Fuck you, I told you what I´d do!
What do you want?

I USE the FUCKING TRADE RULES?
What´s so hard to understand?

Because Germanium is defined in my games. Or at least unstable radioactive ore, from which I can extrapolate.

Quote from: Settembrini.EDIT @temple: Here see the malice. he asks a question but doesn´t want to know the answer:


Is what I get for answering him. Uninformed malice all the way.
And regarding starships, starsystem and trade, anyone who hasn´t played Traveller is uninformed. Period.

I'm going to write this off to a language barrier.

I was saying that I don't give a fuck about living up to your idea of what trad gaming is.  I don't care if you find that my player isn't trad or is dirty hippy crap.

I DO care about what techniques you use at the table and what you do to make it work.  That is just flat out interesting.

Can you discuss that?

Quote from: PakaI'm going to write this off to a language barrier.

I was saying that I don't give a fuck about living up to your idea of what trad gaming is.  I don't care if you find that my player isn't trad or is dirty hippy crap.

I DO care about what techniques you use at the table and what you do to make it work.  That is just flat out interesting.

Can you discuss that?

Okay fair enough. I apologize, I misread.

See my above entry. I use the trade rules.
Whatcha wanna know about them?

Quote from: SettembriniFuck you, I told you what I´d do!
What do you want?

I USE the FUCKING TRADE RULES?
What´s so hard to understand?

Because Germanium is defined in my games. Or at least unstable radioactive ore, from which I can extrapolate.

I don't know what the trad rules are, Sett, you fucking prick.  I've never played Traveller.  Break it down for me, explain how it works at the table.  If you've said it earlier in the the thread, please link me.

Fucking hell and blood.

Quote from: SettembriniElaborate.

Very well:

Quote from: Abyssal MawWhy even have a game set in space at all? Making something into color effectively erases it from the game.

Not true. Making something into color removes it from the realm of mechanical simulation. If I as a player want it to be in the game, its in the game. Its just not simulated mechanically.
Vast, vast difference. AM inability to grasp this proves that he does not "get it."

Quote from: Abyssal MawBut in a game environment, such details are important because the players directly interact with things such as "how much fuel will we need", "is this an inhabitable planet", "what resources are available here.." "how much is germanium going on the market here.."

Not neccessarily the case. Not all gamers want to model reality like this. Not all gamers think that keeping track of minutae like this are an important part of the gaming experience. Theyd much rather focus on stopping the evil overlord than stopping for rocket fuel.

Quote from: Abyssal MawSo of course it doesn't matter what the sun or a spaceship is like if all you care about is the feelings and the morality and the Lagos Egris crap. But if you are trying to do things like play a game in which players are trying to set up a trade route or chart a path from one system to another, or find alien wildlife somehow... players do in fact need to know. You need to know where encounters are going to happen, and how often, and what they'll be, and what equipment you might need, and how much fuel. Similarly, you need to know how fast a group can march in one day if it's a fantasy game, and how much damage a broadsword does, and all of that.

Again, only the case if thats the way the group wants to play.

What if the group still want to explore a world (as opposed to exploring "feelings and morality and the Lagos Egris crap"), but they want to do it by collectively adding to that world? Riffing off each others stuff, improvising details into existence, and deal with what they think is the important stuff in the world? Instead of buying ammunition and rations, and keeping track of individual pieces of equipment and marching speeds and stuff?

Things like this are not universaly important. They may be important to AM, but they arent important to every gamer on the planet.
People have different preferences.

Im not even going to touch the Swine-bait, because thats exactly what it is. Im not a Forge guy. Ive repeatedly aired my dislike of Ron Edwards statements in various places on the internet, including here in at least one instance.

Quote from: SettembriniEDIT @temple: Here see the malice. he asks a question but doesn´t want to know the answer:


Is what I get for answering him. Uninformed malice all the way.
And regarding starships, starsystem and trade, anyone who hasn´t played Traveller is uninformed. Period.

This statement makes you appear ignorant, and makes it clear that you have problems distinguishing between your own and other peoples emotions. I feel sorry for you.

(edited because I dont really want to be an asshat)

Quote from: PakaCan we talk about games without being nasty to one another?

That would be really nice.

It's easy, isn't it? Respect is simple, dialog is easy. But once you start telling people they are "crazy lunatics" or they have "brain damage" it all goes downhill and suddenly we're probing to see just how vulnerable each side really is. If this sort of interaction bothers you, perhaps you can encourage better behavior from your friends. Because it can go either way, and we don't act, so much as react.

Ok, so on with the discussion.

Quote from: JuddSo, one of my players wants to know how much Germanium is on the market in our Burning Whatever game.  I ask them to roll their Merchant-wise skill, obstacle 2.  The hit their mark and I tell them about the market, what the prices are and what's happening, etc.

If they fail, perhaps they get a wildly wrong notion about the market or make a mistake.  Hopefully, both results, success or failure, will lead to adventure.

But the Germanium Market of Orion-4 didn't exist until he made that roll.  We made it up as we went and created what we needed to.  Until that moment, Germanium was just color, something mentioned in the background.

So, tell me how you'd do handle this at your table.

This is using Universe, which is kind of like Traveler. It may as well be Traveler, though.
When you build a system for Universe that the players will be traveling in, you generate all the planets in that system (which is between 0 and 12). You note where, if any, any settlements are, what the atmosphere is, and what resources are on each planet.

So if a player has a given resource, (whether the players mined it themselves or bought it) it has a standard value.

When trying to sell that thing, the first thing you check is whether the planet also has that resource as native. If it does, it sells for less. If it doesn't, you can get away with a higher price. So right away, players are checking which planet to even go to upon picking up cargo.

So eventually the players determine where the best market is.

At that point, you roll the merchant skill to try and sell it for as high a price as you can. The goal here for players is to compensate for things such as how much fuel and cargo space was taken up in the PCs ship, moving the stuff, and whether or not that is profitable. Or whether there is a better market for it.

Yes, it's a merchant sim. But why is that important? because profit drives adventure. See, once they have a trade route established they are moving around doing stuff, and thats where you begin setting up encounters.

Possible encounters might be rival dealers, gangs and pirates, alien lifeforms moving into the mines, market fluctuations caused by outside events, business proposals from NPCs in the marketplace, all of that. But in the meantime the players are generating credits with the buying and selling. Why? To get a better ship. Why? To go further. To carry more cargo. To reach systems that haven't been explored yet. To get better enviro suits. To finance new mines. To move up from germanium mining planetside to zero-G radium mining in a cooler location. Players can keep expanding and 'building' almost like a little empire.

All of these things are linked together, and each piece is important because they are at the players disposal to use.

And each episode of this space adventure story is fun and exciting and completely in the hands of the players.

I cross posted an apology, so I´ll ignore your "prick".

Okay, Germanium.

We look at the star system: Is it Rich, is it a mining planet, is it an industry hub?

That modifies the price. I look up radioactive ore on the speculative trade goods table. I figure in the modfiers, roll dice, take into account the trader´s characters relevant skill as a modifier too.
I look up the result and multiply it with the price for the radioactives.

Now could be the time to modify it ad-hoc based upon the development of the game or the gameworld. Is there a war, a blockade, a germanium craze? a boom, a bust?
I will know that, so I can ad-hoc adjust the price some more.
I announce the price and the lot available.

There are more sophisticated trade rules, but for s hort shopping of germanium it should be neough.

I used way more elaborate models and research when a whole adventure revolves around some commodity. Then I check prices on the internet, extrapolate use different rules etc.

But whatever I do, I try to use some kind of model. Pulling out of the ass is not an acceptable model to me. Depending on need, the model is dead simple, as the LBB one or quite elaborate.

Especially with trading, the market has to be taken care of in some way. So I need some kind of supply and demand model to make an educated guess. "We at mining planet, them at industry planet" is the lowest form of it.
And for that, you need to know where the planets are, and how many others of their kind exist.

Quote from: Abyssal MawAnd each episode of this space adventure story is fun and exciting and completely in the hands of the players.

Thats actually very funny, because when I was reading your post I kept thinking "God, that kind of game sounds incredibly boring!"

Which just illustrates my point.

Temple,

Which only proves that you don´t know it.
Accept that you are ignorant of a huge portion of gaming.
Accept that you don´t understand our fun-source.

That´s the first step. A good step.

You can either turn away, mock us, declare us to be insane or brain-damaged (how is there a misunderstanding? The malice is very obvious.).

Or you start wondering.

Quote from: TempleWhat if the group still want to explore a world (as opposed to exploring "feelings and morality and the Lagos Egris crap"), but they want to do it by collectively adding to that world? Riffing off each others stuff, improvising details into existence, and deal with what they think is the important stuff in the world? Instead of buying ammunition and rations, and keeping track of individual pieces of equipment and marching speeds and stuff?

What IF, right?

Well, here's why. Because without interactively defined resources, it's all just a triviality. Everything you decide or come up with, might as well just have been handwaved, even the things you actually roll for.

You can riff all night and all day, and still never have a game. You will have adults playing make believe, which is idealized in some places, (and considered weird anywhere else on earth). But the real point is, that's not a game, and I still don't believe that's a stable way to take part in the hobby.

But do I accept that people can prefer that? Sure. I just don't think they'll ever have much success convincing other people to take part in this hobby on those terms, or remain in this hobby very long on their own, or that they have any insight into how the majority of us operate.

and I say that with all the respect in the world. That's just how it is.

Quote from: SettembriniTemple,

Which only proves that you don´t know it.
Accept that you are ignorant of a huge portion of gaming.
Accept that you don´t understand our fun-source.

That´s the first step. A good step.

You can either turn away, mock us, declare us to be insane or brain-damaged (how is there a misunderstanding? The malice is very obvious.).

Or you start wondering.

What the flying fuck?

"Accept that Im ignorant of a huge portion of gaming?" Youre a dick. I mean it, youre a huge fucking dick.

Posts like this are what proves to me that you are actually if not completely moronic then atleast severely emotionally unbalanced.

Why is it so important for you to elevate your own intelligence at the expense of others? Why do you have to place people in an "ignorant" category in order to feel secure and comfortable?

You sad, sad person.

You prove your ignorance with every post you make on this subject, and your futile attempts at shifting this ignorance on others is not only pathetic, its sad.

Huh?

Why get angry?

You just posted that you don´t understand our fun.

YOU said that. Not me.

No superiority here, Temple. Just an experience that you lack. And admitted lacking. That´s okay!

I never bungee´d.
I´m not a worse person because of that.

I would, if I mocked bungee jumpers.
But I don´t mock them.
I´m sure it´s a blast.

Quote from: TempleThats actually very funny, because when I was reading your post I kept thinking "God, that kind of game sounds incredibly boring!"

Which just illustrates my point.

Maybe so. But the point is, what I'm talking about really is a game, not a romantic campfire circle, shared world fan-fiction, a mad-lib, or improv theater.

Quote from: Abyssal MawWhat IF, right?

Well, here's why. Because without interactively defined resources, it's all just a triviality. Everything you decide or come up with, might as well just have been handwaved, even the things you actually roll for.

You can riff all night and all day, and still never have a game. You will have adults playing make believe, which is idealized in some places, (and considered weird anywhere else on earth). But the real point is, that's not a game, and I still don't believe that's a stable way to take part in the hobby.

But do I accept that people can prefer that? Sure. I just don't think they'll ever have much success convincing other people to take part in this hobby on those terms, or remain in this hobby very long on their own, or that they have any insight into how the majority of us operate.

and I say that with all the respect in the world. That's just how it is.

This is bullshit. You dont get to define what is a game or not.

You people are fucking worse than the people you call "Swine."