On Economy

Inspired by my ever present desire to create my own system for a role playing game, I've taken some baby steps forwards towards developing an economic system.

This is being done in parallel with a more creative than mathematical system of developing the core character and ability system which is kicking my ass.

A bit of history first I guess for the sake of first postiness.

I'm a young guy, in my early teens I was introduced to the wonderful world of pen and paper role playing games. Immediately afterwards I set out to develop my own and play it with my friends. Obviously having only seen six and twenty sided dice at this point, I was ill equipped to say the least. A few years later I discovered DnD 3.5. This was my first system, and inevitably the version of the DnD series I cling to. Still however, I spent much time adapting and rewriting the rules to other simple systems.

A few years later I took it further and started to expand my collection of systems, learning and trying to develop my repertoire of rules, systems and ideas. I've collected realism and rules heavy systems like GURPS, and even very simplified versions like Savage Worlds, and have even saved systems friends of mine have created/adapted for inspiration. And now I'm taking my steps forwards to create something from scratch with a very specific goal. More on that later, right now I'm talking about Economy.

Not going so far as to build an advanced economy as some I've read about, I'm searching for a generic system that can serve as a strong backbone for a simplified system. Currently it breaks down all goods into 9 core types. Once the demand and supply for each type is established, each object would be assigned a value according to those types in resource units with non-resource currency being relative by resource unit.

As of this moment, I've established some basic formulas establishing; population-> consumption and production rates, terrain, average skill, and faculities -> production modifiers, production modifiers + consumption -> supply/demand, supply/demand to cost modifiers and city production -> region demand. I'm thinking that regional demand rates will have a reverse effect on city value rates. This would represent the scarcity of a good in a region causing all prices in the region to go up as well as scarcity in a city causing prices to go up. Whether or not this will go to a global scale I am unsure.

The importance of this economy system is hopefully going to be great once all is said and done. This is because I expect players to have a strong effect from mid to high levels on the economy. Possibly further posts in the future to elaborate. As of now it's not all pinned down.