Middleman

Middleman

Designer: Eric Solomon
Type: Pen and Paper
Status: Free
BGG entry: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2967
Available from: http://www.sholing.force9.co.uk/middlema.htm

There are a lot of games which simulate market demand and supply, but this is the only one I know of that achieves this in a way that will satisfy paper & pencil purists. Middleman's designer Eric Solomon wrote in Games With Pencil And Paper:

Since dice are not acceptable in true pencil-and-paper games the market figures are decided by adding together numbers privately chosen by the players at the start of the game.

An interesting feature of this is that a certain amount of prediction is possible on the basis of the order of the numbers (the digits 0 to 9 can be used once each) you have selected and those revealed so far by your opponents. This opens the way for skillful players to recognise which rounds provide buyer's markets and which provide seller's markets, and trade accordingly.

Players take the part of traders dealing in tins of some worthy commodity, say tuna. Each starts with a fixed sum of money and then buys and sells tins of the product with the object of ending the game with more money than his or her competitors.