5. ITEMS AND ECONOMY

Will items decay?

Item decay is the only way to maintain a healthy economy. Some people believe items in the bank or on a character which is not played should not decay. I don't like it - too open for abuse. Mules could be used for long term storage of goods. [This would also lead to player greed - players would then store items for long term, etc.] Best just to have everything decay. Sure it may hurt the 'casual player' but I haven't ever seen a game that really supported them anyway (though lots *claim* to) so screw them. [Note: The best investment a 'casual player can make is getting their items turned into cold hard cash. If they have to take a couple months off, sell what they can - it won't probably be in good shape if its still around when they get back, then buy the needed items later.] "Uber" items require more maintenance than 'n00b' items. More expensive maintenance as well. There are two ways to maintain an item. Because it is such a pain to go around and have various blacksmiths, etc maintain your items for you, you can either have it done automatically (at a much increased cost, includes kingdom taxes and money lost to graft as well as a small percentage toward the guild coffers who would normally repair such things) or go around to the various artisans who would repair it. Or you could choose to not bother to keep it up till it becomes 'broken' (i.e. non-functional) or till it becomes dust (i.e. goes out of your inventory). "Uber" items would need to be kept up by artisans (unless you have way too much money). Even maintained items will degrade over time. All items that are degrading will have their effectiveness (stats) reduced. Hence, an AC 8 robe will eventually become AC 7, etc.

Will you have no drop items or 'lore' items?

No. That is the sign of bad planning and treasure from static sources.

Will monsters drop unique items that need to be camped for?

Nope. All good stuff comes from characters. All bad stuff too. There may be odd things found by explorer type players who go off looking for them. Example - someone who finds a meteorite. It is not a 'spawn' - it is just there. They could sell it to a platemail armor smith, a weapon smith or a magical caster - all at good profit. It is up to them to determine who they want to sell it to.

Will monsters drop coin and other loot?

Not at first will monsters drop coin. If monsters kill players and take their coin (I'd have some coin be the only lootable thing from a killed character) then the monsters will have coin (unless they don't have their wergild, see section on Death). The game 'vision' is to have characters going to a totally unexplored and uninhabited continent and taming it. It would make no sense for monsters on this newly discovered continent to have coin. Other loot (furs, claws, whiskers, etc) monsters would have. Various skills used to be able to loot this (as opposed to destroying it) would be built up by the players. In this way, you could (if desired) eventually have someone who is a trapper/furrier. I'd rather have the players make the difference in whether it is a ruined, low quality, medium quality, high quality or exceptional quality skin rather than a random loot. Monsters skins would spawn at random with the players able to check their skill to see what they actually get. Example: A rabbit spawns with a medium quality pelt. That means that the best pelt that could ever be gotten off of this particular rabbit is medium. If someone with low skinning skill attempts to skin it, they may come away with a 'ruined pelt' (or no pelt at all!). If someone with very high skill (a master) skins it, they will either get a medium or possibly a high quality rabbit skin. Their skill *may* upgrade it by one place. Hence, if a bunch of players are out hunting, they may choose to specialize in various jobs. Pete finds the critter, John shoots it, Larry skins it. Or whatever.

Will certain armor/weapons be off limits to e.g. spell casters?

Nope. Use what you want. An untrained guy with a sharpened piece of metal isn't going to do him a whole lot of good.

Can clans have special clothes or uniforms?

If you have clothiers/tailors make them. Unless you use some pretty esoteric stuff then they could still be copied.

Are there drugs?

Yes. There won't be any 'recreational' drugs - we don't need to spread messages that sort of thing is good and get our game "banzored". There will be medicinal drugs (herbs for medieval setting) and ones that boost various statistics. In general, the amount of refining a drug has undergone (and the skill of the refiner) dictates how much in the way of side effects there are. Herbs can be used to raise various statistics, accelerate combat, etc.

Can I enchant weapons?

If the players don't make magic stuff, there won't be any magic stuff in the world. Making magic stuff is a complicated and expensive process that requires a lot of work from several people. [This is for anything with a 'constant' effect. Making items which only last brief amounts of time, or are one shots, etc will be easier.] You have to get (for example) a very nice sword made, get several people to help cast various spells on it, dump reagents and money into it, etc then eventually you get a magic sword. Sadly, nobody knows how to make any magic items. Fortunately, players are able to experiment to their hearts content. The first few people that find out how to make various magical items will no doubt become very wealthy (after people discover how to make coin and accumulate enough of it to actually make something). I am thinking also that it will always take multiple people to make magic stuff - one person just can't do it. Oh - and various special buildings - naturally.

Will there be an active economy in the game?

Let me state this for the record. "There are no set prices." There are no NPC's who will give you coppers on the gold. There are only other players. The price is whatever the buyer and seller come to. If you buy a bow for 100gp and discover the guy across the street is selling them for only 80gp, don't contact customer support. You didn't get ripped off - you are just a bad shopper. If someone sells you something claiming it does some wonderful thing and it doesn't - you are just silly. Players will make the economy. You will, as a consumer, have a choice to make. You can either buy a sword (for example) from some guy who is out wandering around that you may never see again (be sure to create a reference in case you get upset thinking he gypped you and you decide to put a 'hit' out on him) or you can go to a shop that sells swords and deal with the guy who does that for a living. The shop owner has a reputation to protect, etc. Old weapons should be given to the scrap iron guys for turning into slag and maybe making into something better. By having craftsmen being required to be in their shops to craft, this will make it much easier to find goods you want. Rather than trying to shop around a bunch of random NPC's for arrows, you'd go to the fletcher shops.

How will the money system work?

Assuming the campaign is not futuristic, the characters will first need to figure out how to make money. If possible, I'd have different kingdoms have different amounts of money and they can fight each other over how much they think their money is worth by comparison to other realms. I'd like it possible for the characters to create different sorts of money within the mint (see crafting). One kingdom may choose to make square coins, another triangular. One kingdom may choose to make their coins almost completely pure, another may choose to make their coins with very little 'gold' in them. Players themselves will set the exchange rates. In a silver shy kingdom, 10 gold pieces may make one silver. No doubt that bright players will figure out ways to turn a tidy profit off of even things like exchange rates.

Can I have a shop or be a merchant like in Ultima Online?

You will need a shop to build almost everything. It is much easier to find merchants - look for the shops.

Is there any way we can advertise player owned stores?

In the fantasy or post apocalyptic setting, the only way would be through having engravings (etc) on the items you make showing the name of the store, town the store is in, etc. We may (if possible) allow players to rent billboards, hire NPC's (and PC's) to walk around with sandwich boards on, etc. In the futuristic setting, you can rent space in the phone book, have your company listed in the stock market, buy TV ads, etc.

Will there be a black market?

If the players make it but I am not sure what it would sell. We don't have (unless we can figure out ways to get around it) any illegal drugs or alcohol. So we'd have to figure out what could be sold there. If players of a kingdom (or its rulers) decided that a substance was illegal, then that would be a player run black market.

How will I be able to earn money?

You have several choices. You could go out into the world and kill monsters and sell their parts to various merchants; you could go out and gather resources and sell those to various merchants; you could go to a shop and get a job at a PC merchants (there are always little jobs that a master would not wish to waste his time on); you could go wandering around building up mapping skill and attempt to sell maps; you could drop your pantaloons for money; you could help move wood/rock from wagons to where the PC's are putting it to build something, etc.

Can ships/boats sink?

Nothing would be cooler than having a PC boat sink. All of the cargo (and various treasure, and several people's wergild) would be at the bottom of the ocean waiting for someone to loot. Naturally, if the water was too deep, it would be really hard to loot. The ability to breath under water does not reduce the pressure of the water. Anything over 100' deep gets very tricky indeed. Diving bells and whatnot would be needed to attempt any sort of salvage operation at those depths. See the Tinkerers for details...

Will we be able to turn ourselves into NPC merchants?

Hell no. You will be able to rent NPC merchants. We don't think that a 'burble' in the net or any brief problems on our end should result in lost income for you by kicking your PC (while a merchant) off. Hiring NPC's to become merchants allows us to have an ongoing money sink. Goods which are worthless won't be sold as often as the person renting the NPC will be losing money in the deal. Lastly, we don't want you sucking up our bandwidth with your logged on merchanting PC's.