Saph
2010-11-03, 08:20 AM
Loot and GPs: The Three Types of RPG Economy
So your party's just beaten up one of the campaign's major villains and taken his stuff. What does that mean for your bank account? More to the point, what do you want it to mean? Do you want payment in money, game credits, or would you rather not pay attention to the economic side of things at all?
RPGs don't traditionally spend much time thinking about economics. The pictures on the front of the rulebooks are swords and magic and monsters, not shops and coins and trade. When it comes down to it, though, an awful lot of player motivation comes from money or the lack of it.
Type 1: Real Economy
In this sort of world, something's price is based on how much it costs to make and what people are willing to pay for it. In other words, the world runs on the real-life laws of economics. The developers won't go to too much trouble to model it, of course - this is an RPG, not Harvard Business School. But the general focus is trying to simulate a real world. For instance, in D&D 3.5, a torch costs 1 copper and a spyglass costs 1,000 gold, despite the fact that in your average dungeoncrawl, a torch is way more useful (it's a light source, an improvised weapon, and a way of setting things on fire, all in one handy package). But a spyglass is expensive to make and a torch is cheap. And that's why you see a lot of adventurers with torches and very few with spyglasses.
In this sort of world, money is really useful, and can be turned into serious power. If you're a billionaire noble from Coruscant, you may not be able to beat up the Dark Jedi, but you can buy yourself a Star Destroyer with turbolaser batteries. ("Deflect this, b**ch.") A Shadowrun corp exec can buy muscle that's better than the Runners. A 3rd-level 3.5 character with 800,000 GP to his name can take out even high-level monsters as long as he has access to a magic shop.
Since money is so useful, it's actually possible to set up a business, or even run campaigns that revolve around getting rich. Sometimes this can be a problem for the GM when the players decide to pass up his story in favour of getting rich. ("Nah, 10,000 nuyen's too low. I'll go jack a few cars instead.") Players also have a much better motivation to look for economic holes to exploit in this sort of system. ("So, if iron's a trade good, and this spell's duration is instantaneous . . .")
Examples: D&D 3.5, all editions of Star Wars, all editions of Shadowrun, lower-powered White Wolf systems, most variants of GURPS, Warhammer 40K games like Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader.
Type 2: Game Economy
In this sort of world, something's price is based on how useful it is in the hands of the PCs. Given the natural temperament of most adventuring parties, this means most of the economy revolves around weapons.
The aim of this sort of economy is to streamline buying and selling and get the PCs back into the action as fast as possible, usually by making Adam Smith cry in the corner. From a logical point of view, it makes absolutely no sense that the raw materials to make a magic item in D&D 4e cost 100% of the value of the item itself, nor does it make any sense that you can only sell stuff for 20% of its value ("screw monsters, I'm raiding a merchant caravan!"). But that's not the point; the purpose of the system is to encourage the PCs to get money by going on adventures rather than by buying and selling, and that's exactly what it does. The best way to get rich in this sort of world is generally by killing things and taking their stuff, which must make life rather hard on the inhabitants. ("Yeah, I guess I could have asked him for it, but he con'd blue and I was in a hurry").
Some games go to the next step and eliminate money altogether, using an abstracted points system. If you're playing a Batman-type hero in Mutants and Masterminds, you don't buy your night-vision goggles from a shop, you take the Equipment feat and buy a pair for 1 EP. You get more points by gaining XP, and you generally gain XP by defeating enemies. You can technically get regular cash, it's just that it's not good for much except impressing the groupies.
In this sort of world, money can be useful and you'll often find yourself needing it, but it's nowhere near as powerful as it is in the Type 1 games. The best equipment usually has level limits or availability issues that prevents it from being easily bought. It's pretty much impossible to go into business in this sort of system unless you're selling things to other PCs, and even then they're generally only interested in weapons or things related to weapons.
Examples: D&D 4e, Mutants & Masterminds, Spycraft, Final Fantasy and most CRPGs, World of Warcraft and most MMORPGs.
Type 3: No Economy
In this sort of world something's price is either irrelevant or doesn't exist. Sometimes it's because the PCs are so powerful that there's nothing in a shop that they'd care about and they could just take it if there was (like Amber), sometimes it's because the world is so dysfunctional that there isn't really an economy worth talking about (like Paranoia), and sometimes it's because the PCs aren't capable of grasping the concept of an economy in the first place (like Toon).
Players like loot. Gold coins are shiny and make a fun jingling sound when you have lots of them. Perhaps for this reason, game systems with a Type 3 economy are the least common.
Examples: Post-apocalyptic or pre-civilisation RPGs where there's no money, games where the PCs play nonhumans which don't have the concept of an economy, most first-person shooters or sims.
Type 4: Mixed
This is where you get a combination of two or more of the above: usually, a mixture of Type 1 (real economy) and Type 3 (no economy). For instance, in Legend of the Five Rings, there technically is a Type 1 economy, it's just that the PCs hardly ever spend any time dealing with it; they usually get a stipend from their Clan, and the focus of the game is on honour, reputation, and deeds. (Besides, when looking at a courtier the wrong way can get you ordered to commit ritual suicide, money isn't really the uppermost thing on your mind.) Likewise, in Mage: the Ascension, you still need money, it's just that you can create it out of thin air and the best stuff you could buy with it looks like Lego blocks compared to what the Technocracy gets to use; there's an economy, it's just not particularly useful.
Examples: Star Trek, Legend of the Five Rings, high-powered White Wolf systems.
Post your preference, and suggest which category your favourite system should be in!
So your party's just beaten up one of the campaign's major villains and taken his stuff. What does that mean for your bank account? More to the point, what do you want it to mean? Do you want payment in money, game credits, or would you rather not pay attention to the economic side of things at all?
RPGs don't traditionally spend much time thinking about economics. The pictures on the front of the rulebooks are swords and magic and monsters, not shops and coins and trade. When it comes down to it, though, an awful lot of player motivation comes from money or the lack of it.
Type 1: Real Economy
In this sort of world, something's price is based on how much it costs to make and what people are willing to pay for it. In other words, the world runs on the real-life laws of economics. The developers won't go to too much trouble to model it, of course - this is an RPG, not Harvard Business School. But the general focus is trying to simulate a real world. For instance, in D&D 3.5, a torch costs 1 copper and a spyglass costs 1,000 gold, despite the fact that in your average dungeoncrawl, a torch is way more useful (it's a light source, an improvised weapon, and a way of setting things on fire, all in one handy package). But a spyglass is expensive to make and a torch is cheap. And that's why you see a lot of adventurers with torches and very few with spyglasses.
In this sort of world, money is really useful, and can be turned into serious power. If you're a billionaire noble from Coruscant, you may not be able to beat up the Dark Jedi, but you can buy yourself a Star Destroyer with turbolaser batteries. ("Deflect this, b**ch.") A Shadowrun corp exec can buy muscle that's better than the Runners. A 3rd-level 3.5 character with 800,000 GP to his name can take out even high-level monsters as long as he has access to a magic shop.
Since money is so useful, it's actually possible to set up a business, or even run campaigns that revolve around getting rich. Sometimes this can be a problem for the GM when the players decide to pass up his story in favour of getting rich. ("Nah, 10,000 nuyen's too low. I'll go jack a few cars instead.") Players also have a much better motivation to look for economic holes to exploit in this sort of system. ("So, if iron's a trade good, and this spell's duration is instantaneous . . .")
Examples: D&D 3.5, all editions of Star Wars, all editions of Shadowrun, lower-powered White Wolf systems, most variants of GURPS, Warhammer 40K games like Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader.
Type 2: Game Economy
In this sort of world, something's price is based on how useful it is in the hands of the PCs. Given the natural temperament of most adventuring parties, this means most of the economy revolves around weapons.
The aim of this sort of economy is to streamline buying and selling and get the PCs back into the action as fast as possible, usually by making Adam Smith cry in the corner. From a logical point of view, it makes absolutely no sense that the raw materials to make a magic item in D&D 4e cost 100% of the value of the item itself, nor does it make any sense that you can only sell stuff for 20% of its value ("screw monsters, I'm raiding a merchant caravan!"). But that's not the point; the purpose of the system is to encourage the PCs to get money by going on adventures rather than by buying and selling, and that's exactly what it does. The best way to get rich in this sort of world is generally by killing things and taking their stuff, which must make life rather hard on the inhabitants. ("Yeah, I guess I could have asked him for it, but he con'd blue and I was in a hurry").
Some games go to the next step and eliminate money altogether, using an abstracted points system. If you're playing a Batman-type hero in Mutants and Masterminds, you don't buy your night-vision goggles from a shop, you take the Equipment feat and buy a pair for 1 EP. You get more points by gaining XP, and you generally gain XP by defeating enemies. You can technically get regular cash, it's just that it's not good for much except impressing the groupies.
In this sort of world, money can be useful and you'll often find yourself needing it, but it's nowhere near as powerful as it is in the Type 1 games. The best equipment usually has level limits or availability issues that prevents it from being easily bought. It's pretty much impossible to go into business in this sort of system unless you're selling things to other PCs, and even then they're generally only interested in weapons or things related to weapons.
Examples: D&D 4e, Mutants & Masterminds, Spycraft, Final Fantasy and most CRPGs, World of Warcraft and most MMORPGs.
Type 3: No Economy
In this sort of world something's price is either irrelevant or doesn't exist. Sometimes it's because the PCs are so powerful that there's nothing in a shop that they'd care about and they could just take it if there was (like Amber), sometimes it's because the world is so dysfunctional that there isn't really an economy worth talking about (like Paranoia), and sometimes it's because the PCs aren't capable of grasping the concept of an economy in the first place (like Toon).
Players like loot. Gold coins are shiny and make a fun jingling sound when you have lots of them. Perhaps for this reason, game systems with a Type 3 economy are the least common.
Examples: Post-apocalyptic or pre-civilisation RPGs where there's no money, games where the PCs play nonhumans which don't have the concept of an economy, most first-person shooters or sims.
Type 4: Mixed
This is where you get a combination of two or more of the above: usually, a mixture of Type 1 (real economy) and Type 3 (no economy). For instance, in Legend of the Five Rings, there technically is a Type 1 economy, it's just that the PCs hardly ever spend any time dealing with it; they usually get a stipend from their Clan, and the focus of the game is on honour, reputation, and deeds. (Besides, when looking at a courtier the wrong way can get you ordered to commit ritual suicide, money isn't really the uppermost thing on your mind.) Likewise, in Mage: the Ascension, you still need money, it's just that you can create it out of thin air and the best stuff you could buy with it looks like Lego blocks compared to what the Technocracy gets to use; there's an economy, it's just not particularly useful.
Examples: Star Trek, Legend of the Five Rings, high-powered White Wolf systems.
Post your preference, and suggest which category your favourite system should be in!