Criminal Underclass in the Campaign World

[jgbrowning]

LOL!
Now as to a suggestion that it is detrimental because it changes the mindset of players from that of the fantasy world to a modern one, please! The desires of humanking have not changed much over recorded history, onlt the items desired have become more numerous and complex.

perhaps i didn't make my position as clear as i intended it to be. I wasn't commenting on the wants and desires of humanity, which as you say, have remained fairly consistant throughout history, i was commenting on the problem moderns have of understanding medievals and how using a modern currancy to price a medieval good ads to that misunderstanding.

What we view as necessary, important parts of life, to them are not such. Most of their time and energy is spent only to make sure they have enough to eat and drink and enough to protect them from the environment. Most of what excess they enjoy is spend on food and drink as the opportunites for wastfulness are not as developed as ours. When we work hard it is often to "get ahead". We have the ability to easily move our socio-economic standing up when compared to the difficulty of a medieval person.

But even with that ability we spend most of our time and energy on entertainments and luxuries (things that do not improve our survial chances/socio-economic standing) because we have the tremendous advantages modern science and agriculture has provided us. If we were forced to spend 15%-50% of our income only on bread (not to mention beer [almost a necessity then, and a good source of calories and uncontaminated liquid], meat, cheese etc..) our view towards what is necessary and what is luxury would change to more adaquately represent a medieval view.

I was trying to show how pricing medieval items in US dollars inhierantly biases a reader to "pretend" that other parts of the social-economic situation of medieval times are comparable to the modern. That comparison is incorrect and misleading at worse and anacronistic at best. We have a very small minority of our population living at a subsistance only level (ie. barely getting enough to eat) while during the medieval period a good 20% or so of people living in cities were "unemployed and homeless" in most cities. There is no comparison between any of our (USA) modern classes and a good 20% or so of the city people of medieval europe.

Most medieval people went from cradle to grave owning few material possessions (besides a small plot of land, if they were lucky) and passed on what they could to their children. The starkness of their lives vrs. the richness that we are capable of is a contrast that most moderns should be aware of.

As to not addressing the system, i believe i indicated where using your system for pricing medieval items was inaccurate. Let me also repeat that i said it was an elegant solution to a very difficult problem, but it is not a solution i would prefer.

Looking to price relations again, but this time precious metal, the amount of precious metal we have today vrs. the amount they had in medieval times is again not an accurate way of describing wealth in the modern to medieval. Estimated amount of gold in europe during 1500 is around 8 cubic meters and the supply of silver in england in 1200 is estimated at around 300 tons, amounting to only a few ounces of sterling for every man woman and child in the realm. Even assuming that the value of gold and silver today is comparable to the value it had during the medieval period is not tremendously useful.

How can we come up with a good system that more accurately reflects the wealth and coinage of medieval periods while maintaining the desire for "heroic" actions by the PC's? Well, personally i dont think we can and still be talking about DnD. But the real issue here is how does the monetary system drive the game? As many gamers realize, its not terribly important over all. At least until the PC's become landowers. And there it tends to really fall apart and limit the role-playing ability of the PC's due the seeming economic vacuum they appear to be moving within. Why would a PC ever own land when adventuring is much more profitable? Why the heck doesnt the kings of the land hire mercenaries and then use them to do what the adventurers are doing? These issues would be better addressed using a more realistic money system than presented in DnD.

Again, these are just my opinions and im sure that for most situations PC's will find themselves in, your system of using $ will work quite nicely. I just dont like inserting more modernism in to my flights of fantasy than i have to. All apologies for any offenses.

joe b.

 

[Tewligan]

If you don't really want people's opinions you shouldn't ask for them.

I think that it's a matter of how the opinions are being delivered, rather than the opinions themselves. A couple of people seem to have developed a bit of a confrontational attitude, which the Good Colonel (tm) has taken in a more than graceful fashion, showing a hint of snippiness only after excessive hounding. Here are a few things to remember that might help this thread run more smoothly:

1) It's a game system - sometimes simplicity wins over realism.
2) Since there never really was a world where magic and orcs factored into food production, we don't know how the system would be affected.
3) No one likes a jerk.

 

[Klintus Fang]

Yeah, the Col only said "I'm not argueing with you about this" in response to Vax's argumentative and, in my opinion, blatantly combative tone. The Col didn't object to any other criticisms; he was quite open to them in fact.


Vax was being rude. If he used the same tone in a face-to-face forum of a coffee shop, rather than this anonymous one, he would likely have been politely asked to "take it outside" by the management. I wouldn't see much point in discussing with someone who treated me that way either.

fwiw: i too don't see the benefit of using the modern dollar in the book (I do own a copy, btw). For pure elegance (and I must temper that by pointing out that I am a mathematician so elegance probably means something quite different to me) I would use a unitless standard. Write all the values in units of "foobar" and then tell the DM to multiply foobar by whatever scaling factor seems appropriate to his campaign. But in effect that is what you've done, but to me, the use of the "dollar" as the basis rather than a "unitless" number is more confusing than helpful. But that is just me.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

fwiw: i too don't see the benefit of using the modern dollar in the book (I do own a copy, btw). For pure elegance (and I must temper that by pointing out that I am a mathematician so elegance probably means something quite different to me) I would use a unitless standard. Write all the values in units of "foobar" and then tell the DM to multiply foobar by whatever scaling factor seems appropriate to his campaign. But in effect that is what you've done, but to me, the use of the "dollar" as the basis rather than a "unitless" number is more confusing than helpful. But that is just me.

Give it a try, the $ system, if you are having difficulty managing the monetary system in your game system. If not, then don't fix what ain't broke.

Fact is I would vave called the system the Base Unit Coin one--BUC, but that's a part of a different game system now... Furthermore, the $ is very familiat to the majority of FRPG participants who read in English, so it should facilitate thinking in such terms where the GM chooses to apply the system.

From the base of the monetary system, it is easy to manage inflation or depression in areas, calculate taxes and exchange fees. etc.

A am quite at a loss to deal with objections that claim some historical or other basis, because if any adjustments are desired, the $ system allows that easily. Adjust the base annual income line downwards, keep proces as they are, and lo and behold! The populace has barely enough to keep from starving.

Anyway, as I said, the main book covering this is yet to come, the one dealing with everyday life. power, government, and the SECs in an advanced and other societies. I'll return to this topic some month or two after that work has been released and try again for some input

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Vaxalon]

I don't believe I ever cast any aspersions upon anyone in this thread. I used capital letters a few times, for emphasis. Yes, that's generally assumed to be shouting on the internet.

I'll use bold or italics from now on.