Make money, money

So the Maestro. No gigs. No wealth.

What's up with that? All transactions in fiction? Or what?

I'm wondering about that too, since there's all these ways in fiction to make money off your establishment (charge admission; sell stuff; take a cut of the gambling/prostitution/whatever...), but then you've got all kind of fixed costs, too. 

I figure everybody needs to make money, so I'm going to base it off the Skinner playbook and let my player make more money by arranging special events.  Of course, some special events will cost money to set up, and there can always be extra expenses. 

In the real world, entertainment is a low-margin business where you make most of your money off the few high rollers and partiers, so I might try to go with that, and let my player look for the AW equivalent of a "high roller"

In my opinion, and this is based solely off my research for Western World, the Maestro D', outside of maybe a warlord or hardholder, should have the most barter to throw around.

Take for example, this portion of the entry from Al Swearengen on wikipedia:

Swearengen was one of the first Deadwood residents not to be a prospector or miner; he represented the beginning of a second wave of residents, attracted there by the promise of riches to be stripped not from the earth, but from the prospectors and miners. He built a small saloon called the Cricket Saloon, which featured as entertainment in its close spaces local miners engaged in what were advertised as "prize fights", although no prizes were actually awarded. Within a year, Swearengen had accumulated enough money to build the much larger and more opulent Gem Variety Theater, which opened on April 7, 1877, featuring the now traditional "prize fights" in addition to stage shows, and, mainly, prostitution.

Swearengen lured desperate young women from far away to Deadwood, then forced them into prostitution through a combination of bullying and physical brutality, by himself and his henchmen. The results were highly lucrative, the Gem bringing in an average of $5,000 a night, sometimes as much as $10,000 (between $140,000 and $280,000 inflation adjusted for 2009).

Now, you gotta understand that maybe some of those guys were prospectors with gold claims and whatnot, but many of them were just poor dudes on the frontier spending any money they had on women, booze and gambling.

Not sure how I'd change the Maestro D' in particular, but one playbook for my hack will mirror this, so it's an interesting discussion to me.

Yeah, I noticed that too! What I'm angling towards is a move like this:

At the beginning of each session, roll +HOT

10+ Business is good, take +1 barter
7-9 Business is complicated, gain +1 barter but choose 1:
- That guy who wants in? He's just gained some leverage that will help.
- That guy who you owe? He's sniffing around, looking for a payment.
- That guy who wants it gone? He's ready to act against you.

That's hot, Tony.  I'm starting up a Maestro in one of my games.  I'm going to show this thread to my MC.

I was worried about this with my Maestro D' character I'm whipping up for a PbP, until I realized that I could actually use Fingers in Every Pie to pretty much get anything I need. "Dez is a sweet kid, and I need to improve her image of me. I fingers up some angel kit stock for her."

Alternatively, you could just come up with a custom wealth-generating move based on the establishment's nature. The "Wealth" move for a high-class Luxe Food (music, scene) joint that's all velvet, masks, lights, and shadows might look entirely different from a Drugs (sex, easy food) emporium that's atmospherically grime, smoke, bustle, and kink.

Yes Tony, that is a really cool move. I've only MC'ed one session so far, but I loved the Hocus' Fortunes move, as it helped shape our first session, especially since he missed his roll. The other two characters lacked such moves, and I missed them.

Yay Ben!

The maestro d' doesn't need barter moves, she's mechanically self-sufficient.

Yay Ben!

The maestro d' doesn't need barter moves, she's mechanically self-sufficient.

Yeah, that's pretty much how we played it: the bar itself broke even unless the Maestro did any special deals. Well, our Maestro ended up taking over the area's water supply, so he's pretty much a hardholder now.

Well, our Maestro ended up taking over the area's water supply, so he's pretty much a hardholder now.

See, I wouldn't assume so.  At least, not unless the character decides "Oh look, I'm now responsible for the lives of all these people and going to be held accountable for what happens to them."  You can have something everybody needs without having a care about if they get it or not.  Yeah, I know you need water to live, but if you want the H2O you gotta give me something I need, see?

But, either or.

Quote from: Chris on August 21, 2010, 07:03:35 AM

Well, our Maestro ended up taking over the area's water supply, so he's pretty much a hardholder now.

See, I wouldn't assume so.  At least, not unless the character decides "Oh look, I'm now responsible for the lives of all these people and going to be held accountable for what happens to them."  You can have something everybody needs without having a care about if they get it or not.  Yeah, I know you need water to live, but if you want the H2O you gotta give me something I need, see?

But, either or.

Definitely. Like everything in AW, it's about the fiction and I didn't want a super long gaming story here. It was his choice.

We also advanced the game a year at that point because we have a new player joining next session and two of the current players ended up killing each other. We're gonna have more new characters than current ones so we're gonna take it forward a year and a lot people have flocked to what they think is the area's sole water source.

Definitely. Like everything in AW, it's about the fiction and I didn't want a super long gaming story here. It was his choice.

We also advanced the game a year at that point because we have a new player joining next session and two of the current players ended up killing each other. We're gonna have more new characters than current ones so we're gonna take it forward a year and a lot people have flocked to what they think is the area's sole water source.

Nice.  Very nice.

[deleted]