Discussions/Resources
So, I had a brainthought on Exalted's Resources System.
See, the problem I have with it is it's hard to gauge the impact/expense a certain purchases in a way that makes sense. For instances, I was say that a farmer's hut is a Resources 1 building, as it's appropriate to be owned by someone with Resources 1. However, the actual purchase price would be far beyond a single Resources 1 purchase. Further, that farmer probally has Resources 0, or possibly 1- making such a building beyond his means to purchase.
What I'm getting at is, in addition to things costing Resources, there's also the matter of the time frame you're looking at. An annual payment of Resources 1 cost a LOT more than picking up a dagger at the store in actual, physical coins; the later is a casual purchase you'd be expected to make easily with Resources 2, while the former should be a significant amount of money to hand over at any one time, but composed of many small payments.
This was also the major failing with Manacle and Coin's price lists; the original system didn't make this distinguishment, and so you end up with a Peasant's clothing costing a peasant their entire annual money. And, for reasons unclear to me currently, I have it in my head that there's about a factor of 10 between any two levels of Resources, insofar as liquid money goes.
This came up in my game, when our Twillight Caste started making extremely lifelike statues, and selling them at Resources 4 in a major city. An entirely reasonable thing to do; but a Resources 4 purchase is also enough to erect a Manse. Or build a palace. Somehow, I don't think we're talking about the same scale here- buying the statue or the paalce is something someone with Resources 4 could do, with the same casualness as a farmer with Resources 1 would buy a set of clothes or a small house (comporably).
So, take one on a slight refinement to the system; one that may hopefully serve as a bridge to revising Manacle And Coin's price list eventually. NOTE: As this is a REFINEMENT, it is neccesarily more crunchy. If you are happy with the current Resources system in Exalted, then clearly you should stick with it; the system as presented in the core rule book works fine on the level of generalizing transactions. The problem appeared to me only after a short series of Resources transactions over a short period of time.
Geh. Alright. Reviewed my numbers again, realized there was another persistant error in the math. Broke down, wrote an excel spreadsheet to calculate this stuff.
There are two assumptions at work here:
- The ratio between Resources Levels for Daily purchases is smaller than between Monthly purchases; likewise, the ratio between Monthly is smaller than Annual.
- There is roughly a x3 difference between any two adjacent levels of Resources, except 2 and 3; there is an approximately x60 times difference between these two, representing the enormous jump in wealth Resources 3 represents.
- I'm assuming a 425 day year; 28 days to a month and 15 months to the year, with 5 days of Calibration.
- If anyone would like it, I'll send you the spreadsheet I got these numbers with, so you can adjust them how you wish for your game.
So, that seems to work. Now, to try putting numbers going the other way, so it's easier and more intuitive to do the math. :)
Daily Monthly Annual Total Annual Average Daily Purchase Power
Resources 0 $1.00 $8.00 $250.00 $790.00 $1.88 Resources 1 $2.00 $24.00 $1,250.00 $2,450.00 $5.83 Resources 2 $4.00 $80.00 $6,250.00 $9,130.00 $21.74 Resources 3 $250.00 $6,400.00 $625,000.00 $826,000.00 $1,966.67 Resources 4 $500.00 $20,000.00 $1,500,000.00 $2,010,000.00 $4,785.71 Resources 5 $1,500.00 $60,000.00 $3,750,000.00 $5,280,000.00 $12,571.43
Or, put into modern terms of wealth,
Hourly Annually
Resources 0 $4.00 $8,000.00 Resources 1 $12.41 $24,810.13 Resources 2 $46.23 $92,455.70 Resources 3 $4,182.28 $8,364,556.96 Resources 4 $10,177.22 $20,354,430.38 Resources 5 $26,734.18 $53,468,354.43
That's Great and all. but how much does stuff COST?
It's now a relatively trivial task to work out how much stuff costs. From this value of wealth, you can convert it into any other form of money you'd like; jade, jade scripe, silver, what have you.
Comments
Seems to make sense in general for purchases within the game. Would you mind sending me the spreadsheet(s)? ~LorienFeanturi
More than happy to :) But I'll need an email address ;) DS
"I'm assuming a 625 day year; 25 days to a month and 25 months to the year. This is slightly inaccurate, as it doesn't take the Caibration into account, but the numbers are much easier to read." That's too much by a lot, almost by twice as much. 1 month = 28 days and 1 year = 15 months (plus calibration) makes for 425 days - Malikai
"when our Twillight Caste started making extremely lifelike statues, and selling them at Resources 4 in a major city. An entirely reasonable thing to do ..."
It is reasonable. What you are missing is the economic effect of it ... when you take that into account, the base system works. Also, there was something wrong with his character creation if it matters that he can do this.
Sure its reasonable to sell a great statue (it likely was, as the Twilight made it) for resources 4. But the question is, how much demand is there for statues at that price? Maybe one or two people will buy it ... but then demand drops, and if the Twilight wishes to continue selling such statues the price has to drop. First to resources 3, then 2 etc.
Ok, so the Twilight gets clever and starts making other things. Good, back we go up to resources 4 for the first one or two ... but then demand drops on the whole art (or whatever) market, and the jade dries up.
Now the real problem as I see it occurs where someone takes a low resource background but the capability to get resources 5 in days if they use their craft skill. What I require from my players in such cases, when they create the character, is an explanation why their Resource level is so low (when it makes sense that the character would have higher Resources). So if the Twilight didn't give me an explanation at the start for why he hadn't made items and sold them, he couldn't take low Resources. And if he did, I wouldn't let him make the items without getting around his reason - something I would not let him do easily ("No, you told me that is not the way your character works so he doesn't do it. Sorry." ^_^) though it could change over a period in play.
-- BrokenShade
As a note, the above was a short-hand summary of what happened. Short hand. Brief. Without context. Without the specific plan to ramp up the demand for his art before selling it. Etcetc. In other words, there are details obscure to you that make his actions perfectly understandable and justifible IC, which also don't matter because they didn't touch on the problem of Statue = Manse in the base system, which is just not good at dealing with sporadic and large sums of money rather than a steady income.
DS, mildly annoyed because he's dealt with this same attitude (Inference of error without good cause, that doesn't exist) elsewhere recently.
Oh, as for the days thing, yeah. That's why I include notes like that. Luckily, Excel makes this easy to update for 'normal' Exalted. :) So I've done so- the campaign specific stuff will get reposted on my Tinalion pages soonish.
I would like a copy of the spreadsheets if I could get them, kalintarus@yahoo.com , I'm always interested in formulas for game stuff. Especially when they work, that's why I like your artifact rules. - Malikai
