Best rules for a space trading game?

[outlander78]

I mostly play D&D (BECMI/1E/2E). I am used to having combat mostly be a party arrayed in some kind of formation exchanging blows (one dice roll per turn) with opponents. If in a space game each player has a weapon position targeting opponents, it is pretty much the same. If each weapon were to have varying options, or varying targets to choose from, it would be as engaging (or dull) as what I am used to.

Weapon options could be a single aimed shot that does more damage for the energy used, but might miss, vs a burst that uses more energy or does less damage but has a higher chance of hitting with some part of the shots fired. Or, as in X-Wing, do I use the laser (damage) or the ion (harder to fit, but disabling) or the missile (very high damage but limited ammunition).

Back to my original search for a good game, the players would be answering these decisions themselves by buying and upgrading a ship to meet their wants. Also, cost of ammunition for missile launchers would play during combat. Is it worth spending 100 GP to definitely kill that fighter, or should I use the 'free' energy weapon and take longer to get the job done?

 

[Celebrim]

Does this partially come down to how ship flying and combat work? If you have a single character who is the lone pilot, navigator and gunner, everyone else takes a backseat.

In any science fiction game with a focus on space ships, that's certainly a consideration. But there is more to than that. Not only does everyone need something to do, but everyone needs to be making decisions. Imagine a hypothetical system in which someone has to make an engineering check every round to determine how many 'initiative points' or 'power points' or whatever are available on that round. Clearly this is an important position, and it will be important to have a character that is very skilled in engineering. But in terms of engagement by the player, this system does absolutely nothing for the engineer, because all the player experiences each round is making a per forma role that could be made by anyone at the table. His character is contributing via his skill, but the player himself doesn't have the experience of contributing.

Compare that experience with a typical fantasy tactical combat game where the player has to decide what action to take on his turn and you'll see the difference. To fix the system, the engineer needs not only to have the job of making some roll, but a job of deciding what to do with the ship's engineering resources.

If the ship has tasks equal to the number of players, everyone has something to do. For example, the pilot handles position, orientation and evasion, and everyone else operates a weapon system (gun, missiles, etc). There could also be work for a medic, an engineer and/or counter-measures.

And again, that works only if there are decisions to be made for all the positions. Imagine you've got a guy whose job it is to fire the laser guns. His character is contributing, but how is he contributing? Note the very different experience of manning a laser turret in a PnP RPG versus manning a laser turret in a first person shooter style video game. In one the player contributes through his player skill at tracking and selecting targets. In the other, he can be replaced by an automated dice roller.

Another twist would be having more tasks than players, and they have to pick and choose which weapons to use, or what to repair, or if they are flying or on auto-pilot.

Or each "seat" in the ship has to choose between one of several tasks to perform on that turn.

UPDATE: Wednesday Boy keeps beating me to the punch on this.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

UPDATE: Wednesday Boy keeps beating me to the punch on this.

But your words are gooder than mine.

 

[CataAttaste]

Best rules for a space trading game

thanks for putting up the AAR Steve and thanks for the game as we discussed, the only issue i had with the list is the Defilers. 250 points four 4 is a little cheap the the flexibility and abilities of the formation...they are the same price as a SM predator or devastator formations and i would take the Defilers over them any time...

 

[Eltab]

I've played a Traveler economics game solo and run 20 years into the future with it. My character was semi-optimized around Broker and Liaison skills, headed towards "Merchant Corp CEO" career.
I combined a whole bunch of not-quite-compatible versions with _Merchant Prince_ as the core rules and _Nth Interstellar War_ as the setting.

Don't try this with a group (I'm a number-crunching nut) - but you could work out a month ahead and use that for "what the background world/universe is doing" while the PCs get involved in an adventure.

Traveler's 'Type A Free Trader' was designed to be an adventurer's ship, and provide plenty on onboard plot hooks. Whatever rules you find - or, I think, build yourself - should make that type of ship the primary combatant.
The Navy's ships should be so big and overpowering, you just have to narrate "Everybody else has detected the big blip on their sensors, too; the bad guys and pirates scatter and run away at high speed; one is blown to smithereens to encourage the others to skedaddle pronto and not come back".

 

[MarkB]

In any science fiction game with a focus on space ships, that's certainly a consideration. But there is more to than that. Not only does everyone need something to do, but everyone needs to be making decisions. Imagine a hypothetical system in which someone has to make an engineering check every round to determine how many 'initiative points' or 'power points' or whatever are available on that round. Clearly this is an important position, and it will be important to have a character that is very skilled in engineering. But in terms of engagement by the player, this system does absolutely nothing for the engineer, because all the player experiences each round is making a per forma role that could be made by anyone at the table. His character is contributing via his skill, but the player himself doesn't have the experience of contributing.

Compare that experience with a typical fantasy tactical combat game where the player has to decide what action to take on his turn and you'll see the difference. To fix the system, the engineer needs not only to have the job of making some roll, but a job of deciding what to do with the ship's engineering resources.

This can be ameliorated somewhat by giving characters special abilities that can contribute to their performances of such tasks - limited per-combat capabilities which must be deployed tactically for maximum effect. But the other issue, and one related to this, is that if you're using a character-building system with any kind of specialised skills, talents or abilities, and you're trying to run a game which includes both shipboard and personal skills, players end up specialising in one area or another.

That was my experience with most Star Wars Saga Edition games I ran. There were the specialised pilots and gunners who had lots to do during space combat, but were out of their element the moment they left the ship, and then there were the ones specialised for personal combat or stealth and tactics, who were really great on planets, but had to twiddle their thumbs during space battles.

So, aside from giving people meaningful things to do during space combat, you also need to find ways to allow them to apply their skillset to the problem. One way to do that in a dedicated space-trading game would be to give each character a separate progression in personal skills and ship-based skills, so that they don't need to - and can't - completely specialise in one or the other, but have capabilities in both.

 

[Morrus]

It's not that hard.

- Every character can perform any function (though some might be better at some)
- The options outweigh the number of characters - a ship might have 10+ actions available
- Characters have unique powers/abilities they can use in combat
- Combat should be fast and NPC ship turns should be quick
- Simultaneuous events should occur aboard ship

It's what I did in NEW.

 

[MarkB]

It's not that hard.

- Every character can perform any function (though some might be better at some)
- The options outweigh the number of characters - a ship might have 10+ actions available
- Characters have unique powers/abilities they can use in combat
- Combat should be fast and NPC ship turns should be quick
- Simultaneuous events should occur aboard ship

It's what I did in NEW.

It's a good approach, but as Wednesday Boy previously mentioned, while simultaneous ship-board events can often enhance a battle, having a boarding action or an imminent warp-core breach or a ruptured plasma conduit happen every single time the ship goes into combat can start to stretch credibility and feel very artificial. Giving players obvious make-work isn't really any more satisfying than giving them rote mechanical tasks.

 

[Morrus]

It's a good approach, but as Wednesday Boy previously mentioned, while simultaneous ship-board events can often enhance a battle, having a boarding action or an imminent warp-core breach or a ruptured plasma conduit happen every single time the ship goes into combat can start to stretch credibility and feel very artificial. Giving players obvious make-work isn't really any more satisfying than giving them rote mechanical tasks.

Well, any adventure is make-work. You just have to sell it well!

You don't do that with every battle, of course. That was only one of the five things I suggested. Mainly, making space battles fast and dramatic (just like most land battles) is the way to go. Any combat which drags on for two hours can get tedious, starship or no.

 

[outlander78]

Thanks for all the good advice. I plan on making land-based adventures non-existent. By limiting the interactions to trading and space-based combat, it should give players a limited set of skills to focus on developing.