It looks like we may have gotten our wires crossed. I was not meaning to support a merger of the GMHs but having a common pool of indie hunters and grebbers that worked together on contract. We have the Byn when we need to hire muscle. Tuluk has Shadow Artistry when you need people eliminated or pressured. Merchant houses use both of these established systems with good success at times.
Lower overhead (no/fewer resource-gathering employees to have to feed/cloth/shelter).
Pretty much the same amount of employees would be needed to support the needs of each House individually as they would if combined, given the very different needs each House has in terms of materials and the rate of production of said materials remaining the same. Speaking virtually at least, since this is mentioned as an IC benefit. Further, this actually goes against the OOC benefit being asked for, which is increased interaction. Cutting down the number of PC would lead to less interaction. Lastly, it would have a negative effect on the game due to less GMH positions being available to players as a whole. So it sucks from an OOC standpoint and seems unrealistic from an IC one.
This is incorrect. Any business has ups and downs, even monopolies. If your sales are down, you are still paying benefits such as food/clothing/shelter/water (this is part of what makes up overhead) at the same cost as if business were booming, even if you do cut their pay. They will also keep bringing in unneeded materials (inventory is also what makes up overhead). Your crafters will also keep making more inventory that the market can support (more inventory overhead). Eventually you are going to get desperate for cashflow (cause you need this to keep your bosses and employees from cutting your throat, literally in this game) and lower the price of your surplus goods which lowers the value of your product. Generally speaking, once this happens a business is going to fail or spend years trying to recover speaking virtually at least, since this was mentioned as an IC benefit.
Also, we are not cutting down on the number of PCs, instead of the merchant houses having three resource-gathering employees each, they have access to nine. Instead of three groups of four PCs (leader and three grebbers) you have twelve people that play off each other's strengths and make up for each other weaknesses without being bound into any kind of long term contract. GMHs can still hire people they find particularly useful, but they don't have to hire three BillyJoeBobs off the street just so that they can get someone to gather some branches and tregil hides or depend on solo hunters who MIGHT live through the week. If PC leaders weren't forced into hiring the PCs they need to get coded materials in, they can instead, save those slots for people with who they have built up a mutually beneficial relationship with and who can better further plots. (Again, the Byn and shadow artistry systems in place have already showed us that this works.)
Merchants and political agents could do their jobs without having to micro-manage employees.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. If reading it correctly, there would actually be more micro-managing involved in order to ensure each employee is properly seeing the needs of a given House addressed (and not overlooking them for the needs of another House). The more complex an organization, the more need for micro-managing. If you mean because there would be less employees to manage, see above response. Feel free to elaborate though.
Business use temp services (no and low-skill labor pools like the idea I am supporting) because instead of having to vet and hire people and provide them with the already mentioned benefits, you can make a call (way message) and say, "I need three people to come do this job for me and I am willing to pay this much for it." Once the job is done, they go back into the pool until they are needed again, or if one or more seems particularly useful and drama/trouble free, you can offer the job. I have always seen GMH leaders pleading for employees on city boards to look particularly jarring from an IC standpoint. These should be coveted positions not places for inexperienced noobs (meaning IC noobs, not new players!) to train up. And GMH leaders should be begged for employment, not begging for employees.
Labor-pool employees don't require baby sitting, you don't have to deal with their drama or baggage, you don't have to listen to their OMG my life sucks stories, and when they fuck up, the templars don't come looking for you for an explanation or restitution. You tell them what to do, and they do it or they don't and you get someone else form the pool, end of story unless you WANT to hire them. Again, I don't think that GMHs should HAVE to take on the responsibility of full-time employees unless they desire such, and I remember one kadian who did very well by choosing -not- to have a crew at all *eyeballs Lizzie*. If you don't think this kind of system can be successful, again, look at the Byn, Shadow artists and patron/partisan systems. YOu can OOCly and ICly still be a good leader, plot driver and keep PCs busy without hiring them. People will never OOCly or IC look at GMH employment as "elite" when people are being hired straight out of character generation without first proving that they are worth the time, effort, and coin.
Being able to vet possible skilled laborers or trustworthy minions without risking bringing in unknown thieves/troublemakers/dramaqueens.
I fail to see how a merger accomplishes this any more than it can be accomplished right now. Elaborate if you like, but as stated it makes no sense.
With a semi-organized labor pool, you know longer have to hire someone without them proving that they are worth it, and they have a way to skill up and DESERVE and merchant house job without going out alone and getting killed.
I think the above should clear that up, let me know if it doesn't. Sorry that it looked like I was supporting some kind of merger.
Larger pool of hunters/grebbers to task with something would likely bring quicker and greater yields of what is needed.
You forgot the caveat to that, "at the cost of other needed resources." If there's 30 hunters in the merged House, which were once 10 per House, those hunters either need to continue bringing in House-specific materials for the needs of each House or production of one House will suffer for the benefit of another. Beyond which, urgent needs can and have been addressed in the past by outsourcing. You don't hire on more hunters that you expect to pay for a lifetime (or their lifetime at least) just because you need a bit more resource x for that month. Also if you entirely eliminate outsourcing, you take away whatever GMH-to-indie interaction existed, which hurts the game as a whole. Essentially taking away interaction in order to promote interaction.
I believe this has been answered already, let me know if you don't think so.
Larger pool of hunters/grebbers increases the chance of specialized skills that may be needed to reach certain places or tackle certain challenges.
Sure, why not. Though at the same time, proper training and/or outsourcing can still see those needs addressed when really specialized challenges come along. Training having the benefit of a stronger force and outsourcing having the benefit of less pay. It would also mean less contracts to the Byn, which means less interaction there. But let's say that no one cares about the Byn, right? I'll give you this one.
They Byn are not hunters and grebbers, they are mercenaries, paid -soldiers-. Some sergeants will make exceptions when times are tough but there it is. Also, these two groups would clash from time to time with contracts, which is great because Conflict is one of the main drivers of Story.
OOC and IC:
All GMH/Cooperative employees/leaders would likely have more incentive and opportunity for interaction. Instead of three groups segregated into their compounds, they are all gathering at the same tavern/warehouse to talk shop and discuss business deals.
Yay for interaction, but that's an OOC benefit not an IC one. If members of different Houses have IC reason to interact, they already do. Or should. A merger in order to force them to interact for IC reasons seems... silly. Is the reasoning here, "We're going to merge the Great Merchant Houses because you all need to learn to be more social?" And why would that even matter in most cases? Does Amos Salarr care if Malik Kurac sold a pinch of spice to Joe Indie? They'd also have IC cause to interact because of the merger, which is an after-effect. They wouldn't have cause to interact any more than they do already if the merger never happened. So that can't be one of the IC reasons for the merger to happen, unless we're bringing Inception into this.
Interaction and building a larger web of influence is not an IC benefit? Sure, if you are some kind of evil abomination. Humans and humanoids are generally social creatures and the desire to interact with one another is a very strong driving force in your average sapient psyche. People already use the taverns as places for business meetings, "having the hunter/grebber guild" meet up at a certain time each day if they aren't working to shoot the ship and share/exchange contracts seems natural.
"Hey, Amos Saltfeet, man... you have any salt on you or going out next week? Foofoo Kadius wants a sack of different kinds to try with a new recipe, and I fucking hate getting salt in my asscrack."
"Nah man, but Takki does.... Hey, Takki, head over here when that whore gets done and crawls out from under the table, eh!?"
I would certainly be against this being thrown in OOCly (OOC changes to the game world always leave me feeling resentful when it is something that COULD be done ingame with the right character/player/staff effort), but it would certainly be an interesting venture to tackle in game. Good luck to anyone who tries!
Good luck to anyone who tries indeed, because it seems like they have a lot of explaining to do to their Seniors on how this makes sense for their House. But if it happens via IC means, I'm all for it. It means both players and staff is on-board with the plan, and it makes sense IC for it to happen. So far though, it seems like the only way this is going to take off the ground is if it's enforced OOC from staff. Which will need much better reasoning than what's been offered here so far. That's not my opinion, that's been stated plainly by Nyr.
Good, I don't want them to merge either!