Future Imperfect - Economics
One aspect of a science fiction universe is that the Heroes might find themselves hopping from planet to planet, buying, selling and stealing their way to glory. Each planet has its own economy, in fact, areas within a planet might have their own economies! Rather than attempting to develop a complex economic simulation model, we have instead created a simple to use and flexible model that will allow players to run a business of any size, be it a small trading sloop, a war-mongering mercenary company or a fleet of pirate vessels.
Contents
Normal Income
Each character has a normal income amount listed which is dependent on a number of factors, in general this is 125 CR per wealth level. In Future Imperfect, edges are permanent parts of the Hero, so even edges that give seemingly ephemeral bonuses, such as wealth, carry over into the game.
Do not confuse normal income for total income. The normal income is the total amount of free cash the Hero has to add to his bank account after all expenditures are paid. As with starship economics below, the actual credit amounts may seem low, but this is indicative of the many expenses adventuring heroes find themselves confronted with each day. But hey, look on the bright side, no erasing numbers on your character sheet when you want to buy a space beer for your date!
Any item which costs less than 20% of the characters normal income need not be paid for. These purchases are assumed to come out of their standard expenditures. Any credits listed on the character sheet, even if it is just a few, are "extra" income, and may be used to purchase more expensive items. Characters may not combine their normal income to make "free" purchases, but may combine any credits listed on their character sheet as necessary.
Small Group Economics
Unless the profits are exorbitant, if the Crew operates alone, without significant NPC help, they are likely to be able to use a standard RPG economic model. In other words, players can keep track of their cash and spend as they earn, or as they are able to find items which interest them. If this is how you envision your Crew, the rest of this section is unnecessary.
Economies of Scale
One of the most common economies of scale in a Sci-Fi setting is starship ownership. Starships are extremely complex, multi-million credit deep space ecosystems that require extensive maintenance and parts expenditure to keep spaceworthy. They also require a highly skilled crew to achieve any measure of success.
In the real world, an endeavor such as that would require significant time expenditure from administrative members of the crew to ensure parts, fuel and maintenance are all balanced with the need for operating capital to make the purchases necessary to continue to be profitable, if not just make the monthly mortgage payments.
The intent of the economies of scale system is to make a game of larger scope not just possible, but also challenging and rewarding. Moreover, this should remain true without breaking the standard monetary system.
To wit, operating a merchant starship should see a monthly influx of capital in the hundreds of thousands of credits, if not millions of credits. No matter how high the mortgage and expense payments, players would be tempted, if not outright directed, to siphon off operating capital to purchase whatever equipment would make their upcoming adventure easier. What is 20,000 credits to a starship captain on a ship that is raking in 300,000 credits each month?
The answer is, of course, a heck of a lot more than it seems, and anyone who has ever run a business is well aware of this fact. Instead of creating a complex set of timing rules to prevent unrealistic expenditures, we have chosen to almost completely abstract the economic portion of the game, but also have the choices the players make be reflected in the mechanics. It should be possible to make it, but it should not be a given.
Starship Economics
While certainly not the only science fiction option for an economy of scale, a starship is a very common one. The principles listed for ships apply in theory (or can be adjusted) to any type of economic entity. The minigame here as presented is a detailed set of operations. This is intentional, as mentioned in the core beliefs section, the merchant character should have an in-depth treatment of his specialty just as the combatant does of his. Remember that these minigames are optional, and if no character has chosen to be a merchant, then a simple operation can substitute for this system at Master discretion.
There are often times when a subset of characters are engaged in one operation or another, and in these cases the merchant may determine the results of previous or upcoming commerce. Then, once the details are known that information can be shared with the rest of the crew "in character" through roleplaying. Minigames can be used to keep players engaged when their Hero is away from the spotlight, if they are not interested in listening to the action for any reason.
Income shares are the measure of cash flow for the operation. These could be through legitimate commerce, piracy, smuggling or anything your Crew can devise. Income shares determine two things: how profitable the operation is, and how much has the crew been paid. Each ship type has a listed number income shares that must be produced each month, as well as a distribution of expenditures.
Each profitable transaction the crew completes during a given time period will produce one income share per effect level generated. Each type of transaction has its own set of criteria to determine the difficulty of being profitable with that transaction. For example, carrying passengers is quite safe and easy to do, but they pay comparatively little and there is almost no chance of a windfall. Whereas piracy could be extremely profitable one month (when a ship is captured), but run net losses for months, or years, at a time when the IPA is vigilant.
At the end of each month, tally the total income shares the ship has produced. From this pool all expenditures must be paid. Some expenditures are mandatory, and are paid first. Some optional expenditures can be ignored and replaced with maintenance counters. Once all expenditures are dealt with, if any income shares remain the captain has two choices: convert them to working capital or profit shares.
Working capital is added to the ship's credstick, and can be used for future expenditures or purchases. Each level of working capital is equivalent to one income share.
As long as the crew salary expenditure is paid each member of the crew is assumed to have enough money to use the standard purchasing system (see normal income above). If this expenditure is not paid, the size of "free" purchases is halved. If it is not paid for a second period consecutively, no purchases may be made "free", all NPC crew members also become disenchanted (see chapter XX: Psychology). For each extra profit share allocated to salary all characters collect their normal income.
Transactions
Each transaction type has a listed difficulty number which is the TN for the check that is made each transaction. These difficulty numbers are set based on the likelihood of profitability of the action, not the actual challenge. Some activities are capped, in that they can only create so much profit.
Passenger Service
Passenger service is the carrying of passengers between ports of call. This type of commerce is relatively low risk financially, and almost always delivers consistent results within a tight band. Finding passengers is a TN 3 merchant or bureaucracy check, with failure meaning no passengers are available that day. A critical fail means no passengers will be interested in this route at this time, no more checks are allowed. As soon as a single success is generated it is assumed passengers will continue to be attracted each day until the craft leaves port.
The number of low passage passengers found per day is determined by the passenger service effect level of 1d6. This level can be bumped, but the number of bumps is limited by the Mk value of the ship's entertainment programs plus the Mk value of the ship's cuisine program. High demand destinations can increase the effect row (number of dice) by the given amount. Multiply the number of days of advertisement (since the first successful recruitment) by the effect number generated for total low passage purchases. The number of full low passage cabins must always exceed the number of middle passage cabins, which must always exceed the number of full high passage cabins. Once the low passage recruitment is complete, divide the number of cabins by 2 (truncate fractions) for middle passage, and do the same on middle to get high.
Income generated: Each full cabin generates income shares per 200 LY of travel. Each 5 high passage cabins generate 1 profit share, while 6 medium or 7 low passage achieve the same. Truncate all fractions below .75.
Ishmail has decided she and her crew can use a little extra income, and has advertised for passengers on their trip from Fomalhaut to Heimdall. The distance between the two ports is 1000 LY, and she has 2 high passage, 5 medium passage and 11 low. Her total income is (2+25/6+55/7, or 14.02) 14 income shares.
Passenger Expenses
Each occupied room generates monthly expenses, for items such as food, toiletries, repairs and other perishable items. For every 30 days (or part thereof) 1/50th income share of costs is generated per passenger room. Pay these fees monthly, and only when full income shares are accrued.
Free Trade
Planets also have a number of goods available, along with an associated risk value from low to medium to high. The risk value and demand matrix are used to determine if a good will be purchased and for how much. Merchants are not required to take any offer. The supply matrix lists the goods the planet is known for selling (the most commonly available), and the demand matrix is the same for buying.
Each good also has a supply level at that planet, listed as a die type. A standard listing for a good will have the name of the good, as well as the supply level and risk level. EX: Gold (d4, Low). Goods themselves also have standard cargo sizes, or loads, which is the amount of cargo space one income level of the item takes. A buy or sell attempt is made at the market location, generally the spaceport, and takes 8 hours. The time can be decreased, if the player wishes, but for each factor of 2 it is divided by (or fraction thereof) the TN is +1.
Sid Scorpio doesn't have time to spend 8 hours at the market to buy Thorium, so he decides he will only spend 2 hours. Since that is 1/4 of the necessary time, the TN is +2. If he had decided to spend 6 hours, it would be +1.
Finding Goods
Commerce is divided into two related but disparate activities: acquiring goods and liquidating them. For ease of game play they will also serve completely distinct purposes.
To purchase goods, the merchant indicates the amount of capital (income levels) he wishes to spend, and then makes an easy (TN 3) commerce test to find goods on the planet’s supply matrix, or a difficulty 5 (if it is not listed at all) or 7 (if it is on the demand matrix). Success indicates that the effect should be used to determine how much of the appropriate good is available, with the number of income shares spent determining the row. The merchant may decide to spend less than originally intended, or even more, but does not receive the bump increase.
Ishmail finds herself on Alderamin VII looking to purchase some wares to sell at their next port of call. She checks the supply matrix and sees that luxury food items, gold, silver and platinum are listed. In the demand matrix mechanical parts, electronic parts, vehicles and tools are listed. If she chooses to buy gold, the TN would be 3. If she chooses mechanical parts, it would be 7. Looking for something absent from both lists, such as Thorium, would be TN 5. She chooses the trusty, low risk option of Gold (d6). Her Merchant skill is 2d8 and she indicates she wants to spend 3 Income Shares, and on the card she finds a 5 in the skill section, a success. Checking the 3d6 effect section (3 Income Shares and d6 supply) she finds a 16, since the purchase EN required is 6, she is able to buy 2 loads of Gold for 3 Income Shares.
Skilled merchants are able to get better prices for their goods, and also to acquire goods at better prices. Each bump on the merchant check shifts the demand die one to the right at the initially requested purchase level only. This is called the bump increase. This increase will not always affect the amount of product purchased (remember, only full income levels are purchased).
A single card draw will show the entire market at a glance. The goods available in the standard market will all have different die types. To purchase goods, decrement the income and notate the purchased amount. Goods are always purchased in full income levels.
Selling Goods
Unless your goal is to be a feature episode of Space Hoarders (on Space A&E, of course), the precious cargo you purchased needs to be sold at a different port of call. As above, the system is fairly straight-forward and simple.
To sell goods, perform a merchant test based on the risk level of the goods. Low risk goods are TN 3, medium risk goods are TN 5 and high risk goods are TN 7. Goods that are not on the planetary demand matrix have a TN increase of 1. Goods that are on the supply matrix are one difficulty level higher and capped for maximum sales like low risk goods (see below). Bumps on the sale check produce bump increases as notated in purchasing of goods.
Ishmail and her crew have flown to Anubis VI where they wish to sell the aforementioned Gold. She checks the demand matrix and does not find Gold, same with the supply matrix. This makes the standard TN of 3 for low risk goods a 4.
The amount of profit is determined by checking the effect level and comparing it to the profit margin of the goods. The number of income shares of goods being sold is the row. Selling goods is a binary affair, all of a type of goods must be sold or none, though the merchant may choose to walk away from the transaction if he so chooses. Goods on the demand matrix use the column listed, goods that are not on either matrix use the d6 row, and those on the supply matrix use d4.
Now the moment of truth, where Ishmail wishes to generate capital from her investment. She has two Income Shares of Gold to sell, so she will use the 2d6 row in effect, if she succeeds. She draws a card and finds a 10 with an exceptional result! She draws a second card and gets a 7, for a total value of 17. This provides 2 bump increases on the effect, shifting from 2d6 to 2d10. The listed effect is 8 in 2d6, but 12 in 2d10. Gold has a sales EN of 5, so this indicates a profit of 2 Income Shares (the bump increase provided one extra income share of profit in this case). Since her total purchase was 2, she can either sell now for 4, or hold the goods and try to sell at another port with greater demand for Gold.
There is more to risk than just sales difficulty, however. Low risk goods are in demand everywhere, and can almost always be sold, however they have well established values which limit their potential profit margins. Low risk goods do not draw extra cards on increased effect. But because of their low risk nature the first income level of profit can be generated as long as at least half of the target number is achieved. This does not affect how further income levels are generated.
Medium risk goods are the standard wares of traders across the galaxy. They are in good demand, but also have a small enough supply to incur some risk, allowing greater profits to be attained. Medium risk goods may draw up to one time on increased effect.
High risk goods are exactly as they sound. They are more difficult to move, but when that appropriate buyer is found the profits can be excellent. There is no income cap for high risk goods.
Note that the effect generated here is profit, not total sales. Add the cost of the goods initially paid to the amount generated here to determine how much cash to add to the ship's credstick.
Goods
What follows are a listing of each type of goods, and their standard attributes (load size and risk level).
Prospecting
Haulage
Haulage is the carrying of cargo from one port to another, with no ownership transfer. As with passenger service, haulage is an extremely low risk transaction. All taxes and fees are handled by the owning party, and a fuel surcharge is also provided (netting a 20% fuel discount per 100 tons of haulage). In general, haulage pays 1 profit share per 500 LY of the journey, per 100 tons of cargo. But it also generates no expenses, so other business can sometimes be negotiated to coincide with the haulage contract, with the docking/fuel fee savings noted.
Illegal Activities
Economically, there are two illegal activities of concern in this section: smuggling and trafficking contraband. Each has the potential to be wildly profitable, but also can carry very steep fines or prison sentences.
Smuggling
There are two general purposes of smuggling: avoiding paying fees and taxes or selling restricted goods. The former uses the same economic system as above, but does not generate any tax burden, that is if the goods are sold in port (which is a higher risk, of course). Goods can be sold at alternative locations, or directly to planetary buyers. In this case, the sales EN is increased by 1 unless the merchant makes a successful Streetwise test TN 5.
Selling restricted goods can be a lot riskier, but also extremely lucrative. Finding a buyer has a variable TN based on the oppressiveness of the government and the level of illegality of the items. Buyers will also be very wary of sellers who do not have trusted references.
When a sale does commence, the procedure is similar to the previous system, except that since the buyer has already been located there is no check to sell the goods. Instead, there is a negotiation contest between the two parties. The sales EN for illegal goods start at 3 and is adjusted by the result of the negotiation. For every 2 one side defeats the other, adjust the sales EN one. Use the action card from the buyer to generate effect levels.
Sid Scorpio has a case of 30 blast pistols he wants to sell to some rebels on Attar III, where all TL 7+ weaponry are very illegal (making the demand level d10). Given that the government is not very oppressive, his TN to locate a buyer is only 5. When he locates the buyer, he will put his Streetwise of 3d8 against the seller (2d8) to adjust the sales EN, base 3. Both Sid and the buyer get 8s for their contest, leaving the EN at the base 3. Sid checks his 1d10 effect (30 blast pistols is only 1 income share), he finds a 7, generating 2 income shares profit, three total. He tripled his money. Not bad!
Contraband
There are many types of contraband, from stolen items, to drugs, to subversive literature (in the appropriate society, of course). Locating buyers and the sales negotiation are done exactly as above, except that the sales EN will vary with the type of contraband. The Master will provide this information when necessary.
Taxation and Fees
Everyone hates the tax man. Each port of call has a tax rating, as well as a bureaucracy level to indicate the amount of red tape and fees.
After each dock, the finance officer of the vessel may make a bureaucracy check to determine the level of taxes and fees. Each port has a rating for taxes and fees, listed like so: 1d6/7 1d4 (3). The value preceding the slash is the standard tax/fee rate. The finance officer may choose to accept this or use his bureaucracy to attempt to find a loophole. After the slash is the difficulty of reducing the taxes, and the reduced amount. Finally, the number in parentheses is the tax frequency, in other words the number of goods sold to trigger a fee. For each multiple, or partial multiple, subtract the fees.
Of course I want to argue! Negotiating with port authorities for reduced taxes and fees is a risk. Choosing to accept the tax amount means a critical fail (and expulsion from the port) is impossible. Not only that, but increased effect results for tax amounts are ignored. Haggle over taxes at your own risk.
Applying Taxes and Fees
Now that a tax effect has been generated, what does it mean? The tax number is subtracted from sale amounts at the port. Taxes can never reduce a sale price below profitability, but can reduce the profit to zero. It is also the number of passenger multiples (based on the effect number value, high 5, medium 6, low 7) required to trigger a tax. Passenger taxes are always in full income shares, and are paid rounded to the nearest income share. Please note that taxes are only levied during the sell phase, even though in reality they are being collected when both buying and selling.
Ishmail and her crew have arrived at Heimdall and wish to disembark their passengers as well as sell some wares from their holds. Her passenger tax is 1 income share (3/15+5/18+11/21, .93). For goods, she decides not to negotiate and instead accept the tax amount of 1d6. When she draws her action card for commerce, she must subtract the 1d6 result from her total effect.
Delivering No Goods/Passengers
Sometimes a Crew will wish to enter port without selling goods, or may explore the market and find it unfavorable. There is always a cost to dock, even if no goods are delivered or purchased. For each port where no goods are sold, nor passengers delivered, add +1 to fee negotiation difficulty as well as +2 to levied fees when goods are finally delivered. Since taxes are only levied in full income shares, it is possible this penalty might not increase the tax amount.
I was told there would be no math
Throughout Future Imperfect, even when things become detailed, very rarely are there times when confusing levels of arithmetic need to be employed. This has been a conscious choice. For many players, crunching even a small amount of numbers can severely detract from the gaming experience. For those players, we offer an alternate system which completely removes the fractions and division aspect and replaces it with some simple record keeping.
Instead of dividing out the exact tax amounts and reconciling them immediately, make hashmarks on the ship record sheet for each type of transaction. When the appropriate thresholds are reached, erase the hashmarks and place an X. During the end of month reconciliation pay 1 income share in tax for each X. Do not remove extra hashmarks at months end. Taxes must be paid, no exceptions. If the ship's credstick does not have enough cash available, take what is there and inform the crew that they will be placed in tax lien on their next dock.
Regular Maintenance
For a starship to run properly it needs to be properly maintained. This requires space parts, expendable resources (such as lubricants, circuits/wire etc.) and good, old-fashioned elbow grease. This is the role of the ship’s engineering team.
The details of maintenance are covered in the Starship Engineering section of the rules. For the purpose of economics, all that matters is that when certain kinds of costs are accrued (such as upkeep for passenger rooms or vital systems), instead of paying those fees the captain may instead choose to accept a maintenance counter. Notate the maintenance counter on the starship record sheet, and to which system it applies. As long as the maintenance counter remains, the engineering crew must spend extra time working on the system each month. The system also has its breakdown number increased by 1 for each maintenance counter.
Removing Maintenance Counters
To remove a maintenance counter, pay one income share during the upkeep phase. Maintenance counters can only be removed during the upkeep phase, meaning even if the necessary capital is available just a few days after the reconciliation period, the entire month is served with the negative effects of maintenance. For each three months a maintenance counter persists add another maintenance counter to the given system.
Roleplaying Maintenance
During any time period where maintenance counters exist on shipboard systems, the Master is encouraged to initiate complications. These complications are treated like invoking of rough edges, and the chip compensation should go to the Hero most affected by the result. In most cases, this is the chief engineer (or closest facsimile among the Crew).
