merchant. traderouts and factorys.

[Deleted]

Hello all!

im thinking of starting a new game that focuses on the players gaining wealth and power in an "ankh-morporkish" city.
the characters would all be thieves or merchants and a big part of the campain would of course revolv around trade and smuggling.
anyone ever had a campain like this? or maybe just made a system for keeping track of how much profit a certain trade rout or commodity would give? it seems like a level 8 merchant could bring in more gold from an iron mine then a lvl 4 one too. any thoughts or hints of were i should look for an existing system?

good gaming!
//Jonte

[cleverkobold]

There is a flash game i found on armorgames.com called frontier. I have ripped off its trade system for my dnd games in the past.

[Deleted]

i only just started playing and it looks great. reminds me of sid meyers pirates.

kind of heavy on the micro management though right?
i could see a game like this running to lvl 4-5 but after that they should hire people to do the trading for them and i think it would be a bit cumbersome to keep track of 5+ trade routs at a time.
did your players ever have that problem?

[cleverkobold]

At first the system seemed cumbersome, but in actual gameplay it ran smoothly albeit there were only six trage routes total. In my game the trading was really something that the players retired into after their epic adventuring days. By the time that the players got involved they were between 13than and 16ththe level and had at least a dozen hirelings and a train of wagons to accompany them. In that same game overland travel was done through a hex grid which led to lots of expadition planning and neat decision making on the part of the players (eg. Do we want to go through the hills and risk barbarian raiders or go around and have to pay a tax on our goods?) The players didn't seem to have any problems with the system and a good time was had by all, not to mention all the npc connections that were made doing it, which were great fodder for quest hooks when the players took a brake from their caravan.

[Deleted]

That does actually sound like a lot of fun.

thanks for the insight.
/jonte

[aldarron]

Not much to add; great post CK. Level should actually have no effect on how much profit a merchant makes in any direct way - that's a matter of player skill and the capital they put into thier ventures. The character must reach out, make connections, attempt to purchase and resell goods, etc. The referee can set random profit/loss factors for particular ventures (say +10% d 1-2, 0 d3-4, -10% d5-6; etc.) adjusting for random events and so forth.