Think about all the the illegal things thet might want to hide while they get boarded. My crew has a lot of restricted gear, which leads to the need to conseal or hide it.
Trade and Smuggling
Dude (by which I mean GM Hooly) -
that's a very nicely done piece of work.
I will have to check out your speculative Trading. The layout looked nice.
I would also like to say that Galaxy guide 6: Tramp Freighters from West End Games is a good resource as well.
That's what I used primarily for this supplement.
I dont want to make it too easy though, otherwise they will just turn it into a massive cash maker.
It won't be. If they run, every hull point they lose is 500 credits to fix, and if they crash somewhere they have to spend more to hide, fix other parts, bribe locals, etc. Every bribe they suffer at the hands of agents is more money lost. You can make anything as onerous as you want without it derailing your story.
If you make it to difficult to smuggle, you are just encouraging players to loot everything in sight.
I dont want to make it too easy though, otherwise they will just turn it into a massive cash maker.
It won't be. If they run, every hull point they lose is 500 credits to fix, and if they crash somewhere they have to spend more to hide, fix other parts, bribe locals, etc. Every bribe they suffer at the hands of agents is more money lost. You can make anything as onerous as you want without it derailing your story.
If you make it to difficult to smuggle, you are just encouraging players to loot everything in sight.
And, If you make it to easy to smuggle, they'll have more money than Jabba before they hit 150xp.
I dont want to make it too easy though, otherwise they will just turn it into a massive cash maker.
It won't be. If they run, every hull point they lose is 500 credits to fix, and if they crash somewhere they have to spend more to hide, fix other parts, bribe locals, etc. Every bribe they suffer at the hands of agents is more money lost. You can make anything as onerous as you want without it derailing your story.
If you make it to difficult to smuggle, you are just encouraging players to loot everything in sight.
And, If you make it to easy to smuggle, they'll have more money than Jabba before they hit 150xp.
Because there's absolutely no way to deal with that, right?
Rival smugglers pissed that you're horning in on their turf, pirates, hell, you can have different cartels trying to get them into the fold one way or the other...these are plot hooks.
Having a 10k smuggling run eaten up by bribes and repair costs after all the nonsense they go through? No thanks.
The goal is to keep the players hungry, which should mean that they are always striving for the next big payoff to get the things they want, not trying to get any work just so they don't starve.
To each their own.
Getting a 100K windfall (doable if you're buying the items yourself), then being told it won't work again because now pirates or the cartel won't let them runs as a more strained game to me than the "Well, if pick up a crate of spice, and get an official willing to take a bribe, we might just come out of this ahead." Different flavors.
GM Hooly;
Thanks for this...looks good Ops check on the schedule
By all means, use it and let me know of any changes you would suggest. I am now using this in my game, and have a few changes in the wind, specifically additions to the Blackmarket Section.
Noting that this might not be seen b/c its an old Post.
Wouldn't smuggling be an Opposed Roll of PCs ' Skullduggery (modified by compartments) vs. the Inspectors (Perception + scanner boost)
If so.. would you rather have the PCs do the roll or have the GM roll for the NPCs?
AND if smuggling compartments increase difficulty (add purple dice to the inspector) - would they then add GREEN dice to the PCs roll, if you chose to have PC's roll?
- GM Khyrith
If so.. would you rather have the PCs do the roll or have the GM roll for the NPCs?
I default to having the PCs roll whenever possible, it lets them feel more involved.
I've been recommended a look at @GM Hooly 's excellent instruction set as we had this very request in a recent session, so we'll certainly be looking at incorporating some of these ideas in our next session.
I had created a database of resources for a GM to use that started off as a simple list of modular encounters but has exploded into a vast collection of data for GM's to refer to when creating an adventure (or even just running a game). I mention this only as we have created a list of products that were created from the import/export listings in the Planetary description pages throughout the rule sets. As some players wanted to buy low/sell high we created some house-rule prices that perhaps some of you might find useful?
@GM Hooly Would you be happy if I listed your instruction set, with your credit, on the site (I'm planning on listing a bunch of really useful resources)?
Since this got revived...
There is a saying in Texas Hold'em Poker about having a pair of Aces, "You either win a small pot or you loose a big one." I think this is like Smuggling. Most of the time its pretty easy. Random planet doesn't have the resources to scanner search every ship/container/crate/box/person coming on to it, and why would they? I generally travel internationally every year, and yes, sometimes my hand luggage gets searched, but if I had industrial secrets on my camera's data chip instead of pictures no one is going to know. So most of the time small time Smuggling works, and there is a modest reward. But, when it fails, it fails big! Depending on where and how, people or ships get shot up, or confiscated/imprisoned, or large fines are imposed, etc.
So I say, don't sweat the small stuff. Have something that works in your game. I use a random chance that an inspector will actually inspect something, with lots of modifiers for things like; what the planet is, what does the ship look like, is there a lot of smuggling here, what papers do they have, etc. If a search happens and something is found, then we have fun!
Usually when something is found when a search happens, it's because those doing the search were informed there is something to be found and where to find it.
On 10/26/2020 at 4:28 AM, JBondoux said:I've been recommended a look at @GM Hooly 's excellent instruction set as we had this very request in a recent session, so we'll certainly be looking at incorporating some of these ideas in our next session.
I had created a database of resources for a GM to use that started off as a simple list of modular encounters but has exploded into a vast collection of data for GM's to refer to when creating an adventure (or even just running a game). I mention this only as we have created a list of products that were created from the import/export listings in the Planetary description pages throughout the rule sets. As some players wanted to buy low/sell high we created some house-rule prices that perhaps some of you might find useful?
@GM Hooly Would you be happy if I listed your instruction set, with your credit, on the site (I'm planning on listing a bunch of really useful resources)?
Sure.