Robot Crew Oversight

[Terry Mixon]

Speaking as someone dealing with the effects of a player with broker 4 plus an augment in the party, I can see very clearly in practice why the designers decided not to include an INT (or EDU, which seems more appropriate) modifier. It's already hard for the party not to get rich quickly at that level.

I would view that as a roleplaying opportunity. As they say, the nail that sticks up is struck down. If someone is too good at making money, people that feel they deserve it more will come calling for a slice of the pie.

 

[Endie]

I would view that as a roleplaying opportunity. As they say, the nail that sticks up is struck down. If someone is too good at making money, people that feel they deserve it more will come calling for a slice of the pie.

As a very rare thing, that's ok to do once as an adventure hook, sure. But in general, as Andy Slack said: if the player has invested in building up an ability that high then she's saying that she wants her character to be good at it. And that's fine.

There are carrots I can use as money sinks that work perfectly well to get rid of excess liquidity but that also have the party feel that they are advancing and the player gets to feel that she's great at something. There's no need to consistently punish them for a perfectly legal, rational choice. It's not as if the party having a lot of money is game-breaking for a PoD campaign, anyway: it's supposed to happen.

That said, if I run a "normal" campaign I'm adjusting the decrements and increments on the 3D6 broker table from 5% to 2.5%!

 

[Terry Mixon]

As a very rare thing, that's ok to do once as an adventure hook, sure. But in general, as Andy Slack said: if the player has invested in building up an ability that high then she's saying that she wants her character to be good at it. And that's fine.

There are carrots I can use as money sinks that work perfectly well to get rid of excess liquidity but that also have the party feel that they are advancing and the player gets to feel that she's great at something. There's no need to consistently punish them for a perfectly legal, rational choice. It's not as if the party having a lot of money is game-breaking for a PoD campaign, anyway: it's supposed to happen.

That said, if I run a "normal" campaign I'm adjusting the decrements and increments on the 3D6 broker table from 5% to 2.5%!

Good thoughts. I wasn’t recommending continual punishment but a little pushback from others in the game universe can be fun.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Speaking as someone dealing with the effects of a player with broker 4 plus an augment in the party, I can see very clearly in practice why the designers decided not to include an INT (or EDU, which seems more appropriate) modifier. It's already hard for the party not to get rich quickly at that level.

I actually advocated for including the INT modifier on the price role too, but then alter the chart to reflect that new result. That way it stays balanced.

 

[J. L. Brown]

That said, if I run a "normal" campaign I'm adjusting the decrements and increments on the 3D6 broker table from 5% to 2.5%!

That is one way to handle it, and might be a good approach. My usual method is to make it clear that a 'Speculative Trade' (singular) is the result of a week worth of work from the entire crew; filling the hold with freight is pretty easy in comparison. A 'Speculative Trade' often comes with an adventure attached, too -- this is not 'business as usual' it is a reward for doing extraordinary things.

 

[MasterGwydion]

That said, if I run a "normal" campaign I'm adjusting the decrements and increments on the 3D6 broker table from 5% to 2.5%!

This is a good idea anyways. 5% increments are too easy to get rich.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I’ve added a bunch of robot crew and tweaked others that I posted here. All are available in an excel sheet in my signature now. Enjoy!

 

[Terry Mixon]

Here is a summary of what I hope are the final models. I've updated the spreadsheet.

Edit: If I’m being dense and some basic model is missing, let me know. The Robot Handbook has a BrokerBot, but maybe I need one, too. Anything else?

Also, I didn’t leave off any “other skills” for the Basic Engineering Droid, though I have the Engineering and Mechanic skills reversed. It should have Engineering 1 and Mechanic 0. It’s just that basic.