Re: Speculative Trade; Trading Campaigns

In Archive-Message-Number: 257, Adrian Hurt [email removed] says

>I'd go for vacuum, on the grounds that if the ship gets attacked, the cargo
>hold will be depressurised like the rest of the ship. Unless the crew want to
>risk explosive decompression, that is.

	Actually, one of the reasons for listing special shipping
considerations is this situation.  If you've got a vacuum-sensitive
cargo, you have to take damage to it into account before depressurising
the ship.  If you've got a load of explosive material, you probably want
to think twice before fighting the pirates at all.  If 60 tons of frozen
gourmet dinners are thawing in the hold, that temporary powerplant
malfunction is a lot more serious.  The whole idea is to add a little
variety and role-playing to the otherwise rather boring cycle of
buy-jump-sell-buy-jump-sell.  A side benefit for the referee is it also
gives you a legitimate way to cut into the players profits if the game
gets out of hand.  It's tough (for me) to run a campaign where all the
players are worth millions.  Losing a cargo occasionally can help
prevent this.

	Another problem I see with a trade-centered campaign is that most
of the players don't get to do anything.  Now that I'm running
MegaTraveller, I've got something for the engineer(s) to do (check the
rules for entering jump drive under the Engineer skill in the Player's
Manual), but what about everyone else.  Once my NPC generator is
completed, I can generate NPC passengers, and let the purser assign the
staterooms.  This will also make it a little less obvious when I slip in
a prepared NPC encounter.  I'm also considering, since I have 15mm scale
floor plans for their ship, to each time they prepare to leave port,
hand them scale cargo containers and let them arrange the cargo bay.
That way I can make use of a corrollary (sp?) of Murphy's Law - the
freight loaded furthest from the door belongs to the man who needs it
first.  Does any one have any further ideas?

	Getting back to my original posting, is anyone interested in
revamping the speculative trade system?  I've got a few entries into my
master cargo table ready.  If there is enough interest, I'll send them
to this list.  If not, I'll be happy to send them directly to anyone who
wants them.


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Mark Power				[email removed]
Health Information Systems
University of Alabama Hospital
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