[SF] Fly Free or Die AP - GM Ewok

Game Master EwokBanshee

High art thank you!!!!!

Ha! From the bottom of his lil goblin heart, Guess? apologizes for the oversight!

"sorry gang, creative juices low"

*proceeds to type novel*

Lol

I second that Lol! Excellent post, Guess? I knew waiting for your closing speech would be worth it.

And with that, the crew gets off this cursed planet! One crew member poorer and one crew member richer!

GM Ewok, similar to the yaro berry job, is the party able to choose whether the half payment goes to EJ or to the drow?

If the party has a choice, Guess? will vote the funds go to the drow because - assassins.

FWIW, Strek speaks Drow now, and he didn't during their last encounter with Drow, so maybe he'll be able to pick up on side conversations when we all meet.

GM Ewok, similar to the yaro berry job, is the party able to choose whether the half payment goes to EJ or to the drow?

If the party has a choice, Guess? will vote the funds go to the drow because - assassins.

huh... that's funny, the AP made such a big deal out of choosing whether the supermarket or EJ got the payment and didn't for this one...

Alright, I had to look a little harder for this answer. Essentially, the yaro berries weren't worth a lot of credits themselves. So the payment for transportation services was conveniently the same as the profit margin on the berries. So you could entirely satisfy one party or the other with half of the promised Akiton payment. Problem is, the rifles are worth WAY more than the berries. Like, WAY WAY more than the berries. That'll come up in a little bit. So the percentage of the Gideron Authority payment that was going to EJ was a lot lower. So the drow will be getting some money either way, because the payment you got way more than covers the transportation fee. But you're right, you do have two options:

1. Give the money to EJ. EJ's lawyers will decide how much they're going to keep and how much they're going to give to the drow.
(I'm sure it's covered in that thick contract you signed.) Maybe they keep the costs and lose out on profits. Maybe EJ doesn't get paid at all, since they failed the job. Maybe they keep the full payment. Maybe the Drow sue EJ for the lost cargo. That part isn't in the AP because it's way above your paygrade as space-truckers.

2. Give the money to the drow. EJ gets nothing.

Either choice leaves an unhappy drow because they have an unhappy customer (Gideron) and less money than they wanted and an unhappy EJ because they have an unhappy customer (drow) and less money than they wanted. But... your choice might influence how each party views you.

Let the wookie drow win

For very similar reasons

Drow are presumably more dangerous than EJ. Strek would vote to give the Drow the money.

Three votes for Drow! Sounds good. Noted!

I think that makes sense. Though at some point the characters might start considering why they work for a company that they seem to fail to benefit time after time, and consider one of the several alternate entities that they do seem to benefit.

I'm betting the AP doesn't have an "Apply for another job" subsystem.

And even if it did have a simulator for filling out job applications, taking proficiency exams, interviewing and getting a new job... I'd feel traumatized as my escapism begins to emulate my reality =\

"I'm so geeky my escapism comes with homework" Real motto of society play.

Funny thing is... this AP actually includes a 6 page optional ruleset for cargo merchants that we could use in the next book. About half of the people who use it love it, and the rest say it's just voluntary homework.

dammit they're chaotic evil there probably isn't a scheduel

Maybe they're used to firing people before they quit? Like everything else they keep people looking for the carrot that never comes. Ya'll are probably a special case because they don't want to be knifed t death in the bathtub tonight. That gives you enough time to quit without getting fired.

So stock options" = you have the ability to buy x number of shares that aren't normally available to the public ? possibly at discount. Yeah i can see why they'd offer something no one can ever afford.

Hmm, you might be right. I was thinking they were granted outright, but I might have read that text wrong:

you could redeem those options for a not-inconsiderable amount of EJ Corp stock.

Was that supposed to say "non-considerable amount of credits" as the cost? The offer wouldn't even be meaningful if it wasn't at something of a discount.

You can read that line as:

"you could redeem those options for a considerable amount of EJ Corp stock."

------------

So basically we have options to buy x amount of stock at a certain price, irrespective of the current stock market price. Presumably, those options allow us to buy the stock at a price lower than the current stock market price.

So let's say we each have options to buy 10,000 shares of stock at 1,000 credits per share. Then anyone of us can buy up to 10,000 shares for a total amount of 10,000*1000 = 10,000,000 credits.

Presumably the current stock market price of each share is more than 1,000 credits. Otherwise, we wouldn't bother with options - we'd just buy the shares straight from the stock market. So if the current stock market price is 5,000 credits per share, then we should definitely exercise our options. If the current stock market price is 100 credits per share, then we wouldn't exercise our options - instead we'd want to just buy the shares straight from the stock market.

The idea is to give employees stock options so that they'll work harder, make the company perform better, which drives the company's share price up and the employee will profit from the company's higher stock price via those options.

------------

As for the game, our characters don't have enough money to exercise our options because we keep getting stiffed by EJ on all our jobs.

However, Guess? wonders a couple things but won't raise it because it gives Sinjin incentive to not hire our crew but he'll probably chat with the rest of the crew at some point later.

If Sinjin had tons of money, what he really should do is find a band of skilled mercenaries who are good at hijacking starships and buy shares straight off the stock market for them, plus pay whatever mercenary fees are required. That way, he gets a professional crew to pull off the heist instead of us - a questionably adept ragtag group of FedEx delivery persons.

But maybe Sinjin doesn't have that amount of funds. We won't charge as much as merceneries to do this job (if anything at all... we'll see!) and the stock share purchase will presumably be cheaper since we have stock options.

I know what stock options are, I'm interested in the GM confirming the AP's intended implementation (given the box-text statement, it seemed a little off). The company offering them on quitting still doesn't make a lot of sense since they're usually more of an incentive for loyalty.

Gotcha. And you've got a good point!

Yeah, just want to be clear on what we're negotiating here.

It's also one of those fun topics where some crew would have read about it chapter and verse from their employee manual, and some of the crew might be scratching their head wondering what the options are :P Jaraduk is a little more observant when monetary options are at stake. I suppose one hilarious way to RP it would have been the *entire team* not getting it.

Agreed on the stock options not making a whole lot of sense to me. You don't offer this kind of thing to your lowest level employees because they don't value it. Very head-scratching story beat we've got here.

Also as a head up, I'm currently traveling and will be back Tuesday. Might not be able to make a substantial post until then since I'm bound to the phone only.

This is the first I hear of drift engines only being able to take so much volume with them. Especially on the back of the last AP where a supercolossal ship was Drift-capable.

Yeah, this was my interpretation of some text, rules, and author interviews. Essentially, each type of starship only has so many Expansion Bays, which can become Cargo Holds. From a game design perspective, this Expansion Bay cap is important to prevent cheese. But from a lore purpose, it means your cargo bays are limited by your ship (and drift engine) size. So doubling your cargo hold size is great because each ship can hold as much cargo as a much larger ship.

---

As for the stock options... the author definitely didn't realize employees had to pay money for the stock. But that's ok, that's easy enough for Sinjin to pay for you. As for why that's being offered to low level employees, that is explained in lore! It's a shiny thing to offer in a help wanted ad but most employees will never have enough money to take advantage of it. It's a funny thing since it would be familiar to your characters but there wasn't an easy way to bring it up before now without giving away the (potential) twist. Though most EJ corp employees don't seem to read the fine print before they sign up for something! lol.

Hmm, you might be right. I was thinking they were granted outright, but I might have read that text wrong:

Quote:

you could redeem those options for a not-inconsiderable amount of EJ Corp stock.

Was that supposed to say "non-considerable amount of credits" as the cost? The offer wouldn't even be meaningful if it wasn't at something of a discount.

Nope, it's right. The author, rightly so in my opinion, chose to avoid putting numbers to any of the large monetary values in the book (like with the contract payments). Probably because they didn't want somebody to start crunching math with them to make other assumptions about the universe. So you get a decent amount of stock worth a lot of money that... you can't redeem in the timeline of this AP. lol at least your retirement would be funded?

"But don't celebrate. Not while my heart is breaking."

Del's over here breaking my heart. This truly is a rough AP for seriously Good characters.

I know what stock options are,

I didn't. Or at leat I'd heard the term but was never quite sure how it worked.

Is now picturing lord Sinjen's Sommelier listening in on the other end of the flower, being held down by the other guards as they try to grab a rifle to go rodent hunting.

Is now picturing lord Sinjen's Sommelier listening in on the other end of the flower, being held down by the other guards as they try to grab a rifle to go rodent hunting.

Ha, absolutely! She's casually insulting a hundred credit glass of wine, probably.

Del Reisora wrote:

"But don't celebrate. Not while my heart is breaking."

Del's over here breaking my heart. This truly is a rough AP for seriously Good characters.

Agreed - good one Del. While my character may be somewhat swayed, me the player feels like "ohhhh dang!!!"

And yes, I can see how the heartstring tugs are going to be a recurring theme this AP!

Jaraduk Cometrunner wrote:

I know what stock options are,

I didn't. Or at leat I'd heard the term but was never quite sure how it worked.

It's one way that it works. The other way is share grants the vest over time, presumably as part of pay but the vesting period is again a loyalty play (the proverbial golden handcuffs).

It's just a little odd how the options are positioned as a "parting reward" in the AP, but with the GM explanation I get roughly what they were going for.

I still need to determine what Jaraduk would think of Del's struggle. Right now he's hyper focused on not trusting Sinjin; he doesn't like being pushed around, or the sense that he's subtly being pushed around/manipulated.

GM Ewok wrote:

Del Reisora wrote:

"But don't celebrate. Not while my heart is breaking."

Del's over here breaking my heart. This truly is a rough AP for seriously Good characters.

Agreed - good one Del. While my character may be somewhat swayed, me the player feels like "ohhhh dang!!!"

*bows*

So should we assume

Melissa qualifies to buy a single share of stock and that will technically lets her on the station once the rest of them are docked?

Melissa should pick up a set of doctors scrubs to be tending the party limping along after their recent run in ?

Melissa fits into the party overhead luggage compartments

No ones going to notice one more ysoki intern carrying coffee for 5 shareholders ?

I gotta say, its pretty interesting story-wise having a PC (Akh) with backstory ties to a major NPC like Sinjin.

------------

@BNW: Perhaps Melissa sits on Guess's shoulders the entire time and Guess? uses the holoskin to make us look like a medium-sized, errr, humanoid?

But more realistically, if needed, we can total the shares purchased for the five original EJ employees, then divide it by the six characters. I'm guessing no character will object because these shares are pretty much provided to us by Sinjin free of charge.

Melissa fits into the party overhead luggage compartments

Domestic, International, or Intergalactic?

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Melissa fits into the party overhead luggage compartments

Domestic, International, or Intergalactic?

yes,maybe, and arghabrabrablgafth

Yeah, it's definitely not the way Options are normally given to employees, but it made sense for the story I suppose!

I definitely think the two small people on each other's shoulders to make one big person is a wonderful idea. But there is also stealing Lars' identity as well. Splitting the 5 sets of stock would work, or even disguising Melissa to get through the Orbital Plate security.

Lets just divy melissa a few sets of stock. Enough will go wrong without us adding to it. :)

She'll offer anyone in the party a good scrubbing in return for a brush down. Must be a ysoki thing.

I'm picturing the information kiosk breaking when she tries to look up a goblin hygiene kit.

At the moment, I don't have anything in mind to purchase for Guess? but happy to throw money into the pot to purchase anything we may need to pull this one off, including the null space chamber.

However, I'm not sure if we're allowed to purchase that item since it is level 5 and I believe we're using SFS equipment rules?

Yeah, keep it to Level 3 and below with the items! Though the Null Space Chamber probably isn't necessary, it seems to be fairly common in Starfinder-world for folks to wander around in armor and weaponry.

BNW, your hygiene kits are cracking me up.

Lars' ID card might have worked better if they hadn't actually written "Lars Pith, square-jawed Human male cyborg obsessive" on it. The Sommelier must double as the fake ID guy.

Lolol the Envoy fails a basic Diplomacy check... Instead of rolling a 33 (1250 credits and 5 BP), you rolled a 13 and get... nothing. lol

Yeah, that fake ID was definitely made in the five minutes the group was deliberating. Maybe they should have spent a little longer on it...

Ughhhhhh... DC13 felt like a gimme. Not so.

Wowza. I definitely thought DC 13 was too low, I was expecting y'all to be walking away from this with bundles of cash. I guess those EJ HR reps are tougher than I thought!!!

Wowza. I definitely thought DC 13 was too low, I was expecting y'all to be walking away from this with bundles of cash. I guess those EJ HR reps are tougher than I thought!!!

Can we go another round with the HGs instead?

Sorry, something came up. Should be able to get a post in by tomorrow night, otherwise Monday morning.

No worries! Real life comes first.

For income I have

817 The OK Truck Robbery
382 Truck Robbery Yard sale
400 Drow n payment

I only have 817 on my spreadsheet, from 2 different sources.

I guess I should keep better track of where it comes from, but I mark down income as soon as it appears in a post.

Strek you should at least have that 817 plus the last 400.

Yep, I've got the same as Jaraduk currently marked down: 817 plus 400.

I have not yet added to my sheet:
- 750CR severance (which will be divided six ways amongst us all to be 125CR each)
- credits from selling the excess ringwear, laser rifles, tac lashes, infinity rifles

There's a 817 payout from two sources? I've definitely lost track of the second source...