Main features

Much alike international politics, the new economy game in The Fog LARP concerns factions, rather than individual players.

Individual players, however, including not affiliated ones, now have a much greater potential to influence the outcome with their questing activity and choice who to support. State budgets need money, money comes mainly from quests, and quests are done by individual players.

Participating in the economy game is voluntary. Not participating in it does not involve any gameplay consequences whatsoever for the respective faction or its players. The only consequence is lore-wise – the fictional “population” in that faction‘s lands on the map would suffer food shortages and decrease.

It is a slow game, designed to last at least several installments of the game. Do not get disappointed if you fail to own it yet this summer.

Objective of the economy game

At the end of the game a faction should have a sufficient amount of substance as to sustain its population and/or sufficient gold to acquire a new territory. Furthermore, it shall later occupy a higher place in the states success rate ranking list.

The World Map

An updated interactive version of the world map is available in the corresponding section of the website. Open in now so you can look at the map as you read.

Here’s how it all works.

Territories on the map

The map in The Fog LARP setting is based on the real-life map of Bulgaria (other neighboring countries will be joined at some point).

The map consists of 261 “territories”. Most of them bear the names of real-life municipalities. Some names have been changed to avoid unwanted historical references or better reflect the essence of a faction.

Currently, 58 territories are neutral, representing self-governing communities or bare lands that suffered from some kind of disaster. 203 belong to different factions, forming the states on the map.

States on the map

Factions (sometimes still referred to as “clans”) become states on the map, based on their territories from previous games. However, there is one condition. To be a state on the map, a faction needs to be active and have enough players to justify being treated as such by both organizational point of view and at least some roleplaying realism.

In The Fog LARP economy game, to be a state on the map, a faction is required to have at least six players signed in as members of that faction in the last two consecutive installments of the game (in our case, 2019 and 2021).

Territories on the map belonging to factions that have been inactive or had less than six members registered under it in the last two installments of the game, will become unoccupied/neutral on the map.

Please note!

it is not “forbidden” to be a small faction or identify with an inactive faction. Small or inactive factions just don’t get to be on the map. Lore-wise, it is assumed, that the respective faction has lost influence and control over their territory due to lack or resources/manpower.

Territory features

Each territory now has been assigned three gamist features:

– Population – number of people, living in that territory.

– Agriculture – refers to the food produced directly from the land. Measured in tons of wheat equivalent (twe);

– Production – includes industry, crafts, services and other food (e.g. fish, game, etc.). Measured in gold coins equivalent (gce).

To assign values to these features, an algorithm has been used, to make them logical and balanced. Each state has an equal value of the ratio of total population to number of territories, total agriculture to number of territories and total food to number of territories.

If you are specifically interested in the matter separate visual overlays of the map can be found on the link.

Deficit and surplus of substance.

The total agriculture of a country determines its need for substance. Every year the different states need an amount of substance necessary for the sustenance of their population, calculated by a set of formulas, reflecting the interrelationship of the different factors.

Lore-wise, every year a number of small deposits are being uncovered in every state, exploited, depleted and then new ones are uncovered.

Every year different states may have a deficit or an excess of substance. The specific deficit or surplus values for each state are assumed a random factor and are determined each year by a D20 roll.

What can a state do with a surplus of substance?

In the event of a surplus, states have the following three options:

1) To sell/negotiate the surplus to another state – for money, favor, promise or whatever they would like to negotiate.

2) To “buy” a neutral territory (see below, section Mechanics for acquiring a territory).

3) To invest and change the value of the Production indicator of a territory already owned by them.

What happens in case of deficit of substance?

In the event of a deficit after the end of the game, the state “suffers from starving” and loses Population and Production.

The faction can choose whether the population of the state starves evenly or certain territories carry the main consequences (via telling the GMs after the game).

At the same time, neighboring countries increase their Population without increasing their Production (refugee crisis). It is also done by an algorithm.

How can a state compensate for the deficit?

By playing the game and making difficult decisions.

1) They can buy/negotiate substance from another state – for money, favor, promise or whatever they would like to negotiate.

2) They can collect money (coins) via quests (or negotiations, stealing, robbing, etc.). Lore-wise, this money will be used to buy substance from the “free market“/”independent contractors”.

Money

Starting with the 2022 installment of the Fog LARP, there will be new in-game money – imperial coins. Imperial coins are gold and copper (there are no silver coins). 1 gold = 10 copper.

Money from prior installments of the game (the transparent tracing paper banknotes) have lore-wise lost their value due the economic catastrophe and are no more in circulation.

There is no exchange rate between the old and the new money, neither out of game, nor in-game. From the point of view of the characters and states, those money are lost.

Yet there is an exchange rate between kg substance and gold coins. The surplus/deficit of substance has a gold coin equivalent. It is a huge amount of money – usually thousands of gold coins. However, when players collect money during the game, each 1 gold coin on the field equals 800 gold coins in the large-scale economy. This is because the efforts of the players represent the efforts of the entire nation throughout the year.

Tl;dr this is too complicated. We are a faction, wtf should we do?

If you qualify to be a state on the map, a GM must have already approached you with the request to throw a D20. Using the die value as an input to the economy system algorithm, the objectives of your faction for the 2022 game have been determined.

The GM will tell you how many gold coins you need to gather during the entire game via quests (or negotiations, stealing, robing, etc.) and what to do with them.

Or inform you that you have a surplus, how much it is and what you can do with it.

Game mechanics for compensating the deficit with money. Faction chests (teleporters).

Money collected during the game can be sent home via the teleporter chest leading to your faction capital city.

All factions that qualify to be states on the map, get a teleporter chest. Teleporter chests are located near Webber caravans (the Tavern, etc.).

Lore-wise teleporter chests are an ancient imperial communication system.

Mechanics-wise, they have two compartments. One is for outgoing mail and one is for incoming mail.

Once something – including coins, is put it the outgoing compartment, it is considered gone to the correspondent capital and DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE in the chest. Hence, once the money is put in the outgoing compartment of the chest, it is secured.

In the end of the game the GMs will check and establish the amount collected and sent home by every faction.

The outgoing mail compartment can also be used to write “emails” to the GMs to testify something has been done in-game. This email needs to be written in-game in the form of a letter home. The GMs will decide if and how this thing would influence other events in the setting. (Basically, it works like giving secretly a note to a DM. If you don’t understand how it works, just don’t use it, there is nothing to lose).

The teleporter chests also have an incoming mail compartment. Factions will be given quests there. Quests will have the form of envelopes with The Fog LARP emblem and a label with an exact hour. Envelops do not exist before the exact hour on the label.

Incoming mail, unlike the outgoing, can be stolen, and this is the reason why each teleporter chest is locked with a combination padlock. The combination will be known to the faction leaders at check in.

Contract mechanics

Basically, the players in The Fog LARP are free to negotiate anything and freely make contracts in any form. However, the state surplus of substance is not something they would have on themselves. Therefore, by the end of the game, contracts for providing substance need to be deposited in the outgoing mail of each party involved with a note to the capital if the contract will be honored or not. This will affect the final outcome in terms of substance/money amount and further have in-game repercussions in bilateral relations and international image of a state.

Contracts that have not been deposited, cannot be counted in the final result. 

Mechanics for acquiring a territory

Acquiring a territory happens after the game via communication with the GMs.

To acquire a territory, a faction needs 9600 gold coins in the large-scale economy. That would amount to 12 gold coins in the field (9600/800=12) collected during the game as a surplus after having covered any substance deficit for already owned territories.

A faction that has not been on the map so far, but qualifies to be, also needs to have collected and deposited 12 gold coins.

Mechanics for changing the value of the Production indicator

Changing the value of the Production indicator happens after the game via communication with the GMs. Each gold coin in the field equals 800 gold coins invested in a territory, which permanently raises the production and corresponding GDP by 300 gold coins. This will affect a faction possible deficits and surpluses in a positive matter in future years.

The ranking list of states

The baseline ranking lists reflect:

– the GDP ranking of the states. It depends on the territories and their production and will vary based on territorial change, famine and investments.

– The substance yield per necessary substance ranking. It shows the information known to the players based on news, intelligence information etc., and is an important benchmark for determining which international trade offers would be realistic. Due to intel info and economic analyses, it is known that states in total suffer a deficit of substance. Only a few have a surplus, reaching not more than 3-4000 large-scale economy gpe, while the deficits are times as much.

The state success rate ranking list will be generated after the game based on the success of each state in achieving their goals relative to the others.

GDP ranking list

State	2022 GDP in gp equivalent, in thousands
Bdin Empire	3,799
Knyazdom of East Wind	2,814
Kingdom of the Seven Hills	2,111
Heralds of Chaos	1,055
Noldor	985
Sea Wolves	844
Silverthorn	492
Dark Guard	492
Sand Blades	422
Gargavran	352
Vanor	281
Incarnadines	211
Pontus	141
Norsemen	70
Emerald Thorn	70
Red Hand	70
Suntouched	70

 Substance yield per necessary substance ranking list

Rank	State
1	Heralds of Chaos
2	Pontus
3	Norsemen
4	Vanor
5	Emerald Thorn
6	Red Hand
7	Suntouched
8	Incarnadines
9	Noldor
10	Gargavran
11	Dark Guard
12	Sand Blades
13	Silverthorn
14	Bdin Empire
15	Sea Wolves
16	Kingdom of the Seven Hills
17	Knyazdom of East Wind

(Updated) State success rate ranking list

Rank	State	Deficit/surplus of substance after the game (in gold coins)
1	Dark Guard	35.9
2	Knyazdom of East Wind	22.2
3	Heralds of Chaos	12.0
4	Gargavran	7.0
5	Norsemen	6.0
6	Noldor	5.0
7	Kingdom of the Seven Hills	3.9
8	Suntouched	3.6
9	Bdin	1.4
10	Pontus	0.9
11	Vanor	0.5
12	Emerald Thorn	0.3
13	Sand Blades	0.1
14	Sea Wolves	0.0

Summary of important values

1 gold = 10 copper

Price to buy a new territory = 12 gold (field game equivalent), all deficit should be compensated first

Deficit/surplus of substance for my faction in kg and in gp equivalent – <ask the GMs>