D&D price lists

[Olive]

Re: Re: Re: D&D price lists

Olive, I'm going to assume I've misunderstood you, and ask for clarification. Because your argument here seems to be:

1. The PCs, as persons with highly specialized skills, deserve to be fabulously wealthy.

well, I wouldn't say deserve, but that fabulous wealth is the up shot of adventuring, or otherwise people wouldn't do it.

2. The price lists are set up to reflect what the PCs can afford.

This isn't what I'm saying at all. To me it always seems that things are insanely cheap. Other people go on and on about how 1sp per day for an unskilled worker means they couldn't eat or have a place to live because pub meals and a room in an inn cost more than an sp per day. The prices don't not make sense to me.

3. Therefore the price lists make sense.

Not there fore, but more or less.

Since I'd find that argument completely absurd, I prefer to believe for now that it isn't what you meant.

The PCs represent a small fraction of one percent of the total population of the campaign world -- the entire economy cannot be based on them.

I won't go into this because it wasn't what I was saying...

Millions of non-adventuring NPCs have to be able to buy things as well. Nor is there any obvious justification for routinely charging a PC ten to twenty times what you'd charge an NPC farmer for the same item, just because the PC has more money. If you do that, then the PC doesn't have any more money -- you've brought his buying power down to the level of the farmer.

I think the point is that most farmers don't buy anything. This is a feudal system, not a capitalist one. The means of exchange for most people is barter, and they would not be buying chickens but farming them, not buying fire wood but gathering it etc. Very few people in this society would be going out and buying anything. advenuturers, as travellers in an age where travel is unheard of except for the fabulously wealthy are exceptions to the rule, almost proto capitalists relying on abstract means of exchange rather than hard work and barter.

Does that make any more sense? The point is that I've never seen anything to suggest that the prices lists are any wrong, either too much or too little.

Feed their children and heat their homes? Of course I do.

Most peasant families did not starve to death, and most peasants did not die of cold every winter, or get annually replaced from warmer climes.

No but they a) bread in large numbers in order to keep up with child mortality and b) didn't generally buy the fuel for heating or the food for the home.

 

[Agback]

On the other issue of wages, I think that D3E is very close to a medieval (12-15th century) economy of 1sp per day in common wages, a chain shirt's cost, a longsword's cost, etc.

Well, one penny was a small wage at any time, even when the coinage was pure and of true weight, and at the beginning of the inflation of silver. By the 15th century, even in England where the coin was not debase until Tudor times, prices and wages roughly tripled from 1100 to 1450.

But allowing for that, you are roughly right about a mail hauberk. When used, they cost about 1000 day's wages, and D&D is not too far off setting them at 1500 days' wages. But plate armour in D&D is much too expensive. By the time it came into use in Europe the real cost of metalwork had diminished substantially, and the plate armour actually worn in battle (as opposed to ornate parade armour) only cost about 1,600 days' wages. D&D makes mail aboutthe right price and plate eight times too heavy. What is it about magic that is supposed to make plate armour cost nine times as much as if it were smithed?

As for swords, the evidence is that functional ones could be bought very cheaply. The D&D longsword either represents the flashy ornate things that nobles bought from Milan, or is fifteen times too expensive.

Smiths in D&D ought to be raking in the dough.

Sure, we're dealing in large sums of money, but during the 14th century, do you know what the ransom was for the King of France?

4,000,000 ecus d'or were promised. Probably 10,000,000 days' wages. I also know that the kingdom of France was never able to pay it.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

Magic should be expensive...

To maintain the quasi-mediaeval technolgy, yes. But there are problems. One of which is that if magic is very expensive but not very costly to cast, magicians get very rich. Or they start competing on price.

The well-off merchant who bought an Everburning Torch would quickly find it didn't save him much money or back pain. That item provides light, but not heat, so the same amount of firewood as always would be needed for heating the house, cooking, etc. It might save him some money in candles, but not firewood.

True. And though candles were fearsomely expensive, the great majority of people found themselves able to do without anything other than the light of their hearthfire.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

How did we go from "The price list is out of whack and ought to be fixed" to "Let's add whole layers of complicated rules to the game to try to simulate a medieval economy down to the last grain of wheat?"

By a time-honoured rhetorical procedure called 'setting up a man of straw'.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

To me, the prices are whack when compared to almost any historical period.

To me, it seems that the prices are out of whack compared to each other.

Why should a smith charge a tourist price for a longsword but a reasonable price for mail armour to the same customer at the same time?

Why don't labourers charge a tourist price?

This elaborate argument about bargaining and gouging strangers does not address the issue that it is the relative prices that are screwy.

Regards,


Agback

 

[MaxKaladin]

Re: Re: Re: Re: D&D price lists

I think the point is that most farmers don't buy anything.

Not true. Farmers used currency to buy things even if most transactions were by barter. Besides, barter is also buying things, you just replace currency with goods. Those goods you barter with will have a value and the values in the PHB represent their base value.

 

[Agback]

Re: Re: Re: Re: D&D price lists

No but they a) bread in large numbers in order to keep up with child mortality and b) didn't generally buy the fuel for heating or the food for the home.

Explain this to me. A labourer's family are too poor to feed a child. How does breeding in large numbers allow them to raise a child? Do they feed the kids to one another?

The mortality of infants and children in pre-modern economies is indeed equilibrated by poverty. But obviously the equilibrium must occur at a wage rate at which the poor can replace their numbers, and if they are to replace their numbers they have to be able to feed at least one kid.

Also: if someone uses firewood, and doesn't have to pay for it, it must be free for the gathering.

Regards,


Agback

 

[jgbrowning]

None of them had a business he could afford to be absent from; none of them owned enough land elsewhere to be separate from it; none of them had enough money to support himself in a very comfortable fashion independent of the land.

Lest you be put off by the fact that all three are modern (even Caine, compared to anything remotely Medieval), consider the ordinary tinker or wandering minstrel (a simple entertainer, as distinct from the Bard class). Tinkers are generally expected to live not far above the subsistence level. Why then would the residents of every town they enter suppose them to be rich? "Oh, aye, it's one o' them rich tinkers come to call. Best raise the price of the stew, mother, and send our Kate to fetch a couple of eggs. Should be worth a couple of gold pieces, easy, wi' a gent like this."

Well if your going to have PC that don't have the reccomended amount of resources for their level, then things will be different. They'll be treated more like itinerant workers.

However almost every PC I've ever seen had somthing close to the reccomend amount of PG in treasure or magic on their person. There are exceptions, but the exceptions just help to prove the rule.

This much I agree with. The practice of haggling and the absence of enforced price regulation will mean that you and I may not pay the same price for a given item, even if we buy identical goods from the same merchant on the same day. The PHB price list should merely indicate an average or typical price for the goods and services listed, but there is a reasonable limit to how much those prices can vary, and on what factors the variance can be based on.

I think it's the only way to view the price list. It's easier to accept as a guideline for how much resources ceratin things should aborb from the PC's resource pool.

An itinerant minstrel (NPC Commoner or Expert) may look much like a low-level PC Bard to any casual observer. That observer has no visual basis for charging the minstrel 2cp for grain and charging the Bard 2sp for the same grain. Yes, the minstrel may get a better skill roll when bargaining for the grain, or the Bard may happen to come by during a season when grain is in very short supply and the price has been driven up.

Again, by the rules, if the guy's 2nd level he's got what... 450 gp i think? worth of goods. If he's traveling, he's got them on him.

It is even true that if the Bard is foolish enough to go to the market in his finest clothes, jiggling a heavy bag of coins as he shops, the shopkeeper has very little incentive to let the Bard haggle his way down to a decent price. But even this is based on how much money the Bard is revealing himself to have, not simply on his status as a PC or the shopkeeper's mistaken assumption that all strangers have loads of cash.

Is the Bard leaving his finest clothes and the majority of his coin somewhere then? People talk, it may take a while, but word will get around. Someone know how much he has, or has a good idea. I wouldn't be surprised if the innkeeper offered to "help" the bard get a better deal on various things.

Regarding vegetables that cost 10 at Market A and 12 at Market B, no problem. The thing I've been going on about all day is the vegetables that cost 12 at Market B if you're a local NPC, and 125 at Market B if you're a visiting PC, no matter how you are dressed, what equipment you have on you, how much cash you actually have on hand, what level you are or how well you haggle.

Actually the vegetables at Market A only cost the locals 2. But most PCs would never know that. And even if they did, they wouldn't get that price because they are very wealthy in comparison to the shopkeeper.

Basically, to try and bargain too hard, to try and get a price closer to what the locals get, is very rude.

Yeah, transportation costs can be shocking. This is from memory, but didn't MMS:WE give the cost of stone as doubling for every 12 miles it was hauled? All the more reason not to charge the PC vastly more than the NPC would have to pay for the same material. If he had to pay merely double the NPC's cost for goods and services (that is, twice the base price for the stone, and quadrupling the price every 12 miles instead of merely doubling it), and the PC and NPC both hauled their stone 60 miles, the NPC would pay 32x (where 'x' is the base cost of the stone) and the PC would pay 2048x!

Roughly yes, doubling every 12 miles is reasonable. Again, I don't know how to stress it except that the "stone merchant" is simply going to refuse to sell stone to PC who has obvious wealth for anything resembling what he would charge a local.

Now if the PC is become a local, that'd be different. If the PC is part of the social structure, things change.

The concept of government regulated profit is modern.

No. The concept of regulated profit is pretty old, but mostly seen through the regulation of price. Diocletion is the oldest one I know of from off the top of my head. I wouldn't be surprised to find older regulations. I know the Price of bread in Rome was regulated by the 1st cent AD.

Modern economics includes analysis and modeling of some very old practices, and 'reasonable profit' may be one of them. I don't base my purchases solely on whether or not I can afford to pay for an item, I also base them on whether or not I think a fair price is being charged by the seller, and this has nothing to do with government regulations, modern economic theory or anything of the sort. It's the purely subjective determination any potential buyer might make.

Do I have enough money to buy this thing? Yes, but it seems high anyway.

Can I buy it elsewhere for less money? Possibly, but right now there is no way to be sure; walk away now and you may not have another chance.

Decision: No, it just costs too much money, I'm going to have to pass unless he brings the price down.

Modern day example: Ebay seller offering a DVD with the unaired pilot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plus two of the aired episodes, for $25 plus shipping.

Can I pay for it? Sure, I spend that much on game books all the time.

Can I buy it elsewhere for less? Maybe, but all the ones I've seen on Ebay are either from this seller, or at least are going for the same price. The prices may not be dropping any time soon.

Decision: It's obvious this guy is mass producing these things in his basement, and it can't be costing him much to do that. I really think $15 would be a more reasonable price for the effort he's probably putting into this product. Until the price comes down to $15, I'll pass. (But meantime, a few clueless bidders offer $30, $40, even $50 to get a copy.)

Pretend its not a luxury item. Pretend its a car, or a loaf of bread and you've got a better example.

Another india example: I need a pair of sandals. Opening price was 2400 rupees. i left the store with the shoes for only 400 rupees. I still paid way to much. Much more than an Indian would have gotten it for.

I only got it that low by playing bad cop/good cop with my wife. She did all the bargainning while I stood by acting impatent. A price was finally agreed upon (800) rupees and then Suzi said to the store owner, "I'll have to ask my husband. He has all the money."

I shook my head no, said "too expensive" and started to walk out. We eventually got the price down to 400 rupees but only by playing into their cultural beliefs that the wife is being a good wife by obeying her huband. Barganing is actually quite fun and I would trade the system we have now for an all barganing system in a moment.

Yup, it does. It does not, however, vary based on "PC or NPC", character class, level, alignment, hit points, saving throws or any other game mechanic that should be invisible, transparent or otherwise meaningless to characters within the game.

Here I think you are very wrong. The various invisible, transparent, mechanics are directly keyed into wealth. Hence that wealth is keyed into how a PC is treated.

It is seen as rude for a rich person to pay the same as a poor person in everyday transactions. A rich person gains prestige by being generous (whcih they can easily afford) and he continues to assert his superiority over the lowely shopkeeper even when the shopkeeper asks a price that is 10X to much. Why? Because he's sooo rich he can still buy it. It's like cars, in a way. They all do basically the same thing, but some people drive expensive ones because its a display of weath and social class.

Fiscal interaction is social interaction. And when the world is a lot smaller than it is now, social interaction becomes even more important.

In the musical "1776", there's a bit of dialogue between Rutledge of South Carolina and Jefferson of Virginia, where Rutledge claims their black slaves are not people, they are property; Jefferson responds "No, sir, they are people who are being TREATED as property."

I think I could make the argument that NPCs are characters who are being treated as window dressing, or as game mechanics. Within the game, there should be no way of telling a PC from an NPC.

That's your opinion. It's not a truism. NPC don't matter. PCs are real humans playing a game. The game is designed around them.

Rules should not be devised to take advantage of a distinction that neither group should be aware of.

This is a design difference. Rules are already devised upon that distinction. PC vrs NPC wealth in the DMG.

If nothing else, your "automatic inflation for PCs" notion should require the inclusion of two separate price lists (or a single list that notes 'multiply all costs by a factor of 10 for the PCs' or some such thing.) I'm not ready to accept all of your arguments on price inflation for PCs, mainly because I am unwilling, as yet, to grant that your NPCs will always have a sufficiently good justification for charging my PCs the listed prices. But even if I did accept that, it remains true that the listed prices cannot apply to everyone, and it will sometimes be useful to know what prices apply to everyone else. If you want to apply a double standard, at least show both ends of that standard.

The only reason why I'm trying to create a standard to begin with is for PCs.

I fully understand wanting a system of prices that integrate evenly with PC and NPC interactions. It seems to "sit" better with me as well. However, that's not the price list we were given. Mostly because the price list was devised without any thought about economy. It was designed to drain PC of money to prvide an impetus for more dungeon delving. It seemed to me that the easiest way to explain the different would be a tourist price. Since i've read about it, and experienced it first hand, it isn't hard to make that stretch.

Hey, I don't think your NPC knows enough about me to make that characterization. Do I have 'nerdy' stamped on my forehead? Do I... oh, uh, never mind.

Its on the back of your shirt too. "Kick me Hard, I love Economics"

heh

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

To me, it seems that the prices are out of whack compared to each other.

Why should a smith charge a tourist price for a longsword but a reasonable price for mail armour to the same customer at the same time?

Why don't labourers charge a tourist price?

This elaborate argument about bargaining and gouging strangers does not address the issue that it is the relative prices that are screwy.

Regards,


Agback

Also a good point, but one that seem a bit easier to answer. In the DnD "culture" these items have those relationships of price that seem wacky to us from a hsitorical perspective.

But there's no accounting for what items one culture views as "more valuable" than an other culture does.

OK, not the best idea, but it's probably a good place to start. But this is really just an apolgist post, the real reason why these things costs are out of whack is that the guys who made them up made mistakes. They could have done a bit more reaserch, but even then how do you price a "sunrod" without picking a particular location in space and a particular time? And right after you do that, you've made the lists pretty much just as useless.

Kinda like tyring to play in an Aztec game using only the lists fom the PHB. Its imposible.

joe b.

 

[Damon Griffin]

Re: Re: Re: Re: D&D price lists

This isn't what I'm saying at all. To me it always seems that things are insanely cheap. Other people go on and on about how 1sp per day for an unskilled worker means they couldn't eat or have a place to live because pub meals and a room in an inn cost more than an sp per day. The prices don't not make sense to me.

The cost of pub meals and overnight stays at an inn may not have a lot of relevance to a farmer who never leaves home except to bring his produce to market. But that farmer does need a home, and livestock, and seed grain, and tools, and many other items that cannot simply be picked up off the ground like firewood.

As Max Kaladin points out, the peasant is going to have to pay for this somehow, whether it's in cash, bartered farm goods or labor (for which he is not being paid elsewhere.)

I can't seem to find the email where I discussed this with my DM recently, but sometime within the last couple of weeks we took a look at the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and worked out that, at the listed prices, a stone cottage consisting of three rooms would have cost a common laborer (earning 1sp/day) something like 27 years wages to build.

This is beyond ridiculous.

I think the point is that most farmers don't buy anything.

I'll once again echo what Max said here: barter is still a form of purchase, whether you are bartering good or services. Ultimately, barter is the only form of purchase; cash is nothing more than a method of facilitating the barter.

The point is that I've never seen anything to suggest that the prices lists are any wrong, either too much or too little.

Ooookay. Then I must conclude that either you have never taken the time to think about the listed prices in relation to each other...or that you have done so, and nothing that's said here will convince you there's a problem.