Before I begin, I have to say I don't know much about the current status of the mechanics I'm going to talk about. So maybe some of the stuff I'm going to suggest is already in the game. If that's the case, then great!
Also, I'm running solely on my own logic here, so there will probably flaws. But I hope I can get the gist of it across.
Alright, so. Right now, it feels like the way whores make money is weird. It seems to me that a guy comes in, picks a girl, does his business, and then pays an arbitrary amount of money (or doesn't pay). Well, it's not arbitrary per se, but you don't really get to influence it. Plus the "average pay per customer" stat kind of implies that the customer pays what he thinks the girl was worth, which is a nutty way to run a brothel.
Here's a step-by-step description of a system that'd make sense to me. It's probably not the only good one (if it's even a good one at all) but it's my thought anyway.
1.
The client comes in, and sees the girls. He picks one, and chooses what he wants to do with her (normal sex, anal, BDSM, that sort of thing). He's then given a price.
2.
The client decides if he wants to pay that price according to several factors:
-If he has enough money on him to pay. (And if he doesn't, is he willing to lie about it?)
-If the girl's hot enough.
-If the girl has fetish traits he likes.
-If the girl has fetish traits he dislikes.
-If he's horny enough. (I don't know if a customer has a libido stat, but it could be used to determine if he's horny enough to lower his standards to pay for a girl he normally wouldn't want.)
-If the girl is famous.
-If he's had a good time with that specific girl before.
-If the brothel has a good reputation for customer satisfaction.
-The girl's skills shouldn't actually matter at this point, since the customer doesn't know how good the girl is until he actually does her. There should be word of mouth but that goes into fame.
3.
If the customer agrees to the price, he gets to do his business with the girl, and the process continues to 4. If he says no, he can either pick another girl or another act and get a new price to decide on (back to 1), or he can just leave.
4.
When the deed is done, the customer decides if he's had his money's worth. That's where the sex skills come in. If he's had a lot for his money, your customer satisfaction rating and your fame are increased, and he might even be inclined to tip the girl extra. If he feels he was ripped off, satisfaction decreases, and that's where he might turn violent, beating up the girl and confronting the guards.
So that's the process in a nutshell, but there's one element that I haven't mentioned yet. I'd like to be able to adjust the price, per girl, per type of service. All girls would have default prices of course, like they have now, because otherwise it would get very fiddly very fast, but I would like to be able to change them individually if I care to. Maybe by adjusting a percentage of the base, maybe by outright typing in a number.
Why?
First reason:
Let's say I have a girl with 5% normal sex skill and 80% BDSM skill. If a guy comes in and wants do her regular-style, I know he's probably not going to have a great time, so maybe I'll give him a discount. It won't be the best sex of his life but if anyone ever asks him how it went, he'll say "it wasn't great, but the price was right". But if another guy comes in and wants to do a BDSM session with her, I know he'll have a great time and I know I can charge him an arm and a leg for it. So I'll set her normal sex rate to 15 gold, and her BDSM rate to 125 gold, and everyone's having a good time.
But the way things are now, if she's got, say, a 60 gold flat rate, I have two problems. The guy who just wants her pussy will have paid too much and he'll leave angry, and the guy who wants to tie her up and whip her won't have given me as much money as he might have. I have no control over anything and their satisfaction is out of my hands. If (customer's satisfaction = girl's skill - girl's price), I'd like to control the price.
Second reason:
If I can change prices, strategic options open to me. If I underprice my girls, customers get more for their money, and my fame and customer satisfaction increase. Eventually I can increase my prices, once my name is established and I have a good customer base. If I overprice my girls, I'll take a hit to customer satisfaction, but I'll make a lot of money for a few turns, until people catch on and word of mouth spreads. Then I can turn around and use some of that money on advertisement to counter the negative publicity.
Third reason:
Coupled with the customer decision system above, the looks % stops becoming the be-all-end-all value for a girl.
If I have a girl with 25% looks and 100% to all sex skills, she might have a hard time in the beginning, since very few clients would pick her. If I can lower her price, more guys will pick her and get to see how good she really is in the sack. Her fame will increase and over time it will compensate for her low looks.
On the other hand, a girl with 100% looks and zeroes in sex skills will bring in lots of customers who will pick her based on how pretty she is, but none of them will be satisfied and my reputation will sink. If I can lower her price, they won't mind so much that she fucks like a dead fish. Eventually her skills will increase and over time I'll be able to raise her price again. The "when" and the "how much" is all-new strategic depth.
Fourth reason:
This system can be used to mark differences between free girls and slave girls. If I have a slave girl, I can charge whatever I want, since I'm the one taking all the money anyway. But if I have a free girl, she might not appreciate being undervalued since that's less money for her. Heck, it might even be interesting to let free girls price themselves. Bring the confidence stat in the equation (more confidence = more likely to raise her own price) and you now have a new thing that makes girls different from one another! In addition, it stops confidence from being a "bad" stat that you want to decrease at all costs, because if a girl's confidence is too low she may tend to underprice herself and make you less money than she should.
Fifth reason:
If I have an otherwise excellent girl with low constitution or the Fragile trait, she's going to get tired out quickly. If I raise her price, it'll weed out some customers but it'll spare her health.
Sixth reason:
This is kind of a tangent, but still... I like how we can forbid specific types of sex per brothel. But what if, we could also put up a price multiplier? You could have a brothel where, say, bondage is usually not accepted, but if the client is willing to pay five times the usual cost, something can be arranged. Kind of like a premium service, you know?
Alright, that's about it. I know there's a lot of complexity in there, but I'm just brainstorming. I'd rather put out a lot of stuff that gets trimmed or outright rebutted than not say a thing at all. And sorry for the wall of text again, heheh.