As others have mentioned, it isn't difficult to modify published adventures to fit personal campaign specifics. In mine, there is a lot of bad blood between my PCs and Black Sun. This adventure represents a chance to ally with the Zann Consortium and hopefully start working together against Prince Xizor. For my party, the 60K credit payout is a nice bonus. Establishing good relations with Tyber Zann is worth far more.

When was the last time anyone's group actually bought a ship?

My group has bought a ship in every campaign I've ever played. Usually a Sil 5 of some kind (CR90, MMT, Gozanti, etc.)...

Tip of the hat, then. I've only been party to shipjacking.

I am not sure how you worked that one out. Han's comment makes no reference to the quality of ship, it only references Lukes piloting ability in Han's eyes.

Sorry, can't follow your logic.

You are as bad at following my logic as you are at grasping my humor

The thing is, for a relatively new group, 10k per head is actually good money.

For a well established long-running group, it'll be peanuts.

Also, the reward isn't "10k per player", it's "whatever sum it is that amounts to 10k per player".

It's not good money when the chance that you'll lose your life (dead or captured) or lose your ship is considered. It only looks good if it's guaranteed success without risk, and my group doesn't play that way. Failure happens, and the amount needs to account for that risk.

So basically, your players won't do anything that's even remotely risky unless they get paid millions?

I mean, seriously, there's a risk of losing life and property in every adventure. So I assume your players are millionaires by now?

(Yes, I know this is an aggressive response, but the argument is so deeply flawed that I get upset whenever someone makes it)

So basically, your players won't do anything that's even remotely risky unless they get paid millions?

That reads like Edge of the Stripmall - true hunger and need are pillars of the Edge campaign in my mind, and picking and choosing jobs is something that happens well down the road.

It just goes to show how radically different our players are - mine would do risky things just because they could.

I have always seen characters in EotE as having to do risky things for lowish pay because of who they are. I mean obligation is listed as things like debt, criminal background, addiction or a bounty on your head. The characters are smuggling things or running infiltration missions because for one reason or another they don't fit into "normal" society. It is hard to go get a job at McBurgers when you have a bounty on your head. Who is going to hire a criminal on the run from the empire? Then there is the personality of these people. Stop and think for a moment if you could truly imagine Han Solo in a cubical pushing paper and taking orders.

So that leaves us with the very real fact that our characters being the scum and villiany that they are do not always have the best choices (and when they do they rarely make them). Crime boss knows he can hire some smugglers/hired guns etc.. to do something very dangerous for a meager reward because well they don't have a lot of options. They have ship maintence, bribes, equipment costs etc... to pay for without a steady source of income so sometimes sure you pass up a job but that just leaves you open to be screwed even more on the next. Also as mentioned before sometimes a thrill seeking pilot wants to make the kesel run in 12 parsecs just to show you he can.

Sometimes it isn't the system or the GM that keep the characters hungry. It is the characters lifestyle, mindset and actions that do that.

For some reason rarity/restriction/availability is being ignored in this discussion as a data point associated with costs. By RAW, a player can have the credits on hand to buy an item but fail an availability roll. Or vice versa. If an object is so rare or so costly that it couldn't reasonably be bought with credits, it's not a purchasable item, it's an adventure motivator.

Comparisons of real life dollars and products and their fictional world equivalents falls flat to me. I can buy an X-wing in FFG SW with some dice rolls because the cost and availability balance out enough to make it feasible, though not easy, within the context of the high adventure, pulpy space fantasy game world. Acquiring a suitable X-wing equivalent piece of tech in Shadowrun would be the focus of an adventure or three. And highly improbable in the real world.

The fact that equipment can be so easily destroyd just gives more reason to have a larger payout.

What equipment, other than a ship, is critical to the completion of any Edge adventure? A blaster? Even if a player's weapon is destroyed, disabling an opponent gives you access to their weapons and gear. Missing a piece of equipment in a narrative makes the game a little more challenging but it's hardly success or fail.

Adventure stories run on conflict and drama and too much cash hurts both. If a PC has enough money in the bank to retire, there's no motivation to do anything dangerous and thus no story... and no game. I've ended RPG campaigns early when the players "bought" their way to victory and made every challenge irrelevant. But, as those games are boring to GM, I don't, anymore, run systems with those kinds of rules.

With respect, I must disagree. You’ve got to be a pretty talented and skilled group to get through “Jewel of Yavin”, otherwise you’re not going to fare well.

Are you talking about players or player characters? My starting players ran through JoY and did fine. I will say that that adventure asks a bit more of the GM than anything else I've run for FFG as it isn't a Point A-to-Point B adventure and it requires remembering a lot of NPC motivations.

ok, I wanted to throw in my two cents real quick. As a long time member around around here, I have to say that I have nothing but the utmost respect for Happy, Brad, Odd, Yep, 2P, Whafrog, and about everyone else on here, so I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes.

I don't think think the issue is here about about trying to keep the group hungry. This is a published adventure module trying to find a happy medium with a reward for a group. Just as with the difficulty levels of the encounters, compared to your group, you may have to scale those encounters up or down, and you may have to scale the rewards up or down. I look at the reward a s recommended thing, you can change it based on your needs and that of the group.

For my current campaign, this adventure module would not fit in at all. I'm running a 70's theme mob style game set on Nar Shadda. The group is part of a Hutt family Cartel that just went through a big war and lost the head member of the Family. he was killed some years back a couple of freaky looking Zabrak dudes on Nal Hutta... So the money I use in usually in 20-100 credit increments. LOL. I am not so much about keeping the characters hungry as I am in keeping the economics smaller. Hell, they all have armored clothing that is superior quality, have some ok guns that have a nice mod and at least one attachment. But our game is not focused on monetary rewards as much as earning and gaining respect, favors, Obligations, and Duties, both for and from the PCs and NPCs.

Sure, if your blaster is destroyed you can pick up a bad guy's gun...but it may not have the thousands of credits of mods you put into the now ruined weapon you've been using.

The thing is, for a relatively new group, 10k per head is actually good money.

For a well established long-running group, it'll be peanuts.

Also, the reward isn't "10k per player", it's "whatever sum it is that amounts to 10k per player".

It's not good money when the chance that you'll lose your life (dead or captured) or lose your ship is considered. It only looks good if it's guaranteed success without risk, and my group doesn't play that way. Failure happens, and the amount needs to account for that risk.

So basically, your players won't do anything that's even remotely risky unless they get paid millions?

I mean, seriously, there's a risk of losing life and property in every adventure. So I assume your players are millionaires by now?

(Yes, I know this is an aggressive response, but the argument is so deeply flawed that I get upset whenever someone makes it)

Not for crap credits alone. Obligation is the main tie to get them into adventures, but this adventure goes with cash instead. If you're going with cash, it needs to be attractive. My players have never been millionairres. The most wealthy among them had very nearly a quarter million credits stashed away at the time she was killed. Sadly, the other players only knew where she had stashed about 25k, and they assumed that this was all she had secreted away.

Even success comes with its own problems. Isn't every lowlife protagonist character in film always looking for that one big score? Even if they score big, they usually end up bored, lose it all or in trouble again. It's baked into their character. They can't help but wind up back in trouble and looking for just one more big score.

As for motivation to take the job, look no further than Ocean's 13. They take a job out of obligation to Ruben (loyalty) and to get even with Willy Bank (revenge). Those motivations ends up more important than the money (they sink much of their own). I haven't run the adventure yet, but I am looking for a more interesting motivation than a simple monetary payout to breathe life into the campaign.

I do feel like I am not using Obligation as much as I should. Heck, for my current game I didn't even make them specify it. I used character backstory sheets instead. I would like a way to make it a more central part of the game. Not the story so much as the mechanics of the game. But that's a discussion that has happened here before, and I am sure will again, but in a different thread.

The monetary amount is rather low. I believe I have rectified this not by upping the amount, but by allowing them to keep whatever loot they capture along the way. Also have worked it into my campaign, so they have a far more personal beef with the Veiled Sorority.

I am very generous overall with my group, from XP to rewards- they have a fully crewed Marauder with a bunch of bad mofos riding with them. I hope to make this group not motivated by the promise of rewards- they're getting them as they follow the story- but by their engagement with the story. I want my players hungry for next session's story, not for credits.

What do you mean by "allowing them to keep whatever loot they capture?" Is this not the norm when taking things from miscreants on the fringe?

Not for crap credits alone. Obligation is the main tie to get them into adventures, but this adventure goes with cash instead. If you're going with cash, it needs to be attractive. My players have never been millionairres. The most wealthy among them had very nearly a quarter million credits stashed away at the time she was killed. Sadly, the other players only knew where she had stashed about 25k, and they assumed that this was all she had secreted away.

Well, published adventures cannot really take individual groups into account. I cannot remember the last time I ran an adventure written by someone else without modifying it and adjusting it to the needs of my players and/or our campaign to a greater or lesser degree. Finding better hooks than money (although for some money might be enough) is always one of the top priorities. But since the authors do not know what drives your players or their characters, that is something you usually have to figure out yourself - or at least you should be able to find something more individually appropriate instead of the generic.

As for money, it all comes down to personal preferences. EotE assumes a more Firefly-esque approach, which fits with the Chewie and Han theme very well (of course, both are eventually more than just mercenaries), but nobody is stopping you from handing out more money or making the game about more than the next big pay-out.

The variable payout is probably not really meant as an in-universe thing but more of a out-of-game approach so that groups of vastly different sizes get their fair share. If I were to run JoY, the bounty would be a fixed sum that is magically suitable for my campaign ...

What do you mean by "allowing them to keep whatever loot they capture?" Is this not the norm when taking things from miscreants on the fringe?

Often times, no. If you're working on an imperial bounty they will often want such things as evidence, while if you're working on a bounty from a larger criminal organization, they themselves may want the loot- with you getting a cut. Getting to keep what you capture shouldn't be par for the course if you're working for any large organization that can always profit off of it.

if you're working for more personal bounties being given by individuals? Then yeah, expect it.

TLDR through the whole thread.

But though the Up front reward might be 10k.. which is fairly decent for a monetary reward IMO...

There are opportunities for many other "Gains" to be made in every module. Ships to be captured, gear to be acquired.

I look at the whole of everything not tied down as a Opportunity for players to gain something.

If Players (or Gms) don't see it that way and feel they should just be handed 100k or the like every adventure to do with as they please, Well that is a problem of Gaming style, Not a problem of the module itself.

I personally would be annoyed if it were the reverse... Nothing else changed but the characters Offered nearly enough Credits for each to buy their own ship.

I've had the time to read over Mask of the Pirate Queen, and my disdain for the idea that rewards have to be crazy small is growing to an active dislike. Without spoiling anything beyond the first meeting, you get the "quite lucrative" offer (that's what the book says) of 10,000 credits per crewmember to bring in the head of a pirate band. This is stupid, and here's why:

1) A variable bounty paid per crewmember means that a single hotshot bounty hunter that brings in the pirate queen gets 10,000 credits but a large ship with a massive crew might get hundreds of thousands or even millions of credits. This makes no **** sense, as the job is the same no matter how many people it takes to do it. Unscrupulous ship owners would be quick to fill up their ship with drifters and bums making them contracted crewmembers that just sleep in passenger bunks just to make more credits. Even without such an exploit, it just doesn't make a lick of sense.

Agreed that this sum is way too low both for metagame purposes and for in-game consistency. But Devil's Advocate, does the adventure actually imply that in-universe the Johnson is offering 10,000 per person, or is it meant to just be the GM deciding that the reward offered is set to be Players x 10,000 and that all in-universe teams would be offered Players x 10,000 regardless of whether they were a crew of thousands or a solo bounty hunter? If this is the case, then the principle is sound even if the sums are too low (imo).

My introductory game - a short chase and rescue mission with a couple of combats, offered around 60,000Cr for successful completion. There were five players. It was marginally on the generous side but I wanted to give them a good start to the campaign and as it turned out, they lost about half of what they made afterwards in paying bribes and other costs incurred during the mission.

The second game - also a mini-introductory one, had no financial reward at all, they did it in order to curry favour with a local crimeboss and get him as a contact and an entry into the local smuggling scene.

The third game and the first real adventure was harder, but also had much greater opportunity for reward. Firstly there was the base income for the mission which I allowed them to set themselves to some extent based on how much they wanted to invest in buying the goods to be smuggled and on which they expected to make interest. They ended up using their X-Wing (which they acquired in the second game but which needs new parts to be flight-worthy) as collateral on a loan from the local gangster so they could go further in on the investment. All told, this would have netted them around 8-10,000 from memory. But during the mission they ran into a sub-plot which could earn them 50,000 from either of the factions involved depending on which side they picked to aid, or a potential 100,000 if they could double-cross everyone and get away with it. They went for the very high-risk strategy of the latter and it's all gone a bit pear-shaped. They might lose their X-Wing, they could even lose their YT-1300. And the interest on that loan is going up day by day and they're unable to make it back until they resolve the current complication. So I really let the players themselves choose how much risk they wanted to take on - and the greedy buggers took all of it. We'll see how that turns out.

Don’t think of freighters as airplanes. Think of them as big trucks.

So, what does a decent Semi-tractor trailer cost?

Or a U-Haul style moving truck?

A quick internet search showed that, with a box trailer, $80k-100k (US). That's not far off from light freighter costs.

I've said this before on these boards, but the YT-1300 is essentially the equivalent of this:

When Princess Leia remarks: "You came in that? You're braver than I thought!", it's because Han - the equivalent of a low-level dealer and Luke - a pie-eyed farm boy have just rocked up to a military base in a customized Ford Transit and tried to nick some uniforms and rescue her in it. She probably had half a mind to turn round and head back to her cell! Poor Obi-Wan. It must have felt like a retired Ethan Hunt in his fifties got dropped into an urgent mission with no warning and had to team up with Jay and Silent Bob.

I always figured that one of the reasons ships and vehicles are so cheap (relatively speaking) is that most of the repetitive menial work is done by droids that work 24/7 for no money. Not having to pay skilled technical labourers would cut a lot of cost.

Which explains why in a blue-collar cantina on Tattooine, their kind don't get served in there. It's probably to avoid violence kicking off as much as it is anything else. They're the outsider labourers who work for half the cost of the locals and put everyone out of work.

Wow, I would love to have such generous GMs, honest. Expaination: I say again that Mask could've offerred 5,000 each (5man party) and it would've easily been the biggest payday the group I played in saw. I kept the books for them and at 550-600 earned xp (55-60 sessions of 2.5-3 hrs) the resell value of everything which had come into the group's possession over the entire campaign was 184,000 (including the party's 2 starships). So taking out the group expenses and ship values, at maximum each PC had gotten 16,000ish credits by campaign's end (most of my character's was tied up in stealth system superior laminate). I knew we weren't getting much in the way of credits, but we could've been getting double and it still wouldn't've been as much as what's being suggested in this thread.

As for the offer, it is only advertized as "very lucrative" or some similar term until the PCs hit the bargaining table, then the initial offer to the group is 10,000 each IIRC. So it's no specific amount advertized, but the initial offer to the PCs -is- on an individual basis, as written at least. I read this as a special offer just for the PCs and not a general rule for anyone who shows up.

Wow, I would love to have such generous GMs, honest. Expaination: I say again that Mask could've offerred 5,000 each (5man party) and it would've easily been the biggest payday the group I played in saw. I kept the books for them and at 550-600 earned xp (55-60 sessions of 2.5-3 hrs) the resell value of everything which had come into the group's possession over the entire campaign was 184,000 (including the party's 2 starships). So taking out the group expenses and ship values, at maximum each PC had gotten 16,000ish credits by campaign's end (most of my character's was tied up in stealth system superior laminate). I knew we weren't getting much in the way of credits, but we could've been getting double and it still wouldn't've been as much as what's being suggested in this thread.

Heh. You would LOVE my game. I've got a galactic sector mapped out and the players have a sheet listing smuggling routes, how much they're worth per run, how often the run can be made and what the risk factor is. So you might see "Planet X -> Planet Y; 15,000Cr; twice monthly; Average" Of course most of the sheet just has "???" filled in for all of the planet names. They have to carry out a mission to secure each route which involves anything from finding the unknown hyperspace route that will let them undercut competitors to pulling off elaborate conns to steal another smuggler's contract. As far as I'm concerned, they're welcome to work their way up to be robber barons of the sector. Of course the higher the stakes, the more dangerous things become and the higher your costs. Bribes, sub-contractors, an extra ship... I have a really He Who Dares Wins attitude in my game. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

The counter-part to the smuggling route sheet of course, is the chart of what different factions think of them. E.g. Empire, Law Enforcement, Local Organized Crime, etc. That can go both up and down for each faction and the further down you are on one, the more trouble they'll make for you. It's a lot of fun.

I do believe in not making things easy, but I don't believe in enforcing some artificial keep them hungry guideline. Sure, you can keep everyone poor all the time. But someone who has incomings of 120,000Cr per month isn't in any more comfortable a place if they also have outgoings of 200,000Cr per month. Less comfortable, in fact. It's all fun, imo.

Just for perspective, a wealthy character doesn't necessarily break the game (especially in the hands of the right player). For example, my Politico is a princess from a coreworld who had to leave planet suddenly and make her way in the world. Over the course of the game, we've righted the problems that caused her to leave her home, and she is welcome back into the fold. Meaning she's stinking rich again. Like swimming in a bin full of money rich.

. . .but she is very proud of what she's done on the outer rim, that she's making a name for herself on her own. To that, falling back on the family safety net feels like cheating to her. So she'll buy nice clothes, have a liqueur cabinet on the ship that's stocked with thousand year old brandy and very nice mattresses instead of threadbare cots in the bunks - but it's important to make sure that she's successful at running her business on her own terms. She fights for every credit she earns.

And sometimes her station can come into play in the game - like the fluff adventure on Military Simulation World where people play paintball with real walkers and military objectives and the like for the tourists. After a couple of harrowing and grim adventures, she threw an obscene amount credits at the company, booked a weekend for the whole crew and we had a blast (players and characters) unwinding by fake shooting at each other with tanks.

I see where someone running out and doing nothing but buying the best gear, ships and droids wouldn't be fun. They're using the money as an "I win" button. But someone living the high life (or even just a comfortable life) isn't necessarily a game killer.

Wow, I would love to have such generous GMs, honest. Expaination: I say again that Mask could've offerred 5,000 each (5man party) and it would've easily been the biggest payday the group I played in saw. I kept the books for them and at 550-600 earned xp (55-60 sessions of 2.5-3 hrs) the resell value of everything which had come into the group's possession over the entire campaign was 184,000 (including the party's 2 starships). So taking out the group expenses and ship values, at maximum each PC had gotten 16,000ish credits by campaign's end (most of my character's was tied up in stealth system superior laminate). I knew we weren't getting much in the way of credits, but we could've been getting double and it still wouldn't've been as much as what's being suggested in this thread.

Heh. You would LOVE my game. I've got a galactic sector mapped out and the players have a sheet listing smuggling routes, how much they're worth per run, how often the run can be made and what the risk factor is. So you might see "Planet X -> Planet Y; 15,000Cr; twice monthly; Average" Of course most of the sheet just has "???" filled in for all of the planet names. They have to carry out a mission to secure each route which involves anything from finding the unknown hyperspace route that will let them undercut competitors to pulling off elaborate conns to steal another smuggler's contract. As far as I'm concerned, they're welcome to work their way up to be robber barons of the sector. Of course the higher the stakes, the more dangerous things become and the higher your costs. Bribes, sub-contractors, an extra ship... I have a really He Who Dares Wins attitude in my game. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

The counter-part to the smuggling route sheet of course, is the chart of what different factions think of them. E.g. Empire, Law Enforcement, Local Organized Crime, etc. That can go both up and down for each faction and the further down you are on one, the more trouble they'll make for you. It's a lot of fun.

I do believe in not making things easy, but I don't believe in enforcing some artificial keep them hungry guideline. Sure, you can keep everyone poor all the time. But someone who has incomings of 120,000Cr per month isn't in any more comfortable a place if they also have outgoings of 200,000Cr per month. Less comfortable, in fact. It's all fun, imo.

oh gods i need new underwear. What do i have to do to see your gm veirson of that cheat sheet! serious the amount of time you most of spent on making that

Wow, I would love to have such generous GMs, honest. Expaination: I say again that Mask could've offerred 5,000 each (5man party) and it would've easily been the biggest payday the group I played in saw. I kept the books for them and at 550-600 earned xp (55-60 sessions of 2.5-3 hrs) the resell value of everything which had come into the group's possession over the entire campaign was 184,000 (including the party's 2 starships). So taking out the group expenses and ship values, at maximum each PC had gotten 16,000ish credits by campaign's end (most of my character's was tied up in stealth system superior laminate). I knew we weren't getting much in the way of credits, but we could've been getting double and it still wouldn't've been as much as what's being suggested in this thread.

Heh. You would LOVE my game. I've got a galactic sector mapped out and the players have a sheet listing smuggling routes, how much they're worth per run, how often the run can be made and what the risk factor is. So you might see "Planet X -> Planet Y; 15,000Cr; twice monthly; Average" Of course most of the sheet just has "???" filled in for all of the planet names. They have to carry out a mission to secure each route which involves anything from finding the unknown hyperspace route that will let them undercut competitors to pulling off elaborate conns to steal another smuggler's contract. As far as I'm concerned, they're welcome to work their way up to be robber barons of the sector. Of course the higher the stakes, the more dangerous things become and the higher your costs. Bribes, sub-contractors, an extra ship... I have a really He Who Dares Wins attitude in my game. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

The counter-part to the smuggling route sheet of course, is the chart of what different factions think of them. E.g. Empire, Law Enforcement, Local Organized Crime, etc. That can go both up and down for each faction and the further down you are on one, the more trouble they'll make for you. It's a lot of fun.

I do believe in not making things easy, but I don't believe in enforcing some artificial keep them hungry guideline. Sure, you can keep everyone poor all the time. But someone who has incomings of 120,000Cr per month isn't in any more comfortable a place if they also have outgoings of 200,000Cr per month. Less comfortable, in fact. It's all fun, imo.

oh gods i need new underwear. What do i have to do to see your gm veirson of that cheat sheet! serious the amount of time you most of spent on making that

Well I can't help you with your underwear, but I'm happy to share the templates I have used:

http://1drv.ms/1S7mB9m

I don't think they'll be much specific help, but they'll give you an idea of what information I give to the players at the start. Note how almost all of the smuggling routes are replaced with "???" and even one of the factions is marked that way. The latter is particularly fun as it lets the players know that they have enemies or allies out there but they're not sure who. It's obviously customized to my current campaign - for example, the Trandoshans are something of a faction on the base planet the game is currently set on. But factions can enter and leave that sheet. The smuggling routes lets them know on a meta level that this stuff is out there. So far they've uncovered one of the routes and they've almost certainly blown it meaning that the route will not be secured. Shame because for a 50,000Cr investment twice a month, they could be pulling down 20,000Cr profit for a couple of Easy (one purple) rolls. Of course as the campaign goes on, complications can come along - e.g. increased Imperial presence, crimes going wrong and getting high profile attention, new junior pilots if they're sub-contracting, etc. - can make these rolls more difficult or easier. But the key things are it lets the players see what's out there. For example, there's a smuggling route on the list that has a 150K cap once a month and no investment cost (i.e. you don't have to buy the cargo you're smuggling). I'm not saying what that is but the adventure to secure that route will be a very entertaining nightmare for the players. But if they pull it off, they're in the big leagues. We're talking parties with Jabba at that point.

The popularity rankings are out there for the players to see both because I feel they should have an idea about how popular they are, but also as one more attempt on my part to batter into their heads that this isn't a game about marching into the dungeon of the week and expecting to "win". They're in trouble right now because everything is drifting to the left. They have nobody who is willing to help them out having burned most of their bridges. Hopefully the players will eventually clue in and start actively working to try and move at least one of those faction charts over to the right because otherwise it's going to be a bloody miserable campaign for them.