A Simple Trade System

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I said that I wanted Crowfield to play like Traveller in some ways. One of those ways is that I want the player characters to be able to be merchant traders.

D&D characters are often “murder-hobos”: unemployed wanderers that roam around from town to town looking for victims to kill in order to take the victim’s stuff. For some reason, this is okay if the victim is an orc.

I think the story would be richer if the characters were instead wandering merchants with Crowfield as a home base. While the ultimate goal is to bring in enough grain to keep Crowfield’s population alive, maybe that is accomplished indirectly: the characters bring in gold which is taxed, and Lord Crowfield uses those taxes to buy grain from another oasis. While the characters attempt to build trade routes, adventures will find them. The adventure might be bandits that try to rob the caravan, or a traditional dungeon style adventure where the characters are tempted by rooms of forgotten treasures.

The Traveller System

Traveller’s system was fun, but a little silly at times. It worked something like this (going from memory here, so I might get it wrong):

1. The GM rolls randomly to see what goods are available. Oddly enough, the goods in question might have nothing to do with the world that the player is on. For example, the roll might indicate that the players found someone willing to sell them 10 tons of water on a desert world! (This hypothetical desert world is not called Tatooine.)
2. The cost of the available goods are then determined by random die roll with modifications for character skill and the world’s trade classifications. In Traveller worlds might be classified as rich, poor, industrial, agricultural, desert, etc. So for our desert world above, the price of water would be modified upwards (though if the character had a high Bribery skill that could bring the price down).
3. Assuming that the character buys the goods, he transports them to the next world.
4. The value of those goods on that world is randomly determined following the same procedure as step 2. For example if the player takes the water from the desert world to a water world (which isn’t named Naboo or Kamino), the value of the water will probably decrease.

While the trade given above was bad, the smart player would see a water world near a desert world and instantly smell the potential profit to be made by buying the water cheap at the water world and selling at the desert world.

It’s a fun, simple system, but it requires the GM to go through a lot to determine the planets’ trade classifications.

The GURPS Traveller: Far Trader System

Eventually GURPS got a license for Traveller. In their trade system they pointed out the simple reality of supply and demand: If someone notices that Supmol the Trader is getting rich by bringing in water, they’re eventually going to follow him (or bribe his employees, or something) to figure out where he’s getting it from. Then they will go there and offer a little more for it and then come back and sell it for a little less. That will make Supmol do the same, and eventually the massive profit is wiped away.

This is much more realistic, but a lot less fun.

Fortunately, information doesn't travel as freely in the ancient past as in the far future. This is why the traders of Crowfield go to great lengths to keep their trade routes secret.

The Crowfield System

I like the Traveller system, but to use it you need to determine everything about a planet/oasis first.  That's more work than I want to do. So I’m going to flip it upside-down and make it simpler.

For each oasis, roll on the table below six times:

1. The first roll is an item that the oasis has an abundant oversupply of. The item(s) in this category can generally be purchased for 75% of their typical value.
2. The next roll is an item that is in a state of oversupply. These can typically sell for a 10% discount compared to normal “price list” costs.
3. This is another oversupplied item.
4. Now we roll for an item that’s in demand. Naturally these items will fetch 10% over normal prices.
5. Then we roll for a second undersupplied item.
6. Finally we roll for item that’s in critical demand; these items will sell for 125% of the list price.

If rolls are duplicated, just adjust accordingly. So if Rolls 2 & 3 come up with the same good, treat that good as being in abundant oversupply. Something that’s in oversupply and demand cancel each other out (or you can get interesting: we sell apples cheap, but we pay premium for grapes!).

Knowing what an oasis has and needs tells you a lot about the place.  This can be used to color the town's history and culture.

Players can spend a week observing the local area to make a roll against their merchant talent in order to determine which items are in supply and demand, find a supplier/buyer, etc.

The Crowfield Goods table

1. armor
2. bricks
3. candles
4. coal/charcoal
5. cheese
6. chests/barrels
7. clay
8. cloth (linen)
9. coral
10. dyes (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black)
11. fish
12. flint
13. fowl (chicken, geese, ducks)
14. fruits (olives, grapes, apples, pears, berries)
15. furniture
16. furs (raised)
17. furs (trapped; high quality)
18. gemstones (diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, etc)
19. glass
20. grains (wheat, rye, rice, oats, barely)
21. herbs/spices
22. honey
23. ivory
24. leather
25. livestock (cattle, goats, sheep)
26. lumber
27. medicines
28. metal ores (lead, tin, copper, iron, silver, gold)
29. metals (lead, tin, copper, iron, silver, gold)
30. oil
31. ores (for dyes)
32. pearls
33. pottery
34. riding stock (camels, horses)
35. rope/twine/string
36. salt
37. sap/tar/pitch
38. shells
39. silk
40. stone (granite, marble, etc)
41. vegetables (um, what are vegetables?)
42. vessels (wagons, river boat, etc)
43. wax
44. weapons
45. wine (ale, beer, liquor, wine)
46. wood (cedar, oak, pine)
47. wool
48. yarn
49. NOTHING
50. ROLL TWICE

That’s it

That’s all there is to it. What do you think?

More importantly, can you think of any other items for me to add to the list?