Interesting Economics Systems?

[Elfbird]

For a while now I've been entertaining the idea of a low-magic-medieval-fantasy-traveling-merchants-type campaign (specifically based on Spice and Wolf, though not necessarily the same universe). I haven't found a system I'd like to run it in though, so here's fishing for recommendations~
I'm fine with homebrew, modules, frankensteining, refluffing, etc. if one system manages travel well and another does trade better. No preference on crunch factor; I can fiddle once I have something to start with, as long as it's not just a blank slate like FATE or GURPS.

What I'm most interested in is a framework (charts, tables, guidelines, etc.) to make travel and trade meaningful activities for the players, and take a lot of the arbitration off my hands. "A drought hits this region, raising the price of produce by X." "This regime is trying to promote trade and tourism, offering X lower tariffs." "This currency is weakening against that one, affecting exchange rates by X." (Maybe not the best examples, but you get the idea.)

I'd expect to orchestrate certain major events myself, but it'd be nice to have something of a living world that doesn't require me to manually adjust the price of every commodity and currency across the map, or depend on me to decide what and when something happens to alter them. I feel like I've seen some possibilities long ago, but they didn't turn up in my recent searches.

One system that caught my eye is Ryuutama, though it sounds like it won't offer anything on the economics side. Do any of you have personal experience with it?

Thank you~

[JNAProductions]

Maybe check out ACK? That might have what you're looking for. I don't know, I've never played it.

[Slayn82]

I remember reading some homebrew: Dungeonomicon
Merchants & Marketplaces

[thirdkingdom]

Maybe check out ACK? That might have what you're looking for. I don't know, I've never played it.

ACKS has a robust mercantile system for fantasy games, albeit on the crunchy side. The excellent Stars Without Numbers has a mercantile book called Suns of Gold that is more abstract and devised for a sci-fi setting, but easily adapted to fantasy.

[Knaight]

ACKS is pretty solid here, it's worth taking its economy and then using a different system for the rest of the game.

[Elfbird]

A pretty unanimous vote for ACKS! Thanks!

How about the travel side of things? Source material for interesting noncombat encounters on the road, and mechanics to make it a little more dynamic than "you spend a week going from Point A to Point B; a bridge was out, so roll to not get lost on the detour." Unless that part is simply filled in with various encounters, hm...

As an aside, how might Ars Magica work or not for this kind of campaign? I've heard a lot of good things about it, but haven't had a chance to read it myself yet.

[Segev]

Really, what you're looking to build is a hex crawl, but with trade as its purpose rather than seeking out dungeons and encounter locations. I think there exist hex crawls built into various existing settings. I'd google for "Greyhawk" and maybe "hex crawl" or "overworld map" and see what crops up. This will, at least, give you the travel/adventure bit.

Also look up "angry GM hex crawl," because he did some decent articles on the subject (including his own rules for time spent travelling through it, and for exploring).

To handle the economics, you'll create different default pricings of goods at different locales, and that will drive merchant trade routes. You can just make a "random encounter" style table for things like your "drought hits Calvinsdale; wheat prices in this area go up."

[Knaight]

To handle the economics, you'll create different default pricings of goods at different locales, and that will drive merchant trade routes. You can just make a "random encounter" style table for things like your "drought hits Calvinsdale; wheat prices in this area go up."

ACKS already has these - there's a reason it's being recommended so heavily.

[thirdkingdom]

A pretty unanimous vote for ACKS! Thanks!

How about the travel side of things? Source material for interesting noncombat encounters on the road, and mechanics to make it a little more dynamic than "you spend a week going from Point A to Point B; a bridge was out, so roll to not get lost on the detour." Unless that part is simply filled in with various encounters, hm...

As an aside, how might Ars Magica work or not for this kind of campaign? I've heard a lot of good things about it, but haven't had a chance to read it myself yet.

Well, it's an OSR game (specifically, using B/X as a basis), so hexcrawling is kinda what it's built for. There's a ton of resources on the Autarch forum, including this thread about populating hexes. Autarch has also just come out with their Lairs and Encounters book, which is all about exploring the wilderness.

If you're interested in seeing how a hexcrawl works mechanically you're welcome to check out the game I've been running here, using ACKS. I keep all my mechanics out in plain sight for everyone to see, so it could be helpful.

Essentially, though, what I do is make two rolls per day: the first is for encounters (as per p. 244 of ACKS core), the second is for features. I've got a pretty extensive table of features that range from resources (valuable timber, ore deposits, etc.), settlements, structures (abandoned aqueducts, graveyards, etc.) changes in terrain, water sources and hazards (outbreak of dystentary! forest fires! Grab Grass!). Each hex is populated by a specific number of lairs and features. If the party is on a road they'll only encounter those things on the road (unless a monster or feature is mobile); if they're traveling overland they've got a chance of encountering other things.

[Segev]

What does "ACKS" stand for?

[JNAProductions]

Adventurer, Conqueror, King! No idea why there's the S there. :P

[Knaight]

The S is for "System", it shows up as both ACK and ACKS. It does seem a bit odd, but on the other hand it's GURPS and not GURP.