Prices

"17,000?! We could almost buy our own ship for that!" - Luke Skywalker

When Luke uttered those words in Star Wars, I believe he set into motion something that would have a skewing impact upon the economy of the Star Wars universe–at least in the role playing game.

Evidently, someone took him literally. According to the D6 rules, a used light freighter costs 25,000 credits. So yes, with 17,000, you could almost buy your own ship. When I first started playing, these amounts seemed suitably expensive- especially when compared to the meager funds most adventuring groups were likely to have. But the longer I gamed in this system (and the more I realized just how much things cost 'in the real world'), the more it began to bug me.

Yes, I know Star Wars isn't the real world. And perhaps credits are worth a vastly different amount than a U.S. Dollar. But when you look at other bits of equipment (weapons, computers, etc.), you see that the amounts aren't THAT far off from 1 credit = 1 dollar. Pistols, for instance, are in the 500-750 range. Which is about right. You can get a 'laptop' for 1500. A comlink (cell phone) can be from 50-100+. Again, within the range of a 'cell phone'. So, for 25,000 dollars in the real world you can get a Sedan. An 'average' car. In the Star Wars galaxy, you can evidently get an interstellar starship for the same amount. This is significantly larger than a sedan- plus it includes all kinds of secondary systems—weapons, shields, radios, sensors. All of that for 25k? That just sounds wrong. Very wrong. Even if you buy a 'new' ship (which the game says costs 100,000), it still seems to be worth much less than it should be.

If you take the RPG prices as their face value, and don't factor in 'real world' stuff: what they're saying is- you can trade in 25 blaster rifles (at 1,000cr a piece) for a Starship. That doesn't seem to make any economic sense at all. Even if you factor in that Interstellar Starships are 'commonplace' in the Star Wars galaxy, the equation of 25 rifles = 1 starship just makes no sense.

So what does this mean? Well, unfortunately for me, it means I'm going to have to severely revamp the prices, especially on higher-priced items like vehicles. I don't know where I'm going to begin on this. Maybe the best bet would be to try and find the closest real-world equivalent that I can: Like private Yachts or commercial freighters or private aircraft- and then try to back into some more reasonable figures for the game. Right...so...where does one find out how much a lear jet costs? Guess I'll find out...