Wealth Stat

[DougRed4]

I've been considering adding a Wealth stat to my game.

One of my PCs has a freighter, and another is a weapons dealer. So both players spend time adding and subtracting credits, doing bookkeeping to keep track of what they have, how much they spend, and stuff like that. But it mostly seems a nuisance and sort of pesky and in the way of storytelling, a lot of the time (though still somewhat important).

I've seen others (at least for home-brew rules) come up with a Wealth statistic for their games, and wonder if it might not work for this game. If I did this I think I'd limit it so that you couldn't improve an ordinary Wealth roll with CPs or FPs (though one still could use those for other skills like Bargain).

I suppose one could set the default at around 3D and then richer characters could have more and poorer ones less. Then when a character wanted to see if they could afford any item or service, they could roll against their Wealth attribute/stat. I suppose this could even be done for starship parts (when augmenting their own vessel) or when buying vehicles or ships (though I imagine the difficulty would be quite high for the latter).

Not sure exactly how it would work with things like Bargain.

Thoughts?
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[garhkal]

Most of the other games (white wolf, marvel super heroes) that had a 'wealth stat (Resources for whitewolf) didn't really price things out.. they just went with a wealth/resource rate for whether someone could purchase it..
Since SW has prices for everything, i am not sure how that would work.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Raven Redstar]

You should get a copy of D6 space.

Free Legal Copy on https://www.drivethrustuff.com/

They already have rules for Wealth Dice and difficulties based on approximate cost.

Here is the problem. A wealth attribute assumes that players always have access to suitable amounts of cash, this isn't a big deal when characters walk around with a bank card or whatever, but how many players do you see in your Star Wars games depositing cash in the bank, or calling their investment banker to make their money work for them? I have never seen it, because it's just not Star Wars. Loading gigantic ammo cans full of credits onto your freighter after rescuing a princess? Absolutely! Flying to the nearest banking world to deposit the reward? Eh, not really.

Another problem is that the difficulty for the wealth attribute is the same for something that costs 10,000 as 99,999. Which makes bargaining percentages in the main rules useless. Not to mention, how do you arrange payment for your weapons dealer? Do you give him a permanent +1D bonus from his last deal?

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For a story that revolves around buying and selling and shipping and operating a business, having the book keeping makes more sense. Because the object is for them to make money and have the business grow. Having them keep track of their money and the joy of making it, fear of losing it drives and surround the soul of your game.

For a character like a prequel or early Jedi, nobleman, banker, or government agent, where exact cash totals aren't as important, then using a wealth system makes perfect sense. Even a bounty hunter makes more sense to use a quick wealth check over cash totals because he's most likely going to be either buying some personal equipment for his next mark or making a small bribe to someone.
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RR
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[DougRed4]

Yeah, those are some of the problems I've been thinking about as well, Raven.

As for where to find those "bank machines", you mean every world doesn't have an ATM-like box where you can easily put/access all your credits as well as your equipment? (sorry, little TOR joke there)
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[CRMcNeill]

Money in actual amounts was only mentioned twice in the films (in ANH when negotiating the price of a trip to Alderaan, and in TPM, when discussing the price of the replacement hyperdrive on the yacht). In both cases, the actual value wasn't nearly as relative as the plot point made. I'm sure someone with sufficient interest and motivation could come up with some form of conversion chart to convert numeric cost values into difficulty ratings for a wealth stat.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Raven Redstar]

There's a chart already done in D6 space.
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RR
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[CRMcNeill]

[Raven Redstar]

Laser and Plasma pistols and rifles are all at Moderate difficulty meaning that they're between 200-2000 credits.

Price Difficulties:
Cheap (Several Credits or less) = Very Easy
Inexpensive (Less than 200 cr) = Easy
Nominally expensive (hundreds of credits) = Moderate
Somewhat expensive (a few thousand credits) = Difficult
Expensive (Several thousand credits) = Very Difficult
Very Expensive (tens of thousands of credits) = Heroic
Costly (a few hundred thousand credits) = Legendary
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RR
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[CRMcNeill]

Personally, I'd like to see a more detailed chart, where the characters could take actual credit values and plug them in to generate specific difficulty numbers.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

Plus what of items with value more than a few thousand credits.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[cheshire]

It was one of those mechanics that I was thoroughly not thrilled with in the D6 Space. Particularly when trying to move the costs into something a little less abstract it has just become such a pain that I have pretty much given up on it. It was one of many areas where the D6 core books made a step back rather than a step forward.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[Raven Redstar]

I agree chesh, it's one of the OD6 ideas that I didn't particularly enjoy myself. However, it does fit with D6 system's fast and loose kind of play style and gave a meaningful role for the group's financier. The impoverished characters would have to come and beg for the wealthy character to approve some sort of expenditure. A scenario which adds a new group dynamic to a story.

There has only been one time that I've considered using the system for a game I'm running, and that's when one of my player's ultimate goal was to become a wealthy entrepreneur. She was going to be a Knowledge and Perception heavy character who was going to put a great deal of her liquid assets into various investment opportunities. Her goal was the eventual control of several intergalactic mega corporations. Her first being a group that handled odd jobs and contract work, which she would work with directly. Namely: the adventuring party.

Eventually, her plan was to have several teams working for her and so on and so forth, and build up a list of contacts, both legal and illicit, which would allow her to corner her niche market.

Her wealth stat was going to be something fluid. She could make short term investments which would raise her immediate wealth score, or long term investments would would go toward her end goal. She would also keep track of immediate cash, and could roll her wealth attribute to get some quick working funds at a permanent cost to her attribute itself. Also, I would have given the long term wealth a die code and allow her to transfer at a penalty from long term to her immediate wealth rating.

Large purchases made against her i-wealth score would give her either permanent, or semi-permanent penalties, semi-permanent meaning her wealth would drop for the remainder of the adventure, job, or chapter.

But, I wouldn't do away with the credit tally completely.
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[Raven Redstar]

[CRMcNeill]

[Raven Redstar]

10D wealth would let you shell out 300,000 on an average roll.

So, thinking over what I was saying about for the only player. I would probably make wealth cost both CP & Cash to raise.

What kind of cash total investment would you say would need to be invested to give a permanent raise to wealth?

50% of the average your new wealth would give you? 100%? Don't know...
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