I have come up with a little solo push-your-luck game (or perhaps an economic part of a bigger game).
You are trying to buy goods (3 types, not sure what yet) and sell them for a profit. I'm not sure exactly how the trackers will look, but I'm thinking a kind of graph (x=10s, y= units). You will start with some cash and will buy and sell (from and to the market) as the goods prices to up and down.
To adjust the prices you will roll a die (d6?) To determine the amount all the goods will change and draw a card to determine weather goods rise or fall in price. The cards will have, for a random example:
"wood +. Stone -. Metal. +/-" in this example wood will increase by the foe roll, stone decreases and metal stays the same.
Differnt cards will have different combos of + and -. With some having double + or - (doubling the value of the die).
I am also thinking a goods price will fall and rise by 1 for each item you sell or buy.
My question is about the info to give before you trade. Is it netted to know the direction of goods prices, the amount they will change, or no info at all.
Any input welcome.
Stock exchange
Well, I can't quite envision the whole thing, but I'd say that what you describe is complete randomness. If the players have to act before any of that, then there's very little opportunity for strategy or thought. What would even be the point? However, if, say, the card was revealed first, then decisions, then the die, maybe that would help.
I like your combination of dice and cards to determine the performance of the stock market. A couple ways to address your question that come to mind:
- Depending on how much money you want in your system, a range of 1 to 6 on the die may be drastic. For example, if two commodities start at the price of 10 one round, then the next there could be a difference of as much as 12 the next round. It's an extreme scenario (increasing one by 6 and reducing the other by 6) but it's possible.
- To address these drastic swings, you may want to consider Fudge Dice instead. Each "+" would raise the price 1 when "Up" is indicated, or "-" would reduce the stock's value by 1 when "Down" is indicated. Of course, if you want to keep the drastic swings you can stick with conventional dice, or even increase the numbers on the dice for some extreme results.
- What's your plan for when a stock "bottoms out" after receiving several reductions in a row? Are there any corrections that take place, or will prices stay that low?
- If you'd like to provide some clues to the player as to what's going up or down on following rounds, you may want to have cards split in half: commodities are listed on the left side (in a random order), while swings up or down are listed on the right. At the start of the game, have one card face-up. This indicates the adjustment of prices for the next round: maybe some will go up, maybe some will go down, maybe all will go down, maybe one has a 2x gain, etc. See this example image that describes what I mean:
https://imgur.com/hGuKlcF - If you use Fudge Dice and this card system, you can add sophistication by indicating the number of dice used to determine the gain or loss in price, simply by adding a number next to the move, such as "Up 2" (throw two dice, modify with each "+") or "Down 4" (throw four dice, modify with each "-") on the right-hand side of the card.
- You can also set hard numbers for gains or losses, and then make it more unpredictable by adding dice rolls to them as modifiers.
I personally enjoy these kinds of systems, as I like highly-tactical games where I make a choice, and then see how things play out each round. This is very different from a euro-style or engine-builder, but with the addition of the Up/down indicators, it does provide some clues so it's not -completely- blind.
Hope this is useful!
My aim was that players will try predict the market, and optimise profit by buying low and selling high. I was aiming for a light, solo, push your luck. A yhatzy level time waster.
To give an idea of current play (a few turns in).
If the good values are wood=£5, stone=£3, metal= £1. I have (through trade) 1 wood (£5), 5 stone (£15), no metal and £20. So my current total is £40
At the moment I can buy metal cheap and hope it builds in value. Knowing metal is near the bottom of the value track, and sort of knowing (through keeping track of what cards have been played) the stock is due to rise.
I would probably say the game ends when the deck runs out, at which point you sell everything. So you may want to sell your worthless goods, and hope (or know) the price won't rise, or buy more at a rock bottom price and count on making a little profit on many items.
To make things more predictable i might limit the deck to,say, 20 cards (perhaps from a bigger pool).
I could also give more info by having the draw pile face up, and let you check the discard pile. That way you can "forecast" a little more.
At the moment it looks ugly. Basically 7 long tracks from -25 to +50. 3 for goods in the market, 3 for your goods and 1 for your £.
Several general problems with stock-type games..
One is that if it's random, nobody's doing any predicting. They're just betting, and so you might as well include a roulette wheel instead. If the only strategy is memorizing what cards are in the deck and what cards have been used, then this is a game of card-counting, which even in Blackjack only gives you a few percentage points of edge. The dice would overwhelm that in a real game.
Another is that prices go up multiplicatively, but games always want them to be additive. For example, if metal is at 1, then it can't go down, and it's likely to go up enormously in value. However, wood will go up less on a roll of 6 than metal will. In reality, a set of commodities would go up 10%, not $10.
When do you cash in that pricey wood? When do you cut your losses with metal?. I agree it is just betting, but with I think that's true of the real stock market. Investors buy when they think a stock is as low as it's going to get and have to decide when they think it won't get any higher, like a game of chicken. Now in the real world there are ways to get more solid info, but at the end of the day it's just betting.
(I hope my other replies are also cowering things up. It seems I'm typing at the same time as other people)
But if it's random, then it's random. In the real world it's not just betting; it's tied to what the company does. If your game is intending to be random, make it a gambling game. If not, users need some sort of hint as to where the market might head, somehow.
I was working on a stock market game too. One thing you might want to consider for solo play is the possibility for the player to influence the market.
There could also be a way for players to lose the game by betting bankrupt.
Search here on BGDF and BGG, I posted several threads lately about stock market games.
Completely out of context idea alert:
What if there is a "business event" deck with stuff that might happen like a CEO scandal or a sudden scarcity issue that affect the stock market both in positive and negative ways.
A safe investment wouldn't make you pick a card but a risky one might make you pick one or two.
If you do like in Pandemic with the outbreaks but instead using stock... as you draw a card relating to a specific stock, that stock increases in value. But you have to beware that you don't draw something that could paralyze the stock or negatively influence its value (as suggested by @Tikey).
And if like Pandemic, you shuffle the stocks that have already come out, you can invariably force a re-shuffle and place those stocks back on the TOP of the pile knowing full well that those stocks will be the dominant ones in a specific game (stocks worth anything... The other stocks would be not part of this specific run...)
Just some ideas...
Note #1: Pandemic's Outbreak mechanic is real good in a situation with stocks. The market can be "volatile" and focuses on a subset of the stocks in the market. And you know what stocks will be a part of the "action" (so-to-speak). Those who might have scandals and "outbreaks" reaching three digits a stock... I'd definitely look into something similar and see what can be done.
A safe investment wouldn't make you pick a card but a risky one might make you pick one or two.
If players want a calmer game, they just leave them out. You can even have themed cards that are added or removed from the draw deck, customizing the game to players' liking and/or specific scenarios (like, heheheh... an election year, or a pandemic event, or...) .
This keeps the game moving, keeps it focused on the players' buying and selling, and not focused on dealing with several decks of cards between players taking actions.
Yeah I need to play around with the card/trade/dice order.
My aim was that players will try predict the market, and optimise profit by buying low and selling high. I was aiming for a light, solo, push your luck. A yhatzy level time waster.
To give an idea of current play (a few turns in).
If the good values are wood=£5, stone=£3, metal= £1. I have (through trade) 1 wood (£5), 5 stone (£15), no metal and £20. So my current total is £40
At the moment I can buy metal cheap and hope it builds in value. Knowing metal is near the bottom of the value track, and sort of knowing (through keeping track of what cards have been played) the stock is due to rise.
I would probably say the game ends when the deck runs out, at which point you sell everything. So you may want to sell your worthless goods, and hope (or know) the price won't rise, or buy more at a rock bottom price and count on making a little profit on many items.
To make things more predictable i might limit the deck to,say, 20 cards (perhaps from a bigger pool).
I could also give more info by having the draw pile face up, and let you check the discard pile. That way you can "forecast" a little more.
At the moment it looks ugly. Basically 7 long tracks from -25 to +50. 3 for goods in the market, 3 for your goods and 1 for your £.