I was a big fan of the old stock ticker game and I was wondering if I could make a better but still simple stock ticker game that could be sold for cheap as print and play. The objective was to remove solve bugs and reduce the effect of randomness so that players can plan ahead and have a strategy. Simulation of a real stock market is not the goal.
So far, I intend to use the settlers of catan numbers. There will be 5 shares when each share has a value from 2 to 12 (except 7) which determine if which stock goes up or down. The after a certain moment, probably when rolling 7, these values can changes. You draw a card containing the next values. Value combination will either make a stock: stable (low odds on both side), raising ( good odds to raise), dropping (good odds to drop) or unstable (good odds on both sides)
Dividends will get paid on regular basis (ex every turn every 2-3 turns). Dividends will now pay relatively to the stock value.
Then to add a bit of spice, I tought that players could try to influence the stock market by placing cards on the stock. At the beginning, I thought that players could place cards with +1,2,3 or - 1,2,3 values to influence the stock they want. There could also be x2 and +/- cards to change these numbers. Then either on a roll of seven, they all get resolved or the card on the top of the stack get's resolved.
I would probably make the game compatible with regular cards and monopoly money since it's print and play.
What do you think?
In the original stock ticker game, all player start with 5000 shares. Then the dices makes the values goes up and down and score dividend. Dividends is what makes money entrer the game. Of course you can sell when it's high, but with the original rules, since all stock have the same odd to raise and drop, the shares tend to say in an average of 1$.
As an homemade rule, we made dividend pay AND raise the share so that you now have 2/3 chance that a stock raise. So everybody is always making more money.
In my game, I also have this 0 point average where the up and down will always makes the share have an average point . But I still hope it will be interesting. Influence cards will allow to have quick changes which we not in the original game. I don't think players will pay to play influence cards because that would mean removing money from the game and I don't want that since there is so few entering the game.
The settlers of catan number change the odd to increase and drop the value of the share. Put I pushed the concept even more by saying that the highest number in the roll is the amount the share increase or drop. So for example, 2 and 12 have the same odds to happen, but rolling 12 will make the share move by 6 ( since it can only be obtained by rolling 6-6) and while 2 will make it move by 1. So high numbers will not give that same behavior than low numbers even if they have the same odds.
Since numbers will take more time to analyse, I rather makes these number stay for a while. So rolling 7 will trigger placed influence cards and when the deck runs out, the number will changes. So influence cards are like time bombs.
Right now, I want to be able to balance the game with the number of players. In the original game, you can only buy/sell on your turn. Which mean that if you were fewer players, you had more opportunities to react to the market change than if you were 6 or 8 players. It will also mean that if you are fewer players, you will be able to play more influence cards, so you will have more control over the market.