I'm starting a new game in fortnight (as GM) and the party is going to be a Bounty Hunting groups working in the Coruscant Underworld.

I want to add a lot of different illegal revenue streams for them, and rival groups, and have the campaign play out like Sons of Anarchy.

Potential revenue streams I have thought of:

• Bounties (duh)
• Guns/weapons
• Swoop bikes
• Spice/drugs
• Armour
• Brothel/Prostitution
• Slavery
• Droids
• Assassinations
• Protection

Any other ideas for revenue? Ideas for rival groups?

• Racketeering
• Gambling Establishments
• Money Laundering
• Blackmail/Extortion
• Kidnapping for money
• Shipjacking
• Good ole robbery

That's all I can think of for now.

As for rival groups, you could have a mixture of other local groups, and others new to the system that are trying to get a foothold in the system's criminal economy. They could be established groups from the published material, or your own, new groups.

Old Forgery saying. The easiest way to make money, is to make money.....

14 hours ago, 2P51 said:

Old Forgery saying. The easiest way to make money, is to make money.....

Ooh, that's dangerous. Try forging Wupiupi or Druggats and see how long before the Hutts catch up to you.

i don't know how you'd forge credits though. Is a cred stick just a high tech gift card you could reprogram?

Hmmmm, im not sure about physical production

You could always slice money online

11 hours ago, Darcune said:

Ooh, that's dangerous. Try forging Wupiupi or Druggats and see how long before the Hutts catch up to you.

i don't know how you'd forge credits though. Is a cred stick just a high tech gift card you could reprogram?

I think its a Daunting or Formidable Computers check to hack and reprogram a credit stick.

1 hour ago, Oden Gebhac said:

I think its a Daunting or Formidable Computers check to hack and reprogram a credit stick.

Are you saying that's what you think it should be, or that's listed in a book somewhere?

I confused it for the Credit Cleaner in Lords of Nal Hutta. It's a Formidable Computers check to trace credits after they have been through the Cleaner. The CRB does say credit sticks are notoriously difficult to hack and that the IGBC will trounce you hard (with the Empire's help) if they catch you.

5 hours ago, RedEyeManiac said:

Are you saying that's what you think it should be, or that's listed in a book somewhere?

It's somewhere in the book, although I also foget the details of the rule.

Things that haven't been mentioned:

• loan sharking
• jailbreaking
• piracy
• computer slicing
• illegal surgery

In regards to currency forgery:

Credits also come in physical form. As cards, sticks, or sometimes cubes.

Pro: They're harder to trace than going through the Intergalactic Banking Clan with a digital stick.

Con: They're easily lost, stolen, destroyed, etc.

Here's an example:

They might also act as a fence, selling stolen goods at whatever price they can get, selling illegal or restricted items, or otherwise "running" the gray market on whatever planet or city they have established themselves on.

We seem to have overlooked the most iconic Star Wars method of earning credits. Smuggling. Especially fun to smuggle goods that are not illegal most places. Like Salt onto Arcona.

2 hours ago, Edgookin said:

We seem to have overlooked the most iconic Star Wars method of earning credits. Smuggling. Especially fun to smuggle goods that are not illegal most places. Like Salt onto Arcona.

I assumed that was implied in the OP's listing of things like Spice/Drugs, slavery and human trafficking. Those pretty much require someone to do smuggling, if only to get the product In/Out.

You forgot to mention

Fraud and Scams

Quote

Hello sir,

I am the executor of the estate of Prince Graf Antilles of Alderbraan and you have been found d to be the recipient of an inheritance of 45 million credits currently held in the Imperial Bank of Coruuscrant....

On 5/9/2017 at 9:38 AM, KungFuFerret said:

I assumed that was implied in the OP's listing of things like Spice/Drugs, slavery and human trafficking. Those pretty much require someone to do smuggling, if only to get the product In/Out.

To me, distribution and supply are totally different.

To me, Smuggling is the transport of illegal goods between planets

For this game, the party is pretty much going to be in the Coruscant Underworld, so I don't see much room for traditional smuggling.

The counterfeiting is interesting. Maybe when they try to use counterfeit credits, do a vigilance check from the other party to notice if the credits are fake

I'd actually attach more than one check to the counterfeiting. The Intergalactic Banking Clan is literally death on counterfeit credits, and once the bad credits made their way to a Bank that recognized them as bad, there'd be an investigation.

It's a big galaxy, but if the party continued to use counterfeit credits, they'd be facing some heavy bounties

41 minutes ago, Darcune said:

I'd actually attach more than one check to the counterfeiting. The Intergalactic Banking Clan is literally death on counterfeit credits, and once the bad credits made their way to a Bank that recognized them as bad, there'd be an investigation.

It's a big galaxy, but if the party continued to use counterfeit credits, they'd be facing some heavy bounties

Personally, I would run it the same way you run any kind of "I'm hiding something from somone" versus "I'm trying to spot hidden things" kind of roll, similar to skullduggery. The roll to actually make the counterfeit money, would determine the difficulty of the roll to tell that it is counterfeit. For your average, low level currency clerk, who will likely have low dice pool for spotting fake money, a well made counterfeit wouldn't have any issues. If, for some reason, your fake money is being run by the head of the entire Galactic Economic Commission for Currency and Trade, then yeah, they'd probably spot it. But all they would spot, in my opinion, is that it's counterfeit. They would have to do another check to try and figure out where it came from. And a part of me thinks that this would vary based on the nature of the currency. If it's a credstick you are using all over, then it's relatively easy to trace it back to you. If it's actual hard currency, that changes hands hundreds, if not thousands of times before being discovered, it would be REALLY hard to trace the source.

13 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

And a part of me thinks that this would vary based on the nature of the currency. If it's a credstick you are using all over, then it's relatively easy to trace it back to you. If it's actual hard currency, that changes hands hundreds, if not thousands of times before being discovered, it would be REALLY hard to trace the source.

That really depends on how banking systems work in Star Wars. In reality, after cash money has been taken at a store it is usually deposited in the safe, and then sent to a bank when the store's cash on hand exceeds an acceptable amount.

Once the money reaches the bank, the systems for spotting counterfeit money are much more advanced than what you might find at the store level. That's the reason I think it would be discovered relatively quickly, because money always finds its way back to a bank in time.

21 minutes ago, Darcune said:

That really depends on how banking systems work in Star Wars. In reality, after cash money has been taken at a store it is usually deposited in the safe, and then sent to a bank when the store's cash on hand exceeds an acceptable amount.

Once the money reaches the bank, the systems for spotting counterfeit money are much more advanced than what you might find at the store level. That's the reason I think it would be discovered relatively quickly, because money always finds its way back to a bank in time.

Yes well, remember that Star Wars technology, while advanced, is advanced based on 1970's concept of "advanced". They don't have wifi, but they have hyperspace. So assuming they have some intricate system to detect counterfeit, is speculation on our part. Seeing as they never once describe anything like that, it can be as complex as you want it to be.

But, that really doesn't matter, because, in the end, it comes down to rolls of dice, which reflect, with one action, a very complex activity on the part of the player. You could just as easily say that the making of counterfeit stuff is very complex, but for the player, it's 1 dice roll to see if it works or not. To suddenly have 12 rolls, each with a chance to succeed at finding the counterfeit, stacks the odds heavily against th eplayer ever doing this. It's much easier to just have it be one very difficult roll, and then you can describe the reason being all that layered stuff you describe.

It also depends on where the countefeit stuff is being used. Some planets don't use the Imperial banking systems, so if you are say, in the Outer Rim, the ability to get counterfeit past the government will likely be easier. If it's a primitive planet, that doesn't have centralized banking, it's likely even easier. I would probably just use the Rarity table for deciding on the difficulty of making the counterfeit currency. If you're trying to fake imperial credit chits, or Hutt currency, that's a high difficulty roll. If you're trying to make Ewok bone chips to trade on Endor, that's a low difficulty to fake. If they succeed on the roll, then they've made money that will require a perception roll (of some kind) to actually spot if it's fake. If they fail the roll to make the money, it comes out obviously fake, looking like Monopoly money or something. But, if they pull it off, they could try and pass it off as money. But, the other party has a chance to check it. And that's the opposed check, based on success of counterfeiting roll.

3 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

But, that really doesn't matter, because, in the end, it comes down to rolls of dice, which reflect, with one action, a very complex activity on the part of the player. You could just as easily say that the making of counterfeit stuff is very complex, but for the player, it's 1 dice roll to see if it works or not . To suddenly have 12 rolls, each with a chance to succeed at finding the counterfeit, stacks the odds heavily against the player ever doing this. It's much easier to just have it be one very difficult roll, and then you can describe the reason being all that layered stuff you describe.

It also depends on where the counterfeit stuff is being used. Some planets don't use the Imperial banking systems, so if you are say, in the Outer Rim, the ability to get counterfeit past the government will likely be easier. If it's a primitive planet, that doesn't have centralized banking, it's likely even easier. I would probably just use the Rarity table for deciding on the difficulty of making the counterfeit currency. If you're trying to fake imperial credit chits, or Hutt currency, that's a high difficulty roll. If you're trying to make Ewok bone chips to trade on Endor, that's a low difficulty to fake. If they succeed on the roll, then they've made money that will require a perception roll (of some kind) to actually spot if it's fake. If they fail the roll to make the money, it comes out obviously fake, looking like Monopoly money or something. But, if they pull it off, they could try and pass it off as money. But, the other party has a chance to check it. And that's the opposed check, based on success of counterfeiting roll.

You know, I agree with you.

Bogging the game down in details is how you slow down the pace and make it boring for the players. Ultimately, all of the variables of any situation should contribute to one single roll, modified to take them into account.

On topic... Counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is an illegal thing you can do.

Credit chips are like bit coins embedded in physical coins. The bit coin part is the hardest point to fake and I would imagine that you can tap a credit chip against a cash register to pay the same way you can tap a real life credit or debit card with a chip in it to pay. If the faked bit coin part isn't good enough to pass the tap to pay, you're going to get caught immediately. At the point where the faked bit coin in caught they'really going to run the person who is stuck with it, we'll if they're a bank is going to run the DNA/fingerprints of everyone on the physical chip. Which adds value to LITERALLY cleaning credits, as in with bleach, and then only handling them with gloves on or a cybernetic prosthetic. After that, back tracing it to you is just a "simple" matter of how well the records of every establishment the goods transfered hands in... a high end restaurant or hotel is certainly going to have their customer's names and holos on file cross referenced to the chips they tapped to pay with... the seedy cantina that patrons frequent for the anomynity as much as for the beverages, not so much.

About the only way a perfect physical facsimile would be enough to spend is when you're paying someone without ready access to a "tapper" and that's only going to work for small amounts and the moment that they try to and can't spend it, they're going to come back for they guy who scammed them. So really, it's a question of how well can you fake a star wars bit coin... for HARD CURRENCY.

But all that stuff, at the end of the day, boils down to a dice roll, with a challenge rating. Going into the detailed nuances of currency creation and forgery based on IRL systems, doesn't inform anything about the dice results. At most, it means you have a 4-5 purple die check, likely with some reds thrown in there for good measure. But, in the end, if the player succeeds at the roll , they are able to pull it off convincingly. Doesn't mean people won't spot it (if they succeed at their own check to spot the forgery).

I mean, really this is no different, at the base level, than a disguise. You are faking the appearance and validity of someone else. Someone actively trying to tell if you are legit or not, rolls to see if you fool them. Same thing with the money. You are faking it's validity with a dice roll, and if someone is trying to tell if it's legit or not, you use a roll to see if you fool them.

Now if you want it to be nigh impossible, because you just simply don't want your players doing counterfeit, fine, make it an impossible check. But, counterfeiting does happen, and people are able to pull it off. Not every country on earth has the same level of sophistication in their currency system. And no system is 100% effective. So to say it's just not possible, seems unrealistic to me. Hard as heck? Sure, but not impossible. And really, if a player who doesn't have a REALLY good dice pool to try counterfeiting tries it, well, they shouldn't be surprised if it fails. But, if they are just that good, then why shouldn't they be able to pull it off?

If it's totally cool for me to lift Silhouette 4+ ships with my mind, see the future, shoot lightning bolts from my hands, and all that's ok, and passes the "that's just not realistic" test, why can't "I faked some money". I mean, of all the examples I just listed, the faking of the money is the only one that actually DOES happen IRL.

On 5/12/2017 at 10:48 PM, KungFuFerret said:

But all that stuff, at the end of the day, boils down to a dice roll, with a challenge rating. Going into the detailed nuances of currency creation and forgery based on IRL systems, doesn't inform anything about the dice results. At most, it means you have a 4-5 purple die check, likely with some reds thrown in there for good measure. But, in the end, if the player succeeds at the roll , they are able to pull it off convincingly. Doesn't mean people won't spot it (if they succeed at their own check to spot the forgery).

I mean, really this is no different, at the base level, than a disguise. You are faking the appearance and validity of someone else. Someone actively trying to tell if you are legit or not, rolls to see if you fool them. Same thing with the money. You are faking it's validity with a dice roll, and if someone is trying to tell if it's legit or not, you use a roll to see if you fool them.

Now if you want it to be nigh impossible, because you just simply don't want your players doing counterfeit, fine, make it an impossible check. But, counterfeiting does happen, and people are able to pull it off. Not every country on earth has the same level of sophistication in their currency system. And no system is 100% effective. So to say it's just not possible, seems unrealistic to me. Hard as heck? Sure, but not impossible. And really, if a player who doesn't have a REALLY good dice pool to try counterfeiting tries it, well, they shouldn't be surprised if it fails. But, if they are just that good, then why shouldn't they be able to pull it off?

If it's totally cool for me to lift Silhouette 4+ ships with my mind, see the future, shoot lightning bolts from my hands, and all that's ok, and passes the "that's just not realistic" test, why can't "I faked some money". I mean, of all the examples I just listed, the faking of the money is the only one that actually DOES happen IRL.

My philosophy on this is that all counterfeit imperial credits will *eventually* be caught, the better the forgery and OTHER PRECAUTIONS (such as literally cleaning credits with bleach to remove your DNA, restriction WHERE you spend the counterfeit credit chips to places with deliberately less than perfect records of their clientele) sets how hard it is to trace the counterfeit credit chips back to YOU (where YOU means the PCs doing the counterfeiting) and those extra precautions (or lack thereof) certainly inform the narrive. If you don't take them in my game, someone is eventually going to be investigating you, if your name comes up once you might get only a cursory glance. But if you make a habit of counterfeiting without taking precautions, the investigators who don't believe in coincidence are going to take notice when your name/dna pops up repeatedly, and then give you a closer look.

The way otherwise undetecabl embezzling gets detected is people who shouldn't have a lot of money are spending a lot of money consistently. Basically stupid behavior gets you caught even if you committed the perfect crime. In the embezzlement example, I mean launder the money with the mob through investment in a dummy corporation that pays back less money then you gave them but more than you claimed to have given them.... or as a one off win BIG at a mob run casino (again you gave them more than you "won" but less than you claimed to have gambled)