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Kraken
Federated Suns
Marshal
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 2755
Location: United States
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 Posted: 06-Jun-2008 19:09 Post subject: Investing and players |
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The original Battletech computer game (Crescent Hawks' Inception) had a feature to where the party could invest in the stock market.
For the campaign I'm running, I was thinking of doing something similar. The party (a mercenary unit) could invest money in a company or two. Depending upon the flow of their campaign and the roll of the dice, the party can either make it rich or blow the whole wad.
Additionally, depending upon which company they invest in, their little jolt of cash might have a big impact on things. IE, they could invest in a plastics company who turns around and uses the money to finance the development of a new type of body armor that's as strong as a flak vest but cheaper and lighter.
How does that sound?
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"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat." -Edgar Allen Poe"I knew there was something special about you, but I never realized you were really a cat." Wolfwood to a random cat (Trigun)
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CO_17thRecon
Kell Hounds
Major
Joined: 10-Sep-2002 00:00
Posts: 1297
Location: United States
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| Posted: 07-Jun-2008 07:36 Post subject: Investing and players |
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I like the idea. Especially if the players don't get to see the rolls. Then you have some fudge room. Players getting mauled by bad dice without a chance? Their investments pay off, and they come out slightly less behind in terms of money. *shrugs* There's a lot of places you could go with this. The difficult part will be thinking up the rules for it.
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Jarylan Blackwell
"What the...?! Where did you get THAT?!"
"Creative aquisition."
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chihawk
Clan Blood Spirit
Master Bartender
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 07-Jun-2008 10:11 Post subject: Investing and players |
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You don't need rules, a simple announcement of how well (or badly) their investments are doing is all that's needed.
And DO NOT make it random.
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Kraken
Federated Suns
Marshal
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 2755
Location: United States
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| Posted: 07-Jun-2008 11:16 Post subject: Re: Investing and players |
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| chihawk wrote: | You don't need rules, a simple announcement of how well (or badly) their investments are doing is all that's needed.
And DO NOT make it random. |
Speaking as a business major?
It can happen.
*One of my business professors uses Guess as an example of what not to do in a business environment. Guess started out making denim clothing and rode the wave when denim became popular again. They tried to cash in on other fads (such as perfumes / colognes and watches aimed at 20-somethings), eventually losing sight of the denim clothing industry. As such, Guess missed the warning signs that denim's popularity was waning; when the fad ended, Guess was caught short and got hammered.
*Or there's Dreamwave Comics. It looked fine and dandy, but only because owners Pat and Roger Lee were cooking the books to cover up the fact that they blew all of Dreamwave's money on their expensive lifestyles. When they tried to get out of paying two of their writers, the writers quit and blew the whistle. Dreamwave was dead within a month, as the Lee brothers filed bankruptcy to stave off the financial feeding frenzy that would have happened once their creditors found out what they were doing.
*The Great Video Game Crash of the early 1980s nearly killed the industry, as the glut of games and systems proved more than the customer base could handle. This paved the way for Nintendo to be the dominant game company in the US as they were able to slip the NES in under the radar; they bundled the first few waves with ROB the robot, making people initially think that the NES was a toy robot.
*United Artists, Carolco Pictures, Square Pictures, and Franchise Pictures all went bust due to how badly one of their films bombed at the box office.
_________________
"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat." -Edgar Allen Poe"I knew there was something special about you, but I never realized you were really a cat." Wolfwood to a random cat (Trigun)
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Kraken
Federated Suns
Marshal
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 2755
Location: United States
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| Posted: 07-Jun-2008 11:19 Post subject: Re: Investing and players |
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| CO_17thRecon wrote: | | I like the idea. Especially if the players don't get to see the rolls. Then you have some fudge room. Players getting mauled by bad dice without a chance? Their investments pay off, and they come out slightly less behind in terms of money. *shrugs* There's a lot of places you could go with this. The difficult part will be thinking up the rules for it. |
Another thing is that if the company does well enough then they might "thank" the party by cutting them a deal on items.
IE, that company making the body armor might give the party a bulk discount, allowing the party to outfit their infantry on the cheap.
_________________
"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat." -Edgar Allen Poe"I knew there was something special about you, but I never realized you were really a cat." Wolfwood to a random cat (Trigun)
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chihawk
Clan Blood Spirit
Master Bartender
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 8072
Location: United States
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| Posted: 07-Jun-2008 11:26 Post subject: Re: Investing and players |
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| Kraken wrote: | | Speaking as a business major? |
No, speaking as a GAME MASTER.
Do not make it random, you'll only be asking for trouble.
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Kraken
Federated Suns
Marshal
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 2755
Location: United States
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| Posted: 11-Jun-2008 16:29 Post subject: Investing and players |
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Here are some business opportunities that I'm looking to throw at the players.
1. A small technical college wants to set up shop in an abandoned military outpost. They'd like the party to invest some money, the party's technicians to help them get their programs going, and the party mech jocks to acquire some salvage for the students to work on. 
The party won't get a lot of cash back, but they will have ready access to a pool of trained technicians. In addition, everyone in the community will either get Gunsmith +1 or Tech / [any] +1, meaning that if they go to recruit from the community they'll have some people who can possibly help maintain their own gear.
2. A company wants to set up an electronics / energy equipment factory near a larger cluster of industrial facilities. These facilities need all of the items they can get. The company will even have a small wing of the factory set aside for laser weapons, something that the planet's military hardware factories need large quantities of.
The factory will be a cash cow in that the cluster will buy pretty much all of the factory's output. However, since all of the output is being bought up they can't tap the factory for parts.
3A. A company has discovered a way to make armor using hardened plastics. They intend to use their discovery to make light, cheap body armor.
The resulting products weigh half as much as normal body armor, thus making it attractive to grunts. And while the armor would normally sell for 1/2 to 3/4 the price of the normal armor, the company will give the party a price break and sell it to them for 1/4 to 1/2 the price. This will allow the part to outfit their infantry for a cheaper price than before.
3B. Instead of using their hardened plastics for body armor, this company wants to use it for conventional vehicle/mech armor.
While it weighs the same as normal armor, it only costs 75% of what normal armor goes for. The trade-off is that the party can't use it to patch normal armor or vice versa; they'll have to completely armor a mech or vehicle with it.
_________________
"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat." -Edgar Allen Poe"I knew there was something special about you, but I never realized you were really a cat." Wolfwood to a random cat (Trigun)
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