Are questions about economics and game design, as they relate to roleplaying, on-topic here?

Question

I've already asked a couple of fairly well-received questions about LARP here. My system has recently asked me to start helping out in a somewhat more official capacity. My role isn't fully defined yet, but I'm thinking about the places I could go for help and advice if I need it.

I imagine that a significant part of my role will involve some pretty hefty number crunching. I'll have a hand in the game's economy and crafting system, so I'll need to think about how "valuable" having access to various LARP-specific mechanics would be to a player. I also anticipate that I'll need to think about how best to a make-believe micro-economy.

On the one hand, questions about balancing game mechanics are probably more on-topic at gamedev, and questions about modelling how resources flow through an economy are probably more on-topic at maths or stats. On the other hand, LARPs are predominantly about roleplay, and the people on the RPG stack exchange will likely have more insightful answers about exactly how LARP specific mechanics might balance against others, and how players will react to various incentive structures.

Should questions about economics and game design, as they relate to LARP, be asked here or elsewhere?

Answer 1

Our rule of thumb for this is found in the help center's What topics can I ask about here? page:

Questions about a general real-world topic such as history, geography or economics, whilst relevant to RPGs, may be off topic if they are not RPG-centric (or better belong on another Stack Exchange site, such as History). A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself:

Would an RPG expert give me a better/different/more specific answer to this question than a Historian, Geographer, etc?

If yes, then feel free to ask it here.

^{(If you're interested in context, this came from the meta discussion Are campaign research questions on topic, part two? where I suggested it based on the rule of thumb Game Dev adopted for a similar struggle.)}

Ask yourself that rule of thumb. We're a community of RPG and LARP experts here to share our expertise on playing and designing those games, and we're here to share that expertise.

The fact your question is tied into considerations of LARP design sound like it passes that rule of thumb. You'll have experts on LARP sharing their experience, and there's the potential for frame challenges such as “don't do it that way, it doesn't work, do it this way instead.”

It's difficult to judge the topicality of theoretical questions, so the best way to find out whether it's on topic here is to ask it.