For a guy who has never played nor run a merchant-based RPG campaign, I sure do love a merchant RPG sourcebook. This is Far Trader (1999), a mercantile campaign frame for GURPS Traveller. It’s pretty great!

There is a density of information here that is a little alarming and, compared to other mercantile sourcebooks I have known and loved, it feels far more complete. Surprising no-one, probably, I am not the most economics-minded person, so I never really noticed how broadly drawn something like Dark Sun’s Dune Trader is until I peeped this. In comparison, Dune Trader is like “get a wagon, go places.” No wonder I never played a mercantile RPG, you need a book like this to know what to do!

There is a bunch of mechanical stuff that is good and supports the idea of a commerce-based RPG — character templates, new skills and such — but it’s the chapters on the interstellar economy that seems the most important, as they really lay out a gamified explanation of trade mechanisms and finance in a way that showcases how this sort of campaign can be fun and exciting to play. Maybe. Turns out there is a fair bit of bookkeeping, which is not my kind of fun. But these chapters kind of equip you to be able to handwave the numbers and make abstract profits and loss feel like they have weight. This stuff would put me to sleep in the real world, but in space, with laser guns and clear rules on how to defraud banks? Sign me up. RPGs are weird.