SkollWolfrun
Virtuous
jpariury said:
IOU transfers of funds?
In Game Economy
- Thread starter Ash
- Start date
IOU transfers of funds?
OrcFighterFTW
Mentor
jpariury said:
Certified and dated notes signifying X character has Y amount in available funds, which could be given out during Logistics to prove funds (an account statement). Have a banker present at the auction to notarize or witness paper exchanges ("X character hereby authorizes the transfer of Y amount to Z character") based on those certified accounts. The character receiving the note could then deposit it at the next Logistics period (or the Banker takes the note with him/her), and behind the scenes, the Logistics worker would add and subtract from the accounts accordingly.
That's just one solution, but there could be other ways to do it.
jpariury
Paragon
No, you're missing it. If chapter X is having an auction, and I want to cash out all of my stubs in chapter Y, chapter Y is hosed for coin two ways: 1 - all coin that chapter Y purchased is now filling chapter X's coffers, and 2 - they possibly can't cash out everyone. Also, it would suck for a player who couldn't make chapter X's event, but will make chapter X.OrcFighterFTW said:
You might respond with "well, just make statements transferable", at which point all you've done is said "quit using coin and start using paper money".
Which isn't a terrible idea (even if we use laminated tags), but it's a whole lot of rigmarole to get to that point.
And, ultimately, imo, runs counter to fantasy game feel.OrcFighterFTW
Mentor
Yes, the Logistics is a bit more, maybe create a separate staff position just for that and add a space on the character card indicating amount of In-Game deposited funds? Any added work is a pain, otherwise you could just charge everyone more to play to cover the out-of-game cost of coins. That's the situation that is trying to be avoided by this in the first place.
For easing Plot in terms of my earlier suggestion of collecting on debts, you could just post a bounty in the Tavern for turning into the debtor, payable in bank credits to who ever turns in them in? That also lets PCs create their own plot for who will take up the call as Bounty Hunter.
As for the issue of avoiding "cashing out"- I don't see why a player would need to do this with a multi-chapter banking system tied to a character's card. It would be a player saying "I demand a phys rep to show I have 500 Gold in the bank" and that's where the in-game account statement suffices and my answer to the situation of an auction. Why is the character walking around with that much money anyway? That's just asking to get mugged, which is again the incentive for protected funds.
I don't have all the answers, but it seems like a push in this direction would help to solve the initial problem presented.
For easing Plot in terms of my earlier suggestion of collecting on debts, you could just post a bounty in the Tavern for turning into the debtor, payable in bank credits to who ever turns in them in? That also lets PCs create their own plot for who will take up the call as Bounty Hunter.
As for the issue of avoiding "cashing out"- I don't see why a player would need to do this with a multi-chapter banking system tied to a character's card. It would be a player saying "I demand a phys rep to show I have 500 Gold in the bank" and that's where the in-game account statement suffices and my answer to the situation of an auction. Why is the character walking around with that much money anyway? That's just asking to get mugged, which is again the incentive for protected funds.
I don't have all the answers, but it seems like a push in this direction would help to solve the initial problem presented.
OrcFighterFTW
Mentor
In addition, someone massively cashing out to intentionally break the system is covered in the rulebook on pg. 35:
Props Bashing. OK, maybe “bashing”
isn’t the right word. Generally, this refers to PCs
who hog the props we give out, preventing us
from recycling them and costing us real money
to replace them.
For instance, some players have decided
that they hate getting copper pieces as treasure,
so they hoard them, thus preventing the money
from circulating, thinking that this will prevent
monsters from giving them out. Unfortunately,
we need coppers in-game to pay for Production
Point items and for other minor things, so
what happens instead is that we have to order
more coins, thus using up real money that could
have been spent elsewhere.
I would contend that this is going on unintentionally without an effective way for PCs to get rid of coin in large quantities on a regular basis.
Edit: corrected a word (initially -> intentionally)
Props Bashing. OK, maybe “bashing”
isn’t the right word. Generally, this refers to PCs
who hog the props we give out, preventing us
from recycling them and costing us real money
to replace them.
For instance, some players have decided
that they hate getting copper pieces as treasure,
so they hoard them, thus preventing the money
from circulating, thinking that this will prevent
monsters from giving them out. Unfortunately,
we need coppers in-game to pay for Production
Point items and for other minor things, so
what happens instead is that we have to order
more coins, thus using up real money that could
have been spent elsewhere.
I would contend that this is going on unintentionally without an effective way for PCs to get rid of coin in large quantities on a regular basis.
Edit: corrected a word (initially -> intentionally)
New coin, banks, system overhauls...I feel like this discussion is over-engineering solutions to a problem that should begin and end with chapters paying closer attention to how they allocate their treasure policy and to how that policy is being used by the players, then making adjustments accordingly.
Shandar said:
The problem is that putting out coins as treasure is a process in Alliance that seems to continually result in the amount of available coin tokens in circulation decreasing at a rather appreciable rate, resulting in treasure being put out in other forms to make up for the lack of said tokens, which is then causing more production and MI's to go out in their place (which causes it's own problems).
That is, there is no reliable method of insuring coins going from treasure to player back to treasure, and irregular methods (like auctions) often only serve to shuffle parts of that dwindling hoard elsewhere via inter-chapter play. Until there is, the problem (which has actually existed since before the Alliance splitoff for a least 10+ years) will continue. Most of the "pull" on coins for any given game is away from the chapter's buckets and out into innumerable pockets, closets, and even other chapters. Very little of it by comparision is going back to the game, even by the most blatant methods such as outright mugging PC's (thanks to nice safe Warded cabins, everyone can have their own "bank vaults" to store most of their gold in.).
Talen said:
I maintain that this is still a problem that can be solved locally, without any major gamewide changes. The in-game economy is not a microcosm of our own; it's a significantly less complex model that is far easier to tweak without breaking. If not enough coin is flowing back into a chapter's coffers then that chapter needs to be more creative in coming up with ways to stimulate bidirectional flow of coin. There are a hundred, a thousand ways to do so with a bit of effort; it just takes putting a little more thought into that part of the game.
Jim
Adept
While I wouldn't say there are thousands of ways to do it, there are plenty of ways to do it that that don't have to bloat magic items or production items. A few examples that I have used or seen used:
Paying for citizenship
Paying for the right to sell goods
Paying tithe/taxes to the Crown
Paying guild dues
Paying for livestock/property
Paying for home/land/keep
Paying for a ship/wagon/caravan
Paying for meals/drinks
Paying for information/maps/guides
Paying for books/art/cultural items
Have your npcs only accept coin, not gems or other forms of treasure.
Paying for citizenship
Paying for the right to sell goods
Paying tithe/taxes to the Crown
Paying guild dues
Paying for livestock/property
Paying for home/land/keep
Paying for a ship/wagon/caravan
Paying for meals/drinks
Paying for information/maps/guides
Paying for books/art/cultural items
Have your npcs only accept coin, not gems or other forms of treasure.
jpariury
Paragon
That becomes problematic in situations where players have obtained those gems or other forms of treasure in order to help the chapter out previously with a coin issue. Then you're definitely dealing with a customer service issue - players thought they were doing a nice thing for the chapter with the understanding that the treasure is intended to be as usable as coin. If that's not the case, then players are less likely to be willing to give up their coin, which is counter to the goal.Jim said:
We've taken a different approach to solving the coin issue at Crossroads, although admittedly we're still a copper/silver-based economy given our level cap. Of course, we have plans for when that changes.
There are three primary ways that we earn our coin back right now:
1. We sell REAL goods for IG coin. We'd rather give our players cool things for their IG coin than spend it on another coin order... so we have light sticks, armor pieces, costume pieces, and other items for sale for IG coin. The trick, here, is that it's based on the OOG cost of the coin compared against the OOG cost of the item. We justify it via plot (basically, someone is buying the coin by weight for the raw materials), and make sure that we are always breaking even on the items we're buying to sell IG. So.. we don't say we want 4 gold.. we say, we want 400 coins, of whatever variety you choose.. It's a little more complicated than I'm describing to keep it fair since coins all cost different amounts, but that's the basic system.
2. We have a vending machine that sells candy, and has some prizes inside it. We took an old-fashioned gumball machine, dremmeled it down so it accepts coppers and silvers, put in M&Ms and a few tokens that equal some fun prizes... and let the players have at it each event. They tend to go nuts.
3. We have an organization that people pay money to for various things. Our healer's guild charges for healing and resurrections. Our tavern charges for drinks/snacks outside the meals that are covered in the event registration. We charge for citizenship applications, etc. There are a lot of ways you can move coin in a game environment.
Our final event we put out 800-odd copper. We got somewhere around 700 back from our players.
Get creative, and you can easily get the coin back.. you just have to make it worthwhile for the players to buy stuff. This doesn't actually save our chapter money (after all, we're buying things to get the coin), but we consider it a better expense to buy neat things that will improve the game appearance instead of just buying more and more coins that will sit in someone's closet forever.
There are three primary ways that we earn our coin back right now:
1. We sell REAL goods for IG coin. We'd rather give our players cool things for their IG coin than spend it on another coin order... so we have light sticks, armor pieces, costume pieces, and other items for sale for IG coin. The trick, here, is that it's based on the OOG cost of the coin compared against the OOG cost of the item. We justify it via plot (basically, someone is buying the coin by weight for the raw materials), and make sure that we are always breaking even on the items we're buying to sell IG. So.. we don't say we want 4 gold.. we say, we want 400 coins, of whatever variety you choose.. It's a little more complicated than I'm describing to keep it fair since coins all cost different amounts, but that's the basic system.
2. We have a vending machine that sells candy, and has some prizes inside it. We took an old-fashioned gumball machine, dremmeled it down so it accepts coppers and silvers, put in M&Ms and a few tokens that equal some fun prizes... and let the players have at it each event. They tend to go nuts.
3. We have an organization that people pay money to for various things. Our healer's guild charges for healing and resurrections. Our tavern charges for drinks/snacks outside the meals that are covered in the event registration. We charge for citizenship applications, etc. There are a lot of ways you can move coin in a game environment.
Our final event we put out 800-odd copper. We got somewhere around 700 back from our players.
Get creative, and you can easily get the coin back.. you just have to make it worthwhile for the players to buy stuff. This doesn't actually save our chapter money (after all, we're buying things to get the coin), but we consider it a better expense to buy neat things that will improve the game appearance instead of just buying more and more coins that will sit in someone's closet forever.
I'm making a trip out to Crossroads for THIS at some point in time.
