Best way to revitalize the economy of a town in D&D

[kigmatzomat]

I'm going to second the above with an explanation: you are providing the food & lodgings to the military so you should not need nearly the same amount of coin. In total you are providng 6gp salary, 12gp food, 0.5gp in barrack maintenance, some portion of the entertainment for nearly 20gp/mo. This doesn't include the opportunity cost involved in housing them at the barracks instead of renting them out as an inn.

Second, where is the income from the hedge wizards? I'm expecting this to mean "adept" which can cast healing spells. You should be seeing some revenue there either from sold spells or items they create for you.

Third, why isn't your palace generating revenue? Hunstmen, falconers, blacksmiths and gardeners should all generate revenue in excess of their expense. You should have acreage you can use for farming and the like. At the very least it should eliminate the food bills. IIRC, a farmer with decent equipment and crop rotation could work 1 acre and feed about 4 peope from that acre; your 12 gardeners could work 12 acres and feed 48 people. If they go for a cash crop they could generate revenues for 2x-8x as much food.

Fourth, where are the fees and rents? Property tax is nice but in most cases the lord owned or managed the land for the king, renting it to peasants. Guilds, craftsmen, and shops had to pay special taxes for the privilege of being in a town with guardsmen, judges, and lordly protection. Churches normally also paid a fee to the lord, in return for the right to collect tithes from their congregations. (At least until the religions become as powerful as the nobility)

Fifth: Harbor generates no income? I think not! Boat dock fees and shipping costs cover all that. Plus, where is the fishing revenue?

Building & road maintenance is generally performed by the peasantry as general public service tax. Rich people can pay their way out of it, generating income to pay itinerant peasants.

Criminals would also be subject to labor if a fine is not appropriate. Oh and "Public Defender"? This is a luxury, given by some societies but very few. The PD is usually a very low paid individual who does it for the ethical reasons as anything else (I have friends who are gov't lawyers; most make less than $40k/yr).

The short form is that everything should at least break even. The harbor should generate at least 724gp/year. If you have enough criminals to keep 2 judges busy there should be about 450gp in fines assessed yearly.

Untrained workers earn 1sp/day normally; that does not include food or rent. That is their income by the PHB and it earns them something slightly better than the $5-10/week earns someone in china, indonesia, or south america. Since I peg $1 =1cp based on bread and beer, the peasantry earn about $3,000/yr

You need to revisit those numbers. There is 12,000gp/yr in taxable food which, compared against the cost of food for soldiers and servants, means you only have 83 civilians (12,000gp/yr divided by (12gp/person x 12mo/yr)). Why are there 200 guards for 83 people?

Plus, what were the loans for? Where did they go?

Who mills the grain and bakes the bread? The lord usually made money on grain and flour by owning the mill and taking a percentage of the grain as his tithe and on food by owning the ovens (constructed metal is expensive!).

Who are your land owners? You have 8,000gp/yr in logging going on; that's a pretty hefty sum. Who makes the profits there? There are 3,000gp in luxury goods, who buys them?

Where are your churches? Who is the lord your bard reports to? Contact those larger organizations and ask them for copies of the charters they hold to your towns. Remember, if the Duke doesn't think you owe the peasants Freebie X, you are under no obligation to give the peasants Freebie X. By getting the DM to commit to the new Lord's obligations you can avoid the major pitfalls. It also puts you on the higher-ups' good list since it means you should be avoiding the obvious pitfalls.

I'd recommend your DM go get a copy of "Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe" from Expeditious retreat. It is an excellent guide for running a manor. He can use it to generate a coherent manor where costs still exceed revenues and then you can begin evaluating the best ways to proceed. It is possible that the previous lord had the lands setting up for vinyards and olive trees, both of which take years to establish before they begin generating profits. You could break even if you can hold out. Or, the guy was a putz who had way too much glitz for his own good.

 

[painandgreed]

I'd talk to your DM about the food prices for the soldiers. If you're feeding your soldiers common meals and the officers good meals, their monthly (30 day) expenses should run 9 GP per soldier and 15 GP per officer and those are "here's your money, go eat at the tavern prices."* Due to the large expense of feeding soldiers, they usually have cooks or cook for themselves. That should cut the costs to half of the previous costs.

So reasonably, your food costs for your military should be about 1551 instead of 4176 per month.

*Those are the prices from the SRD for a days meals. If you want me to break down the pricing of the individual beer, meat, flour and such by prices in the SRD to show that this is still a little high, I can do that too.

 

[Sigurd]

Don't underestimate your DM

While I think these are all really good points, (Very interesting thread by the way) I wouldn't go running to your DM with a list of the things he/she did wrong.

Point him to this this thread, which is really beyond your control. Then talk to him about the whole situation.

Magical Mystical Civilization is a great book btw.

Sigurd

 

[was]

How about fur exports to other cities? Are there any critters out on that border with valuable pelts?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Let's go through the list and see what you've got:

Palace upkeep:
Your biggest expenses are food and building maintenance.
Food for 67 people is running you 804gp/month. That's 12gp per person per month after you pay the 8 cooks and 1 chef. A bit excessive, I would say. If you were to just send them all off to a tavern for good meals at PHB prices, it would only run 15gp/month per person. You, however, are buying in bulk and paying staff to prepare it. If you could cut this down to half the cost of good tavern meals (3sp/day at PHB prices--and a 50% price cut isn't unreasonable, given that you're paying the cooks, providing the facilities and buying in bulk), you'd cut this down by about 500gp.

You should also check to be sure that you need that many cooks. The chef is needed for impressing visitors, but eight cooks to fead about 70 people seems a bit much. You might be able to get by with half of that.

Building Maintenance: 500gp. This doesn't leave you with a lot to work with, but you should go through and see if there are any specific items here that cost a lot in mainenance but aren't needed. For instance, if you have a veranda that costs a lot to keep up or a tower whose foundations are sinking, you should look into demolishing it and selling the timber/bricks/stonework. Anything that is costing you money and can be done without, should be done without.

On to military expenses. These are about half your budget and this is where you have the opportunity to make the greatest savings.

The biggest line item here is food which is costed at 12gp/person. At that price, you could just send the entire army out to get common tavern meals at PHB prices and you'd net a 25% savings. So, my recommendations: have the soldiers cook their own meals in a mess tent or something (perhaps you could have some of those excess cooks from the palace supervise) and see how much you can cut costs. If you get it down to half the cost of a common tavern meal, you've saved 2,460gp right there.

You may be able to cut costs further by having the soldiers grow some of their own food when they are not training.

The next biggest line itme here is equipment maintenance. At 1328gp per month, it's a huge expense. The first question is what is it that's costing 4gp per soldier. Is their equipment in particularly poor condition? And how expensive is it in the first place (if they're all equipped with leather armor and heavy shields, you could replace all of their armor once every six months and still cut the costs by about 50%). If their equipment is in poor condition, consider replacing some or all or it with equipment that will be less costly to maintain. Furthermore, consider what the four blacksmiths you currently have on payroll are doing. If they are not currently doing the maintenance, see how much you could save by having them do it. If they are, check to see whether they are being overworked and could be more efficient with an apprentice each (or something).

Your next biggest line items are soldiers' salaries. Not much you can do here (other than scutage as mentioned in some other posts) but consider a few options:
1. You have 4 commanders, 8 captains, and 20 lieutenants for a force of 300 soldiers. That's an awful lot and could be a liability in time of war. You should cut this down a bit. Now, you probably don't want to demote anyone, so you'll need to go about this carefully. First, subtly investigate all of them. If they're honest, honorable and trustworthy, good for them. If they're not, deal with them. Second, consider if any of them are old enough to retire. Consider offering them an early retirement from your service. Third, consider other offices in that you have or could create. For instance, you have 20 palace guards but no chief guard or any individual directly responsible for training and organizing them. You might consider transferring a trustworthy captain or commander to be the captain of the palace guard. That won't save you money, but it will unclutter your chains of command. Similarly, you might consider whether the town needs a sheriff or a militia leader. Transferring a couple of officers to train and lead the town militia might well be a good investment--particularly if you can convince the town's guilds, etc. to pay half of their salaries or levy a new fee for the creation of a militia armory.

The hedge wizards are also a big expense and powerful individuals. You don't want to alienate them, but make sure that they are actually loyal and trustworthy before you continue paying them. Investigate them and deal with any who don't pass muster.

The next thing to consider is how you can leverage the soldiers and hedge wizards to reduce your other costs. You want them to spend a fair amount of time on training and on patrol, but otherwise, they should be doing something. Building roads, logging, and building/maintaining the town's fortifications are all things they should be doing. You should see if you can utilize the wizards' down time as well. Even just comandeering a few of their spells for maintaining armor and equipment might save you a bit of money.

Next comes civil administration.
The biggest three line items here are harbor upkeep, tax assessors, and courthouse maintenance. The rest are small expense here and there. You should, of course, get a competent and trustworthy auditor to look through everything for fraud and make sure that you're not spending more than you have to (200gp for courthouse maintenance, for instance, had better be maintaining a very big courhouse).

The biggest item, by far is harbor maintenance. As others have said, this should be paying for itself--either in harbor and docking fees or in taxes on trade goods. If it's not and if the harbormaster is both honest and competent, consider selling the operation of the harbor to someone who can afford to spend full time making it profitable. Make them responsible for all the costs and maintenance at whatever monthly fee you can get. Make sure that the concession is only for a short period--a year, for instance, so that you can reassess it when the harbor becomes profitable.

The next item is tax assessors. Make sure that they're all honest and aren't holding back on you or accepting bribes. If they pass inspection, see what you can do to make their job safer. Right now they're getting hazard pay; maybe if you sent a squad of four soldiers with them, they wouldn't need that.

On to Ancilliary expenses:
You're running 1000gp per month on entertainment. Cut it all. When you're spending nearly twice your income, you can't afford to put 5% of your budget on entertainment. If the king or someone else you need to impress comes around, summon a lillend (lesser planar ally/lesser planar binding, etc) or hire an entertainer. Even if you have to pay twice what you normally would have paid, doing that once a year instead of every month will net very significant savings.

The next big expense is seasonal heating costs. See if you can cut these by simply not heating parts of the palace/castle during winter. Having your soldiers do some logging should also reduce this quite a bit.

The royal tribute and the debt from the loan are the really big items that are killing you though. You should negotiate with the king to see if you can reduce that or at least pay a portion of it with military service, etc.

As for the debt, the first thing you should do is make certain that you're obligated to pay it back. If the previous holder of the lands incurred the debt and you did not buy the holdings from him, it may be that he continues to be the one obliged to pay the debt and you are not. (If he was executed for treason or some such, you might also ask the king to declare you free of the traitor's debts). If it does turn out that you are liable for the debt, you should look into the possibility of refinancing it.

Now, unless you can do something about the tribute and the debt, all of that still won't put you in the black (my estimate is that you might net 5000-6000gp of savings through those measures), but your reserves will last a lot longer that way. What you will really need is to open up some new sources of income. So far, the best places to look are probably the copper mine and the harbor. So, look into making those profitable witth the time you buy through the other stuff.

 

[Aaron L]

If your DM is meticulous enough to have detailed all that for you, he's certainly clever enough to have your accountant ripping you off

 

[kigmatzomat]

While I think these are all really good points, (Very interesting thread by the way) I wouldn't go running to your DM with a list of the things he/she did wrong.

I had one of the longer posts and it doesn't say the GM did anything wrong per se, but that the previous lord was a git. Not uncommon for a lord to drink & dine his way out of his lands. So criticizing the way things are run is not a shot at the DM.

That is, as long as you give the DM the chance to make the previous lord a git. If you trap him/her into saying that things aren't that bad and then you slam them with this, they will not be pleased. If, however, the DM can shrug and say "Hey, you wanted to be a lord, now you're a lord" and play it off that this is no surprise to them especially if it was a surprise then it should be decent for the game.

 

[Conaill]

I had one of the longer posts and it doesn't say the GM did anything wrong per se, but that the previous lord was a git. Not uncommon for a lord to drink & dine his way out of his lands.

If there are more of these gits running neighboring towns, let them know that you just *might* be willing to part with some of your prized cooks. With an appropriate compensation for the hardship you would have to endure without them, of course!

If the neighboring towns are actually competently run, it may behoove you to nurture some close personal ties to those lords. Being on good terms with your neighbors is never a bad idea, plus they may be willing to point out some things you're doing wrong running your own town...

 

[Hairfoot]

Find a city within marching distance that has ample natural resources. Claim hysterically that they're secretly hatching dragons, which will come to slaughter the townsfolk if you don't act immediately.

Before anyone has a chance to verify or refute the claims, march over and invade, destroying everything in sight except the mines and treasury building. Make a point of razing temples, libraries and museums - anything which gives the inhabitants a sense of culture. You can give them a new culture which is more amenable to your goals.

Disband the armies and mark the tradespeople as potential traitors, then get your own troops and skilled labourers in to police and rebuild the place. Naturally, the defeated city will have to pay for those services with all those yummy resources.

Problem solved!

 

[The Souljourner]

While I think these are all really good points, (Very interesting thread by the way) I wouldn't go running to your DM with a list of the things he/she did wrong.

I honestly don't think the DM has done anything wrong. He might be inflexible about some things, but I'm guessing there are plenty of plot hooks hidden in those numbers. He's pretty smart, and when I dragged out the DMG to look at what people should be getting paid, he mentioned he got a lot of his numbers straight from there.

I think he carefully planned everything out, and that, yes, he intended for the previous lord to have been a dumb git. Our job is to remedy the situation.

BTW, I asked him what the size of the town is, it's 3500. A lot of people moved away before the big battle with the orcs, however, so we might be able to get some back (I'm going to guess 1000-ish, but that's really out of thin air).

It sounds like we can't really expect to get anything in return for the tribute. He made it pretty clear that the money goes to the king and we get jack all back for it, unless there's a huge war (in which case, we all band together to fight).

I mentioned that the GTP (gross town product) is only 50,000, and the tribute is nearly 1/10th of that, and he said that the town wasn't generating nearly as much income as it could, indicating that all your great suggestions are indeed what he was thinking.

I'll respond about the individual ideas in a separate post. Thanks all, for your input, and keep it coming.

-The Souljourner