Phylion
2013-09-21, 11:57 PM
I have recently designed a world/campaign/etc. for my 3.5 group. The great hook of the world: IT IS A GIANT ARCHIPELAGO.
Every place, every province every whatever, is an island. Maybe a few underwater ruins or something and SHAZAM, interesting and dynamic world that revolves around two things: Trade and Adventure.
That said, here's my problem: No matter how awesome I make my world and dynamic I make the relationships within it, the D&D rules produce a less than satisfactory economy, which is very very dreadfully boring. SO BORING. It's obvious that the primary objective of PCs is to beat up monsters and get paid, but, there is a certain fun quality of being able to produce a dynamic economy that rewards/penalizes PCs for their efforts/laziness.
So, I look to the community for help.
I was giving a lot of thought into how I could potentially make the economy more robust, and I think I have identified a few ways that I would appreciate criticism for and additional ideas to:
1. Businesses.
THIS IS THE BIG KAHUNA. This single thing could add scads of depth to the in-game economy. My problem is figuring out a way to adapt the DMG 2 material to fit for 3.5. I figure that this will be pretty easy, but I am still looking for help to see what the community would suggest for such an endeavor. The second part of this is a problem that I have seen pop in my readings: It's a waste of money. Yeah, it is, which brings me to my next point.
2. Maturity
So it's pretty much done and said that businesses are a waste of investment because they take too much time to mature. BUT WAIT. I haven't seen it mentioned much, but I thought that in between levels there was supposed to be a 3+ month "getting acquainted with your new powers" period. Wouldn't this significant amount of time, which you could lengthen, dramatically effect the output of a business? I mean, if the time from 1st to 5th level is ~3 years, doesn't that give you a lot of time for a business to mature, and since they can hire someone to manage the business they can spend that 3 months training and rest easy at night knowing that their investment is safely(or wildly) growing and earning them a significant amount of cha-ching? This rate of maturity brings we to my third point.
3. Eventful Economy
Okay, so this one isn't quite of self explanatory as the other two, but this is the general idea: The Economy doesn't always work the same way, and the rules aren't always such stalwart bastions. *gasp* Changes of this type would make dramatic changes to he economy on a global scale as a regular part of the sequence of events, and could even be the consequence of the PCs' actions. Example of a non-PC event: Randomly (by table roll or some such) a very chief trading company in the world goes bankrupt. All of a sudden, finding reliable transportation for goods across the globe is more difficult than it was before, and so objects become more expensive as a whole and a PC-owned business could take negatives to a profit check or something because it is more expensive to ship things (or a bonus to the check if they ran another trading company). Example of a PC event: The PCs liberate a town from the evil rule of a mind flayer, allowing the town to conduct trade, and boosting the world economy as a whole. These random-ish changes bring me to my next nugget.
4. Banking and the Stock Market
Well, if we assume that we have already established businesses in the world by adapting the rules from the DMG 2, then what we can add is some fundamental thing in our world that could be applied to D&D: banking. Say, for example, that adventuring has not gone so well, and the PCs are behind on their income and they really want some cool gear. What's the solution? In normal D&D, it would be...er...more adventuring...UGH! What if, instead, they could take a loan from a bank? So the rogue is lent 4,000gp from the bank to purchase his Gloves of Dexterity +2. Congrats, he (after going through a laborious process of convincing the bank that it is a positive investment) gets the gloves; now his troubles begin. He now owes the bank 4000gp. So to pay off his debt, he must yet still go out adventuring (or work his super awesome business that he created using my suggestions). But the breadwinner here is interest, SO he doesn't actually owe the bank 4000gp. He owes them, say, 4400gp. Now 4400 might not seem like a lot, but, combined with the fact that he did not have the 4000 gp to begin with... So, yeah. You could also potentially add something to the degree that you could deposit your money into a bank account and gain interest on the money that you might now be using otherwise (say, the profits from our awesome business). Now, about the stock. If you generate NPC-owned and operated businesses, then you could generate stock. A PC, being the savvy businessman he is after creating an awesome business and saving his hard earned cash away, decides that a company looks very profitable and invests in buying some stock in that company. TA-DAH. He is now a part owner of that company, and as such, he gains the appropriate % of the businesses profit to his personal purse. For example, a PC owns one of 1000 stocks in a company. When the end of the month rolls around and the business tallies up its total profit, it finds out, amazingly, that it has made an entire 1000gp for the month. The PC, being a one-thousandth owner of the business, is rewarded with 1gp. Not much, but he could easily buy more stock and take home a larger slice of the pie. A company's stock could be divided into a set number, like 1000, and the value of each piece of stock could be the initial capital required for the business plus its average/projected monthly profit divided by that number, 1000, which subsequently means that as the business matures, so does the PC's purse. You can even tie this into global evens that shift the profits of every business, effecting the stock market as a whole. My last point for now concerns enterprises.
5. Enterprises
This is for when your awesome business really does well and your stock portfolio is really diversified. The general idea is owning multiple businesses. So instead of settling down into your single smithy, the PCs, through their awesome world manipulating business skills, own every smithy, and make money from every smithy. They can use this money to set up even MORE SMITHIES. Not too outrageous, until you consider that the PCs now have a monopoly and an radically alter the world with a wave of their hands. Additionally, say that a PC owns a very substantial business, say, that has reached a certain ratio of income compared to initial investment. At this point, the business now has the capability to become an enterprise instead. Enterprises are composed of groupings of businesses. The Enterprise is treated as an entity that gets the profits from its member businesses. So, the Enterprise is treated as a person capable of owning stock, and owns a certain portion of each business. Each business makes its money individually, and indeed has its own stockholders who get the appropriate percentage of the businesses' profits, but the Enterprise, owning as it were a portion of the business, gains a slice of the pie, and this is treated as the Enterprises income, which a business savvy investor could also purchase stock of. Instead of splitting from a a main business, though, PCs or NPCs could establish entirely new businesses that they add to their enterprise. All of a sudden, the in-game economy of D&D just became a whole lot more complicated and fun.
Future Ideas that I Will Likely Post Furher Down the Thread: 1. The Potential for Guilds. 2. What Happens if You Own A Bank? 3. Buying the Stock of a Business and Becoming its Owner. 4. How Stockholders Vote over the Course of a Business 5. What Could People do to Mess Up Your Business 6. Running Illegal Businesses 7. Taxes 8. Interplanar Trade
Thank you for reading and feel free to leave suggestions/criticisms concerning what I have so far.
Every place, every province every whatever, is an island. Maybe a few underwater ruins or something and SHAZAM, interesting and dynamic world that revolves around two things: Trade and Adventure.
That said, here's my problem: No matter how awesome I make my world and dynamic I make the relationships within it, the D&D rules produce a less than satisfactory economy, which is very very dreadfully boring. SO BORING. It's obvious that the primary objective of PCs is to beat up monsters and get paid, but, there is a certain fun quality of being able to produce a dynamic economy that rewards/penalizes PCs for their efforts/laziness.
So, I look to the community for help.
I was giving a lot of thought into how I could potentially make the economy more robust, and I think I have identified a few ways that I would appreciate criticism for and additional ideas to:
1. Businesses.
THIS IS THE BIG KAHUNA. This single thing could add scads of depth to the in-game economy. My problem is figuring out a way to adapt the DMG 2 material to fit for 3.5. I figure that this will be pretty easy, but I am still looking for help to see what the community would suggest for such an endeavor. The second part of this is a problem that I have seen pop in my readings: It's a waste of money. Yeah, it is, which brings me to my next point.
2. Maturity
So it's pretty much done and said that businesses are a waste of investment because they take too much time to mature. BUT WAIT. I haven't seen it mentioned much, but I thought that in between levels there was supposed to be a 3+ month "getting acquainted with your new powers" period. Wouldn't this significant amount of time, which you could lengthen, dramatically effect the output of a business? I mean, if the time from 1st to 5th level is ~3 years, doesn't that give you a lot of time for a business to mature, and since they can hire someone to manage the business they can spend that 3 months training and rest easy at night knowing that their investment is safely(or wildly) growing and earning them a significant amount of cha-ching? This rate of maturity brings we to my third point.
3. Eventful Economy
Okay, so this one isn't quite of self explanatory as the other two, but this is the general idea: The Economy doesn't always work the same way, and the rules aren't always such stalwart bastions. *gasp* Changes of this type would make dramatic changes to he economy on a global scale as a regular part of the sequence of events, and could even be the consequence of the PCs' actions. Example of a non-PC event: Randomly (by table roll or some such) a very chief trading company in the world goes bankrupt. All of a sudden, finding reliable transportation for goods across the globe is more difficult than it was before, and so objects become more expensive as a whole and a PC-owned business could take negatives to a profit check or something because it is more expensive to ship things (or a bonus to the check if they ran another trading company). Example of a PC event: The PCs liberate a town from the evil rule of a mind flayer, allowing the town to conduct trade, and boosting the world economy as a whole. These random-ish changes bring me to my next nugget.
4. Banking and the Stock Market
Well, if we assume that we have already established businesses in the world by adapting the rules from the DMG 2, then what we can add is some fundamental thing in our world that could be applied to D&D: banking. Say, for example, that adventuring has not gone so well, and the PCs are behind on their income and they really want some cool gear. What's the solution? In normal D&D, it would be...er...more adventuring...UGH! What if, instead, they could take a loan from a bank? So the rogue is lent 4,000gp from the bank to purchase his Gloves of Dexterity +2. Congrats, he (after going through a laborious process of convincing the bank that it is a positive investment) gets the gloves; now his troubles begin. He now owes the bank 4000gp. So to pay off his debt, he must yet still go out adventuring (or work his super awesome business that he created using my suggestions). But the breadwinner here is interest, SO he doesn't actually owe the bank 4000gp. He owes them, say, 4400gp. Now 4400 might not seem like a lot, but, combined with the fact that he did not have the 4000 gp to begin with... So, yeah. You could also potentially add something to the degree that you could deposit your money into a bank account and gain interest on the money that you might now be using otherwise (say, the profits from our awesome business). Now, about the stock. If you generate NPC-owned and operated businesses, then you could generate stock. A PC, being the savvy businessman he is after creating an awesome business and saving his hard earned cash away, decides that a company looks very profitable and invests in buying some stock in that company. TA-DAH. He is now a part owner of that company, and as such, he gains the appropriate % of the businesses profit to his personal purse. For example, a PC owns one of 1000 stocks in a company. When the end of the month rolls around and the business tallies up its total profit, it finds out, amazingly, that it has made an entire 1000gp for the month. The PC, being a one-thousandth owner of the business, is rewarded with 1gp. Not much, but he could easily buy more stock and take home a larger slice of the pie. A company's stock could be divided into a set number, like 1000, and the value of each piece of stock could be the initial capital required for the business plus its average/projected monthly profit divided by that number, 1000, which subsequently means that as the business matures, so does the PC's purse. You can even tie this into global evens that shift the profits of every business, effecting the stock market as a whole. My last point for now concerns enterprises.
5. Enterprises
This is for when your awesome business really does well and your stock portfolio is really diversified. The general idea is owning multiple businesses. So instead of settling down into your single smithy, the PCs, through their awesome world manipulating business skills, own every smithy, and make money from every smithy. They can use this money to set up even MORE SMITHIES. Not too outrageous, until you consider that the PCs now have a monopoly and an radically alter the world with a wave of their hands. Additionally, say that a PC owns a very substantial business, say, that has reached a certain ratio of income compared to initial investment. At this point, the business now has the capability to become an enterprise instead. Enterprises are composed of groupings of businesses. The Enterprise is treated as an entity that gets the profits from its member businesses. So, the Enterprise is treated as a person capable of owning stock, and owns a certain portion of each business. Each business makes its money individually, and indeed has its own stockholders who get the appropriate percentage of the businesses' profits, but the Enterprise, owning as it were a portion of the business, gains a slice of the pie, and this is treated as the Enterprises income, which a business savvy investor could also purchase stock of. Instead of splitting from a a main business, though, PCs or NPCs could establish entirely new businesses that they add to their enterprise. All of a sudden, the in-game economy of D&D just became a whole lot more complicated and fun.
Future Ideas that I Will Likely Post Furher Down the Thread: 1. The Potential for Guilds. 2. What Happens if You Own A Bank? 3. Buying the Stock of a Business and Becoming its Owner. 4. How Stockholders Vote over the Course of a Business 5. What Could People do to Mess Up Your Business 6. Running Illegal Businesses 7. Taxes 8. Interplanar Trade
Thank you for reading and feel free to leave suggestions/criticisms concerning what I have so far.