Caleb T. Gordan's Alternate Economy Rules.

[CalebTGordan]

This is just the start of what I have been working on but it needs far more playtesting and feedback than other projects so I am just going to post them here and let everyone look at them.

This is the link to the document. It will update as I work on it.

As you can see, I try take out the Magic Item economy and replace it with a Trade Good economy. The one thing that I have noticed is that the number of dice rolled increases. I plan on figuring out how to keep that number down.

I am also thinking this might make kingdoms richer, but I won't know for sure until I really have this play tested.

[GM_Solspiral]

Nicely done, if this was around before I worked ion my own rules I'd be on this for sure. I do see three issues though:
1) This seems to stimy the ability to be self-sufficient which bugs me slightly.
2) As you have already mentioned more rolls = bad.
3) I still struggle with this with Paizo's system, your system, and mine even BP and gold don't translate very well.

[CalebTGordan]

GM_Solspiral wrote:

Nicely done, if this was around before I worked ion my own rules I'd be on this for sure. I do see three issues though:

1) This seems to stimy the ability to be self-sufficient which bugs me slightly.
2) As you have already mentioned more rolls = bad.
3) I still struggle with this with Paizo's system, your system, and mine even BP and gold don't translate very well.

I am not sure what you mean with point #1, you may need to eleborate a bit.

2) I don't think more rolls equals bad, but I also don't think it is good either. Maybe removing the rule of 1 always fails for selling trade goods would solve the problem. Maybe it should be 1 roll per district instead of 1 roll per item. This is still in rough form, so I am sure something will work out.

3) I don't think they should, to be honest. Build Points and Gold shouldn't mix in my opinion. My group feels that they should though and so I am going to continue to allow them to deposit and withdraw. The two are like apples and oranges to me though, and trying to figure out how to make one translate to the other is not something I think should be done.

[GM_Solspiral]

On one hand I love trade based economy forces you to be a bit better of a neighbor on the other I am not certain I want my PCs kingdom economy dependent on diplomacy, allot of early economies were self sufficient.

[CalebTGordan]

Actually, my system doesn't rely on Diplomacy or other kingdoms. I would like it to have something with other kingdoms involved, but right now this works much like the Magic Item economy. You have a number of items, you roll to sell the number of items.

What I wanted to do was have kingdom events that said, "Mivon wants iron. You may sell x number of Raw Material trade goods as if they were Medium item." or "Brevoy is pulling out of all trade agreements with you. All Food and Manufactured trade goods are considered one step lower when you sell them this month."

Or, actually have a reward for an RP event be a number of buildings have the trade good they produce upgraded.

But, this system might be a bit too complex. In fact, I just had one of those moments where you are doing something like showering and an idea struck.

Another way to do this is to remove item production from buildings altogether. Caster's tower, for example, no longer produces items. Instead, you have a number of buildings like the Market, Black Market, and Waterfront that sell them. With the Waterfront, for example, you can try to sell 3 minor, 2 medium, and 1 major a month.

Doing this way can still have other nations affect things with RP events or random events. You just upgrade/downgrade the item or change the number of them that can be sold.

[CalebTGordan]

Made big changes. Check it out.

[redcelt32]

Very nice!

Did you take out the specifics of each type of trade item? I don't see that in your rules when I looked. It sounded like you were setting up your to be that way, but I didn't see any details like that. I would truly love to be able to track the generation of different types of trade goods and their markets, but that is leaning towards a completely different game, heh.

I made them use trade routes with other kingdoms in lieu of magic item sales, which allows them to be threatened, affected by external politics and environmental factors. We don't get too specific about how many units of materials are traded, but we do for example have some text about each trade route. For instance, Varnhold's trade route is alcohol and stone for wood and grain. Which means if something happens to this trade route, ale and building materials will soon be in shorter supply.

[GM_Solspiral]

Love the changes though beware my players would need to roll a 1 to fail any of those checks the command DCs might need adjusting based on size...

LOL we're doing it again, I say something you think of something else then minor tweaks, watch me come up with a different angle.

[Jabberwonky]

redcelt32 wrote:

I made them use trade routes with other kingdoms in lieu of magic item sales, which allows them to be threatened, affected by external politics and environmental factors. We don't get too specific about how many units of materials are traded, but we do for example have some text about each trade route. For instance, Varnhold's trade route is alcohol and stone for wood and grain. Which means if something happens to this trade route, ale and building materials will soon be in shorter supply.

Is it just me or does this make everyone think of Settlers of Catan?

[Jabberwonky]

Had a thought as I was reading this thread - yeah once again Solspiral and Caleb you guys are working delightfully off one another. Love the stuff you are sharing, keep it coming.

I was thinking about the magic item economy issue that so many have brought up (that it can very easily be gamed in an unrealistic manner). I wonder instead of rolling an econ check to see if an item sells each month and recieving a flat BP value, if instead you were to assign a dice to each tier of item, and when an item sold, roll to see how many BP the kingdom recieved from its sale.

Example: Per the rules in RRR, minor items are worth 2BP, Medium are worth 8 bp, and major are worth 15 BP. Assume we keep these values, but assign a d2 to the minor set, a d8 to the medium set, and 2d8 to the major set. Now when an item is sold, either the gm or treasurer rolls the approriate dice to see how many build points were actually recieved by the kingdom from the sale.

I'm curious to see what you guys think, especially since you've had expeiricnce running the economy at various stages. My group is still not even done with its first year of kingdom building, so I'm not certain how it could work out. I can see some benefits and detriments to it, namely that it means more rolls, but it could also give the players a sense of gambling (Win big, or only win a bit). It seems like it would still allow the GM some brakes on the expodential magic item to buildpoint interchange that can happen.

[CalebTGordan]

redcelt32 wrote:

Very nice!

Did you take out the specifics of each type of trade item? I don't see that in your rules when I looked. It sounded like you were setting up your to be that way, but I didn't see any details like that. I would truly love to be able to track the generation of different types of trade goods and their markets, but that is leaning towards a completely different game, heh.

When I updated the rules to the simpler ones I have now I took away that. I will add back in a section with the previous stuff if you want. It had some interesting ideas.

I like the trade route idea.

[Philip Knowsley]

In my homespun rules, I made it so that magical items were still produced,
but that these weren't 'sold' directly to assist the PC economy.
Rather - each type of item added a specific amount to the economy check,
which was then in turn reduced by whatever taxation modifier the players
had decided upon.

I felt this was an eloquent & simple way of getting rid of the 'magic item
economy' bugbear many complained about - yet actually modelling more
correctly (but still simply) an actual economy. i.e. shop A sells item B
& the kingdom tax takes equals **%...

[CalebTGordan]

GM_Solspiral wrote:

Love the changes though beware my players would need to roll a 1 to fail any of those checks the command DCs might need adjusting based on size...

LOL we're doing it again, I say something you think of something else then minor tweaks, watch me come up with a different angle.

Yep.

I am playtesting the rules right this moment. Change the DCs to the following: Command DC for minor items. Command DC + 5 for medium. Command DC + 10 for major.

More on if that works out with my group.