Check this out.
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I'm the sort of fellow who likes to throw the ball over the wall and then figure out how the wall's climbed. I don't have any pages for any of the above links, but of course the concepts all exist in the real world, so it's a matter of applying those concepts to the D&D world. All of these things existed in the 17th century. Nearly all of them were present in the 13th. Most of them are totally ignored where D&D is concerned. Gygax's understanding of medieval economics has served me well for many years, but it's time to throw out those crutches and examine the higher concepts of gaming.
One thing I like about D&D is that I'm not limited to the game maker's perception of how an object or a social practice functions. Unlike a video game, where the local inn operates in very specific ways, enabling me to rest before returning to the game's rigid programming, I can take a D&D inn all apart and examine every facet of a truly functional inn from every angle. There's no game rule that exists saying I can't buy an inn, run it, supply it with liquor, use it as a cover for illicit political activities (a la The Tale of Two Cities) and as much else as I conceive. It's only blind, unwritten convention that constrains me from breaking free of the frigid game's non-evolution.
Who knows what games might sprout from ideas like accepting state contracts or investing my money in war bonds to support my country of choice? Only my imagination.
I hear D&D is a game of imagination.
