Since this is a large topic for the moo, and I don't know what I'm doing for it yet, this has its own page and one in which I ramble.
The moo will start with the King's Coins, I may put in the local Kiad coinage later on, but not yet.
Each player will probably start with 2-4 copper marks, which is the equalivant of $80-$160 US dollars. I may up this but I haven't decided.
I also haven't decided what equipment a player starts with, whether its nothing and they have to buy clothes to start with, or with just simple clothing of their pick. I guess it'll depend on the players, I may offer several standard outfits and the player picks one depending on their taste.
Players will need to buy food, equipment and clothing. I'll probably have the clothing wear out after 30 or more uses or soemthing, driving the economy for the tailors.
Each guild master will have to keep his guild profitable. I think I'll use the example of the tailors guild from here because that's the one I've thought about the most.
Each item a guild makes, like a dress costs in material and labour. Lets say that a dress takes 3 yards of wool and half a spool of thread and takes 24 hours for an apprentice to make. The guild would have to buy the cloth and thread and pay the apprentice for his time. Of course the more experience a person is the faster the object will be done, with less wastage, but the hourly rate is higher.
Whenever a player wants to buy a dress or something, they could buy it off the shelf and have a guild member adjust it or have a custom made dress. This of course takes time, all these time units would be given to the master and then give the assignments out the the members. It would be assumed that each member puts in 40 hours of work on his assignments ICly, whether they RP this or not is up to them. But if a player is told that he has to make a shirt then he can rp around that as he chooses.
The clothing racks will be set up so that there will be a demostration of the clothing, but not necessarily if the clothing is in stock. If they wish to buy an out of stock item then they pay for it and when the members put in the time needed, the members would be given their assignments and allowed to pick which of their 40 hours to put into each, when the item is created and the hours put in the buyer will be given a message that they can come in for adjustments.
The tailors would have to buy the cloth from the weavers, as well as the thread. Maybe the thread would come from the farmers as they spin it, but that'll be figured out for the craft, and the needles would be bought from the blacksmiths. Of course all the cloth bought would have to be made by Weaver Guild members and if that takes a week to make the cloth for a dress, then the Tailor's guild can't start on it for a week. If they don't have any needles then they can't sew.
By this I hope to make the guilds dependent on each other, I'll have to make some stubs for the raw materials, like iron ore for the smiths, thread for the weavers and tailors, just something that will take time for the stuff to come in. This is all a help to RP, because it'll help reflect supply and demand.
As for the players themselves, they have to work as Guild members, guards or something else to earn a wage or commissions so they can buy goods to replace what they have. Of course this work can all be done off camera, but it'll give each character something to focus on so that they have something to generate RP from.
The wages paid to the members of a guild would be determined by the guild hall master. What projects they are assigned to as well. How many IC hours a player puts into a task is up to the player, but they'll have 40 hours to put into the assignments, and that'll be determined by how they want to do it. They don't have to RP actually doing it, just getting the hours assigned.
If a guild member doesn't log in, then the assignments given to them will all be given equal measure, or if set to a higher priority then those jobs get done first. I guess we'll have to work these things out.
I'll also have to have food being bought and things like that. The food sellers will probably be one of the code stubs that hand out the food as needed.
The money and economy is just there to help generate RP, the players do not have to go with it, but it gives a strong foundation of what to rp around. If a tailer knows he has to make a shirt then if nothing else is up, or if there's more tailors around they could be sitting in the work room chatting as they work.