Greed is a Rushing River

DiscOH

Artisan
People often make the mistake of thinking wealth is based on what you have or on what you can afford to lose. Both are wrong. Wealth is what you can obtain. The distinction becomes more apparent as you travel. You might be too poor to afford spice in the West, but in the East... your coin suddenly works much harder for you. The entire life of a traveling merchant is based on this fact. Buy low, sell slightly less low.

As the merchant travels they provides a service (cheaper goods) and receives compensation (modest coin). If the coin ever becomes not-so-modest, more merchants join the crowd, and the coin returns to it's comfortable point of rest. It is in this way that a market flows as water to the lowest (cost) point. Just like water, structures can block its passing. When that happens, everyone dies of thirst.

These lands are at risk of being choked to death, and by no sudden act of villainy. There is a history of harm that grows with every passing moon.

The land is dangerous, and so, many merchants lost their lives coming to it. This discourages more "water" from being brought to the lands while encouraging the looting of corpses over the pursuit of production. Water is lost, and more is not coming.

With no one to let the wealth flow to and from the city, it's blood grows stale. The treasures, even when rescued, are rarely able to be delivered to those who truly care for them. A wizard orb becomes a paperweight, a warrior's sword a decoration. Remember, the items have no value by themselves, it is by moving them that they grow in importance.

A noble few step forward to share their own coin as blood. They transfuse their vitae into the failing countryside, but the problem only moves. They are the nexus of all things trade, and they alone are the beneficiaries of it.

But I hear you say:
"You speak in riddles old man, what is your intent"

I will cut to the point.

You people are poisoning yourselves.

No one is willing to pay for anything that anyone is willing to produce. People clamour hungrily for potions, but have only a miser's means to pay for them.

After a victory, people rush happily home to sell their findings, but have no idea of what they're worth. Only a few have coin, and they invent their own prices. The only people who grow from this transaction are the ones that are already full of coin, and the ones that handle the process.

This is not an attack on the wealthy. Far from it. Again, wealth is only significant in what it lets you buy. Currently, the countryside is too poor for money to do anything but shine. We need to start making practices that are aimed at empowering people to join the game of gold.

There are a hundred changes that we could benefit from, but all things start at the beginning.

For this reason I suggest:

Auctions - Should be changed. Instead of counting up from nothing, with the final bid determining price, auctions should count down to nothing. There is a good deal of maths here (that I will skip for the sake of brevity), but the important factor is there are not enough powerful players to challenge each other to the point of fair market value. Any rogue bid not part of a group plan can be overwhelmed with the coin saved from all the previous purchases. Margins of profit can be cut so small as to be useless for anything but immediate use and so again, no one but those already heavy with wealth and the auction curator have anything to gain.

An obvious proof of this should be the "Copy Formal Scroll" currently in the auction house. It seems painfully obvious that this would be at the very least some fraction of the most valuable scroll on the auction (and at most some fraction of the most valuable scroll in existence). But those who would bid on it lack the collection needed to turn its silver into platinum.

But Desky, you say, what price shall we start from? How shall we count to 0?

I'm glad you asked that. It is a trivial thing to track the history of previous auctions. Using the purchasing value as a starting line, we can set the initial price at 400% of that value. Over the next 20 days, the value will drop by 20% per day. We can leave the auction unattended entirely aside from the first day and the last.

Auction values go up, clearing the forest of fowl beasts becomes more profitable, more people join the hunts, and soon merchants feel safe enough to bring back their rain.

As people become more accustomed to this type of market, a similar fix can be applied to crafting.
But I'll dream about the future as it gets closer.
 
*a figure that the dream has trouble deciding whether he is wolf or man speaks up in a foreign tongue, but in the dream his words have meaning*

Desky, in my homelands of the Jardhilgr Roedha we had little use for coin as our people would share with each other what our talents provided. We each worked towards the greater goal of survival and if you did not, then the community stopped working for you. I have been amongst the lands of the Southerners for some years now and have only a small understanding of the games of coins. You seen you understand a deeper meaning to it than others have shared with me. I would like to hear more when next we meet, if that suits you.
 
*a figure that the dream has trouble deciding whether he is wolf or man speaks up in a foreign tongue, but in the dream his words have meaning*

Desky, in my homelands of the Jardhilgr Roedha we had little use for coin as our people would share with each other what our talents provided. We each worked towards the greater goal of survival and if you did not, then the community stopped working for you. I have been amongst the lands of the Southerners for some years now and have only a small understanding of the games of coins. You seen you understand a deeper meaning to it than others have shared with me. I would like to hear more when next we meet, if that suits you.

My dearest treasure is wisdom, and it's price is always free.

I will share all that I can answer.
 
I am not certain I fully grasp the scheme you are proposing, but you have me intrigued. If I may join you, I too would like to hear more from the merchant who shares his dearest treasure so freely.
 
To be honest it is the price of the rest of the items that are needed to craft magical items that is out of control. The scroll itself should be the driving cost of everything else. The Cat. if any would also be high but should never be more then the scroll itself. I at one point had all components down to 1 gold a piece. However due to many people from other lands visiting us they would just buy them all up and not cast the items in our lands for the defense of our people. There are many ways to work with loot. As I am noticing more and more as of late there really is no order for loot out on the field. I see hands grabbing at corpses and shoving the coin or trinkets into their own pockets but never giving it to a bag person. I notice that we tend to as of late put off doing loot split after each encounter. Sometimes there is not time. But doing a whole weekend split really scrambles things up and you never get things evenly split as they should. With that said I am probably one of the richest adventures amongst us. This has nothing to do with finding great loot or fare market trades. I have always saved and bought up all the junk left over that no one wanted in the split so that there was a fare trade of coin to hand out. This has allowed me to help the people of the lands and even create a war chest for times of need in large scale battles. I am not loaded down with magic items and I very often will let the younger adventure bid on items so that people spread the power around. So to simply say that the people with all the wealth are the issue here is laughable. Greed is an issue I agree with you. If people have such a hard time with loot split I have MULTIPLE ways of handling it and if the heads of houses would like to get together with me at next gather I am sure we all can come up with a plan that works in the best interest of all.

Sir Tolgar Undershaft Knight Commander of the Order of Morgan
 
(edited some character's because they weren't showing up on the forum)

Greed is an issue I agree with you.

I fear the length of my statement spread the meaning too thin.

Greed is the love of growth. Growth is life. Greed is good, but like any plant left unchecked, its leaves will often block it's other branches. If you guide a limb to untapped sunlight, it can outlive a stone elf. Greed is the river that we all drink from.

As a youth, I was taught (like most of my kind) to shun many of the other races. "They will take from you and leave you naked". "They will trick you and leave you empty". "They care only of their metals, not of heart". This was true and this was false.

There exists in every culture an unnamed universal currency. It is not gold or shells or trust, but the utility of those things. These items are full of what we call "utils" and we draw their meaning as "µ". Every culture trades in µ, but like the spice wagon from across the world, things are worth different amounts in different places.

It is only when we find we have given too much for too little µ, when we have been short changed in the exchange that problems emerge. As you say, lowering the price of reagents gave you not only gold, but the joy of helping your brothers in arms. Your coin gained was small, but the µ substantial. When traders from other lands saw your price tag and gave you coin, only half of the transaction took place. This is suffering.

This is not an attack on the wealthy. Far from it. Again, wealth is only significant in what it lets you buy. Currently, the countryside is too poor for money to do anything but shine. We need to start making practices that are aimed at empowering people to join the game of gold.

Charity is not kind. Cracking an egg early will only kill the chick. The only safe protection we can give to the pre-hatchlings is to guard them from those would would feed on their naivety.

I feel like this medium is not clear enough to express my intents exactly. So much ƧᄃIΣПᄃΣ gets blended into metaphor. There are layers of ρяσσƒѕ I would share with you at our next gather should you so care.

But this is not an attack. We all stand to benefit from a healthier home.
 
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Good sir, please count me among those who would wish to understand your manner of thinking. While I get the altruism behind your thoughts - understanding the application would be pertinent. My concern is, using your analogy, if we trim the leaves back so that all may grow in the light of the sun, we deplete the nutrition in the soil and all will suffer. There are many rivers in which we all drink from, and while some have lived in lands longer and as such, have grown taller and stronger - others do not always know the difficulties and risks involved in planting our roots how we did. I do not see Greed as the issue, so long as it does not become malicious - desire to obtain at the expense of others well being. Sadly, ambition is often mistaken for Greed, and it should be made clear there is a great difference.

I am quite familiar with your term of Utils, yet the application in my land must differ from yours. You speak of the current Auction being an example of the poor state of how our system is run but I would vehemently disagree. For something to have µ it must hold a degree of utility for the owner - a value as well as usefulness. For example, in the desert, Gold holds far less µ than water. A man with a full belly puts a far smaller µ on food than the one who is starving.

The issue with the brief description you gave is you are assigning a universal µ to each item, regardless of the communities desire or need for the item. µ cannot be defined in such a way - value is situational. If I have a powerful scroll, but am not a formal caster myself - and the effect of the scroll is of little use to me, it would hold far less µ to me than to an individual in need of it. Your proposition seems like it holds the potential of raising the costs of auctions to distribute more coin to all, however, this does not fix the problem at hand as those who purchase the item still hold positions that allow them to gain far more coin and continue driving up the costs of all goods. Redistributing wealth does not cure this issue of Greed, nor could one hope to provide each individual with what they feel they have earned.

I am all for finding ways of allowing all to grow and prosper - but the only way I can see this of happening is by offering everyone one thing - opportunity. If an individual group acquires an item, scroll, coin, or whatever - it is up to them to decide the µ of each thing and distribute it as seen fit. If an entire town is involved in the acquisition - the µ must be decided the same way - by those involved or their representatives. That requires organization and direction. Time consuming, perhaps, but Bureaucracy is sometimes necessary - albeit annoying.
 
In the town where I was schooled is a library with a hundred rooms. In each room are raised a thousand shelves. Each shelf holds a sea of endless knowledge. I can no more drink in the totality of that single library than I can the ocean. It is for this reason that I do not intend to force my learnings on the community, and for this reason I welcome your skepticism. I may be mistaken, or we both may be, or neither of us. But because I can tell you have an appreciation for the thought of it, I will do my best to better display my position.

Given:
The more valuable it is to hunt the enemies of the land the more people will do so.
Increasing the sale price of trophies from the hunt makes hunting more valuable.​

Claim:
An auction's ending price can be adjusted by changing its approach to selling.​

Let us start with what an auction is. The obvious elements of an auction are the people, the coins bid, and the product. The less obvious elements are the valuations, the expected gain, and the information. However, as I must drape myself in the specific lest dreams eat my meaning:
When I say auction, I mean Any attempt at sale of goods/services to a variable number of agents over a finite time period where the selling price is independent of the winning agent, only one agent pays currency, and they pay only if they are the recipient of the goods/services.

Further, provided they are rational, an agent will never pay currency worth >= the perceived µ of an object because to make a rational action an agent must believe to somehow gain.
∴ The most an agent would ever offer in gold assuming no other factors is V - (an arbitrarily small number) where V is the individual perceived µ of winning an auction

This can be expanded to say that an agent will never bid more than they believe it would take to win an auction. This is plainly true because paying anything more than the minimum required to win gives them the same object (and therefore the same µ) but less gold. µ + 1 > µ. Rational actors always maximize value.
∴ The maximum possible bid for a given agent is their belief of the second highest bid.

There are an absolutely absurd abundance of auction approaches, each of them having unique settings for which they are best applied. But assuming the valuations of agents is the same, the same agents will always end up with the same product, and the same coin will always be paid. This is where things get complicated.

Regardless of the appearances, an agent pays i to bid and receives ia whenever another agent bids.
(where i is information into their personal valuations, and i
a is information into an opposing agent's personal valuations)

Since an auction's revenue equivalence is dependant on the valuations of each agent staying constant, the only way to impact the sale price of an object is to impact the amount of information being traded during bids.

It is a trivial fact to show that auction prices and information are negatively correlated (I trust you can derive that fact yourself Resete), and so it is also trivial to show that the only way to increase the sale price of an auction is to hide the bids of recipients.

The auction type I have suggested is the least public auction that can not be easily cheated. By adhering to this auction strategy, I claim that auction values will go up, which will attract more people to clear the lands of beasts, which will make the lands safer.

There are additional reasons for why this is a good idea (for instance, less bureaucratic work per item sold), but the night grows bright and I tire of dreaming.


If you have any counterpoints or additional questions for clarification, please reach out to me here. Unlike an auction, we benefit most from what knowledge is in the light.

-Desky
 
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The thoughts you present are valid, but fail to take into account the state of the community at large. If I am understanding your dream correctly, the concept of said auction would maximize the coin by eliminating low bids and thus, ending with the highest possible communal value for said items. I must say the idea holds merit. The sad part of this is that, what inevitably ends up happening is the complaint of this community at large - those with coin get the items making them stronger, and more capable of hunting down the beasts that will drop more coin, thus increasing their wealth....it is an endless cycle.

Let me explain it this way:

40 people participate in a fight. An item is dropped worth 10 gold. We auction it for 400% and it goes for the FULL 40 gold. Each participant now has 1 gold coin. The individual who bought the item also happens to be a blacksmith. The players with their 1 gold try and restock their supplies and pay the blacksmith his derived cost for supplies. The blacksmith now has the item, and much of his coin back. Perhaps the players didn't need supplies from the blacksmith? Well they now spend it on food, beverage, potions, or any other countless trinkets they wish to obtain. This provides more coin to those who already have the means to produce such goods, and those who have the means are the ones, for the most part, who are purchasing said items and if they have to pay more for the large items they want - they will not always just go hunt more - many times rates increase.

Additionally, hunting monsters is not always an effective means of gathering coin or product. I cannot tell you how many hunts I have been a part of that were so very meager in their payoff. When we first arrived in the Maelstrom, there was no coin anywhere - creatures just dropped these strange motes and while we quickly established a value system for them, one could not use motes to buy the materials for the production of the goods needed by adventurers.

Another issue - many of those with the most coin travel to other lands. This allows them more opportunities to gather coin, increasing their personal holdings. As a result, they will have the ability to purchase more items at an auction. The more items they obtain, the more capable they are of hunting on their own and gaining more coin and valuable items, whilst the rest of the community suffers from their lacking of power.

While your method does ensure a higher amount of coin spent at the auction, there are several factors it doesn't take into account. First off - because the proceeds of the auction are divided so many times over, the individual profits very little from the increase, as I showed in my previously mentioned example. This does little to alleviate the pain felt by those without as much to feel they have something. While having a coin in ones possession feels good to some, most would rather have capability at their disposal - the ability to DO something - the ability to feel powerful. The amount of coin it takes for one to feel powerful is actually quite extensive as in most adventurer's hands, coin flows as easily as water through the fingers.

If we are to cure greed as you put it, the objective should not be to make items of power that much farther out of reach for those who have little financial backing, rather, it should be to find ways to encourage the individual to find ways to grow their personal power. Find ways to avoid auctioning items all together and getting them to the individuals in most need or who are deemed the most deserving. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and by redistributing power in such a manner we strengthen us all. In this manner, the community does not suffer and we cannot point fingers at an elite group hoarding their power and wealth over the masses.

Just some more food for thought.
 
If we are to cure greed as you put it
Search this dream, I have never once spoken of greed in anything but high regards. In fact:
Greed is the love of growth. Growth is life. Greed is good, but like any plant left unchecked, its leaves will often block it's other branches. If you guide a limb to untapped sunlight, it can outlive a stone elf. Greed is the river that we all drink from.

I do not seek to rob the rich to feed the poor anymore than a wizard seeks to extinguish the sun to light a candle. It will never be possible to make those who do not seek wealth as rich as those who seek it. Fortunately, wealth is not zero sum. I speak of ways to summon wealth without payment.

Just as the same water can be drank a thousand times, the same coin be spent a thousand times. The faster a coin travels the more it is worth. If 40 people buy 40 drinks, the provider of potent potables may purchase 40 drinks worth of dishes.

There are several dimensions to why I've suggested this approach. I've explained the first in depth about making these lands attractive to merchants. But as you seem more concerned with the local population the following is also true:

  • If the auction is fixed then items will be worth more money
  • if items are worth more money then more items will be sold
  • if more items are sold then goods will trade hands faster
  • if goods will trade hands faster then more people will have more of what they want
  • if more people have more of what they want then we are all happier.
Does this help at all to dissuade your disposition?

I need time to gather my thoughts on coin leaving a closed community, and on the effects of ritual stratification, but they are both valid positions that I will address.
 
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It seems to me that you are discounting a crucial component of the equation, which is that while coin may change hands indefinitely, many of the items we trade in are expended upon use, or else fade with time. While wealth may not be zero sum, a potion or a ritual scroll very much is. If I purchase a potion from you, you may continue to circulate the coin and, as you say, spread its value amongst many. But I may only drink the potion once, and once I do, nobody else can derive any value from that same potion.

Economics is not my particular area of study, and things are often made less clear in the dream than they would be in the clear light of day. It is entirely possible that I am completely missing your meaning, and so I look forward to your lesson in the hopes that I may understand more fully.
 
What you are refering to is known as "depreciation" and it exists as a part of every transaction, ritual or potion (yes even permanence scrolls). All things are transient, all things change. This is the basis of wealth.

We can speak at length on depreciation if the topic interests you, but it isn't central to healing the economy.
 
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Out of sheer curiosity, what, praytell, do you think the value of a cure mortal wounds potion should be?

~Viv
 
Out of sheer curiosity, what, praytell, do you think the value of a cure mortal wounds potion should be?

~Viv

Maybe I should start a separate conversation called "See if Desky is an Idiot".

We've never spoken, and the first thing you do is ask me a trick question in a public forum. I'd say something to the extent of Hobling manners, but I try to look past race.

As you very well know, the value of an item in a local economy is based on your ability to produce times some coefficient of a markets want for it times some coefficient of it's current saturation. All of these can be derived with market data, but would still ultimately depend on how quickly you could craft.
 
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Well. That about answers everything I needed to know about you, n'est pas?

~Viv
 
Her question seemed perfectly polite to me. You are the one proposing a different means of valuing items. An example would appear to be quite relevant.

On the other side of the coin, though, so to speak, the manners my hobling father taught me indicate that your response was rather rude.
 
Either a lifelong merchant has no concept of a market, or they intentionally tried to mislead me. If anything, assuming Vivienne is not an idiot is the less rude of the two options.

I have not attempted to make a claim at local valuations.
I have explained a process by which you can increase valuations. I have provided proof of function, and I have given a sample implementation.

The example implementation took the last sale price and multiplied it by 4 then reduced it periodically. Whatever the bidding parties decide they will pay is its new "price".
If I can "guess the number" or not has no bearing on the method or its validity.

I maintain that Vivienne is clever, the statement was an attack, and I do not apologize for my response.
 
I believe there was a misunderstanding in my statement to you. When I said "Cure Greed" I was inferring to your comment about the waters running dry, and blood growing stale. You did state left unchecked there would be an issue with this, and since you stated "Greed is the water we all drink from" I inferred that if the source is poisoned we need to cure it to resolve the issue.


  • If the auction is fixed then items will be worth more money
  • if items are worth more money then more items will be sold
  • if more items are sold then goods will trade hands faster
  • if goods will trade hands faster then more people will have more of what they want
  • if more people have more of what they want then we are all happier.

I do not entirely disagree with your ideological list of the flow of goods - it holds promise - but sadly there is a direct flaw in the process and that is with the second statement - "if items are worth more money the more items will be sold". This is absolutely contradictory to basic economic theory. As a merchant, the term supply and demand have lead me to accumulate significant wealth in my time as an adventurer. As supply increases and more of an item is available, the value of said item goes down as competition improves. In the case of "Formal Scrolls" - we have no way of knowing if and when one will appear. Some scrolls may evade procurement by us adventurers for a year or more. If they hold little util to the community, but one individual has great desire for it (say a race change scroll) the value could vary immensely from one gather to another. It all depends on the demand of those present at the time, and there is no "production cost" for which to establish a baseline cost.
Another note - you speak of coin transferring hands but fail to take one incredibly important aspect into mind - our coin is incredibly finite. When producing goods in our lands, there is a certain amount of coin that is actually destroyed in the production process. The more individuals batch production, the greater that amount of coin that is lost to us forever becomes. As a result, the more of these items we create, the less coin that exists in our system. Being a closes system as such creates a natural stagnation in a community based on its size. The more individuals in our community, the more such items can be batched and the value of said items levels out. The fewer in a community and the less coin traded, the harder it becomes to batch and so the fewer items available. This increased demand helps keep the prices stable no matter what point we are at.

Ultimately the failure in this concept is assuming we need coin to get by and be happy as adventurers. In our society, it is not truly the coin that brings contentment (though there are distinct individuals who believe so) but it is what the coin can bring - power. This distribution of power is truly an issue for two types of individuals; the younger and solo adventurers. Adventurers who have just started their careers (Younger in experience, not necessarily age) have not had time to appropriate funds to increase their personal standing and power, and even experienced individuals who move as a pack of one can find difficulty in the acquisition of coin and power. Many have joined forces into various houses or organizations to pool their resources and grow that way. Yet even amongst groups, there is a disproportionate level of power.

I understand your desire to assist the community, and help increase the wealth or power of all, but there are many variables in our community that make direct assumptions of improved quality moot. Like any society we have wealthy and we have poor. To attempt to increase costs of auctioned items does not improve the quality of life for most adventurers - to the contrary - it creates more dissonance amongst friends. The increased cost means the items go to those with the means to purchase them. The increased power causes an increase in ability to acquire more resources and the gap between the haves and have-not grows larger.

I, sir, would love an opportunity at any of our gathers to discuss the philosophy of helping our community by any means. I do not take offense to any comment and enjoy good debate on any subject (much to the chagrin of the community). If you will be at this next Maelstrom gather, perhaps I can tell you my story - of how a lowly and young adventurer managed to single handedly become one of the wealthiest individuals in our community having little to no personal production means, and not even choosing to adventure much. There is much more to gaining wealth and power here than can be shared over a dream, and I would enjoy sharing some good Selunari Ale with you (for a fair price of course) at my tables while we discuss.
 
While I certainly do think of myself as clever, and am glad you have recognized such, I take exception to your rampant racism, pernicious pedantry, and insinuation of insult.

You are speaking on a topic that directly affects all aspects of my livelihood and I think I am absolutely in the right to question you on it.

I will admit that the question was loaded, absolutely. But attack? Let us hope you never chance to find out what it would take to move me to such vulgarity.

~Vivienne
 
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