Player importance: Can it be done? (RP related)

[frankpetrov]

First off, this is about RP gamemodes so if you don't like them, please kindly leave now.
I was jotting some stuff down yesterday about thinking of player importance. How can you really make the player important? It's a factor that is greatly needed and it seems simple to the mind but when you start adding things together, it also seems quite difficult. I was thinking about items in a server. On most they are just randomly created by the server. But where do they come from. Why not make players the source. As you can see here there are many outcomes of this. but the biggest issue I find with it is that what if players just make what they need and collect what resources they need? Well then they don't have to go to another player to get the item... That eliminates the importance.

So does anyone else have any ideas of something that could be done?
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/NUDHtep.jpg[/IMG]

[DeathByKittens]

So players would be made important by an economy? That makes sense, since any choice can create a butterfly effect.

Have players harvest resources, with a skill system and perhaps even machinery/tools meaning that players can capitalise on certain resources and provide them to those who haven't the time and/or means to collect the resource themselves. Then you build up secondary and tertiary industries from there.

[Joey Skylynx]

The issue is that players will always try to simply make "What I need" or "What I want" the only way to counter this is by doing something similar to Winter Survival, where you learn recipes by experimenting.
One thing you cannot do with this system is have any form of NPCs or F2 "Manufacture" buttons. Everything must be harvested by the players, refined by the players, and produced by the players.
As mentioned by DeathByKittens, this creates a system which follows the Butterfly Effect, or simply a system where the players could drastically alter the course of evens for the entire server.

[meanwhile]

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;40215961]The issue is that players will always try to simply make "What I need" or "What I want" the only way to counter this is by doing something similar to Winter Survival, where you learn recipes by experimenting.
One thing you cannot do with this system is have any form of NPCs or F2 "Manufacture" buttons. Everything must be harvested by the players, refined by the players, and produced by the players.
As mentioned by DeathByKittens, this creates a system which follows the Butterfly Effect, or simply a system where the players could drastically alter the course of evens for the entire server.[/QUOTE]

Now that'd be a system I'd like to see in GMStranded.