This may seem like an odd question, but how does everyone treat credits in terms of purchasing power? While no two settings would be identical, it helps to know what to charge (even as fluff) for small incidental items and stuff not in the books.

I am trying to create a system for buildings and headquarters and I find I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around what a credit is "worth" when compared to the buying power of say an American Dollar, or a Euro. I keep coming back to roughly a one for one, but this seems like it starts not to work on the higher end.

Any idea?

WEG: Hideouts & Strongholds. Covers all the basic cost and labor calculations for base building.

I think part of what's confusing you is the affordability of small spacecraft. Blasters, landspeeders and such come out about 1:1. Starfighters on the other hand are more 100:1.

I have a hard time dealing with the economy, the cost to buy a top of the line weapon that will turn a horde of storm troopers into bloody chunks costs... about what it would cost to fix a fairly trivial amount of damage on a ship or get a fight's worth of crits dealt with in a bacta tank.

Anything under 100C I just ignore and assume the players can buy it. If I really want to account for it then I'd just knock 1k off their reward every now and again or cut the money off the sell cost of the buckets of blaster carbines and wheel barrels of laminate they keep ending up with from storm trooper "minions".

For the incidentals, I generally wing it depending on where they are and such.

As for the base, well, I wouldn't put any strict value on anything for building - this is where obligation shines. "You need a shield generator how big? Sure I can get it.. but, I'll need you to do something for me" (debt or favour +5) or "You were looking for a shield generator right? I got one. 1000 credits. I'll have it there in an hour" Bounty +5 as the generator was obviously stolen.

Have fun with that. The book does say to keep the characters "hungry".

I gave up trying to figure out the Star Wars economy the first time I saw Star Wars in the movie theatre. Luke sells his land speeder and gives Obiwan the money. Obiwan then tells Han he can pay 2000 now and another 15000 when they reach Alderaan. To which Luke exclaims "17,000? We could almost buy our own ship for that!" So the equivalent of a transoceanic plane ride for two passengers is almost nine times what a used car will sell for, but an airplane can be purchased for not much more than the cost of airfare? This just doesn't make sense. Then in Return of the Jedi we find that the offered bounty on Chewbacca is 50,000 credits, this seems awfully low if transport to Alderaan was 17,000.

It end to ignore specific prices and just tell my players if they are feeling flush or are scraping their pocket lint. At least for day to day stuff.

Well, to be fair, Luke was pretty outraged at the notion of paying 17,000 credits for a trip to Alderaan, so we can assume that's a fairly ridiculous sum for such a trip. On the other hand, they weren't just paying for a ticket off planet, they were hiring a seasoned freighter pilot to smuggle them past an Imperial blockade, and since Obi-Wan didn't have the asking price up front, he had to sweeten the deal enough to tempt Han into risking it on the promise of a major pay-off. (Also, as WEG SW went, their price lists had many tramp freighters go for 20-25,000 credits used.)

Of course Han did have a rather substantial debt hanging over him at the time. Nothing like Jabba to provide incentive to gouge the old man and the kid for everything they could pay....

As an aside, I find it interesting that even though the money is called "credits" we several times see physical coins change hands. Ok, we don't see them very clearly and the could be electronically encoded credit sticks or chips, kind of like a flash drive debit card.

I try to impress upon my players that a credit more or less equals a $ or € - although going for £ might also be a good idea - compared to our own levels of cost and such... (it might not make sense to people from other countries). Basically because the prices of similar stuff here has at least another 0 behind the price tag - even if the "actual" value is more or less the same... ah economics, what a silly and made up science... So, I'm using US and UK prices - from when I lived in those countries, as a guideline for my players. I mean, because 10,000 NOK is much, but not nearly as much as $10,000, €10,000 or £10,000... and it seems costs are more akin to UK/EU or US levels and than here.

Of course, different systems, sectors and regions will have varied inflation, deflation, stagnation and stagflation of cost and such - which the Rarity system works well to adjust, more or less. And if you have the EotE beta book, there's the nice black market table with percentages in there, to further increase costs.

I have mixed feelings about the game suggesting not using those tables for PCs when buying gear and instead only using them when conducting bulk goods trade. It seems weird that buying a blaster pistol costs 400 credits no matter where I am, but buying hundreds of them is now subject to modifiers.

Thanks for all of the ideas everybody.

One more question - Did they keep the equipment cost the same across the various incarnations and games? I.e. Does a blaster in EotE cost the same as WEG?

WEG: Hideouts & Strongholds. Covers all the basic cost and labor calculations for base building.

I think part of what's confusing you is the affordability of small spacecraft. Blasters, landspeeders and such come out about 1:1. Starfighters on the other hand are more 100:1.

I need to try and find the pertinent info as a guide then. I want to bring it into a far simpler and narrative system for EotE.

I have mixed feelings about the game suggesting not using those tables for PCs when buying gear and instead only using them when conducting bulk goods trade. It seems weird that buying a blaster pistol costs 400 credits no matter where I am, but buying hundreds of them is now subject to modifiers.

I have the same mixed feelings. I see why they do it--for simplicity, but still...

This would make an easy house rule though if it bothered you.

I gave up trying to figure out the Star Wars economy the first time I saw Star Wars in the movie theatre. Luke sells his land speeder and gives Obiwan the money. Obiwan then tells Han he can pay 2000 now and another 15000 when they reach Alderaan. To which Luke exclaims "17,000? We could almost buy our own ship for that!" So the equivalent of a transoceanic plane ride for two passengers is almost nine times what a used car will sell for, but an airplane can be purchased for not much more than the cost of airfare? This just doesn't make sense. Then in Return of the Jedi we find that the offered bounty on Chewbacca is 50,000 credits, this seems awfully low if transport to Alderaan was 17,000.

It end to ignore specific prices and just tell my players if they are feeling flush or are scraping their pocket lint. At least for day to day stuff.

You're prices are a little off. Han wants to charge them 10,000 credits after Obi'wan says they want to avoid imperial entanglements. Luke says they could almost buy their own ship for that. Normal transport is probably more in the 1-2k credit range.

What you need to factor in is rarirty. It's like the difference between a car and a mint condition babe ruthe rookie card. The price tag may be similar but one is a lot harder to get your hands on.

Maybe luke exaggerated?

I try to keep costs equal to real dollars. makes it easier to translate and for players to grasp.