Gold or Silver Standard?

[Lanefan]

Where i think the whole thing breaks down is that a laborer gets 1 sp a day. The poor meal will cost 1sp. Ok, that will feed just him and him alone. What about any family he has, or people that will depend on him to feed them. Even a laborer should be able to scrounge out enough money to be able to feed at least one other person.

You're absolutely right.

The answer: instead of fiddling with whether it's a gold-based or silver-based system, just change the labourers' wage to something that makes a bit of sense within the existing system, then adjust other wages to suit. It doesn't take much - even a jump to 2 or 3 s.p. a day might suffice.

As for food costs; what we see in the PHB is the cost of eating out, with the "poor meal" still being the equivalent of eating at McD's in our culture. In the quasi-medieval system used by most game worlds, much of the food would be grown on site or bartered for, costing next to nothing.

Where the wage system falls flat isn't food so much, but clothing and shelter; and again a small jump is all that's needed to fix it, without messing with everything else.

Lanefan

 

[S'mon]

I don't know where people get this idea that a labourer should be able to feed a family on his (farm hand) or her (maid) daily wage. Historically through the middle ages these people didn't get paid at all, they got food & shelter - and liked it!
If you want your game world economy to resemble modern USA, certainly you need to up wages. But the low paid NPC wages are clearly based off a medieval largely subsistence level economy.

 

[pemerton]

Where i think the whole thing breaks down is that a laborer gets 1 sp a day. The poor meal will cost 1sp. Ok, that will feed just him and him alone. What about any family he has, or people that will depend on him to feed them. Even a laborer should be able to scrounge out enough money to be able to feed at least one other person.

<snip>

A dollar might not mean much to a US citizen, but it may mean food for days in a poorer culture. But that would only mean that instead of earning $70 a day, a laborer might earn $1. But consider, the meals would also change prices, being a 20 cents (or something like that) instead of $10.

But in fact most people in poor countries (indeed, a good many people in industrialised countries, perhaps the majority) can't afford to feed themselves and their families on purchased meals. I have eaten the modern-day Kenyan equivalent of a "poor meal". Most Kenyans could not afford to regularly purchase such meals. Like poor people everywhere, they make their own meals. Indeed, in non-industrialised countries, not ony do people prepare their own food but they frequently do it using produce they have grown themselves.

Now if you want to monetise all of the economic activity in your gameworld (so that the daily income for a labourer includes not only their wage but the economic value of all the subsistence production in which that person engages) go for it. But that sounds like an ambitious project to me. After all, real-world economist have trouble agreeing on the economic value of non-marketised production in our real-world economies.

 

[mmadsen]

Where i think the whole thing breaks down is that a laborer gets 1 sp a day. [...] Lets go back to the equivalent modern sytem.

There is no equivalent modern system, because this is not a modern industrial economy; it's a pre-modern agricultural subsistence economy.

If you want to compare it to anything in the present day, you should compare it to rural Africa, where the average worker is not middle class at all but dirt poor.

It seems like what they are calling common, really isnt very common. It tends to be more high end from what i see.

In a pre-modern economy, you have large numbers of people who can barely feed themselves and a tiny, tiny elite living in something vaguely resembling a modern lifestyle -- by skimming off "rents" from all those farmers, or by serving those wealthy landowners.

Those on the low end don't go clothes shopping, they don't eat out, and they don't even handle money. They have a hut with a dirt floor and no windows, and they're given a new outfit each year. They're happy simply to feed themselves and to see some of their children live to adulthood.

 

[Belgarath]

There is no equivalent modern system, because this is not a modern industrial economy; it's a pre-modern agricultural subsistence economy.

If you want to compare it to anything in the present day, you should compare it to rural Africa, where the average worker is not middle class at all but dirt poor.
In a pre-modern economy, you have large numbers of people who can barely feed themselves and a tiny, tiny elite living in something vaguely resembling a modern lifestyle -- by skimming off "rents" from all those farmers, or by serving those wealthy landowners.

Those on the low end don't go clothes shopping, they don't eat out, and they don't even handle money. They have a hut with a dirt floor and no windows, and they're given a new outfit each year. They're happy simply to feed themselves and to see some of their children live to adulthood.

That is just the point of what i am making. It states that a common meal is 3 sp. That would mean a common meal according to their culture. Even if we discard the entire modern to pre-industrial problem, it still leaves that something that is common is still 3 times the rate that a laborer makes in a day. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

That is just the point of what i am making. It states that a common meal is 3 sp. That would mean a common meal according to their culture. Even if we discard the entire modern to pre-industrial problem, it still leaves that something that is common is still 3 times the rate that a laborer makes in a day. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever

The prices in the PHB are for PC's - those prices are for meals you'd buy in an inn, not what it would cost for a peasant to prepare it in their hovel. That's how I've always interpreted it, at least.

 

[mmadsen]

That is just the point of what i am making. It states that a common meal is 3 sp. That would mean a common meal according to their culture. Even if we discard the entire modern to pre-industrial problem, it still leaves that something that is common is still 3 times the rate that a laborer makes in a day. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever

It's "common" for people who can buy meals when they do buy meals. Even in the US, most families couldn't eat out every day even a few decades ago. In fact, most families couldn't afford to eat meat daily until after WWII or so.

 

[Belgarath]

I dont know. Maybe it is the entire terminology that is getting to me. I have always much rather preferred the way gurps handled it for money. With that system, a poor farmhand still has the "money" to eat a meal a day and it all works out. He can even scrape up a little extra here and there for other stuff. Remember, that it might not be actual coins that he gets like in the modern world. It might be that those meals are part of his work, and the landowner feeds him. I can deal with that.

My problems is that quite frankly, the mathematics of it all doesnt work out at all with the terminology. The entire thing equals up to two completely different economies at the same time, which frankly annoys me. I can see an adventurer living well and eating things that most people wont be able to afford, but dont call it a "common" meal then. A meal should be a meal should be a meal. According to D&D, even trail rations - a simple fare that is just enough to live off of - is worth 5 times what a laborer can afford. Again, this makes no sense at all to me

 

[mmadsen]

The entire thing equals up to two completely different economies at the same time, which frankly annoys me.

That's how the real world works outside modern economies. We're used to virtually everyone in modern America and Europe being middle class. In a medieval economy, the middle class isn't the bulk of people; it's the tiny class of shopkeeps and craftsmen between the peasants and the landowners.

 

[Belgarath]

That's how the real world works outside modern economies. We're used to virtually everyone in modern America and Europe being middle class. In a medieval economy, the middle class isn't the bulk of people; it's the tiny class of shopkeeps and craftsmen between the peasants and the landowners.

So even a first level character is a multimillionaire in his or her own culture? According to the system that is exactly the case. They are not the middle class guys who are living fairly well but still have a bit of money trouble. They have enough money even after buying equipment to live at a standard that the "common" person can only dream of. Then why adventure? Money obviously isnt a problem. Even the artisans and skilled men cant even touch them.