Economy Discussion

James just made a large purchase of coins because of attrition. You may have seen them show up at the last event. Same for gems; you can recognize the new ones by the fact that they're still shiny. And yes, some players are sitting on hundreds of coins, either for character reasons or because they think it's funny. Seriously, some players get a kick out of keeping coins away from other people, but all it does is ruin our in-game economy because once James gets more physical coins, the number of people spending them will go up, and the value of coins goes down.

Sadly, very few people at this game understand that yes, economics matters even on the small game scale. Now that we have more coin, we can send out more NPCs with coin treasure, which means more players get it, which means more gets spent, which means the players who think it's funny to literally bury coins in the woods get more fodder for their private joke. That causes a market crash, which is what we've been experiencing; except that since many values are fixed by game rules, what results is a barter system.

And if players don't keep their coins buried and put them back in the game, we have sudden and wild inflation. Also bad.

Of course, doing things as-is right now causes other problems. That is, we now have coins and gems; awesome. We send those out with NPCs. The first time that NPC gets looted, he or she hands over all their treasure. Most NPCs have multiple respawns. They have no more treasure to give out. That means some players get it, others don't; but it's not an RNG, so the first player to bother looting is the one that gets everything. That's an imbalance in getting the coin and items out into the game world.

I have a proposal written down about a different way of handling NPC treasure that streamlines mod/encounter creation and keeps NPCs lootable through multiple respawns. It involves NPCs simply having cards on them that read something like "MINOR DEMON (FIRE)"; one card is given out per player per respawn, which can then be taken back to Logistics. When handed in, it is rolled on a table for loot. There are multiple benefits, including that the marshals don't have to come up with anything on the spot, nor delay NPCs going out as they write up all the cards, nor do they need to hand out everything to one player. One of the monster marshals said he tried to get the same thing implemented, but it was rejected.

On the general subject of economy, I also have another proposal about crowdfunding actually stamped Kormryian coins; it's expensive, because first we'd have to order custom casting dies, but it's doable. I did all the research and cost calculations needed a few weeks ago, and I'm quite certain that we could get a good chunk of the player base to back it; and with enough people backing it, we could also commission coins for Coast Haven, Londwyn, and even other nations, for an international feel. Unfortunately, when I approached James about it before Thanksgiving, he had just made the order for new coins. So that one is tabled for now, though I'd really like to see it happen sometime!

NPCs arent supposed to hand everything out at once. They are supposed to split it up between respawns, which is why unlimited respawns rarely have loot. If they are not doing this, we're going to have to remind people when they go out.

A reminder may be good, then. Based on what I'm hearing, a lot of players don't bother looting NPCs because they assume that the marshal either hasn't given them anything or another player got it first, and they don't want to go through the roleplay and time only to get nothing.

And I know a lot of marshals don't prep treasure, usually because (or at least that's what's told to players at mods) of time constraints and not wanting to delay things. A system where they just hand out basic type cards, like MINOR DEMON, COMMON PEASANT, MAJOR UNDEAD, etc., would simplify things. The marshal can just hand out stacks of those to the NPCs and not worry about it while they're also instructing them on special rules. And players are gamers -- there's something fun about an RNG every so often, especially if we're the ones rolling the dice.

However, the RNG adds a significant delay at Logistics. There is already a long line at times for all the other things that Logistics does. To add to that would make it so at times the wait for just 5 silver could take 20-30 minutes.

Another reason that NPCs don’t have treasure goes back to the issue of not enough gold/gems to hand out. The more that is handed out to NPCs the less for players who need to withdraw it.

It takes me about a minute to a minute and a half to fill out one alchemy card. The reason it takes me so long is because of my arthritis. I've encountered logistics marshals that are even slower than that; that is to say, they write slower than the crippled guy who has to take a rest halfway through writing out the alphabet, and who had to invent a new and less painful script just to be able to take notes in college. (Seriously, I've had drawn-blood injuries on my hands from sparring that hurt less than writing out the alphabet.)

For that matter, I frequently see marshals sitting around doing nothing on their shifts except when someone comes in. Only once have I ever seen an LM doing inventory on item cards and filling out extras when they're low. Every time I sign in and get essences via fates, I have to wait while the marshal on duty writes down every single one, because there are none pre-written. Most of the time it would save time if I wrote them out myself and just had the marshal sign them. I was once in Logistics for an hour while my sign-in was completed, and no I'm not counting time spend in line. I'd arrived after midnight, and there WAS no line, unless you count the marshals chatting with each other and NPCs. Now, that time was an extreme outlier, but it's quite vivid and does not give me a great impression of how valuable logistics time is and how we shouldn't switch anything with the current system.

And again, I can write out an alchemy card in under a minute and a half, despite my pain. Let's round that waaaaay up and say it's two and a half. So someone comes in with five loot cards and the LM rolls for each, and surprise surprise there are no pre-written cards. So let's round up again and say it's a full fifteen minutes; a ridiculously long time, but fine. That's a far cry from the hyperbolic claim of twenty to thirty for five silver. And this is discounting the fact that the monster marshal on duty should also assist when his or her duties have a lull of their own.

This is not to say that all delays are on the part of the marshals. I've found the larger delay to be on the player side. When a player comes to the bank window, they invariably stop and chat as well. I've been guilty of it myself, but it has to stop. Once a line forms, that line stays for a while; and even when players notice someone else behind them, that's the point where we players realize "Oh, crap, I haven't actually done my business yet." And then there are more delays, as each player trickles in to do their business while the first is still settling accounts.

And then there's the second player delay: not knowing what we're doing. We need to begin, be brief, and begone. No more fumbling around, staring at our character cards as if we've never seen them before. If I do that (and I have), the LM should tell me to come back when I've figured out what I want to do, because there's a line behind me.

As to gold piece treasure, fine. Skip it. I don't know why a demon is carrying around gold anyway, and crafting items are so rare as to be nonexistent except through fates. If a player has more crafting items, even if he or she isn't a crafter, that can then be taken to an alchemist, smith, whatever, and traded for potions and weapons and the like. If we're going to have a barter economy because we've got jerk players, then let's just have a barter economy.

My point was not that it would be 30 minutes per person. My point was if there is a line of 4-5 people with 4-5 tickets that all show up at the same time because a mod/large encounter went out they would be waiting a long time for something that might not have been worth it. Even if we say from start to finish
: player enters, rolling, searching for prewritten cards, writing new ones, player leaving:
Let’s say it takes 5 minutes.
That last player is waiting 20-25 minutes for something that might not be worth that wait. And that’s the best case scenario.


As the marshal who usually does check-in allow me to make an attempt to explain the essence part in my opinion.

1: there are roughly 12 essences in the game, that’s 12 pre-printed cards if we get them ahead of time, 12 cards more to keep track of.
2: If you’re referring to them being handwritten ahead of time it is impossible to predict what players want ahead of time. I’ve had events where 90% of those asked were a single type of essence.
3: If Alchemists are using eccences they should go to Logistics and turn them in. That is the way we get prewritten cards. And usually they’re the ones people want, because they’re the ones people are using anyway.
4: Players writing cards doesn’t solve the line issue because the player is still in line, the difference is the marshal is now just sitting there waiting for the cards to be written.

These are the 3 things that I can think of now. I’m sure I’ll think of more.