If you sell it IG should it be stealable?

Great discussion. So here's the fix I've come up with:

If all items with IG value are tagged, then there won't be any problems discerning what's stealable. No tag, not stealable. No tag, can't be sold. Phys rep can be returned and they can't be sold, until tagged. I think this system could further support non-combat players who wish to be merchants and would control the insane inflation. "That *insert food thing here* is worth 10x a long sword???" won't be a thing. Setting a standard table of prices isn't nearly as daunting of a task as it may seems. You can do broad categories so every specific thing isn't listed. Food items = X, meal = X, clothing = X, etc. A simple blank "merchandise" tag can be made and players can fill in what they have, logistics uses a list to assign value and signs off. The percentage of players who do sell OOG things, is pretty low, so it's not going to add a ton of work. If it's something with great OOG value, then the merchant can make a deal with the person purchasing the item on an OOG level.

Thoughts?

You may tell a person "according to logistics that brownie is worth 2 copper pieces. However they will continue selling it for several silver. Telling them "I don't value it that high" is all well and good. But they are still charging the high price, and you still will have to pay it if you want it. Works for Amusement Parks. If the price is so high that nobody buys, they can try lowering them, but they didn't get so high on their own.

I still don't see adding tags "solving" anything, But assuming we do it with the tags, let me get this straight:

I take my 40 bottles of Avery's Soda, go to logistics, paying 3 copper (or whatever value you assign them) per soda and receive 40 "soda tags". I'm now allowed to sell these soda's IG, for whatever price I was selling them before the tag system... the 3 copper surcharge is simply a logistics tax, I don't see this deflating prices at all... in fact I see it possibly INCREASING prices as suddenly you have "logistics tax" cutting into the profit margins of all these salesmen... where once a batch of brownies was worth 3 gold, it may now only be worth 2.5 (after LTax), if you needed that to be 3 gold, you need to raise your prices.

If they do not sell, I suppose I can save the tags and merchant them back the following event. Now, I'm going to make a BIG assumption and hope that everybody remembers to rip their "eaten/used" portion of these tags when they drink or eat the sandwich, brownie or cookie.

All this does is add a mechanic where 1) logistics gets a new trickle tax of coin coming back, 2) Logistics must now police ALL IG FOODS. (Burger and soup sales beware, make sure you have an exact number of servings prepared so you're not accidently cheating) 3) Merchant Skill is more valuable because 4) All the food and bauble thieves have shiny new things to steal.

I still don't see this improving the game world, the trickle of coin back does not seem worth the trouble and tags this costs the game.

Worst of all, it doesn't even address the real underlying "problem" of the side economy created with the still unlimited "non tagged" foods that will be there (arguably moreso now that there is a LTax and tags to hassle you with). I still won't sell my drinks (I don't now) only now I have to break character and say "really I'm not allowed to accept any payment, it's cheating, please stop offering" instead of just trying to be polite and accept the coin after they insist I be paid for the third time (it happens at least once an event). Tips for sharing my drinks with friends are now illegal, so it creates a shady side transaction. You can't pay me for the beverages, but you could just give me a few coins because you like me. Is that cheating? Call it payment for healing I gave you earlier today and we're technically not cheating... but it gets murky I don't like it.

I say the side economy because, lets face it... if the person chooses not to pay the LTax, they could TRADE the burger and soda for "favors in the future". That's non specific but still grants an advantage. Or "hey remember this free burger tomorrow when we do treasure splits for the weekend". So when rit scroll or magic item prices are negotiated, the fact I fed your team burgers may still give me a non specific advantage. It's going to happen, and the thieves still won't be able to steal the nontagged "currency" of "non-sellable non game items".

If this were put to a vote to become a rule of the game, I would ask the owners of the chapters I play to vote against it. However, that is just my opinion.
 
Last edited:
I dunno about other chapters, but alliance has a 3gob to 1 dollar ratio... And exchanges at a copper per gob. 3 copper is a dollar. If you're charging me a silver for a brownie, or a gold for a cup of coffee that's a damn expensive snack. I'm all for demanding lower prices IG, but players should, if were expected to follow the no dickery rules and not rob their food, not be a **** and ridiculously overprice their snacks like its Disney world or something.
 
I think that people are willing to pay a gold for a treat or food is a sign that the economy is bad or almost not existent. Money has that little value because there is not much to buy with it. If anything this is a sign that having people sell oog foods helps buy giving people something to buy, thereby giving their money value. Players fast get to a point where they don't need to replace much gear and they can either start saving for magic items/formal scrolls that tend to be very pricy or buy some food/snacks. Let them have cookies and shakes, I say!

Fair enough! And I've actually heard this argument quite a few times in regards to prices. It really boils down to players will dictate the prices they're willing to pay for a good or service. If you're not willing to pay the gold, don't. No one is forcing you to. But if other players are, that good or service is going to cost a gold.
 
I dunno about other chapters, but alliance has a 3gob to 1 dollar ratio... And exchanges at a copper per gob. 3 copper is a dollar. If you're charging me a silver for a brownie, or a gold for a cup of coffee that's a damn expensive snack. I'm all for demanding lower prices IG, but players should, if were expected to follow the no dickery rules and not rob their food, not be a **** and ridiculously overprice their snacks like its Disney world or something.

Except You Can Bring Your Own Snacks! If you don't like the prices, don't buy the food! I pre-cook all meals for game, and bring snacks for myself and one other player. We /rarely/ buy food from other players. Only if we want to or it makes sense to from an rp stand point. I haven't ever thought the person charging a ton for their snacks is a ****. I think the players buying it are a little goofy for doing so, but that's me.
 
I think you just explained the problem. You get a very small return on your investment when donating to a chapter, but if you sell your item for a few silver IG, people will pay it no problem, giving you a MUCH better return. Why wouldn't you get the most return on your OOG buck?

It's just like people who save their donation money until "fund drives" when the gobby to dollar rates are better.

Also, using that Gobby/dollar ratio is one way of determining the cost of things. Heres another: what is your tavern charging for it's meals. I've been to taverns that charge close to a gold piece for their meals. Several years ago before CT changed how it did mealtime, my large team spent dozens of gold per weekend just cycling through 2 breakfasts and a dinner, when a meal costs 5+ silver and drinks cost 2-3 sliver from the tavern, it makes it hard to say "that's a crazy cost" when locals also want to charge that for their supplementary drinks they bring to game.

Frankly the only reason a long sword costs so low is because the cost to make it is fixed by the game, and it's not allowed to inflate with the apl of the chapter. With item costs and "production costs" relatively fixed by the game, the only thing left to spend coin on is Ritual stuff, and food.

Hence the 1 gold milkshakes and smoothies.

Give the players something better to do with their coin and they will, but when fake money can equal a burger and soda on a hot summer afternoon with no air conditioner around and 6 hours until the sun sets and dinner is served, the man with the burger gets my gold piece.
 
The cost of meals for our chapter is actually pretty reasonable {and the food is freaking fantastic} Again, I don't buy them, but there have definitely been nights I wish I had. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided.

For PC's {NPC's are handled separately, typically same foods} "Cost of meals will include drinks and will be 7 silver individually or 25 silver for the full weekend. OOG: Also $15 suggested donation"

This was for last May, so it may change? But I don't think this is terrible for someone else buying, preparing, and serving a meal so I don't have to think about it while I'm playing. We're also pretty darn lucky to have a dedicated "Trading Company" of PC's in the tavern and making the meals.

edit question: So that begs the question, would our tavern keeps have to tag their meals under the tag system Ron and others have been talking about? {maybe this has been answered and I missed it, if so, sorry about that >.> }
 
I think you just explained the problem. You get a very small return on your investment when donating to a chapter, but if you sell your item for a few silver IG, people will pay it no problem, giving you a MUCH better return. Why wouldn't you get the most return on your OOG buck?

It's just like people who save their donation money until "fund drives" when the gobby to dollar rates are better.

Also, using that Gobby/dollar ratio is one way of determining the cost of things. Heres another: what is your tavern charging for it's meals. I've been to taverns that charge close to a gold piece for their meals. Several years ago before CT changed how it did mealtime, my large team spent dozens of gold per weekend just cycling through 2 breakfasts and a dinner, when a meal costs 5+ silver and drinks cost 2-3 sliver from the tavern, it makes it hard to say "that's a crazy cost" when locals also want to charge that for their supplementary drinks they bring to game.

Frankly the only reason a long sword costs so low is because the cost to make it is fixed by the game, and it's not allowed to inflate with the apl of the chapter. With item costs and "production costs" relatively fixed by the game, the only thing left to spend coin on is Ritual stuff, and food.

Hence the 1 gold milkshakes and smoothies.

Give the players something better to do with their coin and they will, but when fake money can equal a burger and soda on a hot summer afternoon with no air conditioner around and 6 hours until the sun sets and dinner is served, the man with the burger gets my gold piece.

This is the crux of the matter, although there is a scondary problem, OOG production is linear and IG infinite, while IG production is neither. I have 20 levels of Craftsman: Chocolatier. I get 2 gold per logistics and I can bring as much chocolate as I can carry to game and sell it (could do that even without the craftsman) increasing the amount of chocolate is a pretty linear progression on time/materials cost. I also have 20 levels of Craft Scroll. With a workshop I can make 5 Dragon's Breath Scrolls unless I start batching, and the IG costs ramp up as I do so.

In the end I think a tagging system is better overall, but more difficult to impliment. I also think that what we currently have is certainly a decent compromise. Overall however I think that having a functioning economy would benefit the game, but would require some serious overhaul, and that would require a lot of elbow grease, dedication, playtesting and old fashioned hard work.
 
I would love to see a fully functioning economy.
I love combat. I love intense or even silly roleplay. I love adventuring. I love detective work and problem solving. I love politics. I also really love economy gaming and IG fantasy setting corporations. The battle between big business and little guys amongst fights with epic monsters and powerful wizards and the like. The more potential for roleplay the better, and a functioning, semi-realistic economy would open tons of new doors. Especially if with the introduction of a more fluid economy rule system, we got rid of base market prices based on arbitrary values, and had a "cost to make" list or just kept with production cost listings, and let the economy decide the rest. Merchants could still sell things at production cost, and with the addition of production costs for everything else, this wouldn't change.

Man, that'd be cool.
 
The cost of meals for our chapter is actually pretty reasonable {and the food is freaking fantastic} Again, I don't buy them, but there have definitely been nights I wish I had. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided.

For PC's {NPC's are handled separately, typically same foods} "Cost of meals will include drinks and will be 7 silver individually or 25 silver for the full weekend. OOG: Also $15 suggested donation"

This was for last May, so it may change? But I don't think this is terrible for someone else buying, preparing, and serving a meal so I don't have to think about it while I'm playing. We're also pretty darn lucky to have a dedicated "Trading Company" of PC's in the tavern and making the meals.

edit question: So that begs the question, would our tavern keeps have to tag their meals under the tag system Ron and others have been talking about? {maybe this has been answered and I missed it, if so, sorry about that >.> }

There is a very big difference between what we are talking about here, and what goes on in OR.

That food isn't being purchased by one person, which has been the main discussion point thus far; it is being paid for by everyone who buys into the meal plan. In other words, people are paying OOG money to someone to buy a bulk amount of food, and then that person plays a tavern-keep who makes and serves meals, and it adds a great deal to in-game atmosphere and setting; plus that player has done extensive in-game and downtime-action work to get his character set up that way in the game world. If he gets tipped, great! We try to make sure our town characters have going to pay for their mean and or tip him, which is reasonable to me based on the fact that he spends the bulk of his time in the kitchen/tavern instead of adventuring.

I see that as separate to what has been being discussed, and I echo Andy's questions: Is someone bringing drinks/food to game to sell for in-game coin really a problem that needs addressing, either locally or nationally? I don't think that it is at this point.
 
No. It is not.

This thread highlights the opinions of a vocal minority who feel that they should be able to steal said items.

It is a not a problem that needs solving.

I can see how someone "getting free gold" without "playing the game" could seem like it is a problem. It feels unfair. They aren't going on mods risking resurrection. They aren't out protecting anyone or anything. Why should they have money so easily?

The answer is simple: Because people are willing to give it to them. I will ALWAYS kill a fake goblin for a fake coin and turn it into a real brownie. ALWAYS. Why? Because brownies are awesome. I love brownies and I love buying other people brownies too. I like them so much I am willing to give money to another player who might eventually use that wealth to buy something out from under me in an auction or treasure split. Because I love them.

But, with all that said... coin only gets you so far. Coin alone doesn't increase your character's power like items and actual combat experience do. Sure. You might be able to buy items. But, the REALLY good stuff likely isn't going to be available for sale.

I sidetracked things a bit (and maybe mods will want to split things up at some point), but there really isn't any need for change. This isn't breaking the game. And if the end result is that you want to take advantage of that system and run a snack shack.... go for it man. Your fellow players will probably LOVE it.

Stephen
 
I just wanted to discuss the issue. The "you're the vocal minority" thing is used a lot and it feels like it's being used to devalue the opinions being expressed counter to yours. It doesn't feel like a fun discussion anymore.
 
There are only a few dozen players who can be thought of as forum regulars outside of their chapter's boards, we've got a couple thousand players every year. By definition anything brought up here is the voice of the minority who actually utilize these boards. We tend to be passionate and verbose in putting forth and workshopping ideas here, but even if all we superposters are in accord on an issue we need to recognize that we are likely not the voice of the everyman player.

Pretty sure that's the definition of "vocal minority" being used here.
 
The intention wasnt to devalue the opinions. I was attempting to give some perspective to people asking about this topic.

This is not an URGENT problem that is ruining multiple games and crushing everyones game experience. (I think we can all agree on that.)

This IS a concern that has an impact on a small percentage of the playerbase based on their role play choices.

I am sorry if you felt that I was attempting to devalue your opinions. That was not my intent.
 
So.

A year ago, a new player to Alliance came in with a lot of costuming she'd made, and if I remember correctly, she had no need for it. So she sold it IG, for purely IG coin.

It was quality stuff, too, cloaks and tunics and a lot of really well made things.

The cloaks sold for 15 Gold a pop (I think the rest of her stuff went for an average of 10G per). So you can look at this two ways:

1) She totally broke the economy and used an OOG resource to generate IG wealth, and that's a Bad Thing, or

2) She provided players with costuming that normally would be a pretty hefty expense OOG but cost them $0. That costuming is transferable between LARPs, and the -players'- experiences were positive impacted by it.

Sure, you can make the argument that it doesn't create an immersive atmosphere, but that isn't our priority, is it? Isn't our priority as an organization to provide a "fun" atmosphere, first? I mean, if that means that sometimes we have to look the other way on weird loopholes like selling untagged resources for IG money, isn't it worth it in the circumstances where we have more fun? Do we really want evening time dinner conversations to be a period where we're exchanging food tags instead of focusing on sharing stories with brownie and drink in hand?

Because we can create a rule system for anything, but sometimes...we shouldn't.
 
The intention wasnt to devalue the opinions. I was attempting to give some perspective to people asking about this topic.

This is not an URGENT problem that is ruining multiple games and crushing everyones game experience. (I think we can all agree on that.)

This IS a concern that has an impact on a small percentage of the playerbase based on their role play choices.

I am sorry if you felt that I was attempting to devalue your opinions. That was not my intent.
I read into it wrong. Thanks bud. =)
 
I'm also going to post a link to my reply to a similar thread like this insofar as to discuss ways the player bringing in the items, with very minimal help from plot, can make things a bit more 'realistic' along with other production items along with various IG consequences that may not be thought of (and with the same caveats that Mike V makes above):

http://www.alliancelarp.com/forum/posts/234521/
 
Selling OOG food for IG coin is a great way to earn some coins and make friends. My issue isn't with that at all. I agree that it helps the IG environment. What bothers me is that I can set out the food/what ever knowing that no one is allowed to take it, then leave a cardboard box that's taped shut, only leaving a slit to drop coins in it, having it also taped to my food plate. Now no one can destroy the box or tape because it is my property. I just feel that there should be risk/reward. Selling OOG food, great, you used your real life cash and some time and came to game with it to make some coin. The risk, not leaving your stuff unattended.

If we can safely keep our hoards of gold and tags, why can't we do the same with our baked goods?
 
Putting in-play game items in locations that cannot be accessed by other participants at all definitely violates the rules. It's no different than storing your formal scrolls in your car on-site.

To expand a bit:

You can put your coins in a non-tagged chest. I cannot steal the chest, but I can open it and get the coins. I can even Destroy (big D) it and get the coins. But I can't tear it in half for reals and get the coins. Your cardboard box isn't particularly distinct from the chest in that regard. If you're claiming that the cardboard box makes the coins untouchable in a way that the chest doesn't, then you're probably doing something wrong.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top