What about implementing a base economic system in RPG''s (where this might apply) based on the free enterprise model (possible biased by governments or other local/regional/global factors)? I read one thread here about making it possible to invest in Characters. Why not implement a sort of stock market (or several) where there is an entry fee to start a new corporation (or named accordingly to plot) where the day-to-day manager has certain goals to fulfill. Failing this might trigger penalties, etc. Every shop and major transaction in the game could even influence this economy model. What about it?

The closest experience that i''ve had in an rpg to stockmarkets in games was battlemech. It was a beautiful game. The one issue with having economics in rpgs is graphics. If you want to put a really good economics system into a rpg do you want to have things looking better? I think so, that''s the hard bit.

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quote: Original post by gartland

What about implementing a base economic system in RPG''s (where this might apply) based on the free enterprise model (possible biased by governments or other local/regional/global factors)? I read one thread here about making it possible to invest in Characters.

Yup, I liked that ideal and think it might work well in our MMORPG.

quote:
Why not implement a sort of stock market (or several) where there is an entry fee to start a new corporation (or named accordingly to plot) where the day-to-day manager has certain goals to fulfill. Failing this might trigger penalties, etc. Every shop and major transaction in the game could even influence this economy model. What about it?

Wow, that''s taking it a step farther... You could have player run companies and all players could invest in these companies. I like this ideal alot. This would also allow players to create their own cities and goverments. I''m not sure how well it would go over in a mid-evil time period...

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

I think that type of idea would translate well into a Medieval setting. You can still have characters invest their hard earned money into another''s enterprise, and if this is a MMORPG, you could leave it to the players to handle paying back their investors, or build a system in where people could publicly invest, and withdraw their money, and all of that stuff.

And then there''s the existence of a feudal government, if that is the case, where the king would, of course, have the power (and the right!) to take over someone''s business, or just raise taxes so the person barely earns anything! Assuming the king is an overthrowable character (NPC, PC or otherwise), this would definitely provoke responses from players, and create sources for quests/adventures, or all out wars, just by the existence of this econmic system.

What happens when the economic system gets outta'' wack? Do you have busts as well as booms? I''m thinking UO''s ecology idea, which got so out of wack that DM''s had to intervene to keep the game playable. How would you handle monopolies? What would cause stock market growth? Crashes? What investment options would you have? Lots ta'' think about.

It''s a pretty cool idea to have economics, but I guess you''d have to limit some of the realism. Realistic investing has a ton of bewildering (errr... to me, at least) strategies, which is why there''s a job being a fund manager. If it''s pretty much hands off, then I think it might work-- except that it''d really be an abstract form of gambling. But if you have to figure out maturity terms, investment rates, opportunity costs, blah blah blah... well, then I''d rather be a poor dragon slayer...

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Just waiting for the mothership...

Hah! Why bother slaying Dragons when there''s the opportunity to go hunting lawyers and monopolists!

The mechanics of making sure it couldn''t be abused would be hard, but I figure that if players can attack other players, and one player has a monopoly on something and is abusing their monopolistic power, that should be motivation enough for other players to band together and take him down from power. And then, of course, someone else would end back on top, or maybe the band of players will form their own syndicate, and then things would just get messy. Well, then the people getting the downside of it all would have to seek jobs as body gaurds for the syndicate or something .

I doubt any of this would work out in a real game, but it would be cool.

quote: Original post by wasteland


The mechanics of making sure it couldn''t be abused would be hard, but I figure that if players can attack other players, and one player has a monopoly on something and is abusing their monopolistic power, that should be motivation enough for other players to band together and take him down from power.

You know, for some reason in MMORPGs I saw a lot of players banding together to do evil, but very few banding together to do good. I don''t know what it was, incentive, or what, but on UO you had fewer PK-avengers than you had PKers. Although, I guess if the motive was greed (as in PKing) you''d have players forming monopoly busters pretty quick like...

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Just waiting for the mothership...