BUILD YOUR OWN WORLD Like what you see? Become the Master of your own Universe!

Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild

1001 Nights variant: birr and resources

Game rules - homebrew

Checking on the Coriolis Discord, I read that the publishers are OK with players recreating tables, figures and data from the RPG source material where the only purpose is the facilitation of playing their game and I hereby promise this is my only intent with this article. Here I've taken the Year Zero Engine to modify the Coriolis rules for my own games - Doctor Weather
Here I want to steal from Vaesen and replace the use of birr in the game with a resource system. Firstly because it's in keeping the simplification I'm going for across these house rules - a removal of bookkeeping at least - but secondly because it allows me to tie it in with the increased in-game value I'm trying to get with social status and character backgrounds.   A system of favours and debts
I'm going to work from the idea that, though there is an accepted currency in birr, as there is no central banking authority and no universal agreement that the Zenithian way of doing things is the one and only way, local acceptance of birr cannot be guaranteed. Instead, I'll work from the basis that an Arabian, early second millennium system is more likely to be accepted across the Horizon: hospitality can be assumed and that purchases are generally made as trades in goods, services or favours. Merchant and banking houses can act at a distance still and so people might use them as intermediaries but even without them even individuals can trade with what they have to offer.  

Purchasing goods as a PC

  All goods from the Core Rules now have a resource value to compare to your social status
If your social status is equal to or greater than something's resource value then you can be assumed to get it with relative ease in 'normal conditions' - i.e. you're in a civilised area and sellers of that kind of thing would be reasonably common enough.   Variations in resource value and purchasing power occur with circumstance  
ReputationWhere the GM thinks it reasonable, a character's local reputation is added to their social status.
  • If people like you more or think they owe you as a hero for saving them from some danger, for example, they may well go out of the way to give you more than you can afford to trade for normally
    • PCs should beware though, if they play on this too much they might see that good will drain away and their reputation drop again
  • If you are hated or distrusted for any reason then people won't take risks on you and your purchasing power may be less than it would otherwise be
ScarcityIn the middle of a desert, access to goods and service work by nature's laws, not by those of good society and no amount of social status might get you even a glass or water. Equally, you might be in an area where certain items rare elsewhere in the Horizon happen to be in abundance. The GM can apply a modifier to raise a normal resource value up or down, as befits the PCs' current location.
  JUMP TO CONTENTS  

Treasures and valuable items and favours

  One-off purchases can be made by trading valuable items and favours
Any item, service or favour can have a resource value. Maybe the PCs earned the favour of a local Dar or Dabaran, who's promised to help them out when they're in need; perhaps they received a diamond as payment for saving a merchant's life; maybe they have to consider selling their services as guards to a trade caravan in return for food and water. Whenever the PCs obtain a notable, one-off valuable the GM should give it a resource value. This valuable can then be traded in a one-time deal for something of the same resource value.   Do people give change?
Maybe. Birr is still in the game and someone might be able to give you a value 3 good plus the difference in birr for a value 4 item you give them. This could also be the source of a challenge for the PCs: the value 6 item they have might be just too hot for a plebeian merchant to deal with and she doesn't want to risk being mugged for it later.   JUMP TO CONTENTS  

Exchange rates and large debts, like that to a patron

This really needs playtesting - it's my starting idea   Working from Core Rules table 6.1 I can see what characters need to spend per segment to maintain their expected lifestyle. I shall then assign these lifestyle levels as an approximate amount that someone of each of the different social levels can access normally with their resources, without causing their personal (or family) economy any distress. The values approximately double with each level in status going up.  
Social statusWho they areLiving expenses from table 6.1 Core Rules
7Privileged with an influential archetypeExtrapolate to 20,000 birr
6Privileged10,000 birr - luxury living in an advanced environment
5Privileged with a problematic archetype
Stationary with an influential archetype
5,000 birr - luxury living in an ordinary environment
4Stationary2,500 - normal living in an advanced environment
3Stationary with a problematic archetype
Plebeian with an influential archetype
1,000 - normal living in an ordinary environment
2Plebeian500 birr - spartan living in an advanced environment
1Plebeian with a problematic archetypeExtrapolate down to 250 birr
  Checking through the equipment lists in the Cores Rules, this does seem to allow people to buy a reasonable range of goods at each level, restricting expensive items to higher social levels for everyday NPC.   The problem of ship debt getting into 1 to 2 million birr for an average class III ship means that the doubling in resource value probably needs to break at higher social levels - levels that might only be available to organisations rather than individuals though, so a change in rule could be explained away with that.  
Social statusApproximate purchasing power in birrExtrapolated, simplified exchange rates
102,000,000 - so could just acquire a good small ship without troubleFour level 9s
9500,000Four level 8s
8100,000Four level 7s
725,000Two level 6s
610,000Two level 5s
55,000Two level 4s
42,500Two level 3s
31,000Two level 2s
2500Two level 1s
1250
  So let's say your party had a ship worth one level 10 resource. To pay that debt off to their patron they'd have to go on missions and earn goods, services and favours to the tune of:
  • Four level 9 resources
  • Or 16 level 8s
  • 64 level 7s
  • 128 level 6s - they'd have to accumulate the equivalent of the personal favours of 128 average privileged people
  Maybe this is something that they could acquire over the period of a good, long campaign...   But yes, this would definitely need some playtesting.   JUMP TO CONTENTS  

Resources and trades as a source of plot

  Game balance requires certain plot points
The ability for privileged PCs to buy so much more than plebeian PCs means there needs to be a balancing factor; I've chosen in-game plot balance: here the privileged PCs need to feel the burden of keeping good society functioning and plebeian PCs need to be almost completely free of it. If there's ever a crowd of people that have a problem - fire, argument, riot, whatever - the crowd will look to the privileged amongst them to sort the problem. If they do then their privileged position will be left to stand, despite society's painful inequities. If they fail then a bad reputation develops and all of a sudden people's jealousy of what the privilege have will start to boil: people are expected to earn their privilege. Plebeians on the other hand can vanish from sight and no-one will think anything of it.   Favours and debts can be called in
What goes around comes around. Someone in a PC's family might trade a favour for a good, knowing that their sister - the PC - will be able to offer an equivalent service in payment - and there are numerous variations on this theme, all of which means that the PCs could occasionally find themselves having to perform a service to pay off a debt. Again, privileged PCs should suffer more requests than stationary PCs, who will receive more than plebeian ones.   JUMP TO CONTENTS  

Standard resource values

  As a guide and a further test of the system above, these are some sample values that I'm matching to my Analysis of tech and wealth levels. It's not too far off...  
Item - birrPlebeiansStationaryPrivilegedResource value
Arrash - 25Common useCommon useCommon use1
Communicator, personal - 200Family onlyCommon useCommon use1
Communicator, short range - 500-AccessibleCommon use2
Communicator, long range - 1000-Family onlyCommon use3
Communicator, pulse function - 1000-Family onlyCommon use3
Computer - 10,000 / 15,000 / 20,000--Accessible6 / 7 / 7
Holograph 1,500 to 7300-RareCommon use4 - 6
Kambra - 250-AccessibleCommon use1
Language unit - 10,000--Accessible6
Modulator - 12,000--Accessible7
Musical instrument - 100 to 1000AccessibleCommon useCommon use1 - 3
Opor - 50AccessibleCommon useCommon use1
Proxy helmet - 500-AccessibleCommon use2
Proxy trip - 100-AccessibleCommon use1
Tabak - 25Common useCommon useCommon use1
Tabula - 2000-RareCommon use4
Tag - 50Common useCommon useCommon use1
Talisman - 50Common useCommon useCommon use1
Transactor - 100AccessibleCommon useCommon use1
  JUMP TO CONTENTS
Main: 1001 Nights variant overview Related

Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild


Cover image: islam by Quentin088

Comments

Please Login in order to comment!