Market Day

It's an interesting concept: Market Day. In our game (at least for now) this occurs once a week near the old army base out by Tango Lake. Neutral territory since no tribe has staked out the place. It's a good-sized lake surrounded by reasonably flat meadow and then ringed by trees. Easy to get into. Easy to watch your back. And pleasant enough now that it's spring.

Market Day's important. It brings everyone together for a purpose: Trade. In our post-apocalyptic world, resources aren't what they used to be. You can't go to the local grocer for a couple of cans of soup. You can't step into the drugstore for aspirin or lipstick. There's no gas station/convenience store on the corner where you can grab a pack of cigarettes or a 12-pack of beer. There's not even a department store where you can find the latest styles ... in our world, style is kinda what you make of it at the moment, I guess.

In "The Tribe," they tried a couple of different variations on this theme. In Season-1 the tribes got together once on the seashore to trade, hold some friendly competitions, buy slaves 'n generally boost tribal reputations by displaying how prosperous they were & what they had to offer.

The next variation came at the Mallrats' mall. They opened it to traders but Lex & Co. oversaw the activities to make sure things stayed fair 'n square. (Lex found a way to get his piece of the action too, as usual.) They even tried to invent money to give everybody an even playing field. In the end, it didn't really work. You didn't see much of trading or bartering after maybe early Season-3.

But the concept of trading has stayed strong in KTDARPG. Sometimes it's extravagant like with an official "Market Day." Sometimes it's more focused like with Tom-F's shops & stores. Sometimes it's just enterprising kids on the street corner hawking what they've hoarded or been lucky enough to find.

You still can't find frozen foods. There isn't much of the tinned stuff left. Gasoline & a lot of other synthesized fuels are pretty much gone. But our people still need resources ... and our players remain resourceful enough to play true to game-conditions and still make sure we have what we need.

-Chyna

Photo source: copyright Cloud-9 "The Tribe"