Brewster’s Millions (of Gold Pieces)

Jay “Rampant Coyote” Barnson has chosen to write on RPG economies in his latest blog post, and specifically, how difficult it is to create an economy where players actually don’t end up way too rich and without anything worthwhile to buy by the end of the game.

Here’s a snip:

My favorite method is to provide disposable items that are significantly more powerful than permanent items. But there’s a fundamental issue of game balance. An expensive one-shot item has to be VERY potent to justify its cost (and make the player willing to use it). But would having a few of this item in one’s inventory allow the player to simply blow through boss encounters with ease?

And then there’s early game versus end-game pricing. Things like curing at temples tend to be overpriced at low levels when you really need it, but by the time it becomes a reasonable inconvenience you can often have your own party members cast the same spells for free.

Gambling a lot of (equipment-focused) RPGs (Diablo-style, Borderlands, etc) sounds like a great idea, except in my personal experience I lose interest very quickly. I think only once at lower levels have I ever gotten anything worth keeping. In ANY game. When it is so clearly useless, people won’t use it, and it won’t be a money-sink anymore.

Some single-player RPGs do allow the player to purchase (and even furnish) houses. This becomes a nice thing to blow money on when you’ve got more than you know what to do with, but I don’t recall them ever serving a critical function beyond being a place to stash my stuff. It’d be cool if people came to visit you or something, but then you’d probably be playing The Sims instead of an RPG. But seriously it’d be nice if owning property actually unlocked interesting new quests and storylines. (Actually, as I recall, this was the case in Baldur’s Gate II, but I don’t recall seeing it anywhere else).

Outfitting NPCs while this is frequently an ability with NPC companions, the only game where I’ve seen this be a useful mechanic (rather than an amusing side-effect) for general NPCs is Din’s Curse. In Din’s Curse, the towns frequently come under attack, and outfitting the townspeople with your castoffs make defensive events a lot easier when the townspeople are a bit less vulnerable. I guess there was a game (Morrowind?) where you could reverse-pickpocket NPCs and cause them to wear some useless equipment. right before you attacked them. But that’s more in the ‘˜amusing side effect’ category.