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Shark_Force wrote:so in other words, the players should all grovel at the GM's feet and beg for scraps.

I don't recall ever saying that.

Shark_Force wrote:yeah, remind me to never play in your games, it sounds like they suck.

Never had any complaints, but if you insist: never play in my games, apparently a few messages on a board have given you all the info you need to know that they suck.

Shark_Force wrote:because there's no way a juicer could ever *possibly* get rich, since they're not a member of the filthy stinking rich OCC.

Actually, it is not that hard for a Juicer to get rich, and doing so is a common motivation for undergoing the procedure. But I think it would be extremely difficult and rare for a Juicer to get rich through the specific process of setting up an interdimensional trading empire. To put it in perspective, I ALSO think that it would be hard for a merchant to get rich taking contracts that require personal violent action to reap rewards, or for someone without magical skills, talents, or resources to get rich as a Technowizard. Note that I did not say "impossible", I said "hard" - it could happen, but as I said before, I see no reason to allow an unreasonable or half-considered "get rich quick" scheme to succeed just because the player wants it too, any more than I would let a stupid tactical decision pay off.

Now, it is certainly true that the game is much heavier on combat rules than on rules for operating a successful business, but that is largely because of the general intentions of players, characters, and GM's in playing Rifts and other RPG's. The lack of specific rules in a game does not (to me) that I have to assume that any character who wishes to be can be an expert by their own fiat.

cosmicfish wrote:

Nightmask wrote:I think you seem to be missing a point, the story is supposed to go where the people writing it want it to go, i.e. the players. Since they are the ones making the story they ought to actually get to decide what they want to do not the GM saying 'sorry but your character really doesn't want to do that he wants to do what I want him to do'. That's railroading and if the players have no say in things why bother playing?

First, the GM is one of the writers too, and the most powerful and influential of all. Not only do they get to have fun too, they also have the burden of managing the story and the setting, and getting too far out of the comfort zone of the GM is one of the surest ways I know to wind up with a garbage game.

The GM only has the power the players LET him have, misuse of that power particularly by forcing things too much how he wants them will see said power removed from him as he loses some or all of his players as they can no longer trust him to respect them and their desires.

cosmicfish wrote:Second, it is neither uncommon nor unrealistic for GM's to require the player to play the character. If I allow someone to come into my game with a clearly mercantile character, then I am accepting a responsibility to allow that character to use their abilities. If, on the other hand, some player thinks that his Juicer should become a merchant prince just because that is what he suddenly decides he wants to do, I would see it as the GM's responsibility to make sure that his ease of doing so is complicated by the relatively poor ability of that character to accomplish the task.

Unfortunately you've something of an error in that, as you have it that the GM is the one deciding how the player should play his character rather than the player making that decision. Players (and by extension their characters) can and do change their minds and can find themselves deciding for example that they aren't making enough money to meet their goals and decide the profitable business of a merchant is a good deal to go with.

cosmicfish wrote:Third, game sessions and even entire campaigns are often predicated on certain assumptions, and trying to railroad the GM onto some new path can mean throwing away all the work that they have invested in a campaign and forcing them to direct a campaign about which they have neither knowledge nor interest - how is THAT going to be fun for anyone? Ideally, the party will stay within the bounds of what the GM can handle by preparation or native talent, but if not...

You've got things backwards there, the only one with the option of railroading is the GM, the players can't railroad the GM because what they're doing is making choices to go how they want in what is still in the end an open-ended setting and not a computer game with limited choices and a set range of endings. When the players say 'no, we don't care for that path we want this path' and the GM insists 'no you'll take MY path and that's final!' that's railroading.

cosmicfish wrote:

Nightmask wrote:You're advocating bad GM behavior there, that and that the players should just be puppets to whatever the GM wants instead of getting to actually decide for themselves what they want. So yes there's every reason for the GM to run a mercantile game if that's what his players want instead of insisting that they only get the kind of game HE enjoys rather than what THEY will enjoy.

Not really what I was aiming for, but you seem to be advocating the GM as a puppet of the players... a worse option, IMO. Really, the players and the GM should all have a common idea of what direction the game will take, before play even starts, and deviations from that direction should be mutually acceptable. If they are not, then the MOST common results (in my experience) are for one or more players to leave the game or for the game to simply terminate (hopefully so that a new and more acceptable game can start).

No, that's not what I was advocating. Having some idea of what to go with starting is a good idea BUT life being what it is behaving as if that's what it must and always be is simply wrong. The GM needs to be flexible and realize that and be able to handle it if the players start trying other things, and 'my way or the highway' is again poor GMing, where if a player or group doesn't care for the railroading the GM can't handle it and simply makes things go his way by driving off players who won't play their characters his way.

Nightmask wrote:The GM only has the power the players LET him have, misuse of that power particularly by forcing things too much how he wants them will see said power removed from him as he loses some or all of his players as they can no longer trust him to respect them and their desires.

If the GM does not have the power to enforce the rules of the game and setting, or to contain the game within what he or she is capable of handling, then there is literally no reason for the GM to be there at all. Seriously, what is the GM doing then?

Nightmask wrote:Unfortunately you've something of an error in that, as you have it that the GM is the one deciding how the player should play his character rather than the player making that decision. Players (and by extension their characters) can and do change their minds and can find themselves deciding for example that they aren't making enough money to meet their goals and decide the profitable business of a merchant is a good deal to go with.

I am not saying anything whatsoever about overruling how a player decides their character will act - I am saying that it is up to the GM (within the rules) to determine how the actions of the character impact the game world. If a Juicer character said "I want to start capitalizing on the disparate purchasing power and exchange rates between Rifts Earth and Phase World", I would let him try, provided the scope of his actions were acceptable to the other players and within what I felt capable of administering. But the fact that he has ambitions and acts on them does not mean that they have to succeed. A Vagabond character could make it his life purpose to personally kill Splynncryth, that doesn't mean that I have to devote the campaign to fulfilling the highly unrealistic goals of a single player. For that matter, a dozen Vagabonds sharing that ambition are STILL not going to succeed 99% of the time, most of the time failing spectacularly and unpleasantly very early on.

Nightmask wrote:You've got things backwards there, the only one with the option of railroading is the GM, the players can't railroad the GM because what they're doing is making choices to go how they want in what is still in the end an open-ended setting and not a computer game with limited choices and a set range of endings. When the players say 'no, we don't care for that path we want this path' and the GM insists 'no you'll take MY path and that's final!' that's railroading.

And it is no different when the players do it. If the players say "no, we don't care for that path we want this path" then they are trying to push their will on the GM, and that too is a form of railroading. I actually consider this worse just because the GM generally is the only one who has to do a significant amount of work to make the game happen. Either side can walk out, and honestly if the divergence is that big then I personally think that someone walking out is the best option.

Let me put it this way: If I had a group of players say "we know you didn't intend a mercantile campaign, that you don't really enjoy mercantile campaigns, and that you do not feel competent or prepared to run a mercantile campaign, but that is what we want and the only thing we will play", and I then said "okay", I would be throwing away all my previous prepwork to run a campaign that I think will suck and know I will not enjoy, AND I would be taking on the lion's share of work to make the campaign happen. In other words, I would have been railroaded.

Personally, in this instance I would suggest that one of the players run the campaign, and consider whether or not I wanted to be a player in it.

Nightmask wrote:No, that's not what I was advocating. Having some idea of what to go with starting is a good idea BUT life being what it is behaving as if that's what it must and always be is simply wrong. The GM needs to be flexible and realize that and be able to handle it if the players start trying other things, and 'my way or the highway' is again poor GMing, where if a player or group doesn't care for the railroading the GM can't handle it and simply makes things go his way by driving off players who won't play their characters his way.

"The GM needs to be flexible" - sure, but flexibility is not infinite. The game needs to stay within that region of the Venn Diagram of Participant Interest that includes as many of the players as possible and at least one person willing, ready, and able to GM. If the players want to steer the game into a GM-free zone (by, for example, demanding a mercantile-focused game in which I am the current or prospective GM), then that is just as bad a decision as the GM's decision to steer the game into a player-free zone (by, for example, demanding a game in which the characters are all centauroid Mega-Juicers trying to create a professional flag football league as a means of advancing their human-supremacist agenda, when the players want a classic dungeon crawl).

Nightmask wrote:The GM only has the power the players LET him have, misuse of that power particularly by forcing things too much how he wants them will see said power removed from him as he loses some or all of his players as they can no longer trust him to respect them and their desires.

True enough.
By that same token, a GM can remove problem players from his table.
In my experience, there tend to be a lot fewer people willing to be GMs than there are willing to be players, so GMs tend to be a bit more valuable.
(Unless you like running solo adventures)

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Nightmask wrote:The GM only has the power the players LET him have, misuse of that power particularly by forcing things too much how he wants them will see said power removed from him as he loses some or all of his players as they can no longer trust him to respect them and their desires.

True enough.
By that same token, a GM can remove problem players from his table.
In my experience, there tend to be a lot fewer people willing to be GMs than there are willing to be players, so GMs tend to be a bit more valuable.
(Unless you like running solo adventures)

In my experience, good enough GMs are about as common as good players. Truly good GMs, however, are much rarer.

Oddly enough, most truly good GMs that I've known were mediocre players at best. I'm not sure what to conclude from that.

--flatline

why would being a juicer automatically dictate business ability?

this is just a matter of taking advantage of opportunities. there are numerous people who go through business programs and are just flat out unsuited for business, and there are many who never take a business class in their lives and yet are excellent businessmen. this isn't something where you need to have special training to do it... although training can help, other things tend to matter more.

you don't tend to hear about a lot of people being successful at repairing cars or designing buildings without the training, but you *do* hear about people being successful business owners without training consistently. in fact, a number of the most successful business people in the world were not formerly trained as such. a number of businesses owned by people with formal training fail abysmally.

bill gates, for example, spent most of his time learning about computers. steve jobs dropped out of college entirely. i have a grandfather (on my mother's side) who is professionally a steamfitter, and who now owns several million dollars worth of real estate. my father never went to university or college and had a successful career in management for years before he decided he'd rather do something else (and is now a union steward, and is basically doing management for the union again well enough that they don't want him to leave). most criminal empires are also going to be run by people who, once again, have not received any formal training. on rifts earth, most actual businesses are likewise run by people without formal training.

the ability to make money by running a business, of any sort, is not governed by training. training can help, but simply put, it isn't a requirement by any means to be good at it.

so why should the juicer be punished for not choosing the (nonexistent) interdimensional merchant OCC?

Shark_Force wrote:why would being a juicer automatically dictate business ability?

this is just a matter of taking advantage of opportunities. there are numerous people who go through business programs and are just flat out unsuited for business, and there are many who never take a business class in their lives and yet are excellent businessmen. this isn't something where you need to have special training to do it... although training can help, other things tend to matter more.

you don't tend to hear about a lot of people being successful at repairing cars or designing buildings without the training, but you *do* hear about people being successful business owners without training consistently. in fact, a number of the most successful business people in the world were not formerly trained as such. a number of businesses owned by people with formal training fail abysmally.

bill gates, for example, spent most of his time learning about computers. steve jobs dropped out of college entirely. i have a grandfather (on my mother's side) who is professionally a steamfitter, and who now owns several million dollars worth of real estate. my father never went to university or college and had a successful career in management for years before he decided he'd rather do something else (and is now a union steward, and is basically doing management for the union again well enough that they don't want him to leave). most criminal empires are also going to be run by people who, once again, have not received any formal training. on rifts earth, most actual businesses are likewise run by people without formal training.

the ability to make money by running a business, of any sort, is not governed by training. training can help, but simply put, it isn't a requirement by any means to be good at it.

so why should the juicer be punished for not choosing the (nonexistent) interdimensional merchant OCC?

its not so much that the juicer can't do it... as there is actually an argument to be made that in some ways the juicer temperament is not the best suited to being a merchant, that's not to say they CAN'T sell stuff, but in most cases the juicer is better suited for "creative acquisitions" rather than retail disposition of goods.

Shark_Force wrote: the ability to make money by running a business, of any sort, is not governed by training. training can help, but simply put, it isn't a requirement by any means to be good at it.

And yet major economic and commercial powerhouses hire heavily trained people nonetheless. There are always exceptions to the rule, and if you showed me a Juicer with exceptional IQ and MA and I would say that they might have chance even without special training... provided they, like I am sure any example you can give me, devoted their time over the course of the next few years at least to developing the skills (on their own!), establishing connections, building credibility, etc. Because even for the "too talented to need training" people, it took years.

So maybe Joe the exceptionally talented and charismatic Juicer really DOES have the chops to make it in business... but if he part times it, he is not going to make much money before someone actually dedicated to their craft (like Trader Joe from Mercenaries, whose OCC reads "Alien Merchant/Soldier") is going to twig to what they are doing and exploit it far more efficiently, pushing Joe out way before he even begins to really understand what he is doing. And if he full-times it then he has probably removed himself from the campaign, at least in the near term, and when he returns a few years later he may well be an accomplished businessman but is unlikely to be that effective a warrior.

Shark_Force wrote:so why should the juicer be punished for not choosing the (nonexistent) interdimensional merchant OCC?

I am looking at it as "why should the Juicer be allowed abilities and talents not denoted anywhere on his/her character sheet that nonetheless lead to massive in-game advantages?" Just because the OCC or skills don't exist yet? Take the sum total of Rifts, as it has unfolded through dozens, hundreds of books. From that arbitrary point, pick a set of skills and/or OCC's that have not yet been released, and tell me why a given player, prior to that release, should not have those skills or OCC abilities?

When you play Monopoly, do you decide "my shoe is trained in Muay Thai, and since the rules of the game don't forbid it, I say that I get to extort money from every house I land on - I WIN!!!!"? Because I don't remember rules against that, either.

Rifts is not set up for a real mercantile campaign. If that is what you want, then I think you need to create some real rules for it, in cooperation with your GM (or with your players, if you are the GM). Otherwise, my response as GM would go something like this:

You: "My juicer has an innate business sense, contacts, an ability to manage a corporation, and salesmanship. He is going to start making billions off of quirk in the rules, and since there is nothing saying he can't suddenly and without sacrifice make more money than he could know what to do with, you can't say no."

Me: "Sure. He invests everything he has. It turns out that, since there are no rules addressing this, lots of OTHER people ALSO have all those things you just mentioned, and all of THEM (being dedicated to this and this alone) are working together and separately to far greater effect than you can. Selling prices have dropped suddenly because someone saw you make a sale, figured out your source, and arranged to bring in product as well. Plus, while you were fighting that dragon, they contacted the authorities in Phase World, told them you were importing something illegal, and then placed bribed to ensure that importing whatever you WERE importing now requires a license. You're in jail, your goods have been seized, and since the references in the rulebooks reflect conditions that can be changed by the actions of PCs and NPCs, the conditions that you were exploiting are now completely gone.

It's a shame, really, because if he had stuck to the sort of small-scale, non-professional types of transactions actually specified in the rules (which focus disproportionately on adventuring activities over mercantilism) none of this would have happened, and your juicer would be making a real name for himself right now as, you know, a juicer and all."

You: "But my character is a special flower! No one else gets to have these abilities that I arbitrarily decided I have!"

Me: "Well, you did such a good job convincing me that I just had to assume that there are lots and lots of special flowers out there, and some of them are more special than you, and most of them don't waste time killing dragons or rescuing damsels, which means they can focus on doing it right! Plus, some of them are talented AND skilled AND have centuries of experience AND trillions of credits of corporation backing them up. And they don't like competition."

You: "That isn't fair!"

Me: "Neither is trying to hijack a game by saying that YOU get to decide what happens if there are no rules covering a situation in canon. Oh, and you wanted me to remind you not to play in my games. Probably best for both of us."

cosmicfish wrote:

Shark_Force wrote: the ability to make money by running a business, of any sort, is not governed by training. training can help, but simply put, it isn't a requirement by any means to be good at it.

And yet major economic and commercial powerhouses hire heavily trained people nonetheless. There are always exceptions to the rule, and if you showed me a Juicer with exceptional IQ and MA and I would say that they might have chance even without special training... provided they, like I am sure any example you can give me, devoted their time over the course of the next few years at least to developing the skills (on their own!), establishing connections, building credibility, etc. Because even for the "too talented to need training" people, it took years.

Those 'powerhouses' hire those heavily trained people for the same reason they pretty much require a college degree to clean floors, because of a false perception that a degree is required to believe someone can do something. You also certainly don't need an exceptional IQ or MA to to run a business and as he pointed out you definitely don't need any sort of special training to run a successful business, and certainly you don't need training to establish connections or build credibility those things are completely unrelated to training and skills but a result of going out and interacting with people.

cosmicfish wrote:So maybe Joe the exceptionally talented and charismatic Juicer really DOES have the chops to make it in business... but if he part times it, he is not going to make much money before someone actually dedicated to their craft (like Trader Joe from Mercenaries, whose OCC reads "Alien Merchant/Soldier") is going to twig to what they are doing and exploit it far more efficiently, pushing Joe out way before he even begins to really understand what he is doing. And if he full-times it then he has probably removed himself from the campaign, at least in the near term, and when he returns a few years later he may well be an accomplished businessman but is unlikely to be that effective a warrior.

That really doesn't make any sense, there's zero reason why that Juicer wouldn't be able to be just as effective when he feels like it engaging in business pursuits as Trader Joe, who is a bad example for you to be using anyway since he's a soldier who just happens to sell stuff for Naruni using his effective demonstration of their wares in his main profession as a soldier to convince people to buy from him.

cosmicfish wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:so why should the juicer be punished for not choosing the (nonexistent) interdimensional merchant OCC?

I am looking at it as "why should the Juicer be allowed abilities and talents not denoted anywhere on his/her character sheet that nonetheless lead to massive in-game advantages?" Just because the OCC or skills don't exist yet? Take the sum total of Rifts, as it has unfolded through dozens, hundreds of books. From that arbitrary point, pick a set of skills and/or OCC's that have not yet been released, and tell me why a given player, prior to that release, should not have those skills or OCC abilities?

When you play Monopoly, do you decide "my shoe is trained in Muay Thai, and since the rules of the game don't forbid it, I say that I get to extort money from every house I land on - I WIN!!!!"? Because I don't remember rules against that, either.

Business/Finance does exist (In Heroes Unlimited), but there doesn't have to be a skill or an OCC in order for anyone to operate and run a business. I shouldn't have to point this out but that PC group running around operating as a mercenary unit offering up its services in exchange for goods and services and trying to profit from it? That's a business. They are marketing their skills to others in order to make money at it.

cosmicfish wrote:Rifts is not set up for a real mercantile campaign. If that is what you want, then I think you need to create some real rules for it, in cooperation with your GM (or with your players, if you are the GM). Otherwise, my response as GM would go something like this:

Just because you aren't keen on the idea doesn't mean Rifts isnt' set up for a 'real' mercantile campaign. You certainly don't need rules when it comes to someone trying to acquire X and sell it for more than they spent on acquiring it.

cosmicfish wrote:You: "My juicer has an innate business sense, contacts, an ability to manage a corporation, and salesmanship. He is going to start making billions off of quirk in the rules, and since there is nothing saying he can't suddenly and without sacrifice make more money than he could know what to do with, you can't say no."

Me: "Sure. He invests everything he has. It turns out that, since there are no rules addressing this, lots of OTHER people ALSO have all those things you just mentioned, and all of THEM (being dedicated to this and this alone) are working together and separately to far greater effect than you can. Selling prices have dropped suddenly because someone saw you make a sale, figured out your source, and arranged to bring in product as well. Plus, while you were fighting that dragon, they contacted the authorities in Phase World, told them you were importing something illegal, and then placed bribed to ensure that importing whatever you WERE importing now requires a license. You're in jail, your goods have been seized, and since the references in the rulebooks reflect conditions that can be changed by the actions of PCs and NPCs, the conditions that you were exploiting are now completely gone.

It's a shame, really, because if he had stuck to the sort of small-scale, non-professional types of transactions actually specified in the rules (which focus disproportionately on adventuring activities over mercantilism) none of this would have happened, and your juicer would be making a real name for himself right now as, you know, a juicer and all."

So you're talking about pulling a screwover on the player, that you want him playing a Juicer how you think he should be and that way is about going around killing people for money and doing another route you consider wrong so will punish him for being different.

cosmicfish wrote:You: "But my character is a special flower! No one else gets to have these abilities that I arbitrarily decided I have!"

Me: "Well, you did such a good job convincing me that I just had to assume that there are lots and lots of special flowers out there, and some of them are more special than you, and most of them don't waste time killing dragons or rescuing damsels, which means they can focus on doing it right! Plus, some of them are talented AND skilled AND have centuries of experience AND trillions of credits of corporation backing them up. And they don't like competition."

Which again is a screwover maneuver, intended to railroad the player into running the character how you want rather than how he wants. You don't want them to have the chance to be successful how they want so ruthlessly beat them down when they try.

cosmicfish wrote:You: "That isn't fair!"

Me: "Neither is trying to hijack a game by saying that YOU get to decide what happens if there are no rules covering a situation in canon. Oh, and you wanted me to remind you not to play in my games. Probably best for both of us."

'Hijacking the game' seems to be another way of saying 'running your character how you want rather than how I want you running it', i.e. to railroad it into being nothing but a combat monkey. Because it's borderline (if not outright) ridiculous to claim it's 'hijacking the game' when a player wants to run a PC that's interested in being a businessman and make money trading goods when he has every right to do so and without the GM having a 'failure is the only option' attitude. Such heavy-handed arbitrariness isn't going to generate anything but ill-will towards a GM who engages in such.

sure, companies hire people with degrees all the time.

those people also suck at what they do a lot of the time. how many people were hired to make economic forecasts using all of their training by various banks, investing companies, etc?

now tell me: how many of them predicted anything even *remotely* close to the financial collapse we had a few years ago?

how many companies do you think hired business graduates to be managers for their companies?

how many companies were able to do well when suddenly the market wasn't doing so good?

obviously, there's a lot more to running a business than just being trained for it. if there wasn't, then all companies that hired people with business degrees (which is most likely all of the large companies) would have been able to do well in those situations, and all companies should have been expecting that financial collapse to happen and been prepared for it. instead, some businesses did well, most businesses did poorly, and i expect the businesses that did well and the businesses that did poorly had all hired people with business degrees.

there are skills involved. but there are, simply put, people who are naturally good at the job. a lot of them, in fact.

Nightmask wrote:Those 'powerhouses' hire those heavily trained people for the same reason they pretty much require a college degree to clean floors, because of a false perception that a degree is required to believe someone can do something. You also certainly don't need an exceptional IQ or MA to to run a business and as he pointed out you definitely don't need any sort of special training to run a successful business, and certainly you don't need training to establish connections or build credibility those things are completely unrelated to training and skills but a result of going out and interacting with people.

I can only assume that you do hiring for major companies, to have such knowledge? My company not only hires people with those degrees, it also takes highly successful people who are already making them a ton of money in more technical capacities and sends them out to get specialized business training and degrees (lasting months to years), because they believe there are actual skills involved in operating a business. These are people who in many cases already have PhD's, who do not list this additional education on their resumes, so it isn't just to say "I went to Harvard". And I would be willing to bet that if you went up to Bill Gates or Zombie Steve Jobs and said "I have no business degree or education but I would like you to hire me for a job that is posted as requiring a business degree or education!" that they would show you the door.

Nightmask wrote:That really doesn't make any sense, there's zero reason why that Juicer wouldn't be able to be just as effective when he feels like it engaging in business pursuits as Trader Joe, who is a bad example for you to be using anyway since he's a soldier who just happens to sell stuff for Naruni using his effective demonstration of their wares in his main profession as a soldier to convince people to buy from him.

You say there is zero reason why he can't, I am asking for reasons why he can. For every example you give if people who made it in business without specialized training, there are hundreds or thousands or millions more who tried and failed utterly. People who succeed in business have to have something that distinguishes them from those who fail, whether it is exceptional talent (which I suggested as exceptional IQ and MA), special training (which I suggested as skills or an OCC), or... what, exactly? Because you seem to think that your father is nothing special, and if that was the case then I would wonder why they would hold on to him so hard - surely ANYONE could replace him!

Also, I see nothing in the write-up that indicates that Trader Joe's current main profession is "soldier" - he does not fight with Robot Control, he accompanies them and does demonstrations for Naruni products. He probably was a soldier at some point and certainly still has the skills, but what does he gain by fighting at this point? The sales people for my company all have technical degrees and often some experience as engineers or scientists, but once they step over to the sales side they are pretty well done with all that.

Nightmask wrote:Business/Finance does exist (In Heroes Unlimited), but there doesn't have to be a skill or an OCC in order for anyone to operate and run a business.

Then why does it exist in Heroes Unlimited? There also doesn't have to be a skill or OCC for anyone to operate and run a pistol... unless you want to do it well.

Nightmask wrote:I shouldn't have to point this out but that PC group running around operating as a mercenary unit offering up its services in exchange for goods and services and trying to profit from it? That's a business. They are marketing their skills to others in order to make money at it.

Anyone working in a given area receives a certain amount of on-the-job training in running a business in that area. I would have no problem with someone running a small business that is focused on their OCC, but depending on their skills and abilities they could and probably would struggle to break even (as so many business do), and if it got to the point where their business was growing mightily they would probably need to either focus on the business side (if they had the ability and inclination) or find someone else to do it for them.

Nightmask wrote:Just because you aren't keen on the idea doesn't mean Rifts isnt' set up for a 'real' mercantile campaign. You certainly don't need rules when it comes to someone trying to acquire X and sell it for more than they spent on acquiring it.

Then why do any such rules exist anywhere? Why do we have exchange rates, and skills for estimating value, and OCCs in other Palladium games focused on business? There are rules to the extent that the designers thought it would come up. I am 100% sure that if Palladium thought that a significant number of players wanted to run transdimensional businesses that the rules concerning the operation of such would be abundant.

Nightmask wrote:So you're talking about pulling a screwover on the player, that you want him playing a Juicer how you think he should be and that way is about going around killing people for money and doing another route you consider wrong so will punish him for being different.

No, I am saying that a player shouting "I AM AWESOME AT SOMETHING!!" does not automatically make it so, and I see no reason to allow it when doing so gives them a tremendous advantage. And if one player IS allowed to do so, then I see no reason why everyone else (including NPCs) can't do so as well. Can you tell me why they shouldn't? You think your juicer should be a brilliant businessman, can you tell me why someone else shouldn't be better? Especially when they are dedicated to that task, and not splitting time between that and other things? On their home turf, no less?

Nightmask wrote:Which again is a screwover maneuver, intended to railroad the player into running the character how you want rather than how he wants. You don't want them to have the chance to be successful how they want so ruthlessly beat them down when they try.

No, it is my saying that achieving major advantages in the game require time and effort supported by some degree of ability and training, and are NOT accomplished simply by saying that it is so.

Nightmask wrote:'Hijacking the game' seems to be another way of saying 'running your character how you want rather than how I want you running it', i.e. to railroad it into being nothing but a combat monkey. Because it's borderline (if not outright) ridiculous to claim it's 'hijacking the game' when a player wants to run a PC that's interested in being a businessman and make money trading goods when he has every right to do so and without the GM having a 'failure is the only option' attitude. Such heavy-handed arbitrariness isn't going to generate anything but ill-will towards a GM who engages in such.

"Running your character how you want" is not something that happens in a vacuum. You are running that character in a game involving several other people, including a GM. If your "running your character the way you want" does not interfere with everyone else having fun, then there is no problem - I see no problem whatsoever with a bunch of people running a partly or wholly mercantile game if that is what they all want to do. But if your "running your character the way you want" means that everyone else is sitting on their thumbs and getting bored waiting for you to finish, then I see no reason to allow it.

This, by the way, is a problem in a lot of games. Cyberpunk games have ALWAYS had problems with netrunners, because that part of the game involved everyone else sitting around waiting for the netrun to end (and vice versa - they often had little to do during the "live" parts of the game). If you decide you want to spend an hour of game time running your side business, or doing decorative flower arranging, or anything else, that is screwing over the other players (and GM) who don't want to do that. You are a member of a party, not a lone wolf.

And again, I will absolutely allow players to choose their characters' actions, I do NOT allow them to predetermine their results! Trying your hand at a business venture is to me no different than any other in-game action, I am going to determine the result using what rules exist along with a die roll (if there is a reasonable element of chance) and my perception of the task and influencing factors. If you want to run a business that's fine, as long as the other players and the GM are okay with that, but there has to be a method for determining whether or not you succeed, and you as the player cannot be the sole arbiter - conflict of interest.

actually, by throwing a million problems in front of the PC, *you* are making it take time. if you just tell them "sure, you make a bunch of money, and since you are dealing in tens or perhaps hundreds to a market that is literally trillions of people (or more) you have nowhere near enough of an impact to make anyone care", it takes almost no time at all. adding a million complications takes up time. even if you just simplify it, and say that they don't make quite as much money as they wanted, but still make a bunch of money, it takes very little time.

what takes a lot of time is when you decide you're going to punish them for not slavishly following your plan by throwing them in jail or sending assassins after them.

Shark_Force wrote:actually, by throwing a million problems in front of the PC, *you* are making it take time. if you just tell them "sure, you make a bunch of money, and since you are dealing in tens or perhaps hundreds to a market that is literally trillions of people (or more) you have nowhere near enough of an impact to make anyone care", it takes almost no time at all. adding a million complications takes up time. even if you just simplify it, and say that they don't make quite as much money as they wanted, but still make a bunch of money, it takes very little time.

what takes a lot of time is when you decide you're going to punish them for not slavishly following your plan by throwing them in jail or sending assassins after them.

A good, and interesting point, where it's really the GM wasting all that extra time because he's so involved in making the player efforts not just fail but fail with a lot of misery and suffering.

Shark_Force wrote:actually, by throwing a million problems in front of the PC, *you* are making it take time. if you just tell them "sure, you make a bunch of money, and since you are dealing in tens or perhaps hundreds to a market that is literally trillions of people (or more) you have nowhere near enough of an impact to make anyone care", it takes almost no time at all. adding a million complications takes up time. even if you just simplify it, and say that they don't make quite as much money as they wanted, but still make a bunch of money, it takes very little time.

So let me see if I have this right:

1) Player decides that their character is a business genius.
2) Player decides that the result of their side business should be X amount of money, for which they are expected to face no challenges, obstacles, skill rolls, or decisions.
3) GM says okay, and gives the character XY (with 0<Y<=1) credits.

I have a few problems with this:

First, I (the hypothetical GM) is not the one who decided to make this about business. The player did. They wanted their character to be a businessman, I am showing how I would make that happen.

Second, money is hugely impactful in Rifts, just as in life and nearly every game out there. Letting a character accrue millions without challenge or even difficulty rapidly makes the game a farce. I have no problem glossing over decisions and actions that have no bearing on the game, but the accrual of large quantities of money doesn't fit this profile, and that means I expect them to work for it. I don't handwave ambushing a patrol, why would I handwave reaping millions?

Third, gaining things of consequence in game is supposed to be a challenge, something for which you work, risk, and get rewarded. If you would not arbitrarily grant a player a rune sword or Star Ghost fighter, why would you arbitrarily grant them the money that will allow them to purchase it?

Fourth, as I have said repeatedly, what is good for the gander is good for the goose. If it is this easy, then why shouldn't every PC and NPC do the same, and what will the impacts of that be? I cannot imagine (as a player) watching you do this and not creating my own side business, and I cannot imagine (as a GM) saying that these hassle-free doors are open automatically for the PC's and yet are not being exploited by NPC's.

Fifth, part of gaming is facing reasonable obstacles for what you are trying to accomplish. A modest task (ambushing a lone sentry, or unloading the gear you looted from the bodies of that Coalition squad) should be manageable in a few minutes with a couple of tests/rolls/whatever. A highly complicated task (running a transdimensional business empire generating millions in personal revenue, or killing an adult dragon) should have a ton of challenges and take a while to complete. In this case the player is choosing the scope of their ambitions and I am simply providing challenges to match.

Shark_Force wrote:what takes a lot of time is when you decide you're going to punish them for not slavishly following your plan by throwing them in jail or sending assassins after them.

Funny, I thought adventurers were pretty handy with those particular challenges. And you think business should skip underhanded tricks and quasi-illegal actions by your opposition? Read a newspaper sometime, and then project those issues onto a culture with the laissez faire attitude of Phase World and the resources of a population of trillions a great many of whom describe themselves as "businessmen" and have access to magic and absurd levels of technology.

Nightmask wrote:A good, and interesting point, where it's really the GM wasting all that extra time because he's so involved in making the player efforts not just fail but fail with a lot of misery and suffering.

My goal is not to make them fail, my goal is to present them challenges equal to the rewards and to ensure that they suffer consequences equal to their actions. On the first part, if someone has a scheme to make millions, I am going to give them challenges that fit the plan, whether it is military in nature or commercial. On the second part, if a player walks into an ambush because they were too lazy, ignorant, or stupid to investigate the area first, then there should be consequences.

My only biases against a mercantile game is that I don't particularly want to run a game where that is the primary focus, and I don't want to run a game where the characters have so much money that "buying stuff" becomes a substantial solution to problems. Short of walking away from the game (which, as I mentioned before, I see no problem with if the alternative is working hard at a game I do not enjoy!), my goal is not generally to inflict pain and suffering, but to provide manageable challenges appropriate to the rewards. If (as in the offending paragraph) the player is dismissive of the challenges then they should suffer the consequence.

What would you do if a character was so casual about other in-game opportunities for self-advancement?

GM: As you pass by the house, you look in the window and see a glowing ornate sword resting on the table. It like the rune weapons you saw earlier in the market.

Player: Okay. I break the window, climb in, and take it.

Should the player not suffer reasonable consequences for failing to investigate the house, going in unprepared and blind, and ignoring the fact that lots of other people surely have seen the sword and yet chose to walk by? I remember in Recon a specific instructional passage for GM's where the players cavalierly charged into an ambush, failing to investigate initially and then ignoring warning signs as they continued... and they died to a man, and that was what the game considered appropriate for the GM.

This whole thread makes me wonder for a moment how many canonical adventures start with the premise that the characters are in need of money and/or require the GM to strip them of money or resources as part of the plot. Any guesses?

cosmicfish wrote:This whole thread makes me wonder for a moment how many canonical adventures start with the premise that the characters are in need of money and/or require the GM to strip them of money or resources as part of the plot. Any guesses?

I don't know about canon adventures, but I see a LOT of complaints about that on these forums. Our regular GM, for example, seems to have serious issues with allowing our characters to have significant amounts of money. To quote him, "Who can use that much money? It's just a waste!"

And once we do manage to get our hands on that kind of money, we invariably take measures to keep the GM from stripping our resources. A good example was our last Rifts group's Behemoth Explorer. AI-run security, inside and out, and a Security Chief who was a Psi-Nullifier with power armor training. Magic negation combined with AI sensors make a nasty combination. He couldn't refuse because we assembled all the stuff through game, and the PC Psi-Tek assembled it. So instead he just cancelled the game, 'deciding' to start a new one.

While I can understand GMs having problems with PCs having serious amounts of cash, I don't see the need to constantly strip them of gear, resources, and so on. There are better ways to deal with the situation.

cosmicfish wrote:This whole thread makes me wonder for a moment how many canonical adventures start with the premise that the characters are in need of money and/or require the GM to strip them of money or resources as part of the plot. Any guesses?

I don't see how this changes anything. Characters starting out won't have the seed money to make this worthwhile and once they got the money, they will already be committed to the campaign. These "mercantile diversions" should run their course quickly so that people don't get bored.

Also, players interested in this sort of thing will likely be more interested in money than the players who aren't. You just have to make it worth their while.

--flatline

wyrmraker wrote:While I can understand GMs having problems with PCs having serious amounts of cash, I don't see the need to constantly strip them of gear, resources, and so on. There are better ways to deal with the situation.

The issue is that cash serves as a trump card for a heck of a lot of problems, and therefore eliminating it is often the easy solution for the GM. A certain amount of this is not unreasonable - ammo and repairs are expensive, Rifts is filled with thieves (including, often, the PC's!), some items by their nature will be targeted for destruction or seizure in some areas, and sometimes demand will reasonably inflate the costs of certain needed goods or services. But a good GM should try to avoid giving the PC's anything that needs to be then taken away - there are many different types of rewards, and if you are going to make every PC a millionaire then you (as the GM) should be prepared to deal with that. Note that juicers will typically see low 6-figures as a salary in most of combative lines of work, that is perhaps 10-30k a month... so missions that pay each person 100k should be relatively rare unless the goal it to increase the average power level of the PC's.

flatline wrote:I don't see how this changes anything. Characters starting out won't have the seed money to make this worthwhile and once they got the money, they will already be committed to the campaign. These "mercantile diversions" should run their course quickly so that people don't get bored.

This should not be an issue at all for single missions and such, but a sustained campaign can provide LOTS of opportunities for a motivated player if doing so does not present challenges or risks.

ok, this is not rocket surgery here. there is an opportunity to make money. you have an essentially infinite market to sell to (at least, bigger than you'll ever be able to fill the demand for). someone competing with you isn't good business, it's mind-numbingly stupid. there are virtually infinite dimensions out there to exploit, and rifts earth is only one such place where this exchange rate situation likely exists. there are most likely people taking advantage of it, and there are also most likely people taking advantage of dozens or hundreds of other dimensions with the same situation... and it's still a tiny percentage of the available market. there is nothing crazy or unique about this. this is just a person buying a product in a place where there is a large supply and a comparatively low demand, taking it to someplace else where that same product is in low supply and high demand. it exists in some form or other in pretty much any location in the megaverse you care to name. if you had a setting where there was nothing but two holes in the ground, and one of them had food and the other had water, you would have the same situation. except this setting doesn't have two holes in the ground and two commodities. it has an essentially infinite number of holes in the ground, and an essentially infinite number of commodities.

the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

it is a drop in the ocean. squabbling over it would be moronic.

secondly, i didn't say give them unlimited money. tell them something like "ok, you make a few trips, earn X amount of cash, and when you get back to your supplier on rifts earth, you find out that bandits (which were previously going to be the raiders that were causing problems for your town, but which the PCs were ignoring because they wanted to make money) are interrupting the supply chain. everywhere you look, the supply of mega-damage weaponry has pretty much dried up, and you see that the local stores have offered a bounty of Y amount of cash to the group that deals with the problem."

ideally, this should come with some roleplaying hooks; for example, by this time, perhaps their supplier is a good friend who hooks them up with a small discount since they always buy in bulk and they're regular customers. i mean, chances are you were already planning on the adventure hook being introduced through someone in town; if the only person they interact with is the local NG dealer, then that's who you need to have problems with wherever you want them to go.

there you go: you get your adventure where the PCs go deal with the bandits (or dragon, or necromancer, or vampires, or whatever else was the problem), the PCs got to make money, everyone got to do some roleplaying, everyone got to do some problem-solving, and about 15-20 seconds were spent dealing with the PC's money-making schemes. of course, the bandits are now heavily armed, since they've been raiding weapon shipments, and have lots of missiles, grenades, etc to match the new gear the PCs will undoubtedly have bought (or, if they haven't bought anything yet, you don't even have to sprinkle in those missiles and other weapons)

there you go. problem solved.

alternately, you can throw the PCs in jail. and spend the next 5 sessions dealing with them planning a prison break instead of spending the next 5 sessions doing a slightly modified version of what you had planned anyways.

my way, the players get what they want, the GM gets what he wants. your way, the players aren't getting what they want in terms of money, but they're having just as much fun trying to plan a prison break as they would have trying to plan out how to deal with the bandits... and the GM is miserable, and sitting there thinking how he can punish them until they do exactly what he wants in exactly the way he wants.

and once the group has their money, i bet you'll find that it goes away pretty quickly. have you even *looked* at how much it costs just to repair a few MDC to a robot's main body? never mind if you have to replace an arm or something. have you ever bothered to look at how much it costs to buy a high level spell? because i can tell you now, if you're thinking that a few million credits is going to break rifts, you're wrong.

just keep making the adventures you want to have, let the PCs have their fun and earn some money, and then intersperse what you want after giving them some success, without deciding that even though there's an opportunity to make money, they inherently suck at it as a group.

i give it 95% or better odds that the thing they decide to do with their money is blow it all on a nigh-impenetrable fortress that provides free armour repairs and free e-clip recharges and ammo reloads anyways. a fortress which now becomes your target for adventure hooks. you want them to deal with a vampire infestation? bam, vampires are luring their guards away and turning them against the PCs. you want to *really* tick them off, have someone subvert their guards and *steal* something they blew their money on, like their tricked-out vehicle or a magic item they bought for a big chunk of change (but seriously, in a lot of groups they'll go after someone even for *little* stuff. they may be multimillionaires, but that doesn't mean they won't respond when someone steals a 20,000 credit hoverbike).

you can make pointless obstacles that will turn the game into nothing but them trying to get around the obstacles you set in place. or, you can just make those adventures you wanted to run become the obstacles to them making money, and let them make some money along the way.

i'm really not sure how you got this idea that you can solve anything using money in rifts. buy as much as you want, there's still someone bigger and badder than you, and even if you somehow get the best stuff in the megaverse, someone with the second-best stuff and a whole lot more of it is still a problem for you.

(i notice that you seem to think that the PCs should only get 10-30k per month... this is frankly insane. if, during that month, they take 30 MDC, that means they are looking at a best-case scenario of ZERO credits left at the end of the month. they will never upgrade their equipment, their mages will never learn the cool high level spells that they likely had as a goal, and which are likely the whole reason they WANT all that money in the first place, and basically there is absolutely no reason to ever bother making a character that is in any way reliant on gear, or money, and even less reason for them to bother adventuring at all, since apparently if they ever get anything nice at all you consider it your job to take it away from them).

cosmicfish wrote:

flatline wrote:I don't see how this changes anything. Characters starting out won't have the seed money to make this worthwhile and once they got the money, they will already be committed to the campaign. These "mercantile diversions" should run their course quickly so that people don't get bored.

This should not be an issue at all for single missions and such, but a sustained campaign can provide LOTS of opportunities for a motivated player if doing so does not present challenges or risks.

maybe my group wasn't sufficiently "creative" or maybe it was the nature of our campaign but most of the time "money" as such wasn't the answer to every problem I mean heck I even had chars that if the gm left them "alone" too long they were capable of building up a tech base that would allow them to smash the coalition flat, in short order, in fact I had a char that could if she was prepared to commit genocide / war crimes could eliminate the coalition in under an hour, and there is nothing they could do to stop it, as that region of earth would be a crater... (and you come back a few weeks later and you would never realize anyone had orbitally bombarded the region. ) {this is the type of problems that excessive firepower can cause, along with large quantities of raw materials, replicators and transporters}

of course we often ran into foes that would make the borg from star trek look like a small threat

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

Yes and No. Using the listed "Phase World to Earth" trick is likely going to be very limited. If the players want to go dimension exploring for places to sell stuff well that's a whole different ball game. Another question that hasn't been addressed is "How are you moving all this stuff", "How accurate is your method of movement" and "What happens if it fails"
If your accuracy is the 6%/Level of a Dimensional Teleport spell then all I have to say is "good luck, you'll need it"

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

They have quite a bit to offer actually, Earth's no where near as primitive as you make it out to be compared to average Phase World civilizations. There's even someone who apparently reverse-engineered Glitter Boys and sells them because they're a quality item even from Phase World's standards. Rifts Earth certainly has things it can sell in Phase World, they aren't the 'stone knives vs modern firearm' kind of difference suggested here.

eliakon wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

Yes and No. Using the listed "Phase World to Earth" trick is likely going to be very limited. If the players want to go dimension exploring for places to sell stuff well that's a whole different ball game. Another question that hasn't been addressed is "How are you moving all this stuff", "How accurate is your method of movement" and "What happens if it fails"
If your accuracy is the 6%/Level of a Dimensional Teleport spell then all I have to say is "good luck, you'll need it"

The problem with selling stuff to markets that aren't Phase World is that they don't have Dimensional Markets that can exchange your currency to one you would find useful. You would have to use whatever currency they gave you to buy other goods to sell back at home so you can get your hands on the currency you really want. If you are only getting 10-30% of the market value of the items, every step in the process that requires you to sell more wares is a step that is going to be cutting into your potential profits. In fact, without the favourable exchange rates of Phase World or an extreme demand for whatever wares you are peddling, you are going to be running at a loss.
Buying Naruni equipment on Earth and reselling it on Phase World would work but it isn't something you could do for long before being dismembered by those same Naruni. Trasnporting high technology to primitive planets that are abundant in natural resources would work too but the influence of that technology is almost guaranteed to have a very negative effect on the locals and is morally questionable. Even intergalactic traders of questionable ethics such as the Splugorth or Naruni don't cross that line. Granted those two forces would be more inclined to enslave or steal from the locals and both of which is arguably worse than supplying them with the tools they need to wipe themselves out.

eliakon wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

Yes and No. Using the listed "Phase World to Earth" trick is likely going to be very limited. If the players want to go dimension exploring for places to sell stuff well that's a whole different ball game. Another question that hasn't been addressed is "How are you moving all this stuff", "How accurate is your method of movement" and "What happens if it fails"
If your accuracy is the 6%/Level of a Dimensional Teleport spell then all I have to say is "good luck, you'll need it"

Dimensional Portal seems to be the best way. If you've been there before, you can use Dimensional Portal to get there again. No rolls necessary. Duration is long enough to actually move stuff through it. If you somehow open a portal to some place you don't want to go, just walk back through it and close it.

--flatline

flatline wrote:

eliakon wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

Yes and No. Using the listed "Phase World to Earth" trick is likely going to be very limited. If the players want to go dimension exploring for places to sell stuff well that's a whole different ball game. Another question that hasn't been addressed is "How are you moving all this stuff", "How accurate is your method of movement" and "What happens if it fails"
If your accuracy is the 6%/Level of a Dimensional Teleport spell then all I have to say is "good luck, you'll need it"

Dimensional Portal seems to be the best way. If you've been there before, you can use Dimensional Portal to get there again. No rolls necessary. Duration is long enough to actually move stuff through it. If you somehow open a portal to some place you don't want to go, just walk back through it and close it.

--flatline

It still seems pretty inaccurate, the shifter OCC talks about how hard it is to hit the right continent! I would (as a GM) make some sort of percentage roll, but in exchange remove the note about 'something always slips through'
Both the 100% go anyplace you want with out fail AND the always let a pest through seem to be...implausible

But like most things relating to magic or dimensions this is not covered very well in canon. (like, how common are ley line storms, so you can figure the risk of opening a portal to one.)

flatline wrote:

eliakon wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

Yes and No. Using the listed "Phase World to Earth" trick is likely going to be very limited. If the players want to go dimension exploring for places to sell stuff well that's a whole different ball game. Another question that hasn't been addressed is "How are you moving all this stuff", "How accurate is your method of movement" and "What happens if it fails"
If your accuracy is the 6%/Level of a Dimensional Teleport spell then all I have to say is "good luck, you'll need it"

Dimensional Portal seems to be the best way. If you've been there before, you can use Dimensional Portal to get there again. No rolls necessary. Duration is long enough to actually move stuff through it. If you somehow open a portal to some place you don't want to go, just walk back through it and close it.

--flatline

Don't Stone Pyramids of Stone Master construction provide pinpoint accuracy, at least for Stone Masters? I seem to remember that's one of the reasons for the massive one in Atlantis.

eliakon wrote:

flatline wrote:

eliakon wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

Yes and No. Using the listed "Phase World to Earth" trick is likely going to be very limited. If the players want to go dimension exploring for places to sell stuff well that's a whole different ball game. Another question that hasn't been addressed is "How are you moving all this stuff", "How accurate is your method of movement" and "What happens if it fails"
If your accuracy is the 6%/Level of a Dimensional Teleport spell then all I have to say is "good luck, you'll need it"

Dimensional Portal seems to be the best way. If you've been there before, you can use Dimensional Portal to get there again. No rolls necessary. Duration is long enough to actually move stuff through it. If you somehow open a portal to some place you don't want to go, just walk back through it and close it.

--flatline

It still seems pretty inaccurate, the shifter OCC talks about how hard it is to hit the right continent! I would (as a GM) make some sort of percentage roll, but in exchange remove the note about 'something always slips through'
Both the 100% go anyplace you want with out fail AND the always let a pest through seem to be...implausible

But like most things relating to magic or dimensions this is not covered very well in canon. (like, how common are ley line storms, so you can figure the risk of opening a portal to one.)

If the dimension is 10 feet tall, 6 feet wide, and 10 feet deep (aka Dimensional Envelope), then it doesn't really matter if you end up on the "wrong side" of it.

--flatline

Nightmask wrote:

flatline wrote:

eliakon wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

Yes and No. Using the listed "Phase World to Earth" trick is likely going to be very limited. If the players want to go dimension exploring for places to sell stuff well that's a whole different ball game. Another question that hasn't been addressed is "How are you moving all this stuff", "How accurate is your method of movement" and "What happens if it fails"
If your accuracy is the 6%/Level of a Dimensional Teleport spell then all I have to say is "good luck, you'll need it"

Dimensional Portal seems to be the best way. If you've been there before, you can use Dimensional Portal to get there again. No rolls necessary. Duration is long enough to actually move stuff through it. If you somehow open a portal to some place you don't want to go, just walk back through it and close it.

--flatline

Don't Stone Pyramids of Stone Master construction provide pinpoint accuracy, at least for Stone Masters? I seem to remember that's one of the reasons for the massive one in Atlantis.

Yep, that's why they are used by the Splugorth and Atlantians. Of course you need a Stone Master, and a Pyramid, preferably one at both ends of the trip.

Nightmask wrote:

flatline wrote:

eliakon wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

Yes and No. Using the listed "Phase World to Earth" trick is likely going to be very limited. If the players want to go dimension exploring for places to sell stuff well that's a whole different ball game. Another question that hasn't been addressed is "How are you moving all this stuff", "How accurate is your method of movement" and "What happens if it fails"
If your accuracy is the 6%/Level of a Dimensional Teleport spell then all I have to say is "good luck, you'll need it"

Dimensional Portal seems to be the best way. If you've been there before, you can use Dimensional Portal to get there again. No rolls necessary. Duration is long enough to actually move stuff through it. If you somehow open a portal to some place you don't want to go, just walk back through it and close it.

--flatline

Don't Stone Pyramids of Stone Master construction provide pinpoint accuracy, at least for Stone Masters? I seem to remember that's one of the reasons for the massive one in Atlantis.

They do but they are also one of the most dangerous ways to travel and probably shouldn't be something that is attempted until after you have gained a measure of wealth, power and military support.
Anyone that can use a Pyramid knows exactly where your pyramid is and can access it with impunity, simply by using a Pyramid elsewhere. Without having sufficient fortifications in place, it is highly probably that that pyramid will attract an invasion from outside forces that can now infiltrate your area with ease. What that also means is that already established Pyramids probably already have that level of fortification and if you use yours to teleport to theirs, you might be met with some extreme hostility.

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

you're selling valuable technology that is 80-90% as good as what the top of the line can do, and you're asking for in the neighbourhood of 20% of the cost. you really don't think there's a market for that?

Shark_Force wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

you're selling valuable technology that is 80-90% as good as what the top of the line can do, and you're asking for in the neighbourhood of 20% of the cost. you really don't think there's a market for that?

You are asking for 20% of the cost to break even. If you are getting that 20%, whoever ends up with the item eventually sure as hell isn't paying that same 20% unless you are smuggling the items in and selling them in back-alleys in the street but not only would you be at risk of being shut down pretty hard, but if people can wander into a store and buy better stuff legally, people aren't likely to risk visiting you in that back alley.
There are many expenses such as import fees, distribution fees and taxes that are being ignored in this thread. Keep in mind that the Black Market pay between 10-30% retail value for new items and then when all of the expenses and markups are tacked on top, they arrive at the prices listed in the books.
By using the favourable currency conversion rate, you are essentially buying things at 20% of their retail value. That is the exact same price the likes of the black market pays for things on Rifts Earth. You are buying things at cost. You aren't getting some wonderful advantage that every other single retailer doesn't have - they buy things at cost too. It is only a get rich quick scheme if the GM isn't running the world properly or if the players are actively breaking laws.

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

you're selling valuable technology that is 80-90% as good as what the top of the line can do, and you're asking for in the neighbourhood of 20% of the cost. you really don't think there's a market for that?

You are asking for 20% of the cost to break even. If you are getting that 20%, whoever ends up with the item eventually sure as hell isn't paying that same 20% unless you are smuggling the items in and selling them in back-alleys in the street but not only would you be at risk of being shut down pretty hard, but if people can wander into a store and buy better stuff legally, people aren't likely to risk visiting you in that back alley.
There are many expenses such as import fees, distribution fees and taxes that are being ignored in this thread. Keep in mind that the Black Market pay between 10-30% retail value for new items and then when all of the expenses and markups are tacked on top, they arrive at the prices listed in the books.
By using the favourable currency conversion rate, you are essentially buying things at 20% of their retail value. That is the exact same price the likes of the black market pays for things on Rifts Earth. You are buying things at cost. You aren't getting some wonderful advantage that every other single retailer doesn't have - they buy things at cost too. It is only a get rich quick scheme if the GM isn't running the world properly or if the players are actively breaking laws.

I imagine they ignore those because they aren't necessarily valid, if you're moving the stuff yourself and selling it yourself odds are you aren't going to have to worry about any of those fees or taxes.

Nightmask wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:

Giant2005 wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:the players are essentially trading glass beads for beaver furs. they aren't the first to do it. they certainly won't be the last to do it. and they aren't the exclusive owners of glass beads, and the market for beaver furs is in the trillions while a truly dedicated PC might be able to handle transportation of a few thousand at a time.

That isn't really a fair analogy. Your analogy hinges on the fact that both markets are of equal quality when they aren't.
The Phase World setting is one that has been occupied by space-faring civilizations long before humanity on Earth figured out how to "make" fire. What do those relatively primitive people have to offer such a civilization? If those Cavemen show up with a couple of sticks and demonstrate that they can rub them together to make fire, they still aren't going to be able to sell them in a market saturated with lighters more advanced than our 21st century brains can reasonably imagine. The market isn't infinite, in fact it is so limited that it probably doesn't exist at all.

you're selling valuable technology that is 80-90% as good as what the top of the line can do, and you're asking for in the neighbourhood of 20% of the cost. you really don't think there's a market for that?

You are asking for 20% of the cost to break even. If you are getting that 20%, whoever ends up with the item eventually sure as hell isn't paying that same 20% unless you are smuggling the items in and selling them in back-alleys in the street but not only would you be at risk of being shut down pretty hard, but if people can wander into a store and buy better stuff legally, people aren't likely to risk visiting you in that back alley.
There are many expenses such as import fees, distribution fees and taxes that are being ignored in this thread. Keep in mind that the Black Market pay between 10-30% retail value for new items and then when all of the expenses and markups are tacked on top, they arrive at the prices listed in the books.
By using the favourable currency conversion rate, you are essentially buying things at 20% of their retail value. That is the exact same price the likes of the black market pays for things on Rifts Earth. You are buying things at cost. You aren't getting some wonderful advantage that every other single retailer doesn't have - they buy things at cost too. It is only a get rich quick scheme if the GM isn't running the world properly or if the players are actively breaking laws.

I imagine they ignore those because they aren't necessarily valid, if you're moving the stuff yourself and selling it yourself odds are you aren't going to have to worry about any of those fees or taxes.

Unless you are doing back-alley, illegal deals, you should be concerned with taxes and fees. I'm sure the authorities would be concerned with them even if you aren't.
Also I'm not sure we are talking about selling things ourselves as that wouldn't be profitable anyway - you would just be buying things for 20% of cost and then selling them to a retailer for 20% of cost. to have any chance of profit, you would have to set up as many stores as possible and take as many roles as you can yourself. You would want to be both the distributer and retailer and be in control of every step of the process except for product manufacture.
Otherwise you are just paying 20% retail for Earth-tech, bringing it to Phase World and selling it with the same costs and expenses that every other retailer has. You wouldn't be very profitable considering those local retailers that are buying Phase World tech at 20% of cost would be able to sell superior tech at the same price you are selling Earth tech.

The markets in Center sound like they are totally unregulated. Certainly the Prometheans don't care what goes on there. And rather than setting up your own store fronts (which would certainly require investment and incur such things as rental and association fees), it might be better to employ the services of people who make their living by connecting buyers and sellers in exchange for a percentage of the transaction. Since they're profit is determined by the selling price, they are motivated to find real buyers and not just other resellers.

However, to make this work, you really need to be able to supply them a large number of homogeneous goods so that they can have something to demo to customers and then sell in bulk. Private armies or groups of rebels, for example, are less inclined to purchase a box of random weapons because of the logistical problems non-interchangeable parts would cause. And the numbers would have to be large enough that those types of groups are even willing to come to the table to negotiate. This kind of arrangement puts the player's focus on the supply side of things since the selling of things is being handled by a 3rd party.

This type of arrangement requires a ton of roleplaying for the PCs to find their salesmen and establish relationships, but from that point on, the salesmen become tools of the GM to hook the players ("There's a rebellion on planet X and the rebels have a ton of money but no ships! If we could get past the blockade, we'd make a fortune!"...or whatever).

--flatline