Quasi-historical towns and shopping limits

[Primitive Screwhead]

I have been on a project recently to relook at the economy of DnD for my home campaign, and one thing I have found scattered hither and thither is the concept of a gp limit to what is available in towns for 'shopping' characters.

I wanted to share my initial thoughts so that folks could help me refine this a bit. One of my major goals is to build in plot hooks into the 'shopping' experience without it feeling forced.


So, my goal is a low-fantasy, feudal society economy were dirt-farmers are dirt poor, and I am using the 'Silver Standard' for the world at large. There are three ways of getting equipment:

1> Purchase from a merchant if the value is less than the Low gp limit
2> Beat a skill challenge(s) to find and barter for an item if the value is less than the High gp limit {and possibly attract attention}
3> Make it yourself {which means find components!}

Population centers have goods available based on the size of the village/town, and also based on the type of town. {this part I haven't fleshed out yet}

The columns beyond high mean:
Magic Shop: An item of this level is available for direct cast purchase at a Guild or Artificer's shop
Magic Barter: An item of this level might be available for barter if you can find it
Potions: Potions of this level or less can be found from a herbologists, witchcrafter, or artificer.. but you will have to Gather Information to find the right place

Size                    Low         High     Magic Shop     Magic Barter    Potions
Thorp                     1            4
Village                   5           20
Small Town               40          160         -               -              1st
Large Town              125          500         -               1st            5th
Small City              150          600         -               2nd           15th
Large City              400         1600        1st              5th             
Metropolis             1000         4000        2nd              8th

Note, this table is in gp values, as the PCs work on a Gold standard. The world works on barter and Silver standard and will not likely have large amounts of coin around.... if any.

In a PoL world were the adventurers main 'work' is out in the country, this gives them reason to return to towns and seek out the larger population centers. After all, the gp limit works both ways.. its going to be really hard to barter off a +1 weapon in a Village.. they just can't afford it! {even with the 1/5th selling price}

I used the 'standard' population center definitions for this, but expect a Metropolis is similar to Rome or London... one per major nation and/or continent.
Large Cities would be your port cities that focus on trade, while everything else will be smaller.

Thoughts? Rotten tomatoes?

 

[the Jester]

When I do "no money no prizes" settings- which can be tons of fun if your players are down for them- I start by defining the value of a gold piece in very visceral terms. To wit:

One gold piece is enough money to feed a peasant for one year.

Then always think about that when the pcs spend 50 gp on a big sword or a couple hundred or thousand gps on some heavy armor.

 

[Celebrim]

I also run the silver peice standard for a variaty of personal reasons.

For one thing, I remember the first time I was a character having to buy a wagon to haul our loot out of B2: Keep on the Borderlands and thinking to myself (paraphrased), "I've got a whole wagon load of money here and its not even enough to conduct real business transactions with."

I also started pricing out gems realistically and realized that gems and jewelry had been vastly overpriced solely to compensate for the vast underpricing of gold coin. It created oddities though, like peasant women with a simple peice of jewerly worth more than everything else in their home.

I also latter experienced a campaign where the fact that players earned gp but everyone else was paid in sp created problems of believability for me.

My explanation for new players is:

"A silver peice is a days wages for a poor laborer. It's worth about $50 in todays terms. There are no cheap mass produced goods, but everything that is handmade has about the same relative price now that it has in the game. A gold peice is worth about $1000. A good many people might be adults before they'd ever see a gold peice, and most will never own one. A thousand gold peices is about a million dollars. Keep that in mind as you find treasure. If you find 10 gp, that's like finding a sack containing $10,000."

 

[Chimera]

When I last ran games in my own setting, I used the following;

1 gold = 40 silver (which is much closer to real world historical exchange)
1 silver = 20 copper

40 coins per pound, thus 1gp really is "1 pound of Silver" (as per the British 'Pound Sterling')

Untrained laborers make 1-2 sp per day. Trained labor runs 3-5sp per day. I used 6 day weeks with 5 day work weeks (1 day off in 6), so a high skilled worker making 5sp per day made 125sp per month, 1500sp (37.5gp) per year at the very high end of things. Your average grunt making 2sp per day thus lived on 500sp (12.5gp) per year or less, as sickness and injury and other obligations kicked in. Probably more like 400sp (10gp) per year. And he supported his family on this too, which is why I always bristled at the BS "Stronghold Builder's Guide" and things like that which had a simple door costing 50-500gps.

Because item costs were so phenomenally out of line with these costs, I greatly reduced these too, typically by 60% for regular items (Swords, Horses), and developed my own completely different scale for magic items. But that was 3e costs, not 4e costs, which are so completely off the scale as to be ludicrous and unreconcilable. If I were to get into GMing 4e, I would be forced to come up with my own conversions (and in the back of my mind, I've always had the idea of writing my own D&D 'alternate economics' book).

So for items, in my last campaign I printed off a sheet that had all prices in Silver (Dollars or Dinars by local names). I think I had Longswords pegged at around 250d (6.25gp), but varying by location. In places under threat, you could expect to pay 300 or more. A Longbow (where available) would be 500-600d (12.5-15gp). Location also strongly affected availability. You're not going to find Full Plate in a town of 2,000, except in someplace like Freetown, which was very well organized and militant. Even there it would be a matter of paying up front and waiting a couple of weeks for delivery. And probably paying a premium to 'jump the line' and not have to wait months for it.

But like I say, magic prices have always been absolutely ludicrous in D&D, and my biggest complaint about 4e is that this has gotten worse. The prices of higher level magic items is greater than the GDP of most nations and this cannot be reconciled with fancy explanations or hand waving. It's just plain Stupidly Wrong.

 

[Celebrim]

But like I say, magic prices have always been absolutely ludicrous in D&D, and my biggest complaint about 4e is that this has gotten worse. The prices of higher level magic items is greater than the GDP of most nations and this cannot be reconciled with fancy explanations or hand waving. It's just plain Stupidly Wrong.

Agreed, but in 4e's defense this is not a new problem.

Ever since 1e, D&D has tried to marry two different economies based on irreconcilable considerations. On the one hand, Gygax created a silver piece economy in mundane items and wages based off a fairly reasonable abstraction of a medieval economy. This economy can be seen in the wages of 1e men-at-arms, unskilled laborers, the prices of food and drink, and the income earned by PC's through taxation. That is the simulationist economy. But on the other hand, Gygax created a gold piece economy driven entirely by gamist considerations - the amount of XP a character needed to level and the utility of an item in the dungeon. Big warning signs should go up when you read the 1e PH and read that the prices in the price list there in represent the effects of hyperinflation due to high demand and limited supply as for example would be seen in Alaska during the Klondike gold rush(!!!). That is an amazing assumption for a standard price list, and the more amazing thing about it is that ever since that time those prices have influenced what is seen as the 'normal' price of a good to the extent that in many cases you see notes that the prices of goods in some remote locale should be two or three times higher than the PH standard (!!!).

Gygax's explanation in the 1e PH indicates clearly that he knew he wasn't setting up a realistic economy, but that he could find a post hoc justification for the gamist prices which is arguably realistic but only for the very narrow situation envisioned. Nonetheless, almost no designer following up on Gygax has ever addressed

A book that actually gave reasonable prices and construction times for every imaginable good would be worth its weight in silver to me. I've seen several bold attempts at it but nothing that really survives a realism test when you dig at the rules, and nothing which has a truly comprehensive simulationist based price list.

As for magic item pricing and the prices of spell components, I really want to revisit that as well, but unlike a general price list I suspect my desires are going to be so personal that they won't translate from table to table.

 

[ki11erDM]

1 gold = 40 silver (which is much closer to real world historical exchange)
1 silver = 20 copper

40 coins per pound, thus 1gp really is "1 pound of Silver" (as per the British 'Pound Sterling')

Untrained laborers make 1-2 sp per day. Trained labor runs 3-5sp per day.

I like this a lot and I think it works really well in Heroic play which is much closer to a quasi-historical world. But when you get into paragon or epic levels I really think it breaks down, which is why they don’t deal with it at all in 4e.
Write your book, I’ll buy it if you can come up with a believable way to buy/sell 15th level items.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I like this a lot and I think it works really well in Heroic play which is much closer to a quasi-historical world. But when you get into paragon or epic levels I really think it breaks down, which is why they don’t deal with it at all in 4e.
Write your book, I’ll buy it if you can come up with a believable way to buy/sell 15th level items.

A 15th level magic goodie should be easy to sell, just not for the multiple kings ransoms listed in the book. They should also be rare and precious enough to only be available for sale on rare occasions when one can find them.

The whole idea of very powerful magic being considered "gear" is as ludicrous as the economy needed to support it.

 

[Celebrim]

Write your book, I’ll buy it if you can come up with a believable way to buy/sell 15th level items.

If you happen to have a spare Holy Grail lying around, you just advertise it on Craig's List.

Newegg is currently well stocked with Durendal +4, but they only have a limited number of Excalibur +5, so buy now while supplies last.

And if you need a cap of invisibility in order to defeat the Kraken, Wizard-Mart has them discounted to $19,999,999.99. Now that's a deal, and it sure beats having to convince a divine cyclops to make one, or persuading Hades to let you borrow it.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Do not forget other races, guilds and the church.

A church may be interested in picking up an item just for its history, it may take time for a deal to be struck but it could be worked out in a small village or town. Other races may do the same thing. Guilds can work the same but mostly will buy an object then move it around and arrange for an sale, say in an auction.

Also...the planes! Gamers talk about economy in D&D but do not think about the planes that are in contact with the world. Trade is taking place between theses worlds, the underdark, etc.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

To the OP, I'd suggest you build your wealth limits based on the silver standard, not the gold, if that's how you intend the economy to function.

I find that PCs only "break" the economy for the first 5 levels or so. Beyond that point, they're so fabulously wealthy in game terms they really only ever interact with others who are fabulously wealthy and powerful, and the "real" economy can easily be faded into the background.