Building the Alliance in Pirates of Drinax

[PsiTraveller]

So my players started the Finale adventure for Pirates of Drinax.
In my campaign one of the players (A Soc 12 Baron of the Moot from the imperium) took over during the coup in the palace. Sadly Oleb's DNR wishes were recorded and the Baron used the chaos to take control.

So throughout the campaign the group has made deals with the various leaders and patrons they met during the campaign.

My question is about the gathering allies section of the adventure. The players started by sending out messages to all the close planets and asking for delegations and diplomats to come to the Palace.

The players started rolling up results on the chart and had a hot streak with the dice. Planets that had negative DM's were being swept up in the fervor of the new leadership.

Drinax was on its way to becoming a major player in the reach.

I halted the rolling and we talked ab out travel times and message relays etc. Not everyone will be available right away.

Has anyone else had this happen? A few rolls of 11 or 12 and you can get some neutral/hostile planets to come over to the Drinaxian side. This alters the Dice Pool for the finale quite a bit.

Just looking for thoughs on this.

 

[Old School]

I don't see an issue with it. It would definitely take a couple of months to gather the various leaders. Whether or not you want to roll play any of this, go do some last minute adventuring, or just have the time pass uneventfully is up to you. I think role playing some of the negotiations would be appropriate, and giving them DMs based on how well they address the delegates concerns, especially the hostile and suspicious worlds. Lucky rolls are part of the game.

I would have no problem making a ruling that particular hostile planet absolutely will not join, however. For example, I wouldn't allow the Aslan worlds to join unless the travellers had done something remarkable in the campaign to make this possible. Vorito isn't going to join if they are in open war with GeDeCo. Joining the new subsector polity is one thing, leaving the Hierate is something else.

I've also thought about the viability of the Alliance. Its main source of revenue will be taxing the trade fleets that pass through. That's all well and good, but is it enough? It's own economic might well be very limited, with one exception: Vorito. Vorito is the only population A world Drinax can expect to have join (discounting Tkohk barring very exceptional circumstances). There are no population 9 worlds. Meaning that Vorito, with over 10 billion inhabitants and a star faring tech level, dwarfs all other worlds combined in any new Alliance in both population and economic power. Think about it in terms of government revenues. A small tax, say Cr5-10 per inhabitant, may be in order to build a fleet. Vorito would be footing the vast majority of that bill, and would rightfully expect a dominant position in return. Without Vorito you got 1-2 billion population at most, assuming you get all the pop 8 worlds to join: Ace, Pourne, and Umenii.

Vorito is, of course, a fully owned subsidiary of GeDeCo. This shows just how much of a power GeDeCo is in the Reach. Vorito's true fighting strength is massively underrepresented in the endgame, but your traveler's new alliance wouldn't have availability to that power unless GeDeCo was overthrown. If they are allied with GeDeCo, GeDeCo wouldn't commit all of Vorito's resources to a battle it wants to lose.

 

[PsiTraveller]

I was thinking of a run to Browne: 30 Billion citizens. 2 Credits per year per head and you have 60 Billion cash.

Even looking at the close neighbours.
Pourne is a coup gain if you roll it. Tech 10 and 900 million population. There is a win right there in terms of taxation. You can offer colonization onto Asim to fill up an empty planet.

Blue has TL 11 and only 70 000 people. 13 worlds to search for minerals for industrial expansion

Tech-World is your robot labour force and shipyard.
Exe is the fuel station you bribed to loyalty and an easy income stream @ 500 credits per dTon of fuel.

Falcon is an intriguing option with a TL13 labour force close to the robots of Tech World to train up to TL 14 or 15. The biological constraints could be an issue, but robots and working by drones is an option.

the resources surround Drinax, it is just a matter of getting all the pieces onto the same team.

 

[paltrysum]

The players in our campaign have considered Browne, too. But how do you make that a viable participant in a renewed kingdom? You'd have to set up a deep-space port to bridge the gap so that goods and people could flow in both directions. Otherwise, where's the benefit to the people of Browne? (Brownies?! Browneans?)

 

[Old School]

Yeah, I don’t see Browne as part of the campaign. Browne’s got its own problems, and Ihatei and Pirates ain’t among them!

My crew identified Pourne as a key resource early on. They’ve buttered up the bureaucrats there by solving the mystery ship issue, spending lots of cash on ship repairs and components, and offering access to some higher technology via the university on the floating palace.

They are trying to cozy up to GeDeCo right now (as much as possible while being pinned down by PRQ security forces).

 

[Bardicheart]

Food for Thought on the tax revenue:

When you say X Cr of revenue, who's credits are we talking about? If you mean Imperial Credits, why are all these worlds using Imperial Credits? Wouldn't most higher pop worlds have their own currency? If so and you have 4 such worlds paying taxes, each in their own currency, you're now dealing with a currency exchange mess. How do you spend that? What if some worlds won't accept the currency of certain other worlds or only at a depreciated rate?

Then there's the question of whether these worlds are cash poor or not. If they've advanced enough to have some sort of e-currency that's not really an issue, but if they're still using a physical currency then how much currency is in circulation becomes a serious issue. Borrowing from Harn World (a pseudo-medieval setting) it is very cash poor, you rarely see a gold coin, silver pennies are the main currency and there isn't enough of that in circulation for all the various feudal manors to pay their taxes in cash, most taxes are paid in kind, meaning various physical goods. Suppose some worlds could only offer payment in the form of various trade goods, grain shipments, etc. How to the players and Drinax turn those commodities into needed cash (and the right kind of cash) to buy other things they need?

This in turn raises the question of whether Drinax should establish its own currency (and also does it already have one?)? If so, is it a paper currency or e-currency, is backed by something or is its value based on perceived value? Then add that into negotiations with joining worlds, convincing them why they should trade in their currency for the new Drinax currency. If the currency is backed by something it would have a stable value which would make it attractive. Unbacked currencies have value based more on the stability and perceived value of the issuing government and fluctuate more, for a new Drinax, that might be a hard sell. The down side of a backed currency is you need something to back it, gold bullion, silver, etc are typical, which might be hard to come by in sufficient quantity and that limits how much currency you can issue which limits economic growth potential severely.

Just some potential wrinkles you can throw in the mix.

 

[Old School]

Imperial credits are the currency of trade, that’s why. Imperial credits are accepted at all starports as a way to facilitate trade, and can be easily exchanged for the local currency.

That might be a fancy way of saying “they use imperial credits because its a game and who needs that kind of complication”, but that’s a perfectly good answer too.

To each their own, but I don’t think I want to introduce foreign exchange into the game. That feels like work.

 

[paltrysum]

Yeah, I don’t see Browne as part of the campaign. Browne’s got its own problems, and Ihatei and Pirates ain’t among them!

My crew identified Pourne as a key resource early on. They’ve buttered up the bureaucrats there by solving the mystery ship issue, spending lots of cash on ship repairs and components, and offering access to some higher technology via the university on the floating palace.

What did you come up with for the mystery ship? I saw that lead and wasn't initially interested in developing it but I'd be curious to know your idea.

 

[CaladanGuard]

Yeah, I don’t see Browne as part of the campaign. Browne’s got its own problems, and Ihatei and Pirates ain’t among them!

My crew identified Pourne as a key resource early on. They’ve buttered up the bureaucrats there by solving the mystery ship issue, spending lots of cash on ship repairs and components, and offering access to some higher technology via the university on the floating palace.

What did you come up with for the mystery ship? I saw that lead and wasn't initially interested in developing it but I'd be curious to know your idea.

Not the person you directed it at, but I used the same lead. I actually had it turn out to be a small craft from the Deepnight Endeavour in Great Rift, I figured it would be disturbing enough to have the Pournese try and make someone else deal with it, and didn't require me to jam in extra aliens. Plus, I got to put in an adventure lead more suited to (some) of my players, the sciency explorery types, rather than the murdery genocidal types, who get enough work.

 

[Old School]

I’m afraid my answer will disappoint you. I think Pourne was their first stop upon leaving Drinax for the first time. I wanted to get them used to the idea of patrons and making friends by solving problems for various important people.

I told them they were given files with the specs, details, pictures, etc of the ship to the extent the Pourne gov’t could provide them. They figured out they just needed to find someone smart and educated enough to take that evidence and do something with it. They took it to the scholar’s tower, where it was determined that the ship was an ancient Florian (or was it Zhodani? I can’t even remember) scout ship, and the condition of the ship and crew was very likely the result of a misjump that had it stuck in jump space for thousands of years. So it’s not a threat.

Obviously you could make some big adventure out of that one, and out of most of the patron missions, but not every patron mission can be some big sprawling affair with lots of prep.

 

[JMISBEST]

Yeah, I don’t see Browne as part of the campaign. Browne’s got its own problems, and Ihatei and Pirates ain’t among them!

My crew identified Pourne as a key resource early on. They’ve buttered up the bureaucrats there by solving the mystery ship issue, spending lots of cash on ship repairs and components, and offering access to some higher technology via the university on the floating palace.

What did you come up with for the mystery ship? I saw that lead and wasn't initially interested in developing it but I'd be curious to know your idea.

Not the person you directed it at, but I used the same lead. I actually had it turn out to be a small craft from the Deepnight Endeavour in Great Rift, I figured it would be disturbing enough to have the Pournese try and make someone else deal with it, and didn't require me to jam in extra aliens. Plus, I got to put in an adventure lead more suited to (some) of my players, the sciency explorery types, rather than the murdery genocidal types, who get enough work.

I took the chance and for a laugh made The Pourne Craft a 2,100 year old TL 17 700 Ton Scoutship from my Super-Empire just to see the look on my Players face when they realized that their is or was A Race that was more advanced 2,100 years ago then even Drinax is now

 

[PsiTraveller]

I see Browne as the big guy in the corner that nobody talks to.

The advantage Browne represents is a huge pool of labour for industry or for military. There are challenges facing any plan, a jump route to get there and back, supplies and training in more advanced tech.

If these are addressed then Browne could be used to offset the numerical advantage of Tyokh and the 20 Billion Aslan there.

 

[Old School]

But whats in it for Browne? They are trying to survive, not build ships to fight your enemy, one that can’t even get to them.

I lke Caladan’s answer more than mine for the mystery ship. Sounds like a cool change of pace for the campaign.