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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 4288701" data-attributes="member: 30001">Yes, this could be a huge subject though.  I'd point you in the direction of a book on social and economic history for Medieval Europe.  The problem IMO with what people think they know about the Middle Ages is not always based on historical fact.  Poverty, disease, famine, etc. certainly existed but the levels/severity and such, which would be pertinent to the discussion, are debateable.  I tend to find actual historians of the picture describe a much more variable and nuanced situation than what popular culture presumes.  In terms of what sort of defensive infrastructure (arms, armor, and fortifications) a peasant community could generate - one could always do a "back of the envelope" calculation.  There are actually a number of game systems - Pendragon, Harn, Chivalry and Sorcery - that purport to be somewhat based on researched fact that give some examples.  Basically, as you design the society, AFAICT you can decide how much concentration of military power you want in the hands of a feudal aristocracy.  In a traditional feudal environment, a few hundred villagers would be expected to support a knight, his warhorse, a fortified manor house, the knight's heavy armor and weapons, a few other armed relatives/retainers, and some local yeoman very proficient with bows and owning quality horses.  This gives a basic estimate for the surpluses available from the labor and agriculture goods of the peasants.  You could assign a gp value to this surplus, and instead figure out how much of a ranger company or school of wizardry could be supported at the same level of effort.I agree with your assessment of $10=1sp to be as good as anything, better than a quarter.  Modern production methods, labor laws, and such make it difficult to do too many comparisons though.  I'm not surprised that people who regularly play DnD would think a sp is equivalent to $.25 though, I wouldn't have much of a sense of modern economy from playing a game based on James Bond.  (And, as I alluded to, a rigorous comparison would be complicated)Historical records are available from peasants who had their goods confiscated by lords, and from those you can get a general idea of the kinds of goods that people owned at the time.  Based on that, I'd say 200-300 gp per peasant household (and that's 5 peasants including women and children) would be a very high figure.  It would probably be easiest to divide peasants into their historical classes, generalized as cottar, half-villein, villein, and farmer/yeoman and asssign weapons, armor, and wealth accordingly.  Only the upper 10% would have anything beyond a club, spear, or cheap sword (equiv. to DnD spear) for armaments.In a fantasy setting, there is also the possiblity of friendly monsters in the area.  Foo lions, brownies, gold dragons in invisible castles, watchful ki-rin in the clouds, etc. are all possible defenders of peasant communities.  This is especially appropriate if the villagers are subject to depradations by roving bands of evil high-level wizards.  In fact, though I've concentrated mainly on historical generalizations, a DnD setting can (and probably should) go in some very interesting un-historical directions on this subject.</blockquote>

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