Commerce Moves and a Question
So, in Apocalypse Age, instead of barter, you have influence (on an NPC individual or social group); your wealth is intrinsically connected to the people around you. Basically you accumulate influence the same way as barter, but it has history; if you bodyguarded Marquise Gautron worth 3-influence, now you have “3 influence on Marquise Gautron.”
So I was thinking, what if the basic commerce move was, instead of, when you give 1-barter to someone, but with strings attached, something like the following?
When you offer an NPC a favor for a favor, tell them what you want and roll+influence. On a 10+, you’re cool, they’ll do it. On a 7-9, it’ll cost you; the MC says how much influence it’ll take and you say yes or no. On a miss, be prepared for the worst.
I think there’s an effect that’s interesting—if you get enough influence on someone you can get them to do a lot of stuff at a low cost—but I’m not 100% that’s a good design choice or not.