Trading and broker skill

[Sigtrygg]

How can a PC broker from a sector away understand the market dynamics of this wilderness TL5 world?

The broker skill should be limited in the markets that it applies to. Personally I think it was a mistake ever allowing it as a PC skill without imposing such limits.

Now you need sub skills in Engineering I think the same should apply to Broker

Broker (world) broker skill is reduced by 1 per jump from designated world
Broker (subsector) -1 DM per jump from an xboat linked world

 

[swordtart]

How can a PC broker from a sector away understand the market dynamics of this wilderness TL5 world?

The broker skill should be limited in the markets that it applies to. Personally I think it was a mistake ever allowing it as a PC skill without imposing such limits.

Now you need sub skills in Engineering I think the same should apply to Broker

Broker (world) broker skill is reduced by 1 per jump from designated world
Broker (subsector) -1 DM per jump from an xboat linked world

I don't need to know what a good price is on this world, I just need to know what a good price is on the world I am going to sell it at. If the price here is less than the price there, then it is a good enough price. It doesn't need a detailed understanding of a planets economic system to realise that Agri products can probably bought at a better margin at a farm on a low tech world than in the largest city of that world.

Broker is not about determining future markets in various systems (it is not the stock market). It is bluff and bluster, underselling your interest in a particular commodity you want to buy and upselling the benefits of goods you are trying to sell. It is spotting micro tells in your trade partner. It is knowing what the margins mean, not getting overexcited at something that is interesting but not necessarily saleable.

Finding markets may be harder without knowing the local geography, but any society interested in trade will usually advertise those as the vendors want to sell as much as you want to buy.

In MGT2 the example Broker skills checks are on INT and SOC not EDU. That means knowledge about the specifics of the world is not as useful as being quick witted and charming.

 

[swordtart]

It should also be noted that in the skills chapter under Broker it says that negotiating a deal IS a skill check, so I think we have an editing error here.

Hah, and now I belatedly see that in the paragraph on task chains in the Core Rulebook on p63 the example is using Broker skill checks to find a market being used to influence the negotiation skill check. Did they not read the book they were writing

 

[Condottiere]

If the player character is really interested in gaming the planetary market, he gets hold of two databases.

The first tracks exactly how a, or more, commodities, perform over a given period, and predicts likely future performance.

The second as to who participates in these markets, and their psychological and market profiles.

Then, have an artificial intelligence programme game it out.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I don't need to know what a good price is on this world, I just need to know what a good price is on the world I am going to sell it at.

So you know the market prices on all the worlds within one or two jumps of this one, even though you are in the wilderness and there is no polity moving such data from world to world? Even the Imperium only moves market data regularly between worlds on the xboat route.

If the price here is less than the price there, then it is a good enough price.

Again, where do you get the knowledge of the markets way beyond your original empire? Who trades the data? How up to date is it?

It doesn't need a detailed understanding of a planets economic system to realise that Agri products can probably bought at a better margin at a farm on a low tech world than in the largest city of that world.

Until you arrive at that city and find it full of multistory pig farms...

Broker is not about determining future markets in various systems (it is not the stock market). It is bluff and bluster, underselling your interest in a particular commodity you want to buy and upselling the benefits of goods you are trying to sell.

I disagree most strongly, that is not what broker skill or brokerage is by any understanding of the word, a broker is a middle man who knows both sides in the deal, they make money by getting the best value and taking a cut, They get the best value because they understand the local market forces and interested parties. I fail to see how someone from a sector away arriving on a wilderness world will have that sort of knowledge of the markets on that world.

It is spotting micro tells in your trade partner. It is knowing what the margins mean, not getting overexcited at something that is interesting but not necessarily saleable.

No, a broker is an intermediary between two parties, with understanding of both sides. You are describing haggling, trading, not brokerage.

Finding markets may be harder without knowing the local geography, but any society interested in trade will usually advertise those as the vendors want to sell as much as you want to buy.

And you need to know those and those of the worlds you wish to trade with.

In MGT2 the example Broker skills checks are on INT and SOC not EDU. That means knowledge about the specifics of the world is not as useful as being quick witted and charming.

The skill shouldn't exist as written.

There used to be a much better named Trader skill...

 

[swordtart]

So you know the market prices on all the worlds within one or two jumps of this one, even though you are in the wilderness and there is no polity moving such data from world to world? Even the Imperium only moves market data regularly between worlds on the xboat route.

Again, where do you get the knowledge of the markets way beyond your original empire? Who trades the data? How up to date is it?

Until you arrive at that city and find it full of multistory pig farms...

I disagree most strongly, that is not what broker skill or brokerage is by any understanding of the word, a broker is a middle man who knows both sides in the deal, they make money by getting the best value and taking a cut, They get the best value because they understand the local market forces and interested parties. I fail to see how someone from a sector away arriving on a wilderness world will have that sort of knowledge of the markets on that world.


No, a broker is an intermediary between two parties, with understanding of both sides. You are describing haggling, trading, not brokerage.

And you need to know those and those of the worlds you wish to trade with.

The skill shouldn't exist as written.

There used to be a much better named Trader skill...

Oh, I thought we were talking about the Broker Skill is it is used in the MGT2. All you say may be true for an actual "Broker" but I think that specific word has different meanings depending on context. They were certainly somewhere in the middle of the supplier and the end user, but what exactly the difference between a broker and a trader is open to interpretation. You could argue that a broker never actually owns the goods they just negotiate transfers of goods between two other parties, but that is not the description of the Broker skill since it is about the skill of negotiating, not the facts of ownership.

How do I know the price of goods? Well I can see it right there on the tables on page 244 and 245. If you are talking some scenario where you are buying or selling goods other than appear in that table or where the prices are different to those then I am also inclined to agree with you, how would you know, as a player or a character. As a player I can see I rolled well, maybe my character has a good feeling about this deal. Or are you asking the meta question on how skills translate to actual character actions. I would say that is too large a question for me to worry about. There is a game mechanic and I leverage it. I don't have time to actually study every field of science to understand what that science roll actually means. I just know that if I succeed in the roll my character does.

I would find out the prices of goods where I hadn't been before the same way I would do it IRL for a foreign country. I'd scour the data nets for clues. If the local news is full of adverts for goods, then I know the retail prices. I can look at the prices in the local Starport, or markets. Those are prices people are willing to pay. I could ask some locals what the latest fashion is. I can probably infer from all that a sensible margin. Some prices might be inflated (I might fail my skill check).

Even if the current stock prices were not being moved around by the polity, unless the economy was in a complete spiral (which is possible) then I'd expect retail prices to remain fairly stable. I am not buying commodities, I am buying goods. A planet that has trade probably has visitors and people who travel all these people leave breadcrumbs. Tourist come back raving about the local wine or how expensive meat is there. There might be a merchant venturers guild where we can compare notes, we might be in friendly competition and the person getting the best deal of the week buys the drinks.

In the worst case don't think I would zoom off to a new universe completely without preparation, buy stuff at random and them zoom to another and try to sell them. I'd do what everyone else does, identify an Agri planet buy goods at the Star port for the lowest price I could and then find am Industrial planet to sell them at the best price I could get for them. A single iteration of this would tell me most of what I need to know.

I am not sure changing the name of a specific skill makes any difference (or the Spanish printing of the rule book would be a completely different play experience). If you however choose to infer a game mechanic that doesn't exist because of your interpretation of what a single word means then I'll let myself out here.

 

[Geir]

Because if a cheap program provides a +1 to the player, the NPC broker is sure as heck also using it. So it's a wash.

That too

 

[ColinD]

Traveling is baked into the name of the game and how travel affects Trade is a good question. Time is also a factor. The rules in Trade say that if a Traveller does not accept the price offered for their goods they have to find another buyer or wait for a month. I've used this as a chance for roleplaying and give the Travellers a chance to stay on the planet for a month and get into a local adventure. A new Merchant book could dig into these outcomes and give a Referee or a player creative options when you go to find another buyer or during your wait.

 

[swordtart]

Traveling is baked into the name of the game and how travel affects Trade is a good question. Time is also a factor. The rules in Trade say that if a Traveller does not accept the price offered for their goods they have to find another buyer or wait for a month. I've used this as a chance for roleplaying and give the Travellers a chance to stay on the planet for a month and get into a local adventure. A new Merchant book could dig into these outcomes and give a Referee or a player creative options when you go to find another buyer or during your wait.

Just finding another buyer within the month should be an adventure. It takes a number of days usually, even if you are just rolling normal encounters over those days something might crop up. With a decent broker skill it might take half a dozen tries before you exhaust the market (i.e. before the cumulative -1 per attempt moves your target number above 12). By that time an new month might have rolled around and the market resets.

 

[RogerMc]

Quick question about the speculative trading rules: According to the rules, the purchase price is determined by 3D + the PC Broker skill - the NPC Broker skill + the various planetary buy and sell bonuses. I'm assuming that the Broker skill values are just the base Broker skill for the two characters with no attribute DM applied, correct?

The reason I ask is that this Traveller trading utility page (travellertools.azurewebsites.net) has you enter "Broker Skill (Int)" which seems to imply that you should add the INT/EDU/SOC/CHA/etc attribute bonus from both traders as well. Is this website just wrong about this or am I reading the trade rules incorrectly?

I'd like to get some feedback on this. On one hand, it could be argued that it's fair to add attribute bonuses since you're adding the attribute DM bonus to both sides of the trading equation. On the other hand, that does have the potential of having a larger delta between the two traders if the PC and/or NPC Broker has a particularly high or low applicable attribute bonus) Presumably most NPC Brokers will have Broker 2 and a +1 relevant attribute bonus for a total bonus of +3 - anyone that's better than that is going to be working at a megacorp or running their own trading company, not doing brokerage at some crappy, little downport somewhere. A PC is likely going to have Broker 1-3 and +1 or +2 in a relevant skill, so could have a total trading bonus of +2 to +5. I'm guessing that you probably don't want to let that happen since a high PC total Broker score really starts to mess up game balance.

I ran several simulated trading runs with a PC crew doing mostly J-2 hops in a scout ship and 50K of starting cash from Flammarion over by the Sword Worlds to near the Islands sector Great Rift crossing with different Broker bonus values to get a feel for how their finances would fare. (Combat repairs from pirates attacks, etc, weren't factored in but these were mostly well travelled trade routes, so pirate attacks should be minimal) I assumed a consistent average NPC broker bonus of +3, I got the following results: With a PC bonus of +3, the PCs were constantly on the edge of financial ruin with fuel, maintenence, docking fees, etc. It was nearly impossible for them to get ahead without double-bunking and taking on the occasional passenger or two or taking on the occasional hair-brained sidequest I dangle in front of them. I feel that this is how Traveller is designed to operate to encourage PCs to, you know, adventure. If the PC Broker had a +4 total Broker bonus, they were able to steadly make a modest cash flow and after 6 months, I think they had close to a million credits which could easily be eaten up by ship upgrades, repairs or other costs so it wasn't too overpowered IMO. When the PC Trader had a toal Broker bonus of +5 (so an INT of 12 and Broker 3, for example), they made more money than god. Two separate 6 month runs each had them with tens of millions of credits and they would have been able to outright buy a Free Trader by the end of the year at the rate they were getting money.

By that argument, I think that my initial reading that it's just the Broker score with no attribute bonuses is probably correct but wanted to get opinions from other folk

Quick question about the speculative trading rules: According to the rules, the purchase price is determined by 3D + the PC Broker skill - the NPC Broker skill + the various planetary buy and sell bonuses. I'm assuming that the Broker skill values are just the base Broker skill for the two characters with no attribute DM applied, correct?

The reason I ask is that this Traveller trading utility page (travellertools.azurewebsites.net) has you enter "Broker Skill (Int)" which seems to imply that you should add the INT/EDU/SOC/CHA/etc attribute bonus from both traders as well. Is this website just wrong about this or am I reading the trade rules incorrectly?

I'd like to get some feedback on this. On one hand, it could be argued that it's fair to add attribute bonuses since you're adding the attribute DM bonus to both sides of the trading equation. On the other hand, that does have the potential of having a larger delta between the two traders if the PC and/or NPC Broker has a particularly high or low applicable attribute bonus) Presumably most NPC Brokers will have Broker 2 and a +1 relevant attribute bonus for a total bonus of +3 - anyone that's better than that is going to be working at a megacorp or running their own trading company, not doing brokerage at some crappy, little downport somewhere. A PC is likely going to have Broker 1-3 and +1 or +2 in a relevant skill, so could have a total trading bonus of +2 to +5. I'm guessing that you probably don't want to let that happen since a high PC total Broker score really starts to mess up game balance.

I ran several simulated trading runs with a PC crew doing mostly J-2 hops in a scout ship and 50K of starting cash from Flammarion over by the Sword Worlds to near the Islands sector Great Rift crossing with different Broker bonus values to get a feel for how their finances would fare. (Combat repairs from pirates attacks, etc, weren't factored in but these were mostly well travelled trade routes, so pirate attacks should be minimal) I assumed a consistent average NPC broker bonus of +3, I got the following results: With a PC bonus of +3, the PCs were constantly on the edge of financial ruin with fuel, maintenence, docking fees, etc. It was nearly impossible for them to get ahead without double-bunking and taking on the occasional passenger or two or taking on the occasional hair-brained sidequest I dangle in front of them. I feel that this is how Traveller is designed to operate to encourage PCs to, you know, adventure. If the PC Broker had a +4 total Broker bonus, they were able to steadly make a modest cash flow and after 6 months, I think they had close to a million credits which could easily be eaten up by ship upgrades, repairs or other costs so it wasn't too overpowered IMO. When the PC Trader had a toal Broker bonus of +5 (so an INT of 12 and Broker 3, for example), they made more money than god. Two separate 6 month runs each had them with tens of millions of credits and they would have been able to outright buy a Free Trader by the end of the year at the rate they were getting money.

By that argument, I think that my initial reading that it's just the Broker score with no attribute bonuses is probably correct but wanted to get opinions from other folks.

The problem is that you are trading in a scoutship with next to no cargo space - I did a similar exercise with a far trader and they were MCrs in profit within just a few weeks.

And in any system that attempts to model capitalist commerce INT 12 and Broker-3 should be the key to a mega-fortune.

Which begs the question of why INT and not SOC -while a native broker might well use INT as they have all the contacts and relationships shouldn't a stranger to that world use SOC instead and/or have a negative DM that they can only work down by frequent visits?

Otherwise why would traders bother employing native brokers at all when it is relatively easy to pick up Broker in Merchant chargen?

 

[Condottiere]

I think you'd have to offer a niche service, in whatever form it took.

A hundred tonne scoutship is not a blank sheet, you'd have to tear out a lot of the interior to make it competitive.

Though, no mortgage.

 

[Arkathan]

Which begs the question of why INT and not SOC -while a native broker might well use INT as they have all the contacts and relationships shouldn't a stranger to that world use SOC instead and/or have a negative DM that they can only work down by frequent visits?

Depends on whether you use a smoozing model of glad handing for brokers, hat in hand to various offices
-or-
You use the intarwebs to find the "best" deals.

I have my players' broker using the internet on the way in.

 

[Shadowblayde99]

Don't forget, on P242 of the updated core book, local brokers will have a broker skill of 1 or 2 and get an extra DM+2 on the modified price table. A pc would need 3 or 4 in the broker skill to be as good and all it costs is a 10% on top of what you buy......and similarly when you sell it.

 

[swordtart]

90% of a lot is better than 100% of less

 

[Condottiere]

spacebook/marketspace

 

[MasterGwydion]

Don't forget, on P242 of the updated core book, local brokers will have a broker skill of 1 or 2 and get an extra DM+2 on the modified price table. A pc would need 3 or 4 in the broker skill to be as good and all it costs is a 10% on top of what you buy......and similarly when you sell it.

My question is, what is that +2 bonus? If the PCs are locals and adventure locally, can they get that bonus when buying from traders? How long do you have to live somewhere to be a local? Or do you just need to be employed by a local firm? Or do you just need local Contacts/Allies?

 

[Shadowblayde99]

My question is, what is that +2 bonus? If the PCs are locals and adventure locally, can they get that bonus when buying from traders? How long do you have to live somewhere to be a local? Or do you just need to be employed by a local firm? Or do you just need local Contacts/Allies?

I would say that the +2 bonus is because the local brokers will have a number of possible buyers or sellers to choose from and knows who will give the best deal.

In character creation, a +1 in a skill is every 4 year term so a really good broker is one who has quite a few years doing the job in that area.

As an addendum for this thread, I had a noble with a paid off yacht who wanted to buy a Far Trader so he found a broker who could get a better price but did charge him 10% on top of the cost to sell the yacht and 10% on top of the cost to buy the Far Trader. I did have to make up the % worth for the outdated ships table on P 188 of the core book, starting at 70% for a 6 to 10 year old ship and going down to 40% at 251 years or more. I assumed that, like trading, my broker would get a better deal owing to that +2 for local broker. After the deal, I ended up only being in debt by 1.85MCr. The broker made 8MCr on those deals.

 

[swordtart]

In character creation, a +1 in a skill is every 4 year term so a really good broker is one who has quite a few years doing the job in that area.

You could equally gain that level of skill by exercising the training option. If you were lucky with your EDU check you could go from zero to hero (Broker-4) in less than two years.

I am a little confused by the comment in the rules
"Local brokers gain DM+2 on negotiations, since their local knowledge helps them find the best deal and avoid the pitfalls of dealing with outsiders."
If they are not dealing with outsiders who are they trading with. If it is all internal markets who cares what they do, the DM only becomes important when they interface with the Travellers who are outsiders.

I think the real reason is convenience. A Traveller generally has to secure goods then and there at the spot price or not at all. A local can just potter around the markets buying when prices are lowest, storing the goods in local warehouses until a buyer willing to pay a good price comes along. Once you have the money to afford a few tons of trade goods the cost of storing them is a minor consideration.

In Solo Trader (Zozer) DM+2 is available to anyone who travels into the interior to deal with markets at their source (rather than trading at the star port where a number of middlemen have already taken their cut reducing the available margins).

 

[MasterGwydion]

B

I would say that the +2 bonus is because the local brokers will have a number of possible buyers or sellers to choose from and knows who will give the best deal.

In character creation, a +1 in a skill is every 4 year term so a really good broker is one who has quite a few years doing the job in that area.

As an addendum for this thread, I had a noble with a paid off yacht who wanted to buy a Far Trader so he found a broker who could get a better price but did charge him 10% on top of the cost to sell the yacht and 10% on top of the cost to buy the Far Trader. I did have to make up the % worth for the outdated ships table on P 188 of the core book, starting at 70% for a 6 to 10 year old ship and going down to 40% at 251 years or more. I assumed that, like trading, my broker would get a better deal owing to that +2 for local broker. After the deal, I ended up only being in debt by 1.85MCr. The broker made 8MCr on those deals.

By this same token, why isn't Admin, Advocate, and other such skills given the same +2 for "local knowledge"? Even Astrogation. You keep flying the same route over and over again, shouldn't that get you a "local knowledge" bonus as well?

 

[Condottiere]

Plus, the pirates have a good idea of your schedule and likely cargo.