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What's an Imperial baronial title worth?

R

rancke

Absent Friend
So you've come into possession of a very valuable piece of jewellery that used to belong to the Emperor (or rather, one of his predecessors). It is known (because of earlier occasions) that returning this item to the Iridium Throne will result in the Emperor conferring an honor barony on the person who returns it. Assuming you want to sell it to some commoner billionaire with social ambitions, what sort of sum would you expect to be able to get for it?

(Note: For historical reasons there is no taint of illegality to selling the item. We're talking a perfectly legal transaction here; no one can legitimately confiscate the item from you or from whoever buys it).


Hans
 
A lot!

This billionaire is going to get elevated. Depends on what I need. Some connections, a few MegaCredits worth of some nice toys for me and the crew. Pay off my starship which is pretty cheap to a dude with GigaCredits hanging around in books.

TAS Membership or Fellowship could be awarded. A knighthood wouldn't be out of order. A job or staff position might be cool.

That is just some off the top of my head.
 
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When considering how much you can get for it, you might want to consider how much it would cost for a billionaire to hire a team to steal it from you. That probably sets the upper limit on what you can get - if you ask more than that, he'd hire the team.

So, if you're clever and have good resources, and it would cost him more to hire a really top team to get at it (or you), you can ask more. But if you're Joe-the-Steward hiding it under your mattress aboard ship, you might want to restrain your greed a bit in the interest of being able to survive to spend the money.

Billionaires tend to be somewhat less endowed with scruples than the rest of us - and given the level of scruples in the AVERAGE traveller character ...
 
The value of the Barony depends on how strong your feudal system is. If its like the current British system than I would say maybe the TAS membership or good political or professional employment. If we are talking 1645-1945 British than ship pay off or small estate might be in oder. Before this than a Knighthood and a colony isnt out of the question.

In my game one of the players did muster out as a baron. He was chief of Intelligence for the 208 fleet of Five Sisters. He was cashiered out for mounting a rescue effort of his agents against the fleet Admiral. We decided the Barony was in Title only for his services to the Fleet but came with no other benefits. I play a weak feudal system so this about right.

Ranke i would say a campaign where orders and Domains are important like the early Imperuim with the Moot I would say your looking at British 1648-1945 and the person. will get an award like a small estate and title. Another possibility would be a position at court.

To players be warned the stronger the feudal system the more obligations the players will have if given a title. By using it as a a recognition my player is still free to act on his own but from time to time pull some strings at parties and with the ladies.
 
As usual, unless I specifically says otherwise I'm talking about our common frame of reference, the OTU. Not my TU (although I try to keep MTU as close to the OTU as I find practical) and not anybody else's TU, but the OTU.

(And if I did want to talk about my TU, I'd post in the IMTU forum).

So I'm talking about the OTU of the Classic Era.

As for specifics:

The title is an honor title, not a high title. The recipient gets a vote in the Moot and access to Imperial noble society, that's all.

Prudent players would certainly keep the possibility of foul play in mind when trying to peddle something like this, but what I'm trying to get a feel for is what people would consider the fair market value. Assume an honest buyer and/or adequate precautions.

Commoner billionaires can't bestow baronetcies or knighthoods, and ignoring the possibility of blackballing, a TAS membership is just another name for one million CrImp.


Hans
 
Yeah, right...

Rancke2 said:
/ka-snips/

Commoner billionaires can't bestow baronetcies or knighthoods, and ignoring the possibility of blackballing, a TAS membership is just another name for one million CrImp.

Hans
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Yeah, but a newly minted Baron of the Imperium could sure put in a good word at the Chapter House or before the Vote. I mean, you did get them an elevation. Honor or not it is still a Barony and now they have income, a vote and access to the Moot, blah, blah.

If the billionaire is going to keep pursuing the Noble Career they can for sure start moving and shaking on your behalf. Especially if it puts them in a position of being your Patron. And they know you can be trusted and can get things done and don't get greedy.

So, I am lobbying for goodies. And its not like I can't just take the damned thing myself. I mean it's not like I don't have insurance on it and perhaps a few contingencies as well. While Cleon liked to play that honorable noble stuff, we all know he had some of the opposition snuffed.

So, I will be polite but firm. Don't play me and I won't play you. Win-win for everybody.
 
More than a TAS membership, but less than a Yacht... 5 to 20 million would feel about right to me. Lower end with perks if he sees value in retaining the group... (i.e. 'I offer you a million each plus unlimited use of my yacht and all expenses for the next three years, for perhaps the occasional favor... and I can personally introduce you to some people...').

Assuming the social billionaire didn't inherit, and has other ambitions as well, he won't just part with X% of his wealth.

He knows, credit wise, he can give you more than it would confer to you (his edge) - but he wants the status (party's edge). He can easily buy a TAS membership and access to parties and such to rub elbows, but to be part of 'society' he needs nobility.

In that light, he won't be el cheapo, because he wants 'legitimacy'. Whether he was a true patron, or just bought the artifact, he wants to be able to state something like - 'Indeed, it did take me some deal of time and personal expense to get just the right team together to find the trinket, but such was a paltry expense to give the Emperor such pleasure...'
 
Rancke2 said:
The title is an honor title, not a high title. The recipient gets a vote in the Moot and access to Imperial noble society, that's all.

Hans
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If this guy is that rich, he will be playing in the higher social classes of the Imperium already. He will be doing deals with the local hereditory and honour knights, barons, counts and duke already.

So what does the Honor title really get him? It's being treated as an equal, not just as a rich commoner. The differenece between a Yeoman and a Gentalman. And it gives him the opotunity to go for a heriditory title far more easily. (He gets a bit of land to adminster and develop as well but that's only to show that he is playing the game properly). It means that 4 parsecs over in the next subsector their Count will know who he is, will give him an audiance and listen. If he was just a rich commoner he could be literally anyone and might not get an audinace.

So what's it worth? In a strickly social hieracical system where status matters? Everything.

The vote in the Moot doesn't mean a thing, it's the fact that he *has* a vote in the Moot that means everything.

What's that worth finacially to your Billionare? HUGE, HUGE, amounts, lots and lots of cash. How much would he be willing to pay for it?

There will be a finacial difference between buying it and stealing it. You would pay more to buy it than you would to steal it.

From an RPG prospective, it's probably worth enough money so that the party don't really need to worry about paying to travell any more, so they can just get on with the adventures. So what's that?

A starship?
Their morguage on their starship payed off?
A better starship?

Or something your players want but can't achieve?

An enemy to disapear perhaps?

Best regards,

Ewan
 
E.D.Quibell said:
If this guy is that rich, he will be playing in the higher social classes of the Imperium already. He will be doing deals with the local hereditory and honour knights, barons, counts and duke already.
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High-population worlds would have quite a few billionaires. I'd say that any Imperial knights and peers he interacted with would be in the context of his parochial High Society (to which local Imperial nobles would automatically have entry). This would include the local count and, if the world was a subsector capital, the local duke, but I wouldn't include the rest of the Imperial nobility.

Apart from that, I agree with what you say.


Hans
 
Well, I'm not that great at estimating the worth of something, but I'll give it a shot. He's a billionaire, but he won't want to spend all his money on it. Definitely in the millions, but beyond that, well, it's outside my range of knowledge, but I'd say thirty at the high end, for cash, but maybe more if he's paying them in the form of a ship or whatever. Anything less than five million is definitely too little, I think. If I were a player, I'd find less than five million to be too little, for sure, and I think I'd expect at least ten. (Well, maybe not expect, but that's what I think I would accept as reasonable. Lower I think only makes sense if you're trying to avoid making them too rich.)
 
There are two stages to this as others have suggested.

Firstly, in order to determine its monetary value, you need to determine its societal value. What use is an ‘honour barony’? presumably there are no estates attached so it won’t generate a direct income, but will it generate an indirect income, say in bribes for lobbying, or will it open doors/save money in the manner of a TAS membership? If so, how much will it generate? Is it better or worse than TAS for benefits?
Or, is it just a certificate you can hang on your wall and show off boringly when you have guests?

Secondly, once you have an idea of its societal value, you need to compare the social benefits it provides with the benefit of something similar - given the choice, what would the average recipient prefer? a barony or a yacht? A barony or a battlecruiser, a barony or a new turret for their Free Trader?
What would be the cost of obtaining similar benefits by other means?

I'm not overly familiar with the workings of the OTU, especially not at nobility level, so I can't supply a direct answer, but these are the questions you need to be asking in order to fix a price.
 
Icosahedron said:
Firstly, in order to determine its monetary value, you need to determine its societal value...

Secondly, once you have an idea of its societal value, you need to compare the social benefits it provides with the benefit of something similar - given the choice, what would the average recipient prefer?...

I'm not overly familiar with the workings of the OTU, especially not at nobility level, so I can't supply a direct answer, but these are the questions you need to be asking in order to fix a price.
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If answering those questions was easy, I wouldn't have a problem. But they are not, so instead I'm asking other people about their opinion, hoping I might arrive at some sort of answer that would seem reasonable to the average Traveller fan.

Let me try to put it this way: If you were reading an adventure and it said that selling this item would earn the PCs a thousand credits, you would probably think it was too niggardly. If it said that they'd get a million trillion credits, you'd probably think that sounded a bit much. So what sum of money would not break your belief suspenders?


Hans
 
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I'd say 1 to 2 MCr cash plus around ten times that in stock or other hard assets. The reason being that billionaires would normally have most of their assets tied up in long term investments and comparably far less in readily available liquid assets. It could also benefit both parties if the stock was in a company controlled by the billionaire.
 
Definitely think part of the compensation would be in non-monetary value: free gas at the starport fuel concessions he owns, free legal advice from his retained lawyers (that could come in REAL handy to players!), maybe just able to call on the general resources of his corp or whatnot. You lay that alongside a cash value of about 10MCr, and it would seem "right" to me.
 
It's worth more than the time and cost to go to Capitol and give it to the Emperor yourself.

Which puts a floor on the price in the 1MCr range.

It'll depend on the sort of reputation the billionaire buyer has also.
If he's generally respectable and respected, then less cash and more non-cash benefits (like him owing you a colossal favour).
On the other hand, if he's generally considered to be somewhat of a boorish ass, then up the price. A lot.

If I were one of the players, I'd be thinking in terms of getting the ship paid off (if applicable) plus a couple million in cash for the latter case, or just the couple million plus the unspecified favor in the former case.

Of course, I'm not terribly greedy, myself. So YMMV.
 
OK, let me try to get at it yet another way. Westerbys, the most prestigious auction house on Mora, lists one of these objects for sale at its next auction[*], with enough lead time for people as far away as Deneb and Glisten to hear about it in time to get agents or instructions sent to Mora before the auction.

What sort of sum would you think the object might be sold for?

[*] Westerbys does not take favors or IOUs or years' supply of starship fuel. They take credits.​


Hans
 
Why wouldn't Strephon decide to accept it as a "gift" (if they don't want to be permanent residents on the gash) or buy it back himself?
 
Dragoner said:
Why wouldn't Strephon decide to accept it as a "gift" (if they don't want to be permanent residents on the gash) or buy it back himself?
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Tradition. These are the Faberge egg cognates that I've been working on (Keramish globes). They were made for Empress Nicholle and Cleon IV before the Civil War. During the Civil War, various more or less legitimate emperors sold off many of them. After the war, Arbellatra claimed ownership of all lost Keramish globes but because of the legal mess and because some of the globes were in the possession of powerful nobles (archdukes and dukes), she also established a policy of not enforcing the claim. Because of this the emperors do not, as a matter of principle, buy the globes, but neither do they repossess them. They do, however, tend to be quite generous when they express their thanks for having one returned to them.

Incidentally, I've been trying to come up with various different examples of how that gratitude has been expressed. There's the baronial titles, and I think one younger archducal son has had a death sentence commuted to exile. I've also tried to come up with some pet ducal projects that has received Imperial patronage they wouldn't otherwise have gotten, but I haven't come up with anything good in that line.


Hans
 
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Rancke2 said:
OK, let me try to get at it yet another way. Westerbys, the most prestigious auction house on Mora, lists one of these objects for sale at its next auction[*], with enough lead time for people as far away as Deneb and Glisten to hear about it in time to get agents or instructions sent to Mora before the auction.

What sort of sum would you think the object might be sold for?

[*] Westerbys does not take favors or IOUs or years' supply of starship fuel. They take credits.​


Hans
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Well, a Baron isn't as high in the Noble hierarchy as a Duke and a Duke owns a world, so it's really probably only worth the fief of land that the Baron would be entitled to. Maybe a continent or a small moon or asteroid - how much is that worth? And it also depends on what is on that land - orchards, gold, radioactives, The Spice!, an animal preserve, a prison, lanthanum mines, a great city, farmland?

But there's also the leadership/respect/political aspect of the title. It's not something you can put a price on, I think. Power hungry people or MegaCorps might have an overblown idea of the importance of the title.

I bet Westerbys would take the starship fuel - it's a commodity they could auction off. They had better have the best security. What Pirate wouldn't go for the chance to be 'legit'?

Money? How many starships can you bring to bear to protect it might be the more accurate number you're looking for.

I don't think you can come up with a definitive price. It could be almost worthless to once person and priceless to another. Too many variables. A little more background on what fief the Barony entitles would give you a better picture. If there's no fief, then just the political aspect is highly variable.

I think you might have just created the 'Maltese Falcon' of Traveller, tho.
 
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