Why Do RPGs Have Broken Economies? It Is The Player's Fault!

[Elzair]

Here is an article about the economies of RPG gameworlds by Shamus Young. In it, he discusses the reasons behind all the silly ingame economies of modern RPGs and the impossibility (or at least infeasibility) of fixing them while keeping the games fun. Here is the meat of the article.

But if the player can loot foes, if the foes drop worthwhile items, if shopkeepers pay fair prices, and the shopkeepers have enough money, then the player will end up a tycoon about a half hour into the game. The problem all traces back to the conceit we all take for granted: Players can take on wave after wave of willing enemies. Never in history has there been a gunfighter or a swordfighter that regularly and single-handedly killed batches of foes with impunity. If there was, people would have stopped fighting them.

When the gameworld generates foes, it's also generating gear for those foes, thus poofing into existence a huge haul of valuables for the player to obtain. No economy can remain stable if a single person can supply an endless stream of valuable goods from thin air. The player becomes a loot-generating machine. They are like the replicator machines in Star Trek, except they can't stop producing stuff. (Unless they stop playing the game.)

There is no way to patch this economic perversion to have it make sense.

Since broken economies are a favorite topic among the denizens of the Codex, do any of the game designers in the audience have any ideas about how to solve this dilemma?

 

[oldschool]

Well, you could just drop the looting minigame altogether. Just give gold at loot drops. Maybe a unique item at boss fights. Gets rid of the inventory tetris and the broken economy at the same time.

Or, you could change the encumberance rules so that it wouldn't be possible to lug around extra suits of armor or a whole weapons store on your back. That way, if you found a better set of armor or such, you could take it, but you would have to drop the one you're wearing.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Well, you could just drop the looting minigame altogether. Just give gold at loot drops. Maybe a unique item at boss fights. Gets rid of the inventory tetris and the broken economy at the same time.

So what do you do, act like the weapons and items of every last person you fight (save bosses) break, shatter or melt during the combat? Every time?



Or is your character just ignoring the potential advantages?

 

[Mystary!]

Would depend on the setting. If metal and weapons are easy to come by, why would a merchant want to buy second hand goods from you?
If it's in a modern day setting, I doubt people would want to buy used guns, what with serial numbers and shit.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Have a random "Realm experiences economic crisis: value of goldpiece plummets!" event.

 

[oldschool]

Well, you could just drop the looting minigame altogether. Just give gold at loot drops. Maybe a unique item at boss fights. Gets rid of the inventory tetris and the broken economy at the same time.

So what do you do, act like the weapons and items of every last person you fight (save bosses) break, shatter or melt during the combat? Every time?



Or is your character just ignoring the potential advantages?

I don't think you have to pretend they're all broken. Just remove it from the game. Who cares what the reason is?

It seems reasonable to expect that a character off to save the world isn't going to stop and pick up every rusty dagger he finds and start up a side business as a walking resale shop along the way.

I don't think pack-ratting adds anything to a game. If you remove the availability, or at least the incentive, it would make for a better game I think.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The best solution is simply a strict inventory limit. There's no way you can fight in combat with your own suit of platemail and a pack with an extra 2 suits and 5 weapons in it. And you're not going to become fabulously rich any time soon by carrying back and selling the extra sword and three daggers you can comfortably carry. Any loot you leave behind should be assumed to be scavenged by other people. The only significant wealth you should be able to aquire is currency and gems. Maybe the occasional magical item.

 

[zenbitz]

I do think reasonable encumbrance limits would be a big help in most games.

One way that hasn't been mentioned here is to put a "cost of living" mod on everything. As your PC gains wealth, he's not content to sleep in the regular old flea pits - he requires only the best.

Similarly, people might just charge him more for the same old items, because now he can afford it.

The of living should increase exponentially with wealth... your "wealth" would be still be there, but it would never be as liquid as you like.

Plus, Taxes!

But this all brings up the primary question - the reason these games have "broken economies" is because that's how the players LIKE them. They want to run around looting bodies and selling the goods; it's fun.

 

[King Crispy]

A well-run (conservative) P&P campaign easily handles this potential problem by imposing what have already been put forth: reasonable and realistic limitations on not only what can actually be carried as loot but also on what can be expected to be sold for profit.

A competent DM enforces encumbrance rules. He also will allow and encourage the industrious group to maximize their profits by taking the time, effort, and spending the extra money on the means by which to increase their haul: pack animals. There never was a grand D&D campaign that didn't include dungeon mules or even carts. Every single foe's looted equipment was fair game if one had the ability to transport it back to town. However, actually unloading the stuff was often another matter entirely. This is where some common laws of economy needed to be applied, and a typical mistake for beginning or novice DM's was to give in too quickly at the bargaining table regarding item values, actual supply and demand, and the frugality of most medieval vendors struggling to make a few silvers. Taking it a step further, most equipment previously owned by now-dead bandits should be fairly easily recognizable, and the consequences of openly selling said items to the only blacksmith or tradesman in town could and should be considerable. Doubly so for any really prominent and/or magic items. Gygax did this sometimes, namely in the Hommlet / ToEE series.

The problem is of course that none of this is practical in a CRPG. Once you start imposing stringent loot limitations, messing around with gasp! implementing actual physics and reminding players that they shouldn't be brain-dead console morons, you lose revenue. It's sad, it's pathetic, but it's reality. Blame BioWare. :twisted:

 

[Raghar]

Remember not everybody is allowed to be an adventurer, someone should also stay alive to have working economy. So an adventurer need to get a licence from a king, or local lord and be allowed to move freely above the law on the country, and receive some guaranteed salary from the lord.

Luckily when the salary is less than guard, and they risk lives daily on suicide missions not many sane people are trying to work as an adventurer. In addition when some heroes are dead, the lord might decide to raise them back as skeletons, and then the new adventurer must agree he would work with undeads and be happy, and be careful about being eaten up by his comrades. Also lord wouldn't be happy with too many adventurers, because his army would have a lot of work with finding all remains of these adventurers hanging from the trees in pieces, and identifying theirs bodies and discovering what actually killed them for proper reporting to king about what happened to his In addition when adventurer would make a successful business a king would remember on him and ask him to arrive fast because kingdom is in danger all these adventurers in shining armor more powerful than him were killed or have another more important tasks, and he should spent the small time he has by training and learning of magic (even as warrior) to not end dead as these before him.

Not many people are doing it. And these who do are so few they will not affect economy even when untaxed (actually theirs loot would be untaxed, theirs businesses must be taxed regularly.)

 

[ChristofferC]

I agree with oldschool that reducing the number of dropped items would help a lot. Who cares why you can't loot every items from every NPC? It doesn't have to be "realistic".

I am of a compulsive nature so if there are items to loot I will loot them and I will fiddle with my inventory to maximize the number of items I can bring back to the shop. Would love to not "have" to do that.

 

[King Crispy]

Remember not everybody is allowed to be an adventurer, someone should also stay alive to have working economy. So an adventurer need to get a licence from a king, or local lord and be allowed to move freely above the law on the country, and receive some guaranteed salary from the lord.

Luckily when the salary is less than guard, and they risk lives daily on suicide missions not many sane people are trying to work as an adventurer. In addition when some heroes are dead, the lord might decide to raise them back as skeletons, and then the new adventurer must agree he would work with undeads and be happy, and be careful about being eaten up by his comrades. Also lord wouldn't be happy with too many adventurers, because his army would have a lot of work with finding all remains of these adventurers hanging from the trees in pieces, and identifying theirs bodies and discovering what actually killed them for proper reporting to king about what happened to his In addition when adventurer would make a successful business a king would remember on him and ask him to arrive fast because kingdom is in danger all these adventurers in shining armor more powerful than him were killed or have another more important tasks, and he should spent the small time he has by training and learning of magic (even as warrior) to not end dead as these before him.

Not many people are doing it. And these who do are so few they will not affect economy even when untaxed (actually theirs loot would be untaxed, theirs businesses must be taxed regularly.)

I think this qualifies for

post of the month.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Indeed. English isn't that difficult of a language.

But yes, obtaining a licence from a local lord and getting taxed for a hefty enough sum - that would work. Otherwise the adventurer would be treated as a bandit and hunted down. When they eventually become too strong for pure strong-arm tactics, they should already be embroiled in local politics instead of just hunting goblins and looting crypts.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The solution is not to have the player fight wave after wave of enemies.

 

[mondblut]

Who cares why you can't loot every items from every NPC?

I do.

It doesn't have to be "realistic".

If the game does not play by the same rules the player does, the game is a pile of filthy shit, end of story.

 

[infomercialabsfuckyeah]

1) make more animal/beast/monster/demon/robot/whatever enemies. nothing to loot.

2) make combat something other than a fucking cakewalk. make it hard as fuck to get through a fight without wounds or equipment losses that require expenditure to resolve. if combat is tough enough, you can keep your respawns. farming can still be done, but then it's really rewarding instead of an exploit.

3) encumbrance.

4) rent/fees for various shit ingame (paying party members, inns, healers, food/drink/tobacco, etc)

5) merchants have limited funds available at any given time and this amount is tied to their location; swamptown's general store does not have the cash to pay for your diamond-encrusted codpiece +4. harder areas to reach, or those reached later in the game, will be wealthier, if the game follows the typical backwater-asshole-fights-his-way-to-the-king formula. lots of variations on that which would work even if the plot doesn't follow that pattern; maybe the better shops just don't want to deal with you until you're respected, i.e. leveled, or maybe there are laws against dealing in powerful items or big chunks of cash without licenses that you have to quest for I DONT KNOW THERES ALL KINDS OF SHIT

6) items that you leave out in the open for a day just disappear. somebody took them. that's that. coupled with the encumbrance mechanic, these two points alone could very nearly solve the problem of broken economies.


problem solved, rpgs perfected i am so smart i am even smarter than derek smart and even his name is smart

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Who cares why you can't loot every items from every NPC?

I do.

It doesn't have to be "realistic".

If the game does not play by the same rules the player does, the game is a pile of filthy shit, end of story.

Who says the game isn't playing by the same rules? Once you die, it's game over. For all you know, the enemies might try to loot your corpse only to be frustrated that the PC doesn't drop all the cool gear he was wearing.

 

[King Crispy]

tobacco, etc

Gave me an idea for an entirely different kind of money sink, in fact for a stat that I've personally never seen implemented in any RPG that I can remember: Morale.

Your morale score, a representation of your overall mental well-being, can be affected by many things. Combat wins and losses, party member losses, treasure gained, etc. It even will affect your performance if it gets too low by detracting from your combat-related stats at extreme levels. It's also something that naturally degrades and should require constant maintenance; this is where general, relatively inexpensive items and services would come in. Tobacco, entertainment, good grog and the like give the characters something to spend their money on and have a real in-game effect and purpose for existing. I'd really love to see this in a CRPG, but I have a feeling too many retards would balk at the added complexity and "realism" it inexcusably adds.

Bah, I miss thinking in my games.

 

[infomercialabsfuckyeah]

tobacco, etc

Gave me an idea

YOURE WELCOME

yeah i like your idea too. i hate how booze, tobacco and drugs in RPGs aren't really very useful, when in real life i find them to be wonderfully important to the enjoyment of every single thing i ever do ever. a mechanic like the one that you outline would be cool except that if you're doing well in the game there might not really be a reason to use it. i think that the benefits conferred would have to be particularly helpful if you can get that morale score maxed - this would encourage even developed PC's to still employ these moneysinks

 

[Davaris]

>It Is The Player's Fault!

Bullshit!

>do any of the game designers in the audience have any ideas about how to solve this dilemma?

Make looting a practice that is seen as dishonorable by good humanoids. So if you keep going to the same shop with swords and gold watches, your rep drops and eventually you can only do business with the underworld.

Separate legitimate shops that only sell new things and pawn shops that buy/sell goods from any source. Using these shops will increase your rep with the local underworld and decrease it in respectable society.

The other thing you can do is track how much of each item exists in each region. If there is too much of anything in one place, its value will drop exponentially.

Use racism. Humans won't want filthy Orcish swords and Human blacksmiths will say the metal they are made of is garbage. So the only source of common loot will be from the corpses of the people you are trading with and that means you must use the underworld to sell it.

Then you have the fact that most people with money want new stuff, unless it is classic. So make common weapons and armor that are second hand, valued a little more than scrap metal.

Lastly if you have a noticeable effect on a local economy, it will trigger the interest of the relevant guilds - miners, blacksmiths, merchants will suffer and will be out for your blood.

 

[spectre]

Good thoughts, however:

Then you have the fact that most people with money want new stuff, unless it is classic. So make common weapons and armor that are second hand, valued a little more than scrap metal.

That's modern day thinking, unfortunately, and won't work for medieval themed rpgs. The reality is: full-blown battle gear took lot of time to get. If you wanted full plate, you had better inherited it, because a new one will cost you money that's measured in villages. Same for war-ready horses and weapons. (With the exception of "commoner" stuff such as spears, maces and axes.).

Quality bows similarly took a lot to make,so did chainmail, there wasn't any mass production back then, just designer stuff.

Ok, common stuff could be cheap, problem is for battle you really want top quality (usually something that's tailored to you),. You don't want to go cheap on your chainmail. And it's okay to scavenge something, especially when we're thinking about lower classes or descend deeper into the dark ages. Problem is, will the scavenged stuff be in usable condition.

Another bit missing - maintaining gear. It takes some effort to maintain, f.e. a bow. Same goes for other gear. If you had quality stuff, it would serve for generations. Ending is better than mending was not the case back then.

 

[Davaris]

That logic is correct for medieval worlds without magic, but fantasy worlds are different, as magic is used not just for battle, craft magic is also employed to improve productivity.

For instance, spells are cast to bring rain, or improve crop yields, and craftsmen and miners would also use magic (or hire magic users) to super charge their productivity.

With the aid of craft magic, making items like armor, swords and other weaponry, would be less labor intensive and cheaper to buy, than their equivalents from worlds without magic.

 

[spectre]

Hm. It's a problem, because it is not very often that the impact of magic on world economy is being analyzed in depth. Especially when it comes to farming and production.

Because of that, we cannot know for sure if it is indeed so that craftsmen and miners would hire magicians. Most systems deal with that in a couple of ways: either ban magic as harmful, or make the practitioner immensely powerful (so that they won't participate in mundane tasks) and hide them away in ivory towers.

Thus, the industrial use of magic is often overlooked, and while it is interesting, noone seem sto be ready to pick up the gauntlet (Arcanum came closest, yet not really there).
The general consensus seems to be, that magic in general stagnates progress. There's logic in it, to a degree, if all it takes for optimal crops is ask the local druid for a rain dance, noone would bother trying to better crop rotation and fertilizers.
Moreover, if most learnign is done by mages, they wouldn't bother with such trivialities. Magic for magic's sake.

For our discussion here, I think it's safest to assume that it works the best (ie. is simplest) when magic is kept like that - used sparingly, and if you want lasting effects, you pay with stats (like spells of Permanence in old D&D costing Constitution points). This limits magic's application in mass production. Add to this arcanum's approach that magic and technology doesn't mix well and it seems to work together.

Overall, I think if magic is common everyday stuff, used for trivial things, and you find magical +1 swords by a truckload (Baldur's Gate 2 : Guilty), you're simply doing it wrong. If farmers are runnig around with Rods of Goat Herding +5, your adventurers are brushing teeth with +9 toothbrushes, likewise. Few if any systems bothered to accurately portray what properly would an economy of high magic fantasy look like, and I cannot blame them, cause that's not where the fun is.

 

[Mystary!]

I like the eberron approach, it's your typical dnd world but it has undergone something similiar to our industrial revolution but with magic. So magic treated as a science and is very common place and integrated in to everything, instead of steam boats there a magical powered boats etc.

 

[Davaris]

The general consensus seems to be, that magic in general stagnates progress.

Do you mean technological progress? If this is the case, then it is a good explanation for why fantasy worlds remain technologically stagnant for 10s of thousands of years.

Overall, I think if magic is common everyday stuff, used for trivial things, and you find magical +1 swords by a truckload (Baldur's Gate 2 : Guilty), you're simply doing it wrong.

I believe that magic would be used for every day things in fantasy worlds, because in fantasy you have endless numbers of enormous dungeons, that could only be dug with the aid of magic and you have castles and cities of impossible architecture, dotted all over fantasy landscapes. On top of that there are enormous humanoid populations, that are constantly at war with each other and if they also suffered from disease and malnutrition (as in a traditional medieval society) such large numbers of humanoids would be unlikely to exist.

The other point is that wide spread use of magic does not have to mean lots of +1 swords, as the vast majority of magic users would be low ability/potential and those with the talent to become high level adventurers would be few in number.

These low potential magic users or craft magicians, would employ their trade in their local communities by doing things high potential spell casters would consider to be beneath them - purifying food and water, curing illness in farm animals, improving crop yields, making metal malleable while it is shaped and hardening it when shaping is completed. In the end a blacksmith would still be making ordinary swords and armour, but with a lot less effort thanks to the local craft magician.

The thing about magical research, is it can be taken in any direction. So while laws to forbid progress may be in effect, people with natural ability will break those rules either intentionally or unintentionally and progress will be made.