Sanity check.
In your games, how much is new planet information been worth?
I don't want to under sell my players but I want to "keep them hungry"..
In a New Hope Han got excited about 17,000. Said it was a huge payday.
In a game I am in we ended getting a million at one point. We have not wanted for money since which is bad for needing a reason for adventuring..
What are your average Credit Rewards?
50 minutes ago, Ricas Chumm said:We have not wanted for money since which is bad for needing a reason for adventuring..
It might be worth revisiting this assumption. If the players are only motivated by credits, that suggests there is no real story arc, and the players have no purpose for their PCs. If it's just a D&D style hack and slash game that can get old in this game. In D&D it works because you level up and get lots of perks, and eventually you're finally worthy of going up against a dragon or a lich or whatever; but in this game the advancements are more subtle and stormtroopers are always a problem. In Star Wars, credits are generally only a specific solution to a specific problem, they are rarely an end goal except by the evil NPCs...
After revisiting that assumption, it really depends what story you want to tell. There's nothing wrong with letting them become pirate kings owning their own star destroyer eventually...or keeping them credit-starved for the whole campaign and doing something epic on a dime and a prayer. That flavour is entirely up to you.
I tend to avoid credit-counting except for big important items. The players generally get a "homestead" type of arrangement, ie: some business or benefactor that takes care of day-to-day living. The "special jobs" they get have more potential rewards and I will tweak them to accommodate something the players have already expressed interest in . So if the players say "hey, we should put a quad-laser on our HWK-290", I'll find a way to weave either the credits, contacts, or the parts into the rewards for an upcoming job. I prefer the latter two, just to keep the credit-counting out of it.
Of course, YMMV.
Edit: if you want a good "game designer view", pick up the Mask of the Pirate Queen module, or Jewel of Yavin, they have some decent guidelines.
Edit #2: sorry...it occurred to me that there are a lot of free resources on the EotE site, including whole adventures like "Under a Black Sun" and the extensions for Long Arm of the Hutt that might also have good guidance:
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire/
Look under Player Resources
Edited by whafrog2 hours ago, Ricas Chumm said:What are your average Credit Rewards?
It varies by the type of campaign, for instance, I've found that Force & Destiny/Force user focused campaigns have more "story rewards" (like, here's your Crystal) and less actual creds.
But generally, for the first 300 XP or so, I go roughly by the Knight Level start benchmark of 9000 credits earned by the time they earn 150 XP.
That breaks down to 300 credits, per 5 XP.
It may come in a "trickle", at the same rate as the XP, it may come in lumps at the end of each of several sessions arc, or it may come lumped in advance with a "dry spell" following.
But I try to have around that, and even when it's story rewards, I try to base the value of those rewards off of the 5:300 ratio.
It can be hard to control wealth bloating, if your PCs tend to want to pick up every dropped blaster rifle, armor, or swoop that your dead NPCs leave b behind. So right from the outset you have to control that by 1. factoring that into the 5:300 ratio and rewards, and 2. using narrative methods if dissuasion, like making shops unwilling to buy "used" Imperial gear, or make buy-back process really low, or even lead to Obligation (after the pirates see all their dead friends gear in a shop, they ask the owner who sold it), or something.
All that said, ship repairs can be a really big wild card in this "formula". If you have a lot of ship battles/damage that can get expensive if they can't do it themselves and/or you're not giving them allies who can/will do repairs for free, or some small favor, or something.
So often I'll drop "ship parts" too, after they've had a rough dog-fight. To balance that out. Something so they don't have to spend creds on expensive repairs, but can't or don't want to use it for anything else either.
Good luck!
Thank you for your input Whafrog! Respectfully, I disagree to a point. But this is mainly my opinion.
I believe in Edge of the Empire credits are a central theme. The rim is rough. On page 151 in Keeping the Crew Hungry they address this. The particular players I am running with have voiced in our session 0 that they would like the survivalist style of play. Hence, credit tracking and scraping by for the next payday.
Now if they join the galactic war that's something else.. then they have a support net of sorts.. and Duty to go with it.
As a result I should be prepared for what they are going to do with the information about this planet they found. They might not even want to sell the info. But in the eventuality that they do, I am just wondering if there was anything anywhere about how much the Empire.. or the Rebellion would give for coordinates for a planet.
In Dangerous Covenants p 91 they have a group of mercenaries hired for a job can be from 6 to 20 thousand. That is the closest I can find.
Given that a habitable planet is a resource worth hiding I could see it being higher than 20,000. More like 100,000 or more. Obviously the most lucrative source would be the private corporate sector. In Enter the Unknown it says this much. P 88. In this example it was for specific ores found so I won't include those. But I have come up with similar ones for this situation.
Luckily there are several money sinks I can think of off the bat.
- They have a salvaged ship that needs to be transferred to their name
- Said ship has been on planet for fifty years and has a lot of left over hull strain and such. but only enough for about 10,000.
- There is also of course obligation that can be chipped away as well.
Edited by Ricas Chumm
6 minutes ago, emsquared said:It varies by the type of campaign, for instance, I've found that Force & Destiny/Force user focused campaigns have more "story rewards" (like, here's your Crystal) and less actual creds.
But generally, for the first 300 XP or so, I go roughly by the Knight Level start benchmark of 9000 credits earned by the time they earn 150 XP.
That breaks down to 300 credits, per 5 XP.
Is this in Force and Destiny? I haven't read that through yet.
Yeah, p. 104 and 322 of F&D
And it's called out as "Heroic Play" or something I think in one or more of the Era books.
1 hour ago, Ricas Chumm said:I believe in Edge of the Empire credits are a central theme.
This is up to you, not the game designers. Note: I'm not suggesting you change what you're doing or what you want...only suggesting that you shouldn't let what the game designers have presented in their fluff-text to get in the way of the story you want to tell. You can tell *any* story in the rim, from secret Jedi to gumshoe detectives to Cthulhu horror, the rule book just focuses on the most common visualization.
1 hour ago, Ricas Chumm said:Luckily there are several money sinks I can think of off the bat.
Ship maintenance is one of the easiest ways I found to keep the PC's credit pool in line (at least in my longest running smuggler-type campaign). Per RAW it's about 500cr per hull point to fix something...one little fight with a couple of TIEs and that can burn through a LOT of credits, and can be a vehicle for the PCs needing to make deals or take on errands that further the story in order to mitigate the wallet damage.
Beyond the Rim campaign offers the players 10000 creds each for following up on a clue to the Unknown Regions and recover a lost treasure ship.
2 hours ago, Rimsen said:Beyond the Rim campaign offers the players 10000 creds each for following up on a clue to the Unknown Regions and recover a lost treasure ship.
I'll have to look that one up. Thanks!
On 7/9/2020 at 10:59 AM, Ricas Chumm said:In your games, how much is new planet information been worth?
My group has never discovered a new planet, but as you mentioned it might depend on who you are selling it to, but it also matters what purpose that person/organization has for that planet. For example, When the Republic started (I don't remember where I heard this and I can't find the source again, so take it just as an example) they outsourced the vehicles to two companies: Rothana Heavy Engineering and the Kuat Drive Yards. Both of these companies would have to do this in secret as their customer (Kamino/Republic) is (supposedly) paying them handsomely to do so. Besides credits, the fact that their assets are used by the best military the galaxy has seen in recent years in of itself a huge selling point to those wanting the best of the best - so they need this contract. I could go on at length, but the point is there is a lot of information to sift through to help determine a value. Yes, 17,000 credits is a good payday - for the societal position Han was in at that time. 17,000 credits is a lot to an average citizen, 17,000 credits is but a small fee to a millionaire, and 17,000 credits mean nothing to someone who only values power.
If you are concerned with a monetary value and you aren't certain, go with something @whafrog suggested, and have them paid in a way besides credits. "Well, this is certainly valuable information, but with a transaction as large as this, it would be next to impossible to keep this secret long enough to hold it's value to us. How about instead we look into other means of compensation? See, your ship is decades old. The landing gear probably needs lubricated every other landing, the T-bolts have surely rusted near the thrusters, and even I could hear the idler squealing all the way down here. Really paints the wrong kind of picture if you know what I mean. We conveniently have a large selection of the galaxy's finest - and newest ships - and I am sure we can type up the paperwork of one being disassembled for some spare parts. And I am sure a few modifications could have 'malfunctioned' and need to be discarded. But you know it gets busy here and some paperwork might get lost in the shuffle. I am sure this wouldn't raise any eyebrows...or whatever appendage have you." This, as a player, is so much more fun and rewarding than "Here's 10,000 credits for the info. Have a good day." Sure, some credits can be thrown in with the deal, but to have it solely be a payday, is kind of boring. As a GM, this makes book keeping so much easier, and gives you a new plot hook or new credit sink to drain their newly filled accounts.
On 7/9/2020 at 10:59 AM, Ricas Chumm said:What are your average Credit Rewards?
My current GM keeps us very thirsty for credits. So we rarely see anything larger than three figures, sometimes on a big job it is four, maybe five. I give credits a bit more freely, but I try to stick to 4-5 figure rewards. Anything above that should be kept to extremely huge adventures, or near the endgame in my opinion. Unless they have anything big to spend it on, like say a damaged star destroyer they have...requisitioned.
While not always useful I try to put a "real world" value on credits to ball park what something is worth. I generally feel that a SW credit is worth $10. That is not dogma, I could easily be convinced otherwise.
So what does a million credits split 4 or 5 ways get you? Lets say 5 ways, everyone has 200k credits. Well, they can buy an average starship, nothing fancy. A tricked out speeder or two. etc. As I see it 200k credits doesn't set you up in the lap of luxury.
Look at it as $. What does $2M get you. Pretty much the same thing. A big house, and/or a couple of fancy cars. Put the whole thing in the bank at 2% (and lucky to get it) and you have a whopping $40k a year. Yes, you can live just fine on $40k. But I hazard to guess that PCs that are willing to risk life and limb might just not be satisfied with a lower middle class life.
Even if PCs have credits as a goal, they probably want to be a millionaire, not the guy living on Social Security. A PC in my current game wants to own an independent shadowport space station and specialize in ship upgrades. Cost? Millions of credits.
If this were reality the Empire would offer 100,000 credits and then reneg and kill the PCs when they try to collect. A commercial enterprise would offer millions, and hide language in the contract so that the PCs get paid 1000 credits a year forever. Criminal Org, unless you have good insurance probably similar to the Empire, promise whatever and then kill you. The Alliance, if it has a sentient race that could be supporters, then quite a lot, otherwise, what use is it to them?
To get max, I'd say the PCs would need to form their own corporation, with hidden ownership, and sell to another corporation and get stock or something convertible to cash, not actual cash, with a residual payment if the world is useful, and more if rare ores are found etc. (and yes, I am an accountant) This could also be a source for future adventures where the PCs try to prove that MegaCorp is cheating them, survive the MegaCorp hostile takeover, assassins, etc. I'd 1M credits on proof of a habitable planet, with a lot more if it has good stuff and they can hold the buyer accountable.
YMMV
What I have found helpful are the other splat books. They each have average payouts for jobs. All except the explorer.. But I think the explorer was the first book wasn't it? This might be the reason. Anywhoo. I put them on my game wiki here under "getting paid" https://undertheboot.obsidianportal.com/wikis/cheat-sheets I like having them all in one place.
I am sorry, yes the explorer book has a whole section dedicated to this starting on page 88. It does not provide detailed or ballpark figures. It does state to use obligation and give information on who they can sell such information to, benefits and cons of doing so, etc. It even states npcs may owe obligation to the players if they can not pay them, resulting in side quests and favors.
18 minutes ago, Sear_Clone said:I am sorry, yes the explorer book has a whole section dedicated to this starting on page 88. It does not provide detailed or ballpark figures. It does state to use obligation and give information on who they can sell such information to, benefits and cons of doing so, etc. It even states npcs may owe obligation to the players if they can not pay them, resulting in side quests and favors.
Oh yeah. I read that section. I apologize for not being clear, I was just looking for payout figures. You are correct that the book talks about it. That is how I came up with my initial thoughts on paying off obligation and such.
It would have been nice had they provided some nitty gritty details and modifiers.
I like the Bounty Hunters tables for example. They give ballparks and some nice modifiers. It makes it easy to create them for the PC's. It also sets a tone for money in the Universe and how much a "normal" expectation would be.
I know for my game and running style, I like to have examples. I'm rigid like that. If I don't have those guidelines I tend to overcompensate WAY too much and then it becomes an issue.
To my mind love of credits is a great reason to adventure. It is often maligned for some reason, but you can use money for a lot of things (like feeding orphans, or lobbying for good actions by Administrators). I think what I have seen most often in other people's game is that the in game economy quickly gets out of control and has massive inflation. If your characters are earning millions then they should be standing to lose millions in whatever it is that they are doing. 1/1= 1m/1m meaning that you should not be giving them bullet proof financial security unless they are willing to retire the character imo.
The credits costs listed in the books can be an issue but I like to try to keep values low and try to make it so the PCs aren't having to hire an accountant to do their finances. I generally make a drink in a cantina 1 or 2 credits. I keep most bounties low, and the ones that pay off a lot tend to drain finances in the chase. Starting characters often work for hundreds of Cr until they start building a rep. A high Cr job is often going to be so dangerous or difficult as to be a true Risk vs. Reward calculation. You get the high cr pay off but now you've pissed off the Legate of the System and can't come back easily.
Also I try to have them work for trade a lot of the time, just having an NPC offer an item instead of Cr so that the game doesn't feel too modern.
I think having Story-Based and Character-Based motivations are also important. But I have found that some players just don't respond to them.