Silver and Jade

Permutations

• Resources Rating vs Resources Purchases

Resources Ratings & Resources Purchases

The Resources rating, for the purpose of these rules, is the number of dots a character has in the Resources Background. It represents an overall, often times regenerating buying power of the character in question.

A Resources purchase is a single expenditure of funds. These are rated on a scale comparative to the Resources rating. These ratings reflect how expensive the item is; if someone with a Resources rating equal to the Resources purchase scale makes that purchase, it reduces his Resources by one dot.

Example: Gilded Coin has a Resources •••• rating. The purchase of an estate is a Resources •••• purchase. If he makes the purchase, his Resources are reduced to a rating of •••.

The Fine Art of Haggling

The system assumes that the basic price of any given item is a Resources purchase. Of course, with a culture that lacks the concept of standardized pricing, there is no such thing as a fixed price.

Evaluating Goods

Before haggling begins, the prospective buyer generally makes an Intelligence + Bureaucracy roll, with a difficulty of the item's Resources rating.

A dishonest seller may take steps to make the item seem worth more than it is, through sweet-talking the buyer and/or underhanded little tricks such as adding a discreet layer of wax to make something that isn't in the best condition shine, or otherwise concealing flaws in the item.

• Physical Tricks: Each success on the seller's Dexterity + Larceny adds one to the difficulty to determine the true value of the item. This generally requires some time, based on the item's size and complexity.
• Sweet Talking: Each success the seller scores over the buyer's MDV in a Manipulation-based social attack increases the difficulty by one as well, unless the target spends a point of Willpower.

Success: If the buyer succeeds at this roll, he gains an automatic success on the following Haggling roll, or three successes if the seller resorted to physical tricks or sweet talking.

Haggling

Haggling with a seller is a

Mechanically, this is an opposed roll of

Investing

• Every investment is rated as a Resource purchase.
• Every investment has what is called a turnaround time, which is the amount of time it takes an investment to determine success or failure,and the degree thereof.

Shielded Resources

Resources that come to a character through Backing of some kind are far more reliable and solid than normal Resources. Where unshielded Resources are based on the character's own wheeling and dealing, making money where he can and generally tending to his own finances, Shielded Resources come to a character through the organization to which he belongs. This may be in the form of a salary, or it may simply reflect investments and income that come about as a result of association with that organization.

A Backing Background can protect up to its rating in Resources. Multiple Backing Backgrounds do not stack; the Resources of that character is simply protected by the best of them.

Benefits: Shielded Resources benefit in the following ways:

• Regeneration: Instead of Resources rating dropping permanently by a single dot when a Resources purchase of equal value is made, the drop occurs only until the next month. This, of course, is only the case if the Backing shielding the Resources rating is of equal or greater rating.
• Immunity to Attack: Shielded Resources ratings are immune to attack by the Silver and Jade system, to a degree. Shielded Resources cannot be eroded below the rating of the Backing serving to shield them.