So, we know that in the Lucas universe there are corporations, right, KDY, Sienar, Incom, Mobquet, Industrial Automaton and so forth.

Do you think they raise capital like our corporations do?

And if they do, does that mean there's a Galactic Stock Exchange? (Hence the GSX in the header).

Now here comes the chewy-er questions:

1) Can PC's own shares in corporations?

2) How would you run dividend payouts?

3) Would you permit your PC's to trade on the GSX to make money?

4) How would you mechanically deal with stock speculation? Considering IRL, there's really not much skill involved in playing the stocks (only three or four ticks higher than gambling really when you think about it), would you mirror that in the game and leave it mostly up to chance?

5) If you permitted any input from PC's via Skill Checks, what Skills do you think govern those transactions - that is to say, what do you roll to make money on stocks?

I tend less toward hand-waving and "Yawhatevah" solutions. Clear and concise rules stop arguments at the gaming table more often than they start them and wherever possible I would want to externalize the decisions of how much the PC's make doing this.

Thoughts?

The Entrepreneur (in Far Horizons) hand waves this through Talents, it's worth a review. Basically for each rank (and there are five in the tree) they get 100 credits per session. As for more specific rules...I don't agree that specific rules stop arguments, in a case like this they are often a rabbit hole with no end, and unless you make the entire campaign about it, it's often a huge waste of time. However...

There's no reason to think there aren't several Galactic and regional exchanges. The US alone has multiple. For things like this I find it far simpler to use RL analogues, only tweaking things when they become plot-relevant or to add flavour. At the core I'd say playing the stock market successfully is more about Negotiation and Discipline. Yes, it can be close to gambling if you don't know what you're doing, but Warren Buffet is no gambler and his approach has worked extremely well. Use Negotiation to read and understand company reports, and use Discipline to avoid buying high and selling low. Maybe a handful of the Force dice can be used to determine the direction of the market over a given period of time.

But if the game is about playing the stock market, that seems kind of dull. For EotE characters, I'd think *manipulating* the stock market might be more interesting, because then all the skills and talents are on the table. They might break into corporate headquarters to gather insider information, and then invest appropriately. Or maybe they'll short a company, and then go destroy one of its manufacturing plants. Of course, if they are too successful they're going to draw attention...

Do you think they raise capital like our corporations do?

And if they do, does that mean there's a Galactic Stock Exchange? (Hence the GSX in the header).

Now here comes the chewy-er questions:

1) Can PC's own shares in corporations?

2) How would you run dividend payouts?

3) Would you permit your PC's to trade on the GSX to make money?

4) How would you mechanically deal with stock speculation? Considering IRL, there's really not much skill involved in playing the stocks (only three or four ticks higher than gambling really when you think about it), would you mirror that in the game and leave it mostly up to chance?

5) If you permitted any input from PC's via Skill Checks, what Skills do you think govern those transactions - that is to say, what do you roll to make money on stocks?

Honestly... the "Sound Investments" talent is pretty much the answer to all of your questions. Its on the Entrepaneur talent tree from far horizons. Its a ranked talent that shows up... I think 5 times on the tree. At the beginning of each session you get 100 credits per rank. There's also rules for running a business. You should check it out.

I don't mean this to sound derisive, and I appreciate the time it took you guys to reply, but the response I'm left with is:

So, if my player has 1000cr and wants to play the stocks, he has to switch to a new Specialization? My players will look at that, look at me and laugh because IRL ANYBODY can play the stocks as long as they can convince a broker to sign the tickets (and there's never any shortage of brokers).

Now, your point about players not "playing" but rather "influencing" the markets is well taken, especially in Edge of the Empire where half the people you're likely to bump into are in the business of making marks and taking scores, but I don't want the PC's to have yet one more situation dogging them around - Obligation is annoying and intrusive enough as it is. I want them to be able to invest and take risks but potentially get decent payouts just like we schlubbs do.

It may be that the system's not stretchable to cover that, and if so, I don't hold it against the system. After all, how many D+D characters have you ever had who's made money on trade exchanges? So if it can't, it can't. But if someone has an idea where it could (again, without having to spend XP and derail a character's chosen path) I'd like to hear it.

Trade Federations and Banking Clans imply such an exchange exists, and that said, I don't see any reason your players couldn't take part. Think of all the adventure seeds....

Not being a finance mogul I can only really offer up mediocre advice for running it; as far as being akin to gambling, I reckon the same skills needed to win a Sabacc game could apply here. My only concern would be the backend work involved - nobody wants to play MS Excel the RPG.

Mechanically, to avoid the MS Excel Experience, I'd likely roll a Force Die at the beginning of the session to get a feel for the trends of the markets. I'd certainly allow for modest dividends, but I'd definitely keep Obligations in mind. If that Hutt to which you owe a lot of money hears about your recent windfalls playing the markets, you might receive a message about it....

For the player's end, I'd have them describe how they're going about managing the stocks. If they are working shady deals, Skullduggery. If they're playing with brains, it's an easy jump to Knowledge skills to reflect their intelligent choices. Factor in their roll against the Force Die outcome and kick down some credits within your own established guidelines to prevent arguments and you're off.

For example, use Successes * Force Die as a multiplier; each light side force pip on the result is a 10x multiplier to the number of successes. This seems like it'll give some decent rewards without dropping huge sums in your players' pockets. Well, unless they roll a Triumph on their skill check, maybe that's another 10x multiplier. I can only imagine the fun of failed rolls and Despairs and corporate bounty hunters.

It's pretty basic I know, but I hope it's helpful. This thread certainly opened up a lot of my creative flow for my upcoming stories!

So, if my player has 1000cr and wants to play the stocks, he has to switch to a new Specialization?

I wasn't making such a suggestion, I was just pointing out that the game already hand waves this stuff through Talents. Of course there's no reason to prevent anybody from parking 1000 credits wherever they like. But that story sounds pretty boring, hence the hand waving. Rather than getting that detailed, just let the player pick a real life stock and make the game investment react accordingly.

Now if the PCs had a lot more, and they needed a place to park it, that becomes a lot more interesting, and would be less about the mechanics of investments and more about all the potential conflict with bankers, Imperial regulators, and Hutts wanting their money back.

I know there was mention of a stock exchange in the EU, but not a galactic one. If I remember right, Kirtan Loor liked to devise encryptions based on numbers from Coruscant's stock exchange for the day.

I don't mean this to sound derisive, and I appreciate the time it took you guys to reply, but the response I'm left with is:

So, if my player has 1000cr and wants to play the stocks, he has to switch to a new Specialization? My players will look at that, look at me and laugh because IRL ANYBODY can play the stocks as long as they can convince a broker to sign the tickets (and there's never any shortage of brokers).

Now, your point about players not "playing" but rather "influencing" the markets is well taken, especially in Edge of the Empire where half the people you're likely to bump into are in the business of making marks and taking scores, but I don't want the PC's to have yet one more situation dogging them around - Obligation is annoying and intrusive enough as it is. I want them to be able to invest and take risks but potentially get decent payouts just like we schlubbs do.

It may be that the system's not stretchable to cover that, and if so, I don't hold it against the system. After all, how many D+D characters have you ever had who's made money on trade exchanges? So if it can't, it can't. But if someone has an idea where it could (again, without having to spend XP and derail a character's chosen path) I'd like to hear it.

I think that each round of playing the stock market would take a few months at least, but you could shorten it by taking a black setback die per week that you shorten it, and don't forget that star wars weeks are 5 days long.

I know there was mention of a stock exchange in the EU, but not a galactic one. If I remember right, Kirtan Loor liked to devise encryptions based on numbers from Coruscant's stock exchange for the day.

I thought that he did that using the stock exchange data for a specific date, and that they were able to crack it because Corran knew what date he used?

Thinking meta about this, it's really a problem with the wealth system in most RPGs.

I've developed my own game system called 3D (3 Dice, it's a dice pool system that uses d4 through d12). Since I've gotten a star wars gaming group together I haven't had time to work on it, but it's definitely in a playable state.

Anyway I have "character points" as a resource that can be used to increase skill etc. basically anything that contributes dice to a dice pool costs character points. I have a wealth skill (which is bought up as a skill at double cost) and you can use the wealth skill to buy anything that doesn't contribute dice to a pool, and you can use the wealth skill in almost any skill check to represent throwing money at it (for example renting a fully equipped autoshop to fix your car would allow you to include your die for the wealth skill in a mechanics check). Heck I had a player in a fantasy setting that used his wealth skill on stealth check, the situation was that the PC had bedded a attractive female NPC who thought she had landed a wealthy husband who would take her away from all this and he was having trouble getting rid of her in the morning so he took her in the market with the intention of ditching her there and running back to his ship and setting sale, but she wanted to hold hands, so he took her into a jewelry store, to distract her he gave her some gold (wealth skill) to buy a pretty bauble as a token of his affection and snuck out (stealth check) while she was paying for it. Stealth (skill), Dexterity (attribute), and Wealth (skill) were the 3 dice he used in his pool.

I think the Business rules in Far Horizons, as well as Talents like Sound Investments, can make a good benchmark.

So I think you can do something similar to what I did with my one PC who plays a Twi'lek Politico. He's trying to make ryll spice a legal medical supplement, and I've converted some of his in-character work into an extra rank in the Sound Investments talent, as well as given him Obligation and opportunities to expand using the Business rules.

So for the stock market idea:

1. Have them invest X credits in the stock market.

2. Use the Force Dice or a %D to add some randomness, especially with the ability to lose money (because that happens).

3. Treat the dividends or profits on those stocks like rank(s) in Sound Investiments, with small payoffs at the beginning of each session (unless they're somewhere they couldn't reach them).

4. If you want to make it a check of sorts, maybe modify the gambling rules from the casino encounter in Sons of Fortune, using Negotiation or a Knowledge skill for the dice pool. Maybe Negotiation using the Intellect characteristic?

I wouldn't make it too complicated, unless you want to involve it more in the plot. Above all, talk with your players, and have fun!

2. Use the Force Dice or a %D to add some randomness, especially with the ability to lose money (because that happens).

Roll both percentage and a force die, Lightside pips are the percentage rolled positive. Darkside is the percentage negative. Double pips double the result.

Roll each investment as a seperate roll. IE if they invest in CEC you roll for the CEC. If they also invest in Incom that is another die roll for them.

You really want to get hold of an old Shadowrun supplement called Corporate Shadowfiles. It is one of the best supple,emts I have ever read and it is THE supplement for big business in games. It is Dhadowrun specific but the information is adaptable and it contains many ideas for adventures stemming from stock manipulation, hostile take-overs, running shell companies... Great stuff for anyone who wants stocks and shares in their RPG.

The Entrepreneur (in Far Horizons) hand waves this through Talents, it's worth a review. Basically for each rank (and there are five in the tree) they get 100 credits per session. As for more specific rules...I don't agree that specific rules stop arguments, in a case like this they are often a rabbit hole with no end, and unless you make the entire campaign about it, it's often a huge waste of time. However...

That's another consideration - if you have rules for investments and whatnot, and all the players can get a dividend by playing the stock market for free while me and my Entrepreneur have to spend my hard earned experience on talents that do the exact same thing, I would be pissed as hell. Don't cut the legs out from under one of your players (assuming you have an Entrepreneur) like that.

(Also, Entrepreneur is awesome - far more than just a free 500 bucks a session. Although that cash adds up quick, too!)

if you have rules for investments and whatnot, and all the players can get a dividend by playing the stock market for free while me and my Entrepreneur have to spend my hard earned experience on talents that do the exact same thing, I would be pissed as hell. Don't cut the legs out from under one of your players (assuming you have an Entrepreneur) like that.

Ahh, very good point. I don't take that into consideration but my aim would be to provide a means for everyone to do it, yet grant those with Talents a chance to really shine. I guess I'm not a rules mogul either

[edit] After rereading the Entrepreneur spec, I don't see this as a conflict. You can get 5 ranks of Sound Investments that'll yield a guaranteed 500 credits a session. According to the off-the-cuff guidelines I posted above, I'd likely give a boost die for each rank of Sound Investments to an Entrepreneur on the roll. Sure, that could get outta hand quickly, but quick profits attract attention and that double-edged sword could be held by some (un)savory characters.

Allowing players to have a Investment in a legitimate Enterprise while running afoul of the imperium totally negates the Entrepreneur spec and what he can do.

Consider the following..

The Entrepreneur in his financial dealings knows how to move his resources around in order to maintain them if and when he gets on the wrong list according to the imperium.

The regular joe-shmo wont. The first time you have your players run afoul of any real imperial attention and they get looked at. "OH look here.. hes got his life savings in this company.. NOT!.. 0 cred balance."

On a side note this is a massive waste of your time as a GM unless your planning on running a financial stock exchange game. Think of all the time you will put in building a set of rules and procedures so one player can invest is newly looted 100 creds... cmmon. This is one of those cases where hand waving is acceptable.

That's another consideration - if you have rules for investments and whatnot, and all the players can get a dividend by playing the stock market for free while me and my Entrepreneur have to spend my hard earned experience on talents that do the exact same thing, I would be pissed as hell. Don't cut the legs out from under one of your players (assuming you have an Entrepreneur) like that.

(Also, Entrepreneur is awesome - far more than just a free 500 bucks a session. Although that cash adds up quick, too!)

The cash adds up a lot less quickly than you'd think in a bi-weekly game highly subject to the life demands of its players, but that's neither here nor there.

And your frustration as an Entrepreneur would be kinda misplaced, since it's my intention to allow other PC's to play the stocks whereas your character makes a guaranteed amount of money no matter what. Nooooot quite the same thing. And frankly if you're that miffed about not being special I'd much rather give the Entrepreneur a house-ruled leg up of some kind than try and convince people that they can fire a blaster, fly a spacecraft, wrench on a speeder or compute a complex mathematical equation for a hyperdrive....but they can't do what amounts to pick a winning horse at a horse race.

But you guys have made some very helpful suggestions on how to handle this and I thank you for them all.

It may not add up quickly relative to the realworld time occurring, but it is adding up far faster than you'd expect in game terms. Dividends aren't paid out very often (monthly, quarterly, biannually or annually seems to be the norm for different stocks). Day trading from the Edge isn't viable given how far the character is from whatever world is hosting the Exchange. That makes for huge delays and I'm sure the Empire doesn't want all that traffic filling up the Holonet system, so people away from the large Exchange would probably just get daily update packets.

Also, returns aren't very high overall. Growth/Dividends on average pay out fairly small, so if the person is pulling in 100 credits/rank of some Talent, then odds are they have 100,000 or more floating in the market (more like 500,000c per rank). Not some measly 100c buy-in.

Here's some food for thought. The US alone results in 16,000,000 new vehicles coming on to the roads each year. We have at least 10 different major manufacturers running to do that. For a starship company to become ubiquitous across some 12,000+ worlds, that means they are going to be making more than a thousand times that production rate. That means huge amounts of capital being needed to get a company going. So, not a price point in the stock for an average joe to afford.

Now, worlds might have smaller exchanges that are similar to what we have already, but they'd be limited to businesses operating on that world and would have the same distance issues for trying to make money off day trading as the big exchange from off-world.

Just some food for thought.

That means huge amounts of capital being needed to get a company going. So, not a price point in the stock for an average joe to afford.

Not to derail the thread...but that's not how stocks work. The price point is whatever the market decides the company is worth divided by the number of shares on offer. If the market decides the company is worth 2 trillion credits, and the number of shares on offer is 1 trillion, each share is worth 2 credits...an easy price point for any average joe.

A company starting from scratch is going to need a lot of capital, sure, but that initial capital usually comes from private investors, long before the stock market is involved. Eventually the private investors want their money back...their money is used to bring the company from the idea phase to the actualization phase, and once the ball is rolling with manufacturing or whatever, the company is offered on the public market. The intent here it to either pay back the private investors or give them a share in the company greater than their initial investment, i.e.: a fixed value they can cash in at any time.

Back to the game, there are all kinds of ways the market could be modelled and replicated using the EotE dice system, but it depends how detailed you want to go and what the purpose is.

That means huge amounts of capital being needed to get a company going. So, not a price point in the stock for an average joe to afford.

Not to derail the thread...but that's not how stocks work. The price point is whatever the market decides the company is worth divided by the number of shares on offer. If the market decides the company is worth 2 trillion credits, and the number of shares on offer is 1 trillion, each share is worth 2 credits...an easy price point for any average joe.

A company starting from scratch is going to need a lot of capital, sure, but that initial capital usually comes from private investors, long before the stock market is involved. Eventually the private investors want their money back...their money is used to bring the company from the idea phase to the actualization phase, and once the ball is rolling with manufacturing or whatever, the company is offered on the public market. The intent here it to either pay back the private investors or give them a share in the company greater than their initial investment, i.e.: a fixed value they can cash in at any time.

Back to the game, there are all kinds of ways the market could be modelled and replicated using the EotE dice system, but it depends how detailed you want to go and what the purpose is.

Actually, the market doesn't decide the initial price when a company goes IPO. The company sets the price and the total number of shares they are making available. Money moving around on the market after that doesn't go to the company. You're buying the rights to the company from someone else, not from the company directly any longer. So, even if the price jumps 200% after opening, the company still only gets the amount from what the initial price was set at.

The company sets the IPO price (usually with the aid of the listing exchange) and then the market takes over from there and frequently increases the price significantly -- which is why there is such benefit from participating in IPOs.

With respect to the OP and the topic, 1000 credits is, in the grand scheme of things, nothing. To receive any significant increase -- especially over the time period between sessions -- the character would have to be playing the "dollar stocks" or SW equivalent. This is essentially gambling and there are rules for Sabaac, et al. Just do the same thing.

For an actual investment, a 20% gain over a RL year is a hugely successful investment and, in this case, that would amount to 200 credits.

Hmmm.... To my mind, a result of an additional 200 credits after waiting an entire game year sounds like an unnecessarily complicated system being grafted onto a game for very little mechanical benefit.

Perhaps you might want to broach the subject of "cargo" with your player instead of the stock market. You could buy 1000 credits worth of "self-sealing stembolts" on Planet 9 and haul them to Planet 4 where they have a contact who's willing to buy the same number of bolts for 1500 credits. Going the cargo hauler/trader route provides a wealth of RPing opportunities, hooks and such while also fitting in with the entire flavor of EotE much better than doing "day trading" at a computer workstation in order to eke out an extra 20 credits.

Use the gambling rules to gauge returns, don't forget the taxes and the imperial exchange commission

It may be that the system's not stretchable to cover that, and if so, I don't hold it against the system. After all, how many D+D characters have you ever had who's made money on trade exchanges? So if it can't, it can't. But if someone has an idea where it could (again, without having to spend XP and derail a character's chosen path) I'd like to hear it.

Been thinking this one over and here's what I got:

General investments are (typically speaking) beyond the scope of the game. Sound Investments aside, the idea of a character actually putting money into a stock, and then waiting to turn a game-significant profit isn't really viable. Stock trading and the like is, for most people, a long term process intended to make lots of small long-term profits and generating income for later use (like retirement). So unless your campaign is expected to cover decades of time, probably not worth the trouble. In the action oriented universe of Star Wars you just don't hear Han and Leia taking time out from shooting stormtroopers and discussing if it makes more sense to invest in Seinar Fleet Systems or Corellian Engineering Corporation given the current market trends.

Now... that's typically speaking... so lets talk non-typical.

Using other appropriate media as a reference there are some cases where involving the greater financial system might be functional. For example the film Trading Places, or the pilot of the television series Leverage. In both these instances the protagonists, as part of the adventure/campaign design make use of the financial system.

In Trading Places Winthorpe and Valentine (commit a serious felony) and as a key part of the adventure, steal a copy of the orange crop report, then use the information to sabotage the antagonists while making millions themselves trading on the commodities market. The millions rolling in is also the essential finale of the adventure and a closing out of the characters.

In the pilot for Leverage we see a similar situation. Nate, seeing he's about to do serious damage to a major aerospace firm, short-sells a huge chunk of stock in the company (also a major felony, but with leverage, who's counting?), turning a massive profit when the con goes through (interestingly the mechanics in the background here are almost identical to Trading Places). In this case as the starting adventure for a full campaign, this is used to later establish how the obligation system can be used when running the later big-con adventures that make up the campaign.*

Soooo in that respect you could include the financial system into an adventure or campaign, with the payout being part of the adventure rewards or the explanation of the mechanics to be used later. Of course in both Trading Places and Leverage there's plenty of action to balance it out, with the actual amount of money generated being largely irrelevant beyond being "a lot."

*This is just my take, but I saw Leverage as working kinda like this:

It may be that the system's not stretchable to cover that, and if so, I don't hold it against the system. After all, how many D+D characters have you ever had who's made money on trade exchanges? So if it can't, it can't. But if someone has an idea where it could (again, without having to spend XP and derail a character's chosen path) I'd like to hear it.

Been thinking this one over and here's what I got:

General investments are (typically speaking) beyond the scope of the game. Sound Investments aside, the idea of a character actually putting money into a stock, and then waiting to turn a game-significant profit isn't really viable. Stock trading and the like is, for most people, a long term process intended to make lots of small long-term profits and generating income for later use (like retirement). So unless your campaign is expected to cover decades of time, probably not worth the trouble. In the action oriented universe of Star Wars you just don't hear Han and Leia taking time out from shooting stormtroopers and discussing if it makes more sense to invest in Seinar Fleet Systems or Corellian Engineering Corporation given the current market trends.

Now... that's typically speaking... so lets talk non-typical.

Using other appropriate media as a reference there are some cases where involving the greater financial system might be functional. For example the film Trading Places, or the pilot of the television series Leverage. In both these instances the protagonists, as part of the adventure/campaign design make use of the financial system.

In Trading Places Winthorpe and Valentine (commit a serious felony) and as a key part of the adventure, steal a copy of the orange crop report, then use the information to sabotage the antagonists while making millions themselves trading on the commodities market. The millions rolling in is also the essential finale of the adventure and a closing out of the characters.

In the pilot for Leverage we see a similar situation. Nate, seeing he's about to do serious damage to a major aerospace firm, short-sells a huge chunk of stock in the company (also a major felony, but with leverage, who's counting?), turning a massive profit when the con goes through (interestingly the mechanics in the background here are almost identical to Trading Places). In this case as the starting adventure for a full campaign, this is used to later establish how the obligation system can be used when running the later big-con adventures that make up the campaign.*

Soooo in that respect you could include the financial system into an adventure or campaign, with the payout being part of the adventure rewards or the explanation of the mechanics to be used later. Of course in both Trading Places and Leverage there's plenty of action to balance it out, with the actual amount of money generated being largely irrelevant beyond being "a lot."

*This is just my take, but I saw Leverage as working kinda like this:

Pilot sees Nate make gajillions, and the players using their cuts to buy a base, some personal gear, a few other minor odds and ends, and pay their obligation down to 5.. After that nearly everything they get for a specific con, from silly costumes, to ambulances, to whatever, is actually bought by the players Obligation. They hatch a plan, determine what they need, and the GM loads em up with Ob to match. At the end of the adventure, the GM looks at how successful the job was, and the reduces the Ob back down an appropriate amount. If it all goes swimmingly, Ob 5 is still the standard. If things get bumpy, or a loose end is missed, then we're now around 10ish. If the whole thing collapses, then everyone is at 25+ and it's a good bet you'll be seeing Sterling next time....

I think this proposed method actually is a very interesting way of handling the 'purchases' needed for such a campaign without excess book-keeping. Thank you for sharing it!