Sketch of an economic system
This is a mercantile system, which replaces barter with four separate abstracted currencies of theoretically equal value: gold, goods, credit and debt. In practice, however, while one credit is worth one gold, and either can pay off one debt or buy one goods, transferring between these different forms is not straightforward. This friction is what (hopefully!) makes the system work in fun ways.
Gold is ready money, coins in gold and silver of recognised weight, purity and value. It is easily transferable into the other forms.
Credit represents money held on account by you with a merchant house or bank. Generally, it is inferior to gold as it is only available where your wherever that merchant has a factor, or the bank a branch. However, it does allow you to transfer funds over long distances safely, and you may be forced to accept credit as part of a bargain when selling goods.
When you deposit gold, gain an equivalent amount of credit and specify the bank or merchant. Spend credit as gold for goods, equipment, or property, or to pay off debt. Pay one credit to transfer credit back into gold.
When you negotiate credit, roll +eloquence. On a 10+, transfer credit to a new merchant or bank. On a 7+, pay one credit to transfer to a new creditor. On a 6-, there is a problem with your letters of credit, your creditor, or your intermediary.
Goods are defined as a specific commodity: highland cattle, bantam chickens, merino wool, wheat, herring, printed breviaries, writing paper, nutmeg, quicksilver, broadcloth, silk, etc. Such goods are characterized by tags (see below), but more importantly, by places of origin or manufacture, where they are available for purchase, and markets in which they might be sold. As an abstraction in the moves for buying and selling goods, you can think of their sources as places in which the goods are in surplus and particular markets as places where it is in demand. Here, follow the fiction and make the trade routes, markets and merchants of the world make sense.
Tags: +exotic (rare or from far away, always in demand in this part of the world), +livestock (living animals, difficult to transport and feed), +perishable (needs to be sold quickly), +fragile (needs to be carefully handled), +shoddy (poor quality, -1 forward to sell) , +superior (good quality, +1 forward to sell). Size Tags: +portable, +bulky. By default it takes a mule to carry one goods. +portable goods can be carried in a pack, +bulky goods a cart.
Examples: sheep or cattle (+livestock, +bulky); wool or grain (+bulky); parrots (+exotic, +livestock); spices (+portable, +exotic); glassware (+fragile, +superior).
When you sell goods at market, roll +cunning. On a hit, you can sell your goods for an equivalent amount of gold, credit or goods. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7+, the MC chooses 3 and offers you a bargain, or you choose 2. On a 6-, trouble!
* You can take your payment in gold, instead of goods or credit.
* You can sell goods even if they aren’t in demand.
* You don’t make a loss (-1 gold, credit, or goods).
* You make a profit (+1 gold, credit, or goods).
When you purchase goods, spend gold equal to the amount of goods and roll +cunning. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7+, choose 2. On a 6-, you make a bad bargain and gain goods that are short weight, defective, or otherwise problematic.
* You obtain the goods of your choice.
* The goods are +superior, +exotic, or +portable.
* The goods are not +bulky, +perishable, +fragile, +livestock, or +shoddy.
* You can buy goods that are not in surplus.
Debt abstracts money owed to a creditor. Specify who you borrowed money from and how much.
When you borrow money, roll +eloquence. On a 10+, you gain debt equal to gold borrowed. On a 7-9, the MC will ask you to put up something as surety appropriate to the debt.
You may pay off your debt to a creditor at any time by spending gold equal to the debt plus one.
When you are in debt, at the beginning of the session roll +debt. On a 6-, everything is fine. On a 7+, interest comes due, pay one gold by the end of the session or increase debt by one. On a 10+, one of your debts comes due by the end of the session, pay it off in full or forfeit your surety and face other action. On a 15+, all your debts come due at once. Good luck!
I’d like to see better 10+ conditions if this is a non-AW setting. In AW I could grock things sucking that bad but it seems like you would want your players to engage this system and with “you manage not to blow it” as the best you can do I don’t see that happening.
You are right that it is pretty parsimonious, Josh, but maybe not quite so much as it appears. Yep, the negotiating credit is a ‘try not to blow it’ set up. However, the buying and selling rolls are actually more generous than they seem: they have built in to them the disadvantages for trying to buy or sell at the wrong markets, so that I don’t have to write separate moves for those. Once those are discounted, you can still make a profit on 7-9 rolls, you’ll just have to deal with the hassle of transporting the goods from one market to another.
I guess the real question is, what sort of game would make this stuff exciting, right?
The 10+ sales and buying actually seem worse than the 7-9 (I missed that originally). I would make products +/- tags on each town. If the town has that product as a + tag then you can get it for cheaper but can’t sell it. If it has it as a – tag then you can sell it for a great price but can’t pick it up at all.
No tag? Simple 1-for-1 trade. The moves should add complications to the character’s lives not just adjust the prices and I think you have gone a good way there.
Hanse World?
Or some aspect of a “Gentleman of the Road” type setting with picaresque adventure elements.
I like this system. It’s conceptually simple enough that the players can grasp the four types of money and end up not worrying about the details, and the four moves are easy for an MC to have listed as a part of peripheral moves.
Josh Mannon , implicitly products are +/- in different sites. If it is isn’t clear, that what in demand and in surplus means. (I probably need to make that clearer.) However, I don’t want to fix them and I also want to keep them anchored in the fiction. What I also need is a Merchant move like Read the Sitch–maybe Read the Market–that allows them to ask where they might sell things, what is in demand in a particular place, etc.
John Machin, it was originally put together for a Renaissance game, but would probably work well for anything Medieval to 18th C., maybe a bit later, so Hanse World would work well.
However, it is very much a sub-system, rather than the core of a design, so something like Gentlemen on the Road, or other sorts of picaresque adventures, maybe pirates. Only merchants would use the full system regularly. In most cases, characters who weren’t merchants would gain and spend gold, sometimes owe debts, only rarely have access to credit, and sometimes get their hands on goods.
I’m just looking forward to be able to say, “So you take the ship and it has a cargo of grain, a couple of bales of paper, and half a dozen casks of wine. Plus, the captain has a letter of credit drawn on the House of De Guzman,” and have that statement have teeth.