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DF Suggestions / Balancing Dwarven Economy: Begging, Gifts and Theft
« on: July 17, 2016, 03:51:10 pm »
This is not a refined idea, but more like tossing out some thoughts. If I understand the Dwarven Economy as it was (never played it), there was a problem with plenty of dwarves running around with too many coins and not knowing what to do with them. There is a way to balance this meaningfully with features like begging, thieving and giving gifts.
Some useless dwarves end up being poor, because they do not earn enough to pay for their desired standard of living. They will then resort to begging, which will cause unhappy thoughts in most dwarves. The beggar will become unhappy and so will the one he targets, but also those who witness begging, especially if it is excessive or aggressive. Giving a gift, however, would cause happy thoughts all around and strengthen bonds. A dwarf would be more inclined to beg from his friends than from strangers. So beggars would tend to start pestering those closest to them, causing them to like them less.
To add to the fun, the guard would sometimes arrest aggressive beggars or beat them up on the spot.
Contrary to humans, dwarves could function such that the more coin you had, the more inclined you would be to extend a helping hand (and thus be prone to attract a swarm of beggars). Of course some beggars would resort to theft and pickpocketing, adding to the fun factor with the predictable social consequences.
The main thrust of the idea is this: useful dwarves end up rich and the useless ones end up poor. The rich get happier, gain more influence and thus become even more useful and productive by giving out gifts to those poorer than they are. The poor will end up spending their ever diminishing supply of social capital by resorting to begging. For the economy this means that those with too much coin are inclined to give it away and those with too little are inclined to beg for it, thus creating a balance in the economy.
A bonus in this is a creation of different social classes. Those who have will always tend to have even more, and those who do not will always tend to have even less, while the middle class balances there on the fence between the two extremes. Run out of productive work and see your life ruined. Beautiful.
Some useless dwarves end up being poor, because they do not earn enough to pay for their desired standard of living. They will then resort to begging, which will cause unhappy thoughts in most dwarves. The beggar will become unhappy and so will the one he targets, but also those who witness begging, especially if it is excessive or aggressive. Giving a gift, however, would cause happy thoughts all around and strengthen bonds. A dwarf would be more inclined to beg from his friends than from strangers. So beggars would tend to start pestering those closest to them, causing them to like them less.
To add to the fun, the guard would sometimes arrest aggressive beggars or beat them up on the spot.
Contrary to humans, dwarves could function such that the more coin you had, the more inclined you would be to extend a helping hand (and thus be prone to attract a swarm of beggars). Of course some beggars would resort to theft and pickpocketing, adding to the fun factor with the predictable social consequences.
The main thrust of the idea is this: useful dwarves end up rich and the useless ones end up poor. The rich get happier, gain more influence and thus become even more useful and productive by giving out gifts to those poorer than they are. The poor will end up spending their ever diminishing supply of social capital by resorting to begging. For the economy this means that those with too much coin are inclined to give it away and those with too little are inclined to beg for it, thus creating a balance in the economy.
A bonus in this is a creation of different social classes. Those who have will always tend to have even more, and those who do not will always tend to have even less, while the middle class balances there on the fence between the two extremes. Run out of productive work and see your life ruined. Beautiful.