."
...but what in Charted Space do the PCs think they're doing? Dick: "Let's go to that TL2 world with the 200 people over there."
Harry: "What makes you think we can sell them there?"
Dick: "How should I know? That's up to Frank1. He's good at that sort of stuff."
1 Frank is the referee.
I really would like a trade system that didn't require that the PCs act like complete idiots in order for the players to do the smart thing.
It's not that your scenario of the 200 bigwig scions LARPing on some trillionaire's vacation world is impossible (It's actually quite ingenious; I shall have to use it one day2). It's that something like that ought to be the most stupendous fluke that has ever happened to the PCs, something that they'll be telling their grandchildren about one day. Not the sort of thing that happens every time the PCs visit a low-population world with their hold full of goods.
2 Hopefully remembering to acknowledge who I got it from -- I wouldn't want to be accused of plagiarism.3
3 Unless you want to use it yourself. If so, just say the word and I won't touch it with a metaphorical bargepole.
Hans
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Good point. The DM needs to keep his thinking cap on, but the players are every bit as responsible for behaving with verisimilitude - and we really need rules that don't let every Tom, Dick or Harry become a Sam Walton.
I will repeat a slightly modified version of the suggestion I made in a PS earlier in this thread: How about an extra rule for the trade system (any trade system, take your pick) that restricts the amount of money you can sell anything for to 0.1% of the world's GWP (except by referee fiat if he wants to make an adventure out of it or otherwise further the plot)? That would mean that, for example, for a TL9 world with 1000 people, a sale of more than Cr10,000 or goods to that value is the most any free trader can expect to make on a single visit.
Hans
Hans
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Well for one thing we will then have a twenty page discussion about how to best calculate the GWP from UWP data, which will then have too be calculated for every world in range of the PCs to begin with and then someone will try to calculate it for every world in the Imperium and find a couple of flaws and declare the whole thing hopelessly unrealistic 
I think it is a very good solution, but I can see exceptions (to go with the prince's LARP party).
Outposts backed by a mega-corporation may have more cash on hand to purchase needed goods - you turn up with a hold full of computer parts a week after theirs has just been struck dead with a virus :devil:; colony worlds may have a huge cash reserve from their investors to purchase equipment - you turn up with a hold full of ATVs the very day they are burying the dead from the freak accident that wiped out their entire ATV fleet.
Those are only semi-serious by the way.
Maybe these exceptions can be rolled into a d66 special events table and only occur sparingly.
I think it is a very good solution, but I can see exceptions (to go with the prince's LARP party).
Outposts backed by a mega-corporation may have more cash on hand to purchase needed goods - you turn up with a hold full of computer parts a week after theirs has just been struck dead with a virus :devil:; colony worlds may have a huge cash reserve from their investors to purchase equipment - you turn up with a hold full of ATVs the very day they are burying the dead from the freak accident that wiped out their entire ATV fleet.
Those are only semi-serious by the way.
Maybe these exceptions can be rolled into a d66 special events table and only occur sparingly.
And so what? Electrons are cheap and if people want to spend their time discussing how best to calculate the GWP from UWP data, why shouldn't they spend their time discussing how best to calculate the GWP from UWP data? After all, they must enjoy doing so, at least on some level, or they wouldn't be doing it. And if some people think it's silly and tedious to have such a discussion, they'd be more than welcome to ignore it. That would be a win all around.
So what? I'm sure there are people who would enjoy making those calculations.
And...?...and then someone will try to calculate it for every world in the Imperium and find a couple of flaws and declare the whole thing hopelessly unrealistic
So can I. I merely think exceptions should be exceptions and not the rule.
And every single exception that I can think of would be a fluke, not a general condition. Even outposts and colonies with serious financial backing will tend to have budgets and earmarked funds and other restrictions on casual spending. Impulse buying for organizations tends to be out of petty cash, and petty cash is usually not very big sums. That's why it's called petty cash.
Good idea, but even more important is a paragraph explaining to inexperienced referees about exceptions and when to employ them and especially when not to.
Hans
To a free trader trying to keep in the black the difference is moot. My point was that no free trader should expect to be able to unload a cargo on a low-population world.
Hans
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