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

[Zardnaar]

No. Not cheap.
Average.

You can have average beer that's cheap.

They're cracking down on it here. I'm also talking bar prices one can get a nice eurolager for less than 4 euros here. Not over the bar though.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You xan have average beer that's cheap.

They're cracking down on it here. I'm also talking bar prices one can get a nice eurolager for less than 4 euros here. Not over the bar though.

In Germany you mostly get good beer for reasonable prices.

 

[Zardnaar]

In Germany you mostly get good beer for reasonable prices.

Aware 4 euro here luck if you xan get average macro beer. Possible though but pries have crept up to $5 euro roughly.

Some places do deals like 4 beers in a bucket of ice for 13 euro.

German imported can is 2 euro approx. I drunk two Lithuanian beers yesterday at 2.75 euro approx supermarket prices.

Hot summer day camping buy something nice to prime the pump. Eg 2 eurolagers then switch to your 10 for 10 Euros whatever is cheap and not awful that week.

I don't mind average won't drink bad.

Krombacher was here 6 for 5 euros but price went up then disappeared.

 

[Emerikol]

Those expenses are summaries for PCs. Most peasants grow their own food, make their own clothes, collectively gather together to optimize costs. These numbers are for PCs.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes.

When doing this math I look how much a pint of beer costs. 4cp. I just paid around 4€. Which is around $4.

Going by that metric, 2gp is around 200€ per day. 1k per week. 4k per month. 50k per year. About right for a am average monthly income around here (before taxes).

Of course, if you live somewhere, where $4 buy you far more than a beer and the average income is way lower, this needs to be adjusted.

I'm not really a beer drinker but since cocktails worth drinking tend to be at least a bit over double that here I'll give a different datapoint for comparison.

the 2014 PHB lists flour at 2cp/pound in the trade goods section. Since trade goods tend to be bulk things rather than personal size direct to consumer retail scale orders I'll use the prices on a commercial supplier.
Looking on restaurantdepot I could get 50 pounds worth of a few varieties of flour for about 20$ with specialty & niche things like corn & 00 flour coming in a bit more. I think that works out to around 10sp : 20$

Spoiler

Golden Tiger - Hi-Gluten Flour - 50 lbs 20.34$
Lenz's Best - High Gluten Flour - 50 lbs 18.53$
All Trumps - High-Gluten Flour - 50 lbs 25.97$
Maseca - Regular #1 Corn Flour - 50 lbs 33.25$
FLOUR 00 POLS RED 25KG 40.11$
Sir Lancelot - High Gluten Flour - 50lb 22.38$
Maseca - Corn Flour - 4.4 lbs 45.37$/case of 10
Len'z Best - All Purpose Flour - 25 lbs - sale 8.79$
old Medal - Hotel & Restaurant Self-Rising Flour - 25 lbs 25.10$
Gazab Imported Chakki Atta Flour 20lb 23.27

Going by some of the other trade goods they have 30 pounds of fresh ginger(1gp/pound) for 49.97$ or 6x4 pound packs (24pounds) for 50.72$ &

Going to drop brands because it's hard to copy without huge letters & such

Spoiler: salt (5cp/pound).....

Plain salt 26oz carton 33.92$/case of 25
Fine sea salt 12.5kg tub 26.72$
Salt 2pound, case of 63.42$
Granulated salt 50 pounds, 10.50$
Seasoned salt 5 pounds, 23.37$

Spoiler: cheddar cheese

I went with cheddar because it's a common hard cheese & hard cheeses are more friendly to being carried around for distances. It's listed under food drink & lodging by the "hunk" but pretty sure I've seen it on trade goods before

Shredded Sharp Yellow Cheddar Cheese - 5 lbs 54.07$/case of 6
Fancy Shredded Cheddar Cheese - 5 lbs 51.40%/case of 4
Premium - Sliced Mild Cheddar Cheese - 1.5 lbs 50.71$/case of 8
Sharp Yellow Cheddar Cheese Loaf - 5 lbs 34.90/case of 2
Aged English Cheddar Cheese 5lbs 44.76$
Mild Yellow Cheddar Cheese Loaf - 5 lbs 27.32$/case of 2
Sharp White Cheddar Cheese - 5 lb 28.31$/case of 2
Shredded Cheddar Jack Cheese - 5 lbs 51.63$/case of 4
Shredded Mild Cheddar Cheese - 5 lbs 57.67$/case of 4
Fancy Shredded Cheddar & Monterey Jack Cheese - 5 lb Bags 54.19$/case of 4

Lets go crazy

Spoiler: caviar

Caviar & Caviar - Royal Osetra - 1 Oz 33.80$
Siberian Sturgeon (Caviar), 1 oz 28.19
Caviar & Caviar - Squid Ink, 3.2 oz 30.21$ or 696.03$/case of 24
Caviar & Caviar - Siberian Sturgeon - 2 Oz 56.37$

As you can see, trade good prices in gp have almost no relation to trade good prices in $USD

I didn't link to anything because you can't really get anything from the website without an account, I could pull prices for other "trade good" type products but this seems like a good selection

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Peasant revolts are plot fodder.

Your group owns an estate and pays them poorly. The people revolt. What happens next?

Milton Friedman's Invisible Fireball.

 

[kigmatzomat]

More like "John Ball's Rabble Rousing Rhetoric"

 

[lynnfredricks]

I think the problem really comes down to always paying urban retail.

A year's worth of rice for one person in Edo era Japan was a 'koku' and at times that cost about 1 ryo (sorta a largish oblong gold coin). A foot soldier earned about 4 koku a year. A modest samurai got around 50 ryo that supported a family.

 

[Ancalagon]

All these discussions on the "value of a gold piece" are... not going to be productive if people can't agree on an "economic yardstick".

Price lists in RPGs, unless modern setting ones with up to date info, are usually wrong in one way or the other. Usually within a same "kind" of goods the price listed makes sense. It makes sense that a longsword is more expensive than a short sword. But is the price of a short sword reasonable when compared to the price of an ox? That's a HARD question to answer! And because it's so hard to sort this all out, I think it's not a valuable use of a GM's time to figure out a near-perfect price list.

However, sometimes as a GM you need to know. And in those circumstances, it's good to have one price, one value, that you agree is "correct". And you use this "yardstick" whenever a "correct" value matters for plot reasons. This is the spherical cow I was alluding to earlier

My yardstick is cost of living/cost of an unskilled laborer working for 2 sp/day

Your economic yardstick - the laborer

I once read this story about a tailor who had a client who was in a great hurry. The tailor measured the man's thumb circumference, and tol...

slugsandsilver.blogspot.com

 

[Emerikol]

All these discussions on the "value of a gold piece" are... not going to be productive if people can't agree on an "economic yardstick".

Price lists in RPGs, unless modern setting ones with up to date info, are usually wrong in one way or the other. Usually within a same "kind" of goods the price listed makes sense. It makes sense that a longsword is more expensive than a short sword. But is the price of a short sword reasonable when compared to the price of an ox? That's a HARD question to answer! And because it's so hard to sort this all out, I think it's not a valuable use of a GM's time to figure out a near-perfect price list.

However, sometimes as a GM you need to know. And in those circumstances, it's good to have one price, one value, that you agree is "correct". And you use this "yardstick" whenever a "correct" value matters for plot reasons. This is the spherical cow I was alluding to earlier

My yardstick is cost of living/cost of an unskilled laborer working for 2 sp/day

Your economic yardstick - the laborer

I once read this story about a tailor who had a client who was in a great hurry. The tailor measured the man's thumb circumference, and tol...

slugsandsilver.blogspot.com

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.