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<blockquote data-quote="Eldritch_Lord" data-source="post: 5596765" data-attributes="member: 52073"><p>Oh? NPCs don't run on the same rules as the PCs do? So I suppose you don't give NPC blacksmiths Craft ranks, because they can just make whatever the plot demands. NPC artificers don't have a use for their craft pool, because they have arbitrary amounts of XP. If you want to know how the economy works in D&D, you have to look at the D&D rules. There are precisely two rules regarding NPC wealth in D&D: the Profession rules and the WBL rules. If you don't look at those and take those into account when attempting to figure out how the D&D economy works, you're not looking at the D&D economy, you're hand-waving it completely.</p><p></p><p>The DMG has rules for demographics. I'm guessing few people in this discussion use those as well, since (A) you can hand-wave those as easily as commoner wealth and (B) the demographics seem bad from a medieval perspective. You can quite easily take your vaguely-medieval village and plop that down and call it a day, I'm not saying you can't. What I'm saying is that that's not D&D demographics you're using there. Taking something medieval and putting into D&D wholesale doesn't take into account D&Disms and D&D rules--something civilized and regimented like the feudal system doesn't sound like it would work for elves and orcs, first off, and there are more problems besides.</p><p></p><p>D&D is not the real world. The real world doesn't have magic or non-humans, and you can't expect a world where every small town has at least a 1-in-3 chance of having a druid able to cast <em>plant growth</em> on every field, of having a cleric who can prevent plagues and heal minor injuries to keep the population up, of having a wizard who can send a message to a town a half-dozen miles away with a thought, will have the same economics or social dynamics.</p><p></p><p>If you feel that D&D economics don't model the vaguely-medieval European world you think they should, you're right. If you think the economic system isn't nearly as fleshed-out as it should be, you're right. But don't take literally the only indicators we have in the rules for NPC income and throw them out in favor of making up something out of whole cloth and then claim to be answering the question of how <em>D&D</em> economics work.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And that's not what the D&D world looks like, for the most part. Could a Romanian village in 2011 fend off an attack of goblins? Could the hill farmers of the Scottish highlands protect themselves from a dragon assault? Not a chance. Land and food are more valuable in D&D because there are more things that want to take it from people, so farmers making more money isn't nearly as illogical as you seem to think--if nothing else, how else would they pay bands of adventurers and mercenaries to take out nearby kobold infestations?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Quite true, to a certain extent; how much money Joe Commoner makes each week will likely never come up in an actual game. However, if you <em>do</em> want to know what the rules say about it, the rules are there, and they do a good enough job modeling the D&D world. I repeat: it models the D&D world. I cannot stress this enough: <em>of course</em> it doesn't model medieval European serfs. <em>Of course</em> the economics of farming and everything else would make no sense in the real world. <em>D&D works differently</em>, with its monster threats and its magic and its non-human farmers and all that.</p><p></p><p>You can ask how D&D economics work, and actually answer that question using the rules D&D gives you. You can say D&D economics are stupid, acknowledge that only the PCs' income matter to your players, and ignore the rules in favor of hand-waving the NPC economy into something resembling a real-world economy. You can't have it both ways.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Eldritch_Lord, post: 5596765, member: 52073"] Oh? NPCs don't run on the same rules as the PCs do? So I suppose you don't give NPC blacksmiths Craft ranks, because they can just make whatever the plot demands. NPC artificers don't have a use for their craft pool, because they have arbitrary amounts of XP. If you want to know how the economy works in D&D, you have to look at the D&D rules. There are precisely two rules regarding NPC wealth in D&D: the Profession rules and the WBL rules. If you don't look at those and take those into account when attempting to figure out how the D&D economy works, you're not looking at the D&D economy, you're hand-waving it completely. The DMG has rules for demographics. I'm guessing few people in this discussion use those as well, since (A) you can hand-wave those as easily as commoner wealth and (B) the demographics seem bad from a medieval perspective. You can quite easily take your vaguely-medieval village and plop that down and call it a day, I'm not saying you can't. What I'm saying is that that's not D&D demographics you're using there. Taking something medieval and putting into D&D wholesale doesn't take into account D&Disms and D&D rules--something civilized and regimented like the feudal system doesn't sound like it would work for elves and orcs, first off, and there are more problems besides. D&D is not the real world. The real world doesn't have magic or non-humans, and you can't expect a world where every small town has at least a 1-in-3 chance of having a druid able to cast [I]plant growth[/I] on every field, of having a cleric who can prevent plagues and heal minor injuries to keep the population up, of having a wizard who can send a message to a town a half-dozen miles away with a thought, will have the same economics or social dynamics. If you feel that D&D economics don't model the vaguely-medieval European world you think they should, you're right. If you think the economic system isn't nearly as fleshed-out as it should be, you're right. But don't take literally the only indicators we have in the rules for NPC income and throw them out in favor of making up something out of whole cloth and then claim to be answering the question of how [I]D&D[/I] economics work. And that's not what the D&D world looks like, for the most part. Could a Romanian village in 2011 fend off an attack of goblins? Could the hill farmers of the Scottish highlands protect themselves from a dragon assault? Not a chance. Land and food are more valuable in D&D because there are more things that want to take it from people, so farmers making more money isn't nearly as illogical as you seem to think--if nothing else, how else would they pay bands of adventurers and mercenaries to take out nearby kobold infestations? Quite true, to a certain extent; how much money Joe Commoner makes each week will likely never come up in an actual game. However, if you [I]do[/I] want to know what the rules say about it, the rules are there, and they do a good enough job modeling the D&D world. I repeat: it models the D&D world. I cannot stress this enough: [I]of course[/I] it doesn't model medieval European serfs. [I]Of course[/I] the economics of farming and everything else would make no sense in the real world. [I]D&D works differently[/I], with its monster threats and its magic and its non-human farmers and all that. You can ask how D&D economics work, and actually answer that question using the rules D&D gives you. You can say D&D economics are stupid, acknowledge that only the PCs' income matter to your players, and ignore the rules in favor of hand-waving the NPC economy into something resembling a real-world economy. You can't have it both ways. [/QUOTE]
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