Roleplay Professions

I'm trying to design a game that incorporates professions.. For example: Farming, Mining,Fishing, Metalsmith, Jeweler and so forth.. But I'm at a loss as how to do it.. I have a list of Goods and it's price per unit of goods.. But for example how do I do farming? How much land is owned, how much crop can be gathered, weather conditions.. I can figure out a system for it.. any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is this for a tabletop game? or a writing game? How shall the economy effect the 'plot' you are creating, or are you just trying to create a base-system?

It's for a tabletop rpg I'm designing.. It's historical and I'm trying to base it on what life was like during this certain era.

Which Era/Place? That would certainly effect the types of professions/rates of production. I'm not very good at crunching numbers for tabletop, but I am a history geek and if it is an era I know about, maybe I can help you with the concept end of it as to how the economy worked.

I'm basing my Game during the Bronze Age in the Sumerian area..

I'm planning on having 2 Character sheets. 1 is of the actual character and the second is for the characters "profession"
The different professions will be like: Farming, Livestock, Mining, Metalsmith, carpenter, weapon smith.. and so on.
The profession is the business half of a characters life.. I'm trying to find a system that shows the how well or bad their business is doing. Bad weather, Limited supplies, quality, Theives, Slave care, How much product is gathered/made per person working.
If you can help me by using a percentile based system.. It would greatly be appreciated.

Interesting, That is an era I don't know much about.

Hmm... This is just my brainstorm for numbers... the numbers should be tweaked for economic purposes. Warning, I'm not typically a number-cruncher. Also not sure what kind of dice you wanna use. ^^;;

Lets say that business success can be equated to $$moneymoney$$

Experience and skill level could be the 'base stat' for all professions.

For crafts-persons (not sure if this is appropriate to your era or not, but skill level is always a factor in quality of works produced) Apprentice/Intern (making zero or negative dollars) Novice (breaking even) Journeyman (in the green but still learning) Master (making much more money by owning their own property/workshop also collecting money from work done by journeymen and apprentices under them), and super-master (their work is highly expensive and sought-after, may own several workshops)

So you can perhaps set that 'base' as a numerical stat, that equates to a base income per week (or year... or month or whatever you would like). Players can can use XP to 'level up' their professional status (for IG realism, they may represent the 'level up' by spending IG cash for better equipment, buying a shop, etc. The IG cost of the 'promotion' can increase with the level)

0 (apprentice) = $0 (per week)
1 (novice) = $10 (or whatever Sumerian money system ye may be using.)
2 = $20
3 (reaches journeyman status) = $50
4 = $100
5 = $400
6 = $800
7 (Master status) = $1000
8 = $10,000
9 =$100,000
10 = Super master! =$100000000000000000000000000000000000000000 +++

(note: I think it would be best to establish your min/max. Say you are using a D20 for your character building, make 20 epically rich (and decide how far that gets you ig) and 1 epically poor, then you can figure out how to fill in the middle. Even with d20 you can still make the increase exponential if your world has a large wealth-gap, or use a D100 for everything... @.@ does that make sense? lol)

I suppose for farmers and merchants you can find similar 'levels'. Farmers start as a farm hand, plowers, planter, overseer, harvester owner... To establish a 'level' You just got to decide how much everyone gets paid.

After you establish your base you can move on to random factors. You can treat these like bonuses and demerits.

To make things simple you can assume that the base-stat is around average conditions: Average expected weather, average amount of thieving, average worker laziness etc. Then each player has an equal risk of unusual bonuses and demerits that are either based around the plot, or just you rolling the dice, or whatever. We can also make the ethnocentric assumption that in the past the smaller cities and economies were more interdependent i.e. bad weather affected everyone's business not just farmers, because now everyone's food was messed up, therefore, everyone is less productive. (you can make certain bonuses or demerits affect certain 'classes' more directly if you would like)

Examples of bonuses:
You hired someone awesome! + 2 (translates IG to +$20)
Good crop yield (+5)
Awesome crop yield (+10)
Epic awesome yield (+1111100010100101)

Example of Demerits:
You hired someone awful! (-2) (translates IG to -$20)
Drought! (-10 and -15 for farmer professions)
Bandits on the loose! (-3)

(before I continue...) does this make sense? Or is anything like you are thinking or would work?

Money is already a number, it is not like other RP stats that are trying to describe abstract and physical non-numerical qualities. I think your idea will translate very well to dice.

Yes this is helpful..

... did you figure out anything else?

I need some tim to develop what we have so far.. I still need to figure like I said as a farmer..
How much a certain plot of land produce for food? a Miner and his chances of finding precious stones and metals.. A Fisherman and his catch for the day.. and so on.

Farming It depends on what kind of crop they are growing and for fishermen it also depends on what they are catching.

Fishing 'yield' varies form day to day, but, even these things 'average out' at the end of the year, fish swim and spawn in predictable patterns... etc...

That is why I suggested determining the 'average cash' first, then calculate variation. I feel like it is a much easier way to do the math and make sure there is a fair baseline for each player. Find the number first and then justify it IG.

Mayhap the 'levels' can also indicate how much land is owned, or how many boats a fisherman controls.

Well... I'm looking through my History books to help me with the "Economy". I'm hoping this one book I got will tell me a little bit of how much things cost back then. Then I can make a chart about how much things cost according to their amount. i.e. A Fish catch that collects say 5 pounds (Pure hypothetical) costs so much in shekles.