5 ms·

I'm currently running a Shadowrun game where equipment and especially cyberware is a neverending money sink. High-end cyberware and vehicles can easily cost hun

by mcv 3y ago

I'm currently running a Shadowrun game where equipment and especially cyberware is a neverending money sink. High-end cyberware and vehicles can easily cost hundreds of thousands of nuyen. Not to mention that you've got monthly cost of living depending on your lifestyle. Of course you could save a lot of money by choosing a poor or squatter lifestyle, but I tend to make that matter. Eventually they all settled on a medium lifestyle for $5000/month. Of course this does mean tons of bookkeeping. I've also played and loved games that abstract wealth away. And I certainly think some games should abstract it away a bit more. But for Shadowrun, this makes sense. They're criminals for hire, so they're in it for the money. (Although they're currently doing the most dangerous run ever for free, so I'll reward them with extra karma.)

dormento 3y ago
True immersion will come when you make em fill their taxes.
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  I have a whole story setting idea where a city requires permits for everything, including dying. You didn't fill out your death certificate? Sorry, you don't get to die. I'm just not sure what the PCs would do in that setting, what "problem" there would be for them to solve.
- Tyr42 3y ago
  I have a friend who had to write intergalactic tax law to do this to his players.
- mcv 3y ago
  I don't think I've ever had them pay taxes, except for the occasional toll in WFRP, or berthing costs in Traveller (now there's a game that could really turn into a spreadsheet; though we never got that far).
- starkparker 3y ago
  The fantasy setting I GM in has a god of taxes, so whenever the party accumulates more than a few thousand gold and aren't spending it, I start sending paladins of the tax god after them at random. Got to a point where the party stumbled across a dragon lair and instead of fighting or bypassing it, the party wanted to go in and ask it for financial management advice. "They have hoards and there aren't any tax collectors here, so dragons must have figured it out!" So I made the dragon be a tax collector. Very motivated fight (they lost).
- jowea 3y ago
  I can't not post this: https://walsh9.itch.io/dragon-tax-return-simulator-2015 https://walsh9.itch.io/dragon-tax-return-simulator-2015
AndyMcConachie 3y ago
I'm running a Traveller game where it feels like this. Spreadsheets in Space... Luckily for me and our players I just hand wave a lot of it once it gets too crunchy.
- mcv 3y ago
  Traveller can be like that. I never got that far into it, unfortunately. In games like that (or maybe in all games) it's important that all players are happy with the level of crunch. It's fine if everybody engages with the Spreadsheets in Space, it's also fine if everybody prefers to handwave it. But if some engage and some don't, you've got a problem. I was afraid my players would consider Shadowrun too heavy and too much bookkeeping, but everybody was willing to commit to it and make it work. And I still handwave a lot because the Shadowrun rules are a mess.
- whartung 3y ago
  Traveller is notorious. The core "Free Trader" trope is very difficult from many levels. It starts with this "small band and their ship" meme. The problem is that the ship is worth $40M. Traveller economics are basically based on 1980 prices, so $40M is, you know, "worth something". Sure, the ship is mortgaged over 40 years, but that's part of the problem. Outside of the "milk run" markets (there are some trades, where if played straight by the rules, are just instant, large profits), it's simply the matter that folks are running around in a ship worth millions of dollars (Traveller uses credits, but we'll stick with dollars), that takes millions of dollars to repair and maintain. You'd think that the crew should be on the brink of disaster all the time. $400,000 annually just to maintain the ship. Pile on the mortgage payment, and you need an annual revenue of $2-3M. Show of hands who here would be content with a "small business" that's pulling in $2-3M a year? Encounter with a Pirate? Did they take out your turret as you raced to the jump zone? $4M in damage. The fundamental point being that if you were in this business, and had the $4M in the bank to handle these kind of repairs (well, better bump it to $10M), at some point you look and say "You know, I have $10M in equity in my ship, I have $10M in the bank just in case, what the heck am I doing jetting around the universe in the dangerous dark? Why am I not on the beaches of Gamma Hydra VI sipping margaritas?" If the cargoes are more mundane ("mundane"), say worth $200K, then a) is a pirate willing to risk millions of dollars of damage for $200K? b) is the captain willing to risk that? Why would a pirate bother with $200K of cargo when there's several million dollars worth of drives, weapons, computers, etc. on the ship. Heck, why not take both? Combat is very expensive, so make it worth while and worth the risk. The whole trading campaign is badly skewed by the economics and, perhaps, the lack of the players putting themselves in the position of the actual people, and just focusing on numbers. It would make more sense, in an advance technological and economic society, to lease the ship, insure it against damages, hire the crew, etc. But, boy, the ruins the adventure. "We're going to the lost planet to check out the ancient ruin for artifacts, you in?" "Yea gee, that sounds well, but I have to meet with the insurance inspector to renew the certificate on my ship." Yea, that's fun.

by mcv 3y ago

dormento 3y ago

True immersion will come when you make em fill their taxes.

pavel_lishin 3y ago
I have a whole story setting idea where a city requires permits for everything, including dying. You didn't fill out your death certificate? Sorry, you don't get to die. I'm just not sure what the PCs would do in that setting, what "problem" there would be for them to solve.
Tyr42 3y ago
I have a friend who had to write intergalactic tax law to do this to his players.
mcv 3y ago
I don't think I've ever had them pay taxes, except for the occasional toll in WFRP, or berthing costs in Traveller (now there's a game that could really turn into a spreadsheet; though we never got that far).
starkparker 3y ago
The fantasy setting I GM in has a god of taxes, so whenever the party accumulates more than a few thousand gold and aren't spending it, I start sending paladins of the tax god after them at random. Got to a point where the party stumbled across a dragon lair and instead of fighting or bypassing it, the party wanted to go in and ask it for financial management advice. "They have hoards and there aren't any tax collectors here, so dragons must have figured it out!" So I made the dragon be a tax collector. Very motivated fight (they lost).
jowea 3y ago
I can't not post this: https://walsh9.itch.io/dragon-tax-return-simulator-2015 https://walsh9.itch.io/dragon-tax-return-simulator-2015

AndyMcConachie 3y ago

I'm running a Traveller game where it feels like this. Spreadsheets in Space... Luckily for me and our players I just hand wave a lot of it once it gets too crunchy.

mcv 3y ago
Traveller can be like that. I never got that far into it, unfortunately. In games like that (or maybe in all games) it's important that all players are happy with the level of crunch. It's fine if everybody engages with the Spreadsheets in Space, it's also fine if everybody prefers to handwave it. But if some engage and some don't, you've got a problem. I was afraid my players would consider Shadowrun too heavy and too much bookkeeping, but everybody was willing to commit to it and make it work. And I still handwave a lot because the Shadowrun rules are a mess.
whartung 3y ago
Traveller is notorious. The core "Free Trader" trope is very difficult from many levels. It starts with this "small band and their ship" meme. The problem is that the ship is worth $40M. Traveller economics are basically based on 1980 prices, so $40M is, you know, "worth something". Sure, the ship is mortgaged over 40 years, but that's part of the problem. Outside of the "milk run" markets (there are some trades, where if played straight by the rules, are just instant, large profits), it's simply the matter that folks are running around in a ship worth millions of dollars (Traveller uses credits, but we'll stick with dollars), that takes millions of dollars to repair and maintain. You'd think that the crew should be on the brink of disaster all the time. $400,000 annually just to maintain the ship. Pile on the mortgage payment, and you need an annual revenue of $2-3M. Show of hands who here would be content with a "small business" that's pulling in $2-3M a year? Encounter with a Pirate? Did they take out your turret as you raced to the jump zone? $4M in damage. The fundamental point being that if you were in this business, and had the $4M in the bank to handle these kind of repairs (well, better bump it to $10M), at some point you look and say "You know, I have $10M in equity in my ship, I have $10M in the bank just in case, what the heck am I doing jetting around the universe in the dangerous dark? Why am I not on the beaches of Gamma Hydra VI sipping margaritas?" If the cargoes are more mundane ("mundane"), say worth $200K, then a) is a pirate willing to risk millions of dollars of damage for $200K? b) is the captain willing to risk that? Why would a pirate bother with $200K of cargo when there's several million dollars worth of drives, weapons, computers, etc. on the ship. Heck, why not take both? Combat is very expensive, so make it worth while and worth the risk. The whole trading campaign is badly skewed by the economics and, perhaps, the lack of the players putting themselves in the position of the actual people, and just focusing on numbers. It would make more sense, in an advance technological and economic society, to lease the ship, insure it against damages, hire the crew, etc. But, boy, the ruins the adventure. "We're going to the lost planet to check out the ancient ruin for artifacts, you in?" "Yea gee, that sounds well, but I have to meet with the insurance inspector to renew the certificate on my ship." Yea, that's fun.