Liquidity
Collections:
Verity drew a bundle out with her glove-bagged hand, Franklin’s mild portrait bisected by a red elastic band. “This is wrong, this kind of money. You know that?”
“Gives us agency.”
“Agency?”
“Capacity to act,” Eunice said.
— Agency, William Gibson.
Liquidity represents the total amount of no-strings-attached untraceable currency your character can lay their hands on right now. It might be in credsticks (in nuhen), actual cash (typically UCAS dollars), corporate scrip, or similar.
Note that this is distinct from Logistic Points. LP is used to buy gear, and the amount you can buy is dictated not only by the money you can afford but also your trust level with various shady gunsmiths, armouries, talismongers, and chop-shops.
Using Liquidity for bribes or access
The most common way to use Liquidity to get what you want is by using it to grease the wheels. Via bribery, finder’s fees, access fees, and so forth, you can purchase bonuses on rolls of skills like Persuasion, Research, Arcana, and so forth.
| +1 | +2 | +4 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bribe someone who’s living in poverty | 1 | 2 | |
| Bribe a wageslave (low risk) | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Bribe a wageslave (high risk) | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| Bribe a corp exec | 5+ | 15+ | too much |
| Get info that’s public, but obscure | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Get info that’s nonpublic, but not dangerous | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| Get info that’s secret, dangerous, or arcane | 5+ | 15+ | too much |
NB: For a very low-stakes request, such as bribing a nightclub bouncer to let you past or a maitre’d to give you a good table, there may not be a roll needed; 1 or 2 points of Liquidity can buy instant success.
A rough guide to the value of Liquidity in-game
This is deliberate very rough, because if I wanted to nail down currency values in details, I’d go back to tracking nuyen one-by-one. The whole point of this system is supposed to be to make it faster and easier.
Still, so we’re all on the same page, some guidelines:
- 1 point buys
- Fast food for the whole team or a mediocre sit-down meal for two
- A couple of hours of gig-economy bottom-wage-tier labour
- A wageslave looking the other way when there’s no risk to themselves
- Cover fee at a fancy nightclub
- A cab ride right across town in bad traffic
- 2 points buys
- A good quality sit-down meal for two
- A few nights in a low-end hotel or a week in a coffin motel
- A low-end commlink
- A full month of streaming subscriptions to every channel and service
- 5 points buys
- A meal for two in a famous fine-dining restaurant, with wine
- A typical wageslave’s monthly discretionary income
- A ticket on a transcontinental semi-ballistic to any major city
- A high-end commlink and all the upgrades and add-ons
- 20 points buys
- A gig economy worker’s annual income
- A top-of-the-range legal cyberdeck
- 50 points buys
- A wageslave’s annual income
- A corp exec’s quarterly bonus (in a bad year)
- A mid-range mid-sized car