Now Arin has been a trademaster to Epicure for years. I love doing it. But 10,000gp per year is hard to upkeep for me.

There really isn't any benefit to be a trademaster of a public cartel except the ability to submit designs and even when you want to submit private designs (ie 2 extra designs per year) it costs the trademaster 10,000gp without as much hope of return. Now why would anybody in their right mind want to be a public cartel trademaster?

So here's possible solutions to alleviate public trademaster's post:

1. Have private cartel remain as thus: 2 private designs and 1 public per year. All public cartels will inverse their submission permissions, ie: 2 public
designs and 1 private per year.

2. Give public trademaster a cartel artifact that enhances standard levels of the trademasters. I suggest a badge of office (e.g. WEAR BADGE to have it in
affect). Suggestions:

Forging:
a. Dragonscale - " A golden badge molded into a golden scale". Affects: Cuts forging time to up to 1/4 of the time. If owner wields a Mallet of Forging,
the effect is stacked.
b. Silverblade - "A silvery badge of shaped as a slender longsword". Affects: As above.
c. Dreadhelm - "An iron badge forged as a helm". Affects: As above.
d. Darkhammer - "A copper badge forged in the shape of a hammer". Affects: As above.

Jewelry
a. Goldleaf - "A golden badge hammered into a single leaf". Affects: Cuts an extra gem (e.g. If you cut one, you get 2. With mastercut it'd be more).
Stacks with Silver Jeweler's Hammer.
b. Blackpearl - "An obsidian circular badge, polished similar to a pearl.". Affects: As above.
c. Diamondlight - "A single diamond badge, seemingly to emanate its own light." Affects: As above.
d. Glitterweb - "A silvery web badge, glittering with embedded various gems." Affects: As above.

Tailoring
a. Starweaver - "A badge of platinum cloth has been woven like a star". Affects: Reduces balance on sewing by 1/4. Reduce cost of mending,
proofing by 1/4. Reduce cost of batting by 1/8. Increase prestige on sewn items. Stacked with Magic Tailor Shears.
b. Nightsoigne - "A badge of white silk shaped into a mask". Affects: As above.
c. Moonlace - "A badge of silvery cloth has been woven into a half-crescent moon". Affects: As above.
d. Raventhread - "A badge symbolising a raven has been woven from black thread". Affects: As above.

Cooking
a. Gourmonds - "A black badge of smoke and aroma". Affects: Adds 1 to food portions (e.g. If you usually make 1, the badge will add 1 more.
Portions will add more.) Adds 1/4 time on preserve. Stacks with Magic Spatula.
b. Epicure - "A golden badge of a crisscross of fork and spoon". Affects: As above.
c. Treehearth - "A badge of silver chef's hat that has been embedded with a tree". Affects: As above.
d. Shadowfeast - "A white platinum badge of a plate full of food." Affects: As above.

Artisan
a. Wyrmwood - "A wooden badge, partly burnt, shaped as a wyrm". Affects: Allows an extra 25% of furniture in a room. Stacks with a Magic
Pantograph.
b. Seatimber - "A white wooden badge shaped as a boat". Affects: as above.
c. Eboncraft - "A blackened wooden badge, shaped as a chest." Affects: as above.
d. Wildecraft - "A green wooden badge, shaped as a tree". Affects: as above

Bookbinding
a. Goldenquill - "A golden badge shaped into an ink jar". Affects: The badge holds 1 vialful of magic ink. This will remain constant until drained. Takes
1 month to refill. If trademaster owns a Magic Scribe's Quill, the ink can be poured into a vial. (I understand this is pretty poor. Anybody else have
another suggestion?)
b. Crowquill - "A blackened ink jar of obsidian". Affects: As above.
c. Bloodink - "A red copper badge shaped into an ink jar". As above.
d. Stagleaf - "A badge of white ink jar preserved in resin". Affects: As above.

3. Have another type of artifact "Sack of the Trademaster" that is aligned to the specific type of cartel so that every month, like the flowerpot, will randomly
generate commodities suitable for the trade. The number will depend on the trade, e.g. for cooking, there might be a certain number of ingredients of up
to 100. Whilst with forging, there might be up to 20. This will depend on the monetary value of the comms.

EDIT: And yes I know the short names are lame.

I'd love it if it was cartels period.

I hate my forging time. And as a mini-rave, I just won back-to-back trademaster elections against Grench by 1 point (both times).

Yeah trademaster power!!!!

Cartels period?

Since they're serving the city as a whole, why not just eliminate the 5k private design fee for public cartels?

But I do like the idea of cartel artis!

Being a trademaster is only about creating designs and submitting them. I seriously do not see WHY it should be more than that.

If you give being a trademaster extra little bonuses beyond that, people will become public trademasters just for those boosts, effectively keeping people out who actually want to use the position for its intended purpose. Even now a lot of folks just seem to want to be Trademaster for the sake of feeling important and having a sense of position. Don't make the problem worse.

The cost for making designs private is justified in that it is then made unique to that cartel's members. Whether or not you think there is enough value in this to justify the expenditure is up to you. However, if it ends up being an appreciated design that people love, that people would desire to seek out over many others, then I think you will find it to be of far more benefit to you economically than if it was made a public design. And then there's that sense of specialness and appreciation too.

It is far easier to justify spending 5000 gold to make a design public than spending 300-400 credits on a trade artifact - a move which you may not see any returns with at all in 1-2 RL years.

The problem is admittedly worse for those who are trademasters of city/commune cartels, since they might not stay in that city/commune for forever and may eventually sever themselves from the designs they put their own money into. When compared to a private cartel that has a base cost of 1,000,000 gold, however, it looks like a pretty fair trade off.

If the gold is becoming an issue, you NEED to make it an issue for the other members of your cartel as well. If they don't give a damn enough to help you, nor does your city/commune, you should feel justified in simply allowing all your designs made to be public.

Optionally, the 5000 gold could automatically be withdrawn from the city/commune's Trade Ministry funds. Then designing for a public cartel can become more political and patriotic in nature, as it should be.

Mmm...6 trades with custom designing, 2 private designs per year at 5k per...that's 60k per year, potentially. That's a bit much, I feel, even for the city to pay.

The other thing you have to keep in mind is that most of these trades aren't that profitable. A lot of the "value" of the trade comes from simply being able to design, not from the commission and constructing fees. Speaking from the perspective of an artisan, I really don't think my trade is that profitable at all. If I were the head of Seatimber, why would I personally pay 5k gold for a design whose construction I can't control? Alternatively, there's not that much extra incentive for a city to pay for the private designs. Citizens would probably not charge as much commission for fellow citizens requesting a city-wide design, but more importantly, the city will not get any form of recompense for the design usage.

Something that I feel might work is instituting a (coded) "design fee" whenever you use a private design. For instance, say Seatimber has a special design for a pipe. Anytime somebody constructs that pipe, he/she will automatically be charged 100 gold (effectively, gold becomes a comm cost). That gold, in the case of a city, will go back to some sort of account (a newly-created cartel-account, maybe, or the Trade ministry, wherever). If the design is private cartel-based, the cartel owner could set the fee, and, if the item is created, that gold is sent to the default bank account of that cartel. This would, I feel, hard-wire a bit more profit into the different trades, and make it more appealing for people to have private designs from an economic standpoint. It might not necessarily be well-received though...

Especially if you can set your own fees for designs-- set a fee to craft that special item to 5,000,000 gold and it's not likely anyone but the Trademaster will ever do so (ensuring a "private" design).

And if someone does, well... the cartel's set for life.

Well, city cartel fees would be set in advanced by the system: ie 50 for pipes, 2000 for thrones, etc. etc. These would all be hard-coded in, so no way for the cartel master to take advantage of his position in that way.

For other cartels, there should still be a range hard-coded in. For instance, pipes could have a fee of between 0 (if the trademaster is feeling generous, or if the design is already very old, etc.) to 250. Thrones could be 0 to 5000.

Basically, the fee makes it a bit more profitable. That's all. It doesn't have to turn a profit by itself. Most especially, it mitigates the cost of private designs, and gives people an economic incentive to make a design private (if it hasn't been customed-ordered by somebody else).

60K gold a year wouldn't be very hard for a good Trade Ministry that gets properly managed to fund, while still providing extra gold for the city coffers to go into the treasury for redistribution into the power ministry and such (nevermind what the Chancellor's ministry can produce). If worse comes to worse, the Trade Ministry itself might request donations from citizens for help. These are designs for community based cartels, for community based tradesfolk. Commodities really don't have a ton of uses for all the gold they build up - I don't see why this would be such a problem.

And unless you get really lucky with a few creative people, you will not be seeing 2 private designs being submitted by every cartel every year. I more than doubled the number of available recipes for the Epicure cartel over my course in office as its Trademaster, and I ended up expending a lot of effort, thought, and energy into it (not to mention a ton of my own gold!), and I didn't even come close to having two designs up a year.

People who find they love designing that much tend to go get their own cartels because they find it to be worthwhile.



This is a result of Good Samaritan Syndrome, where people who refuse to charge over a certain price for the sake of keeping things cheap and accessible end up spoiling the profitability of a trade for everyone.

I know because I used to be someone who suffered from GSS, and to a certain extent I still do. I inherited it from the last person who held most of the food selling market in Celest - it's highly contagious and difficult to live down. If you dominate a good portion of a market, it's really your responsibility to set the standard for everyone else until they can edge into more of your market share. It's why I'm slowly allowing prices to rise in my shops over time: it's just unfair to have such a strong hold on the market.

If this gets instated, your profitability won't improve unless you organize with other tradesfolk of your trade and agree to sell at certain prices. This money won't go to the average joe trader, or even necessarily to the trademaster. This supports a cartel system that assumes the trademaster alone is putting all the effort into creating new designs, and not necessarily taking lots of input from cartel members and acting as more of a final judge for acceptability of a design for the Charites. I'd rather that not get more enforced mechanically than it already is.

For a public cartel, the trademaster can only use the gold to submit more private designs. Thus, helps the city again. No personal benefit for the trademaster, but at the same time, no 5k gold cost for a private design!

Private cartel: by joining a private cartel, you're essentially subjecting yourself to the will of the trademaster. If he wants to take the fees and use it for himself, fine, but then he has to find the source of gold for more private designs. If he, instead, decides to keep it in the cartel account for future designs, fine, that's what'll happen.

In terms of profitability, it'll help in this way: I think that giving people an excuse to charge the design fee, it'll reduce exactly what you described as Good Samaritan Syndrome. Hopefully, people might think "Oh, I'm charging him 50 gold for this pipe, I'll just charge 50 more for myself!"

In regards to your comment that it'll support the system where the trademaster is putting all the effort into creating new designs: a) for how many cartels is this true already? I imagine quite a few, and there's no system like this one to encourage it right now; with the system, people can still contribute, help make private designs, and strengthen the cartel as a whole.

But, I can see your point. I guess the question comes down to, what's the point of a non-city owned cartel that invites a lot of people (ie Richter's trade cartels)? How many of these kinds of cartels exist? Do they make money? Have they stagnated (as I think Clockwork Craftwork has)?

fees for using a design are bad for forgers. Everybody else it would probably work well for.

We already have clan dues in existence for this, however. And it has proven to be pretty unsuccessful. Since there's no equivalent for a community based cartel, however, I can see how the argument might fit better there.


Hopefully, being the key word. There's already some people out there who are willing to sell their bloody products for less than the commodity cost. A hard coded price hike probably will not change how these people act moreso than actual player interaction and intervention.



Managing and maintaining private cartels is difficult, and at the bottom line, it all depends on the Trademaster/owner's objectives. If you're making a private cartel, chances are it has more to do with a sense of accomplishment and ego in seeing so many of your designs taking precedence in the economy than a genuine advantage. I can't speak for very many private owners, but on my own part profitability isn't a huge factor. I'm not interested in trying to use my trade to rack up gold for credits - I just want more gold to make more designs so my cartel grows bigger, and have control over who can and can't access my designs.

If a private cartel doesn't function under that premise, it will need a lot more focus and organization. Private cartels for profit NEED to be run like actual organizations. Richter's trade cartels charge dues and such, but enforcement is non-existent, so there's no real difference between the two.

I think private cartels are fine right now, with how yearly dues work. The problem would be with public cartels, which don't have the same mechanic in place for them to employ. And with community cartel membership being required, I can't see it functioning identically without problems.

I guess I'm trying to figure out if there's an effective way to accomplish this without more hard coding. There's so many other things that really need true hard coding attention right now.

I slightly disagree with the arguement that Fionn put forward that people will only want to be Trademaster for the artifact. It will certainly be a very attractive incentive, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that if a Trademaster or a member other than him/her/it establishes a reputation of being active, interested, contributive, and generally decent at designing you should be the Trademaster, or elected Trademaster if the present one isn't living up to the expectations of the other members, then he/she/it should be replaced.

I think that Trademaster artifacts would definitely spark a new interest in the position, maybe get people into the positions who ACTUALLY want to be there. Of course, that gets all f d up by backstabbing politics and bloated egos, but I'd say it's worth a shot.


And I really like the ideas for the artifacts, Arin! I can tell you put some major thought into this.

Thanks... but credit to where credit's due. I just copied the affects from the Misc Artifacts help file. It's not as good as a paid artifact, but about half of it. I tried to add affects as not to affect the market too much but to give the trademaster some benefit of being a trademaster.

I know 5k gold isn't too much, if one is resourceful one can earn this back at the maximum of 1 RL day. However, it is the point that the post of a public trademaster is nothing more than a glorified tradesperson and it would be nice for that one person who looks after the public cartel, submits the designs and ratifies all the designs with the Charites to have something in return.

Besides, remember 90 - 99% of the cartel don't give a crap about what designs are going in and what designs are coming out. If so, why should they contribute that 5k for private submissions?

All the same, I do have to say that the ideas for the artifacts are appropriate. Even if they're 'copied' they still prove that you put thought into it.

Also, I'm hope I'm part of that 1% of the people you're talking about who actually "give a crap." I'm attempting to sketch some designs, but it's finals week, so... yeah. I have a full table

5k is one honours quest, one full scholar, pilgrim, bard, and cow run, or about 75 minutes in the Undervault.

Becoming trademaster of a state cartel is the cheapest way to become trademaster.

No thank you.

The other possibility is that the benefit received from the artifact could be related to the number of submissions made in the last period.

If you aren't actively getting designs through then you wouldn't benefit from it where as trademasters who are doing their job would.

Could recalling be returned as 'REJECT' instead of 'WIP'? When a Charite asks if I'd rather have my design rejected or recalled, I always say rejected, simply cause recalling a design for a private design resets it to WIP and means that it'll cost another freaking 5k (that's a credit gents) to resubmit as private.

So please. I sometimes WANT to recall a design, cause I noticed an error, or I put a greatrobe examined in a ring design, and most of the time I just wait for a rejection instead.

It'll save time, and gold, for both Charites and Trademasters.