- Joined
- May 16, 2008
- Messages
- 18,150
So, one of the silly things that happen in rpgs is that, by mid-game or so, you usually have all the cool loot and a lot of money you don’t know how to spend. There are some money sinks, but these usually don’t change things much.
This happens because, when your character dies, you reload and keep going, so effectively it’s like your guy never died, which means that the “life of the adventurer” loses the minus (stealthy goblins killed you) and keeps all the pluses (the monster had a big treasure).
Now, in a D&D type of “world”, adventurers are groups of people who usually die some horrible death away from home, and only very few groups survive and become rich.
In a videogame, though, that makes no sense, because obviously your group is supposed to survive, or the game would be over.
So the adventurer career for the player’s party is effectively a great career, since they’re assured to defeat the monster (eventually, after x reloads) and get the precious jewgold.
Now, having to pay a lot of money for ressing, á la “Baldur’s Gate” doesn’t do the trick, since you simply reload and fuck it.
What would help could be implementing a system that calculates an “upkeep” for every party member. When you sleep, you are detracted an X amount of gold per companion, and that gold is lost forever (the npc hid it in its butt or something). Said upkeep should be relatively steep, because it would take into account food, gear repairs, companion salary, etc.
Another problem is that you find the cool sword of coolness +3, and that’s worth 3000 gp, and you go to a shop and you sell it. Even if it’s a shithole of a village of 6 people living off roadkill, the merchant always has thousands of gold pieces for your loot.
That should be changed by implementing a “fixed” economy, that is, an economy where merchants don’t simply create money from nothing, but have a fixed amount that fluctuates between a max and a min value, so that merchant X has a min of 500 gps and a max of 800, and if you have stuff that’s worth, let’s say, 3000, you need to exchange it with gold + some potions + other stuff you can re-sell later, or something like that, effectively a form of barter.
Some merchants could even refuse to buy your more expensive stuff, because they live too far away from a major city where they could try to re-sell it, so they’d be stuck with no money and a very valuable sword they’d have to carry over a long distance on dangerous roads to try and get something out of it, and to them that wouldn’t be worth it.
This would create several situations. First of all, if merchant x gives you his 800 gps, then he’ll have a very low amount for several in-game weeks or months. Secondly, you might have to travel to a big city to sell your stuff, because the small hamlet of something something just doesn’t have enough money around to buy your shit. Thirdly, a high level of “barter” or whatever will allow you to give the merchant your 3k worth sword in exchange for some cash plus items, and you’d be able to re-sell these items for at least a decent portion of the remaining amount. In, let’s say, Baldur’s Gate, if Char was a dump stat for you, you’d buy a potion for 100 gp and sell it for 20. That’s obviously a big money loss. But in a more barter-oriented economy, you’d be able, with a proper amount of barter skill or whatever, to sell those potions for 60 gp, so the merchant still makes a buck and you don’t lose 80% of the value. Better yet, you trade the stuff you don’t need for stuff you need.
Alternatively, very very expensive stuff could have a market with the nobility of some place, or could be given as a “gift”, let’s say, the head of a dragon you killed and part of its treasure (ancient weapons or armor or something) could be given to the mayor of the hamlet near where that dragon was killed, to be stuffed and mounted in some public place or something, in exchange for a room for free at the local tavern whenever you are there and food and increased reputation (so lower prices) and so on.
Having to pay an upkeep for companions creates a situation where you can go solo to save money but of course you’d be more likely to die.
The point is, a decent part of your gains should go into money sinks that are not “investments” per se, like a more powerful magic item, or a +1 in strength, but should simply disappear. And the very expensive stuff should be difficult to sell, instead of simply having every single merchant in the game world buy anything at any time.
Trying to sell very expensive items should also make some merchants alert the local thieves underground or something, so that they’ll try to steal it from you. Maybe you get attacked in the tavern, or maybe you sleep, wake up and a message warns you that your fabulous sword of win is missing! So you realized that someone alerted the local thieves guild and need to find out who it was to recover it, or something. Instead, adventurers walk around town with incredibly expensive sets of armors and weapons and potions and no one seems to try and nick them, ever.
I think I’m done, sorry if this was boring, but for once I’d like a game where economy isn’t just there to allow you to become incredibly rich and isn’t based on an infinite creation of money, but is a part of the game play. After all, a rpg is not supposed to be some sort of diablo, where you bring the loot to Griswold to sell it over and over again.
Feel free to add any suggestion you might think could help in this sense, maybe we could link this thread to the Project Eternity guys if some decent ideas come out of it.
Cheers.
**********
Edit
I’ll add stuff to the OP as it comes along, plus stuff I thought of.
So, ideas until now:
- Regular loot (armors, weapons) is basically worthless. Something á la Baldur’s Gate, where leather armors and such are relatively heavy to carry but are worth 1-3 gp.
- Limited amount of cash from merchants which regenerates quite slowly- Existence of a barter system, similar to the first Fallout for instance
- Penalties for carrying excessive weight, in terms of reduced space for food and expedition goods and in terms of loss of reactivity in case of combat
- Items durability, and items breaking beyond repair with use (shields, etc)
- When appropriate, make certain items or currencies worthless in different areas
- Daily upkeep (your companions’ salary, food, general expenses, etc)
- Extra weight slows you down. Being slow in certain areas can get you unwanted consequences (swamp = sickness, bandit infested areas = inability to escape an ambush, etc)
- Selling a lot of the same item makes that item less valuable (sell me two armors, cool, they are worth like 100g each! Sell me ten, heh, what am I supposed to do with all of these, they’re worth 30 g each)
-Travelling with valuable stuff becomes more dangerous, to avoid “game-y” behaviour.
(will keep updating…)
This happens because, when your character dies, you reload and keep going, so effectively it’s like your guy never died, which means that the “life of the adventurer” loses the minus (stealthy goblins killed you) and keeps all the pluses (the monster had a big treasure).
Now, in a D&D type of “world”, adventurers are groups of people who usually die some horrible death away from home, and only very few groups survive and become rich.
In a videogame, though, that makes no sense, because obviously your group is supposed to survive, or the game would be over.
So the adventurer career for the player’s party is effectively a great career, since they’re assured to defeat the monster (eventually, after x reloads) and get the precious jewgold.
Now, having to pay a lot of money for ressing, á la “Baldur’s Gate” doesn’t do the trick, since you simply reload and fuck it.
What would help could be implementing a system that calculates an “upkeep” for every party member. When you sleep, you are detracted an X amount of gold per companion, and that gold is lost forever (the npc hid it in its butt or something). Said upkeep should be relatively steep, because it would take into account food, gear repairs, companion salary, etc.
Another problem is that you find the cool sword of coolness +3, and that’s worth 3000 gp, and you go to a shop and you sell it. Even if it’s a shithole of a village of 6 people living off roadkill, the merchant always has thousands of gold pieces for your loot.
That should be changed by implementing a “fixed” economy, that is, an economy where merchants don’t simply create money from nothing, but have a fixed amount that fluctuates between a max and a min value, so that merchant X has a min of 500 gps and a max of 800, and if you have stuff that’s worth, let’s say, 3000, you need to exchange it with gold + some potions + other stuff you can re-sell later, or something like that, effectively a form of barter.
Some merchants could even refuse to buy your more expensive stuff, because they live too far away from a major city where they could try to re-sell it, so they’d be stuck with no money and a very valuable sword they’d have to carry over a long distance on dangerous roads to try and get something out of it, and to them that wouldn’t be worth it.
This would create several situations. First of all, if merchant x gives you his 800 gps, then he’ll have a very low amount for several in-game weeks or months. Secondly, you might have to travel to a big city to sell your stuff, because the small hamlet of something something just doesn’t have enough money around to buy your shit. Thirdly, a high level of “barter” or whatever will allow you to give the merchant your 3k worth sword in exchange for some cash plus items, and you’d be able to re-sell these items for at least a decent portion of the remaining amount. In, let’s say, Baldur’s Gate, if Char was a dump stat for you, you’d buy a potion for 100 gp and sell it for 20. That’s obviously a big money loss. But in a more barter-oriented economy, you’d be able, with a proper amount of barter skill or whatever, to sell those potions for 60 gp, so the merchant still makes a buck and you don’t lose 80% of the value. Better yet, you trade the stuff you don’t need for stuff you need.
Alternatively, very very expensive stuff could have a market with the nobility of some place, or could be given as a “gift”, let’s say, the head of a dragon you killed and part of its treasure (ancient weapons or armor or something) could be given to the mayor of the hamlet near where that dragon was killed, to be stuffed and mounted in some public place or something, in exchange for a room for free at the local tavern whenever you are there and food and increased reputation (so lower prices) and so on.
Having to pay an upkeep for companions creates a situation where you can go solo to save money but of course you’d be more likely to die.
The point is, a decent part of your gains should go into money sinks that are not “investments” per se, like a more powerful magic item, or a +1 in strength, but should simply disappear. And the very expensive stuff should be difficult to sell, instead of simply having every single merchant in the game world buy anything at any time.
Trying to sell very expensive items should also make some merchants alert the local thieves underground or something, so that they’ll try to steal it from you. Maybe you get attacked in the tavern, or maybe you sleep, wake up and a message warns you that your fabulous sword of win is missing! So you realized that someone alerted the local thieves guild and need to find out who it was to recover it, or something. Instead, adventurers walk around town with incredibly expensive sets of armors and weapons and potions and no one seems to try and nick them, ever.
I think I’m done, sorry if this was boring, but for once I’d like a game where economy isn’t just there to allow you to become incredibly rich and isn’t based on an infinite creation of money, but is a part of the game play. After all, a rpg is not supposed to be some sort of diablo, where you bring the loot to Griswold to sell it over and over again.
Feel free to add any suggestion you might think could help in this sense, maybe we could link this thread to the Project Eternity guys if some decent ideas come out of it.
Cheers.
**********
Edit
I’ll add stuff to the OP as it comes along, plus stuff I thought of.
So, ideas until now:
- Regular loot (armors, weapons) is basically worthless. Something á la Baldur’s Gate, where leather armors and such are relatively heavy to carry but are worth 1-3 gp.
- Limited amount of cash from merchants which regenerates quite slowly- Existence of a barter system, similar to the first Fallout for instance
- Penalties for carrying excessive weight, in terms of reduced space for food and expedition goods and in terms of loss of reactivity in case of combat
- Items durability, and items breaking beyond repair with use (shields, etc)
- When appropriate, make certain items or currencies worthless in different areas
- Daily upkeep (your companions’ salary, food, general expenses, etc)
- Extra weight slows you down. Being slow in certain areas can get you unwanted consequences (swamp = sickness, bandit infested areas = inability to escape an ambush, etc)
- Selling a lot of the same item makes that item less valuable (sell me two armors, cool, they are worth like 100g each! Sell me ten, heh, what am I supposed to do with all of these, they’re worth 30 g each)
-Travelling with valuable stuff becomes more dangerous, to avoid “game-y” behaviour.
(will keep updating…)
