D&D Economics: Tech level and resource scarcity

[cignus_pfaccari]

I have a homebrew campaign setting currently in the works, and I intend to monkey around with the tech level a bit, as well as with the availability of certain resources. Specifically, I intend to populate the world with Bronze Age and New Stone Age civilizations. A few civilizations will have knowledge of iron-working (maybe dwarves, for example); however, iron is extremely scarce. This state of affairs fundamentally alters the economy of the game.

Just out of curiousity, do you mean "It's there, but nobody knows how to do anything with it?" or "There are few or no minable iron deposits near the surface in the region in a really odd convergence of events?" or even "There's like almost no iron in the entire world, ANYWHERE."

The former's pretty much the general state at the end of the Bronze Age (i.e. Iron was generally known, but existing deposits weren't recognized as being the same stuff as meteoric iron), the latter's a really big cosmology change.

Brad

 

[Tonguez]

Why not just reframe things: Assume all normal equipment is bronze, and treat iron equipment as magic.

This is what I did Iron = Adamantium
then the tasks is just to list what is and isn't availble (ie no crossbows)

I also added a critical break rule (ie on a BAb roll of 1 - x the weapon takes 1 point of damage to hardness, the range changing depending on the material ie shell is more fragile than stone and thus more likely to break)

 

[Peni Griffin]

I think I just had a great idea.

As I discussed above, the breakage factor was a large part of what eventually made metal more used than stone (once the economy regeared toward specialists). But in-game, nobody I ever played with ever wanted to play with weapon breakage rules. Keeping track of hardness points, rolling a chance to break the weapon every time you hit - it's too big a pain.

However, if you tie breakage to critical hits and fumbles, and only track breaks that make your tool unusable, this factor is much simplified. You can even make the prospect attractive to the players by allowing a broken weapon to do an extra die of damage because it broke off in the wound (if it breaks during a crit) or a chance to do a small amount of damage on shattering (if it breaks during a fumble).

 

[kallisti23]

Just out of curiousity, do you mean "It's there, but nobody knows how to do anything with it?" or "There are few or no minable iron deposits near the surface in the region in a really odd convergence of events?" or even "There's like almost no iron in the entire world, ANYWHERE."

The former's pretty much the general state at the end of the Bronze Age (i.e. Iron was generally known, but existing deposits weren't recognized as being the same stuff as meteoric iron), the latter's a really big cosmology change.

Brad

Good Question. The answer: iron is considerably more scarce on this planet than on historical earth, and very few people know how to do anything with it... iron-working is a carefully guarded secret among the priests of the dwarven forge-god, and among a certain cabal of magicians paticularly concerned with topics in alchemy and metallurgy. Also, there is a human city-state (now empire) that has a treaty of sponsorship and patronage with the dwarves... it's more colonial mercantilist economic exploitation than sponsorship and patronage, though. The priest-kings of this city-state have been deposed, exiled, and replaced by interloper warrior-kings that are using dwarven sponsorship in a bid for regional militaristic hegemony.

Some great comments, though. I hadn't thought of adapting the adamantine rules to this idea; it might actually work. I'll give 10-foot pole and stone to steel a look-see; they might be exactly what I'm looking for. Some great links, too.

I think OA has some good equipment, especially armor (kappa shells, anybody?), that would work in this setting.

Anybody else?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Keep in mind that early on in history, the only usable iron came from meteors. There was an iron dagger in Kin Tut's tomb that was considered one of the most valuable items there - in fact, on the most recent tour of the riches of the tomb, the Egyptian government would not let the dagger go due to its extreme value and rarity.

There was a massive meteor in Greenland that was used by the locals to make tools for centuries... It's possible to make tools out of pure iron without having to have the skills to get iron out of the mining operation.

 

[Arravis]

Your lucky day?

For about two years I ran a late stone age, early bronze age campaign . It is somewhat like Dark Sun, but extremely low magic and no psionics.

Endless Desert DM's Guide

It has quite a few things you might find handy such slightly modified craft rules (p11), to allow for a more realistic and usable time scale for making wood and bone items. And it takes into account inexperience and difficulty of working with the higher temperature metals.

Coins exist, using the Dark Sun ceramic system (p47), but they are quite rare and little used as most items are traded for (the value system is mostly for the DM's ease).

It has more usable rules for bone, stone, bronze, wood, copper, and other such items. Including new costs, construction times, etc (p47–53). Of course, it feature a breakage system for less durable weapons and armor as well .

A completely different set of mundane equipment, food, etc which has been detailed. (p55–62)

And a bunch more things you might find handy . I don't claim that much of this material is original (though goodly chunks of it are), it's a handy combination of a bunch of different resources brought together for a handy DM's guide (and player's guide if you take out all the purple text).

 

[pawsplay]

I suggest you alter the Wall of Iron spell to become Wall of Bronze, otherwise any sufficiently-high-level spellcaster will swiftly become immensely wealthy.

Heck, make it Wall of Elemental Stone that leaves nothing behind but a pile of rubble from the Plane of Earth.

 

[Treebore]

For about two years I ran a late stone age, early bronze age campaign . It is somewhat like Dark Sun, but extremely low magic and no psionics.

Endless Desert DM's Guide

This is AWESOME! Anyone who hasn't looked at this yet get off your butt and check it out, it is very well done. Lots of great ideas, and I really like how you handle attributes.

EDIT: I also like how you altered the spellcasting and using the Concentration check.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

I really like the Endless Desert PDF too! This could be published.

I just wanted to add that RuneQuest has dealt with bronze and stone age cultures for years. In RuneQuest, bronze is the bones of dead gods and is mined directly from the ground, while Iron is a special metal created by Dwarves to hurt their racial enemies, Trolls and Elves. People who have not undergone high-level ceremonies to attune themselves to iron weapons find that they interfere with spellcasting.

Ken

 

[Arravis]

Thanks for the positive feedback Treebore and Haffrung! It took quite a bit of work to put together. I wanted a book that the players could refer to without going to any other book, all the feats, classes, and such being included in one source. I've been very reluctant to post it, and this is actually my first time doing so. Mostly because parts of it come from so many different varied sources (including documents from athas.org and such). Pretty much all of it has been re-edited and re-organized in what I considered a friendlier format, and then of course I added a ton of original content. The two are now so mixed in together that there's no hope of extracting what's strictly mine. I grabbed a bit here from one source, a bit there from another, mixed them up and changed them. in some ways I guess it was an experiment to see if I could put together such a book.

For my previous campaign (a Forgotten Realms one) I had easily written and done ten times that amount of work, but it wasn't organized like the Endless Desert one is. The two campaigns actually come together as one but in odd ways (the "small" and condensed version of the timeline in the back deals with this slightly). Anyway, in the end the book was really only meant for me and the players in my campaign.

Sad thing is that I think I'm pretty much primed for publishing "something"... I'm a graphic designer so I have most of the art and pre-press skills needed, and I tend to write endlessly... but mostly I think what holds me back is my fear of turning the hobby that I love into work that I dread. I'm rambling now... anyway, any comments on the Endless Desert pdf are welcome and I'd love to hear thoughts and opinions, thanks guys!