Hi everyone,

Haven't been able to spend as much time here as I have in the past, but I just finished some trading rules for the Death on the Reik campaign I'm running and I thought I'd share.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or opinions.

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BUYING

Step 1 – Find Seller
The availability of exports is determined by a Logistic check (a Leadership speciality) once per day. Available goods come from communities main exports, determined at random if multiple options exist.

Logistics / Leadership(Fe) v. community size

Village (below 100) – Daunting
Small Town (below 1,000) – Average
Town (below 10,000) – Easy
City (10,000+) – Simple

In order to find a cargo that fits your boat and doesn't need to be split among multiple boats (and thus raising the final asking price by 10%) requires the following banes/boons on the preceding roll. If requirements below are met, cargo fills boat to within 10% of capacity:

Village – less than 3 banes
Small Town – less than 2 Banes
Town – no banes
City – need at least 1 Boon (most exports require owning multiple boats, requiring some good luck if you only captain one)

Step 2 – Price

Follow standard rules for haggling, but price variations due to haggling for bulk goods (exports/imports) are half of what they are for standard goods. Remember to add 10% if only part of available goods can fit on boat.

SELLING

Step 1 – Find buyer.
Only major trading hubs buy goods that they also export. No village imports bulk goods. Check once per day

Logistics / Leadership(Fe) v. community size

Village – n/a
Small Town – Daunting, requires at least 2 successes, but if successful, any boons add Fortune die to haggle roll
Town – Average
City – Simple

Step 2 – Price

Follow standard rules for haggling, but price variations due to haggling for bulk goods are half of what they are for standard goods. Starting price is the standard price for goods, not price paid for goods by boat owner.

You may want to consider using Folklore rather than Leadership for the "find seller" roll. Maybe even Folklore(Fel) rather than (Int).

a) It falls in line with the already existing rules on finding a seller on the individual scale (Core, pg 72 under Rarity).

b) Most of the careers that train Leadership are all military* while only a handfull are non-military**. None of the careers that actually should be good at trading (Burgher, Merchant, and Pedlar) have Leadership available, but all can train Folklore.

Using Leadership means you are better off having a Barber-Surgeon or Ironbreaker find goods to buy than you are a Merchant.

Otherwise, it looks cool.

* Captain, Ironbreaker, Knight, Knight of the Inner Circle, Outrider, Pistolier, Preceptor, Sergeant, Soldier, Sword Master, Watchman, and Witch Hunter Captain

** Agitator, Barber-Surgeon, Charlatan, Envoy, and Priest

I think a Folklore(Int) - trade or Leadership(Fel) - logistics, sounds reasonable. I like that a merchant type can't just have a good Fellowship and train Charm and due well, so I prefer keeping the Folklore check intelligence based. The reason I leaned towards Logistics is it forced more diversity, but a Folklore check will do the same and will work in concert with the merchant characters. I would make trade a new speciality to Folklore though.

That being said I also like the idea of ship captains and other leadership types being good at some aspects of trade but not others (haggling).

That's some crazy good stuff! Good job.

I've been planning some more river travel after TGS (perhaps down the under-mountain riverway to Tilea in Death's Dark Shadow). I think that particular underground riverway has CAMPAIGN written all over it.

jh