[hefalumps]

This explains a lot. I've started two charities for my players and was always trying to figure out how much it was costing me. I'd monitor the finances daily and never saw anything coming out.

It wasn't until some point in the future that I noticed my market size had decreased considerably. I never connected the two events.

I guess I could have just looked at the storyline and found out.

I have to agree with most everyone here - I think that the hit to market size is a strong penalty and should at least be explained in the storyline so that the OOTP player knows what he's accepting when he says yes. That, or maybe OOTP 22 allows storylines to have access to finances. Although that could open up another can of worms (like storylines where owners invest in a Ponzi scheme...)

I guess next time I'll just tell the player no. But I'll have to look at the storyline now - do you risk angering the player if you don't start the charity?

EDIT: I just checked, the player doesn't get angry, but you take a -2 hit in fan interest and -1 in fan loyalty. Ouch.

I checked for storylines that improve market_size - there aren't many. There are a few different "World Series win/President calls/visits" storylines, but only one of them improves market size. There's also one where the owner invests in nearby property. That's all I could find (but I'm still using OOTP 20).