Here's the link to the Firefly 'verse slang document.
Here's the link to the setting document.
The following replaces the procedures in the setting document for finding shipping jobs ("Getting Business") :
Once you’ve landed on a planet, the crew can use Networking once (not per character) to get a job. On a Success, you have found a middleman, who will take 10% of the profits for arranging the deal. On a Raise, you have found an employer directly. Subtract 2 from these rolls when in the Rim. Each Raise on this roll adds +1 to the roll for number of passengers or tons of cargo (below). On a failure, try again the next day.
Next, roll a d3 to determine your destination : 1=Core, 2=Border, 3=Rim.
Then roll a d4, plus one for each Raise on the Networking roll to determine the kind of job :
- 1 : Steerage passengers expect to camp in the cargo hold and generally provide their own food. They pay 15p per week. You can find 2d8 of them.
- 2 : Second class passengers expect to live as the crew lives; they pay 30p per week. You can find 2d6 of them.
- 3 : Salvage : someone wants you to go to the wreck of some spaceship in space, and recover something from it. They have the co-ordinates, you just have to get there and back. It can be anything from a highly technical piece of unique equipment, to computer data on the wrecked ship, to goods that never got delivered, to a mundane object of sentimental value to your employer. The GM determines the worth of the items (500p is typical); when you return them to your employer, you can Haggle over it (see below). Finding a derelict spaceship on your own is very rare, because space is vast and ships are tiny. Salvaged ships are so wrecked they are not repairable.
- 4+ : Freight (the items are being sold by one person to another person – you are just delivering them) : a lot takes 10*d10 tons of cargo space. Freight pays 8p per ton per week (you can Haggle over this, see below).
Or, instead of rolling, the crew can decide to take on Speculative Cargo (you are buying the items and are going to try and find a buyer) : roll 10*d10 to find how many tons are available. It can be anything from weapons to tools to household items to fertilizer. When you reach the destination world and unload, then find a buyer (Networking, once per day), and start to Haggle for your profit (see below). Note : some cargo, like food or drugs is not measured in tons, but in “doses”, and the number of doses is 100*d10 (per kind of cargo). On average, altho it pays about 3 times as much as freight, about 1/3 of the time you’ll take a loss that takes about 3-4 freight jobs to make up.
Your ship can hold up to 100 tons of Freight and Cargo, total.
Passenger space : there are 12 two-person crew cabins, so all crew can have their own room without passengers. If a crew of 6 doubles up, they can take a maximum of 18 second-class passengers.
For passengers, freight, and cargo, if you know they are illegal, wanted, or fugitives (GM decision), multiply the price (or profit or loss) by 2. Rates also double if your employer is trying to avoid Alliance taxes (see below), since that puts you at risk of being charged with smuggling.
If you’re doing business on an Alliance world (at either end of the trip), the Alliance takes 5% of any profit you make from all cargo as taxes at each end (non-negotiable). You can choose at the start of the deal to avoid these taxes (i.e., to smuggle the goods), but if you’re searched in transit you won’t have the appropriate documentation and will be arrested. This does not apply to trade between non-Alliance worlds.
Haggling
You start at the prices listed above. If either of you isn’t happy with that, one PC makes a Persuasion roll; the PC gets a 20% change in price in their favor per Success and first Raise. On a Failure, the price doesn’t change. On a Critical Failure, the PC gets a 20% change in price against their favor. If you want to haggle with a middleman, the change is 1% on the commission percentage. Only one Persuasion roll per item (with Bennies).
Haggling for profit : you start at 0 profit. Make opposed Persuasion rolls; for each Success and Raise you get, add 1; for each Success and Raise the buyer gets, subtract 1. Continue to roll until the count isn’t 0. Your actual profit or loss is 5*d6p per ton times the count. If you have a loss greater than all your current cash-on-hand, you must track it, and all your earnings from future jobs must go towards it until it is gone.
