Some random TTRPG ideas

Economy, Taxes and Debt. Making self-sustaining gameplay loop via economy mechanics

AS I've finished my FatherFog campaign, my attention came back to Mothership. And yet again I found myself wondering how do I make satisfying economy for Mothership?

So, what's the problem?

It's simple. Mothership internal economy do not support Earn and Spend cycle. Let me explain. Most OSR games have somewhat linear economy: most items have cost within same digits. As an example, I'll use most recent system I've played - FatherFog. In FatherFog, the cheapest item is Food (5 coins) (there's a Quill that costs 1 Coin, but requires other items to have a use, so let's not count it), the most expensive item is Revolver (1500 Coins)

Most items cost around 100-200 Coins, only a few cost more than 200 coins: legendary weapons (750), Plate Armor (500), blunderbuss (500), rifle (500), and finally revolver (1500). These prices create linear economy - each item is an opportunity, you can't buy everything. Most of the time, you can, in fact, only buy exactly one item, and a few consumables. Economical progression is linear - each time character survives and brings Coins back home, they can buy one more Item to help further adventures.

How it's in Mothership?

So, let's go back to MotherShip and make similar analysis. The cheapest item in MoSh is Mylar Blanket (10 Cr), while the most expensive one is Exoloader (100.000 Cr). In fact, it's not the most expensive thing in MoSh. The most expensive "item" is Mastery Skill (200.000 Cr). But it does not end here: Shipbreakers toolkit has items that cost Millions of Credits. A Pound of Flesh, Gradient Descent also mention items which cost >1 MCr. We can see clear as day that cost of items widely differ.

Why is it a problem? The problem is, the moment you have money to buy really expensive item (for example, Expert Skill), all items with cost below become effectively Free. This leads to a number of situations:

Let's take a look at Another Bug Hunt. ABH suggests to pay x2 Hazard Pay. Let's assume the mission in total takes 6 Months (3 Months to reach Samsa, 3 Months to return home). A typical Marine can expect 2000 x 2 x 6 = 24.000 Credits. Let's say they received 2 Wounds and must pay 12.000 Cr to restore their wounds, and also take C-Port Shore leave (1100 Cr on Average.) They still receive net Gain of 10.900 Credits. It's enough to buy almost entire weapon catalog.

So, Character hits economical wall: there's no reason to do jobs with same payout because they already bought best gear in this income strata, but can't afford anything better because they will never earn enough.

So, for Warden to keep up the carrot you need to exponentially increase payouts and costs of items to keep things engaging. This is exactly what happens in A Pound of Flesh - you start at at costs and payouts around 10.000 Credits, while lategame options cost in millions of Credits. I believe this is exactly a reason why Warden Operational Manual suggest as an option to ignore credits entirely and instead track players current income strata in powers of 10 (100, 1000, 10.000, 100.000 and so on).

There's a point to be made that prices are such because it's not expected for players to buy all listed things. It's even recommended to give away more expensive items via 'favors' to keep things exiting. But if we do, why do we even track our Money?

Debt and Taxes as Driving Force of economic progression

SO, what do i propose to fix a "problem"? The goal of a system is simple: to provide a force that limits availability of items, and allows to reach "best gear" state naturally, step by step, as opposed to "now you're rich, buy what you want".

Debt

All Player Characters start with 2D10 x 10 kCr (resulting in 110 kCr of Debt on average).

This provides natural economy progression. At the beginning, the weight of Debt will take away almost all income character gains. Take our Example Marine from Another Bug Hunt - after everything is paid, they are left with nothing: all of their 10.900 raw income will be going to afford first Debt Payment. But next time, their next payment will be not 11.000, but 9.900, 1100 Cr difference! Indeed, it does not seem a lot, but that means they can buy Items. After another payment, they receive another 2000 spare Credits to buy equipment (assuming their income remains the same, 24.000 Cr per mission) and can afford actual weapons.

This is what i meant in reasoning above - character linearly gains more and more money to afford better equipment, step-by-step. Once most of Debt is payed out, Character is finally free to look for truly expensive stuff.

The reward for mission never changed - Players are always rewarded with the same reward and you, the Warden, don't need to escalate and exaggerate rewards to keep Earn-and-Spend cycle going.

On top of that, this System provides a room for roleplay, backstory and justification why Character even need to risk their lives. Let players tell how did they acquired so massive debt: did they take unaffordable loan? Need to pay medical bills? Damaged Company's property? Maybe it's a bail out of prison, or unjust fine, or education loan - anything!

Back to the Grind - Taking new Debt

Character can take new Debt. Rules are simple:

If Players want to buy some shiny toy but can't afford it in a near future, they can gain it and suffer consequences later. Another good thing, of course, is the fact that Death pays all Debts. Sometimes going in a blaze of glory, enjoying cool things you have bought is preferable way out. This way, you can keep up the cycle of Debt and Payment even after initial Debt has been payed

Optional Rule. Maintenance and Insurance

Everyone on the Rim want to screw you. Manufactures produce Equipment with Planned Obsolesce, they require regular repairs. Company demands to pay "liability insurance" in case you damage Company's property with your weaponry. Custom officers plead for "Service fees" so your baggage don't get lost in "unfortunate incident". Criminals demand to but "protection" for all your possession, just in case.

If you really want, you can apply yet another financial burden on your players. All things above will result in regular bill Characters have to pay for each item they have.

This optional rules puts a simple question: "I have money to buy this item. Do i have money to Keep it?" Each item becomes a liability, a permanent money sink that demands payment