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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3783391" data-attributes="member: 4937">I just wish to point out that said city is about twice as large as medieval London.&nbsp; There isn't anything wrong with that necessarily, but it is potentially one of those modern anachronisms.&nbsp; Another potential anachronism is to imagine that there is even remotely enough gold in the Barony to represent all of its economic activity.&nbsp; In point of fact, probably no one in the Barony actually generates real physical gold (who owns the mines?), and the Baron probably would have a very hard time extracting 20% of the Baronies economic activity as coin.&nbsp; Also, the D&amp;D economy uses a 'gold standard' and almost certainly a realistic economy would be on a 'silver standard'.&nbsp;&nbsp; Of course, all of this can be dealt with by adjusting the planet's 'physics' (maybe gold is much more plentiful on your world), but I think if you intend to be realistic these are the sort of things you consciously think about.&nbsp; For example, if gold is more plentiful, wealthy people probably have long since adopted some sort of paper money because wealth is otherwise to difficult (and expensive!) to transport and exchange.&nbsp; For economics, I find it helpful to set some standard in your mind for how much a coin is worth.&nbsp; For example, IMC, a daily wage for an unskilled laborer is about one silver peice, or, roughly equivalent to $50.&nbsp; Since silver trades for gold at 20:1, a gold peice has about $1000 worth of purchasing power.&nbsp; Hense, a small industry with a profit of 100,000 gp per year makes absolutely no sense under my economic assumptions, but then neither necessarily do the standard costs of equipment and magic items.&nbsp; On the other hand, if one gold peice has roughly $50 worth of purchasing power, maybe 100,000 gp profit does make sense, but in that case what should $5 million dollars worth of purchasing power be able to buy (and maintain!).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3783391, member: 4937"] I just wish to point out that said city is about twice as large as medieval London. There isn't anything wrong with that necessarily, but it is potentially one of those modern anachronisms. Another potential anachronism is to imagine that there is even remotely enough gold in the Barony to represent all of its economic activity. In point of fact, probably no one in the Barony actually generates real physical gold (who owns the mines?), and the Baron probably would have a very hard time extracting 20% of the Baronies economic activity as coin. Also, the D&D economy uses a 'gold standard' and almost certainly a realistic economy would be on a 'silver standard'. Of course, all of this can be dealt with by adjusting the planet's 'physics' (maybe gold is much more plentiful on your world), but I think if you intend to be realistic these are the sort of things you consciously think about. For example, if gold is more plentiful, wealthy people probably have long since adopted some sort of paper money because wealth is otherwise to difficult (and expensive!) to transport and exchange. For economics, I find it helpful to set some standard in your mind for how much a coin is worth. For example, IMC, a daily wage for an unskilled laborer is about one silver peice, or, roughly equivalent to $50. Since silver trades for gold at 20:1, a gold peice has about $1000 worth of purchasing power. Hense, a small industry with a profit of 100,000 gp per year makes absolutely no sense under my economic assumptions, but then neither necessarily do the standard costs of equipment and magic items. On the other hand, if one gold peice has roughly $50 worth of purchasing power, maybe 100,000 gp profit does make sense, but in that case what should $5 million dollars worth of purchasing power be able to buy (and maintain!). [/QUOTE]

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