'Rewards'

[Ral_Brelt]

A lot of gamers now are of the kill critters get loot mindset. I'm personally of the opinion that Star Wars shouldn't be Monty Haul, rather more like the movies. Keeping that in mind, and factoring in peoples perspective concerning what a lot of money is now vs the 90s, I'm curious how each of you reward your parties and how you handle the oodles of credits issue. Do you increase values in game of items, or play with an economy threaded more to the 90s one it was written to mirror? Or is this not a concern for you all?

[CRMcNeill]

Well, CP rewards are a big incentive, and they are solely under the GMs control. You don't want to railroad the players too hard, but you can hand out more CP to the guy who roleplays and see if the others catch on. A players obsession with loot can backfire as well; the character may loot cool guns or starships, but he may also face scrutiny in the game for how they came into his possession.
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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

[cheshire]

Well, if you mean strictly monetary rewards, most of the information that I use concerning relative buy/sell rewards and trades as well as docking fees and earnings from drop-point cargo hauls are pretty well fixed. They have a guildelines built into the system, and if I were to recalculate them it would probably mean recalculating a lot of the gear cost to match.

Star Wars exists in a magical realm where the galactic economy goes untouched by inflation and other such factors that play a role in a large political economy.

Also, many times the rewards they get are not something you can easily put a number value on. They may make a contact that serves them in the future by providing information, a way into an enemy compound, or other allies that they would not have had. They may also find someone that will teach them new skills they otherwise couldn't have learned, such as new types of martial arts or something. Also, rewards might be winning, earning, or stealing the special hyperdrive that gives them a one up against their adversaries.

As, crmcneil pointed out, there are also rewards of CPs.

So, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "rewards."

Frankly, I've seldom had characters that manage to get oodles of credits. Money is a part of the story telling. The lack of funds keeps them looking for jobs so they can repair an aging starship. If you think it costs a lot to keep your 95 Geo Prism on the road, then imagine how much they're going to be spending when a docking ramp's actuators burn out, or their sensory system glitches and they need to buy a software patch. Maybe if you're really dastardly the gravity plates are badly calibrated and they go from free floating to free fall at x3 normal gravity in a second. Most of the time if grabbing money is part of the party's concern, then I keep throwing costs at them to keep them needing more. If they want to play a game where getting money is a concern, then they need to live in a world where spending it is a reality.

However, there have been "money is no object" type games. If I don't want to fool around with constantly fueling, restocking, repairing a ship or something like that, it's generally because it's a completely different sort of game. If you're playing with five Jedi running from the Empire, then it doesn't matter how many credits you have, the Empire is still going to kill you the next time you show your face at a space station. Yes, you might very well be able to buy a nice estate near Illerium, but what good will that do you when the Empire bombards it from orbit? Also, since they were Jed, they weren't focused on buying every bit of guns or gear all over every planet, as honing their lightsaber skills was a much more worthwhile endeavor.
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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.

[Ral_Brelt]

Well, I'm running them through the intro adventure box to dust off cobwebs in my brain and teach them the system. The smuggler, while lamenting the loss of her freighter under the mountain is doing okay, the bounty hunter is trying to harvest every blaster and piece a suit of scout trooper armor together at the same time. My gut tells me he's going 'lootlootLOOT' and I've already commented once to him about his collection. I can see him arguing the set as gifts for their Rebel friends. In past games I've tried to keep the coin purse close to keep them hungry, but got some backlash from the party. 'They want us to do what for a measly 5000 credits' or some such. I've also given ship gear, items etc...but I don't want to see things go nuts, or have the party feel they're being cheated.

[garhkal]

[Ral_Brelt]

All good suggestions so far, and appreciated. Now, I'm considering giving a little 'its not heroic' speech as well. Pointing out that the movie personalities weren't looting everything not nailed down. The kid's only experience with RPGs so far has been d&d, some rifts, heroes unlimited and MMOs like WoW and SWToR. Most of which play to the loot to win motif. Suggestions there or sound good?

[Jedi Skyler]

The vast majority of games I've been in have concentrated far more on handing out CPs than credits as rewards.

Of course there are times when the crew performs jobs for which they get paid, and quite often those credits go either to paying off debts (a huge plot point for countless tramp freight captain characters), or to upgrading ships or gear. Way more often than not, however, characters get more and better gear by looting their vanquished opponents, and that happens simply because credits so often are not a freely flowing commodity.

I do agree that players should always try to properly roleplay looting. Issues need to be considered, say, when looting a party of dead stormtroopers:

1. Does my character REALLY wanna don a suit of armor with a gaping hole in the chest armor, which will mark him/her to even the lowest-ranking Imperial we run across?
2. Does the party have time to gather gear (nods to garkhal) without endangering their lives further?
3. Does my character physically fit the armor I want them to put on? Or will everyone be asking him, "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"

While there is most certainly a use for such gear (cobbling different, damaged sets of armor together to form a smaller number of full, serviceable armor, or pulling the comlink out of a stormtrooper helmet so one can monitor the Imperial's comm chatter, taking it to sell it, etc.), the players should be making an obvious effort to roleplay this properly. The characters shouldn't be coming across as greedy b@st@rd*; they should be working for the betterment and success of the entire party.

Naturally, there are scenarios where the characters SHOULD be grabbing all the resources they can; I'm currently in a game where my character's part of a semi-independent, Wraith Squadron-style unit. These people are operating on the very outside of the normal chain of command, and in grey areas of the law. They're not getting a lot of support from any command structure, and are therefore expected to confiscate Imperial arms, armaments, vessels, and any other materiel they need in order to complete their missions. In a case like that, yes, the party should be scraping together every piece of equipment they can use. But it should STILL be done properly; there's something to be said for leaving behind gear you simply can't use in a timely fashion, or can't plausibly tote around with you during the remainder of a mission, in the hopes of being able to sell it and make a few credits somewhere.

And this is where a truly good GM and truly good players become vital. A good GM learns what makes his players happy, and finds creative ways to reward them (quite often through the use of CPs) to encourage good roleplaying, good teamwork, and general good form all around. Good players learn what resonates with their GM, pays attention to how all the players AND characters interact with each other, and try to find ways to encourage each other to play more effectively and beneficially to the entire group. A bad player can often find their characters either dying off more rapidly than anyone else's, or finding them spending an inordinately larger amount of time in a bacta tank, because the rest of the players are letting his character soak up blasterfire in order to teach him a lesson.

Garkhal made some very good suggestions for curtailing looters; if you're experiencing problems with one or more players concentrating far too much on looting than on roleplaying, then I'd suggest you put his ideas into play immediately.

[Dromdarr_Alark]

I agree with Garkhal and Jedi Skyler.

I don't know what I can add, but I felt like reinforcing their points.

I am also a sucker for just having a conversation with my players about such things and how it distracts from the central aspects of the game, but that really depends on your relationship with your players.

Good luck!
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[cheshire]

[garhkal]

[Ral_Brelt]

Well, before game sat I gave my little speech and we discussed. As anticipated the its for the Rebellion came up, which I nodded to, but he also said it was a way to get rich. I explained the situation concerning how being caught with milspec gear was very very bad for life expectancy, and didn't run into any issues. The game commenced and they got to cheer the y-wing dropping thunder on an at-st that they were sufficiently terrified of. They even got to see that a Lambda could be rather dangerous. Thanks again for everyone's input, I'm sure I'll have questions again!

[cheshire]

[CRMcNeill]

[garhkal]

And that is not even looking into the fact that when you take damage, your armor is also supposed to be damaged.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]