working economy vs. realism

[screeg]

Typically fans of the "old school" demand their opponents drop every bit of equipment they use, from armor to weapons to hats, cloaks, whatever. In TOEE, they even dropped boots and gloves, worthless accoutrements good for nothing but dress up.

Fallout also had every opponent drop his gun and armor. The problem in Fallout was that a suit of leather armor cost 800 bottle caps, a lot of cash at the beginning of the game. But, since every wandering bandit, town guard and junkie in the wasteland was wearing one, it was a matter of minutes before you'd be enjoying your second armor upgrade (after the leather jacket).

Problem #2: the armor was worth a lot to sell, which meant killing 10 raiders in a couple of random encounters yielded major loot.

I personally don't think every opponent must drop all his stuff, but more importantly, a real economy wouldn't support a high resale value for all that junk. The value of a commodity should drop in a small market in direct relation to its availability. I doubt a guy coming in with 20 suits of smelly, bloody leather armor should walk away with a fortune in goods and cash.

Implementing a working economic system is probably not worth the time for an RPG, but I think a good compromise would be that only a junk dealer would want used armor, and he just wouldn't have any use for more than 3 of something like it, and once he had 3 in his inventory, he wouldn't take any more. Also, common armor being dropped all over shouldn't be as high quality as that you would buy new from an armorer.

Lastly, I personally think only exceptional armor and weapon items (and the usual potions/gold/etc.) should drop at all, it being assumed that the player is an adventurer, not a scavenger making ten trips into town with his cart full of rusty longswords just to make a buck.

[Gallifrey]

I think the PC should be able to salvage whatever his enemies had on them, from their armour to footwear to anything. However, seeing as the PC just killed that enemy in battle, that leather armour probably isn't in the best of shape anymore. Salvage should be just that, salvage, not pristine new kit.

Resale value should also be realistic. It always bugs me that adventurers can walk into some little village and sell piles of junk for a huge profit. That's one thing that Morrowind did right, actually.. Merchants didn't take just anything, and they had limits to how much they could pay out. I liked that.

[Sanctus]

I go for everything must be dropped BUT yeah it needs to implement a Morrowind-like sistem

[screeg]

Was Morrowind's system different from Oblivion?

In Oblivion, each merchant had a fixed maximum he would pay for any given object. Thus, you could still sell 20 suits of leather armor to the armorer, for a maximum of 800gp each.

[Gallifrey]

In Morrowind, if you had twenty suits of armour (I can't imagine what sort of Strength score you'd need to carry all that though) and a merchant was willing to pay 800gp each, he would need to have a gold pool of 16000gp in order to buy them all (a pool of which size I never saw remotely close to). You could also request less for an item, if you just wanted to get rid of it and the merchant didn't have enough to pay it's normal selling price.

[Ledorax]

I like the trading system in fallout, where (most) people have a limited amount of money (bottle caps) and you can trade an item for another item of equal or less value.

[Sanctus]

So after all of us saing this: IMPLEMENT A MORROWIND-LIKE SISTEM!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gallifrey]

I loved the Fallout barter system, that sort of thing really should be used more often, particularly in a "medieval" fantasy setting.

[screeg]

Except that in Fallout everyone would buy everything. It's very convenient, but not what you'd call realistic.

I still don't think every gameplay object should have a cash (or barter) value. It makes it too easy for the PC to get rich quick.

Another endemic problem in RPG's is what to spend your money on 3/4 of the way through the game. I can't recall a single game where I wasn't rich enough by that point to buy anything I might want.

In the capital city in Helherron there were two or three merchants who could craft custom magic items, for outrageous prices. That worked well with a party-based game.

Another possibility would be to charge the player in "supplies" for crossing exotic and difficult terrain, ie. deserts, sea voyages, mountain ranges. This would also make travel to farflung corners of the world more challenging, and not just a matter of traveling from A to B and killing everything in your path.

[Larec]

That's true what you said about Fallout. Not so much Fallout 2, but especially Fallout 1. The amount of goods you could sell really unbalanced everything. Sure, merchants would run out of bottle caps, but then you'd just take their ammo and stim packs. I'd have close to 150 stim packs by the end game, and so much ammo that 90% of it was sitting in the trunk of my car.

Heh...then again, I murdered the shopkeepers when they had nothing left in their inventory for trade.

But I also didn't like the Morrowind system. Putting a cap on all items like that is just plain stupid, in my opinion. Taking a Daedric plate that is worth 10K and having to sell it for 800 gold feels like a kick in the pants.

I prefer the old gold Box way of doing things. In other words, most items cost and sell for a pittance...but the truly unique items sell for a small fortune. Play any of the gold box games and you'll notice that. Even potions sell for 300 gold...yet a simple broadsword sells for 5.

[Gallifrey]

That's true what you said about Fallout. Not so much Fallout 2, but especially Fallout 1. The amount of goods you could sell really unbalanced everything. Sure, merchants would run out of bottle caps, but then you'd just take their ammo and stim packs. I'd have close to 150 stim packs by the end game, and so much ammo that 90% of it was sitting in the trunk of my car.

I never had that problem, but then I tend to only buy what I need and don't buy stuff just because I can. With the clunky inventory system of Fallout, it was too much of a pain in the butt to have a huge inventory, so I just carried what I needed and that was all.

But I also didn't like the Morrowind system. Putting a cap on all items like that is just plain stupid, in my opinion. Taking a Daedric plate that is worth 10K and having to sell it for 800 gold feels like a kick in the pants.

But it makes sense. Just because something is valuable does not mean you're going to get the top rate from a merchant for it. A merchant is not going to give you what he could sell the armour for, as that would not give him any profit. And a suit of armour like that, it's a once-in-a-lifetime find for that merchant, he can sell it and retire!
In the real world, if you had a valuable artifact worth thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, and took it to, say, an antiques seller, you won't get anywhere near it's fair value; the seller will give you as low as he possibly can.

I prefer the old gold Box way of doing things. In other words, most items cost and sell for a pittance...but the truly unique items sell for a small fortune. Play any of the gold box games and you'll notice that. Even potions sell for 300 gold...yet a simple broadsword sells for 5.

The low-selling makes ense, but merchants able to hand over huge amounts of money for certain things makes no sense at all to me.

[MarionDeputy]

I agree that I liked the Morrowind system, it was the first one that was truely fair in my opinion. One thing I hate is when I sell somehthing to a store and then it's not available for resale. I had that problem in Avernum, where I needed fine steel to complete a side quest, and literally sold 30 bricks of it away, and then couldn't find it anywhere, wether loose on the ground or in a shop....if the demand for fine steel was so great, I should have been getting a million dollars a pound for it....

[swapoer]

Typically fans of the "old school" demand their opponents drop every bit of equipment they use, from armor to weapons to hats, cloaks, whatever. In TOEE, they even dropped boots and gloves, worthless accoutrements good for nothing but dress up.

Fallout also had every opponent drop his gun and armor. The problem in Fallout was that a suit of leather armor cost 800 bottle caps, a lot of cash at the beginning of the game. But, since every wandering bandit, town guard and junkie in the wasteland was wearing one, it was a matter of minutes before you'd be enjoying your second armor upgrade (after the leather jacket).

Problem #2: the armor was worth a lot to sell, which meant killing 10 raiders in a couple of random encounters yielded major loot.

I personally don't think every opponent must drop all his stuff, but more importantly, a real economy wouldn't support a high resale value for all that junk. The value of a commodity should drop in a small market in direct relation to its availability. I doubt a guy coming in with 20 suits of smelly, bloody leather armor should walk away with a fortune in goods and cash.

Implementing a working economic system is probably not worth the time for an RPG, but I think a good compromise would be that only a junk dealer would want used armor, and he just wouldn't have any use for more than 3 of something like it, and once he had 3 in his inventory, he wouldn't take any more. Also, common armor being dropped all over shouldn't be as high quality as that you would buy new from an armorer.

Lastly, I personally think only exceptional armor and weapon items (and the usual potions/gold/etc.) should drop at all, it being assumed that the player is an adventurer, not a scavenger making ten trips into town with his cart full of rusty longswords just to make a buck.

Well,i agree with you most.
Most of the items ,like armor ,dropped by the enemy should be sold very cheap or even like rubbish.Some small item,like ring, should be ok.Because they dont receive damage during combat.But the treasure in a chest should be sold in a good value,no matter it is a armor or ring.