So, am I reading the commerce rules correctly?

It looks to me as though taking goods to a place where they're hard to get (elevated Rarity) makes it harder to find a buyer/a good price, because of the increased difficulty on the skill check... or is the location modifier not used for this purpose (only the base Rarity of the item)?

A citation would be very helpful when I face skepticism.

Thanks.

2 minutes ago, Doc Sindica said:

So, am I reading the commerce rules correctly?

It looks to me as though taking goods to a place where they're hard to get (elevated Rarity) makes it harder to find a buyer/a good price, because of the increased difficulty on the skill check... or is the location modifier not used for this purpose (only the base Rarity of the item)?

A citation would be very helpful when I face skepticism.

Thanks.

The commerce rules are bad. Really bad. This game is not Traveller, or even D6 Star Wars. If you are looking at doing commerce for profit, I suggest looking into another game's rules for such and porting them over.

1 minute ago, Doc Sindica said:

So, am I reading the commerce rules correctly?

It looks to me as though taking goods to a place where they're hard to get (elevated Rarity) makes it harder to find a buyer/a good price, because of the increased difficulty on the skill check... or is the location modifier not used for this purpose (only the base Rarity of the item)?

A citation would be very helpful when I face skepticism.

Thanks.

You are looking at it backwards. That is the way a player buys as rare item. Elevated rarity would make it easier to sell and make it easier to command a higher price for the goods.

2 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

The commerce rules are bad. Really bad. This game is not Traveller, or even D6 Star Wars. If you are looking at doing commerce for profit, I suggest looking into another game's rules for such and porting them over.

I worked up a set of rules that fit within the framework of FFGSWRPG without giving the parts of my brain formatted by an intro econ course seizures, but mentioning that was literally the straw that broke the camel's back and made The Skeptic rotate out of the GM's spot at the end of the session... so from here on out I hold my nose and pretend the economics as written don't offend my sensibilities. I'm hoping to find an "official" detail here or there to help...

10 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

You are looking at it backwards. That is the way a player buys as rare item. Elevated rarity would make it easier to sell and make it easier to command a higher price for the goods.

Is it not the case that the PC must make a skill check to sell an item, with the Difficulty of the check being roughly half the Rarity? Higher Rarities mean fewer Successes, which in turn mean less credits or no sale at all, right?

5 minutes ago, Doc Sindica said:

Is it not the case that the PC must make a skill check to sell an item, with the Difficulty of the check being roughly half the Rarity? Higher Rarities mean fewer Successes, which in turn mean less credits or no sale at all, right?

table 5-3 page 150.

take the rarity of the item adjust the rarity for the buying location. calculate the difference. then look at the next column of the same row and multiply the cost by that much. you can probably extrapulate that table up and down from what is listed.

table 5 1 is for making purchases. though if you are selling rare items i would flip the difficulties as it is easy to find a buyer of a rare item.

6 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

table 5-3 page 150.

take the rarity of the item adjust the rarity for the buying location. calculate the difference. then look at the next column of the same row and multiply the cost by that much. you can probably extrapulate that table up and down from what is listed.

table 5 1 is for making purchases. though if you are selling rare items i would flip the difficulties as it is easy to find a buyer of a rare item.

Yes, there are two factors which compound; the special rule you cite for characters engaging in trade (which is a bandage required to make commerce possible), and the basic check to determine selling price. This rule is okay for driving the export of manufactured goods from core worlds to the outer rim (because no one would ever want to go less that +4 Rarity if they could help it), but would cause the core to starve ("You say you want to import crops but will only pay me a fraction of what the farmers charge me???").

I also thought about flipping the Rarity modifier when selling, but if you're doing that, or removing the cap of the multiplier table (which makes 200% profits routinely attainable at the +4 Rarity level), you're already flat-out changing the system, so may just as well PROPERLY change it.

One of these days I'll polish up my version and tack it to this thread. The effective difference is that it's much easier to make modest profits, and much harder to make monstrous ones, and the reckoning is less tail-chasing.

1 minute ago, Doc Sindica said:

Yes, there are two factors which compound; the special rule you cite for characters engaging in trade (which is a bandage required to make commerce possible), and the basic check to determine selling price. This rule is okay for driving the export of manufactured goods from core worlds to the outer rim (because no one would ever want to go less that +4 Rarity if they could help it), but would cause the core to starve ("You say you want to import crops but will only pay me a fraction of what the farmers charge me???").

I also thought about flipping the Rarity modifier when selling, but if you're doing that, or removing the cap of the multiplier table (which makes 200% profits routinely attainable at the +4 Rarity level), you're already flat-out changing the system, so may just as well PROPERLY change it.

One of these days I'll polish up my version and tack it to this thread. The effective difference is that it's much easier to make modest profits, and much harder to make monstrous ones, and the reckoning is less tail-chasing.

you gonna cover triangle trade? and I agree there needs to be more nuance. But on the other hand this is Star Wars. Not Spreadsheets and accountants. So I wouldnt go too crazy.

do you have fly casual?

I think what you are looking for is there

17 hours ago, Daeglan said:

do you have fly casual?

I think what you are looking for is there

Good grief. A totally different mechanic, which assumes the source of operating capital is unimportant ("Banks don't want you to know this one simple trick!"), and spits out what would be a nice safe 9-5 job paycheck if not for the whims of the narrative dice roll... and then operational costs roll in. But some days you win and are flush with credits. I guess it serves the agenda of keeping PCs on their toes because they can never really master their own destinies.

what did you expect? It is a game and not a trade simulation. One written by people with little economics knowledge.

If I was GM'ing a group that was trying to flip some rare stuff, I might make it more difficult to find a buyer the rarer the item, dependent on where they are trying to sell it too.

Afterall. If you had a stolen Tiger cub, finding someone to buy it on the streets of LA would probably be a nigh-on-impossible challenge. But if and when you did find a buyer they'd still pay top dollar.

On 5/22/2019 at 11:30 PM, Doc Sindica said:

So, am I reading the commerce rules correctly?

So here's the thing...

Commerce rules in most every RPG are generally borked in comparison to real-world commerce and economics. Legend of the Five Rings was notorious for having a setting-based economy that made no sense whatsoever from first edition right up through FFG's edition.

But since it's the very rare group that plays a campaign with the intent of constantly buying and selling goods, commerce rules are really more of a secondary aspect. Consider the source material that this game is based off of; how often do we really see Han (a self-professed smuggler) do any sort of open-market trading? It's usually a case of him being hired by an interested party to pick up items from Point A and get them to Point B within a certain time frame, and hand the goods off to a waiting person or persons at Point B. Most players of a Star Wars game are going to be more interested in engaging in thrilling heroics and grand adventures rather than trying to make money in a (default) setting where an overtly-tyrannical government lead by an evil sorcerer is trying to enforce conformity and blind obedience out of the populace.

I think that you need this:

On 5/24/2019 at 9:04 AM, Yaccarus said:

I think that you need this:

Thanks, Yac; I'll check it out.