Game with merchant success?

[Leitz]

One of the biggest thrills I've had with Traveller over the years is the ability to become wildly rich using the merchanting rules. Of course, wildly rich has it's own challenges. Sadly, I've only gotten good math in solo-games, I've yet to find a group game where we could get enough money to buy a ship.

Since one of the things I'd like to play is the entrepreneur becoming a mega-corporation I'm gathering information and opportunities on that. Has anyone ever played a game where you earned really good money doing the merchant thing? What were some of the challenges you had afterwards? What were some of the highlights?

This is a corollary to playing Nobles, so I'd love to hear about those sorts of games as well!

Leitz

 

[ravells]

Ha! We are playing a game at the moment where buying and selling are being subordinated to piracy as the latter is far more lucrative!

 

[Leitz]

Nothing against piracy, mind you, and that has it's own business side. What do you do with a few thousand dtonnes of star ship laying around?

Since i like old architecture and at least like the idea of fixing things, I enjoy the thought of finding a large star ship and refurbishing it. Expensive as all get out, but a challenge. Read a Star Fighter paperback, or something like that, and they did that very thing.

 

[Riik O'Shae]

The players IMTG gained a starship (?) in a system wide lottery...

Riik

 

[Putraack]

This is why one of my favorite recurring elements in Freelance Traveller has been the "how to start the characters with a ship" or "... with almost a ship."

 

[dswartz]

I've been running a Merchant campaign (MgT), where the players are doing speculative trading. Have they made good money? They will purchase radioactives at 25% of base and sell them at 400% of base at times. The captain of the ship won't allow grenades or illegal goods aboard. Grenades were banned after a character, "Boomer," was extruded (like pasta) through the exterior hull of a lab ship because of his HEAP grenades.

Challenges:
(1) The sheer number of dice to be rolled. Overcome by a computer program (which still has much work to do before it can be called ready. Which reminds me -- Eliminate "tax-free weekend" soon!)
(2) How to drain the coffers... The fastest is piracy (watch the group lose the M-drive in combat; watch the pirate's ship suffer "multiple vector syndrome" because of multiple shots (5-6 are common) to the M-drive as well as other locations). I also had a character (since retired) that decided he had so much money that he put in a wall of gold in his stateroom, another of platinum, a third was tiled in with gemstone tiles. The rumors kept pirates after this ship (The entire ship was plated with ______) as well as overcharging the character for the material. The player (same one) also bought plenty of robots which became self-aware.
(3) How to keep the players interested. Done by running a change-of-pace scenario or two. The difficulty here is that this group will not break the law, though they might bend it if there is a legitimate gray area I can find for them.

 

[Kilgs]

Those Merchant Prince Mongoose rules make trading seem like a breeze. Almost no risk and chance for insane profit!

I spent some time going over the Merchant Company rules and they look pretty interesting. It might be neat to set something like that up. If you're looking at Merchant games, I recommend them for background activities.

 

[Carlobrand]

Ha! We are playing a game at the moment where buying and selling are being subordinated to piracy as the latter is far more lucrative!

Piracy lucrative? You're finding markets for your loot without attracting Imperial attention, or attention from organized crime groups trying to take over your action? You can manage repairs without some lowly tech selling you out for the reward? You haven't had an unlucky roll leave you stranded in a crippled ship? Your game master is certainly ... er ... generous.

I've been running a Merchant campaign (MgT), where the players are doing speculative trading. Have they made good money? They will purchase radioactives at 25% of base and sell them at 400% of base at times. The captain of the ship won't allow grenades or illegal goods aboard. Grenades were banned after a character, "Boomer," was extruded (like pasta) through the exterior hull of a lab ship because of his HEAP grenades.

Challenges:
(1) The sheer number of dice to be rolled. Overcome by a computer program (which still has much work to do before it can be called ready. Which reminds me -- Eliminate "tax-free weekend" soon!)
(2) How to drain the coffers... The fastest is piracy (watch the group lose the M-drive in combat; watch the pirate's ship suffer "multiple vector syndrome" because of multiple shots (5-6 are common) to the M-drive as well as other locations). I also had a character (since retired) that decided he had so much money that he put in a wall of gold in his stateroom, another of platinum, a third was tiled in with gemstone tiles. The rumors kept pirates after this ship (The entire ship was plated with ______) as well as overcharging the character for the material. The player (same one) also bought plenty of robots which became self-aware.

And here is one who is somewhat less generous - and more common: trying to keep the game interesting while struggling to keep that wealth-producing game mechanic from wrecking his game while still letting his players benefit from it. Though, apparently, he's kind enough not to let his players suffer the fate that statistics lays on his pirates.

 

[kuros]

Tabletop, it is only me that wants to do the money-scrubbing thing, so the GM handles that with me outside of the normal game session by email. During the game, my character occasionally will "have that meeting we talked about," and then at some point during the game all the other PCs will be broke, and up in arms about some moral injustice that they are too cash poor to do anything about, which is the point at which someone will notice that my character happens to own a major trading concern by now.

Typically, every attempt to make a profit gets hammered in the long run by unseen costs and unforeseen expenses. The biggest one of these is usually government taxes (at which point I complain that the GM is being WAY too much like my real life).

 

[Leitz]

Typically, every attempt to make a profit gets hammered in the long run by unseen costs and unforeseen expenses. The biggest one of these is usually government taxes (at which point I complain that the GM is being WAY too much like my real life).

If the games are like real life, why game? I don't see what's wrong with insane profit if the game continues on; there are challenges even for the rich, aren't there?

Actually, the MgT core rules are pretty good for cash flow but the CT rules were even more so, IIRC.

 

[RandyB]

If the games are like real life, why game? I don't see what's wrong with insane profit if the game continues on; there are challenges even for the rich, aren't there?

If the GM is up to challenging the PCs strengths instead of having to exploit their weaknesses by default, sure.

 

[Leitz]

If the GM is up to challenging the PCs strengths instead of having to exploit their weaknesses by default, sure.

If the players aren't pushing their strengths, they have other issues. As a player I should have a deep enough character that the DM has lots of hooks into him. For example, in one game my character wanted to refit the ship so they could explore several planets nearby that didn't have recorded contact yet. I would have needed double digit MCr up front for a chance at many more, or a chance at total loss. In addition to the money it would have required a lot of deals and politics, as well as getting the crew to work together and adding staff.

Just because my character had access to a couple MCr didn't mean any of it hung around for long...