LFG Merchant Spacers

[Aeshi Tillian]

Hi! I’m back again. Not that I ever really left, but something that Orihime Ike and I both quite enjoy caught my attention. In this case, it’s the Vatta’s War series by Elizabeth Moon, whose protagonist is from a merchant family, joins the naval academy, and then gets kicked out, so she ends up working as a trader again.

Now, a few of us have been working on building up the merchant spacer and trade elements of Chaos in different ways, like I have the Interstellar Merchant-Captain’s Guild free traders, and merchant marine in the Leauge; Orihime has the Crown and Spears Hall as well as the Atrisian privateers.

But I’d love to find the other space trade writers who really enjoy that aspect and do a community project, essentially, based on all the elements and things that catch our interest, and really create a community for that style of writing. I know people have made a few attempts in the past that started off fairly well in the beginning, but couldn’t always maintain it.

For clarity, I’m not thinking along the lines of the Chaos Stock Exchange or a new trade federation or anything on that scale, but I’m thinking on a character level.

How can we get characters involved with each other and to collaborate on storylines? What would draw them in together? Static holonet/ spacebook threads? Trade auctions? Merchant gatherings? I’m not sure, so looking to work with people to figure something out to create a “trader style culture” just like there’s Jedi/Sith/Mandalorian writing styles.

 

[Tella Voland]

I think it's a cool idea and I support you guys doing it but it's hard to implement on a site at scale/with lasting impact with no real economic system(s) besides sort of abstracted fleet/army limits/wealth and a marketplace that you can choose to use UC on but don't have to etc. I did see this pulled off once on a site that had such a system (it wasn't like hardcore or anything but people could run their own shops, buy real estate, go on trading runs) since you could collaborate to find new resources and there were things like ship attrition that happened so you had to make money to pay upkeep if you weren't subsidized by the government's military. Poor combat oriented characters there would love to RP with them because they had tons of money and it costs tons to fight properly (medical care, needing housing, etc) and government "jobs" there did not pay that well.

Now I think maybe you could get some kind of civilianish/smuggler trader alliance and offer people cool items from your workshop(s) as a reward for escorting traders, finding new resource deposits/exploration missions, clearing out problematic wildlife (aka there's a mine you want to exploit, but oh no, there are creatures there), transporting "problem" cargo or grey mark items, granted that slides into criminal RP a bit. And maybe some adventures along trade routes interacting with different factions. As long as you can make it fun for both combat and non-combat oriented characters I think it could work. I think like a little holonet/news paper thing would be great too where you react to people's threads, people always love that as well.

 

[Laphisto]

iv always loved the idea of a trading system, tbh, and I have tried to get a few threads going that involved trading or treasure hunting to some degree, the most current one being the Aurora Station R&R that I set up for my faction members and for possible traders to interact with and get something started. We need a system for on-site trading through rewards via cool loot items or other means. It would also be a cool way for pirate or mercenary factions to get some work in with pirates doing their thing and mercs able to put their toys to use.

I mean, currently, I have made a sort of NPC pirate faction that is free to use for the most part. It would be cool to have someone thread out the pirate encounters. What could also be cool is to have threads that are started and left open, but connected through a chain to represent different parts of a hyperspace route un sure how that could be implemented but would be fun to brain storm on it

 

[Aeshi Tillian]

Laphisto Tella Voland

I did work on developing a trade system for a while, starting with a trade good directory of systems, plus any modifiers that might exist based on government and political structure. But frankly, there are too many planets for one person to do that, so it never went very far. I'm not opposed to working on ways to whip up some sort of informal trade system, probably pulling from Stars Without Number/Traveller/FFG's Star Wars RPGs, or something entirely unique. It'll just be a team effort, because developing that and running a major faction is way too much.

But a trading system wasn't really my main goal with this. Jedi, Sith, and Mandalorians don't have inherent mechanics for them either, nor do fleets or PVP combat. Yet those are very vibrant types of roleplay styles and, more importantly, in my mind, communities. What I'm really trying to do is develop the community. I can make up all the economic factors if I want, add in some random dice rolls for unexpected market changes, and then improvise. I'd rather find like-minded people and get a space trader community going, if that makes sense.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

What exactly would a space trader do in threads? I don’t mean that as a snarky comment. I am genuinely interested in what these types of stories might look like.

I’ve always liked more “regular” characters. I have a news reporter and a cop and both are super fun to write. The issue I’ve come into though is it’s very hard to fit them into stories. If I try to make open threads they either get derailed or abandoned but at the same time these type of characters don’t work well in the big faction stories.

My reporter in particular has basically no character development. All anybody ever wants from her is an interview but that doesn’t do much to develop her narrative.

So I think that would be my question is what would merchants be doing? Just selling things or? I could see it being fun. I think it’s just easier to make a Jedi etc fit into the story here and that’s why people mostly do that.

 

[Aeshi Tillian]

What exactly would a space trader do in threads? I don’t mean that as a snarky comment. I am genuinely interested in what these types of stories might look like.

I’ve always liked more “regular” characters. I have a news reporter and a cop and both are super fun to write. The issue I’ve come into though is it’s very hard to fit them into stories. If I try to make open threads they either get derailed or abandoned but at the same time these type of characters don’t work well in the big faction stories.

My reporter in particular has basically no character development. All anybody ever wants from her is an interview but that doesn’t do much to develop her narrative.

So I think that would be my question is what would merchants be doing? Just selling things or? I could see it being fun. I think it’s just easier to make a Jedi etc fit into the story here and that’s why people mostly do that.

So, a lot of it has to do with what kind of space trader your writer. Like, ironically, Han Solo counts. Granted; he’s absolutely a smuggler.

And so it does very much lend itself toward slice of life stories, but also the fairly traditional sci fi rpg tropes from games like Traveller, Stars Without Number, and so forth, plus from books like CJ Cherryh’s Merchanter’s Luck, Andre Norton’s Solar Queen series, and so on.

As for individual threads, it can literally be anything. You can do the smuggler thing, the Firefly thing, the trade company thing. In a lot of ways, it’s like an Edge of the Empire campaign. There’s bills to pay, debts to pay off, fuel to buy, that constant need for survival to scrape up enough funds to keep going. And with how funky the Star Wars universe is, there’s infinite possibilities. A passenger could end up being a disguised noble fleeing their family, a cargo could be a family heirloom that was stolen decades ago.

Then of course there’s the trading company angle, which is more like the East India Company or Vatta Mercantile, where trade and politics are inextricably linked. But to be very pithy, I’d say space trader stories are stories of ordinary people living in an extraordinary galaxy. Could be starting as a crewman with a burning desire to have your own ship, trying to keep your ship from getting repossessed, trying to make one last run before getting out of the life. It could honestly even look like the movie Road House, depending on what sort of people your trader associates with.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

Thank you for explaining. I do like slice of life roleplaying. I’m just not sure how to fit it into a site like this. I suppose if you got a group together to do like a firefly type thing then at least you would have a dedicated group to write with and do those stories.

I’ve tried to go the other way in my stories. I’ve tried to create scenarios that could include my news reporter or cop but would also include other people doing their own space wizard things. I haven’t really been able to pull it off.

It seems like this type of thing almost needs a group that would require the creation of a new character dedicated to these type of stories.

 

[Aeshi Tillian]

Kitter Bitters

What I've found particularly helpful is not to usually think in terms of scenarios, if that makes sense, because even slice-of-life as a merchant spacer is still absolutely wild—buying and selling across thousands of light years? Jumping through hyperspace? With my characters who usually work the Rim, you've got pirates, warlords, anomalies, all that could pop up at any moment. Plus, people could ask for specific requests, have shady dealings. And when I do public threads, I generally keep it broad and vague and let interactions develop naturally, and usually between the criminals, the bounty hunters, the law enforcement, and the spies, things tend to kick off.

With Aeshi, the other thing I do is throw her into threads where she doesn't fit, because that's who she is. She flies a souped-up light-freighter but has taken part in multiple fleet engagements, thrown down with Sith, and helped partisan resistance movements from one end of the galaxy to another. The only thing the Force really helps her do is fly, so it's not like she's a space wizard. She just hates bullies and tyrants and figures that she's gotta make a moral stand somewhere. Because ironically, that is what slice of life ends up looking like in a galaxy torn by war on so many occasions. She knows interstellar trade, which means she knows logistics, and while she'd prefer to live quietly, the galaxy doesn't usually let her.

 

[Kitter Bitters]

Aeshi Tillian your character sounds really cool. Maybe I will try to throw my slice of life toons into scenarios they don’t belong and see what happens.

Honestly being a merchant sounds like a lot of fun. I’m not sure why there isn’t more of it going on here at Chaos.

 

[Orihime Ike]

I’m not sure why there isn’t more of it going on here at Chaos.

No major economy or scarcity, we all just have the things and unlimited

but merchants are fun and transporting does let you have some good times.. can even go all Little China trying to get your cargo back while in a scenario.

 

[Jolene Bastra]

This character has a shadowport, could be a potential setting for merchant gatherings for sure. I'm interested, but super slow at posting right now!

 

[Tella Voland]

No major economy or scarcity, we all just have the things and unlimited

but merchants are fun and transporting does let you have some good times.. can even go all Little China trying to get your cargo back while in a scenario.

Well, technically it is represented in the very abstract by individual players only having 500m (combat) ships and (some) restrictions on who can field a "large army or navy*".

*definition vague, probably for a good reason since policing that would cause all kind of griping.

 

[Aeshi Tillian]

Kitter Bitters
You should! It's a ton of fun in circumstances like that, because that's when characters can shine as individual characters and drive the initiative of their own stories. If people are just doing their normal thing, there's less character agency there, since like most of us IRL, they're probably running on autopilot. It's what they're comfortable with, it's what they know how to do. But throw them into an entirely new situation they're unprepared for? That gets the drama and the stakes much higher.

I think getting rid of the company tier system was a big part of it, and Chaos' focus seems to have fairly dramatically narrowed since I started in 2013, based on my observations. Map game was always a big deal, don't get me wrong, but it used to be much easier to do non-major faction things, with a larger community of people who weren't always doing map game or major faction stuff.

Jolene Bastra
Shadowports are always good! Gotta dodge those taxes after all!