Troll Lord Games

Besides things like Monopoly of course.

I tutor Taiwanese kids with C&C (and various other exercises) and they love it. I originally wanted to develop a systematic curriculum around something like C&C, but because of the forthcoming C&C Basic I waiting a bit. Plus I found the kids don't really need to use the books to play.

After watching the Apprentice, and tutoring some of my professional students, I'm starting to wonder if a business RPG may also be effective. RPGs develop communication, decision making, vocabulary, critical thinking, and teamwork skills. Most of my professional students already have these skills in a Chinese context, but need work with these skills in English. Does anyone know of a codified business RPG? Something could be derived from the d20SRD/Seige Engine with some adaption I would think.
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Its not an RPG per se, but SPI's _After the Holocost_ is a good presentation of economics and the need to balance budgets, resources and labor to achieve prosperity. Its theoretically set after a nuclear war and four sections of the USA are trying to rebuild themselves and eventually inherit the mantle as the successor to the USA. This game was published in 1982 or so, but is still a good reproduction of the dilemmas in such a situation.

Conflict is possible between military forces, but this part of the game is really de-emphasized and in fact an overobsession with building military forces can wreck the rest of the economy (Soviet Union, anyone?).
Noble Knight Games has a copy at their website; its a bit pricey but then $50-$75 for a bookcase game with bardback playing boards and lots of extras is probably comparable to a similar game today.
http://www.nobleknight.com/
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Always remember, as a first principle of all D&D: playing BtB is not now, never was and never will be old school.- Tim Kask, Dragonsfoot

the game torg by west end games has a world setting called nippon tech which is japan and high enterprise, and has some rather in-depth rules for business and ethics. also, any cyberpunk game like cyberpunk or shadowrun can easily be used as a core business game. however, if you're looking for something that is, specifically, a corporate rpg (ie, you play a secretary or vice president,) i am unaware of it but would imagine it would be easier to just assign "homework" like the professionals do, and require it in technical writing format. in triplicate.
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the voynich manuscript is a mysterious illustrated book written in an indecipherable text. it is thought to have been written between 1450 and 1520. the author, script and language of the manuscript remain unknown.

Hmmm, the Torg supplement is on RPGNOW for $3 as well as a free pack of intro rules. Looks like I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the feedback, I was thinking how this game could be played. It could have some kind of actual homework or work component to build real life skills (which has merit), or a simulation game where language and conversation is more important. My aim is tutoring English, so I suppose the later.

Cheers
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Doh! I bought a novel not the rules supplement... There's no legal pdf of it available... GRRRRR... Ethics out the window...
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This may be a bit out of left field, but you might try the Cyberpunk supplement Greenwar by R. Talsorian. In the adventure the PC's goal was to manipulate the stock price of a company that their employer was attempting to buy out through a hostile takeover. The PC's had to conceive of strategies that would hurt the business without significantly damaging its assets, while the GM would then determine the range of their success by revealing what the new stock value would be.
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If you are interested in retrofitting a fantasy game, you could run a mercantile-type campaign around trading. There are very detailed rules in the old BECMI D&D Gazetteers for the Minrothad Guilds and Republic of Darokin.

Traveller and d6 Star Wars also had some usable campaign ideas. The old d6 supplement "Tramp Freighters" had some basic trading rules and emphasized getting a broken or indebted ship, and designing trading adventures around it. I think the old black box traveller supplement "The Traveller Adventure" similarly revolved around a tramp freighter itinerant merchant type of campaign.

And, there's always Papers and Paychecks. Or you could get the old Dark Conspiracy rulebook and have the players play megacorps.
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Fantasy Roleplaying Supplements for Basic, Expert, and Advanced games, free for download or print-on-demand and available now! http://www.barrataria.com/

Thanks for all the feedback! My idea is to run some sort of heavily modded d20 game using Siege Engine mechanics plus skill ranks. There will be little need for Str and Dex but with a few more social and mental attributes (Con may be needed for booze and cocaine checks). Players can have skills in different kinds of business functions such as accounting, finance, marketing, operations, blah blah blah. I think this could be pretty interesting.

I am Bob, an 8th level CPA accountant with the forensic accountant prestige kit.

My names James Masters JD with an MBA in strategy. I specialize in negating the death tax.

lol
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Oh yeah, I may as well make this official and on the record if you will.

MBA the RPG, copyright 2008 by John-Calvin Smith, TM too if I can
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Try Papers and Paychecks. "It's a great new fantasy role-playing game. You pretend you're workers and students in an industrialized and technological society."

Sorry, couldn't resist.