Heh, no, this isn't a lament about how many EotE Books I want and how infrequently my revenue stream is adequate to cover my needs...but it is about revenue streams.

I am currently running a game which is designed to be long term - at least a calendar year playing (Lord willing and the creek don't rise) bi-weekly. Of course it won't work out that way, instead of 24 games we'll be lucky to get 18 in a year because of various intrusions, work schedules and of course December - or as I like to call it, the Accursed Month.

In this game, my players are on salary. They work for employers whose precise identity they're not privy to but who wants them to keep priceless cultural treasures and artifacts out of the hands of the Empire by whatever means necessary. At regular intervals they will receive 500 credits for services rendered, along with a bounty on each artifact they grab. The bounty part is pretty simple. It's the salary part I'm having trouble with.

To whit...when. When should I pay them? I seek your thoughts on this matter oh fellow worthies, but ask you to factor the following into your responses.

1) I really don't want to have to keep close track of elapsed game time if I can help it. I have come from games where that is necessary and it's a royal pain I'd like to avoid.

2) Yes, I could hand-wave. I can hand-wave a lot of things. Trouble is, I have players who will give me a lot of leeway but in their hearts they prefer things with a bit more structure. Something they can rely on, but I understand in the end that hand-waving might be my only option considering what I am faced with.

3) Because Real Time and Elapsed Game Time can often vary (it might take them three or even four game sessions to completely explore an elaborate crypt which in Real Time might only take them an afternoon for instance) I need to account for that.

One idea I had was to essentially decide on a range of total money I wish them to receive for their salary according to my best projection of 18 games a calendar year and then divide that amount up by said 18 games and give the PC's an amount each session, much as is done with XP, and then tell them that there are only a certain number of occasions when they can spend that money (ie: no buying milkshakes and burgers when yer in the deepest pits of a dig on Korriban....). But I can sense that solution is inelegant as well.

Do you see my dilemma? How would you proceed?

I think you actually will have to keep at least a little bit of timekeeping.

I would go something like 500 credits weekly. And whenever roughly a week goes by, give them the money.

If a large amount of time passes between adventures, just hand waive the time. ''bout two weeks goes by, and you receive 1000 credits''

If I was in your position and I didn't want to keep up with in-game time. I would treat it like Duty. Allow the completion of the job to be their main source of in-come, but their salary comes in the form of perks when their contribution score reaches 100.

The problem here is the word Salary.

Salary means you are paid regularly regardless of how much "extra" you do. Unless you have bonuses listed in the Dalary negotiations, there is no way to "add" to the regular pay.

Conversely if you said they were "on contract", you could pay them whenever you want. Like a lawyer or private investigator on retainer. You can then pay them every session some sort of amount and not care about the "time" aspect of it at all. As significant things happen that require pay to continue, they can ask the "client" or person that hired them, or whatever for more money to continue.

If you insist on using the Salary idea, you are imposing a time-keeping aspect. That is what the word means.

I would probably give them an amount per session, regardless of the circumstances. If the players start trapped on a jungle planet without any modern technology around, I'd still give them the credits as they wouldn't be able to spend them; besides, once they get back to civilization, presumably they'd have access to their pay.

While keeping exact track of time can be tiresome, keeping a general count shouldn't be that hard. Most events in an RPG that you play through take the space of a day or a fraction thereof, and the time rolls by during "downtime" or in hyperspace, which you can set without too much hand-waving.

So they explore the crypt, which takes ~1 day. Then the fly to their next destination, which takes ~5 days. They spend another day on in-character adventuring, and viola! you have your week.

I'd pay like this:

Rather than keep strict accounting of time during adventures just deal with it at the start of an adventure regardless of how many sessions it takes to get through that adventure. You pay them the amount they would have earned between adventures but not during the adventure so you don't have to deal with it every session. Then sometime after the last session of an adventure and before your next session when their new adventure starts figure out how much time has passed and add up their salary. Let your players know ahead of time how much time will have passed and how much cash they have to spend so they can spend it prior to coming to the table (then you can look at what they want and make whatever rolls and judgments you need to based on their list, saving a bunch of time).

However, don't forget expenses, life on the rim ain't cheap. I calculate it this way: Total Amount Made - (Obligation or Duty+d100)% = How much Cheddar they have to spend.
So say three months go by and if they make 500cr a month you start with 1500cr. Then roll that d100 (I just rolled 27%) and add their Obligation/Duty (Say 30, so that = 57% leaving them 645cr) and give them whats left over to spend. If it's negative, well maybe they should lower their Obligation/Duty or work harder to get bigger bonuses.

This will likely result in they're not having a lot of cash from their salary so most of their income will be from bonuses or side jobs, which is exactly how to keep a group of adventurers hungry for work.

Edited for clarity.

Just want to mention that by the pay standards of Dangerous Covenants and Far Horizons , 500 credits/month is less than the wages of an unskilled laborer. Most PC-types have the skills to make at least 500 credits/week.

However, don't forget expenses, life on the rim ain't cheap. I calculate it this way: Total Amount Made - (Obligation or Duty+d100)% = How much Cheddar they have to spend.

So say three months go by and if they make 500cr a month you start with 1500cr. Then roll that d100 (I just rolled 27%) and add their Obligation/Duty (Say 30, so that = 57% leaving them 645cr) and give them whats left over to spend. If it's negative, well maybe they should lower their Obligation/Duty or work harder to get bigger bonuses.[/i]

Remember: Duty is a positive and is constantly meant for the PCs to try to build it up. It's exactly the opposite of Obligation.

However, don't forget expenses, life on the rim ain't cheap. I calculate it this way: Total Amount Made - (Obligation or Duty+d100)% = How much Cheddar they have to spend.

So say three months go by and if they make 500cr a month you start with 1500cr. Then roll that d100 (I just rolled 27%) and add their Obligation/Duty (Say 30, so that = 57% leaving them 645cr) and give them whats left over to spend. If it's negative, well maybe they should lower their Obligation/Duty or work harder to get bigger bonuses.[/i]

Reverse the Duty part of calculation and it's not completely terrible.

Remember: Duty is a positive and is constantly meant for the PCs to try to build it up. It's exactly the opposite of Obligation.

Yep you're right, then I would revise it to be 100-Duty so you get the remainder to add. ie Duty at 70 = +30%. And for PCs using the Morality Mechanic I'd have it tied directly with the Partly average.

It sounds a little complex but it's actually pretty quick and simple math.

Yep you're right, then I would revise it to be 100-Duty so you get the remainder to add. ie Duty at 70 = +30%. And for PCs using the Morality Mechanic I'd have it tied directly with the Partly average.

It sounds a little complex but it's actually pretty quick and simple math.

Hmmm.

When I wrote the homestead rules for Far Horizons, we had the question of how often to award the credits on the profit upgrade. We selected monthly, and when I did so, I did that with the intention that monthly is basically code for "more or less between major adventures."

So, in the interest of simplicity, for most cases, this should be awarded once per adventure. A single adventure, running multiple play sessions, usually spans the course of 1-10 days in game time, depending on the story. Unless the next adventure picks up precisely where the last one leaves off, there is usually some downtime between larger jobs. Time spent researching, repairing, training, etc. So I would award this only between adventures.

Also don't get too hung up on exact amounts, RPG pricing and economics are notoriously screwed up and generally have almost no relation to how real world economies really work. The variations of regional supply and demand, corruption, taxes, blah blah blah, my head is on my desk and I'm drooling thats how exciting this stuff is...

If it was up to me I'd have RPG pricing without any numbers at all. Just label everything as Basically Nothing, Cheap, Moderate, Pricy, Expensive, More than I Figured, Are you trying to Rob Me!, Plumber, Mechanic, Lawyer... or something like that.

For me, I would ignore it. and say your monthly salary covers your Expenses (Home, food, whores) where you can use an appropiate skill check to "save" credits. Give a boost or setback die if they cut out booze, or eat ration bars for the month, or similar. if they decide to live in a tent, or on a cot in the back of a ship, it changes the difficulty

Saving money would probably be a Discipline check.

Saving money would probably be a Discipline check.

It is for me.

I would say either handle the salary like Duty (contributions allow them to gain rewards from the sponsor, and most of their day-to-day coin goes to expenses)--or look to existing Talents for inspiration.

Sound Investments gives the player 100 credits/rank at the start of each session, which seems reasonable. As you often see, the Quartermaster tree has two ranks available. Entrepreneur, on the other hand, has five ranks--but it's a spec that's all about making money.

If you don't want to track Duty, I'd say you set the bar at 100 cr at the start of every session per player. Once they've proven themselves (at the end of a major quest, preferably, and once the allure of 100 credits starts to fade), give them a "raise" to 200 credits/session.

I wonder if it's possible to run dual Meta Mechanic Tracks on the same set of characters? That is to say, could characters realistically work having Obligation AND Duty? Because I could see both meta-mechanics being useful to them.

I wonder if it's possible to run dual Meta Mechanic Tracks on the same set of characters? That is to say, could characters realistically work having Obligation AND Duty?

I wonder if it's possible to run dual Meta Mechanic Tracks on the same set of characters? That is to say, could characters realistically work having Obligation AND Duty? Because I could see both meta-mechanics being useful to them.

It's certainly possible, and the AoR CRB spells out the rules for doing so.

I tend to insist that all characters in my games have Obligation while some gain Duty, but that's because all of my games so far have been cross-over games. For those Rebel characters who don't want to put the thought into an Obligation from their past, I let them take Dutybound: Alliance for the minimum amount recommended by the starting table.

I would simply say the PCs do an adventure every week and they get 500 credits per adventure.