Recent content by Fergus

Mmmm.... Letters of credit. I hadn't thought of that one. :-)

You are correct about the past encounters. House Asuras has a number of legitimate businesses, so it's not like any affiliation with them is a criminal one. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the people working in the money exchange had no idea at all that House Asuras did anything illicit...

Yay, an update! :-)

I'd like to say that this is a great example of what I describe as my "common sense" test above. This example is an illustration of what happens when there is very little plausibility in a world and what it can do to the general enjoyment level. I can sympathize with your reaction...

Thought #1: Nothing should get in the way of having fun. Thought #2: Reality is useful insofar that it helps people have more fun. And these lead us to the inevitable... Question: How can using reality make a game more fun? Answer: Depends on the gamer. ;) I'll be the first person to vote...

No, but I did buy a $1.80 used book from amazon.com that a home brewing friend recommended as the best general home brewing book she knows of. True. However, there's a completely updated version for v3.5 in which Meadmaker is a five level prestige class: Requirements: Saving Throw: Fortitude...

Not my trap, though by far my favorite... *smile* It's a large trap filled with whipped cream. You can't really swim in it because it isn't dense enough. You can't really make verbal or somatic components of spells work. You can't really climb walls that have been slicked with whipped...

If you go to amazon.com and examine the book "A Sip Through Time" (a book about historical brewing that contains historical recipes) and click on "see similar items" you might be surprised at what the eighth similar book is...

It's that fact (among others) that make me highly skeptical of trying to scale any hard numbers from today to medieval times. Scaling back Amaroq's 3.5 divisor for wholesale seems somehow different to me than scaling back price ratios... A reasonable point. I'm guessing that they are...

You used to brew mead? Learn something new about your GM every day... *laugh* Yup. *grin* *blink* *blink* *blink* A 3.5 divisor for buying wholesale? That's... Wow, that's much more than I'd expect. No, it doens't solve the problem, but that's a huge difference in and of itself. And...

I haven't covered those in the thread, you are correct. At the same time, while I can see these intangibles as making a meadery more profitable the aim of my post was how do meaderies get to even break even in the first place. You do have good ideas and suggestions for increasing profits and...

A valid criticism. At the same time, even if mead were twice as expensive it wouldn't make mead profitable (assuming the price of honey is correct, of course) and I'm having a hard time justifying that mead would be more than twice as expensive. Quite possibly, though you'd then probably be...

Disclaimer: I am not a homebrewer. *smile* I've seen sites of mead home brewers that advocate (a) not boiling at all and (b) some recommend not even heating the mixture at all. This is something that is true for mead while not being true for most other beverages. I assume that you're...

You definitely make good points and they are well taken. I guess it varies and a game to game basis. I agree that businesses can turn into targets. However, I'd like to think that most characters have some "targets" in the world: loved ones, family, some property... A business may be a...

All of the numbers are (allegedly) from England around 1450. I've also found other website for English prices from 1200-1500 and they all relatively agree on the price of ale in England over that time period. I've only been able to find one site with a honey price, though, which is the...