Re: (TFT) P.O.E. attacks and economics

["Quite Confused" <Confused3141@hotmail.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Smith

> I was curious if any other GM's had PC's who
> specialized in castle busting.

I'd posted a story that was kind of the opposite a bit ago. The guy who had
just built a castle and had the GM run another group through it so he
brought all the livestock he could and became a pasturalist. I even
developed a campaign around the idea.

> I have a very long running campaign (some
> of my players have been playing for 12 real years in
> will most have been playing the same characters for
> 6+ years).  The players have reached the stage where
> taking out the enemies castle or building a safe haven
> are real concerns.

And I thought you were a mean GM   ;-P

>
> Jay suggested (a quick summary here) that
> the prices vary widely and basically anytime a PC tries
> to get a lot of some thing (metal plates, Universal
> Solvents) the price jumps sharply.

Uhh actually you missed an important aspect. I'd also called for there to be
a limit on the number of coin in a given region. If a GM knows there are
only 250,000 coins in the adventurers area it might make him think twice
about awarding them that 100,000 coin treasure. It might even make more
abstract awards, like labor for service, more valuable to players. It also
allows prices to be set at levels that can make the accumulation of enough
currency to pay a given price an adventure in itself.

> I am not happy
> with that suggestion for two reasons:
> First my PC's are very mobile.  They have
> gates, they have flying carpets, they have Long
> Distance Teleports.  (In my campaign I have put
> real limitations on all three of these spells to make
> travelling magically more difficult, and the PC's
> have anted up the big bucks or made the effort
> to get around most of these limitations.)  If they
> need a lot of U. Solvent, they will simply go to all the
> major cities in the Neutral Kingdoms, the Brennens,
> the Allied Border States, to Caris as well as hitting
> up Medagalin, a PC, who runs a town sized complex
> of dozens of Chemical laboratories.

Okay there is your problem with castles right there. Your running a swords
and soccery campaign with a industrial age style economy. There's nothing
wrong with that at all, but the main thing that brought an end to the castle
building age wasn't gunpowder but economy. It's all a matter of relative
value. The concepts behind both a castle and an A-bomb  are quite simple and
in each of their relative ages it took a great concentration of wealth and
resources, those of a middlin size nation, in order to create one. However
nowadays even a modestly wealthy individual could build a big castle
privately in america. Sounds like your campaign has progressed to concepts
like international trade and industrial production rates so let's discuss
ways to handle powerful players.

I use P.O.E. attacks. Physical, Organizational, Economic

Physical is obvious. If you want a method of handling army's using a
character sheet I've got it.

Organizational is a bit more subtle. It does imply directly going after a
players followers, henchmen, associates with the three Bs (Blackmail,
Bribery, Blackball) but a GM can also simply out organize a player. I've
noticed that many campaigns practically ignore the power available in the
concept of henchmen in favor of focusing strictly on characters personal
growth. I just watched the movie "Shadow of the Vampire" and there is a
great scene where the vampire is talking about the book Dracula and he says
the saddest part of the book is where Dracula is setting the table for his
meal. It's because he has no servants and that is a reminder of how far he
has fallen.

Economic follows much the same line. Like say I wanted to go after
Medagalin, a PC, who runs a town sized complex of dozens of Chemical
laboratories. Well not knowing anything else about him I can still say that
he's made the mistake of centralizeing production. As a GM I could; (1) Go
after his trade routes. Make him spend effort and money so product can get
through. (2) Have an NPC put an alchemist in all the major cities. Then
Medagalins goods with all the added overhead of transportation can't
possably compeat. (3) Try to lock up all the alchemists in some kind of
guild system that would exclude Medagalin, like having a charismatic
follower go and 'new follower' all the alchemists he can find. Maybe even
teach the guy alchemist and get him a job in the factory itself..... (4)
Have a rich NPC or organization buy out ingredients, like paying twice what
Medagalins factory pays. (5) If Medagalin dosen't have political control
over the area that his factory is built, have the lands regent seize the
factory for the state or levy quite high taxes.


> Second, I have run campaigns where the
> price of everything has to be negotiated all the
> time and my players and I are bored with it.  The
> price of things may vary (and do) but most of the
> time the prices are something like, "...around here
> items are price list +5% because the local lord, has
> high taxes."  I feel the price list should be a good
> average.   Since my players are creators and
> sellers as well as buyers, the prices have to be
> fair both ways.

So your players don't get to set their own prices for the goods they make?
What character or NPC (Monster?) is in charge of fixing the prices cause I'm
gonna 'new follower' him..........

> Cas was mentioning using Elementals with
> magic picks and the like to lower the price of
> construction.  Be careful what you wish for!  For a
> while I used such rules and the PC's were quick to
> take advantage.  Now such techniques are profitable
> to use but not overwhelmingly so.  For that matter, I
> would rather my lords (who are peasant rich and
> cash poor) be better able to afford a nice castle than
> the PC's and wizards who happen to have the Invoke
> Elemental spell, Open Tunnel spell, etc.

I suppose the question becomes what is the focus of your campaign? I've
learned two things. First, when dealing with an intelligent group of
players, I take a cue from J.R. Tolkin and design at least 1 scale level
higher than what my story needs. In a campaign where the characters can
travel internationally quite easily this means the whole planet needs to be
detailed. Second, I think a good campaign should have a storyline, a
definite goal that can be reached or some event that will conclude things.
Without a storyline you end up with something like the X-files that pretends
to have all these layers of complexity but doesn't really because they are
making it up as they go along so the ultimat secret is always a few steps
away, no matter how many layers of the onion have been peeled away.

> Economically, peasants have a rough enough
> time as it is.  Do you really want to make their labor
> even less valuable?
>

??? Under a middle ages type economy at least 60% of the population has got
to be farmers. Out of the remaining 40% you've got to account for builders,
bakers, animal handlers, adventurers, etc. That doesn't leave much labor to
go around even if you have the cash. And you can always let your
NPC's/Monsters use the same advantages your players exploit.

I think the main problem with TFT's economic system is the assumption that
simply because something is listed then you can buy it. This does cheapen
labor by eliminating it from the mix. This is why I suggest making price
lists come with the buildings required to produce the goods. Without an
alchemist in town there is no potion price list, without a blacksmith in
town there is no weapon price list, etc. If you also put a cap on how many
coins are in a given regeion you can then set the value of a coin relative
to anything you'd like. Simply take the population of the region, determine
the most expensive item/s the average person living in the region should be
able to afford. Multiply that dollar amount by the areas population and you
have a figure for how much money is in the area curently (unless you have
some sort of special situation in your campaign like a Mad Overlord who
keeps a vast treasure horde or whatever). Then you know how rich your
players are in relation to the rest of the area, and know when to take them
down a notch.


Jay
"Hero invented a working steam engine around 200 BC. The steam engine was
the catylist of the industral revolution. Why was there no industral
revolution in 200 BC?"

=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"