merchant Infinite Earth campaign is impossible!

[Byteknight]

Originally Posted by Pesterfield

That sounds like a bad idea, what about the people who want to be paid in gold, silver, etc.? As you said the inflation/deflation will balance each other with some control. Or they could just skip the paper and mint currency in gold.

Nobody on Homeline would want to be paid in gold. Who wants to be paid in gold today? The paper dollars on a gold standard would be convertible, but I doubt anyone would want to carry gold around.

If you really want gold today, there are several direct and indirect options:

1)Buy gold and keep it under your bed or a safe
2)Buy gold certificates that can be bought/sold
3)Buy gold futures.
4)Buy shares in gold mining companies

Except for option 1, when people buy gold today, they are buying a piece of paper that is a lot lighter. :-)

On Homeline, you would not need option 1 unless you are taking it OUT of Homeline to trade with the primitive locals on Earth-x.

There are and will always be 3 economies in a merchant Inifinite Earth campaigns that a GM will have to juggle with:

(1)The economy on Homeline and all other worlds that know the secret

In this economy, you would have to deal with Homeline dollars, euros, etc AND an exchange rate with other Earths/Colonies that don't use Homeline dollars.


(2) Trading secretly with Earths that don't know the secret

This would be mostly commodities: Bring in cheap commodities and manufactured goods and buy other commodities and manufactured goods that are unique to this world


(3) The economy on EACH earth that doesn't know the secret.

Earth-x dollars buys goods on Earth-x. I want to sell 100 shares of Microsoft Earth-x shares for $30 Earth-x dollars.



Since inter-dimensional PCs are interacting with all 3 economies at some point, you have to adjust all the money you made in various forms back to Homeline currencies.

e.g
PCs take $3,000 Earth-x dollars proceeds from selling Microsoft shares on Earth-x and buy Earth-x wheat for $10 Earth-x dollars a bushel and sell it later for $12 Earth-x dollars later.

They profited $2 Earth-x dollars a bushel. Now, what does a PC merchant do with the $2 Earth-x dollars profit/bushel? He can't buy anything with it on Homeline, so either he

(A) ploughs the profits back to Earth-x investments (Economy # 3) or

(B) buys Earth-x commodities and goes to Earth-y where he does the same thing (Economy # 2) or

(C) sells the Earth-x commodities back on Homeline (Economy # 1) for whatever he price he finds there. His profit is then measured in Homeline dollars. Since everyone will be dumping Earth-x, y and z commodities (like wheat, timber,etc) on Homeline to get Homeline dollars, the price of those commodities will be less than when they left homeline.

Profit= Price of the commodity on Homeline less "parachronic related" (Homeline salaries of employees, supplies bough on homeline that were used up, etc) cost of the trip in Homeline dollars.

The Earth-x profit of $2 Earth-x/bushel doesn't factor into it, except for the # of goods he can take out of Earth-x.

I suppose a GM can keep the price of commodities up on Homeline by stating (or making rolls) that:

Billions of tons of a commodity (eg. wheat) are needed for humanitarian reasons (eg. to feed the 1 billion survivors of Earth-a who were hit by a meteor, etc).

Billions of tons (e.g of copper, steel, etc) are needed for off-Homeline construction projects.

etc

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Byteknight

Nobody on Homeline would want to be paid in gold. Who wants to be paid in gold today? The paper dollars on a gold standard would be convertible, but I doubt anyone would want to carry gold around.

I do! I want to be paid in gold! I want to go to 7-11 and drop a few doubloons down and pay for my Slushee! Sorry, got carried away.

Originally Posted by Byteknight

They profited $2 Earth-x dollars a bushel. Now, what does a PC merchant do with the $2 Earth-x dollars profit/bushel? He can't buy anything with it on Homeline, ...snip

That assumes that the people in Homeline don't have a use for Earth-x dollars. Otherwise, you could convert it to Homeline dollars. Going to an alternate Earth would be like visiting another country, albeit a little more difficult and expensive. You'd buy their money to spend so you didn't look out of place. And Homeline couldn't really artifically deflate the cost of Earth-x currency, because if they did, someone could go around and but a lot of Earth-x dollars and then go there and collapse their economy.

[Byteknight]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

That assumes that the people in Homeline don't have a use for Earth-x dollars. Otherwise, you could convert it to Homeline dollars. Going to an alternate Earth would be like visiting another country, albeit a little more difficult and expensive. You'd buy their money to spend so you didn't look out of place. And Homeline couldn't really artifically deflate the cost of Earth-x currency, because if they did, someone could go around and but a lot of Earth-x dollars and then go there and collapse their economy.

It'll be a nightmare for the GM to keep track of as the campaign progresses, as more Earths will be visited.


He'll have to create an exchange:

(type a) for each Earth that has currency that doesn't look like a 20th Century Homeline dollar (eg. King George is on the US dollar bill).

1 Britannica 1 pound = $0.00001 Homeline dollar (or whatever)
1 Dixie dollar (USA) = $0.000005 Homeline (or whatever)
1 Dixie confederate dollar = $0.00006 Homeline (or whatever)

etc.


(type b) create an exchange rate for all currencies that look identical to what Homeline currencies looked like before other dimensions were discovered. (It must be assumed that Homeline took precautions to prevent other Earth currency from flooding homeline, either by altering the look of the dollar or going all debit/electronic). This will assume that, for example, a $1 Earth-1147 dollar bill looks exactly like a 1 dollar bill for Earth-1148, etc.

It can be further refined by decade:

1 1970s dollar = $.05 Homeline (or whatever)
1 1980s dollar = $0.10 Homeline (or whatever)
1 1920s dollar, 1 1880s dollar, etc.


A nightmare!


Alternatively, for currencies of type a and b, he can use a flat rate for each.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Byteknight

It'll be a nightmare for the GM to keep track of as the campaign progresses, as more Earths will be visited.

Well, yes. If you're going to trade between ALL the Earths, then yes, it will be quite cumbersome. But, in a game world you should be limiting your exposure to a few worlds.

Originally Posted by Byteknight

1 Britannica 1 pound = $0.00001 Homeline dollar (or whatever)
1 Dixie dollar (USA) = $0.000005 Homeline (or whatever)
1 Dixie confederate dollar = $0.00006 Homeline (or whatever)

etc.

Again, Homeline couldn't artifically inflate their currency. If they were to do that, then would-be conquerers will have an easier time doing so. Your math above says that it would take 1,000,000 Dixie dollars to equal 5 homeline dollars. That's so unbelievably unrealistic it's not even funny. You're saying that a $5 book in Dixie isn't worth the raw materials used to create it. Or that a $20,000 Dixie car is worth 10 cents in homeline. The raw materials alone in the car are worth far more than that.

Originally Posted by Byteknight

A nightmare!

Only if you let it be.

A good mercantile group in a game should start out looking for a sweet spot. They should be looking for one good, or set of goods that they can find on an alternate earth (locally) and sell on homeline (market) at a huge profit.

And you're not buying the raw materials, you're buying the craftsmanship that goes into it. A gold ring that cost you $500, may only have $100 in gold in it, the rest is labor and markup.

In my first post, my example about having local artisans make jewelry still holds true, even if gold costs $.01 a pound. Gold is still pretty. You can buy a lot of gold on Homeline and then give it to the artisans to do with as you request and still sell it as jewelry. Just because the materials are cheap doesn't mean that the craftsmanship isn't exquisite.

In a multi-genre game I'm running (it's alternate earths, but the PCs are on a dimension-hopping starship just trying to get home), the PCs have been buying a lot of little bric-a-brac on worlds to sell on others. Some of the PCs with marketable skills go out and earn a bit of money and then buy items that'll be easy to dump into another economy without causing too much question (jewelry, interesting tochkees). They're not worried about their own economy (they don't have one) but they've run into Reich-5 operatives as well as Homeliners and another group unique to my universe. They're having more trouble with the Homeliners because they have a hyperadvanced space ship (TL11) that Homeline wants so badly they're going crazy. Granted, the PCs can barely get it to take off and land, but they're not giving it up. They've actually got a Homeliner helping them because he had fallen in love with a different version of one of the PCs and lost her on a mission.

[Byteknight]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Your math above says that it would take 1,000,000 Dixie dollars to equal 5 homeline dollars. That's so unbelievably unrealistic it's not even funny. You're saying that a $5 book in Dixie isn't worth the raw materials used to create it. Or that a $20,000 Dixie car is worth 10 cents in homeline. The raw materials alone in the car are worth far more than that. .

I just plugged in a number. However, the point is....there is an infinity of Raw Materials and labour from Homeline's perspective, or at the very least quite a lot of it. The only value is the uniqueness from Homeline's point of view that is being sought after. So that $5 CSA book from Homeline's perspective = the premium that the value of the uniqueness of Dixie's culture that is being bought, not the paper and printing costs.

There are potentially thousands of TL 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 Earths out there, all making trinkets. The value of their labour and their craftmanship is less and less with each Earth discovered packed with billions of humans, all of them working as diligitently as the next Earth.

Your campaign sounds interesting. A TL 11 starship. That will give Homeline quite the advantage.... or your PCs should they take over any Earth. Once the learn how to pilot it, I guess they will have to pay for an additional advantage, even for dimensional travelers.

[GoodGame]

I understood from Basic Gurps that sanctioned or licensed trade was supposed to work like A:B B:C C:A.

Basically it's triangular trade as done in space, but parachronically.

I think the point wasn't starting collections, although a bazaar might do well with one of everything rare.

As long as getting something good from another dimension
hooks you a raw material for a bigger business enterprise, your doing fine, and the cycle can perpetuate. Easily, the trade goods could be raw materials of particular rarity in another timeline.

The catch is for like timelines to form cartels that set prices
for trading with other timelines. They stabilize the price and trade routes, and negotiate reciprical trades of raw materials between cartels. Eventually the economies thrive, develop, and even homogenize as the trade includes finished goods, and anything from anywhen is available in any market.

Imagine buying designer goods from a corporation only licensed to exist in an alternate timeline!

Originally Posted by Gaming_Bird

Mark's right, the IW economy isn't just moving resourced to Homeline, any world they allow access to will have their money accepted at Homeline 'currency exchanges,' and there is a lot of wealth to be gained trading between two non-Homeline worlds. I would recoment looking through a graphic novel called 'Myth Adventures,' it's in two volumes, the story is by Robert Asprin, the artwork by Phil Foglio. If you can't find the graphic novel you can look for the book it's based on, 'Another Fine Myth' by Robert Asprin, however the graphic novel shows the cross-world trading of the Imps and Deevils much more clearly than the few sentances in the book.

.....

I found my copy of the graphic novel, now to try and describe the wealth-by-trading of the Deevils: (All commodities are traded one for one unless otherwise noted)

World A: Trade rare commodity A (Wire coathanger) for common commodity B (Azure vase)

World B: Trade now-rare commodity B for common commodity C (Pink wishbone)

World C: Trade now-rare commodity C for common commodity D (Head-sized diamond)

Now the Imps are considered shrewd tradrers by the unwary, but compared to the Deevils, they're rank amateurs. 'The wealth-by-trading' of an Imp (same worlds, same commodities)

World A: Trade commodity A for commodity B
World B: Trade commodity B for commodity C
World C: Trace commodity C for commodity D
World D (Deevil's homeworld) trade commodity D for three commodity A, consider this a successfull endevour.

A merchant-style game almost be definition wouldn't be focused on finding tons of basic resources to sell to Homeline (such as lumber, gole, or radioactive ores), but on acquiring things that are considered rare and valuable, so that they possibly, in due time and in small enough quantities for the market to absorb the flow could be used to gain wealth and influance on Homeline. Becoming rich through cross-planar 'import/export' will require as much business sence and shrewd deals as becoming rich with single-planet import/export is here on Earth.

[Byteknight]

Originally Posted by GoodGame

Basically it's triangular trade as done in space, but parachronically
(snip)
As long as getting something good from another dimension hooks you a raw material for a bigger business enterprise, your doing fine, and the cycle can perpetuate. Easily, the trade goods could be raw materials of particular rarity in another timeline.

Yes, true, but how does a GM measure this in an alt earth setting? In homeline dollars? In a commodity like gold (that is increasing in supply) ?

Let's set up the triangle:

Earth A
I sell steel knives on a TL 3 world and get 10 lbs of gold.


Earth B

I buy artwork on a TL 4 world with the 10 lbs of gold.


Earth C

I exchange the artwork on a TL 7 world for $1000 earth-c dollars, which I use to buy cheap steel knives.


I go back to earth A, B, and C and repeat the process until, on the 10th return trip, I have $10,000 Earth-C dollars.

Before I go back to Homeline, I buy $10,000 (in Earth-C dollars) of gold back to Homeline, say 24 ounces (gold on our world is about $420 an ounce).

The price of gold on Homeline is $100 an ounce (thanks to everyone else flooding Homeline with precious metals), which means I get $2,400 homeline dollars.

I repeat the process, but find when I get home that gold on Homeline is now $99/ounce. You can see what's happening. My revenue in Homeline dollars is shrinking.

No, commodity trading won't work unless the GM can prop up some excuse about why the flood of goods to homeline is not lowering prices.

The triangle won't work unless you bring back unique stuff that is not decreasing in price, like works of art and such.

But then if everyone brings back works of art, those prices will fall also and your revenue will decline.

PCs then will have to find something else to bring back or wait until the price of a commodity like gold has stabilized temporarily (as everyone is flooding Homeline with Art and such), to bring back gold.

It's a helluva way to do business. But the good thing from a game point of view is that player will have to continually search for exotic stuff in other Earths just to make the payments. The bad thing from a game point of view is the GM has to continually price such exotic stuff, but not too high as you don't want your merchant PCs to get rich overnight.

[Pesterfield]

it would take 1,000,000 Dixie dollars to equal 5 homeline dollars. That's so unbelievably unrealistic it's not even funny.

Actually exchange rates like that really exist the Turkish exchange rate is a million lira to one dollar. Though they recently changed to the New Lira with one of them equalling a million old Lira.

Maybe it would be best to find a customer first, establish what they want, and how much they'll pay then go get whatever it is.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Pesterfield

Actually exchange rates like that really exist the Turkish exchange rate is a million lira to one dollar. Though they recently changed to the New Lira with one of them equalling a million old Lira.

Yes, but much like pre-WWII Germany, that's a nation dealing with out-of-control inflation, not a well-developed "country" like Dixie. It doesn't cost $8x10e36 (random large number) Dixie Dollars to buy a car. Therefore, my argument stands with the information given.

Also, you have to realize that Gold and Platinum (and other "precious" metals) have useful properties other than their "monetary" value. But, that's an argument for a different discussion.

First and foremost, WST could not be flooding Homeline with Gold. If they are, what is the basis for money on Homeline? They never mention that they moved from a Gold Standard in Infinite Worlds, so we must assume that they're still on that. More than likely, unprocessed gold ore falls into a "protected material" that can't be imported in bulk. That would destabilize an economy faster than trying to sell off some magic items or spending a Dragon's Horde. And once the economy's destabilized, how are people supposed to pay their bills for that fancy conveyor? And where is WST getting the money to pay their electric bills to handle their conveyor usage? Or pay their land taxes? Welcome to the downward spiral.

Processed gold objects (doubloons, figurines, jewelry, etc.) would be fine to import, as would small amounts of gold ore, provided they do not dump great deals of it on the economy. They would probably stockpile gold in another earth to be used as barter goods on other earths, thereby not ruining their own economy. The raw materials we're likely to see are iron, coal, industrial diamonds. They couldn't effectively import valuable materials and minerals in any serious quantity because of the irreparable damage that would inflict on the economy.

[Byteknight]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

First and foremost, WST could not be flooding Homeline with Gold. If they are, what is the basis for money on Homeline? .

Then how would they pay their bills back on homeline? Certainly not with Reich-2 Reichmarks or Dixie dollars. No, they must bring back commodities, sell them in homeline dollars, and pay out their expenses in homeline dollars.

Let's say they take the high road and not flood the market. What about the next company, and the next, and the next, and all the traders and smugglers? They're going to dump as much as they can, driving the price of all commodities down, not just gold. Co. A is going to dump timber, B is going to dump diamonds, etc. Consolidated Mines, Ltd (Gurps IW, pg. 37) is a mining co., KMP Petroleum (Gurps IW, pg. 40) sells petroleum.

It doesn't have to be a flood, even a trickle over 10 years. A little a day will erode the price.

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

They never mention that they moved from a Gold Standard in Infinite Worlds, so we must assume that they're still on that. More than likely, unprocessed gold ore falls into a "protected material" that can't be imported in bulk. That would destabilize an economy faster than trying to sell off some magic items or spending a Dragon's Horde. And once the economy's destabilized, how are people supposed to pay their bills for that fancy conveyor? And where is WST getting the money to pay their electric bills to handle their conveyor usage? Or pay their land taxes? Welcome to the downward spiral. ]

I think the thread was going to an exagerrated Gold Standard ($1 = a ridiculous amount of gold) to avoid a downward spiral. But yes, you can see why there is a serious problem with running a merchant campaign as set out in IW.

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

They couldn't effectively import valuable materials and minerals in any serious quantity because of the irreparable damage that would inflict on the economy.

Exactly, but how can they be stopped? Consolidated Mines, Ltd is in the mining business after all. Even if they sell just enough to pay their homeline bills and make a modest profit, investors know they can flood the market easily, and the price of commodities will go down anyway in the futures market at the very least.

Historically, price controls don't work. Even if you put a gun to the head of incorporated companies, smugglers can't be stopped from selling their precious goods on Homeline. The Mafia, taking over a TL 3 slave mine on Earth-x, can't be stopped from dumping their gold or silver or whatever, on homeline to fund their heroin purchases.

Slowly but surely the price of all commodities will go down on Homeline whether govts like it or not. Homeline will live in a deflationary environment.