Exactly. The 'just above desperate' level of society has been dissolved by the lack of corps. As much as we hate them, biz has that effect of linking people, opening the various middle classes to more and more people, and make money able to buy everything. One thing I keep seeing from the economist here is that he keeps having to say basically "Well you don't just 'walk into a shop' because there isn't really the kinds of shops you are thinking of anywhere"
I'm a new DM to TTRPGs in general running my first Cyberpunk campaign. Last week was session one, and I was woefully underprepped. I found your channel the next day and feel waaaaaaay better about it now. Thank you for what you do my dude.
I’m happy to help! Being a gm is a lifelong pursuit and the rewarding nature never ends. Remember to have fun! That’s the most important part. Happy gaming 🙏
Your edit for stealing and selling vehicles was exactly what I needed. My first session had my players wondering exactly that - why don't we just steal this car that this NPC PI is breaking in to? Thankfully I was able to get around figuring it out on the spot because our Nomad rolled real low to hotwire it and people started to gather around the PI they just murdered.
Ive been diving through with the intention of running red soon because ive been really wanting to lately and economy was one thing that never sat right in red for me. This interview basically painted the picture I was most afraid of, and thats the rookie mistake of trying to make a perfect economy. The mindset scares me for the future of Red. Dang.
This video is fantastic. James does a great job of explaining things simply and giving solid reasons for why things are the way they are. It really helps with understanding the game's mechanics, as well as how the in-game world functions with trading and bartering.
Great video! I was able to convice my players to try out cyberpunk red instead of d&d, so I bought and started reading the pdf and this video answered every question I had after reading through the rules.
This past Saturday my group's Rockerboy was away for the session. So, for a mission, I set up that their Fixer(an NPC that I use to give then jobs, keep in mind we're all new to this lol), found out that a Corp that the Rockerboy sings against has sent some hired goons to interrupt her concert. The group found the location of the Corpo who set up the goons with weapons and pay. Through a series of bad rolls and some good ones and some alleyway surgery by their Medtech they got more information. The Corpo's Wolvers were busted but she couldn't afford to get them fixed and they were painful all the time. So they traded a fix for the information on where the goons would meet before attacking. But the group's Netrunner did manage to get into the Corpo's laptop and find a file that said the same thing lol The group were able to set up an ambush against the goons who failed their rolls to find them. It was a slaughter lol
Yo, this was a great vid for me as I’m really struggling for making a gameable economy and after mainly playing DnD esque games i find balancing cost VS power real frusterating and I’m loving this nuance :)
After watching this, I am now committed to not just using the listed pricing. Barter is nice, but money is the equalizer. If you have something I want but I have an odd amount of something you want (i.e. not enough to match value) then cash will be some form of single digits or not 100 or 500 increments.
I wonder how our gm tackles my great idea of blackmailing Watson Police chief (dude is bailing his son from major crimes and fucks around with crime rate reports to make him look good) My friend Lawman and me netrunner after 2 sessions managed to get reports of all his illegal actions. We met with Police Chief and gave him really simple deal that he will pay 10k eddies, he also has to stop his son from doing crime and has 3 months to lower crime rate to match his made up numbers or everything go to media and internal affairs of ncpd (lawman is actually part of IA department)
Even if the players are in a city with loads of cars, it might be hard to sell them to an actual dealer for a fair price because they would have no proof of ownership. Such as their license, registration, or perhaps because of the scarcity vehicles might be linked to a citizens' SIN number for security purposes 🤔
How about working with a Fixer player to have a successful night market as a part of going from 4 to 5. Save up the xp, have the Fixer call other Fixers and make arrangements, run the night market, and throw in some hooligans or a heist. For the really devious Fixer, they can even set up the heist!
man, it seems no matter how well crafted or well intended a fantasy economy system is; it never survives contact with player agency. At best it's a challenging nuanced hurdle for beginning levels of play only; at worst it becomes such a focus that it completely derails fun and progression. I've been trying to abstract spending money (to varying levels of success) by tracking personal wealth (pocket change) on how lavish the characters look, behave, tip, etc... that gives them situational play bonuses; and campaign wealth as money that is needed for progression and long term mechanical upgrades and items which are usually tied to varying levels of missions or personal favors. I've tried to present that abstraction as a party stat that grows and depletes through play without it being a bank account number. On a related note, I have combined some of the aspects of the character role abilities (rockerboy, media, lawman, and fixer) into a street cred stat that is used by the party (eliminating the need for roles that aren't chosen by the party). Both I think have potential, but I havent quite hammered out all the kinks. Or I thihnk I get it and then my players use their agency to sledge hammer it back out of shape. IDK if it can be done better, but I'm always open to advice, but ecconomies as presented doesn't seem to jive with my games or players.
As to other currencies, I have been toying with the idea of having a payoff (extortion, whatever) from a disgruntled corp take the form of a briefcase of U.S. dollars as a 'screw you' from the payer. Local vendors won't take them and they can't just go to a bank without unwanted scrutiny. Leaving them to sell the paper to a Nomad with Bos-Wash connections at a steep discount.
Wait! So do GMs not allow starting characters to start a character with an assault rifle. The guide seems to indicate you can get anything you can afford in the start. 2550 eb allows some pricey starts.
I think it's more that during play you can't just go buy an assault rifle easily without a Fixer. That being said you'll probably easily find a poor quality one on a mook you ice.
So as much as I love James Hutt and his advice he is sadly very wrong about the player/GM dynamic. If you start intentionally screwing over your players then you will end up ruining peoples faith in not only you but also the game. I've seen it happen too often with amateur Game Masters and it just shows the amateurish mindset of him. Be clever when messing with your players and hurt them but not to the point that they feel isolated. If they have some old tech that they are repairing have someone be selling a knockoff which has "devalued" that old tech. Then craft a story arc where over time they find out who is responsible, hunt them down and have a chance at clearing the slate. It keeps players engaged and gives them a distraction to extend the repair time without them realizing that you are screwing them over. The pricing advice was fantastic and very helpful for balancing my economy. I do need to point out that hustle and crafting are not mutually exclusive. The mutually exclusive parts are the healing and hustle which is stated in the book.
Loved the video. I'm just starting Cyberpunk stuff and this whole channel has been invaluable. OP, or anyone else, got any recommendations from the 2020 edition for books that'd have a nice appeal to someone playing RED? That Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads title. Another video said Home of the Brave. Not gonna buy a bunch of books rn, but later if I really like this whole thing. :)
No idea if you guys are still responding here but... What about players making simple items like molotov cocktails, improvised pistols (Viet Cong style), monkey fists (not the keychain kind) and such? How would these weapons be handled? Molotovs are fairly easy to make and were a favorite for guerrilla fighters for a long while, for example.
A techie can make all of these items with their special ability "Maker". But I would allow my players to make improvised weapons with some Basic Tech/Weapons tech rolls.
Out of all things mention in this video, what really strikes me is I think for people live like Botto, (if I typed his name correctly) it should have an effect on their mental health if not psychical health, if their eating like shit, and living like shit it should be reflected in their stats, but that's just me
Bato from ghost in the shell. And he is a military cyborg that works for an anti-terror government organisation that once had to implant his adult coworkers mind into a childs robot body after she merged with a sentient AI. He has a lot worse psychological issues than "is lonely and bored". Hell at one point he gets his eyes hacked and shoots up a corner store of innocent people. No one died but that might be worse. He also goes out on boats and watches his coworker, who weighs several hundred kilos of metal, risk sinking and instantly dying while she goes diving. He drinks beer and listens to the radio in his free time. Think like zen.
"Scarcity world" - explain the pricing of sledgehammers, crow bars and lead pipes vs SMGs and ARs..... Construction sites would need military guards. I get the game balance aspect but when the game systems defining statement is "sty)e over substance" you're directly at odds between mechanics and vision. Red is a well balanced system and a fun game to play. It is also rhe antithesis of style over substance.
out of curiosity if vehicles are rare how the does night city feed itself? it has a population in the millions during the time of the red WHERE IS THE FOOD COMING FROM?!? HOW IS IT BEING TRANSPORTED THROUGHOUT THE CITY!?!
@@JonJonTheWise Night city has a population in the millions even during the red "Nomads" aint feeding that many people certainly not on the daily and if in some way they are that needs to be shown in the lore WAY WAY harder
S.K.U.B. Algae farms. Soy substitutes. Synthetic nutrients made by Biotek. Kibble is made everywhere and its cheap. Cheaper than nutrient paste packs labeled "FOOD" Was in 2020 i assume its the same in red just worse. And nomad with a convoy of hundreds of trucks and cars can ship expanding nutrients that mix together but start rotting if they mix. Chem 1 plus chem 2 making protein 3. That can feed a lot. But you are right, they couldn't feed everyone all the time. Thats why people are starving. Even with corpos getting their private arcology farms with their real vegetables and real living animals. It's have and have not, and no matter how high you are you are always a have not. Nomad families are millionaires, maybe even billionaires in assets and have freedom unparalleled. But they dont have as much as a lean-to let alone a glass tower. Same thing with food. Nomads have cars, nomads have trucks, nomads have hundreds of other nomads. Nomads can deliver. Especially if its one side of a city to the other.
I disagree with fragmentation grenades being readily available to buy. Can you imagine walking into the local marketplace and buying a case of fragmentation grenades?
Your world is your own and you should do whatever you think is right. James is merely telling us how his world is. He's the one who helped make the game.
There are two obvious solutions. Limited stock, so there are only three grenades in the store. Or, the GM just doubled the amount of enemies you're about to face. :B
marketplace, probably not, but your local small-times arms dealer will probably have relatively easy access to at least a handful of grenades. The city is part warzone after all.
Static pricing in an anarchic setting is an absolutely absurd notion. The honest and good answer here would have been "look, we wanted to capitalize on the success that D&D 5e had by simplifying everything. In the realities of a scarce supply scenario and a free market, there would be price crashes for major shipments being delivered to the city, and massive price hikes if a large group started buying up lots of a particular item, because that's how supply and demand works. But, we don't think GMs or players generally want to deal with that, or have to go through long processes to haggle for better prices. Feel free to treat them as guidelines rather than an absolute if your table likes doing that sort of thing". But, it was an interesting interview and look at the justifications behind some design decisions. Thank you.
It was an interesting talk however the thing that boggles my mind is the pricing is based off of Monopoly?!? The pricing tiers with the exact cost is so limiting and has painted costs into a corner. Perfect example is the NET Arch. If I want to make a NET arch more difficult for my end game Netrunner (Interface8+) that runner will always have a less than 4% failure rate of cracking a password, control, or file. This is due to a) RAW has a max of DV12. b) Since DV12 is already at Super Luxury (highest price tier) IF in the future you allow a DV to go above 12, then a DV 18 (because you want to give that same Netrunner a challenge and giving that same runner a 20% failure rate) costs the same as a 12? Price tiers I get. Fine. It can make in game sense. Helps determine availability. Sure. Nice way to control/limit high tier equipment to players access. But to put an exact number on it? Now you are limiting your options. Another "game mechanic" that isn't logical with this methodology is I can make a item using Expensive materials, and double my money. For Very Expensive material I can make something worth 5 times the amount. I can use Very Expensive materials and only double my money again? So now, as a techie, I will only make things that give me the greatest yield in profit. Which means the 'makers" of the world are going to produce what makes the most profit for them and therefore those items in the double your money tier will now become rare as there's little money in making them. So economically these lower profit items would become even more rare and then contradicts the availability mechanic. Make a game system simple is for the game flow. As a referee you can hand wave some "cost of living" stuff as is done in other system. But even DnD 5th edition has pricing of gear all over the place and it isn't a hinderance to the system. Oh, and Bato has several safe houses throughout Japan. He lives simple currently, but has a lot of assets. And his safe house has some nice furniture and entertainment system.
So in the first half of the video, James specifies that it can take techies TONS of time to actually build the items they want, not to mention potential failures which further increases the tech's opportunity cost. Yes, techs can make bank off of the items they make, it may take them weeks or even months to build something worth while. For the NET Arch, I remember reading in the rulebook (don't remember where) That super luxury isn't capped at whatever value it says in the pricing table. For example, let's say a basic super luxury item is 10k eb. The book states that items can be much more expensive, and usually increase in chunks of 10k eb. Obviously you'd have to homebrew a price, but the steps to do it are right there. If I wanted a password with a DV of 16, I would ask my GM how much that would cost, and he could say something like 50k eb
The NET Arch is fucked, rare and expensive. It makes sense. Likely corporations have in house netrunners making it for a fraction of a cost. But due to massive scarcity post war/net collapse buying it/trading for it will make it cost these amounts since the demand for it is crazy high since the infrastructure is gone and you have to make everything from scratch.
Remember that you are in control of the game and homebrew is yours to to with what you want... also a High level net runner spent that ip to be good and succeed most of the time.
It is. But he's clear that he is deliberately doing it. It makes it super easy to game though. Full of exploits and requires GM fiat to shut it down, as he said.
![ILLSLICK - WINTER IS COMING [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dwTMeM1zIhQ/mqdefault.jpg)
"Common sense rules are better than anything I could write" is a level of genre- and self-awareness all writers should strive for.
Eddies are either monopoly money, or fallout caps. That's it.
If I had to choose between eating mayonnaise on toast for a month or clapping a gonk for $2000, I might just strap up.
Exactly. The 'just above desperate' level of society has been dissolved by the lack of corps. As much as we hate them, biz has that effect of linking people, opening the various middle classes to more and more people, and make money able to buy everything. One thing I keep seeing from the economist here is that he keeps having to say basically "Well you don't just 'walk into a shop' because there isn't really the kinds of shops you are thinking of anywhere"
Oh man, this was packed with tons of useful knowledge. Thanks for getting this put together and interviewing James!
No problem Choomba. I learned a lot too
I'm a new DM to TTRPGs in general running my first Cyberpunk campaign. Last week was session one, and I was woefully underprepped. I found your channel the next day and feel waaaaaaay better about it now. Thank you for what you do my dude.
I’m happy to help! Being a gm is a lifelong pursuit and the rewarding nature never ends. Remember to have fun! That’s the most important part. Happy gaming 🙏
Your edit for stealing and selling vehicles was exactly what I needed.
My first session had my players wondering exactly that - why don't we just steal this car that this NPC PI is breaking in to?
Thankfully I was able to get around figuring it out on the spot because our Nomad rolled real low to hotwire it and people started to gather around the PI they just murdered.
Ive been diving through with the intention of running red soon because ive been really wanting to lately and economy was one thing that never sat right in red for me.
This interview basically painted the picture I was most afraid of, and thats the rookie mistake of trying to make a perfect economy. The mindset scares me for the future of Red. Dang.
The good news is, you don’t have to run the economy rules as written. I’ve been running it closer to the 2020/2077 era. Works just fine
That point about using ammo as currency (around 49 minute mark) gave me a hankering adapt the rules for a Metro game
This video is fantastic. James does a great job of explaining things simply and giving solid reasons for why things are the way they are. It really helps with understanding the game's mechanics, as well as how the in-game world functions with trading and bartering.
Wow, this is REALLY helpful. This is exactly what I needed for my upcoming games, thanks Jon for another great video dude.
Glad to be of help Choom 🙏 happy gaming
Great video! I was able to convice my players to try out cyberpunk red instead of d&d, so I bought and started reading the pdf and this video answered every question I had after reading through the rules.
This past Saturday my group's Rockerboy was away for the session. So, for a mission, I set up that their Fixer(an NPC that I use to give then jobs, keep in mind we're all new to this lol), found out that a Corp that the Rockerboy sings against has sent some hired goons to interrupt her concert.
The group found the location of the Corpo who set up the goons with weapons and pay. Through a series of bad rolls and some good ones and some alleyway surgery by their Medtech they got more information. The Corpo's Wolvers were busted but she couldn't afford to get them fixed and they were painful all the time. So they traded a fix for the information on where the goons would meet before attacking.
But the group's Netrunner did manage to get into the Corpo's laptop and find a file that said the same thing lol
The group were able to set up an ambush against the goons who failed their rolls to find them. It was a slaughter lol
I LOVED this video. The detail in it is so helpful not just for usual game mechanics but for really engaging story.
Yo, this was a great vid for me as I’m really struggling for making a gameable economy and after mainly playing DnD esque games i find balancing cost VS power real frusterating and I’m loving this nuance :)
This is an amazing resource as a prospective CPR GM
After watching this, I am now committed to not just using the listed pricing. Barter is nice, but money is the equalizer. If you have something I want but I have an odd amount of something you want (i.e. not enough to match value) then cash will be some form of single digits or not 100 or 500 increments.
'If you're good at something, never do it for free.'
1:00:06 im running exec this helps so much.
I wonder how our gm tackles my great idea of blackmailing Watson Police chief (dude is bailing his son from major crimes and fucks around with crime rate reports to make him look good) My friend Lawman and me netrunner after 2 sessions managed to get reports of all his illegal actions. We met with Police Chief and gave him really simple deal that he will pay 10k eddies, he also has to stop his son from doing crime and has 3 months to lower crime rate to match his made up numbers or everything go to media and internal affairs of ncpd (lawman is actually part of IA department)
Even if the players are in a city with loads of cars, it might be hard to sell them to an actual dealer for a fair price because they would have no proof of ownership. Such as their license, registration, or perhaps because of the scarcity vehicles might be linked to a citizens' SIN number for security purposes 🤔
You will sell it too him for less than its worth.
Dealer needs to make a profit after all.
this was very interesting thank you
Hey dude, just discovered your content. I just wanted to comment to give some support for your awesome content.
Thank you so much 🙏 much love
How about working with a Fixer player to have a successful night market as a part of going from 4 to 5. Save up the xp, have the Fixer call other Fixers and make arrangements, run the night market, and throw in some hooligans or a heist. For the really devious Fixer, they can even set up the heist!
Another video to digest
Thanks jonjon
man, it seems no matter how well crafted or well intended a fantasy economy system is; it never survives contact with player agency. At best it's a challenging nuanced hurdle for beginning levels of play only; at worst it becomes such a focus that it completely derails fun and progression. I've been trying to abstract spending money (to varying levels of success) by tracking personal wealth (pocket change) on how lavish the characters look, behave, tip, etc... that gives them situational play bonuses; and campaign wealth as money that is needed for progression and long term mechanical upgrades and items which are usually tied to varying levels of missions or personal favors. I've tried to present that abstraction as a party stat that grows and depletes through play without it being a bank account number. On a related note, I have combined some of the aspects of the character role abilities (rockerboy, media, lawman, and fixer) into a street cred stat that is used by the party (eliminating the need for roles that aren't chosen by the party). Both I think have potential, but I havent quite hammered out all the kinks. Or I thihnk I get it and then my players use their agency to sledge hammer it back out of shape. IDK if it can be done better, but I'm always open to advice, but ecconomies as presented doesn't seem to jive with my games or players.
As to other currencies, I have been toying with the idea of having a payoff (extortion, whatever) from a disgruntled corp take the form of a briefcase of U.S. dollars as a 'screw you' from the payer. Local vendors won't take them and they can't just go to a bank without unwanted scrutiny. Leaving them to sell the paper to a Nomad with Bos-Wash connections at a steep discount.
Excellent video. It answered some concerns I had.
Him not using dial up and a potato mic would be killer
This is the best thing I've ever seen
❤️
So you've James and Cody on, how long til you have on the big man himself?
The big man is busy making games right now and taking a break from interviews. But im sure it'll happen. 😄
Wait! So do GMs not allow starting characters to start a character with an assault rifle. The guide seems to indicate you can get anything you can afford in the start. 2550 eb allows some pricey starts.
I allow my players to have anything that isn't exotic.
I think it's more that during play you can't just go buy an assault rifle easily without a Fixer. That being said you'll probably easily find a poor quality one on a mook you ice.
So as much as I love James Hutt and his advice he is sadly very wrong about the player/GM dynamic. If you start intentionally screwing over your players then you will end up ruining peoples faith in not only you but also the game. I've seen it happen too often with amateur Game Masters and it just shows the amateurish mindset of him. Be clever when messing with your players and hurt them but not to the point that they feel isolated. If they have some old tech that they are repairing have someone be selling a knockoff which has "devalued" that old tech. Then craft a story arc where over time they find out who is responsible, hunt them down and have a chance at clearing the slate. It keeps players engaged and gives them a distraction to extend the repair time without them realizing that you are screwing them over.
The pricing advice was fantastic and very helpful for balancing my economy. I do need to point out that hustle and crafting are not mutually exclusive. The mutually exclusive parts are the healing and hustle which is stated in the book.
Loved the video. I'm just starting Cyberpunk stuff and this whole channel has been invaluable. OP, or anyone else, got any recommendations from the 2020 edition for books that'd have a nice appeal to someone playing RED? That Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads title. Another video said Home of the Brave. Not gonna buy a bunch of books rn, but later if I really like this whole thing. :)
Those are great and also the night city source book, wildside, the chrome books, blackhands, neo tribes. All great books
No idea if you guys are still responding here but...
What about players making simple items like molotov cocktails, improvised pistols (Viet Cong style), monkey fists (not the keychain kind) and such? How would these weapons be handled? Molotovs are fairly easy to make and were a favorite for guerrilla fighters for a long while, for example.
A techie can make all of these items with their special ability "Maker". But I would allow my players to make improvised weapons with some Basic Tech/Weapons tech rolls.
@@JonJonTheWise How would you treat their damage? Would they be counted as incendiary grenades or something else?
@@RascaldeesV2 yes incendiary grenades, maybe smaller radius of effect. 5mx5m instead of 10mx10m
@@JonJonTheWise Gotcha. Are incendiary grenades in this universe typically white phosphorus? Thermite? Some other chemical compound?
@@RascaldeesV2 it is not specified in the book what type of incendiary it is. up to you
This seems like Mr. Hutt made a system that helps his lack of improv
Jon this it's very random but... you know how many kilometers of distance are between the Prescint #1 and Club Atlantis?.
No sorry I have no idea
So... I need to consider the game a light postcpocalyptic game rather than a straight near future action game.
You do whatever is good for you and your table
Out of all things mention in this video, what really strikes me is I think for people live like Botto, (if I typed his name correctly) it should have an effect on their mental health if not psychical health, if their eating like shit, and living like shit it should be reflected in their stats, but that's just me
Bato from ghost in the shell. And he is a military cyborg that works for an anti-terror government organisation that once had to implant his adult coworkers mind into a childs robot body after she merged with a sentient AI.
He has a lot worse psychological issues than "is lonely and bored". Hell at one point he gets his eyes hacked and shoots up a corner store of innocent people. No one died but that might be worse.
He also goes out on boats and watches his coworker, who weighs several hundred kilos of metal, risk sinking and instantly dying while she goes diving.
He drinks beer and listens to the radio in his free time. Think like zen.
Your awesome
Uh uh uh, it is spelled "yr'oue"
"Scarcity world" - explain the pricing of sledgehammers, crow bars and lead pipes vs SMGs and ARs.....
Construction sites would need military guards.
I get the game balance aspect but when the game systems defining statement is "sty)e over substance" you're directly at odds between mechanics and vision.
Red is a well balanced system and a fun game to play.
It is also rhe antithesis of style over substance.
Like, share, subscribe, comment. Cyberheads unite!
I appreciate the support choomba!
out of curiosity if vehicles are rare how the does night city feed itself? it has a population in the millions during the time of the red WHERE IS THE FOOD COMING FROM?!? HOW IS IT BEING TRANSPORTED THROUGHOUT THE CITY!?!
One word: Nomads
@@JonJonTheWise Night city has a population in the millions even during the red "Nomads" aint feeding that many people certainly not on the daily and if in some way they are that needs to be shown in the lore WAY WAY harder
S.K.U.B. Algae farms. Soy substitutes. Synthetic nutrients made by Biotek. Kibble is made everywhere and its cheap. Cheaper than nutrient paste packs labeled "FOOD"
Was in 2020 i assume its the same in red just worse.
And nomad with a convoy of hundreds of trucks and cars can ship expanding nutrients that mix together but start rotting if they mix.
Chem 1 plus chem 2 making protein 3.
That can feed a lot. But you are right, they couldn't feed everyone all the time. Thats why people are starving. Even with corpos getting their private arcology farms with their real vegetables and real living animals.
It's have and have not, and no matter how high you are you are always a have not. Nomad families are millionaires, maybe even billionaires in assets and have freedom unparalleled. But they dont have as much as a lean-to let alone a glass tower.
Same thing with food. Nomads have cars, nomads have trucks, nomads have hundreds of other nomads. Nomads can deliver. Especially if its one side of a city to the other.
I disagree with fragmentation grenades being readily available to buy. Can you imagine walking into the local marketplace and buying a case of fragmentation grenades?
Can you imagine getting throat punched by a prostitute with a cybersnake? I can.
Your world is your own and you should do whatever you think is right. James is merely telling us how his world is. He's the one who helped make the game.
There are two obvious solutions. Limited stock, so there are only three grenades in the store. Or, the GM just doubled the amount of enemies you're about to face. :B
marketplace, probably not, but your local small-times arms dealer will probably have relatively easy access to at least a handful of grenades. The city is part warzone after all.
Bo. Making a grenade is honestly not hard.
Static pricing in an anarchic setting is an absolutely absurd notion. The honest and good answer here would have been "look, we wanted to capitalize on the success that D&D 5e had by simplifying everything. In the realities of a scarce supply scenario and a free market, there would be price crashes for major shipments being delivered to the city, and massive price hikes if a large group started buying up lots of a particular item, because that's how supply and demand works. But, we don't think GMs or players generally want to deal with that, or have to go through long processes to haggle for better prices. Feel free to treat them as guidelines rather than an absolute if your table likes doing that sort of thing". But, it was an interesting interview and look at the justifications behind some design decisions. Thank you.
It was an interesting talk however the thing that boggles my mind is the pricing is based off of Monopoly?!? The pricing tiers with the exact cost is so limiting and has painted costs into a corner. Perfect example is the NET Arch. If I want to make a NET arch more difficult for my end game Netrunner (Interface8+) that runner will always have a less than 4% failure rate of cracking a password, control, or file. This is due to a) RAW has a max of DV12. b) Since DV12 is already at Super Luxury (highest price tier) IF in the future you allow a DV to go above 12, then a DV 18 (because you want to give that same Netrunner a challenge and giving that same runner a 20% failure rate) costs the same as a 12? Price tiers I get. Fine. It can make in game sense. Helps determine availability. Sure. Nice way to control/limit high tier equipment to players access. But to put an exact number on it? Now you are limiting your options. Another "game mechanic" that isn't logical with this methodology is I can make a item using Expensive materials, and double my money. For Very Expensive material I can make something worth 5 times the amount. I can use Very Expensive materials and only double my money again? So now, as a techie, I will only make things that give me the greatest yield in profit. Which means the 'makers" of the world are going to produce what makes the most profit for them and therefore those items in the double your money tier will now become rare as there's little money in making them. So economically these lower profit items would become even more rare and then contradicts the availability mechanic. Make a game system simple is for the game flow. As a referee you can hand wave some "cost of living" stuff as is done in other system. But even DnD 5th edition has pricing of gear all over the place and it isn't a hinderance to the system.
Oh, and Bato has several safe houses throughout Japan. He lives simple currently, but has a lot of assets. And his safe house has some nice furniture and entertainment system.
So in the first half of the video, James specifies that it can take techies TONS of time to actually build the items they want, not to mention potential failures which further increases the tech's opportunity cost. Yes, techs can make bank off of the items they make, it may take them weeks or even months to build something worth while. For the NET Arch, I remember reading in the rulebook (don't remember where) That super luxury isn't capped at whatever value it says in the pricing table. For example, let's say a basic super luxury item is 10k eb. The book states that items can be much more expensive, and usually increase in chunks of 10k eb. Obviously you'd have to homebrew a price, but the steps to do it are right there. If I wanted a password with a DV of 16, I would ask my GM how much that would cost, and he could say something like 50k eb
The NET Arch is fucked, rare and expensive. It makes sense. Likely corporations have in house netrunners making it for a fraction of a cost.
But due to massive scarcity post war/net collapse buying it/trading for it will make it cost these amounts since the demand for it is crazy high since the infrastructure is gone and you have to make everything from scratch.
Remember that you are in control of the game and homebrew is yours to to with what you want... also a High level net runner spent that ip to be good and succeed most of the time.
Mmmm...not sure I liked fixed values. It seems a lot of the economics is fudged and that strikes me as gamey and forced
It is. But he's clear that he is deliberately doing it. It makes it super easy to game though. Full of exploits and requires GM fiat to shut it down, as he said.
so 10 grenades are 100eb?
One grenade is 100eb. 10 bullets is 100eb
i should clarify its 10 bullets of AP rounds for 100eb