Homegrown Corporation Writeups For Your Traveller Universe

[MasterGwydion]

Thanks, all, for the suggestions. The economics of Traveller is something I have only come to as I have, um, _matured_ and I have a load of catching up to do on how the numbers work. Are the best sources the core rule book and the SOG?

The numbers don't work. Do not try to make economics in Traveller make sense. You will end up in a padded room drooling onto your straightjacket. I and many others have tried and failed. Traveller isn't designed to have a working economic system. The economy of Traveller is rolling a few D6s each time you go to a starport. That is the total depth of the Traveller economic system.

Currently, the CRB is the only source of information for this unless you go back to previous editions.

 

[ishldgetoutmore]

The numbers don't work. Do not try to make economics in Traveller make sense. You will end up in a padded room drooling onto your straightjacket. I and many others have tried and failed. Traveller isn't designed to have a working economic system. The economy of Traveller is rolling a few D6s each time you go to a starport. That is the total depth of the Traveller economic system.

Currently, the CRB is the only source of information for this unless you go back to previous editions.

I agree with this. That said, there have been people who did solo-play "trading" campaigns, playing a Free Trader plying the space lanes and using the economic system to see if they sink or fail. I saw people do this in Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller, and the upshot was that you rapidly go broke. This was by design -- PCs were meant to be desperately poor so that they would take up the borderline-illegal (or wholly illegal!) jobs offered by patrons.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I agree with this. That said, there have been people who did solo-play "trading" campaigns, playing a Free Trader plying the space lanes and using the economic system to see if they sink or fail. I saw people do this in Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller, and the upshot was that you rapidly go broke. This was by design -- PCs were meant to be desperately poor so that they would take up the borderline-illegal (or wholly illegal!) jobs offered by patrons.

Yeah, many early games railroaded you by design so you have no choice but to follow the Referee's plot. Your options in many early games was follow the plot or your character dies. In Traveller, that could have been due to bad rolls during character creation, before you ever have an opportunity to "follow the plot"! lol.

 

[rinku]

Thanks, all, for the suggestions. The economics of Traveller is something I have only come to as I have, um, _matured_ and I have a load of catching up to do on how the numbers work. Are the best sources the core rule book and the SOG?

Pretty much. But also any mercantile fiction or history, and real world economic matters can be shamelessly plundered.

There have been Traveller products that deal with merchant matters (Usually called "Merchant Prince") in previous editions, including 1st edition Mongoose.

But keep in mind that most of what has ever been published is a narrow window on the greater scope of an interstellar economy, and that it's all fictional. No one really knows how it would really operate.

 

[Condottiere]

Well, it's the Lovecraftian School of Economics.

 

[mavikfelna]

If you want a look at a reasonable merchant in space story that would fit well in Traveller and has reasonable, though not necessarily fully realistic, economic model, look at the Age of the Solar Clipper stories by Nathan Lowell. They are fantastic and really feel like a traveller campaign to me.

 

[Condottiere]

There is Holo the Wise Vargr, and Kraft Lawrence.