Hi everyone, this is my first time posting here and I didn't see many topics about trade in Edge of the Empire, if there are relevant topics I would be happy to read them.

I am the GM of a EotE campaing and it is the first experience that the players and I have had with EotE. We have been playing for a little over month and the campaign has been primarily focused on learning the rules while the group evades Imperials and bounty hunters and researches ancient Jedi secrets. Last session the group decided they wanted to take on some trading contracts. I don't have any experience running trade in an RPG and am looking for suggestions on how to make it interesting and balanced for the players.

The group's initial contract is a quick in system trade run for a few thousand credits and my thoughts are to get them into a space battle with a few pirate ships before they are done. From the talk of the last session it sounds like they want to take on bigger jobs and I am not sure how to balance them. Ship encumberance is definately going to matter a lot now and I think I should start focusing on fuel, food and travel time mechanics, but beyond that I am not sure how to properly balance it or make it challenging for players. I don't want trade to devolve into a free money system and I don't want to throw pirates at them every time they make a hyperspace jump. Does anyone have advice on how I can make trade missions challenging and fun for my players?

To be honest I don't focus on trade at all. I simply assume that between the "jobs" featured in the game the PCs take on blue milk runs that pay the bills for the ship maintenance, food, fuel etc. and leave it at that. Basically, they can break even on the regular risk-free jobs, all spending cash and cash for upgrading the starship, weapons, personal gear and so on must be earned in play.

Too much realism regarding trading, food, fuel etc. is just not the Star Wars me and my players know and love!

What i did in a similar situation (not star wars mind you) was ask for a skill test to judge the outcome of the mundane job and i only rp critical fails or sucesses, otherwise i would just tell them how much they made our lost based on the test result and move on.

I know a few groups in the past loved to haul cargo solely for the randomness it provided, but from my experience, the majority of players are out looking at trading as a legitimate reason to go to {LOCATION} or as a means of adding that extra pay to make the trip that much better.

My current group, for example, just got their ship out of impound, and are debating on where they want to go based on their goals, and are looking for legitimate cargoes to carry to make that trip worthwhile.

But for what you are looking at, here's a few things to consider if the players want to play Star Traders and not Star Wars:

1) Costs. Yes, hauling cargo can make money, but you are looking at spending money on fuel, docking fees, necessary repairs (d6 and d20 both had overhauls that "needed" to be done), and whatever else comes up.

2) Bureaucracy. Remember that the Empire (and the Republic before it) is a giant bureaucracy. With that in mind, look at some real world examples for transporting goods. Anyone, business or otherwise, will be looking at licenses, tariffs, and other fees just to legally transport the goods.

As my own example: I spent a year living in Japan. Every package I mailed back to the U.S. had to be listed as "gifts," even if I was transporting my own textbooks, to show that I wasn't sending things back for sale purposes and possibly pay fees on it.

3) Competition. Sometimes, a business doesn't like the competition, and will do whatever they can to shut them down. This can be legal ways, such as outdoing or buying them out, but this can also include underhanded work, such as hiring pirate crews, delivering the goods before the party can arrive, simple sabotage or much, much worse. Be creative!

4) Finding the Buyer: Unless you are hired to haul cargo from Point A and bring it to Point B, the players will be buying cargo and then trying to sell that cargo. With the rules in the core book, they'll need a pretty big discount if they plan on making a profit.

Just a few things to keep in mind as you enter the wide world of Star Traders!

As with so many things, the TV show "Firefly" provides a great model here. The crew of the ship Serenity pay for their living by hauling cargo from one place to another.

The show gives some great examples of the variety of cargo you could haul and the various ways they can cause trouble.

From hauling a cargo of live cattle (herding nerf, eopies, tauntauns, whatever) to medical supplies that turn out to be stolen from people who really need them to live sapient beings, there are some great episodes to get ideas from.

My players are playing it safe doing Drop point shipments, i really hate the number crunching and just say X number of containers of product Z with a Y credit profit per crate. That includes docking fee's, refuel and replenish.

They don't realise that all they need is one bad shipment, and they are screwed

If you can get it there are a couple books from WEG that might helpful.
Galaxy guide 6 Tramp Freighter
Galaxy guide 9 Fragments from the Rim

Platts smugglers guide
Criminal organizations

Hi, first of all welcome.

The previous posts have really said it all, mostly, so I can only add very little. It depends on how much you want the PCs involved in the whole affair. The short version is to let them roll dice and be done. Then you can roleplay out a couple of things, but still only look at the margin they're making. At the complicated end they start with opportunities and then the initial gross margin is reduced by duties, tariffs, taxes, fees and overhead costs.

If you can get your hands on one, Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters [(1990) WEG40027 ISBN 0-87431-146-2] is a fantastic source, and I do hope that the Smugglers book that needs to come out eventually will offer a similar level detail on life in the shipping lanes.

Ask your players how much detail they want or maybe start small and then, if the players like it, increase complexity. Personally, I would always make them pay at least some overhead costs (in Shadowrun it is "standard of living"), to make them look for work.

Like any business, trade is not profitable if it's not risky, so if you go for simple set-ups they should earn maybe 5% net margin on their own operating costs. If they take more risk (business or legal or violent) then they can go up to 20%, but you don't want them to be able to afford a new starship every year of game time. And the trouble that comes with a 20% net margin is great for roleplaying.

Also there was a free PDF from WotC for the d20 games on trading... it was fairly detailed, and other than some %-ile rolls I don't recall anything too d20 system specific in it.

A quick search turned up this: http://jediskill.free.fr/jdr/dlsw/web_enhance/HEROS_GUIDE_WE2.pdf

Also there was a free PDF from WotC for the d20 games on trading... it was fairly detailed, and other than some %-ile rolls I don't recall anything too d20 system specific in it.

A quick search turned up this: http://jediskill.free.fr/jdr/dlsw/web_enhance/HEROS_GUIDE_WE2.pdf

I was looking for a link to share with that document earlier but didn't have much luck (work computers, bah!). I will say that it is exceedingly useful for random cargo should the party find a derelict or just want to haul for whomever is paying (or if they want to buy and sell in bulk, it offers some guidelines in prices).

Too much realism regarding trading, food, fuel etc. is just not the Star Wars me and my players know and love!

As a direct counterpoint, I *LOVE* the realism, cutting deals for items, speculatively trading, dealing with the fantastic and the mundane and just shlepping cargo. Mind you, I also love the Flash Gordon larger than life aspects too - so a balance between the two is best for me.

Honestly, if you're looking to feature trading - go get yourself a copy of Galaxy Guide 6. You couldn't ask for a better speculative trading sourcebook for Star Wars. FFG seriously needs to buy the copyright to this **** thing and just re-release it.