The Market is going to be a simple game. Players can join as they wish, assuming there is a body ready to be taken over (if there isn't, simply ask, and someone may make one for you within a few turns). The rules are not terribly complex, though they have been increasing in complexity over time and there are a good deal of them. Luckily, we will all be happy to help and answer any questions as you wish.
StatsYou are a "Person". You start with the following stats:
Health: 10/10
Happiness: 10/10 (Gaining happiness that would increase your total above maximum simply raises the maximum)
Conditions:
Basic Hunger: Consume 1 "food" each turn or reduce your maximum health by one due to starvation.
Basic Dissatisfaction: Lose 1 happiness each turn for every 10 points, rounded down, of maximum happiness.
Basic Recovery: Regain 1 lost health per turn, up to maximum.
Mortal: Every 10th turn, lose a point from your max health. The effects of mortality are unslowed by stasis.
TraitsHard Worker: Extracting Resources is easier for you. Any "resource" or "labour" action costs 1 less to perform.
Nimble Fingers: Crafting items is easier for you. Any "create" action costs 1 less to perform.
Keen Eye: You are a much better explorer than others. You get to draw two exploration cards instead of one when exploring.
Sharp Mind: Reduce the time cost of research by 25% for initial research. Reduce the time cost of reverse engineering by half again.
Pretty Face: Increase the amount of happiness generated for others from your performances or socialization by 1.
Organized Multitasker: You may have any number of "in progress" tasks at a given time.
Big Heart: Your empathy and good bedside manner make you more effective at caring for other people and animals. "Caring" actions are 1 point cheaper, and you receive a bonus to effectiveness depending on the action taken.
New traits may become available to players as time progresses, and different starting stats may eventually become the norm, but this is where we start. When you enter this world right now, at the beginning, these are the options available to you.
Gameplay*I will announce a new round. Unless I make corrections, all stated actions from the previous round are carried out. Any that require my input will be resolved in this post. I will draw from the global event deck, which may effect the result of your actions in the previous round.
*Everyone makes a post containing their new character sheet, based on the result of the previous round and any external modifiers, updating stats as appropriate. If you ever have zero health or happiness, your character dies. If your happiness is equal to or less than half your maximum happiness (rounded down), you gain the status "Depressed" for as long as the state continues.
*Gain "time" tokens available to your current health. If depressed, reduce this amount by half, rounded down.
*State the actions you wish to take for the next round, by saying how you spend your time points. See the action list below for how to spend your time. You do not have to complete an action in one round - simply record your progress in an action in your post, just below your character sheet (and visible to others) until that action has been finished. You can only have one action in progress at a given time (but may freely complete other actions, assuming they can be completed in the same turn)
*Work out deals and exchanges with other players, if you so desire. Feel free to edit your posts to reflect these changes. You can edit your post as many times as you wish until I end the round, at which points the results are locked in. You can trade anything in your inventory, even knowledge, although knowledge works a bit differently than other items. Trading knowledge does NOT cause you to lose that knowledge, but instead creates a copy of it in the other players inventory at the beginning of the next round. For know, knowledge can only be traded through the "Teach" action.
And that's it! That's the turn structure.
So the big question is, what Actions can you take. After all, that's the bulk of a turn, since you have little to trade, right? Well, most Actions in this game require knowledge you lack. Until you get that knowledge, however, you have a few options available to you.
ActionsTattle - Did someone else make a mistake? Point it out! They will be forced to correct it, and perhaps face sanctions, and you will receive a bonus of one or more time units for the current day.
Stasis - Skip your turn. When you take your next turn, it is under the effects of the first round in which you underwent stasis. This is automatic, and to prevent players from simply skipping turns where bad things happen to them in an attempt to avoid them - even if you "stasis" on the turn of a drought, you will still be operating under drought conditions on whichever round you return, even if other players have moved on. It may have some benefits, however... A player may willingly enter stasis, but only if they take no other action (they cannot change from another action to stasis), and do not discuss in-game elements or otherwise interact with other players. No trading, or even discussing trading, or planning of any sort. They are still allowed to tattle, and help clarify rules for others, and ask questions, but this is all.
Procreation - You may attempt to initiate procreation for another player for free. If they accept, at the beginning of the following turn you lose 3ap and gain possession of a "child" token with features described in the turn post. A child token must be fed one food at the end of each turn for the next three turns, as if they were a player character. If a single feeding period is missed, the child becomes malnourished. If two are missed, the child dies. At the end of the third feeding period, the child will become an adult body. For the next turn, either of the parents, assuming they are not controlling a body, may take over this body as their player character. On all subsequent turns, any player may take over the body. First come, first served. The body is considered to take the stasis action every turn, but still ages normally, and will be tracked in the turn post. A child has action points per turn that may only be spent on the "learn" technique. The owner of the child can decide what is learned. On the first turn, the child currently receives "0" learn points, on the second "3", and on the third "5".
Grow Food (resource, cost: 8 time)- Extract 1 food from a plot of Empty Land.
Relax (leisure, cost: 1 time)- Gain 1 happiness. If you are ill, increase your recovery chances by 1%.
Socialize (leisure, social, cost: 2 time)- Requires at least one other player to socialize with you. Gain 2 happiness. You may explicitly refuse to socialize with certain other players.
Create Primitive Trinket (create, cost: 10 time)- Creates a "Primitive Trinket" item. Grants +1 happiness per turn to the owner. Trinkets do not stack.
Generate Coin (cost: 1 time)- Create a "coin" object. This object represents 1 time. This is the only object in the game that will never have the cost change. It will always require someone to spend 1 time to create.
Prospect(explore, cost: 5 time)- Draw a Discovery from the Discovery deck, and gain the reward. This is the only way to acquire new resources and gain new plots of land, but there are other Discovery cards as well.
Teach(teach, cost: 5 time, plus 1 per additional student beyond the first)- Copy one of your knowledges to one or more players who choose to "Learn" from you. This action is "in progress" until all of your students have finished their actions.
Learn(learn, cost: 2 time)- Acquire a knowledge from another player willing to "Teach" you. This action is "in progress" until your teacher has finished their action.
Research (research, variable)- Work on gaining a knowledge.
Nurse (care, cost: 5 time units) Caring for an ill player, taking care of their various needs for them while they recover, frees them up to recuperate more effectively. This doubles the % recovery chance for each Relax action the target takes. This does not stack - multiple nurse actions provide no additional benefit.
Irrigate Field (labour, improvement, cost: 15, requires Knowledge: Irrigated Fields): Attach this Improvement to a plot of Empty Land. Increases the amount of food extracted from that plot through the Grow Food action by 1. (Plots may only have one improvement on them at a time)
Mine Wampoon (resource, cost: 8, requires Knowledge: Wampoon Extraction): Extract a single Wampoon from a Wampoon source.
Tomatunk Recovery (resource, cost: 8, requires Knowledge: Tomatunk Extraction): Extract a single unit of Tomatunk from a Tomatunk source.
Harvest Delite (resource, cost: 8, requires Knowledge: Delite Extraction): Extract a single unit of Delite from a Delite source.
Obviously, the one that needs more expansion here is the last one, "Research". The options available to research are many, though only a few will be revealed at the beginning of the game - discoveries, gaining knowledge, and other events will reveal new opportunities for research. Every research has a time cost, and more advanced research may have material costs, knowledge requirements, and a chance of failure as well. After a certain point, knowledge will "enter the zeitgeist" and the cost will be reduced by half (I will make note of this in my round posts). In addition, having a an object created by that piece of Knowledge will reduce the cost by half again - the action will be called "Reverse Engineer" instead of research. Sharp Mind+Zeitgeist+Reverse Engineering will reduce the cost to 12.5% of it's original cost! (Rounded down)
ResearchImproved Farming Techniques (Zeitgeist) (cost: 10 5 time) - Reduces the cost of Grow Food by 1.
Irrigated Fields (cost: 20 time) - Allows the creation of an "Irrigated Field" attached to a Plot of Empty Land.
Wampoon Extraction (cost: 5 time) - Allows the exploitation of Wampoon claims.
Grebin Extraction (cost: 10 time) - Allows the exploitation of Grebin claims.
Tomatunk Extraction (cost: 10 time) - Allows the exploitation of Tomatunk claims.
Delite Harvesting (cost: 5 time) - Allows the exploitation of Delite claims.
Craft: Primitive Work Tools (cost: 15 time, 1 delite, 1 wampoon) - Allows the creation of Resource Tools to aid in extracting resources.
Craft: Primitive Factory Tools (cost: 25 time,2 delite, 2 wampoon) - Allows the creation of Factory Tools to aid in the creation of tools, trinkets, and machines.
Domestication (cost: 30 time) - Allows the domestication of wild animals and the construction of a Pasture Improvement for Empty Plots. These animals will require a pasture to graze on, but will provide Food with far less work.
Grebin Processing (cost: 20 time) - There's a usable product here, but not in the shape it's in now. We'll have to figure out how to work with this material before we can do anything of value with it.
Tomatunk Experimentation (cost: 30 time) - This material doesn't seem useful. Perhaps with a bit of work, however, new opportunities will open themselves up?
Companion Planting - Advanced Farming Techniques 1 (cost: 30 time)(requires: Improved Farming Techniques) - Increase the amount of food produced per grow action by .5 (round down).
Grafting - Advanced Farming Techniques 2 (cost: 30 time)(requires: Improved Farming Techniques) - Increase the amount of food produced per grow action by .5 (round down).
Crop Rotation (cost: 40 time)(requires: Improved Farming Techniques) - Increases the refresh rate of a farmed field by 2 at the end of turn.(round down).
Crossbreeding (cost: 50 time)(requires: Improved Farming Techniques) - Provides a new action that allows creating modified seeds that exhibit certain useful properties. Crossbreeding as an action will be a small cost added on to the normal grow food action (1ap) for a chance of producing a "Seed" object with the desired attribute, and can be repeated once per unit of food that grow action produces. A full list of attributes that can be pursued will be provided once the research is complete. Using a grow food action with the "Seed" object will produce an additional "Seed" object for each food produced with the previous benefits, and any additional "Crossbreeding" action on that crop will have a chance of adding a new desired attribute to the same seed! (Although there is also a small chance of the seed losing an existing property as well)
Primitive Healthcare (cost: 15 time) - A basic understanding of what works and what doesn't when treating illnesses can potentially lessen an illnesses ill effects or help a person to recover more quickly.
The Event DeckNothing of note. (4 Total)
Drought! Grow Food actions this turn produce half as much food, rounded down.
Bounty! All Grow Food actions on the previous turn produce an extra two units of food!
Pests! Pests eat half of each players stored food, rounded up.
Pox Outbreak! A random player acquires The Pox. (-1 happiness, 0 hunger, 0 damage, 1 dormancy, 0 slow, 25% infect, 20% recover)
Disease Mutation! A random disease card is replaced with a variant, and up to one currently infected player is switched to the new disease.
Terrible Accident! A random player has suffered a serious accident, and loses 3 hit points.
Bad Omens and Times of Hardship. All players lose 5 happiness or 25% of max happiness (whichever is higher) and lose two action points unless they are depressed.
Good Fortune and Times of Plenty! All players gain 10 happiness and, unless they are depressed, an extra two action points.
DiseasesThe Pox -1 happiness, 0 hunger, 0 damage, 1 dormancy, 0 slow, 25% infect, 20% recover
Dysentery - This character loses two from their happiness at the beginning of each round and has their hunger increases by one. This character loses 3 action points each turn. There is a 75% chance of recovering from Dysentery each round. Any character that trades with or interacts with this character via an action has a 25% chance to contract Dysentery.
You have discovered no cures. You have discovered no vaccinations. You have discovered no treatments.
Guide to Posting your TurnSo put your stuff in a block like this.
You need:
Your character stats - health, skill, trait, conditions
Your inventory (items)
Your holdings (land)
Your knowledge (research)
Your progress on whatever you are holding progress for [i]at the beginning of your turn[/i]
Then, underneath it (and in bold), post your
Action in the following form:
(7*) First action, completed this turn
(2*) Second action, completed
(1 to 3/7) Final action, first part is points being put toward, second part is points put into the action and total points needed
(1 to 7/7*) Is the form you should take if you are FINISHING an action carried over from a previous turn this turn.Use This Example Post as a Guide to FollowTurnsRound 1 starts here!
Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5Round 6Round 7Round 8Round 9Round 10Round 11Round 12Round 13Round 14Round 15Round 16Round 17Round 18Round 19Round 20Round 21