The Economics of Scarcity

[Yang]

It all comes down to the cost of alcohol at your local tavern. Trust me. That's where you begin your measurements of economic scarcity.

It's always been about the cost of alcohol.

[Angela Christine]

Many PCs code-wise don't have to buy anything actually needed (food, shelter, water, clothing) and so their funds are pure money to burn.  Most all PCs are on the same playing field.  Harsh things like scraping together food, water, clothing, and shelter don't exist for most PCs who are given these things when they join clans and Houses.  Instead of having to put money and resources into basic things, we have almost every PC able to buy silk, have their own apartment,

An apartment is shelter.  Most apartments available to PCs are simply one small room, which isn't particularily luxurious.  One small room with no private (or even non-private) bathroom, kitchen or plumbing -- that's even worse than the average rooming house or "residential hotel" room.  Most people do not live in taverns, they have a flop somewhere.  Ok, most people don't live alone either.  That's MUD quirckiness for you,  you don't have to share, but you don't get the security of having family members around while you sleep or when you leave either

I think renting rooms is a perfectly reasonable way of bleeding off "excess" funds from PCs.


AC

[Linedel]

Thinking about this on the way home...

I disagree that players should never do this (rarely, sure, but not never).

It would be bad in the long run for members (corporations) of a tribe (united states) to export ridiculous amounts of some resource (jobs) to some other organization (India).  But in the short run, and for that member (corporation), they personally become quite profitable....

Blah blah blah.. real world is not Zalanthas...  The fact that the Labyrinth exists in its highly unrealistic (for earth) state suggests that the code of conduct and personal greed of Zalanthians is somewhat worse than that of earth dwellers, therefore...

It is in no way poor roleplaying for a member of any organization to do something like that.  Now, that doesn't mean the organization won't be able to figure out who did it, and make sure they don't have that problem again...  And it doesn't mean that that individual shouldn't be aware that their organization wouldn't be able to figure it out... and they should, most likely, fear this, and plan for their event IC for a while in order to cover up the reason for the sudden disappearance of X resource...

[Maybe42or54]

I once had a room that could only hold 2 medium sized chests and a cot.
Not a lotta room for a family.
My idea (To add to ~convorsation)
Salt. Pays a lot. Twinking. I can earn a lot. House Jal can't afford me I make so much.
Mining 'sid. Pays a lot. Twinking. I can earn a lot. Allanak can't afford me I make so much.
Hunting. Kill one specific creature an OOC day. Get about 600 off of it. From something really easy to kill. House Kadius', salarr's pc merchants can't afford me.
Cut wood. Easy enough. Pays a lot. Pc merchants pay for it. Twinking. I can earn a lot. Kaius can barely afford me and the halfling don't want a forest cut down.

Let's make what everything pays, less.

[Cuusardo]

I'd like to point out that there are already a lot of people in the game who have opted to go independent, and for some of them it's because they've found ways to make more money that way then working for a clan.  I know my perspective is greatly limited in this, but I've seen more independents who have gotten apartments than clanned people.  (That might be because clannies automatically get a place to sleep, but I digress.)  My point is it seems to me these days that indies are already making more money than clannies, as though the economy does not affect them.

[Anonymous]

Well, let me qualify my statement.  It needs to be impossible to make ridiculous profit off of doing an activity such as hunting, which incidently shouldn't be likely to bring profit at all.

Ridiculous profit?  No.  But I think you are wrong in saying that it shouldn't be likely to bring a profit at all considering animals are one of the chief sources of raw materials for all sorts of things including clothing, armor, tools, weapons and even structures.

[Xamminy]

Harvest from dead things.  That should bring profit, but not enough to afford the best armors and weapons in the world as well as multiple apartments.

The biggest problem with the economy of Zalanthas is how the code is set up.  It rewards the twink.

[Lazloth]

Reducing the value of a skinnable object from 500 sid to 50 sid would be a good change.

For an independent hunter, I've always found it's risk v. reward.  If you're suggesting flatly reducing value on skinnable pieces by 90%, then I strongly disagree.  (Conversely, if there is an item whose value is grossly overinflated, cutting that particular object certainly makes sense.)  You're ignoring the overhead (supplies:  arrows, replacement weapons, armor, shelter); there's certainly a balance to walk, and posters in this thread have given their testimonies.  Crafters and traders (imho) have a much easier time of earning money and don't put their necks on the lines; I don't think touching shop vendors is the answer.

Back to the original point of the thread, I like what Jacques says here:

I think a HUGE first step for this would be to eliminate "virtual" items. Do you want ten kegs of wine? Great - get ten "keg of wine" items, and then you can sell them or give them away. You'll need actual PCs or NPCs to move them around, too.

..but caution to remind that the PC contingent represents only a fractional constituent of a clan, and that the virtual workers certainly contribute virtual goods.

I like that impacting the environment will affect the world.  Log too much of an area, and the yield decreases.  I would enjoy similar extended realstically to game:  if herds of tandu are being wiped every day, survival instincts may drive them further away, and hides become tougher to come by.  Random catastrophes (eg., abysmal weather conditions have ruined months' supply of silk) can be drummed up, and costs of fineries rocket and production slows to a temporary crawl.  A street fire has destroyed a strip of warehouses, contents unsalvageable.  Etc.

[Anonymous]

I like that impacting the environment will affect the world.  Log too much of an area, and the yield decreases.  I would enjoy similar extended realstically to game:  if herds of tandu are being wiped every day, survival instincts may drive them further away, and hides become tougher to come by.  Random catastrophes (eg., abysmal weather conditions have ruined months' supply of silk) can be drummed up, and costs of fineries rocket and production slows to a temporary crawl.  A street fire has destroyed a strip of warehouses, contents unsalvageable.  Etc.

The problem with this approach, is that it punishes those who play realistically for the actions of those who play unrealistically.  Those who approach hunting with realism in mind will see their meager earnings dwindle to nothing while those who hunt for days on end will have built up their bank accounts by this time.  Or just died but still had a severe impact on the game.

The sort of approach you describe seems perfect for a single-player game or if the way hunting was done was completely overhauled and instead used 'instanced' (for lack of a better word) NPCs that have a chance to spawn on approach of a PC at a set rate that can be reduced by the staff as a response to unrealistic play.

[Lazloth]

The sort of approach you describe seems perfect for a single-player game or if the way hunting was done was completely overhauled and instead used 'instanced' (for lack of a better word) NPCs that have a chance to spawn on approach of a PC at a set rate that can be reduced by the staff as a response to unrealistic play.

I'm not talking about an immediate ecological response, but a reaction to day after day, week after week camping a given pocket of land by hunters.  It's hard to envision a solitary (twink or no) figure making a noticeable dent in the animal populations; however, if it's groups, tribes, whathaveyou over a period of time, you can certainly affect the world in a multiplayer game.

[Comrade Canadia]

I think this can be left up to imms on a case by case basis.  Also, very good point by Radioactive.  Still, I think the list idea I proposed would still works, it just means that you'll feel a pinch if you trade certain resources as opposed ot no pinch if you trade others.  It completely depends on supply and demand and all those other fun things.

Incidentally, how does the likelihood of an independant to make a decent living have anything to do with this thread at all?

-Dave

[Delirium]

Incidentally, how does the likelihood of an independant to make a decent living have anything to do with this thread at all?

Competition over resources certainly affects the life of an independant, perhaps even moreso than that of a tribe - to approach the topic in a broad sense.

Of course, this is more about whether a certain tribe can afford to trade such and such. To which I say; some tribes are heavily or almost purely hunter-gatherers, trading only what they can spare for the things they can't find on their own, but many tribes seem to almost subsist on trade; making things to barter off for the necessities which they need.

That doesn't mean I think they should be able to make enough wildly-splotched leather thongs for Lord Fancypants to clothe all of his sexy female guards in, but it does mean that trade is part of what the culture is based on - so the thing is not to limit that, but just to decide how much they can afford to trade. Trading off your tribe's water and food and other necessities would get you a boot in the ass, but trading things like alcoholic goods, decorative wear, trinkets, maybe even a very limited supply of weaponry - all of those I see as fair game.

Therefore, I think a very general list like Wiz and Comrade suggested, updated occasionally due to major IC actions or events, would be a very good thing to have. Once they're made, it shouldn't be that much work to keep it updated; just a brief review once a month or so should do the trick.

Now I'm going to stop slacking off and get back to work. Sigh.