1 hour ago, Eoen said:

Amadala and Princess Leia never seem to be strapped for cash yet the still have no problem developing as characters.

Cash was never an issue in the stories being told. They also never bothered running around looting corpses for credits, and actively doing things to try and accumulate wealth. However the lack of money was the entire plot of the first act of Phantom Menace. The "we don't really use money" Jedi were suddenly having to find ways to pay for something, without actually having anything to pay with. Young Han and Q'ira needed money very much to try and get off Coruscant, and the obtaining of said money was very important to them. For Han it was important throughout his entire life really, young and old. His debt to Jabba drove all of his actions for the original trilogy.

To the bigger question of "why do you have to take the players money away?" I have a counter question of "Why do players seem obsessed with obtaining money just to have piles of it?" If they don't use it on anything, you know like things like staying alive (food, bills, resources, entertainment, etc), they're just sitting on credits like some greedy dragon on his horde. Who gives a **** about credits either way? Obtaining piles of cash to swim in like Scrooge McDuck shouldn't be the Win State for a gaming table. Because the reality is that people pay for things, all the time, in every way. Only in a fictional reality like a gaming table, are people able to just constantly accumulate wealth without any expectation of having to spend any for stuff to exist in a society.

And honestly, if players are so miserly as to always get upset if they have to *gasp* PAY FOR THINGS, to the point where it's expected that they don't, PLUS, they never actually buy anything with their wealth....then what good is it? If they don't use it for anything, it's the same as if they don't have any money at all. If they don't have to worry about paying for food, fuel, tarrifs, taxes, customs inspections, maintenance, ammo, etc, then they are exactly the same situation as a poor group of PCs, because they still have no actual drain on their resources.

Also, in my experience with other game systems that include wealth, it frequently just makes it less fun. GM's will introduce some situation, and PC Money Bags will just shrug and say "No problem, I'll just whip out my Ultra-Platinum Credit Card and buy that problem into oblivion." I've seen it a lot. And instead of actually having an adventure, the player just tries to pay away the problem. "I'll just hire some mercs to handle that threat." "I'll just bribe that official into working for us." etc etc. And it's frankly boring in my experience.

Bottom line, in my opinion, gamers have a problem with an expectation of all the benefits of having money, without having to deal with any of the drawbacks of actually bothering to consider wealth as a factor in a game. You can't have it both ways.

All that being said, I'm not a fan of adding more layers of book keeping to any game system, but I do think things like "paying for ****" is appropriate, when the rest of the galaxy is expected to do it. To keep from having to constantly be like "deduct 10 credits for this, 20 credits for that", I'd probably just have some blanket amount deducted at the end of the session, depending on the various "every day activities" they did. Don't let it break the flow of a scene (unless it's actually important)

On 4/8/2019 at 12:22 AM, Dodd81 said:

Any suggestions on how I can rein them in a bit? Just coming up with a quick "oh by the way, half of your money was stolen between adventures" seems a bit artificial and uninteresting.

Counterpoint: mo money, mo problems. Let them be rich.

5 hours ago, kmanweiss said:

Some money is good. But too much money creates problems. It allows people to min/max. With infinite cash, they can get bigger and better ships. They can start sporting ironman level powered armor. They can upgrade their weapons to the absolute best.

Counterpoint: Batman and Iron Man still go out to fight crime despite being stinking rich and loaded down with gadgets.

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Unless you are throwing armies of rancors at them every encounter, there is no threat to the players.

No, you just have a different set of threats, like the backstabbing and political maneuvering of the Super Rich. That lord you accidentally wronged, the one who can buy an planet with the money he finds under the sofa cushions? You think his honor will be salved with money or threats of violence? You think Lando's problems went away while he was busy living the lifestyle of the Rich and Famous?

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The lure of leveling up and getting new equipment keeps the game interesting.

Then the game sucks. You should play for the story, not the swag.

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The third issue is character motivation. If you are an Edge character and the goal is to pay off your debts and get rich....well, if you are rich enough to retire, why keep risking your life? Why not buy a business, or just retire and call it good enough? If you are AoR character, then you eventually hit a point where just investing the money in legitimate businesses and funneling that cash to the rebellion would make more of a dent than your individual operations.

I've had Super Rich characters before, one in Star Wars, one in Champions. Neither have had issues with motivations. My core-world princess? She had a goal - get back in the good graces with her family - and the process of doing so reunited her with her vast fortune. But even after that life goal checkbox was ticked, she liked the life that she had built from nothing, running a bar on the outer rim with her friends. She liked being a self made person, more than just the sum of her family name and wealth. And we kept on playing that campaign for quite some time afterwards, even though money was zero issue at that point.

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Being strapped for cash, and left wanting for more powerful gear is part of the drive of developing a character.

Developing a character, sure. Coming out of the gate, yeah it's fun to lust after the BlastoMatic 2000 when all you have is a squirt gun. But staying poor forever? That sucks.

Sounds like the problem is the characters, they need better goals. The conversation should not go like this:

Player: "I want Scrooge McDuck levels of money!"

GM: "Why?"

Player: "So I can get great stuff!"

GM: "And what do you do with the great stuff?"

Player: ". . . . um. Get better stuff?"

GM: "And then?"

Player: "Uh. . . . because reasons?"

That's terrible motivation. You need to get them to a "Because I want to avenge my parents who were murdered by Bongo The Hutt by bringing down his empire. That's gonna take a massive bankroll!" place.

On 4/8/2019 at 9:47 AM, kmanweiss said:

Equipment and mods are EXPENSIVE. Throw some enemies with sunder at them. Break a couple pieces of equipment. Capture them and only let them recover some equipment. When visiting some gangster casino and are forced to turn over their heavily modified heavy blaster rifle, have the weapons check person return a regular blaster rifle. Do they start a war with a criminal faction over a blaster rifle, or do they just accept the fact that they've been screwed and deal with it.

A long time ago, I wound up with a bunch of "Casino money" after a local convention and I hit on the brilliant idea of using these physical Space Bucks for in game currency. I had a player make purchase with a big bill and I totally screwed up making change, shorting him by a factor of a thousand.

The player eventually counted his money well after the fact and discovered the discrepancy and lord, but was he HONKED off. The minimum wage clerk, on the other hand, skipped out on his job with his windfall. What started as a pure accident spun out into a pretty long evening's entertainment totally off the cuff as the pissed player tracked down the schlubb to get his money back.

45 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Counterpoint: Batman and Iron Man still go out to fight crime despite being stinking rich and loaded down with gadgets.

No, you just have a different set of threats, like the backstabbing and political maneuvering of the Super Rich. That lord you accidentally wronged, the one who can buy an planet with the money he finds under the sofa cushions? You think his honor will be salved with money or threats of violence? You think Lando's problems went away while he was busy living the lifestyle of the Rich and Famous?

Then your game sucks. You should play for the story, not the swag.

I've had Super Rich characters before, one in Star Wars, one in Champions. Neither have had issues with motivations. My core-world princess? She had a goal - get back in the good graces with her family - and the process of doing so reunited her with her vast fortune. But even after that life goal checkbox was ticked, she liked the life that she had built from nothing, running a bar on the outer rim with her friends. She liked being a self made person, more than just the sum of her family name and wealth. And we kept on playing that campaign for quite some time afterwards, even though money was zero issue at that point.

Developing a character, sure. Coming out of the gate, yeah it's fun to lust after the BlastoMatic 2000 when all you have is a squirt gun. But staying poor forever? That sucks.

Sounds like the problem is the characters, they need better goals. The conversation should not go like this:

Player: "I want Scrooge McDuck levels of money!"

GM: "Why?"

Player: "So I can get great stuff!"

GM: "And what do you do with the great stuff?"

Player: ". . . . um. Get better stuff?"

GM: "And then?"

Player: "Uh. . . . because reasons?"

That's terrible motivation. You need to get them to a "Because I want to avenge my parents who were murdered by Bongo The Hutt by bringing down his empire. That's gonna take a massive bankroll!" place.

ROFL

So acquiring wealth in order to get better gear plays no part in your sessions/campaigns? No one buys new equipment or adds mods to anything?

It isn't the sole focus, but it is a part of the equation.

The story, the personal growth of the character, the equipment growth of the character, the completion of personal goals. Once you take away any one of those factors, the motivation to play is diminished by some degree. This varies from player to player. Min/maxers are driven more by experience and gear than story and character arcs. Narrative/cinematic fans care more about the story and personal goals. Removing the wealth/gear part of the equation can be as damaging for some players as playing railroaded, poorly designed adventures for other players.

What happens when you avenge the death of the parents and Bongo is dead? Now that you have infinite wealth and your mission is over...eh. Settle down and retire sounds good.

Here is what I see inevitably happen time and time again across all systems where wealth plays a part in the system.

Players have some ultimate mission to achieve, this requires powering up and acquiring wealth in order to acquire new gear. Once the big bad is destroyed, a new big bad is discovered, but by that time the players are incredibly wealthy. And then, they start to question how their character would actually react in the situation...you know, role play.

"Well, we could go there ourselves and fight through waves of evil in order to get what we want....or we could just bankroll and army to do it for us."

"I adventured to avenge X because Y. Now that X has been avenged, and Y is stopped...and I'm filthy rich, I really don't care about Z because it doesn't really affect me, I didn't want to be an adventurer, I wanted my revenge, and I got it with a big bonus."

"Evil cooperation is doing what now? We need to investigate this, and figure out how to deal with...or we could just buy them and fix the problem."

Case in point, my first Edge group decided that instead of seeking revenge against the Hutt Lord by going to his palace, fighting through guards, and taking on the Hutt himself that the easiest and most prudent thing to do is buy a bunch of explosives, load the cargo bay, fly their ship into the palace while they eject in escape pods and buy a new ship. Money had become a non factor and they found a creative, but expensive way to bypass a big chunk of a session. At the way cash was flowing, this was likely going to be a trademark move for the group.

As for the other responses about arbitrary moves to just steal wealth. That's not at all what I'm suggesting. Throwing some sunder users into the picture occasionally requires repairs and perhaps replacement of weapons/armor on occasion. Having fees for various things is quite logical. Giving the players enough of a challenge in space that their ship takes some damage can help. Having a criminal stealth their wealth can become it's own adventure. Clearly the players aren't just going to lie down and take it. Chances are they will set out for revenge to reclaim their fortune. The problem will be that a portion of their wealth may not be able to be reclaimed. But they will still feel successful in getting part of their wealth back and getting revenge.

The goal isn't to just take their wealth away. It's to do it through gameplay in a way that is natural and makes sense while also limiting their income.

Living day to day, bankrolling their operations, etc can be plot hooks. It can drive players to make choices they may not otherwise take. Why keep working for hutts and gangsters if you are wealthy enough to make due without dealing with the morally questionable underworld.

7 hours ago, kmanweiss said:

So acquiring wealth in order to get better gear plays no part in your sessions/campaigns? No one buys new equipment or adds mods to anything?

Getting the Sexy New Hawtness was never a big consideration in any of our games. Oh sure, we did get some bling along the way, but that wasn't the end goal.

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Removing the wealth/gear part of the equation can be as damaging for some players as playing railroaded, poorly designed adventures for other players.

I'll certainly agree that it comes down to the GM knowing the players and what everyone - players and GM - want out of the story. That's just GMing 101: understanding the players.

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What happens when you avenge the death of the parents and Bongo is dead? Now that you have infinite wealth and your mission is over...eh. Settle down and retire sounds good.

Catching Joe Chill* hasn't slowed Batman down any.

*Catch, kill, confront - depending on what continuity you pay attention too.

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"I adventured to avenge X because Y. Now that X has been avenged, and Y is stopped...and I'm filthy rich, I really don't care about Z because it doesn't really affect me, I didn't want to be an adventurer, I wanted my revenge, and I got it with a big bonus."

Two things -

If you like the character, why would you put them on the shelf, money or no? Saleena, my "Tony Stark is chump change to me" princess, had a good (real time) year and a half of play left in her after she got back in her family's good graces. Sure, I could have retired her, but I really liked her, so I played on.

The other thing - All games have a shelf life. It's very, very rare that you'll find one of those 15 year (in real time) long games. You'll either get bored with the concept, finish up the story arc and get everything they needed to done, get so much XP that you're basically Superman or any number of reasons. If anything, money never killed the game, it was having 1,500 XP that did the characters in.

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Case in point, my first Edge group decided that instead of seeking revenge against the Hutt Lord by going to his palace, fighting through guards, and taking on the Hutt himself that the easiest and most prudent thing to do is buy a bunch of explosives, load the cargo bay, fly their ship into the palace while they eject in escape pods and buy a new ship. Money had become a non factor and they found a creative, but expensive way to bypass a big chunk of a session. At the way cash was flowing, this was likely going to be a trademark move for the group.

Well, shooting from the hip - the easy out for a GM would be "Good job! You blew up the Hutt estate. Unfortunately he was staying at his summer home, and the very not-dead Hutt is very not-happy with you." and then send the repercussions after them.

But lets play the ball where it lies. So your obscenely wealthy characters drop a transport, blow up a the estate and kill the hutt. Falling into a routine and establishing patterns makes it oh so very easy for their enemy to bugger their plans. "Congratulations, you've locked the controls on a dive for Lord Ming's third palace and bailed to safety. As the hatch of the escape pod swings open, you notice something is . . . not quite right. There's burning shrapnel of your transport scattered all across the landscape, and then you notice the fading glow of the deflector shield over the still standing palace. Oh, by the way, a dozen heavily armed drop ships full of very well trained military elite are currently in-route to your position and are about a half click out. Who wants to roll for initiative first?"

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Why keep working for hutts and gangsters if you are wealthy enough to make due without dealing with the morally questionable underworld.

Because sometimes the undesirable element shows up on your doorstep and says "You're working for me now". Like Lando had a choice when Vader arrived and upset his swank, plush lifestyle?

At the end of the day, the key here is not if they are scraping by with 5 bucks in their pocket scrambling for gas and tolls or throwing a million into a card game at a high stakes casino on Cloud City. The players need to build in a motivation beyond "Get bling." and the GM needs to keep them hungry. Not poor, hungry.

On 4/9/2019 at 3:40 AM, immortalfrieza said:

Give  them the opportunity to make tons of money or equipment or ships or whatever it is they want, but at th  e risk of losing a great dea   l.

This is great advice.

A good way to make things more expensive is to offer upp more dangerous tasks and possibilities to mitigate the danger by expensive hardware.

They need to intercept an armored column? Give them the opportunity to buy a refurbished clone wars hover tank, which in turn then might in turn attract heavier reinforcements, exposing their new tank to greater risk (which still might be better than risking their ship).

In short, if you've scaled up the rewards, scale up the risks. If they can afford expensive customized gear, make them need expensive customized gear. No matter how much money they have, they can't outspend the GM. If they try, FFG gave us Star Destroyer stats for a reason.

Some have cautioned against letting the PCs pay their way out of trouble, but I say go with it. You can always manufacture more problems, and remember that you set the price tag for making a problem go away. Also those looking for bribes can smell money and once they start paying their way out of problems there will be a neverending line of people with outstretched hands.

In my group I handle money that way: every day the group spends idle on a planet, shopping, healing etc costs them a varying amount of money. the group has established a crew pot where 50% of the earned credits go to and is used to repair and refuel the ship etc.

so for example a day on nar shadaa costs 1000 credits from the crew pot which includes the hangar bay, refueling etc. and about 100 credits for every player character (sometimes more if they go to a bar etc). this can be much cheaper on planets like tatooine, the downside is that there is much less trade and fewer rare items etc.

I also houseruled buying items quite heavily. for example an item costs the base price plus the rarity x10 in credits. 50% extra if it is restricted. then the character that wants to buy it has the chance to negotiate to reduce the price by 10% per success and can use a triumph to negotiate even further. a despair can mean the trader makes an ultimatum on the price or loses interesting in selling altogether. every item has a minimum selling price of the base cost plus a percentage depending on the rarity. rarity 10 items cannot be cheaper than item price plus 30%, rarity nine is base price plus 25% etc. I never let them buy below the listed price in the books.
oh, and buying rare and exciting items is always a real encounter against an experienced and cunning trader!

I also use despairs to damage items sometimes, the PCs then have to spend the money on replacement parts. for crafted weapons I houseruled the base value as material value (e.g. energy pistol 200) plus 100 for every triumph and advantage spent when crafted.

Last mission I let the PCs buy infos they needed for the quest and they 3/6 players also got robbed by a gang of streetchildren when they walked through a crowd of people (100 credits for every failure in a perception check plus 500 for a despair).

that being said the players usually earn good money in their missions

Remember that in most cases this is a cash and carry setting and the players will have to secure wealth like that physically. If unscrupulous types find out that the players have a lot of money then the PCs become the target of people looking to steal their money either legally (taxation, fines, whatever) or illegally.

On 4/9/2019 at 7:49 AM, Eoen said:

Why are GM's like Banksters, always trying to impoverish the people while living on an unlimited budget themselves?

Don't know if this is serious or not, but the answer is that adversity is interesting, success is not. Players having no money issues means it is not a dimension of story for them, and that the game must be about other things. This means that a lot of plot points are out the window because the PCs simply don't have any stress in that department. If you hate fake money stress then ok fine, but for the GM there is a lot that gets removed from the toolbox when the players are monetarily successful. Also if it happens too early in the campaign the game can feel like it blew its wad too precipitously.

I feel that players need to accept a loss of control in order to be a player in a role-playing game. The GM needs to be able to have a gamespace that does not conform to the wishes of the players so that it can be a more convincing simulation.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

Don't know if this is serious or not, but the answer is that adversity is interesting, success is not. Players having no money issues means it is not a dimension of story for them, and that the game must be about other things. This means that a lot of plot points are out the window because the PCs simply don't have any stress in that department. If you hate fake money stress then ok fine, but for the GM there is a lot that gets removed from the toolbox when the players are monetarily successful. Also if it happens too early in the campaign the game can feel like it blew its wad too precipitously.

I feel that players need to accept a loss of control in order to be a player in a role-playing game. The GM needs to be able to have a gamespace that does not conform to the wishes of the players so that it can be a more convincing simulation.

Adversity with out ever winning is just as boring as always winning and more frustrating.

Send them to the planet "Re'd T'ape" aka the Planet of Taxes....where there is a tax for everything, including breathing...8P

2 hours ago, Archlyte said:

for the GM there is a lot that gets removed from the toolbox when the players are monetarily successful.

It removes some tools from the box, but it adds in some too. My princess occasionally did fun stuff for her friends like treat them to luxury space cruises (that were inevitably hit by pirates because a boat load of the obscenely rich makes for a good Die Hard game) and trips to Westworld-like resorts for fun diversionary sessions where the characters were divided up into two teams and engaged in a wargame against each other.

Stories like that would be outside the scope of a game where the players are debating if they should buy gas or eat food.

2 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Also if it happens too early in the campaign the game can feel like it blew its wad too precipitously.

Unless you're playing a Lords of the Expanse style game, where you start out as high rolling movers and shakers. But otherwise, I agree. The journey is half the fun.

4 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Adversity with out ever winning is just as boring as always winning and more frustrating.

Vote with your feet then. If you are actually being beaten up by the GM for the Gm's pleasure then it's on you if you stay. On the other hand if you wanted a game by committee you should check with the Gm and see if that is what they signed up for when they offered to run the game.

3 hours ago, Desslok said:

It removes some tools from the box, but it adds in some too. My princess occasionally did fun stuff for her friends like treat them to luxury space cruises (that were inevitably hit by pirates because a boat load of the obscenely rich makes for a good Die Hard game) and trips to Westworld-like resorts for fun diversionary sessions where the characters were divided up into two teams and engaged in a wargame against each other.

Stories like that would be outside the scope of a game where the players are debating if they should buy gas or eat food.

Unless you're playing a Lords of the Expanse style game, where you start out as high rolling movers and shakers. But otherwise, I agree. The journey is half the fun.

So while I agree with you on this I would say that relatable situations are a good source of tension. It is fun to pretend t be a billionaire mogul or a King, but it also means the story is meant to be about those things. If you are playing a game with Obligation mechanic and where keeping them hungry is supposed to be a part of the campaign then the players becoming immune to money concerns is going to mess that up.

14 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

So while I agree with you on this I would say that relatable situations are a good source of tension. It is fun to pretend t be a billionaire mogul or a King, but it also means the story is meant to be about those things. If you are playing a game with Obligation mechanic and where keeping them hungry is supposed to be a part of the campaign then the players becoming immune to money concerns is going to mess that up.

I would say your view is kinda limited. It depends on what story you want to tell and the players should have a say as well. All having money does is trade one set of problems for a different set of problems. Money doesnt solve all problems. It mostly changes the nature of the problems.

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

I would say your view is kinda limited. It depends on what story you want to tell and the players should have a say as well. All having money does is trade one set of problems for a different set of problems. Money doesnt solve all problems. It mostly changes the nature of the problems.

Well thanks for that I guess, but I don't see how having not having to worry about money is somehow less limited. I should be clear and say that I am not saying all storylines have to be about money. I am saying that it is a legitimate device. But to me I would wonder about players so bent up about needing to amass their coin to the degree that they can stuff the GM. If you don't want to worry about money then session 0 would be a good place to bring that up. Or maybe run your own game and have it be about fabulously wealthy EotE PCs who just have adventures for other reasons.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

It is fun to pretend t be a billionaire mogul or a King, but it also means the story is meant to be about those things.

Not necessarily. Yes one of the story arcs that played out in that campaign was centered about Saleena and her throne (or lack thereof) and getting back home - but when you build a endgame into a character, you kind of expect to see that arc play out. But not every session was about that arc, with long stretches of her not being very princess-ly or focusing on other characters and their goals.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

If you are playing a game with Obligation mechanic and where keeping them hungry is supposed to be a part of the campaign then the players becoming immune to money concerns is going to mess that up.

Lando and his obligation "Look after the citizens of Cloud City" would disagree that being a high roller alleviated his concerns, especially when Vader came along and punched him in the jimmies. No matter how big your are, there's always someone with deeper pockets and more resources. Even Prince Xizor bent his knee to the Emperor.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

I don't see how having not having to worry about money is somehow less limited.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you need to think outside the box then. Political double dealing, people trying to take your toys away, people with deeper pockets and more resources who don't care how rich you are, blackmailers, supply problems of every kind, labor difficulties and the desire to work through childhood trauma by dressing like a bat and punching people.

I could sit here all day and come up with game ideas how to challenge super rich characters.

7 hours ago, GandofGand said:

Send them to the planet "Re'd T'ape" aka the Planet of Taxes....where there is a tax for everything, including breathing...8P

...and holding your breath is labeled as the crime of hoarding air.

11 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

...and holding your breath is labeled as the crime of hoarding air.

Close, this was a planet I actually used in a long ago campaign...just to eff with the players...wasn't the name (Thats been lost to time), but was fun!

2 minutes ago, GandofGand said:

Close, this was a planet I actually used in a long ago campaign...just to eff with the players...wasn't the name (Thats been lost to time), but was fun!

Something like this?

3 hours ago, Desslok said:

I feel like they are getting unrealistically rich for a life spent scraping by on the Outer Rim, but there doesn't seem much to spend money on. I haven't noticed a cost of living mechanic like D&D or anything like that.

Any suggestions on how I can rein them in a bit ? Just coming up with a quick "oh by the way, half of your money was stolen between adventures" seems a bit artificial and uninteresting.

This is what the OP wrote. My take on this is that like me he isn't interested in a story about characters who made their way to financial super stardom in the second or third adventure of the game. That you can tell stories about wealthy people and have them be interesting isn't the point here.

Furthermore I detect in some of this the cry of players unwilling to deal with adversity. There is that breed of player who has low frustration tolerance and can't stand to have their fake money taken from them in the same manner that they acquired it in the first place. A constant addition of imaginary goods is all they will tolerate, and should it go the other way a tantrum will ensue. I don't know about you, but to me those sorts of masturbatory charades are the epitome of tedium. I can only report on the players unending success and accrual of more unneeded funds so long before I'm ready to quit the game.

If the story is meant to be about characters who don't have money issues then fine. The opposite case is just as valid as a campaign style.

6 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Well thanks for that I guess, but I don't see how having not having to worry about money is somehow less limited. I should be clear and say that I am not saying all storylines have to be about money. I am saying that it is a legitimate device. But to me I would wonder about players so bent up about needing to amass their coin to the degree that they can stuff the GM. If you don't want to worry about money then session 0 would be a good place to bring that up. Or maybe run your own game and have it be about fabulously wealthy EotE PCs who just have adventures for other reasons.

You attitude was as if mkney was the only game. So yeah i responded that thinking is very limited

5 hours ago, Desslok said:

I could sit here all day and come up with game ideas how to challenge super rich characters.

And I could do the same to poor characters. Honestly, I don't even understand why are you arguing, since both has potential storytelling material and neither worse than the other, they are different.

However I personally lean on the poor side, since that's the OT atmoshpere, i'm trying to convey.

(Not to forget that OP was about getting them hungry, not debating if the GM should get them hungry...)

On 4/9/2019 at 4:53 PM, kmanweiss said:

Some money is good. But too much money creates problems. It allows people to min/max. With infinite cash, they can get bigger and better ships. They can start sporting ironman level powered armor. They can upgrade their weapons to the absolute best.

At first, this sounds good. It's cool, it's fun. But once they get the best of the best, you run into three issues.

Unless you are throwing armies of rancors at them every encounter, there is no threat to the players.

Once your progression dries up, the game is less exciting. The lure of leveling up and getting new equipment keeps the game interesting. It's how microtransaction games work. They let you advance quickly and play as much as you want early on so you get hooked on that level of progression....then you hit a wall and are forced to pay to keep the same level of progression going. Most people grow tired of the perpetual grind and quit. There are two forms of progression in this game. Equipment and XP. If Equipment outpaces XP, they hit the max in that category, and lose half of the progression for their character.

The third issue is character motivation. If you are an Edge character and the goal is to pay off your debts and get rich....well, if you are rich enough to retire, why keep risking your life? Why not buy a business, or just retire and call it good enough? If you are AoR character, then you eventually hit a point where just investing the money in legitimate businesses and funneling that cash to the rebellion would make more of a dent than your individual operations. 

Being strapped for cash, and left wanting for more powerful gear is part of the drive of developing a character.

While I do get what you are saying, I also have to say that I partly disagree with some of it.

I agree completely with regards to computer games. But IMO a tabletop RPG is not the same beast, though character development is a driving factor.

Character development is an interesting part of the RPG game, as is getting better gear. But that being said, for me personally, it comes secondary to the story and the character's experiences within the game. And I tend to find the whole "strapped for cash and resources" thing to be more of an annoyance than a driver. I would personally rather be able to create the character I want to play from the start of the game, and then concentrate on the internal development in the character, and the story, than have to start out with a skeleton for the character I want to play, and then have to wait a year or two, before the character begins to resemble what I want to play. Yes, I exadurate a bit here, but I trust you get my point.

As for the matter of challenging players, I partly agree with you. Yes, if every player is a walking tank that requires anti-vehicle weapons to take down, then it becomes a problem to throw "ordinary levels of threat" at them, which is bad for the game. But two things. 1) I generally don't find that even a well armoured and equipped character is that problematic to hurt in Star Wars, and 2) there are a lot of other ways to challenge a character, than straight combat, so IMO the well-equipped character problem is less of an issue in this game than many others. But of course YMMV.

I agree with you that there is the issue of "why continuing to risk your life, if you can retire in luxury?", but that's a pretty ordinary problem in RPG's. Especially D&D IMO. But for the same reason, the players tend to be able to come up with some form of justification for continuing to play their characters, even after they could theoretically retire.

Hello there,

There are great bits of advice in this thread. I just wanted to add my 0.02 credits. Don't try to follow a path of "charge for everything" as fuel, food, etc. Do it only if it make sense in the grand story. For example, if your PC had no credits, or they have traced credits by a big core world bank, or they don't accept Imperial credits, and they need to exchange.

How much is too much? Spaceship upgrades and repairs are expensive. The most excellent Mandalorian armor is expensive. A kyber crystal is expensive. But in the end, all of them are possible to buy. So what can you do? Spice up the transaction: add layers that can create great adventures or opportunities to expend additional catch.

"The finest Ion turbine is developed in Bespin, and is promising to surpass Corelian and Kuat finest design. An infochant knows someone, but the information is not cheap."

"The gauntlet of "Mandalor the Murderhobo" was found in a survey mission. There is a rumor that his armor might be found in an uncharted sector of wild space. An explorer has an expensive hyperoute map that can lead you where they found the gauntlet."

"Oh you have 10000 credits and you want to buy a lightsaber? yeah sure, do you want to buy the title of grand master too? You cant buy a Lightsaber... unless you are willing to risk a trip to Nar shaddaa and speak with an eccentric collector."