Stockmarket Rules for Cyberpunk 2020

Stockmarket – Rules

Author: unknown.
Used to be on JOSE ZAGAL’S site. Published here, because Jose’s Site is long gone.

Making an Investment

Players wishing to invest money in the Night City stock market need only get in touch by cellphone and express their dsire to do so. They must then decide which corporation they will put their money into and decide how much money they desire to part with. Investments are made in amounts that are multiples of 100eb. Players need to realize that they must at this moment pay the commission , an amount equal to 10% of the total amount invested. This amount is paid in advance an is the only fee that is levied, regardless of how successful the investment may have been.For Example: Joe wants to invest 1000eb. in Arasaka stock. Joe Must Pay: 1000eb + 100eb = 1100 eb. Joe now has 1000eb worth of Arasaka Stock.

Once the Investment has Been Made

Since the character has already decided what to invest in, all that needs to be determined is how the investment will fare. For sake of simplicity (as well as reduced paperwork), stocks will rise, drop, or maintain their value every three days, this amount of time will be called a period. Thus if a character where to make an investment, he could only withdraw his money in three days time.To determine how his investment fares initially (that is for the first period) the character must roll a Stock Market skill check (Stock market + INT + 1D10) and consult the chart below. The overall result is how his investment will have fared. From then on, at the end of every period the character must then roll 1D10, add his Stock Market skill and then look on the Maintenance chart. This will determine whether his investment has improved, remained, or dropped somewhat from the previous period.

Stock Market Difficulty Chart

Roll Overall Result
3-12 -3%
13-15 -2%
16-18 -1%
19-21 0%
22-24 +1%
25-27 +2%
28-30 +3%
31- +4%

Stock Market Maintenance Chart

Roll (D10+Skill) Results
3-5 Decrease 1 Rank
6-11 Maintain
12- Increase 1 Rank
Fumble Decrease 2 Ranks
Crit. Success Increase 2 Ranks

Unusual Behaviour

Every period, stock from 14 different corporations will exhibit unusual behavior. It is necessary to randomly roll which corporations these are. The first 7 will show an improvement of 4D6% in their stock value and the last 7 will show a 4D6% drop in their stock value. If the player has invested in any of these randomly selected corporations his stock will be subject to the unusual behaviour regardless of what he may have rolled for that period. In this way it is possible for fumbles to turn into surprise profits and “sure-wins” into sudden losers. Note that this behaviour occurs only in this period, unless the same corporation happens to be rolled randomly next period.This system takes care of factors that are out of characters hands when it comes to the stock market. If the players decide that they want a further say it what goes on then have them role-play it out. For example, a succesfull extraction operation against a certain corporation can result in a stock raise for the extractor and a drop for the corporation who just lost a valuable scientist.

Note

When a character decides to withdraw an investment in order to calculate how much money was lost or gained add all the percentages for the different periods and then figure out with this last number the losses or profits.For Example: Joe invests 1000eb. During the first period he sees a 2% loss, during the second period he sees a 3% gain. At the end of his 3 period he sees a 1% loss. Joe then decides to sell. Adding up all the percentages gives a total of 0%. After all, Joe broke even.

This way of doing things is not THAT realistic but it helps cut down on paper work while providing a fun and easy way of doing things!
[Karsten’s Note: If you need a list of big corps that are likely to be traded at every major stock exchange, have a look at Ocelot’s Character Generation System. It features a big table in the lifepath. And I offer you a list of 100 Zaibatsus you could use..]