I ask because my group just finished the Jewel of Yavin adventure book.

Due to a combination of not trusting our employer (admittedly he was blackmailing us into the job), good rolls on the auction, a win in the race, and a small side job selling out Vorse to Kaltho the hutt, my gaming group wound up with what I'm going to kindly call way too much money . We're discussing with the GM on how to cut it down a little (obligation stuff and actions other than “buy things"), since he hadn't actually planned on us coming out with quite that much.

All told we wound up with about 330,000 credits after expenses.

Admittedly it didn't go perfectly. We forgot to get disguises, were spotted on the way out of the museum, and wound up killing a half dozen Wing Guard trying to escape Cloud City. So obviously we can never never never go back to Cloud City and picked up some bounty obligation. Also my character's blackmail obligation has turned into “Wanted by the Empire,” due to our employer's sudden but inevitable betrayal. None of that directly hits our pocket book at the moment.

In the mean time the question is what to do about it. We got rid of our original Lancer Pursuit craft, which is honestly kind of garbage, and replaced it with a nice YT-2400, which is a good general purpose ship, but not going to do much to negate my character's "I'm not Han Solo guys, really " problem. We also picked up some other toys we'd been hankering for like rocket boots and a fancy gun or two. The ship trade put a modest dent in the money, but we still have oodles.

What can we do to cut down on it to a significant degree without someone contracting temporary insanity? Is there such a thing as too much to you, or should we just roll with it and figure out how to be rich instead of hungry for work?

My solution? Let them be rich !

Rich PC's are only a problem if you give them lots of shopping time. Send them on a couple of back to back madcap adventures. Damage their ships a few times (hull repairs add up quick), sunder some weapons, get them to buy silly crap like pod racers. 350K is too much money but it's not an unmanageable amount. People come on here saying their PCs got 2 million credits and about the only advice you can give them is to have someone steal it back. 70K per player though can be bleed off if the GM is clever about it. Heck, sometimes all you have to do is offer them the opportunity to buy a sweet secret base or something. Players always fall for that sort of thing and it seldom hurts play balance much.

What you want to avoid is to allow them to pull up OggDudes character generator and start shopping for Verpine rifles and fully decked out Mando armor like is Amazon. Seriously, given free reign to buy whatever they want and they could easily jump 100xp plus in power level. Not that such things are necessarily game breaking, it's just that players with everything are significantly harder to reward than those who are hungry. Plus too much money can easily accelerate players past the sweet spot that you want to keep your players in.

Edit: Just noticed you're not the GM. As a player, I'm not sure what you can do except encourage you fellow players to make some big purchases. Encourage them to start looking for a base or new ship. That way you can spend some of that new cash without affecting the game too much.

Best way to bleed cash is to buy a ship (or two). If the players use that cash for personal gear the play balance may quickly shift. The GM needs to strictly abide by rarity and restrictions and make it hard to buy some of the better, rarer items. If the players resort to the black market to try to end-run restrictions, then the PCs need to encounter complications. Whatever can be reasonably, fairly, thrown into their path to slow down the power creep.

So one thing I'd always recommend is the idea that on the outer rim, the house always wins in some way. You've all gained a lot of money in very public events, were I your GM there'd've been a perception check to see if you catch the announcer winking at the holorecorder as he says the name of your ship/ the name of the last winner, and you'd be dogged by urchins on the ground and broke pirates in the skies.

It'd take a small investment with a local information broker to make that calm down in the area around where you made that money, or hunting down the announcer (and or the hutt he serves) and convincing him to call off his goons.

I'd also take a look at real jackpot winners and see how the mix of money and public announcement ruins their lives. But hey, I'm not your GM so watch your back, no idea what yours will do.

Lots of money is really only a problem if it completely negates a character's motivation, which in most cases it won't. I'm also not going to second the 'take it all away' ideas because that's a wet blanket approach that discourages players from caring about it in the future. (Why bother when you know any cash payoff will just be yanked again?)

A better approach is to figure out what each of the PCs wants to do with money beyond 'buy better gear'. Most people have interests beyond work, long-term plans/pipe dreams, etc - and Star Wars characters tend to think big. Money is usually a good way to make those things happen and engage the characters with the galaxy beyond whatever obligation demands of them. Yes, it does require that the players actively engage with the idea, but that doesn't sound like it'll be a problem with this group.

PCs get robbed too....

One of the groups I play in, we have, through various circumstances (including some good rolls during high stakes gambling), ended up with billions+.

Each.

The biggest hurdles it's created are:

-The player with the biggest bankroll approaching each problem from the perspective of how much it will cost to buy his way through everything.

-It's tough to rationalize why this particular disparate group even still associates with one another at all, let alone goes out and gets into the messes they do.

Generally, ships and ship modifications are excellent places to dump spare cash. Homesteads are also an excellent opportunity to turn spare credits into plot hooks.

If you have a few minutes, watch The Gamers: Natural One on Youtube. It gives a great example of a story with a character with too much money. And it's the gamers who are always funny.

Gear doesn't significantly increase a player's capabilities. Most gear in FFG SW is designed for a very specific purpose. Gear (and ships) also has an availability check that must be met before the PC can purchase it.

Buying a nice ship or having disposable cash doesn't eliminate challenges. It can make you a target for reprisal, especially since it was ill-gotten.

You can also buy a business, start a smuggling ring, or do a whole bunch of other interesting things with that pot of cash and a creative GM can develop some interesting challenges based around an expanding enterprise.

4 minutes ago, Concise Locket said:

You can also buy a business, start a smuggling ring, or do a whole bunch of other interesting things with that pot of cash and a creative GM can develop some interesting challenges based around an expanding enterprise.

Yep. Several of us in the group I mentioned above have done so.

While one has focused on creating a military-industrial business, I've taken a different approach.

Starting with a few modest locations of bars, nightclubs, and *ahem* "gentlemen's clubs," that's grown into galaxy-wide chains of them, as well as some luxury resorts. All of which serves my ever-growing high-level information brokering.

4 minutes ago, Concise Locket said:

Gear doesn't significantly increase a player's capabilities.

The player's? Perhaps not. But the character's? Certainly. If you don't think so then you just haven't seen the significant edge that some gear can provide. A vibrosword that crits on every hit? A rifle the ignores (pierces) any stormtooper's armor? These things can matter. And with a well-built negotiator, obtaining items is not all that difficult. Even better than a good negotiator is a weapons (and/or armor) tech. You can create some rather awesome pieces of custom gear.

8 minutes ago, Concise Locket said:

Gear doesn't significantly increase a player's capabilities. Most gear in FFG SW is designed for a very specific purpose. Gear (and ships) also has an availability check that must be met before the PC can purchase it.

Buying a nice ship or having disposable cash doesn't eliminate challenges. It can make you a target for reprisal, especially since it was ill-gotten.

You can also buy a business, start a smuggling ring, or do a whole bunch of other interesting things with that pot of cash and a creative GM can develop some interesting challenges based around an expanding enterprise.

I'm afraid the numbers don't support this at all. A cheap blaster vs a modded out high end blaster can be the difference between being twice as likely to hit and x3 dmg. Stealth armor with the right attachments can take a player from GG to YYYG. Cybernetics can give characteristics and skill ranks directly. High end modded armor will give twice the soak and a couple setback over standard laminate. Rarity checks can mitigate some of this, but there are plenty of common but extensive gear options. That's not even taking into account that contact networks can be bought for credits and can substitute for rarity rolls.

Once players have all the gear in the world and they can kill 15 Stormtroopers in a single roll, it's time to change the game a little bit. While I've always tried to -start- with this in mind for my campaigns, players can be challenged by the plot and the universe much more so than by the rolls and the adversaries.

Focus on providing challenges to the -players- and not their characters. Force the party to figure out the plot. Who's doing what, to whom, where and when. Once they've got that figured out (and, yes, Knowledge, technical and social skills will likely be helpful here), they still have to figure out the -why-. Otherwise, they're -re-acting rather than driving the pace of the game.

Work on switching up the situation, have the antagonist reset the environment from time to time. If one of the players is death with a lightsaber, force the action to be in space. If one of the players is a master communicator who can convince Hutts of the merits of salted nala frogs, have the antagonist refuse to answer their comm. Keep the pace moving and the environment changing. Predictability is death to the game as players can optimize their characters to defuse everything with a single roll.

Above all else, though, do -not- allow players to convince you that their social character can convince Vader to turn to the Light Side with a single conversation, nor let them convince you to allow them to attempt to talk down the Stormtroopers who have been sent to kill them all.

That's not to say "interesting" and "non-standard" uses of skills shouldn't be allowed, they should be allowed and even encouraged. However, they should not be able to resolve, bypass or mitigate an entire encounter, subplot or campaign in a single roll. Use common sense and limit the scope of player actions.

Personally, if I were you, I would have bought a bigger (and more pricey) ship. I also suggest spending a good chunk of that money on ship attachments and mods to said attachments and really deck that ship out as much as you can. That'll drain the account real quick.

Well, I'm glad to see that this subject garners some discussion.

For the record:

We have been using availability rules, and actually have no negotiator, so getting high rarity stuff has been more luck than anything. The closest we have is a Twi'lek hired gun with presence 3. The player is considering a rank or two in the skill, or even maybe taking Entrepreneur some time. For now, we're having a much easier time with finding restricted stuff with streetwise (Scoundrel for the win).

Also, we did buy a new ship, though with the trade in and a decent roll it only cost us 50k. Not only was the original ship not particularly impressive, we also wanted to make it a little harder to track us, so the slicer in the party is working on mucking about with our BOSS and transponder mimicing and such.

We haven't had a chance to buy attachments or install any mods on it so far, but we just got to the Smuggler's Moon at the end of the last session, so we should have plenty of opportunity to do just that.

I'd actually wanted to buy a C-Roc from No Disintegrations and add in a hangar bay, but the rest of the group felt it would be too ungainly and didn't want to hire a bunch of NPC crew.

This particular instance shouldn't be too hard to cut down to a manageable level and keep our crew of shady characters motivated to find the next big score rather than sitting back fat and happy.

Paying off obligations is an obvious step.

We don't particularly feel like keeping track of all the book keeping minutae of docking fees and fuel and such, but we can always drop a chunk of change and say “We're picking up some better quality furnishings for the ship, clothes, food to stock the pantry, some spare parts, and topping up the fuel tank.”

Renting a landing bay for a year on Nar Shaddaa was discussed.

I also suggested the idea of either previous contacts hitting us up for money, or investing in businesses. No immediate gain, but people wind up owing us favors or gaining some other benefit.

The Vio twins have an unexpected expense “We had to dump our cargo and now our employer wants us to pay him back for it,” or maybe they have a big ship repair bill after a pirate nearly beat them to scrap. They'll owe us one, and in the mean time, maybe if some juicy jobs come up that they can't take or can't do alone, they'll keep us in the loop.

The twi'lek miners we befriended early on need an influx of cash in order to expand their operations from the dirt grubbing they were doing before. We'd be buying shares in the company in essence, and get a share in the profits (if any), and we could always count on a friendly port in Ryloth.

Thera might have won the Cloud City 500, but racing is in her blood and this is just the beginning. Unfortunately she doesn't have a cloud car of her own, and her cut of the purse was pretty small (she was a little over-eager to race so agreed to less money). Other, maybe sponsored, opportunities might come up, but she'd really like to race for herself and develop her skills some. Maybe we could float her a loan so she can get her own cloud car? She'll totally pay us back eventually, and if we ever need a good pilot she'll be there in a flash.

The young Rodian bounty hunter we ran into while going after Bandin Dobah sold Dobah's ship to get himself a smaller ship appropriate to a bounty hunter. The thing is, he still needs to replace all the gear he lost, and maybe upgrade the engines a little. In return he could plant a few false leads to slow down all those bounty hunters interested in the three different bounties that are now on the group. He could certainly pay us back once he managed to bring in some good bounties. Not us obviously.

Ota the spy needs an influx of recently laundered money for something (don't ask), and he's heard we recently came into some money. In return he'll owe us a favour. Considering how much he's helped out already we should probably lend a hand.

Maybe a ship salvaging concern needs an influx of money to expand. In return we get cheap/free repairs and a source of under the table attachments (albeit random availability).

Someone from one of the character's backgrounds wants to start up a cantina, general store, or business of some type, but they need some extra startup capital. Sure it would take a long long time to get the original investment back, let alone turn a profit on it, but we'd have another friendly face, maybe a source of transportation jobs (legal or otherwise), and someone who'll keep an ear on happenings in the area and pass on anything useful to us.

I find the best way to deal with wealthy parties is to make it short lived. The party make 200,000 credits? There's that Hurt from 6 sessions ago looking for what he is owed. Or maybe one of the party mentions their gains in the wrong cantina and some opportunistic scumbags grab him and ransom him back to the party. Trigger an obligation that will cost the party.

For me, major part of the Edge of the Empire setting is that the party should be able to hold on to a fortune for long. They should be heading from one calamity to the next. If they profit, they manage to restock on gear, maybe upgrade the ship or get some better weapons but there should always be someone or something there ready to take what they have.

Yeah, once a character puts Superior Quality on every armor and weapon they have, mods everything out, and has a nicely-modded out ship, there isn't much left. I find that it either then goes on to raising some sort of army (sentient or droid) along with some large Cruiser, or they raise some sort of armada or empire business (legal or not). Once you get to that point, that campaign you previously had is over. Who's going to keep on smuggling or collecting bounties with $100,000+ in the bank? That's like saying you make money snuggling cigarettes and 7-11 Big Gulps across state lines into NYC, you hit the lottery, and then keep on taking the risks. It really just would not happen. Yeah, individual motivating to collect bounties is simply dead.

At this point, the group becomes the big-boys on the block and not your small-time smugglers, hunters, or whatever. People look to knock them off or rob them. They're no longer small fish. It's an adjustment. Spending time shopping, buying a cantina or lavished estate aren't really fun ideas to role-play. And, it's not really fun for them to get robbed and relieve them of their riches. Safe to say, when you plan the big-haul, plan also on a new direction in the campaign.

17 hours ago, Spatula Of Doom said:

All told we wound up with about 330,000 credits after expenses.

$ 330,000? That's all? Get back to me when you have really rich characters to deal with.

In a similar situation, our group headed out to Corellia and bought a YT-2400 (Duce'n Four?) new, with all custom factory installed upgrades. We also deliberately blew up a YT-1300 to fake our collective deaths, bought new identities, and there was a G9 Rigger involved but that was a zero-sum neutral impact on our bottom line.

So we have a bit of money in the ship's purse, but we have a tone of obligation as added baggage too. We'll need some gear down the line to deal with some of that. (In Firefly parlance, 'we are sooooo humped').

In real life (IRL) "Tainted money 'taint never 'nough." It has a tendency to disappear about as fast as you picked it up.

That said, if you can try to hold onto a good amount for a rainy day. Thing may not work out well for you and depending on what the galaxy throws at you, you may need to tap into some emergency funds.

Having you considered investing it? No, seriously. Dealing with the InterGalactic Banking Clan (and affiliates) can open up a whole new avenue for adventures, but aside from that, I'd suggest you work out something with your GM like a certificate of deposit (CD). The principle will be untouchable for a specified time period, but you can arrange to get regular interest payments. If you choose a more traditional stock investment portfolio, you may get better returns and possibly dividends, but there's more risk and your account manager might swindle you.

I wouldn't get too far into the weeds with this or it could be rather boring, but (to me) it sounds like a fun way to do something a little "different" and I think it would be easy to set up some one-roll-resolution for the investment's performance. It would have the in-game effect of giving you (and any other investors) a smaller but more regular income, as opposed to having a big wad of cash that you're slowly nibbling away at.

What was the resale value of your old ship?

A banquet to impress a Hutt has got to cost at least $100,000.

Homestead, Space station, business... rebel base, they all have to be worth 100,000 at least, for a good one anyway.

350,000 credits is one nice small sil 5 ship with a hangar, fully decked out and maybe a sil 3 shuttle on top. It is a rather small, a rather moderate sum. A homestead starts at 50,000 credits and is going to eat up a lot more credits afterwards, even if it can generate a steady income which is worth the investment.
350,000 credits is a rather moderate sum, the same way 350,000€ is a rather moderate sum in the real world. You can buy a lot of hot toys with it, but on larger scale of things, it usually not even enough for a nice house with garden in a decent location. Actually, it not even covers the building ground in those good exurbs just to start building that house with garden if the garden has any significant size.

´The same applies for star wars. It is a lot of money for personal gear, it just the tip of the iceberg for any long-term development plans, but it most certainly can help the group to decide on what their long-term and retirement dreams are. Do they build a rebel base, start their shipping empire with their fist medium freighter, do they settle down on some colony planet and start their homestead business there or do they buy a space station? Or do they just save up to buy the best sil 4 ships they can get their hands on, together with with the best weapons, mods, and 75k a piece sniper rifles, bounty hunter guild memberships and a armed ground transport with prisoner cells?

Many options, but this kind of credits basically ask the groups for their future plans. They finally made enough to start working on their characters dreams instead of just their living expenses.

19 hours ago, ShadoWarrior said:

The player's? Perhaps not. But the character's? Certainly. If you don't think so then you just haven't seen the significant edge that some gear can provide. A vibrosword that crits on every hit? A rifle the ignores (pierces) any stormtooper's armor? These things can matter. And with a well-built negotiator, obtaining items is not all that difficult. Even better than a good negotiator is a weapons (and/or armor) tech. You can create some rather awesome pieces of custom gear.

Eh, not really. FFG SW has a very shallow power curve and of the three campaigns I've run using this system, I've only had one player character die. And that was a very extreme situation. This game gives PCs - and GMs, if they want to drag out a situation - so many lifelines. Getting a crit on every hit sounds great on paper but in practice it doesn't make or break a game.

Narrative games, by design, put a thumb on the buy-the-best-gear-be-the-best-character mentality.

I never said that gear makes or breaks a game. Those are your words, not mine. What I said was that it makes a difference, contrary to your earlier assertion that it doesn't make an appreciable difference. SladeWeston, in his post right after mine, provided concrete examples supporting the fact that gear does have a significant impact. Throwing in comments about lifelines and narrative play style is irrelevant to the point. If you don't think that effectively doubling the damage that a weapon can do, or increasing the number of minions you can kill each time you swing a blade has no effect on gameplay, then this discussion is over.

Oh, and BTW, I also never said anything about having the best gear making the best characters. But having better gear than your opponents does provide an edge. And it's far, far easier to get such an edge via spending money than it is to gain a comparable edge via spending XP.