Medieval economics game

Wippit Guud · Nov 15 '12, 11:21am

Would it work, and has anyone considered running one?

I don't even know what kind of rules you'd have to do to figure out how money would be made. Standard 3.5 rules on crafting et al. really sucks in that department.

Bjornaer · Nov 15 '12, 12:28pm

I think Medieval is too broad. You'd need a time and a region.

There's a lot of difference between 9th century England and 15th century Venice.

You'd also have to decide on microeconomics or macroeconomics. There's a difference between a smith's expenses and playing the Jews of Paris.

djdemiko · Nov 15 '12, 3:04pm

3.5 economics don't work for an econmy game. They were designed to supplement combat and not be used on their own. In general they suck for the crafter. If you allow magic in the game, then the mages win. There are numerous spells that directly create things of wealth and other spells that can be abused to create wealth (I think wall of iron is a classic example: wall of iron is permanent and by dnd rules the amount of iron the spell creates is very valuable). Other examples include things like using hero's feast creates many gold worth of food.

You would have to develop an entire game with its own mechanics. It would need rules for changing economies, supply and demand. I don't know of any system that has done this well. Sorry

Intro · Nov 15 '12, 3:11pm

Euro-style board games often have an economic theme. Maybe find one of those to use as the basis for mechanics?

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameca.../1035/medieval

Lamech · Nov 15 '12, 8:44pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wippit Guud

Would it work, and has anyone considered running one?

I don't even know what kind of rules you'd have to do to figure out how money would be made. Standard 3.5 rules on crafting et al. really sucks in that department.

Lets see, GURPS has some stuff if you grab the Low Tech three book, and social engineering. I think City Stats, has something useful. Mass Combat is good for resolving large scale conflict.

ASoIAF has rules for that to some degree on a house scale.

This joker looks like he has a pretty cool system all homebrew. He's planning on running it again eventually.

The main thing to note is that unless the GM (or the PC's) throws a wrench into things in all cases the PC's will fairly smoothly ascend to riches. In GURPS any character with significant amounts of downtime (who is built to utilize it) can produce a decent amount of wealth and gain CP (this game's XP) at a decent rate with no real challenge. In a SoIaF, the house rolls will generally be positive if your house is decent (and the +1 to your choice most months can make up for a bad house.) If I understand Midara its not too hard to produce a decent amount of whatever.

Hence, unless someone shakes things up it can easily become "okay, we pass go, we collect 200$, we buy the railroad we landed on)"

Secutor · Nov 16 '12, 12:12am

Quote:

Originally Posted by djdemiko

3.5 economics don't work for an econmy game. They were designed to supplement combat and not be used on their own. In general they suck for the crafter. If you allow magic in the game, then the mages win. There are numerous spells that directly create things of wealth and other spells that can be abused to create wealth (I think wall of iron is a classic example: wall of iron is permanent and by dnd rules the amount of iron the spell creates is very valuable). Other examples include things like using hero's feast creates many gold worth of food.

You would have to develop an entire game with its own mechanics. It would need rules for changing economies, supply and demand. I don't know of any system that has done this well. Sorry

But if you "create" wealth, that would devalue the value of the currency big time. Creating creating iron would drop iron and metal prices everywhere, making weapons and other things that require metalworking dirt cheap. For one, devaluing the worth of things are going to hurt the casters in a significant way. For example, Animate Dead says it needs 25gold worth of onyx per HD of undead, but if the value of onyx drops because of an economic backlash due wizards duplicating precious stones and generally being crazy, you need more onyx in mass to have enough onyx to reach the 25gold in value PER HD.

djdemiko · Nov 16 '12, 2:22pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Secutor

But if you "create" wealth, that would devalue the value of the currency big time. Creating creating iron would drop iron and metal prices everywhere, making weapons and other things that require metalworking dirt cheap. For one, devaluing the worth of things are going to hurt the casters in a significant way. For example, Animate Dead says it needs 25gold worth of onyx per HD of undead, but if the value of onyx drops because of an economic backlash due wizards duplicating precious stones and generally being crazy, you need more onyx in mass to have enough onyx to reach the 25gold in value PER HD.

I was just using it as one example. I'd also like to think that a wizard would use the spell intelligently. Maybe not a sorc :P. Only creating as much iron as needed and using it sparingly. After all, depending on the size of the kingdom one large wall of iron could totally destabilize a market or barely make a dent in it.

Other examples would be using creation spells to make/sell things. Using wish to make things. Using animate dead to create undead servants to toil. Using various enchantments/geas to force people to labor for free, etc.

Secutor · 3:13pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by djdemiko

I was just using it as one example. I'd also like to think that a wizard would use the spell intelligently. Maybe not a sorc :P. Only creating as much iron as needed and using it sparingly. After all, depending on the size of the kingdom one large wall of iron could totally destabilize a market or barely make a dent in it.

Other examples would be using creation spells to make/sell things. Using wish to make things. Using animate dead to create undead servants to toil. Using various enchantments/geas to force people to labor for free, etc.

You know what, ignore the wall of text I just wrote. I got something less tedious to read and more FUN:

Lamech · Nov 16 '12, 3:31pm

If one wizard, (or one group that all works together) can create iron (or an other useful substance) cheaply and easily then they just undercut the iron mines a little and become the sole source and then they can make oodles of money. Generally though, unless the wizard protects his trade secret, someone else will nab it and drives the prices down until iron equals a reasonable price for a wizard's labour.

That's how the economy works. No disasters, no doom and gloom, just cheap iron.

djdemiko · 3:39pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Secutor

I love that comic lol

I was giving examples of why you can't turn dnd 3.5 into an economy game, magic totally screws up everything, not attempting to argue a thesis on how you can create a viable economic game with magic as the basis

Though I now sort of want to run a time-cop style game where a group of elite economist-cops hunt down magic users who use their powers to effect the national economy.

"High magistrate tiddlybot nardowell! You are hear by arrested for 5 violations of the magic economy code. We have witness reports that you used the cantrip known as mend to repair damaged tools and charged 25 copper!"