Gift Economy
A downloadable game
The future is here and it is evenly distributed!
Our wealth is used for the good of all people.
Everyone is fed; everyone is housed.
People pursue their own weird interests.
They volunteer at vital public services.
They create and enjoy art.
They spend time with their friends.
Now, a new economy has arisen:
Gift Economy.
by Krystan Pawlikowski
In this game a group of players develops a community of personalities and locations. Each player invents and controls a character. Players use their character's interests and skills to give gifts to the community and impact of those gifts are tracked. Then things change through complications and the gift economy responds.
An RPG that attempts to allow players to experience an awesome alternative to capitalism.
This game could be played solo if you were willing to take on the perspectives and voices of multiple members of the community.
When printing out the BOOKLET format remember to chose double-sided with short-edge flip.
Download
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Development log
- Gift Economy - UpdateOct 16, 2023
- Gift Economy - released!Jun 10, 2023
Comments
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Hey, thanks for the game!!
Just tried it with my friends a week ago, and it was a blast! We had a lot of fun inventing our characters and locations, and then conceiving gifts to each other. At some point, it all became very weird and surreal, but that only added to the fun of it :)
As a minor complaint, I felt like some of the descriptions were too excessive, and since we were playing in a big company, many details that people came up with for their locations or characters were just forgotten due to the sheer amount of information.
Nevertheless, the resulting experience was a memorable and pleasant one. It was nice to feel like a part of a diverse community of freaks and weirdos, who are, nevertheless, all very nice to each other and are eager to help and make each other's lives better.
Thanks for this feedback!
I'm excited to hear that there your group was able to generate an interesting world to interact with and have fun in.
I would be interested to hear what limitations you feel might be helpful. OR if there is a prompt that I could include to advise players, about what sort of information to write down so that these details are more obvious and that people fell their creative offerings are not being overlooked.
Thanks again.
I felt like having to come up with both a local personality for the location and a player character was a bit excessive. My players got confused as to what character is actually "their", and the excess of named characters all with their characteristics and quirks made it hard to remember who's who. So I would suggest cutting "local personality" and leaving only the player character.
And that's pretty much it, honestly. I think this change could help the game get rid of some unnecessary complexity.
Wonderfully specific, thanks for sharing and reflecting upon your experience.
I will try to incorporate this as advice for larger groups, and also as a variant for play.