Since in EotH trading is a way to earn money I thought about expanding the rules a bit. I attached a sheet I created for helping to find a price at an easy way. Most things depend on the story and its needs I know. In the corebook buying and reselling depends on the difference of the rarity goods have in within the rims. So players will think about buying goods more inside and resell it in the outer rims to make more money. But depending on the negotiating checks there is almost loss, so these rules will lead to a lot of debating within the sessions. So I only use this 1/4 , 1/2 , 3/4 only for illegal stuff.

Goods are more expensive in the outer rims, but in little steps. So I added a cost modifier. Player may choose the inner rims to get their stuff together. Now I also added a demand factor. The GM may decide by himself if there is a high or low demand on a special planet depending what type of planet or how much people are living on it, if goods are rare and so on. If decision depends on luck then just make a d100 roll. At least traders want to make profit. 10 % - 20 % below the regular price as deadline is okay. So your players will bargain. This also depends on a negotiating check. The more they want to dump the harder to convince the other dealer. If there is a pretty Twi'lek within your party, boost dice may be added to this roll depending on a successful charming vs. discipline check .

What do you think about it?

cu

Gargi

Trading.pdf

Maybe it's because it late, but it seems confusing to me. Can you write out an example of using your trading chart.

Maybe it's because it late, but it seems confusing to me. Can you write out an example of using your trading chart.

Was going to ask the same thing

There is an epic hole in the core rules for smuggling/trading, so thanks for trying to fill it.

That being said, I think your rules are a bit complicated for the style of this game system. Perhaps there is no possible alternative that can add the details wanted, but currently your system seems to be better suited for a game like Traveller . I'm not saying it is bad, you seem to have put lots of thought into it. It just seems out of place in this game. Your players will become used to quick, easy, narratively interpreted die rolls. Perhaps this will work, but you could get results of, "oh crap, we're trading again, get out the calculators while the rest of us take a break". I'm exaggerating of course, but I think you will get my point.

Right, so it's harder to sell higher rarity items? Just making sure I understand the table.

The Demand and Circumstance tables make sense, I think, but I'm uncertain about the Dumping table and how that works.

Maybe it's because it late, but it seems confusing to me. Can you write out an example of using your trading chart.

Ill try in my english, sorry for some misspellings.

There is a missing link in the table. I did some changes on the dumping (and now pushing) chart and attached it to my first post.

First my players get a bunch of blasters on Corelia. One blaster costs 1500 credits. Because the want to buy 10 for trading, they get it for 1400 each. Then they try to bargain and manage to dump the price of - 30% due to a successful opposite negotiation check on my dumping table. That means 10 blaster for 10000 credits now.

They travel somewhere to the outer rims. There one blaster is twice the costs on corellia -> 3000 a unit. As GM I set the demand on that planet to " below average ", because a greater delivery arrived the last days. So we take low and substract 300 credits for each blaster -> 2700 each. The dealer wants to earn money so he offers 1500 each. There the players try to push the price a to 1800 Credits ( + 25 % , the same on the dumping table, but + instead -). If successful, they get 1800 for the unit, what means 8000 credits profit.

cu

Gargi

I find it helpful, although I don't think the price difference is necessarily related to core-->Rim. If anything core worlds might be more expensive for some thing. When it comes to say Spice smuggling, for instance, part of the reason that people smuggle it is that it is so lucrative. It can be produced for relatively cheap, usually in the outer rim, and then sells for a high street price on a core world. Is there a way to separate that out?

If anything, the demand for certain goods would be higher on a core world rather than the outer rim...

That's a good idea to balance the price just using the demand factor. That kicks one calculating step.

Maybe it's because it late, but it seems confusing to me. Can you write out an example of using your trading chart.

Ill try in my english, sorry for some misspellings.

There is a missing link in the table. I did some changes on the dumping (and now pushing) chart and attached it to my first post.

First my players get a bunch of blasters on Corelia. One blaster costs 1500 credits. Because the want to buy 10 for trading, they get it for 1400 each. Then they try to bargain and manage to dump the price of - 30% due to a successful opposite negotiation check on my dumping table. That means 10 blaster for 10000 credits now.

They travel somewhere to the outer rims. There one blaster is twice the costs on corellia -> 3000 a unit. As GM I set the demand on that planet to " below average ", because a greater delivery arrived the last days. So we take low and substract 300 credits for each blaster -> 2700 each. The dealer wants to earn money so he offers 1500 each. There the players try to push the price a to 1800 Credits ( + 25 % , the same on the dumping table, but + instead -). If successful, they get 1800 for the unit, what means 8000 credits profit.

cu

Gargi

Thank you the table makes sense now. Good job.

That's a good idea to balance the price just using the demand factor. That kicks one calculating step.

The push table is a little confusing I would say the supply/demand table sets the base price and then an opposed negotiation skill check determines the overall price I.e. +/- 5% per success or failure.

Advantage would be maybe he buys all of them or wants more or refers them to someone else and they get a boost die later.

Threat he was going to buy 20 of them now he only wants 15 instead

Triumph gets permanent boost with that NPC trader

Despair deal goes bad and get a setback die with traders on that planet or sector for "x" period of time.

This also sounds good! I like the idea using the advantages / threats for the amount to sell!

I never really found this an issue, but that could be due to the books I've read and the errata to the Heroes Guide from Star Wars d20. If you can ever find the pdf for that (it was freely available before SAGA kicked in), that will give you a good list of prices for exotic products (including what a general shipment of droid parts would be worth, for example).

As a rule of thumb, I set a price (either higher or lower than market, based on what it is, rarity, and where it is being purchased), and with "bulk" orders I give a little leeway based on the amount (usually a few percent). On a good roll, I reduce the percentages or the base price.

For selling, that all depends on what the item is. On a world where blasters are illegal, jacking up the price on those holdout blasters seems like a pretty solid idea. I let the party come up with ideas and then negotiate from there. Better rolls, better prices.

Demand is always a key, as well as "rarity." Backwater without bacta means bacta sells for much more than it would on Thyferra.

Yes, I know the hero's guide (the idea of demand is taken from it). I'm also going to adapt the list to EotE recalculating metric tons to encumbrance. But since encumbrance for ships seems not to be encumbrance for people it is not that simple to translate it from the d20 to EotE I think. A rifle in EotE got 6 E for example. The YT-1300 got 165 for cargo due to the corebook. That means about 28 rifles only... The d20 speaks about 150 rifles per metric ton. Now the question is, how many "metric tons" really can be hold by a YT-1300.

cu

Gargi

Yes, I know the hero's guide (the idea of demand is taken from it). I'm also going to adapt the list to EotE recalculating metric tons to encumbrance. But since encumbrance for ships seems not to be encumbrance for people it is not that simple to translate it from the d20 to EotE I think. A rifle in EotE got 6 E for example. The YT-1300 got 165 for cargo due to the corebook. That means about 28 rifles only... The d20 speaks about 150 rifles per metric ton. Now the question is, how many "metric tons" really can be hold by a YT-1300.

cu

Gargi

Well depending on hyperdrive and other modifications 25-100 metric tons.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/YT-1300_light_freighter

what if encumberance worked just like character/vehicle scale...so that 1 ship encumberance = 10 personal

So YT-1300 with 165 encumberance could hold 1650 personal scale encumberance...so heres a few examples of what you could carry

• 550 blaster carbines
• 275 heavy blaster rifles
• 165 dejarik tables

Well, the equipment and gear chapter already have some indications about crates of items having an encumbrance of 5-6. I also think it was Sam that pointed out that basically any item neatly packed in a box, barrel or crate, halves its encumbrance value. Makes slightly more sense than multiplying everything by 10, just because Damage is treated that way.

• This way one weapon cargo crate can hold three blaster rifles for 6 encumbrance, instead of 1 and a half. Larger crates can hold more.

My own early thoughts on the matter were to let items require one third of their encumbrance when stacked and packed.

Well, the equipment and gear chapter already have some indications about crates of items having an encumbrance of 5-6. I also think it was Sam that pointed out that basically any item neatly packed in a box, barrel or crate, halves its encumbrance value. Makes slightly more sense than multiplying everything by 10, just because Damage is treated that way.

• This way one weapon cargo crate can hold three blaster rifles for 6 encumbrance, instead of 1 and a half. Larger crates can hold more.

My own early thoughts on the matter were to let items require one third of their encumbrance when stacked and packed.

Well, the equipment and gear chapter already have some indications about crates of items having an encumbrance of 5-6. I also think it was Sam that pointed out that basically any item neatly packed in a box, barrel or crate, halves its encumbrance value. Makes slightly more sense than multiplying everything by 10, just because Damage is treated that way.

• This way one weapon cargo crate can hold three blaster rifles for 6 encumbrance, instead of 1 and a half. Larger crates can hold more.

My own early thoughts on the matter were to let items require one third of their encumbrance when stacked and packed.

Not really. I remember Sam mentioning that in a podcast, however, just doing that is silly. You are saying in the cargo hold of a freighter than can only carry 55 blaster rifles (55 * 6 = 330/2 = 165) I could pack that many rifles in my entryway not a huge cargo hold.

Normal rifles come 20 a crate so they multiply by 10 scale seem a lot closure 28 crates of rifles than 2 1/2 crates of weapons in the cargo hold. Plus, Sam's reference to 1/2 encumbrance was referring to carrying the items not cargo storage because he had just previously mentioned encumbrance takes into account the bulk and awkwardness of items.

Still. The 10 multiplier is way too generous in my opinion. A crate filled with 20 rifles is definitely going to consume more than 5 or 6 encumbrance - both due to size, weight and "handling". The crate itself has an encumbrance, and there should be some relation between that and the content. Now, I agree that halving the enc might seem a tad conservative, but just going mindlessly and multiplying it by 10 "because vehicles and damage" ... meh, I mean its your game and feel free, to me its a silly comparison. It's not like the YT-1300 cargo bays are extremely voluminous and can stack an enormous amount of large boxes - at least not considering its length, width, height, hull thickness and so on. Ah well.

So lets conservatively say these crates are 3.5 x 2.5 x 2 = 17.5 ft cubed

Lets say we are using my rule of ship encumbrance = personal x10.

165x10 = 1650 total ship encumbrance / 6 personal encumbrance per rifle = 275 rifles

10 rifles per crate = 27.5 crates

27.5 crates of rifles x 17.5 ft cubed per crate = 481 ft cubed

A small bedroom is 10 x12 x 7.5 ft tall = 900 ft cubed

You're saying a light freighter has less room than a small bedroom?

Even accounting for palettes or packing material or even 5 rifles per crate...thats still not much room at all for a 'freighter'...and is still even less than can fit in one standard 20ft intermodal container

I think, that is not that easy. There are goods of less weight but bigger volumes (think of cotton for example) and small heavy weighted stuff being able to pack them closely in cargo crates (grenades, ammo ...). So volume and weight is a factor. While weight is a limiting factor not to overload a ship and the dimension for your space within the storage of a ship. Since it is a game not everything must be made more difficult as it is in real life, but there should be a kind of logic to provide debating at the table.

So a YT-1300 is a good example and everyone can imagine what the storage room must look like. No huge rooms since this ship is is a flat one. I think not above 3 meters in the center points of it, like in a truck.

The YT-1300 is based around a circular module that is approximately 25 meters in diameter, and 8 metres tall. 3920 cubic metres. Of course not all of this can be used as storage, obviously, there is wiring, walls, armour, living quarters, freshers, and so on. In the 1300fp variant (also called "stock" version) I'd say that less than half of the ship is cargo space, and also it has curved rooms and cargo bays, so crates will be less efficient to make us of the space in a good way. There should also be room to move about, so that said cargo can be moved, stored and so on. Based on the available deck plans I have (that MF owner's guide), I'd say that less than half of the YT-1300fp can be used as dedicated cargo space. First off the height of the cargo space is not full 4 metres (and far less than the ships total height of 8 metres). I'd say 3 metres inside, seems a good fit from the images we have seen of the Millennium Falcon, at least in my opinion. Anyway, so 3 metres tall, then reduce the diameter of the ship to available storage space, I'd say about 10 metres... so multiply π by by the radius (5m) squared, and you have the area, approximately 78,5 square metres, multiply this by approximate height available inside the ship, 3 metres, and you get the volume, 235,5 cubic metres.

Now of course, you might disagree on the area available, of think of the freight version, which would have more cargo space, at least volume, but there is also weight to consider.

Anyway, we could increase the available storage space to be half the area of the 1300, that is a diameter of 12,5 meters, so the area would be π x (6,25 x 6,25) = 122,7 square meters. And you might argue that the cargo bays are not as low as the living areas and corridors, so fine let's say 4 meters, that is 490,8 cubic metres.

Still, this is not taking into account the curving of the ceiling, the ship has a lower ceiling towards the outer walls, and is higher towards the centre of the ship. While this makes more space available, that space is difficult to make proper use of, same with the curved walls of this circular ship. Also I think my suggestions above are slightly generous, particularly the last one.

Also, as some others might say at some point, who haven't pitched in yet - but it has been mentioned before on these forums - this game is intended as action adventure, not bean counting. Now of course, that is not to say that one shouldn't play it as one wants.

The problem with the Encumbrance value is that it is unfamiliar, and perhaps not perfectly thought through and executed, on the other hand the old metric ton measurement of WEG and WotC forgot to take into account that while 100 metric tons is a lot, you couldn't fill that ship with 100 metric tons of feathers (there wouldn't be room), nor would the cargo bays at all be full if you put 100 metric ton of lead, gold or some other heavy substance. The ship could easily lift off with full bays of feathers, but equally full (i.e. stacked to the ceiling) cargo bays with lead would probably be way too much for the engines to carry and escape the atmosphere of an earth-like planet.

Now comes the problem, purely by weight (looking in RCR) the YT-1300 should be able to carry 22222 blaster rifles based on weight alone, of course that doesn't take into account volume, nor does your (Diggles) equation take into account weight. Nor are these light freighters meant to carry all that much cargo, we have the heavy bulk freighters for that (like the Action VI). The YT-1300 is a smallish home on "wheels", more than a anything else. At least in my opinion (its a lot larger than my apartment).

Now, of course, feel free to multiply by 10 and feel good about it even. I'm saying its straying away from the intention and goal of the game the way its designed, while trade is part of it definitely, the idea is also that - as I understand it - cargo is plot based, it fits, it fills as much of your cargo bays as it should based on the plot. Of course that is for many not a good solution, it seems arbitrary and so on... if its a problem with suspension of disbelief, go on and do what you must to immerse yourself in the Star Wars galaxy, if that entails detailing volume, weight, bean counting and so on, I'm not going to stop you.

So I did some digging and found my old Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters.

Standard freighter cargo hold is 100 metric tons by 40 cubic meters, so a really big space. That is reduced my modifications, etc.

Also, there is a Speculative Trading section which mostly uses a supply/demand table. It breaks it down into cargo types vs. Planet technology level.

Ok, well that sucked just spent 20 minutes typing it all up nicely in tables looked great hit submit and it ****** it all up.

...

Also, as some others might say at some point, who haven't pitched in yet - but it has been mentioned before on these forums - this game is intended as action adventure, not bean counting. Now of course, that is not to say that one shouldn't play it as one wants.

...

Now, of course, feel free to multiply by 10 and feel good about it even. I'm saying its straying away from the intention and goal of the game the way its designed, while trade is part of it definitely, the idea is also that - as I understand it - cargo is plot based, it fits, it fills as much of your cargo bays as it should based on the plot. Of course that is for many not a good solution, it seems arbitrary and so on... if its a problem with suspension of disbelief, go on and do what you must to immerse yourself in the Star Wars galaxy, if that entails detailing volume, weight, bean counting and so on, I'm not going to stop you.

My only comment is this is obviously a thread about players/GMs that want to make trading a more important part of their game and want to have better rules, so I don't get the whole it's not part of the spirit of the game, etc stuff. The spirit of the game is whatever the players and GM who are playing say it is.

I'm not saying you can't have your own opinion, I just get why people in general (commenting on your "others might say" part) come to threads that they don't agree with or don't want to use and try to tell others they should do it in their opinion of the spirit of the game the way they read and/or understand it.

Rules in RPGs have always just been a skeleton for a gaming experience the muscle and flesh and what the GM and players add to it.

We all know cargo and "encumberance" in RPG's, whether tabletop or computer version is a rather dodgy field. I have often carried 5 or 6 suits of armour around a dungeon because it was valuable and the best way to generate cash. Nevermind how I could possibly fight with that much crap in my little backpack

I was playing a ship's captain last year and trade was an important part of the game I wanted to explore, the whole economics of having a tramp freighter, a crushing debt and the need to generate income through trade (which could lead to adventures as one travelled from planet to planet. It probably reminded me of my teenage years playing Elite on a Commodore 64 doing the same thing. When I was researching, I found information like the Galaxy Guide Tramp Freighters, some write ups online, and stuff from Saga. Some of the rules were quite complicated and some overly simplistic (Saga).

Personally, I think that some sort of abstract "Cargo Unit" is the best way to go which standardizes cargo by volume because it is very true that a ton of gold will fit very different than a ton of feathers. You could say a cargo unit of gold is worth one Billion credits and a cargo unit of feathers is worth 100 credits. For me, thats good enough. If you wanted to go further on the weight issues, maybe leave it to be sorted out narratively (the fun of wondering whether the Falcon will pass a check on being able to even take off because of how overloaded she is).

Overall, though, the strength and focus of the EotE system is the narrative component, so the more you can let the dice do the talking, the less you need to worry about making a chart for everything. Just liberally throw in the boost and setback dice to account for all the various factors and make up an outcome that fits the result

I'm just trying to find a middle way really. Because going either by volume or weight alone isn't going to work in my opinion. I also think that multiplying by 10 is too generous in some cases - for instance when it comes to bacta tanks.

It did some more math, and based on the figures I came to above, and a more or less sound assumption about crate sizes, the conclusion that based on volume alone somewhere between 3000 and 4000 rifles could fit in that space. Which would be within the tonnage too I guess depending on what source of unit weight you go on - RCR puts the blaster rifles at 4.5 kg.

Going by another assumption, that a weapon crate with 8-10 blaster rifles consumes 5 encumbrance, you could fit some 1300-1650 blaster rifles in crates in a YT-1300. Which I guess could also make sense. That is dividing the encumbrance by 5 for two handed ranged weapons. Multiply that by four (I think blaster pistols are enc 1) and you get the amount of pistols - not sure if that would make as much sense.

Edit: here's my crate calculations:

Just thinking a bit more on the crates... (and I've figured out that I
might be arguing your case more than mine, but this whole motion is
pretty fun to do anyway).

Let's say the average blaster rifle crate is about 1.5 metres long (to
be generous), this includes padding in each end. Let's say the crates
would be about 80 cm wide, to get about 6-8 blasters neatly
stacked, but also padded and protected during transport. The crate would
be 40 cm deep, including lid. That 1.5 x 0.8 x 0.4 = 0.48 cubic
meters. So that is volume, which means you could, by my most
conservative calculations above, fit about 490 crates, so somewhere
between 2940 and 3920 blasters.. ish.