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Is there any way to get credit on DTRPG that you have purchased the game, as a backer? Or does that not matter for reviews?
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Nov 21, 2017 06:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:Is there any way to get credit on DTRPG that you have purchased the game, as a backer? Or does that not matter for reviews? You can discuss the game but can't leave a review for it. Caleb might send out DrivethruRPG copies to backers. I'll show him how to do it.
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Nov 21, 2017 21:17
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Got my Drive-Thru copy via email and will definitely put up a review when I can. Absolutely stellar book.
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Nov 22, 2017 03:03
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Yea just got mine too, gonna drop a review soon. Fantastic book that deserves tons of love. The phrase 'zombie heartbreaker in a dense book' should not end in 'and it's fantastic' but here we are.
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Nov 22, 2017 04:34
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It cracked the top 5 on best selling titles! Also, people forget that not all 'boss fights' have to be aberrants. There's a 'punch bot' in the book that is programmed to randomly murder zombies (and people). You can also have a prototype slaughterbot swarm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
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Nov 24, 2017 08:50
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Is there a UK distributor for the print version of the book? The place linked on the official site wants to charge $65 shipping, which is silly
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Nov 26, 2017 16:47
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Mojo Jojo posted:Is there a UK distributor for the print version of the book? Not at this time. It is only distributed through IPR, which only carries in North America. International shipping is extremely expensive for indie publishers who can't afford to subsidize it.
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Nov 26, 2017 20:56
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clockworkjoe posted:It cracked the top 5 on best selling titles! I thought the only boss you needed in Red Markets was the Invisible Hand.
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Nov 27, 2017 23:21
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hyphz posted:I thought the only boss you needed in Red Markets was the Invisible Hand. thats the end boss. You need mini bosses, duh
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Nov 30, 2017 05:52
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“The Invisible Fingers”
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Nov 30, 2017 12:26
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clockworkjoe posted:Not at this time. It is only distributed through IPR, which only carries in North America. International shipping is extremely expensive for indie publishers who can't afford to subsidize it. It's less they can't afford to subsidise it and more they are too lazy to think about it. I'm having it shipped to a friend in the states and she will mail it on for about a third of their estimated cost
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Dec 2, 2017 18:46
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Mojo Jojo posted:It's less they can't afford to subsidise it and more they are too lazy to think about it. Your friend is using a remailing service that bundles multiple packages together to get a discount. You can't ship individual packages from the US to Europe cheaply. Look at the work Caleb did to figure out international shipping https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/159466030/red-markets/posts/1925009 That's for the Kickstarter backers though. Those are customers who already paid for their books. There is no realistic way to gauge how much interest Red Markets would get in Europe and who would carry it as a game. To get the book stocked in stores in Europe would require finding a European distributor who would store and sell them. Distributors don't want to deal with publishers that only have 1 product and won't be producing another one for a year or more. Also, Caleb would have to mail all those books to the distributor in Europe, which would cost thousands of dollars. The logistics are far more complex than you think.
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Dec 2, 2017 21:22
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clockworkjoe posted:Your friend is using a remailing service that bundles multiple packages together to get a discount. You can't ship individual packages from the US to Europe cheaply. I’m missing something. Why couldn’t all the international orders be shipped through such a service, if it’s cheaper? Is there something about a remailing service that makes it unsuitable at scale?
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Dec 2, 2017 22:31
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Subjunctive posted:I’m missing something. Why couldn’t all the international orders be shipped through such a service, if it’s cheaper? Is there something about a remailing service that makes it unsuitable at scale? How do you bundle individual orders from Europe together? Wait until there's 20 orders and then ship them altogether? We're not talking about Kickstarter backers. We're talking about single orders placed at arbitrary times. Customer A orders a book on Monday. Customers, B, C, and D order on Tuesday. Customer E orders on Friday. etc. Do you make customer A wait until there's enough orders to justify a bundled shipment? Generally, people want their orders shipped right after they pay for them.
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Dec 3, 2017 02:25
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Oh, I see. I think some people would happily wait a couple of weeks to save a bunch on shipping, and the remailer services probably work at high enough volume that they don’t have that long a wait. You don’t have to bundle them yourself, if the remailer is doing it for you.
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Dec 3, 2017 04:23
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So ran three games of Red Markets since summer and either I'm missing something or the game is a bit too materialistic. I don't mean in the 'you are out for yourselves bit" but the fact Bounty seems to be the end and all of all job negotiations. So how do you model the crew of doctors who will heal you gratis as long as you work for them or the guy who offers low Bounty for a job because he finds that the scavenging rights are worth it? The negotiation sheet doesn't exactly helps me there.
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Dec 4, 2017 00:08
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ganonso posted:So ran three games of Red Markets since summer and either I'm missing something or the game is a bit too materialistic. I don't mean in the 'you are out for yourselves bit" but the fact Bounty seems to be the end and all of all job negotiations. You can have the doctors' offer of free healing as a gift spot - the client gets +1 sway when that is used during negotiation. Same with the scavenging rights - depending on how valuable it is. The thing is, everything in Red Markets comes down to money because it would even harder to model a true barter economy. PCs have to pay rent and upkeep every game session and free healing or scavenging rights doesn't pay the bills. If you want the players to negotiate for a job that doesn't pay in bounty, how are they going to pay their bills or save for retirement or upgrade their skills or equipment? edit: Not saying you can't have jobs where the reward is not money but Red Markets is about money, so it requires work to think it through. 1. What are the players receiving that is worth working for? Is this going to help them towards their end goal (retirement by default, which requires 60 bounty by default per player) or not? 2. How will they pay their bills and keep their dependents fed while they work for free? 3. During negotiation, how do you determine how well it is going? You have to redo the sway tracker, from As a Favor to Expenses. clockworkjoe fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 08:24
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Free healing can translate into a certain amount of bounty, you just don't know exactly how much until you actually have to drag your rear end back to the doctor to get rid of your stun and kill boxes. Like, if you can save on having to pay bounty on getting patched up, you can redirect that bounty towards everything else, but if you end up not needing it, but it was assigned some value during the payment discussions anyway, then you just traded something for nothing, right? That's a fairly workable model, although somewhat more on the unpredictable side that the players will have to suck up and deal with.
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Dec 4, 2017 08:32
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ganonso posted:So ran three games of Red Markets since summer and either I'm missing something or the game is a bit too materialistic. I don't mean in the 'you are out for yourselves bit" but the fact Bounty seems to be the end and all of all job negotiations. The thing you are missing is the front of the book where it says "A Game of Economic Horror"  But gift spots is the correct answer to your problem. My crew wanted a truck so I gave them a truck but they also barely covered rent that session because I gave the client like +2 sway for it. Now they just use their truck as a side gig (renting it out) for some extra scratch and walk to jobs because fuel is way too expensive. Living the dream! They actually just got some nice upgrades on it (biofuel, armor) but also are taking it on the mission where the scheduled opposition is DHQS I hope nothing bad happens 
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Dec 4, 2017 15:35
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Thanks everyone. I will use Gift Spots and redo the sway tracker. The problem for me was that I see many contractors offering to write off some of the expanses but not all rather than paying in money. So expanses need not to be the end of the scale By instance, the Gun Runners crew can propose as an intial offer to repair all the firearms of the team after the mission, perhaps even several times, writing off their upkeep. Or the local enclave say: Sure we don't pay you that much but your Dependants are guaranteed a hot meal and a roof rain or snow so you don't have to pay for them" Like gradenko says most of these things end up being variable (except for the Dependant things) because you could not be making these kinds of expenses anyway if you work well (My last game of Red Markets didn't involve any fight) I will give more details for the scavenging rights. The contractor wanted an ancient hot spring center, notably for the springs themselves. I was intending to have him pay the PC's less with the reasoning that, as he doesn't care for what is in the buildings, they can haul it off and enter that in their gains. "I'm not paying you much but I also give you a location you can freely loot. And good scavenging points are worth a ton in our new world!"
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Dec 4, 2017 16:30
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ganonso posted:The contractor wanted an ancient hot spring center, notably for the springs themselves. I was intending to have him pay the PC's less with the reasoning that, as he doesn't care for what is in the buildings, they can haul it off and enter that in their gains. That sounds fine but I wouldn’t frame it as a gift during negotiation, instead use that as something the contractor uses to bargain down or undercut (the last push they get that can be prevented with leadership) and make it up to the player characters to do their own research via scams on whether that is true or not You can always let the dice fall where they may on the negotiation and change the scavenging at the job site to moderate the income of the player characters. Maybe it had good loot but there is evidence of recent activity and someone beat them to it, or the client hosed them and sold the info on the net after they left. Or the scavange is bulky and they can only take so much with them. I’ve found another good way to give out power, but not just money is free online classes/textbooks and the characters get free advances on skills, bethesda style. Or just a certain amount of bounty to be spent on character advancement only. Fellis fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 18:13
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ganonso posted:Thanks everyone. I will use Gift Spots and redo the sway tracker. How are scavenging *rights* worth anything? The waste is lawless, outside the walls of enclaves. Anyone can scavenge anything. Why hasn't the site been picked clean already? I would instead have the contractor give them the location of a cache of goods (weapons, drugs, canned food, electronics, etc) that is hidden in a secure place - like a bunker or safe or whatever. Then the guy gives them a key or some means to access the cache that no one else has. Then its easy to replicate the negotiation sway tracker - have it proceed normally BUT the client can only pay half of the bounty in cash. Then, the cache is worth the other half PLUS an additional 50% to account for the risk of getting it. Job is negotiated to 40 bounty. Client pays 20, but the PCs learn how to access a cache worth 30 bounty - let's say 1 leg away. The makes the job profitable but not straight forward. Other ideas: paid via investment or a small business - look at the rules for those in Red Markets.
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Dec 5, 2017 08:21
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I thought the Golf Shack incident established that everyone technically still owns all their stuff, even if it’s in the Loss. So “I’ll give you the rights to get whatever you can from my old mansion” would make some sense, even if it would only be enforceable by law of the jungle.
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Dec 7, 2017 21:47
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Actually, that raises an interesting idea: The only real 'salvage rights' are the one's the recession is claiming/selling. Out in the loss it's really first come first serve, but not everyone may agree with reality. So, you may have a client trying to scam gullible takers by throwing in 'salvage rights' as a bonus of no real value. I mean, obviously if you take a job to sanitize a facility (like a machine shop) it would be bad form to loot the things that make that place valuable. (Like the heavy, metal working equipment). But if he tries to 'give' you the stuff at the site that he doesn't want, that's not extra pay. He's just trying to trick you into doing part of the cleanup for free. ("I'll throw in all the stuff you can loot from the vending machines and book-shelves as a bonus.") On the other hand, we've all met that one guy that wants to call dibs on stuff he has no right to. Every enclave probably has one of That Guy, who would never go over the fence, but get's really angry when Takers come back with a load of 'his' water filters. He knew they were in that bottling plan, and he was going to send someone out to pick them up any day now, and how dare you steal his idea and his... That guy is the client that contracts you to loot 3 haul of water filters, and actually believes he's being generous when he says you can help yourself to a pallet of bottled water while you're there. So, somebody offers you this obviously bullshit non-payment, either in lieu of Bounty, or as a gift spot. How do you handle it? If this is rambling and incoherrent, sorry. I'm on hour 30 without sleep. Moto42 fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Dec 8, 2017 |
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Dec 8, 2017 20:39
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I see 'salvage rights' like 'I've got a bridge to sell you'.
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Dec 9, 2017 05:14
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clockworkjoe posted:I see 'salvage rights' like 'I've got a bridge to sell you'. That's kind of mine thinking as well. I had an idea for retirement that involved acquiring a deed to a piece of property, but that was a minor part of it and was there to ensure that when/if the Reclamation happened the people living there would be able to fight eviction attempts by the government, although homo sacer makes that a drat slim possibility. Until then it's kind of like owning 100 choice acres of land on Pluto, unless some sort of government can get there and exercise meaningful legal authority it's just some pointless words on a scrap of paper that you can show off to your friends for a laugh.
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Dec 9, 2017 08:58
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girth brooks part 2 posted:That's kind of mine thinking as well. I had an idea for retirement that involved acquiring a deed to a piece of property, but that was a minor part of it and was there to ensure that when/if the Reclamation happened the people living there would be able to fight eviction attempts by the government, although homo sacer makes that a drat slim possibility. Until then it's kind of like owning 100 choice acres of land on Pluto, unless some sort of government can get there and exercise meaningful legal authority it's just some pointless words on a scrap of paper that you can show off to your friends for a laugh. Mmmm, not necessarily. There being no government or police doesn't necessarily mean there's no possible enforcement. What if the person claiming he owned those water filters is the local doctor, or the enclave leader? Healing could get awful difficult, rent could get awful high, and the Golf Shack principle could mean they're technically in the right. Which makes it a tricky thing. Anyone selling "salvage rights" could be a shyster, but they could also be someone who's got enough weight to actually enforce that.
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Dec 9, 2017 18:40
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I had an idea last night for a DHQS 'attack' on an enclave. The Recession doesn't just need deeds, ID, and paperwork. It needs printers, copper, pallets of toilet paper, canning equipment. The same stuff Takers loot in relatively small quantities, they need in real bulk. The DHQS also has an interest in knocking over certain enclaves, or at least forcing people out of certain areas. So, Operation BONE BOILER was born. The DHQS obtain information on a cache of goods, secure the area, and bring in shipping containers and tools. They make contact with nearby enclaves and hire locals; paying them in bounty and day-to-day trade goods. (Sure, it's 3 bounty a week, but today's take-home-pay is a bag of onions!) The thing is they aren't stopping at just the pallets of newsprint that attracted them to the site. The locals are asked to police up literately everything of value. Then the furniture. Then they start stripping the copper out of the walls. Then they move on to the next site and strip it. The locals go along with it because the pay is not bad and the work isn't horrible. It the short term this looks like a good deal. They don't attack the enclave directly, but when they move out, some of the most important salvage sites in the area have been stripped bare. So, what happens in the carrion economy when there isn't enough carrion to feed on? Moto42 fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Dec 9, 2017 |
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Dec 9, 2017 20:00
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hyphz posted:Mmmm, not necessarily. There being no government or police doesn't necessarily mean there's no possible enforcement. What if the person claiming he owned those water filters is the local doctor, or the enclave leader? Healing could get awful difficult, rent could get awful high, and the Golf Shack principle could mean they're technically in the right. Which makes it a tricky thing. Anyone selling "salvage rights" could be a shyster, but they could also be someone who's got enough weight to actually enforce that. That begs the questions that if they have the influence or muscle to ensure your right to the salvage then why haven't they enforced that claim for themselves, and why have they let it sit and rot instead of exploiting it? It could make for some interesting complications because multiple people could easily have equally viable claims to something, for example ex-business partners that didn't part on the best of terms or a couple that has recently separated.
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Dec 9, 2017 20:06
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hyphz posted:the Golf Shack principle What's that?
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Dec 9, 2017 21:13
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So, they think they own it, but have taken no action in five years to secure it, and they had resources and opportunity to do so? In reality: It ain't theirs no more, but they have enough clout/power to make life hard on the community if they think they've been slighted. Sounds like a plot hook to me. What happens Dr. MopeyPants, who used to own clothes factory, finds out that some taker group just unloaded all his sewing machines on the Ubiq auction from a couple enclaves away? MopeyPants is the only doctor in the PCs' enclave, and now he's refusing to treat Takers because 'their all thieves'. Prices for healthcare just jumped, if you can get it at all. How will the PCs deal with the situation? Mayor Maximus used to be a raider leader, and still dresses an extra from Mad Max, but found he has a knack for and actually enjoys running a small community. His crew are now all fencemen/security. Under his leadership what was once a slaver camp (they killed the slavers for good karma and just moved in) is now a thriving community. The only catch is, he's literally called dibs on the best salvage in the area and all the 'cops' are on his side. During his raiding days he took note of where the best stuff was in quantity and scouted out the whole county pretty effectively. His personal fortune is based on hiring takers to bring this stuff in, but if anyone turns one of 'his' caches into a personal score, he sends the fence-raiders after them.
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Dec 9, 2017 21:27
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They're calling it "Golf Shack" but it was really a fishing shack. Joke non-answer aside, it's a reference to the Highbury v. USA case. Highbury was a millionaire before the Crash. Afterwards, his only remaining possession was a fishing shack along the Mississippi, just on the right side of the wall. Then the DHQS decided to fall back, and moved the line so the last thing he owned was on the wrong side and became government property. So he sued and became a symbol for the fear that those in power are just going to take everything. After it all shook out the new rule was that if you can prove you own it, you can have it back after we retake the land from the casualties. That's the Golf Shack Principle. (I like to think that in an alternate "East Coast Loss, West Coast Recession" setting it was a Golf Shack) Moto42 fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Dec 9, 2017 |
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Dec 9, 2017 21:28
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Moto42 posted:They're calling it "Golf Shack" but it was really a fishing shack. Yea, my apologies, it was a fishing shack. It's on page 105 of the book, with specific mention of salvage rights. Basically his argument was that if property rights just disappear once an area is part of the Loss, then it could easily be used by government or the military to seize things by declaring them Lost, so the principle was set that "even if it's in the Loss, it's technically still yours". Now, it's quite true that "but good luck doing anything about it" might be a rider in practice, especially for Takers in the less lawful areas, but it's there.
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Dec 9, 2017 22:04
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Moto42 posted:After it all shook out the new rule was that if you can prove you own it, you can have it back after we retake the land from the casualties. Thank you!
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Dec 9, 2017 22:26
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The Salvage Rights idea was to differentiate between these clean-up jobs where the guys want the location in a relative good state afterwards and those where they don't care. It's the "we want this nursing home for defensive purposes only, you are free to take everything except the walls" or more simply "I don't have the cash to pay you but here the location of my claims in the Waste. Don't know how much there is there but it seemed promising and so far I know, I'm the only one to know the place""
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Dec 16, 2017 17:00
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Yea, but if it's on the wrong side of the fence and you're 'claiming it', but haven't secured it, your claim means nothing. In the case of 'I dunno what's there, but...', it's even worse. That translates to "I don't know what it is, or if it even exists, but I'll sell it to you..." On the other hand, if it's a known cache, or a bunch of stuff at a location they already have secured, that's worth something. "We're locking this bridge down to keep the zombie elephants from coming across and raiding us again, if you help us clear out the normal Zeds we'll let you have first crack at stripping the cars." (I'd treat it as a Score, the players just didn't come up with it.) Moto42 fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Dec 16, 2017 |
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Dec 16, 2017 23:12
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I checked out this book because of this thread and drat if these aren't some elegantly crafted rules for modeling the unrelenting brutality of poverty (but also zombies)
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Jan 26, 2018 22:04
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Starting up my RM campaign next tuesday. We'll do session 0, introduce the rules, make characters and enclave generation. I'm considering running the campaign in Australia, which means lots of open space between towns. How far afield do you run your jobs? do they cross states or keep to the local area?
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Mar 15, 2018 11:42
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Runn'em as far afield as you think they can reasonably travel with the means available. Not like state lines mean anything anymore. So, on foot at first. Then bicycles/horses increase possible distance. And cars/trucks. 'Legs' aren't a set physical distance, just a measure of how much poo poo you have to deal with along the way.
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Mar 16, 2018 05:17
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The players decided to run the game in America for the first one as its easier to do it from the paradigm of the book. Theyve chosen to make the enclave on the northern border near Canada in Montana. I'm notionally putting it around Kalispell. They've chosen to inhabit a huge stadium attached to a college that was built to abuse a sustainable building credits scheme so has solar power and greywater/rainwater reclaimation and was used by the National Guard as a staging medical area during the crash and early days of the blight. Operation Utility came in black helicopters to evacuate some VIPs and when the Guard CAPT was denied bringing their son a panic started as people realised they were not all getting saved. Utility Operative: "sir, we have instructions to take you with us, please get in the helicopter, leave everything." CAPT: "I'll just get my son." UO: "Sir. Leave everything, get in the helo." CAPT: "Jason over here! No, I'm not leaving without him." UO: "Only critical assets, leave every...one..." *struggles* CAPT: "NO, Hes coming, with me." *tries to push past UO* UO: *draws pistol, shoots CAPT son*, "Sir, get on board. Now." The guardsmen turned their rifles on the Utility team as they lifted off. One helicopter crashed into the campus and burned a few buildings. --- Now Bison, named after the Toyota Bisons Stadium is an enclave of approximately 600 refugees and transients that are either citizens who live in the meeting rooms, corporate boxes and exhibition halls in the upper levels, or temporary inhabitants living in tents and on cots in the five story carpark basement where the air is stale and noisy, "Break the law, bottom floor". A double ring of exhibition fencing secures the stadium with the main entrance through the trade dock. The Coach is the figurehead leader of the enclave who is a good enough spokesperson but is supported by a five person council representing the various groups in an anarcho syndicalist organisation where the football team identity is the brand and the players are the visible mascots and envoys, however the technical college staff and students make most of the exports: powering batteries, making drug precursors, engineering knowledge and People Smuggling. Imports are meat, refrigerant gases, raw chemicals, ammunition/defences, electronics and medical supplies. The plan is to eventually expand the fenced area to encompass the campus and the adjoining playing fields to turn them into farmland as the interior football field only feeds so many. People smuggling back and forth across the Canadian|US border is handled by a group of Canadian Rangers represented by Valkyrie. Operating, or more tolerated as they manage to come and go as they please, from Bison they will offer a job line. Locals are the Canadians who rogue around the north, a liberal arts college on the south side of town, A ferry operator to the south who will take people across the lake/river instead of the long way around, a LALA in the north west and The Pound; a 45 member Latent community who merged a Vet and Pet boarding kennels, garden nursery and uniting church into a small enclave that exports herbs and vet trained Crusaders. So our first game session is tonight, most will have made characters already and i'll step through that for the one or two that have not. Since this campaign will be interacting with the Canadian faction quite a bit, how do you see them being played. I've set up a semi-helpful faction and also hinted that there are less than helpful locals to the north. Whats your impression of the remains of Canadian society and how it would interact with Takers from a waystation enclave.
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Apr 3, 2018 02:02
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