Building a Financial Landscape with Megacorps

Building a Financial Landscape with Mega-corporations

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"I am convinced he (god) does not play dice." - Albert Einstein

"Not only does god play dice. He is using loaded dice." - John Ford

"God not only plays dice, he sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen." - Stephen Hawking

When building a new setting, a lot of it can seem random, and sometimes it is. Personally, I like to take the random bits and apply some organization to them. The human brain is a pattern-seeking engine, and your players will recognize patterns in your world. Those patterns will lead to expectations. If you have already molded the chaos of your world building into patterns yourself, you will be better prepared to direct those player expectations. Not only that, but you will see patterns yourself as you continue to build, which you can use to fill in details that will feel like logical growths in the details you have already established. 

One of my favorite tools to do that with is Keith J Davies' Polyhedral Pantheons. Very simply put, it is a system for organizing a series of attributes into organized groups without too much overlap or conflict, and establish relationships between each organized group of attributes. And one of the benefits of it's organizational methods is that it also lends very, very well to creating lists for rolling random results as well. I'll let you check out his own material to learn how it works. Originally, he designed it to help the prospective world builder design and arrange the domains for an entire pantheon in a setting. It's probably the most efficient tool I have ever seen for doing that. However, I have found that it works pretty well with nearly any set of attributes you need to divide between entities. And since entities can be anything from an individual to a organization or kingdom, I have made extensive use of it in my own world building. 

My most recent use of it has been to develop a system of Mega-corporations and the markets they work in in a Starfinder setting that they have a great deal of influence over. They are essentially the ruling bodies. How they interact with the various markets in the setting can have direct effect on the players. In this setting, which I have yet to name, the ever-shifting tides of power and influence between the competing mega-corps can seem random from the player's perspective, and to some degree it is. I wanted some structure to the process however. 

My first step was of course to come up with the list of attributes to describe my mega-corps. I realized relatively early on that as mega-corps every one of them will have fingers in basically every part of the economy. But each would have a core attributes that would inform their relationship with the other areas of the economy. Further, specific local branches would have might have other specific focuses that don't necessarily match the parent corp's core attributes. And it would be the relationship between the parent corp's values with the local branch's values, in the context of the values of the market that local branch was operating in that would begin to show the complex interweave of economic relationships. And the polyhedral system would do most of the work of building those patterns for me. 

To start with I decided I would use the d12 and d20 polyhedral charts from Keith's system. If you look into his material you find that they are complementary. This would also mean that the eventual random charts I would create would have the user roll a d12 and a d20. Here are the two lists of attributes I arrived at: 

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d20

          1.     Transportation and Warehousing

          2.     Food

          3.     Information

          4.     Exploration

          5.     Domestics

          6.     Entertainment and Recreation

          7.     Journalism

          8.     Pharmaceuticals

          9.     Zoological

          10. Construction and Real Estate Development

          11. Military

          12. Espionage

          13. Education

          14. Restoration and Recovery

          15. Labor

          16. Utilities and Infrastructure

          17. Health and Social Care

          18. Agriculture and Hydroponics

          19. Mining and Resource Extraction

          20. I could tell you but I’d have to kill you

d12

          1.     Research and Development

          2.     Marketing

          3.     Operations

          4.     Sales

          5.     Maintenance

          6.     Manufacturing

          7.     Acquisitions

          8.     Personnel

          9.     Management

          10. Distribution/Logistics

          11. Finance

          12. Black Ops

Now, if you are as observant as Keith was (I talk to him about a lot of the ideas I use his tools on), you'll almost immediately note that there could be some overlap on a lot of those categories. Food could be rolled into agriculture and hydroponics for example. This is by design. Remember that this is to inform you of relationships. SO if you get a result that have both "food" and "agriculture and hydroponics" rather than thinking "how are these the same" you can also consider "why are these noted separately for this corp?" For example, it maybe that the corp both grows the food and processes it into prepared foodstuffs, like ready-to-eat meals. Or another example "black ops" and "I could tell you but I'd have to kill you" both sound like basically the same thing, but you could have black ops and then really, really black ops when you get both attributes; and you could even have an organization that's not doing black ops at all but remains so secretive that they kill to preserve their secret. 

There is no wrong answer, since the purpose is to use the pattern to inspire the relationships you are creating for your world. 

The next step is to group these attributes into the core values of my corporations. I'm not gonna get into the details of how that grouping works, you can check out Keith's material for that. Basically, the two lists above will combine into the core attributes of 32 distinct entities, with the first item in each one being their primary focus, and the rest are the secondary ones.

I'll jump right to those results: 

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1.     Transportation and Warehousing, Research and Development, Marketing, Operations

2.     Food, Personnel, Distribution/Logistics, Black Ops

3.     Information, Research and Development, Maintenance, Manufacturing

4.     Exploration, Acquisitions, Management, Black Ops

5.     Domestics, Marketing, Acquisitions, Personnel

6.     Entertainment and Recreation, Maintenance, Management, Finance

7.     Journalism, Research and Development, Marketing, Sales

8.     Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturing, Distribution/Logistics, Finance

9.     Zoological, Operations, Maintenance, Management

10. Construction and Real Estate Development, Sales, Manufacturing, Distribution/Logistics

11. Military, Operations, Acquisitions, Management

12. Espionage, Sales, Personnel, Distribution/Logistics

13. Education, Marketing, Operations, Acquisitions

14. Restoration and Recovery, Management, Finance, Black Ops

15. Labor, Marketing, Sales, Personnel

16. Utilities and Infrastructure, Maintenance, Manufacturing, Finance

17. Health and Social Care, Research and Development, Sales, Manufacturing

18. Agriculture and Hydroponics, Acquisitions, Personnel, Black Ops

19. Mining and Resource Extraction, Research and Development, Operations, Maintenance

20. I could tell you but I’d have to kill you, Distribution/Logistics, Finance, Black Ops

21. Research and Development, Transportation and Warehousing, Information, Journalism, Health and Social Care, Mining and Resource Extraction

22. Marketing, Transportation and Warehousing, Domestics, Journalism, Education, Labor

23. Operations, Transportation and Warehousing, Zoological, Military, Education, Mining and Resource Extraction

24. Sales, Journalism, Construction and Real Estate Development, Espionage, Labor, Health and Social Care

25. Maintenance, Information, Entertainment and Recreation, Zoological, Utilities and Infrastructure, Mining and Resource Extraction

26. Manufacturing, Information, Pharmaceuticals, Construction and Real Estate Development, Utilities and Infrastructure, Health and Social Care

27. Acquisitions, Exploration, Domestics, Military, Education, Agriculture and Hydroponics

28. Personnel, Food, Domestics, Espionage, Labor, Agriculture and Hydroponics

29. Management, Exploration, Entertainment and Recreation, Zoological, Military, Restoration and Recovery

30. Distribution/Logistics, Food, Pharmaceuticals, Construction and Real Estate Development, Espionage, I could tell you but I’d have to kill you

31. Finance, Entertainment and Recreation, Pharmaceuticals, Restoration and Recovery, Utilities and Infrastructure, I could tell you but I’d have to kill you

32. Black Ops, Food, Exploration, Restoration and Recovery, Agriculture and Hydroponics, I could tell you but I’d have to kill you

This is just an initial list, and by no means final. Keith has suggested several improvements, like adding positive and negative attitudes to the lists of attributes, to reflect each corp's attitude towards those attributes. But it does give you an idea of how this tool can organize your world building. At this point I can just look at one of those groups of attributes and the corporation they suggest starts building itself in my mind. 

And that is the ideal, the golden standard of world building: for it to be writing itself as you go. If it unfolds for you, then the only thing you have to do is record it. The patterns are already there, the connections between them drawn. 

So the next step is to get the attributes for the various markets. That's pretty easy to do: I just randomly re-order the lists above and go through the same process using the same attributes. This gives me the various regions and the things people are most interested in, in those regions. 

Lastly, I create the local branch for a corp. That's even easier. I roll a d20 and a d12 and use those attributes as the focus of that local branch. You now have the things the mega-corp thinks are most important, the things the market values, and the purpose of the local branch. You can tell what kind of support he parent corp is giving the branch, what the local branch does for that parent, and how both of those relate to the local market. That's a LOT of information to get just from filling out a few lists of attributes and letting a spreadsheet organize them for me. And you can extrapolate even more. 

I can roll a d20 and a d12 and consult the chart I used for the markets to see where forces are shifting in the local mark that day. Then when the PCs go visit that branch you might extrapolate from those market forces how their point of contact is doing, because you know what is stressing them that day. In fact, they might just want the players to go do something about those stresses. Or it might be a great day for them, and they are offering a bargain to the players. 

As I said before, it's all about what the patterns inspire you to do. And this tool helps you form patterns like no other. And the best things is, Keith seems to love talking to people about this tool, and he can make it figuratively sing with results and new ways to use it. 

Another time I'll tell you all about the setting I am working on, and the financial systems I am developing for it. 

Until then, go out there and play god with your world building: use dice and make them loaded.

 

The Symbiotic Mimic

Can you guess where I am going with this?

Mimics are not particularly smart… but they are particularly hungry. Somewhere out there in the multiverse, there is a mimic or two that survived long enough to become smarter, to consider new ways of hunting. Maybe they observed the way an adventuring party worked together to overcome challenges they could not hope to survive on their own, and it thought to itself, “hunting like that would be better.” In fact, with adventuring parties being a mimics only real natural predator, maybe this evolving mimic thought to itself, “I should change the dynamic between my only natural predator and myself, and thereby become the apex predator.”

However, it reached it’s conclusion, this mimic took the next adventurer to adhere itself to it, and shape changed into a suit, covering the creature from head to toe... it’s companions were notably worried about it, but with no evidence of actual harm, they continued exploring the dungeon. The adventurer now wearing the mimic soon found out they were stronger, faster, oh so tougher, could walk on walls and ceilings, and their attacks were much more powerful. When they leave the dungeon, the strange suit that covered the adventure seems to shift and disappear and they returned to their normal appearance, only for the suit to reemerge whenever they are threatened.

That is how I imagine the first symbiotic mimic came into being.

In technical terms, here is what is happening:

• The mimic completely covers the wearer.
• They no longer benefit from armor they are wearing but do gain the Mimic’s natural armor of 12+their own dex modifier.
• Half the damage they receive (round down) is applied to the mimic instead of them. (9d8+12 HP)
• Both creatures benefit from the mimic’s immunities.
• If the wearer lacks Darkvision, they can benefit from the Mimic’s Darkvision 60 ft.
• When out of combat and not threatened, the mimic can take on the appearance of the creature wearing it. It still remains there but is indistinguishable from the creature underneath.
• The Mimic can apply or remove its adhesive to surfaces as it desires. This allows the wearer to walk on any wall or ceiling like the spider climb spell.
• If the mimic chooses, it can make other creatures touching the wearer adhere to them, grappling them if huge or smaller (escape DC 13 with disadvantage).
• The wearer gains advantage on attack rolls against any creature grappled by it.
• Whenever the wearer attacks with a melee weapon, the mimic bites the same target, using the wearer’s attack roll. If one hits, both hit. It uses the following profile:


• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage plus 4 (1d8) acid damage.


• In any situation the wearer can make an attack of opportunity, so can the mimic, using the following profile: 


• Pseudopod. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8 + 3) bludgeoning damage. If the mimic is in object form, the target is subjected to its Adhesive trait.

• The mimic can automatically perform the Aid Another action to help the wearer on most actions.
• Starting off, this would include any physical action.
• Once the mimic spends enough time in the wearer’s company it can learn its language and begin speaking to the wearer.
• It can then aid the wearer on most nonphysical actions as well. With the GM’s approval.
• If the wearer and the mimic share a language the mimic can even begin replicating various simple tools and equipment while worn.
• It must learn each new item it is to replicate the use of.
• To learn a new equipment, it must be taught the form, using the disguise skill to help it take on the appearance.
• It may learn one usable simple item for each point of the wearer’s proficiency modifier. Any further items learned remain mere disguises and are not functional.
• This can include melee weapons, but those melee weapons can not be thrown.
• If the mimic does not want the wearer to perform certain actions, it can attempt to take control of them. In this case each of them rolls opposed strength tests to determine who wins.
• Of course, if you really anger your Symbiotic Mimic, you are inside it, it could just start chewing. See bite damage above.

With all that in mind, you could do all kinds of things, like increase or decrease hit dice, even make it grow in power as the player (or villain) does.

Fair warning though, adding what is essentially a monster to the party, even if worn, might unbalance things, so if you are inexperienced, be careful what you do… and as always, have fun!

Come get your mimic suit today!

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How to Build Wall-e in the Starfinder Roleplaying Game

How to Build Wall-e in the Starfinder RPG

 

I would argue that Wall-e is probably the most iconic sentient robotic organism (SRO) in pop culture. It wasn’t built to be a sentient AI from the beginning but developed sentience after 700 years of working at the task it was built for: IRL Minecraft. And that is exactly what an SRO is in Starfinder: a machine that unexpectedly gained sentience.

Since this is my very first blog post, I thought bringing that character to life would be a great way to get it started!

Wall-e is a robotic compactor left behind on earth when humans abandoned the place due to unchecked garbage and climate collapse. For 700 years, the little robot compacted garbage into little squares and arranged those squares into replica structures.

Eventually, it began collecting objects it liked or thought would be useful. It developed a love of music and even figured out how to repair itself from parts scavenged from its broken robotic kin. It even developed a kinship with a surviving cockroach. It built a shelter and home against inclement weather and kept itself to a schedule that allowed it to maintain it’s power levels.

That peaceful routine was disrupted when a probe from one of the human ships that left returned to search for signs that the environment could sustain life again. That kicked off an adventure for Wall-e that had him face off against a starship’s AI and robotic enforcers. He overcame his challenges by making friends with fellow SROs (the ship had considered broken robots), and awakening the humans on the ship from complacency to the potential they could be meeting.

With that in mind, let us get to the character-building!

Race

As discussed above, Wall-e is clearly an SRO.

Theme

Wall-e’s proclivity to salvage and re-use tech, I think that places him with the Tinker theme.

Class

I strongly considered making Wall-e a mechanic and turning E.V.E. into its drone, but that never felt quite right. Next, I considered making it a Technomancer specializing in all the junk-based spells, to represent Wall-e’s centuries of cleaning up junk. However, the kind of raw power spellcasting gives you just didn’t sit well with Wall-e, who never hurt anything or one it could avoid hurting. Eventually, I settled on Envoy: a highly-skilled class underestimated by nearly everyone. That fit Wall-e perfectly, I think.

The Attributes

Strength
Wall-e is strong. If you’ve ever seen a compacter in real life, you should expect this. Early on in the Wall-e’s story, however, it can grip and hold onto the probe when it returned to its mothership, even as it lifted off and accelerated to interstellar speeds… with nothing but its hands.

Dexterity
While Wall-e was swift and sure, it did not display any particularly special ranged feats and did not seem very dodgy at all. I do not think its dexterity was very high.

Constitution
At first glance, Wall-e might seem like an extremely tough little SRO. But with his ability to swiftly replace parts, I’d say he relied far more on restoring himself than on merely tanking damage, so I don’t think its constitution would be all that high.

Intelligence
Wall-e learns quickly. Even when it was in the entirely foreign environment of the human starship Axiom, Wall-e was able to quickly figure out how to adapt to the changing circumstances to accomplish his goals.

Wisdom
Our intrepid SRO has over 700 years of experience… but it was 700 years of experience in an endless routine.  Wall-e, I think, displays both an ancient wisdom and a childlike innocence at the same time.  I think those factors leave it with an average wisdom score.

Charisma
Despite 700 years of isolation and being covered in filth, Wall-e was easily able to make friends with fellow SROs and Humans alike, pretty-easily. With no possibility of having developed social skills in that kind of isolation, I think it relied on a decent charisma score to pass those checks.

Starting Scores:
Str 16; Dex 10; Con 10; Int 15; Wis 10; Cha 14
Level-up points will go into Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma, leaving Wall-e’s skill points per level and Stamina per level steady without any bursts at certain levels.

Skills

With his stats, Wall-e will be getting ten skill points per level. Envoys have the advantage of having basically every skill on the list as a class skill. So let us look at what skills wall-e displayed.

It built a new skyline, self-repaired, salvaged usable items, and built a home. It clearly has Engineering.

It climbed a latter up the side of a ship, using tracks and his manipulators. Later on, it climbed up an indeterminately long shaft inside the Axiom to reach the command deck and caught and carried back up an object that was dropped down onto it. If that isn’t Athletics, I don’t know what is.

It was able to improvise a fire extinguisher into a space thruster and then perform aerospace acrobatics with it. That’s going to be either piloting or, more likely, Acrobatics... possibly even both though.

It was able to weld several objects together and apart, and since welding tools are advanced melee weapons with the Profession (Contractor) special property, I think we need to give Wall-e that skill as well. And while we are at it, its love of music and dancing could be construed as skill in Profession (Dancer) as well, even though I doubt it’ll ever be picking up a battle ribbon any time soon.

Wall-e spent all of its free time searching for usable items amidst the piles of junk covering the earth. That is the Perception skill.

Throughout the movie, it displays a penchant for becoming and remaining hidden, so I think it can be given the Stealth skill.

Wall-e’s ability to make friends, I think, doesn’t rely on passing diplomacy checks at all. Instead, I think it relies far more on being able to pick up on social cues and navigate foreign cultures.  That is a mixture of the Culture skill and Sense Motive.

Lastly, there were a variety of minor scenes where Wall-e displayed Bluff, Disguise, and Sleight of Hand skills, so I would divide the remaining points between those.

Class features

Skill Expertise

Skill expertise allows you to select certain skills also to apply your expertise bonus too. Wall-e would select first Engineering, then Culture, Bluff, and Diplomacy, probably in that order.

Expertise Talents

Wall-e’s primary focus out of all of these is on Engineering, so I would start off picking Engineering Adept and Student of Technology, and then dive into the also-tech-related Tech Familiarity for the Culture skill.

Since SRO’s use Engineering for all medicine checks, I would also consider asking my GM to allow me to take Medicine related Expertise Talents for use with Engineering instead, but only on things that can be healed by engineering checks.

Envoy Improvisations

Expanded Attunement and Universal Expression will help Wall-e aid its fellow SROs, and also improve its ability to make friends with those humans who might not be able to understand it.

Duck Under, Frustrating Target, and Not in the Face can represent Wall-e’s ability to avoid damage despite being dex-less and armor-less. I’d fill in any other improvisations as necessary.

Feats

The construction of Wall-e’s body makes the Arm Extensions and Kip Up feats natural fits for the SRO.  Hauler might also be a great feat to help represent Wall-e’s immense strength.

One of the first defensive things we ever saw it do was dig into the ground to protect against the exhaust fire of a landing rocket, making Barricade entirely appropriate.

We saw Wall-e yelling to warn everyone around him quite often, opening up the possibility of taking the Startled Scream feat.

And while Wall-e can be KO’d even after that, he is very tough, and always recovered. The diehard feat would be a good way to represent that.

After level 9, taking the skill focus feat for skills you can’t get applies expertise bonuses to might be well worth your time.

Lastly, Technomantic Dabbler, if you want to give Wall-e a few of the Technomancer spells that wouldn’t drastically change him into something else, could be a great idea. I recommend taking Mending along whit either Fabricate Scrap and Junk Armor, or Transfer Charge and Shrink Object; after all, Wall-e is a robotic compactor.

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Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this. As I mentioned earlier, it’s my first blog. This one was inspired by Neal Litherland and his Character Conversion blog posts: https://taking10.blogspot.com/p/character-conversions.html?fbclid=IwAR1TNQHh4iaezBSEJmyKpMd03PFYK5M3aAhZFyT7x1UAfy_kmbkWz-l1rlk

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