Why do RPGs have rules?

[AbdulAlhazred]

You've been playing it poorly, then. It can, for a pure cargo J1 design, make reasonable money. Passengers are a liability and financial drain. If you get a ship in CGen, sell it. Use it as capital to build a pure-cargo 300 or 400 Td Bk2 ship, and it's going to average a few hundred credits per cargo ton.
Use J2, and you triple the number of destinations. Always go where the mods are best. Always use a broker.
Short routes can be generally profitable to the level of Cr100 to 200 per ton, after salaries, op costs, monthly payment, fuel, and docking fees.
A pure cargo J1 >199 Td ship can make do on freight alone; costs are Cr800 per Td on a 14 day schedule.
Add a factor at either end, and a warehouse, and you can get this down to Cr700 per cargo Td... via a 10 day schedule. If doing LASH the costs are a bit higher, but you can get a 9 day schedule... and push the costs down even further. You do, however, need 3 lighters for one ship on a good run.

Two system LASH route:
Lighter 1 is on ship, Lighter 3 and ship on world A; lighter 2 on world B.
Week 1: ship (with lighter 1 full) goes to world B. World B factor loads lighter 2. Factor at A looks for a bargain.
Day 8: ship swaps lighter 1 for 2 at B.
Day 9-17: ship jumps for B, Factor at A fills lighter 3. B Factor looks for bargain at B
Day 17, ship arrives at A, swaps lighter 2 for lighter 3.
day 18 jump for B
Day 26, swap for a refilled lighter 1, leave 3
Day 27, jump for A
and so on. Note that the 8th day is to allow for the listed time variability, the extra day for loading the fuel, doing the nav.


There's a JTAS article about how to pick your route.

Now, if one is willing to tramp, sooner or later, under book 2, you get a good run, and instead of a "pay the bills and grow the speculation fund" you get a sudden large influx. I've had several cases where crews worked up to a couple MCr in the spec fund, and that with each PC getting one shar of the profits, the ship's fund getting 2. Do note: one needs about KCr100 to be able to leverage the speculative trade effectively for a Type A; about KCr150 for a

If you are using B7 characters with Bk2, Trader skill 1 allows you to see 1d of the 2d on the Actual Value Table before committing. This makes it far more likely to not sell at a loss. At Trader 3, take the couple hours to find out which destination has the best sum of 1st die roll and modifiers.

If using book 7, you don't have the spikes in base value, due to the uniform price, but the margin is, with broker 1 and trader 1, often about Cr1400 gross increase, for about Cr300 per ton profit. Bk7 is the default for MT, TNE, T4, and T5; T20 is a Bk2 variant. GT is its own thing, and GTFT is yet another thing. MgT (Mongoose) is yet another thing unto itself, but like Bk2, speculation and tramping maximize profits.

Yeah, I get that the actual trading rules (each edition of Traveller seems to have rewritten them) don't quite meet the ideal I was outlining, but its not actually far off. If you employ a bunch of clever tactics, you can make money, or you can get lucky and make money. The later is not at all guaranteed in the old CT77 rules! I mean, on average you will probably make it, but frankly, the smartest thing to do if you get the FT is go sell it. Anyway, the main point is, realism isn't especially the object of the trading rules. They are good for portraying the story of a fairly dangerous, but possibly lucrative, itinerant way of life that will likely produce some action and often leads hard up PCs to beg around TAS or some starport dive for patrons, who will pay them to do something 'unusual'.

 

[pemerton]

[polite cough] Um, you're describing a rule. You know, the thing @pemerton said was a "needless intermediary."

I didn't say a rule per se is a needless intermediary. I said "here" - ie the idea that a rule informs us about the fiction of ensnaring horses with web spells. My suggestion is that we just cut to the imagination.

A rule of the sort that @AbdulAlhazred described has a clear purpose: to resolve potential disagreements between imaginers.

 

[clearstream]

I'm not entirely sure if countability here even applies, as we are not operating with numbers. I'd say the set of all possible transcripts from an RPG campaign is a countable infinity, as, say, representing each as Unicode chars is an injecture function that would map transcripts to natural numbers, but I'm unconvinced it is important.

Overnight I figured out what the issue is (and you are right that so far as I can see it turns out not to turn on the type of infinity.)

The solution is suggested by hotel infinities. (How do you check new guests into an infinite hotel? Ask the current guests to all move along one room.) One perspective on E is to define it from an atemporal perspective: over all time, E is infinitely large and contains all S. Hotel infinities suggest another perspective.

At any time T on Earth, the size of E is equal to the size of all the S's currently checked-in to E. Some S can be infinite in size, but that shouldn't matter here. Over the whole Universe E might be infinitely large at T, but from an Earth-person's perspective, with access only to the S's of Earth, at time T' I can always check a new S into E.

At T' I can check a new S into E, which seeing as S can have constitutive rules introducing new possibilities, expands it! Thus, from a temporal perspective, there is always worth in adding S's. From my time-bound perspective, the added constitutive rules can open up new possibilities.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You've been playing it poorly, then. It can, for a pure cargo J1 design, make reasonable money. Passengers are a liability and financial drain. If you get a ship in CGen, sell it. Use it as capital to build a pure-cargo 300 or 400 Td Bk2 ship, and it's going to average a few hundred credits per cargo ton.
Use J2, and you triple the number of destinations. Always go where the mods are best. Always use a broker.
Short routes can be generally profitable to the level of Cr100 to 200 per ton, after salaries, op costs, monthly payment, fuel, and docking fees.
A pure cargo J1 >199 Td ship can make do on freight alone; costs are Cr800 per Td on a 14 day schedule.
Add a factor at either end, and a warehouse, and you can get this down to Cr700 per cargo Td... via a 10 day schedule. If doing LASH the costs are a bit higher, but you can get a 9 day schedule... and push the costs down even further. You do, however, need 3 lighters for one ship on a good run.

Two system LASH route:
Lighter 1 is on ship, Lighter 3 and ship on world A; lighter 2 on world B.
Week 1: ship (with lighter 1 full) goes to world B. World B factor loads lighter 2. Factor at A looks for a bargain.
Day 8: ship swaps lighter 1 for 2 at B.
Day 9-17: ship jumps for B, Factor at A fills lighter 3. B Factor looks for bargain at B
Day 17, ship arrives at A, swaps lighter 2 for lighter 3.
day 18 jump for B
Day 26, swap for a refilled lighter 1, leave 3
Day 27, jump for A
and so on. Note that the 8th day is to allow for the listed time variability, the extra day for loading the fuel, doing the nav.


There's a JTAS article about how to pick your route.

Now, if one is willing to tramp, sooner or later, under book 2, you get a good run, and instead of a "pay the bills and grow the speculation fund" you get a sudden large influx. I've had several cases where crews worked up to a couple MCr in the spec fund, and that with each PC getting one shar of the profits, the ship's fund getting 2. Do note: one needs about KCr100 to be able to leverage the speculative trade effectively for a Type A; about KCr150 for a

If you are using B7 characters with Bk2, Trader skill 1 allows you to see 1d of the 2d on the Actual Value Table before committing. This makes it far more likely to not sell at a loss. At Trader 3, take the couple hours to find out which destination has the best sum of 1st die roll and modifiers.

If using book 7, you don't have the spikes in base value, due to the uniform price, but the margin is, with broker 1 and trader 1, often about Cr1400 gross increase, for about Cr300 per ton profit. Bk7 is the default for MT, TNE, T4, and T5; T20 is a Bk2 variant. GT is its own thing, and GTFT is yet another thing. MgT (Mongoose) is yet another thing unto itself, but like Bk2, speculation and tramping maximize profits.

For the first time ever I find myself wishing I could actually play a game of Traveller because the techniques you're describing for making a profit sound pretty fun! Like the old school Starlight game.

 

[clearstream]

To be uncountable a set must have a cardinal number larger than that of the set of natural numbers. We'd have to establish this for E in order to know, but I am not sure E has a well defined generator. Since S seems to not have one either I am not sure we can really say much here... Still I'm not a terribly good mathematician!

That's basically my intuition. E is defined as a set of all possibilities. In terms of the count of possibilities they contain, S's are of unknown size. Maybe some S's will contribute infinite possibilities to E... maybe most of them will!

E has a matching set that is countable, which is the set of S's by identity. @pemerton some of your posts might have switched to considering this set, which I agree is a countable infinity. I'm not sure if that means E itself is countable, or if the unknown number of possibilities each S contributes must make E uncountable.

Fortunately, new constitutive rules can be justified from another angle: suggested by hotel infinities.

 

[pemerton]

There's an infinite set E, that contains everything, everything, Super Everything possible in a roleplaying game, from defeating princesses to rescuing dragons to finding love to getting shot in the face to randomly dying from complications of teeth cavities. If you can think of it, it is included in E.

There's an infinite set S that contains everything possible in a particular system. Let's suppose there's an event o, o ∈ S, but o ∉ E. So, the system allows for a thing that is not possible in roleplaying game. Yeah, impossible, so S⊂E, or, in other words, a system cannot grant you any more freedom that you already have, only take it away. Chat calls it Loverdrive Theorem, and I am egotistical enough to accept such name.

At any time T on Earth, the size of E is equal to the size of all the S's currently checked-in to E. Some S can be infinite in size, but that shouldn't matter here. Over the whole Universe E might be infinitely large at T, but from an Earth-person's perspective, with access only to the S's of Earth, at time T I can always check a new S into E.

At T' I can check a new S into E, which seeing as S can have constitutive rules introducing new possibilities, expands it! Thus, from a temporal perspective, there is always worth in adding S's. From my time-bound perspective, the added constitutive rules can open up new possibilities.

If you redefine what E is, then of course there may not be a true theorem that is parallel to Loverdrive Theorem but with the new E substituted in.

That doesn't put any pressure on Loverdrive Theorem.

E is the set of all imaginable things - "if you can think of it, it is included in E". E is not confined to all the things ever thought of or all the things ever thought of as topics of RPGs or even all the things that anyone might be led to think of by applying some presently-known S.

Naturally I can't point to any member of E that has not yet been imagined, but I think that is a consequence of the pragmatics of pointing, not an interesting feature of the membership of E. (See Searle's famous essay on "Assertion".)[/QUOTE]

 

[aramis erak]

You're annoyed about some potential instances of coincidence. Moments of contrivance. Yet you're perfectly fine with your world revolving around the gaming activities that you want it to.... that killing things and taking their loot is not only viable, but common. A contrived world.

Many times and places historically had lawless periods...
The American west roughly 1870-1895.
China during the Boxer Rebellion.
Any of several Japanese civil wars in the disputed lands.
Portions of England in the 5th to 9th centuries (largely to Germanic invasions.)
Anywhere just past Rome's borders... keeping in mind that the borders kept expanding by anywhere arable being granted to veterans who first had to evict or coöpt locals.
Much of the "Spanish Main" other than Cuba, Hispañola and Puerto Rico during the mid 19th C. Especially given that not a few confederate officers fled south to avoid the "Reconstruction."
Much of the Middle East between 1400 and 1800... tho' the core of Persia and the core of Arabia.

Yeah, I get that the actual trading rules (each edition of Traveller seems to have rewritten them) don't quite meet the ideal I was outlining, but its not actually far off. If you employ a bunch of clever tactics, you can make money, or you can get lucky and make money. The later is not at all guaranteed in the old CT77 rules!

I did the math using 1977 rules. And 1981. And mongoose. Nothing with dice involved is guaranteed, but the game's trade system is designed to be profitable.

It's really a shame so many people will see posts like yours and assume it doesn't work out.
It does... if you run it smartly. It takes thought and effort. Only a little luck. The law of large numbers applies.

It is, after all, one of the modes intended to be played solitare.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But that kind of thing can happen. I can certainly understand how if it happens all the time, it can put some folks off, but I would make two comments on that.

One, I don't think that the story now type games I play have a very high instance of this. It's not about things somehow in some unexpected way connecting back to the characters... it's about the characters actively seeking out the things they seek out. No one watches Kill Bill and wonders why the Bride is always running into the people who betrayed her, do they? Shes actively seeking them out!

Second, I think that whatever happens instead of the perceived contrived thing is just as likely to be contrived. So instead of arriving in town with a specific goal in mind, the party arrives with nothing in mind... but then things come up! Because of course they do. Hooks spring up all about... (A) this NPC has a favor to request, (B) and that NPC has lore about a nearby site, and (C) another wants his brother rescued from the Brotherhood of the Ebon Hand. If we don't go to the nearby caves, eventually the goblins will attack the town!

No one's worried about the fact that strange things always happen when the PCs are around! That's all considered happenstance and isn't contrived at all!

My view is that the PCs are gonna do interesting things. There are going to be events happening no matter what.... that's the point of play.

I don't know why people keep getting so emotionally defensive on this thread, interjecting remarks like "I don't think that the story now type games I play have a very high instance of this" into discussions on what contrivance is as well as the larger discussion on what rules are for. You think your game is pretty simulationist, fairly free from contrived coincidences? Fine. I'm not there so I'm willing to take your word for it. But if you tell me that you arrange coincidences like (A), (B), and (C), then I expect you to respond to the observation that "those seem like pretty unlikely coincidences" with one of two things:

1.) "No, the game world is really chaotic and those kinds of things happen all the time to everyone in every town, regardless of the PCs' presence or absence"; or

2.) "Yeah, it's a bit contrived. It makes for a fun game though."

Why not just admit the truth and say, "yeah, verisimilitude took a back seat to other concerns here"? Why the defensiveness and denial?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I didn't say a rule per se is a needless intermediary. I said "here" - ie the idea that a rule informs us about the fiction of ensnaring horses with web spells.

I said rules are needed to add predictability, so that Q&A with the GM isn't needed, and you contradicted that.

If you think that having a rule that says to roll dice, add modifiers, and use the result to select between the player's imagination and the GM's imagination (basically extreme FKR play) doesn't reduce the need for Q&A, you've missed the point. By knowing the modifiers you at least know the probability that your Web spell will "work" as ideally as you hope. Without that rule you wouldn't have that knowledge.

It's not necessarily a very good rule if you would like simulationist tactical play--the way that probabilities unfold may feel wonky and bizarre--but at least it's better than not even knowing if the GM is going to give you wonky and bizarre probabilities. Specifically it's better from a roleplaying standpoint to have some knowledge (as a player) of things your character should be an expert in (how Web works).

 

[clearstream]

The group could talk it out, but you've missed the point: talking (Q&A) takes longer than thinking, which increases the cognitive separation between player and character.

You're a wizard with 12 spells including Defensive Teleport, Earthen Grasp, Web, Explosive Lightning Bolt, and Magic Missile. You're in an underground shelter of some kind fighting four giant spiders. If you have to Q&A with the GM or the entire group about whether Explosive Lightning Bolt can be used underground or would be able to kill an average sized horse instantly, how much Earthen Grasp would tire you out to cast and how likely a horse (as proxy for a giant spider) would be to escape from it, how big of a web comes out of Web and how long it would hold a horse and whether you could aim it precisely enough to leave your allies unaffected, etc., etc., it's going to take a looong time for you to figure out something your character can reason out in mere moments: which spells are a good fit in this situation. If you know the rules for these spells, however, you'll be on a pretty even footing with your character and can make good, in-character decisions without having to ask more than a couple questions of the GM like "are they bigger than horses?"

One thing rules can do, also, is crystallise the intended internal causes, internal logic of the world, or whatever one wants to call it. And then those can be playtested. When rules are playtested it very often happens that what folk had in mind initially doesn't work out very well over a range of cases. Rules allow the methods to be playtested.