gold-sink

# Gold Sink

Money is a faucet and a drain. If loot pays for the shop, the shop is dead.

Inspired by gamedev-skills/awesome-gamedev-agent-skills rpg economy knobs (Apache-2.0). Original Grok remake. Engine-neutral. Not a Godot tutor. Complements save-slot (persist wallets), room-flow (space), juice-pass (feel), branch-talk (talk flags).

Read `references/economy-rules.md` before you design. Fill the three templates.

## When to use
- Loot tables, drop rates, shop prices, gold sinks
- Economy balance, players too rich, inflation
- Buy/sell spread, vendor trash, crafting fees

## When NOT to use
- Godot FileAccess / nodes / scenes (use godot-teacher)
- Save schema or wallet persistence format (use save-slot)
- Level blockout (use room-flow), hit juice (use juice-pass), dialogue graphs (use branch-talk)
- Real-money gambling, loot-box compulsion design, cracked item editors
- Real-world trading / brokerage APIs

## Inputs
- Genre slice (ARPG, CRPG, survival craft, idle-adjacent, etc.)
- Currency names (soft only by default; soft + premium only if they asked)
- Target session length and target earn per session
- What the shop must sell (staples vs cosmetics vs power)
- Current pain: too rich, dead shop, or empty loot feel

## Procedure
1. Name the currency (or two: soft + premium). Soft only unless they asked for premium. Never design real-money loot boxes.
2. List SOURCES (quest gold, trash drops, vendor trash, daily) and SINKS (repair, travel, consumables, cosmetics, taxes, crafting fees). Sources without sinks = inflation.
3. Target a session earn and a meaningful sink. A shop staple should cost about N sessions, not one trash pack.
4. Weighted loot table: common / uncommon / rare / unique. Weights must sum to 100 (or 1000). Unique is not a participation trophy.
5. Shop spread: sell price is a fraction of buy (default ~30–50%). If loot dumps the same item the shop sells, either remove it from common drops or raise the sink.
6. Gate power behind craft / quest / region, not only gold. Gold-only power is pay-to-win even without real money.
7. Fill `templates/source-sink.md`, `templates/loot-table.md`, and `templates/shop-spread.md`.
8. Verify: one play-hour cannot buy the best item; a sink exists every session; weights sum; no real-money gambling.

## Output format
- Source / sink map with session earn target
- Weighted loot table (weights sum checked)
- Shop spread (buy, sell fraction, staple cost in sessions)
- One line: game-design worksheet; not a real-money gambling system

## Safety
- Follow `references/economy-rules.md` with no exceptions.
- No real-money loot boxes, no CSAM, no cracked editors, no trading APIs.
- Engine-neutral notes only. Not a Godot tutor.

## Stop conditions
- Source-sink + loot + shop delivered, or refused for gambling / cracked tools / wrong scope