Player Run Business Rules

Frosgore RP – Business Rules:

Version 1.0: Štěpán Matěk, Edgar Abraham Guerrero and Peter Edwards

These rules are still in development so feedback is welcome and we will review and edit these based on player input.

There are five economic roles in our current system, three are availiable to choose from when players create their business, until we can implement rules and balance for each role.

1. Primary Industry/Sources – This type of business produces or extracts natural resources. Examples include mining companies, fisheries, logging companies and farming.

2. Secondary Industry/Converters – This type of business converts the raw resources after they have been extracted and are converted into commercial goods for consumption. Examples include car or arms manufacturers

3. Tertiary Industry/Service Providers – These are either direct to customer stores and providers or other companies such a taxi firm or shipping company.

4. Traders/Brokers –These types of businesses broker the best deals between each industry sector to earn themselves commission. This type of role is still being created.

5. Consumers – The fifth type of business role is reserved for the Admins who track the in-game events and economy against the actions and decision of the player businesses.

After the player has made this decision they can fill in this form (pending) to stylise and finalise the new companies name, industry sector and sub-sector. Once a business has been created, pending Admin review, the business becomes playable at the start of the next 'week', which is normally on the next Monday but they can post to advertise factory construction or their new office opening.

Flow of the game:

The game will be split over the week with Monday to Wednesday being one round and Thursday to Saturday being another round. Sunday is when everything is worked out by the Admins and score/shareprice will decided.

Net Profit Score aka NPS:

To determine if a company has any net profit, each week, the Admins discuss events and the player interactions that have occurred and then use this to decide how these actions have impacted each sector or subsector. This determines the score that all businesses in a sector or subsector must equal to make net profit. The decisions and actions that each player and business make will also add or remove modifiers to their score. In addition to these modifiers, the Admins will role a D20 (20 sided dice) to give each Sector a base score. Final scores will cap out at 30 being the best possible result. If the company matches the NPS then they have neither made nor lost money for that week.

Player Actions:

A business can make a few basic choices and actions each round. Each action costs 1 Action Point (AP) and APs do not roll over between rounds. A newly founded business generates 3AP per round.

a) Sector Specific Process – This is the business performing their primary action of generating, converting or selling. For example, a mining company's SSP would be mining ores and rocks while a shipping firm would be delivering goods as per their contracts.

b) Buy/Sell Goods/Services – This represents businesses negotiating sales agreements between each other. Both parties must be able to spend AP for the initial negotiation and this must be spent any time the deal is changed. However, AP is not required to maintain a previously agreed deal.

c) Expand Industry – Spend AP in the current round to invest in their business to earn more AP in future rounds. For primary and secondary industries this would simulate more factories or warehouses while service providers might open a new store or hire more staff. (Under Review)

Companies can use their SSP to store product to sell or use at a later date. Product can roll over but AP cannot.

Example Rounds:

To help explain further, here is an example of several rounds of play with simulated businesses and actions:

Business A: Mining Company (Primary Industry) specialising in aluminium.

Business B: Refining Company (Secondary Industry) specialising in metal refining.

Business C: Manufacturing Company (Secondary Industry) specialising in microchips.

Business D:  Retail Company (Tertiarty Industry) specialising in mobile phones.

Round 1:

All 4 businesses spend AP to arrange contracts.

A agrees a deal  with B to supply them with 1 unit of raw aluminium (SSP -1AP), begins mining 2 units of ore. (-2AP)

B agrees a deal with C to send them 1 unit of refined aluminium (-1AP), agrees deal with A for 1 unit of raw aluminium (-1AP) and builds one refinery (Expand Industry -1AP)

C agrees deal with D to provide them with 1 unit of chips/phones (-1AP), agrees deal with B for 1 unit of refined aluminium (-1AP) and builds one new factory (Expand Industry -1AP)

D builds two stores (Expand Industry -2AP) and agrees deal with C to sell 1 unit of phones (-1AP)

Round 2:

All 4 businesses don't need to spend AP for exchanging the units of product as these agreements were finalised in Round 1.

A has 2 units of ore, sends 1 unit of raw aluminium to B, builds 2 new mines (Expand Industry -2AP) and mines 1 unit of ore. (SSP -1AP) ~ 1 Unit of ore stockpiled.

B receives 1 unit of ore from A and begins refining it (SSP -1AP)

End of Week/Sunday: Admin actions = NPS rolls and modifiers + Stock Market update

Round 3:

New businesses created before Round 1 come into play now

Observations:

At the start, primary resource extractors will be able to produce units while tertiary industries will be the last to access units but this will not be a factor a few weeks in.

Questions raised by players:

Q. Can a player decide their own wealth? Suppose the business has been family owned for several generations?

A. To keep a level playing field for all players, we are only allowing businesses to start-up at the same price as everyone else. You are free to RP your own history behind your business as long it is currently (at the start of play) worth 1 factory/shop/office worth (value TBD)

Q. How many businesses can a player own?

A. Similar to above, currently each player can only own one business. However, as businesses grow in value it will probably be added as a use for the AP actions.

Q. How will businesses be valued? Would a retailer be worth more than a mining company (for example)?

A. This will be explored during the Beta testing.

Q. Resource map: To know where an optimal position would be for certain industries?

A. Map has been created and will be uploaded here. Further rules for resources and business 'placement' are being created.

Q. Can one player hire another player or will it only be NPCs?

A. Currently unsupported, the Beta test will probably explore this further. It is assumed NPCs automate the day to day running of the business and there is no way

Q. How does hiring work?

A. See above.

Q. What kind of 'shady' stuff can a business owner do ie. Black market/supporting political movements?

A. Currently this is a feature that we are looking to implement in the future but is currently unsupported.

Q. How would export companies work?

A. The admins will simulate the global markets and their interest in the specific goods being exported from Frosgore. In terms of Archipelago customers, the Admins will probably simulate this with help from the Ambassador players to see the worth and interest in deals like this.

Future plans:

Priority - Work out the value of AP or Units to create share prices for companies and provide incentives to expand/cooperate with other businesses

Length of Rounds – Is 3 days too long or too short for players?

Role 5. Consumers/RP crossover – Expanding the role to invole other players such as an arms manufacturer wanting to supply the government or win exclusive rights to fish in a certain area etc

Transparency – for modifiers for all players vs just individual business owner players and because Admin decisions are based on trust (Admins don't play in any part of the game) so to prevent players feeling victimised, we made the net profit decisions apply to entire industry sectors rather than each business.

Stock exchange or scoreboard – Each week, the share prices of each company could be tracked to show how well each business is performing. This would also tie with transparency so players can see that all businesses of a certain type made a loss and not just their own.

Trader/Broker role – A role based on negotiating for other players and potentially being able to buy and sell 'metagame' knowledge such as the modifiers a business currently has or what the NPS will be for an industry.