Obviously, this game really lends itself to characters who want to make a living. The "classes" are even called "careers". In my game, I have an arms dealer, a bounty hunter, a slicer, a mechanic and a scoundrel all trying to make a living aboard the same ship. I also tend to run an episodic game. That is to say we don't play a contiguous timeline. I have done so in the past but this game is going to have indeterminate time passing in-between adventures.
This got me to thinking, it doesn't make sense that the character's finances remain the same from episode to episode. Say during the last adventure the characters acquire 12,372 credits. After time passes and the next episode begins... what did they do? They weren't stagnant so why would they still have exactly 12,372 credits?
Most GM's agree that one must keep the players hungry. This is a natural motivation for characters to willingly take risk and to gain reward. The more reward they already have, the less likely they are to take risk (without meta-gaming.) However, the narrative can become artificial quickly when the GM constantly has to take things away, break things or otherwise just drain PC resources. This is especially true for groups and GM's that don't want to do accounting and figure out what every spaceport docking fee and Corellian Ale is going to cost.
While my solution here is admittedly artificial, it's only meant to be a single roll with an effect that represents the passage of time between adventures with potential gain or loss totally in the player's control. First though, a caveat. Sometimes, the resources are the very hook for a story or a character might want to do some "business" during the game - by all means, run with it. This mechanic is not meant to replace story or narrative play, just to allow more of it if accounting isn't your thing. It's meant to represent the business not seen "on screen". Also, sometimes this may not even be necessary, the players often do a good job of draining their own resources - so know your players and pull this out only when necessary or if you really don't want to keep track of minor costs and deals and just do this once each session.
So here it is:
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Before the adventure begins and after the destiny pool has been determined, the players determine how much of their capital they have risked during the time between adventures. This can be representative of whatever is suitable for the party. For example, it can represent the costs of purchasing goods to sell elsewhere. Since this is post-destiny pool creation, the players and the GM can both spend a destiny point (GM wants to up the ante.)
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Next, make a Negotiation roll vs. a chosen difficulty. For the negotiation check, the players pick which character gets to make the roll. Whether or not you allow skilled or unskilled help is up to the GM. Remember this is representative of multiple deals, commerce, transactions, what have you.
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The difficulty is based on how much risk the party wishes to take using the determined amount of credits. If they choose to roll one difficulty (easy), the negotiated rate is then 0% and only advantages or threats can modify it. For each difficulty die beyond the first, add 5% to the negotiated rate. For each challenge die they add, add 10%. They cannot roll simple (or no) difficulty, that would just mean they chose to partake in no business and just spend money (that's simple!) - ships gotta fly and park, people need to eat and so on.
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Each net success on the roll indicates they made money. Multiply the amount risked vs. the percentage determined by the difficulty dice and add that much to the coffers. Any net advantages increase the negotiated rate by 5% (or to put it another way, adds 5%). A triumph, while also a success, gives the party an ongoing contact or perhaps cargo to start the game with (a narrative effect from their between session adventures.)
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Each net failure indicates they lost money by the percentage determined by the difficulty dice. A net threat reduces the negotiated rate by 5% (or to put it another way, adds -5%). A despair, while also a failure, means the party has taken on extra obligation due to their dealings (what it is and how much is determined by the GM.)
- Advantages or threats without any net success or failure can just mean a small narrative effect such as a lead on a job, a relevant name, etc.
Example pre-game:
The party chooses to risk 6000 credits doing business between adventures/sessions/stories.
Of course, they choose their best negotiator to make the roll. A beginning character, he has two skill ranks and a three Presence. So he has one green ability die and two yellow proficiency dice.
The party chooses a hard difficulty, three purple difficulty dice with one of them upgraded to a red challenge die. So this means each success or failure will be worth 20% (1200 credits). Two purple dice are 5% each and the red challenge dice is 10%.
Roll examples:
3 success - group adds 3600 credits.
1 success, 1 advantage - group adds 1500 credits (the advantage increases the rate by 5% to 25% per success.)
1 success, 1 triumph , and 1 threat - that threat reduces each of those 20%'s down to 15% or 900 credits each. The party adds 1800 credits plus a narrative effect from the triumph as mentioned above.
2 failure, 2 advantages - the sting of bad business is lessened by the advantages and they only lose 1200 credits (each failure becomes -10% instead of -20%)
2 success, 4 threats - break even. Business was just enough to cover the overhead.
1 threat - break even but a small narrative effect like a reputation hit the GM can pull out later ("Oh, I heard about your swindle on Nar Shadaa...")