Trade Codes
- Thread starter MasterGwydion
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MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
In an enclosed system, the planet's population feeds the industrial base.
You just asked why things are the way they are. Non Industrial and Non Agricultural assume certain demand levels that are not in evidence at low pop. That's the answer.
The trade code system is vastly oversimplified. If you want to make a game about being merchants (as opposed to being adventures who happen to merchant as an excuse to be places), one should actually tailor tables to the specific worlds and their actual situations, not just generic categories. The Traveller Adventure makes adventures out of this.. On Natoko, a surge of competition causes problems, so the players can strike a favorable deal with a metals broker. On Zila, they ship wine, but most of it is locked up by a single shipper. The PCs can strike deals to work around that. On Patinir, there's another thing to work out to get a good cargo. On Pysadi, lowood is the best product, but again, there's an adventure to actually get some. And so on.
Obviously, in the Reaches, there's fewer big boys squeezing, but there's other problems.
One of my few complaints about the way Mongoose is handling Traveller is the lack of materials on how these tools are intended to be used. I get it, the space merchant trope is muchly reduced in popular appeal from the 70s when a lot of authors like CJ Cherryh and Poul Anderson published numerous books in that genre.
But just copying the tables over from earlier editions of the game and dropping them in straight without explaining how they are intended to be used to drive an *adventuring* campaign leads to a lot of these problems. Even in the 80s, Traveller didn't always do a great job of communicating that the system isn't supposed to be a "roll dice, move, roll more dice, rinse repeat" exercise in ever increasing wealth.
The trade code system is vastly oversimplified. If you want to make a game about being merchants (as opposed to being adventures who happen to merchant as an excuse to be places), one should actually tailor tables to the specific worlds and their actual situations, not just generic categories. The Traveller Adventure makes adventures out of this.. On Natoko, a surge of competition causes problems, so the players can strike a favorable deal with a metals broker. On Zila, they ship wine, but most of it is locked up by a single shipper. The PCs can strike deals to work around that. On Patinir, there's another thing to work out to get a good cargo. On Pysadi, lowood is the best product, but again, there's an adventure to actually get some. And so on.
Obviously, in the Reaches, there's fewer big boys squeezing, but there's other problems.
One of my few complaints about the way Mongoose is handling Traveller is the lack of materials on how these tools are intended to be used. I get it, the space merchant trope is muchly reduced in popular appeal from the 70s when a lot of authors like CJ Cherryh and Poul Anderson published numerous books in that genre.
But just copying the tables over from earlier editions of the game and dropping them in straight without explaining how they are intended to be used to drive an *adventuring* campaign leads to a lot of these problems. Even in the 80s, Traveller didn't always do a great job of communicating that the system isn't supposed to be a "roll dice, move, roll more dice, rinse repeat" exercise in ever increasing wealth.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
You and I seem to be having a communication issue.
I just vastly simplified the Trade Codes with very little changes. Would I prefer something a little more complex, yes, but I do not want a complete trade system rewrite. The changes I suggested to the Trade Codes, would make gameplay easier, worldbuilding easier, involves no rolling of the dice, and explains the effects of what is going on, on every main world in Charted Space without telling why. That is left entirely up to the fluff writers, the adventure writers, and the individual Referees. That sounds like everything you say you want from a system. It even fixes the problem of just copying and pasting the Trade Code Chart from edition to edition while still being easily usable and recognizable to the players of all of the other editions. T5 has some things I like (some of the extra Trade Codes), but they are not needed. Pre-Rich means nothing to a player. What is Pre-Rich? It means you are not Rich and not Poor. Wasn't that covered by just not listing Rich or Poor? lol
I'm saying that the problem is that the trade system as written is not designed to be a primary activity. It was never intended to be a "roll dice, move to the next system, roll more dice" gameplay loop. It was written so that a GM who wanted to quickly resolve trade on worlds the players are basically just flying through to where the adventure actually is. Worlds where they hadn't given any thought to the world beyond the UWP.
The original design assumed the GM would be creating adventures in place of those rolls for most worlds. That's why the system doesn't have any significant risks built into it. It assumes the GM will be determining when there's an encounter with pirates or corrupt customs or competing merchants. It is NOT a complete system. It is to a trading campaign what random encounters are to dungeon adventures.
But none of this explanation is in Mongoose Traveller, nor are any of the (frankly meh) procedural elements of quick planet visits that might lead into complications. It leads people to think "oh, this is what trade is" and then everyone wonders why players immensely rich within a short time. To be fair, CT tended to explain this poorly, too.
It doesn't need to be more complex than this in that context. But if the primary player activity becomes speculation rather than adventuring, then this system collapses because of its incompleteness. It has no intrinsic challenge or complexity or even lack of information that should apply to an info at the speed of travel system.
The original design assumed the GM would be creating adventures in place of those rolls for most worlds. That's why the system doesn't have any significant risks built into it. It assumes the GM will be determining when there's an encounter with pirates or corrupt customs or competing merchants. It is NOT a complete system. It is to a trading campaign what random encounters are to dungeon adventures.
But none of this explanation is in Mongoose Traveller, nor are any of the (frankly meh) procedural elements of quick planet visits that might lead into complications. It leads people to think "oh, this is what trade is" and then everyone wonders why players immensely rich within a short time. To be fair, CT tended to explain this poorly, too.
It doesn't need to be more complex than this in that context. But if the primary player activity becomes speculation rather than adventuring, then this system collapses because of its incompleteness. It has no intrinsic challenge or complexity or even lack of information that should apply to an info at the speed of travel system.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The trade codes are stereotypes.
It would, from the perspective of the merchants on speculative trade bends, indicate what's likely to be easily available at the local market.
It would, from the perspective of the merchants on speculative trade bends, indicate what's likely to be easily available at the local market.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I understand that, "the trade system as written is not designed to be a primary activity." What I have proposed doesn't change that. It just streamlines and makes easier and simpler what is already there. I could even get rid of Lo and Hi and just use the Population UWP Code as a modifier to the amount of goods trade rolls, but I chose not to as that would actually cause systemic differences in the system. I wanted to clean up, not change. Change is more than We can ask for before MgT3.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
and I would make them statistics. Statistics are useful, stereotypes are not.
I disagree with this. And I am hoping that the hinted at merchant adventure coming next year actually shows people how Traveller merchant adventures are intended to be done. I don't think we need lots of additional rules or anything of that sort. It just needs GM advice about how the speculation table is to be used to facilitate trading gameplay and dispel the frequent misapprehension that it is the actuality of trading gameplay.
It's fine as a quick resolution system for when you are skipping along from one adventure to the next and don't feel like spending time dealing with it. That's what it is for.
You could add rules and things for building up your merchant fleet and managing a trade empire if you wanted, same as how they have rules for running pocket empires and establishing colonies in some other editions. I don't know how much value that has. But it is a different thing that what I am talking about.
I may have gotten the misapprehension that you were trying to run a game of that sort, based on your comments about trade routes, players reading the TCs, and having NPC crewed ships running scheduled routes on the PC's behalf after acquiring them from the profits of the infinite money machine that the speculation rules are without GM involvement.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
No, I was just doing some worldbuilding, trying to get a sense of how the world around My players functions. I have a need to know rough trade stuff in order to know how things function so My players can pirate when they wish and I have some idea of what's going on and what trade practices may exist that they are pillaging on. My worldbuilding is separate from the discussion of the trade codes.
As for the Trade Codes, that was just cleaning up what We already have, not changing anything. I hoped for symmetry of terminology. What is Non-Industrial? It means that you do not produce enough with your local industry to support your current TL, so you must import goods to support your current TL. What is Industrial? It means that you not only produce enough goods to maintain your planet's TL, but you produce more than you need, sufficient to be an exporter of goods produced on your world. Just like that. Symmetry. No real changes. Just clarifications to make it easier to understand.
If you want to get right down to it, all of the trade codes are pretty sus.
I find it interesting that Technology doesn't have anything to do with whether a world is Industrial. You can have a TL 3 Industrial world. Which I guess is too outrageous with the Age of Steam. But I'm not sure if that's really what the TC emulates.
Industrial and Hi Pop are essentially the same. Apparently you can't have industry and clean air.
Earth today is not an industrial world, because we don't need filter masks to breathe, which is a prerequisite of having surplus industrial output.
Earth also isn't agricultural, because there's too many people living here. Even though we produce a vast surplus of food (that mostly goes to waste for various political reasons).
Earth is Hi Pop. And its a Garden World (which is good, since the definition of Garden world is "like earth".)
Pretty impressive that a rando planet that isn't either rich or industrial could produce a fleet that smote the 1st Imperium a fatal wound
I find it interesting that Technology doesn't have anything to do with whether a world is Industrial. You can have a TL 3 Industrial world. Which I guess is too outrageous with the Age of Steam. But I'm not sure if that's really what the TC emulates.
Industrial and Hi Pop are essentially the same. Apparently you can't have industry and clean air.
Earth today is not an industrial world, because we don't need filter masks to breathe, which is a prerequisite of having surplus industrial output.Earth also isn't agricultural, because there's too many people living here. Even though we produce a vast surplus of food (that mostly goes to waste for various political reasons).
Earth is Hi Pop. And its a Garden World (which is good, since the definition of Garden world is "like earth".
)Pretty impressive that a rando planet that isn't either rich or industrial could produce a fleet that smote the 1st Imperium a fatal wound
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I agree with all of those points!If you want to get right down to it, all of the trade codes are pretty sus.
I find it interesting that Technology doesn't have anything to do with whether a world is Industrial. You can have a TL 3 Industrial world. Which I guess is too outrageous with the Age of Steam. But I'm not sure if that's really what the TC emulates.
Industrial and Hi Pop are essentially the same. Apparently you can't have industry and clean air.
Earth also isn't agricultural, because there's too many people living here. Even though we produce a vast surplus of food (that mostly goes to waste for various political reasons).
Earth is Hi Pop. And its a Garden World (which is good, since the definition of Garden world is "like earth".
Pretty impressive that a rando planet that isn't either rich or industrial could produce a fleet that smote the 1st Imperium a fatal wound
Especially, the last bit about how a tiny planet of backwards randos managed to topple an empire that We couldn't even fathom when Terrans discovered that they not only were not the only humans in space, but that the "other humans" had space travel for thousands of years as well as an empire so ungodly vast that it defied imagination. lol
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Poor and rich, how defining is that?
MarkAlexander
Banded Mongoose
The trade codes have all of the contradictions above. I'm just going to assume that every world my players visit is a garden world, with agriculture and industry, because you need both. The world might be a bit dryer than earth, or a bit wetter but that's it. The real interest is the politics and culture.If you want to get right down to it, all of the trade codes are pretty sus.
I find it interesting that Technology doesn't have anything to do with whether a world is Industrial. You can have a TL 3 Industrial world. Which I guess is too outrageous with the Age of Steam. But I'm not sure if that's really what the TC emulates.
Industrial and Hi Pop are essentially the same. Apparently you can't have industry and clean air.
Earth also isn't agricultural, because there's too many people living here. Even though we produce a vast surplus of food (that mostly goes to waste for various political reasons).
Earth is Hi Pop. And its a Garden World (which is good, since the definition of Garden world is "like earth".
Pretty impressive that a rando planet that isn't either rich or industrial could produce a fleet that smote the 1st Imperium a fatal wound
The role of trade codes is to provide some non-randomness to PC speculative trading in situations where the GM isn't going to make detailed development of the world a priority.
They have absolutely no descriptive value or purpose in actually developing the world in detail. In real life, availability of specific resources and government/law level are the defining factors in how effective the economy and trade are.
To get trade codes (and other economic values like WTN) that really reflect the world, you need to develop the world in some detail first, then figure those things out.
They have absolutely no descriptive value or purpose in actually developing the world in detail. In real life, availability of specific resources and government/law level are the defining factors in how effective the economy and trade are.
To get trade codes (and other economic values like WTN) that really reflect the world, you need to develop the world in some detail first, then figure those things out.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It's a map.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
See, I always figure out the generalities first and then work backwards to get to the specifics. That is why I use things like UWP and WTN. They are generalizations which then help with a starting point to develop the specifics of a world.
I agree that is how UWP should be used. WTN is just a restatement of the UWP as currently defined, so I don't consider it to add any value to my specific description. Every single planet with Pop 6 and TL 10 is going to have the same WTN. So that doesn't help differentiate the world from any other Pop 6 TL 10 world.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
It isn't supposed to. It is supposed to give you one number to use in your calculations instead of 2. It is there simply to make the math easier. It is a mechanic. People in game will not be saying, "That is a WTN 6 planet." No. It is an out of game mechanic to make the math easier. That is all. It changes nothing from a descriptive perspective.