D&D 5E 5E economics -The Peasants are revolting!

[Xeviat]

Regarding trained vs untrained hirelings: who is an untrained hireling? Do NPCs not get background tool proficiencies? Shouldn't every adult be trained in some tool or useful skill? Or is that it, untrained is level 0, hasn't even gotten their background yet?

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Regarding trained vs untrained hirelings: who is an untrained hireling? Do NPCs not get background tool proficiencies? Shouldn't every adult be trained in some tool or useful skill? Or is that it, untrained is level 0, hasn't even gotten their background yet?

Backgrounds are for player characters. NPCs get whatever stats and abilities the DM thinks is appropriate, which for NPCs specifically labelled as "untrained" might be no proficiencies at all.

Untrained characters might get some proficiencies for verisimilitude's sake, but nothing useful on the labor market, so they have to take unskilled work. For example a farmers 3rd son having proficiency in plows but having to move to the city to look for work since his brothers inherit the farm.

 

[Ancalagon]

This is an entirely valid way of thinking. Having said that, you draw conclusions and your conclusions are only as good as your choice of yardstick. It's kind of like basic logic. Your yardstick is the given. If the given is flawed then nothing after that matters in logic. Now we could accept your given and then we might challenge your logic but I'm not. If anything I'd challenge your given.

A late reply but...

Thank you for the comment, it's a very valid one.

So what would you use as your yardstick?

 

[Emerikol]

A late reply but...

Thank you for the comment, it's a very valid one.

So what would you use as your yardstick?

Well one of the dangers is assuming all prices in a campaign are relationally the same as they are today or in any other particular period in history. For example, in the 70's salmon was fairly expensive and you might have it on occasion but often when we had something like "salmon cakes" we were really having Tuna cakes. That is not at all true now. Salmon is fairly cheap.

The only way to model prices is to figure out how many hands had to touch a product to get it to market. In those days, milk is probably fairly cheap because no one touches it besides the farmer and the consumer. Maybe if it's an inn or tavern that serves meals it's one more hand. A spice on the other hand might cost a small fortune because of the travel just to bring it to market.

Maybe one good way to do it would be to figure out what a gold piece represents coinage wise in the middle ages (or whatever time period you are playing in) and then figure the relative prices out that way. The problem is you are not accounting for magic but I usually make magic rare enough and costly enough that it does not affect markets a lot. If it is common and cheap then the market might look a lot more like a modern one.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well one of the dangers is assuming all prices in a campaign are relationally the same as they are today or in any other particular period in history. For example, in the 70's salmon was fairly expensive and you might have it on occasion but often when we had something like "salmon cakes" we were really having Tuna cakes. That is not at all true now. Salmon is fairly cheap.

The only way to model prices is to figure out how many hands had to touch a product to get it to market. In those days, milk is probably fairly cheap because no one touches it besides the farmer and the consumer. Maybe if it's an inn or tavern that serves meals it's one more hand. A spice on the other hand might cost a small fortune because of the travel just to bring it to market.

Maybe one good way to do it would be to figure out what a gold piece represents coinage wise in the middle ages (or whatever time period you are playing in) and then figure the relative prices out that way. The problem is you are not accounting for magic but I usually make magic rare enough and costly enough that it does not affect markets a lot. If it is common and cheap then the market might look a lot more like a modern one.

This is exactly how my favored RPG economic system in ACKS II does it. They use historical pricing data from Late Antiquity as the baseline.

 

[Emerikol]

This is exactly how my favored RPG economic system in ACKS II does it. They use historical pricing data from Late Antiquity as the baseline.

There is a lot of like about ACKS for sure.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Good gods and religions with any kind of real influence in a magical fantasy world should really change the quality of life of the commonfolk. Gods are real, man. I'm tired of the trope of good religions not actually being good, and taking advantage of the population. They aren't all "businesses" that the common folk have to pay for, else be left out in the cold.

In my campaign, the "good" faiths in good realms have collaborated with each other and druids to make a bit a socialized system where the population is better provided with clean water, food staples, and shelter. Hungry? You can at least get something in a food line, if not a hall on temple grounds for people to get free lunches. Less suffering, less crime and evil.

In more selfish realms, people care less about the welfare of other sentient folk, and there is more suffering. You know... like in our world.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Good gods and religions with any kind of real influence in a magical fantasy world should really change the quality of life of the commonfolk. Gods are real, man. I'm tired of the trope of good religions not actually being good, and taking advantage of the population. They aren't all "businesses" that the common folk have to pay for, else be left out in the cold.

In my campaign, the "good" faiths in good realms have collaborated with each other and druids to make a bit a socialized system where the population is better provided with clean water, food staples, and shelter. Hungry? You can at least get something in a food line, if not a hall on temple grounds for people to get free lunches. Less suffering, less crime and evil.

In more selfish realms, people care less about the welfare of other sentient folk, and there is more suffering. You know... like in our world.

This is why I generally prefer Law and Chaos rather than Good and Evil. Makes much more sense with the way human society works.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Regarding trained vs untrained hirelings: who is an untrained hireling? Do NPCs not get background tool proficiencies? Shouldn't every adult be trained in some tool or useful skill? Or is that it, untrained is level 0, hasn't even gotten their background yet?

In real life, we have unskilled labor. Yet, I'd expect "unskilled" laborers to be pretty competent compared to their D&D counterparts (they know how to read and write, if anything). It could be they are trained at a level where any chump can pick up the job and become as efficient in a very short time (like if your job is to shovel dirt, I am pretty sure you don't need a lot of training to be a dirt-shoveler, even if your ability to read and write could make you scribe). It could also be people changing line of work. Yes, they were trained in some useful skill, like being a farmer. Yet there is an industrial revolution and mining jobs are appearing in droves, you become a miner, but you're an unskilled miner, despite being skilled in the ways of farming. I think the "unskilled" hireling is simply someone who has no useful skill pertaining to the task at hand. An archmage could be an unskilled hireling as he doesn't know how to handle your horse. In most case, an archmage wouldn't take that job, but imagine if the weave is not working because in the FR someone killed the goddess of magic again.... and he needs to make end meet while the situation is resolved?

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

This is why I generally prefer Law and Chaos rather than Good and Evil. Makes much more sense with the way human society works.

I don't care about how our real-world human society works. I don't want to replicate it. It's horrific. I don't want to go into religious/political rants, but our real world power structures have never been good, or truly representative of good ideals. It's just a mask. The power behind it all is corrupt to the bone. It's like Vecna actually rules our world behind veils of secrecy.

I want to play in a fantasy world that makes sense in the context of the backdrop of the fantasy world. Good and Evil and afterlives exist and are quantifiable and traversable. What does that look like in implementation? That is what I'm playing around with.