Compensating Farmers for Collateral Damage

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I was stumped tonight. I'm running Rise of the Runelords for 4E. Upon reaching the edge of cornfields surrounding a farmstead, one of my players asked how much a field of corn (roughly 1,000 feet by 500 feet) is worth. He wanted to burn down the cornfield (with the farmer's permission), but wanted to know what would be fair compensation.

I guess I'm just too much of a suburban boy to even start to answer that question. Any thoughts?

 

[Leatherhead]

Does the farmer even own the field?

 

[Blackwarder]

I'll try to help with that, 1000x500 feet translate to roughly 11.5 acres, lets round it up to 12 for ease of use.
One acre will yield about 10 bushels of wheat, so 120 bushels of wheat for the entire field, every 8 bushels equal a quarter of wheat (about a quarter ton or 480lb) so the entire yield of the field will be 15 quarters of wheat, according to the Assize of Bread and Ale and going by the assumption that 1 medieval English penny = 1 D&D sp; 1 English shilling = 12 pennies = 12sp; and 1 English pound = 20 shillings = 240sp = 24gp we can come to the conclusion that one quarter of wheat is worth 4gp each so the yield of the entire field will amount to 15*4 or 60gp.

There is a great explanation in here: http://www.autarch.co/blog/starting-ground-upliterally

I bought ACKS just for the economic model.

Warder

 

[Blackbrrd]

[MENTION=6688285]Blackwarder[/MENTION] got a bit curious about ACK, have you played it a lot? Looks interesting, especially the domain building. Might be worthy of a new thread though.

 

[Umbran]

Does the farmer even own the field?

Does that matter? Either way, the farmer's screwed if he or she loses crops. They cannot be sold, used to pay rents, or be delivered to the liege lord.

 

[Sunseeker]

Does that matter? Either way, the farmer's screwed if he or she loses crops. They cannot be sold, used to pay rents, or be delivered to the liege lord.

It does based on how you much you want to make the players feel bad.
And that's the point of compensating him, so he's not screwed.

 

[haakon1]

Does that matter? Either way, the farmer's screwed if he or she loses crops. They cannot be sold, used to pay rents, or be delivered to the liege lord.

What if he has crop insurance? With the additional "adventurer damage waiver" that all farmers really should opt for, along with Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) coverage if they're rocking it old school.

 

[howandwhy99]

If you burn his crops, you can compensate him in many ways. One should be ensuring everyone who eats his crops have enough food.
If you burn his field, you need to find him a new field.

Of course you still have a span of scorched earth to face. That can be a challenge.

 

[Blackwarder]

@Blackwarder got a bit curious about ACK, have you played it a lot? Looks interesting, especially the domain building. Might be worthy of a new thread though.

I haven't played RAW ACKS but I've been shamelessly incorporating the entire economic module+domain rules, you should check the D@W (Domains at War) supplement that just finished a kickstarter campaingen.

TBH, if I'll start a brand new campaign I'll might start a pure ACKS game, simply because some of my players would like the world building and conquering aspects of the game.

Warder

 

[Blackbrrd]

[MENTION=6688285]Blackwarder[/MENTION] this really does remind me of Birthright, especially what happens when you reach name level. I was already going to run a campaign a bit like this, now I will actually have rules so I don't have to make it all up from scratch. Thanks a lot for the heads up regarding ACK!