How to game the Kessel Run

In this RPG-a-minute episode of Improvised Radio Theatre With Dice (about 27 minutes in) Roger and Michael propose a Traveler-style SF concept:

"There is a starship at planet A, you have to get it to planet Z. You are being hired to do this. You're being paid a basic stipend, and fuel and maintenance or whatever, but any money you can make along the way, that's fine, you can keep it."

It's Wagon Train to the stars – and why not? Or you could set it aboard a sea-going vessel in ancient, medieval or early modern times. Or make it about delivering a truck cross-country in a campaign modelled on Damnation Alley. There’s plenty of scope for developing picaresque adventures of the week as you go.

But that’s only half the potential. A good story arises in the tension between what you want to do and what you’re allowed to do. Consider how many Star Trek episodes are built around solving a problem in spite of the Prime Directive. So I’d suggest presenting the player-characters with their contractual terms of employment:

INTERSTELLAR DELIVERY CONTRACT

Base Compensation: 50,000 credits upon successful delivery

Time-Performance Clause:

• On-time bonus (delivery within 365-400 standard days): Additional 25,000 credits
• Early delivery bonus (under 365 days): 100 credits per day early, capped at 10,000 credits
• Late penalties:
• Days 401-500: Lose 200 credits per day from base pay
• Days 501-600: Lose 500 credits per day
• Days 600-700: Contract void, crew liable for ship's full value
• Day 700+: The ship is deemed stolen and arrest warrants will be issued for all crew, who will be liable for the ship’s full value plus damages of up to 100x that

Fuel and Consumables Accountability:

• Crew receives fuel allowance calculated at 120% of direct route requirements
• Excess fuel costs deducted from final payment
• Documented emergency detours exempt from fuel penalties

Permitted Commerce Provisions:

• Crew may conduct trade using up to 30% of cargo capacity
• Passenger transport permitted in designated quarters only
• All commerce profits belong to pilot
• Ship modifications for commerce prohibited without written approval

Route Deviation Clause:

• Minor deviations (adding less than 30 days) permitted without penalty
• Must log all stops with legitimate commercial/maintenance justification
• Employer reserves right to audit ship's navigation logs

Performance Bond:

• Crew posts 10,000 credit bond, returned upon successful delivery
• Bond forfeited if ship arrives with unreported damage or illegal modifications

Maintenance Requirements:

• Designated captain responsible for routine maintenance costs
• Major repairs (over 5,000 credits) reimbursable if properly documented
• Ship must pass inspection upon delivery or crew liable for repair costs

Any new crew member or passenger who travels outside the star system in which they came aboard is required to be a signatory to these articles and will be treated as a crew member for all legal purposes. It is the responsibility of the designated captain or their appointed representative among the ship’s company to ensure this is done, or risk a financial penalty to be determined by the courts.

This legal framework makes significant detours financially painful while still allowing the characters flexibility for interesting adventures along the established trade routes.

Now let’s consider the possible loopholes. That’s where things could get interesting – if the characters think of them:

• The Maintenance Gambit: They could claim extensive "preventive maintenance" is needed at conveniently profitable trade hubs. Who's to say the ship doesn't need a full diagnostic after passing through that nebula? Maintenance stops are explicitly allowed, and if they befriend/bribe the right mechanics to provide documentation.
• The 400-Day Sweet Spot: They lose the 25,000 credit time bonus if they take over 400 days, but penalties are only 200 credits/day after that. So days 401-425 cost them just 200 credits each against the time bonus they've already lost. If they can make more than 200 credits profit per day on those stops, they’re ahead.
• Creative Fuel Accounting: "Documented emergency detours" are exempt from fuel penalties. Pirates spotted on scanners? Better take the long way around. Stellar phenomena? Navigation hazard. Build up a file of sensor logs showing various "threats" that necessitated course changes.
• The Passenger Shuffle: "Designated quarters only" – but what if passengers are willing to pay premium rates to hot-bunk or squeeze extra people in? The contract doesn't specify maximum passenger density, just which quarters they can use.
• The Cargo Hustle: That's 30% of cargo capacity, not 30% of cargo value. They could fill it with incredibly dense, high-value items. Also, who's measuring? Is it by volume? Mass? If they claim some cargo areas are "inaccessible due to maintenance," does that reduce the total capacity and therefore increase their effective percentage?
• The Reimbursable Repair Scheme: Major repairs over 5,000 credits are reimbursable. What if they have a "catastrophic failure" requiring expensive repairs at a station where they just happen to have excellent trade connections? Or where the repair shop owner owes them a favour and inflates the invoice?
• The Navigation Log Edit: "Employer reserves right to audit" – but that's not automatic. They might not bother if the ship arrives in decent condition. And navigation logs can be tricky things: cosmic radiation, system glitches, all sorts of unfortunate data corruption...

The real beauty is combining these. Take 399 days for the journey (just under the penalty), claim you rushed to make it on time despite multiple "emergency detours" and "critical maintenance", arrive with documentation for everything, and walk away with base pay plus bonus plus a year's worth of side profits.

But those are still just plot-based exploits. More interesting still is if the contract includes ethics clauses that could constrain the characters’ ability to turn a profit. As a real-world example, some Shell negotiators in the 1990s were setting up business links in the former Soviet Union. They met with officials who proposed a scheme that would divert funds provided by the state. The officials would become rich and Shell would get a kickback. The latter had to explain that they were bound by ethical standards that didn’t permit that kind of skulduggery. Presumably the ex-Soviet officials found another company to deal with, became oligarchs, and later bought football teams or palaces on the Black Sea, but the point is the Shell guys’ hands were tied by their own company's ethical protocols. Something similar in the spaceship contract terms could pay story dividends later.

Manners maketh man

“It was their pity Driss hated. They seemed not to be aware that he could destroy them at any moment he chose. Destroy them and loot the little safe in their office, where they kept all their earnings from the bed and breakfast. They were not even aware of the compassion he was showing them. They looked right past his manhood and ignored it, as if it didn't exist and he was just a child who needed a bowl of milk every day.”

In Lawrence Osborne’s novel The Forgiven, an impoverished Moroccan named Driss illegally makes his way to Spain and is given a job by Roger and Angela Bloodworth. The Bloodworths shelter Driss from the authorities but they don’t appreciate that their liberal culture is not universal. The openness and trust they show to Driss, he takes as an affront to his masculinity. Wary hospitality according to a strict code would be fine. It’s the casual assumption that he can be treated as a member of their household that he finds disrespectful.

You don’t get much culture in fantasy. Oh, occasionally somebody will say, “It’s our custom to wear only green velvet coats on holy days,” but that’s barely skin-deep, a merely satirical look at the arbitrary nature of human customs. From the inside customs don’t feel funny, they feel like a matter of life and death. A Bedouin is obliged to offer hospitality. A samurai must atone for shame with seppuku. A calling card with “somdomite” written on it can destroy a reputation.

When roleplaying is set in a world with its own social structures and mores, and players are trying to get inside that mindset rather than play 21st century characters parachuted into a superficially exotic environment, then what you are doing is culture gaming.

Here’s an example of culture gaming from a convention game run by Michael Cule. There were a bunch of players who were new to Tekumel, and they were barbarians who’d arrived fresh off the boat in Jakalla harbour. Vortumoi, a priest of Hrü’ü played by me, brought them to be interviewed by his clan uncle, Lord Vrimeshtu, who wanted to hire them for an expedition. Also present was my bodyguard, Karunaz, played by Paul Mason. We sat on cushions to discuss the expedition over a meal – a real feast of Thai snacks that Michael brought along! – and Karunaz remained standing off to one side. (He’s Livyani, so never ate with Tsolyani, and in any case it was not his position to sit with his employer.) The tricky moment arose when Lord Vrimeshtu pointed to the wine and said, "Get your Livyani to pour for us, Vortumoi." Well, Karunaz was low clan but he was nonetheless a warrior, and you don't expect a bodyguard to serve you at table like a menial. What to do? Then I had it: “Allow me, uncle,” and I got up and served the wine myself. I could do that without loss of face because I was doing my uncle’s bidding rather than doing a favour for the barbarians. Thus my honour and Karunaz's were preserved and the clan head's wishes were fulfilled.

Whether you think that kind of thing is the lifeblood of a roleplaying game or a distraction from the main business of the adventure will tell you if you’re a culture gamer or not. It’s really the old (and often slightly forced) dichotomy between character-based and plot-based fiction. I lean towards character-based myself, much preferring Anton Chekhov to Robert Harris – though my bookshelves have room for both. And you do need both. If you think of the characters as heading towards a light, which stands for the plot objective, and the medium they’re moving through is their society, it’s the turbulence in the medium that makes the journey unique. Without it you’ve just got a straight line. But if there’s no light then they go around in circles or do nothing. 

(Examples of stories that are powered by events but flavoured by social constructs: Julian Fellowes' Belgravia, Scorsese's The Age of Innocence and Francis Spufford's Golden Hill. Or any truly compelling narrative, really.)

So the plot isn’t just a MacGuffin. Still, I don’t actually remember the adventure from that session. I think it involved a ruined fortress in a swamp. Probably there were monsters to fight. The barbarians will have run about and hit things, but it’s the nail-biting nicety of that dining-room etiquette problem that has stayed with me.

So do we need rules for social interaction? Obviously there are rules – we live our real lives according to such rules, usually unspoken but very well understood. We are alert to nuances of manner in our own society, even if we couldn’t actually sit down and explain the rules of conduct to a foreigner. But do we need game mechanics - do we need that kind of rule?

I don’t think so. We use game mechanics for the “stage directions” of a game. “I climb the wall stealthily and the guards don’t hear me.” Do you? And do they? We’ve got dice for that.

But social behaviour happens in the dialogue. Players can handle it perfectly well in conversation and mechanics couldn’t cover all the permutations anyway. Often a dispute in social terms comes down to very fine distinctions, and it’s possible that neither party is wholly right or wrong. If you wanted game-mechanical rules for social interactions, in order to cover every outcome they’d need to be highly abstract. Something like this:

“I seek to impose my status on you, rolling 6.”
“I roll a 3 and resist the attempt, countering with a critical social roll.”
“Now let’s decide what our characters actually said.”

Some people like to play that way, but I prefer immersion. Fortunately all you need is a sense of what the society’s rules are in common situations and in general principle, and a willingness on the players’ part to throw themselves into that. For example, Tsolyani law treats injury or death as a civil crime which can be settled by means of shamtla (weregild). Once you know that and the form for demanding shamtla or for taking the case to a duel, you get a lot of emergent possibilities.

Then when you include the fact that in Tsolyanu insults are also regarded as an injury, your social outcomes explode into Mandelbrot-set level richness. Your players might even forget there’s a monster-stuffed ruin out in the marshlands, because the cut and thrust of society is much more real and involving. Instead of Dungeons & Dragons, you’re in the territory of Sense & Sensibility – and, speaking as a culture gamer, that makes for much more memorable games.

Here's some reading and viewing to kick off ideas about how people act within the framework of a social setting:

• Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology by Peoples & Bailey
• Legal Systems Very Different from Ours by Friedman, Leeson & Skarbek
• Ridicule (1996) directed by Patrice Leconte
• Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Social Engineering by William H Stoddard

By the way, although Tekumel is an ideal setting for culture games, I don't want to give the impression that it can only be played that way. Professor Barker said that everyone should create their own Tekumel, and I'm sure most campaigns are very far from the "real" Tekumel. An example: in the Five Empires, belonging to a legion, especially in the heavy infantry, is a respected profession. In the most prestigious legions you'd need to be high-medium status even to sign up, and even "sergeants" (hereksa, commander of 100 legionaries) are mainly from aristocratic clans. Promotion is affected by your social class, manners, bravery and even looks as much as by your competence. That's the culture gaming version. Many Tekumel campaigns, however, treat soldiers as usually uneducated and poor, because that's what players in modern Western societies expect. Personally I can't see in that case why they wouldn't play D&D or something similar instead, but everyone should choose whichever style gives them the most fun.