What exactly does Risk Assessment do in speculative trade?

[Red Bart]

I'm referring here to the chapter Risk versus Reward Modifier on page 85 in the Merchant Prince book. I get how the mechanics of it works (i.e. a higher chance of a transit hazard makes for a higher reward), but I don't see at all how this fits in the story. The example in the book talks about taking shortcuts to get a load of vehicles to a particular buyer sooner. But we're talking about speculative trade so there is no particular buyer, instead there are lots of potential buyers who may be located on any world. And even if there was, you wouldn't know about it because there is no direct communication between worlds, just mail that travels about as fast as you travel. The shortcuts are also a bit of a head scratcher, as you travel in a jump bubble and do not need to fly around pirate territory.

So how do you use this rule? Do you forget about the rule completely or have you found some way to make this work?

 

[mr31337]

As I understand it those rules are for 'roll play', thus it will never really gel very well with a story.

 

[Red Bart]

I got that impression too. But it could also have been something that came up during roleplaying that required an additional rule (i.e. giving the players a bonus because they took more risk). What that risk would be, I dont know. Probably better to discard the whole rule.