by Letters » Sun Dec 15, 2013 7:33 pm
I made some words.
Coinage
Esgaroth probably doesn't have a mint. There's probably money brought by refugees or scavengers from Dale, or the dwarven realm or other places further afield. I doubt that there is any sort of standardised system of coinage made from precious metal. Here are two suggestions.
1) Hand-wave it, make a few sets of coins, and let them be used as they have been elsewhere in the past, with standardized values for each. There's nothing wrong with that.
2) I can imagine a certain level of bureaucracy in Esgaroth (Middle-earth's only republic). Create an assayer's office/banker in the town, that issues promissory notes in exchange for coins or other precious commodities. Say that town law mandates that precious metal simply isn't legal tender for trade, unless a person possesses a suitable license. Those individuals with such licenses would function as merchants, and the town's link with the world beyond, since foreigners may not be so keen on accepting a bit of paper for their goods. That may get a little convoluted, but I'm just speculating. The system wouldn't handle semi-precious coinage, which would be good to have for use in taverns and for other small transactions, besides. The promissory notes issued by the bank would serve as the main currency inside the town. The bank might also be more than a little bit suspicious of somebody not licensed as a trader showing up with a stack of gold.
Number two, or some similar system, has the advantage of NPCs being able to gobble up any surplus of money, potentially by means of skimming off the top, and heavily regulating trade with the world beyond, unless player characters fancy getting involved in smuggling, and even then, their Dwarven Sword of Orc Smiting +1 might stand out somewhat.
Player character merchants
I can't imagine a dwarf paying visits to individual charcoal burners to buy the stuff off them, or someone off the streets going in search of an elf to try to get wine. In fact, I doubt the town would even permit it. It makes such things as tax and tariffs and basic monitoring of trade a little tricky. Trade with these external entities should be handled by PC merchants who are licensed by the town. They can be granted access to a selection of otherwise inaccessible NPC merchants to sell goods. Raw materials might be better handled by something more like a prog than a merchant, actually, to keep the amount that can be sold in check. PC merchants would have to procure these goods from other PCs. These NPC merchants may also have a selection of goods for sale which cannot be produced in the town, or are otherwise a rare sight. If the promissory note idea from above is run with, these PC merchants would be the same ones that handle the silver and gold legally.
The raw material industry
I'm guessing that the major exports from Esgaroth are wood, charcoal and fish. There is also presumably at least some arable land in the region, which may support various foodstuffs, as well as plenty of pasture. Flax may be grown locally, too, and would be useful for clothing, whereas cotton is very likely out of the question. There may be a few hunters, too. I've given hunting its own section down below.
The above materials, whether raw or having undergone the initial stages of processing, would constitute the stuff that gets sent out to the world beyond. The fish may be salted or smoked first. The wood may be processed, either by just going through a sawmill, or perhaps carpenters might export finished goods. Flax may be turned into linen. Assorted other crops or products from animals may be processed a bit and sent on.
All that stuff probably lies at the core of Esgaroth's economy. What's really relevant here is how you want player characters to interact with it. I'm going to run with the assumption that at least some players are interested in playing lumberjacks, fisherman, farmers and so on. They should be viable trades. There should be no easy way for them to just go and sell an entire year's worth of goods all at once and come back loaded, however. There shouldn't be NPC buyers all over the place. In fact, there shouldn't be any which are accessible to the average PC. If they're in a position to trade on their own behalf, they might do so with other PCs on a small-scale. If they want to sell on their goods in bulk, though, then they may need to go to a PC merchant, who in turn has access - and perhaps only sporadic access - to NPCs from the world beyond, who want those raw materials. That would enable staff to cut down on demand or tweak prices at will. There's possibly also the possibility of varying supply levels by tinkering with crafts. This set-up would also hopefully provide opportunities and reasons for companies and collectives to form - an NPC-led group or two might help out at the start here.
Production of high quality goods
Esgaroth is probably a conveniently located site for commerce, even if Dale is currently a blasted ruin. That said, I don't envisage it as being home to the technology or expertise to produce certain goods. Some things would simply need to be imported. Players still like to make stuff, so there still, somehow, needs to be an abundance of stuff to make. I don't think any would even particularly mind being unable to make the very best stuff, which may need to be imported, as long as here is sufficient variety in what they can make.
I've put a few subcategories relating to high quality goods below, but if you don't care for a wall of text, and since they're only tangentially related to the topic, and are written without any knowledge of existing items and crafts, feel free to skip right on down to the next bold text header.
Wood and carpentry
Considering that great big forest nearby, and that the entire town is built of wood, on a lake, the woodwork from Esgaroth might be the best in the region. As well as exporting lumber, wood seems to be the prime suspect for exports for finished goods from the region. I don't think anyone has ever accused a high quality wardrobe of unbalancing a game, either.
Clothing
Linen and wool should be the two most common materials for clothing. A good local tailor would be proficient with them, and would probably spend most of their time producing hard-wearing work clothes. Cotton, being neither a particular luxury nor easy to get, may be a rarer sight. Silk would be a mark of extreme wealth or remarkable connections. Someone who knows more about tailoring might be able to say whether a regular clothier would be able to work with it, or if the garments themselves would be produced abroad as well as the material.
Arms
Spears should be the weapon of choice, with perhaps a variety of other wood-hafted weaponry. Good weapons should be few and far between, and the very best of them would be imported, and probably tightly controlled by the town. Swords should be tremendously expensive. Helmets should be the only common form of metal armour, and the production of mail, while possible in the town, should be long and slow, and mail armour itself unaffordable for all but the stupendously wealthy or those sponsored by the town itself.
Tools
This has always been an under-explored field. I don't have anything in particular to say other than to flag it up as an item of interest. Perhaps wear on tools as they're used would be a good thing to have, creating a genuine need for a toolmaker, and another sink for money and resources.
Food
Warding off starvation shouldn't be a constant struggle. That's not particularly interesting or enjoyable. Having mountains of cooked food everywhere, stacked so high that there are things rotting daily, is not desirable either. People, bar those in jobs where they get fed, should have to pay a reasonable amount for their food. Within the town itself, considering that the town is built entirely of wood, down to its streets, the risk of fire should be a major consideration for everyone, which could be a good excuse to deprive the average household of proper cooking facilities. On the other hand, I don't fancy seeing player characters become paupers just because their player logs in for longer than somebody else, and they both work exactly the same profession and earn the same amount, but one just happens to need to eat more due to being online for longer. However it works out, food should be a real consideration.
One idea is that a person could pay a fee at a sort of food shop once an in game month, and receive all the food they request there (they'd have to be made less hungry without ever actually being given a food object, in case they give it away). I'd set that such that the fee paid would be roughly equivalent to what it would cost someone cooking for themselves with cheap ingredients who logged in fifteen hours per real life week.
vNPC sales
No.
If there are even shop-fronts at all, I'd rather see them as an opportunity for PC to PC sales. If there's a surge in demand for certain items in the town and a PC happens to have them, staff can handle that on a case by case basis. Those selling raw materials can deal with PC merchants if they want to sell in bulk.
Pay
I'll divide this up according to different sorts of jobs.
Raw materials producers
Independent workers do not receive any automated pay of any sort. They must all deal with other PCs to sell their materials, and receive payment for that.
Company heads/collective representatives do the same, and can then either go and hand out money/promissory notes to their people themselves, or they can drop it in a strongbox to have an NPC dispense it. In this instance, the traditional payday system is ideal, although a log of who is drawing pay would certainly help someone running a group to weed out anyone who's logging in once a week for a minute to collect their pay then vanishing again. Even if they have very different playtimes, it's easy to check it out, what with them having raw materials to show for it.
Town employees
This encompasses anyone who works in a position which doesn't actually produce any goods, and where their employer is an NPC. This could be anything from crew for a transport barge to the local guard. Since their employer can't oversee every last thing, and since even a PC superior might be missing out, instead of paying them directly, I would employ a few simple crafts to force them to be in places where they should logically be, at least from time to time. When they type payday, they're bestowed with a certain number - let's say five - of 'lists of orders' or something similar, which can then be used, in the appropriate locations, to generate money. In the case of the guard, this might include patrolling certain parts of the town - their crafts might only function in taverns, or at the gates, and so on. Put a six hour timer on these crafts. The amount which can be generated per token can be increased with rank. Something similar could be applied to a few positions.
Player character merchants
They'll just have to do the best they can for themselves, and hope the town doesn't gouge them too hard on the tax front.
Producers of finished goods
PC merchants can get money from selling to NPCs. Major producers of raw materials can get their money from PC merchants. Employees of various places can lean on their employers. Those who sell finished goods pull the short stick here. vNPC income is, as is, a bad idea. I think that an adaptation of Harshlands' system would be suitable for crafters, without breaking the economy. I'm still puzzling over how to implement it elegantly here, and without having to build an entire new system from the ground up. The key points which it achieves are to ensure that PC crafters do have a vNPC income, while keeping it well-regulated, eliminating the need for a shopkeeper for every crafter, and making it such that they do actually have to make and sell some items, rather than the money simply materializing.
Wear on items
This is vital to ensure a constant cycling of old, worn-down objects out of the system, and new ones back in. Weapons should need to be discarded or reforged eventually. Cloth and leather that is damaged by some direct means should require patching, and even then, it should eventually be worn down to the point of needing to be replaced. Mail should be hard to damage, but once it is damaged, it will need the care of a skilled smith to repair.
It would be nice to see some crafts have a chance to cause damage to clothing. This would keep people wearing sensible work clothes when working, and even those might need replacing.
Fine clothing in particular should require special services to clean up properly. I don't know how feasible that is to implement, but it would certainly keep people wearing it in sensible places.
As mentioned above, it would be nice to see tools have a bigger part to play than just being some easily replaced item.
Property tax
Space is presumably at a premium within the town proper. It would make sense for the town to levy a tax on those who own buildings in it, depending on the size of the building. I don't think this is quite so applicable to anything not built on the lake, since in those cases, space isn't so scarce, and they're probably not so secure, either.
A skeletal, pig-tailed-haired male teen says,
"Prepare to meet your doom, loping man. It is I, loitering person, your nemesis."