Fantasy World Economics

[painandgreed]

Although having a realistic world isn't possible in a fantasy game by definition, I'd like to have at least a well thought out and rational world. That and wondering how much PCs cacrrying in that dragon's loot would actually disrupt the local economy and how rich they are compared to lords and kings of the land, I decided to figure out how much money those lords and kings had access to.

By researching the production of medieval peasants, the costs in D&D of such trade goods as wheat, and assuming the use of heavy plow and three field crop rotation, I came out with the product of a peasant being about 10-15 GP per acre per year. I'm reducing everything to a GP value for simplicity and don't really care how much barley verus flax an individual peasant grows. This represents the average values of food as well as trade crops such as wheat, barley, flax, thistle, dye plants, etc. An acre is roughly (originally defined as) the amount of land a man can plow in one day. Given a one month planting season the max amount one man can plant would be about 30 acres, but we'll assume an average of 20 acrres per peasant family (four people).

We'll take what is probably a small kingdom by D&D standards as our example: a large city of 20,000 surrounded by smaller towns making up 90% of the total population (DMG, p.137). This gives a total population of 200,000 which, if the average income equates to our average peasant, then you end up with 50,000 working families. Those times 20 acres times 13 Gp per acre equals a total economy of 13 million GP for our kingdom. We'll assume we have 100 lords that all tax 3/7 of this in revenue, half of which goes to a king. This gives the king an annual income of 2.8 million GP value and each lord an income of 28k GP.

Of course, much of this is going to go to feed and support the king and lords (as well as servants and such) to begin with an will never actually be in GP form. Assuming 10Gp/day for a lord (about what my characters spend when in town), thats 3.6k GP a year to feed and clothe his family. I would imagine that the king, his family and close servants could go through half a million GP a year in upkeep. then they have to pay standing armies and their horses, upkeep on castles, etc. There is still could be a decent amount left over, espeically if they saved up money from year to year, or had a specific goal, or even special taxes. It pretty much puts just about any magic item in the range of the king or a lord by straight market price.

Make what you will of the above. I'd encourage any comments or suggestions as well as mention of 3rd party products that might examine the same topics. I'm especially intersted in costs to build and upkeep castles and such.

 

[der_kluge]

Have you read Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe?

If not, I strongly suggest you pick it up. rpgnow.com has the pdf. It's cheap. And well worth it.

 

[LostSoul]

I came out with the product of a peasant being about 10-15 GP per acre per year.

I came up with the exact same number! I like the way you think.

One thing to consider is the effectiveness of armies in your campaign world. If you have lots of mid- to high-level characters, I don't think that armies will be worth the amount of gp it takes to keep them. Instead, the kings might have various teams of "special forces" that they keep on retainer to deal with things cropping up.

 

[painandgreed]

Have you read Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe?

Nope. Thanks, I'll check it out. I saw a similar item in the prizes for the fund raiser; hoping I get one of them.

I came up with the exact same number! I like the way you think.

Cool. I've done several different calculations and it seems pretty sound. I work it out and it seems to give the typical peasant what they got historically. other things to keep in mind is that each ton of manure spread on such land results in another GP in increased harvest for up to 20 tons/acre. I had one adventure for my characters that was to clear out the bat caves without hurting the bats. Once they did so the town loaded up wagons with guano to take back which was worth more than what they paid the players.

One thing to consider is the effectiveness of armies in your campaign world. If you have lots of mid- to high-level characters, I don't think that armies will be worth the amount of gp it takes to keep them. Instead, the kings might have various teams of "special forces" that they keep on retainer to deal with things cropping up.

There are lots of things to consider. Depending on how much money can usually be brought back by PCs from adventuring, it might be profitable for nobles to fund adventuring parties for a cut of the loot. Not to mention that they'd surely tax such loot. Clearing out that abandoned keep? Its on the lord's land and technically all treasure in it is his. He'll let adventurers keep half for recovering it for him. Death and taxes. I'm not sure what to think about my 1st level character whose family has survived on less than 100 GP/year to suddenly end up with 600+ GP after a few days of adventuring. In a desperate world, why isn't everybody adventuring? Defeat one CR 1 level enounter and you've made three years income for you and your family (according to Table3-3). If that encounter only depleats you of 20% of so of your resources, then it's a pretty good bet. So to make things make sence IMC, I'm going to have to either reduce the average money for an encounter or increase the danger. Either the lack of return, mortality, or a combination is needed to keep the average Joe from adventuring instead of raising crops.

 

[Sarellion]

A small troop of higher level guys makes sense if you compare the possible firepower.

A neighbouring dwarven kingdom in my world uses the adventurers setup. They have an elite force, called the Ten who are quite experienced and a supplementing elite force whose men are equipped with low level magical equipment. Supporting the elite troops we have some regular troopers mixed with citizen defense forces who are doing the basic tasks.

 

[painandgreed]

Let's look now at magic item manufature and avaialbility since this is a hot topic here it seems (see "magic shop" thread).

Without DM intervention, how many wizards do we have that could make items? The population should be increased if I add any towns but I don't want one city with 180 villages (which would result in an average of 450 3rd level, 450 2nd level and 900 1st level wizards acording to DMG p.139) I'll assume that there are 3.5 times the number of lower sized establishments than the one above it, skipping small cities. This gives us one large city, 3 large towns, 12 small towns, 42 villages, 150 hamlets, and 525 throps assuming max size for each and comes out to roughly the right population. Now we can figure out the number of wizards and their levels according to the DMG p.139. Taking the low side of average, we end up with 1 11th level, 1 6th level, 3 5th level, 5 4th level, 16 third level, 65 2nd level, and 300+ 1st level in our kingdom.

What items can they make? We;ll assume that these wizards will have any capable artificer feats since they are non-adventuring NPCs and otherwise make their living at least in part by making such items. Well, nobody can is able to make Staves or Rings because they aren't high enough for the feat. There is only 1 person capable of making Rods. There are a total of 5 people capable of making Arms and Armor or Wands. 26 total people capable of making Potions or Wonderous Items. Everybody can scribe Scrolls.

How much would such items cost? Considering that the markup on magic items is less than normal items, x2 to x3, I think it's safe to say that Market Price listed in the DMG is for cases where there is plenty of supply to meet demand. If there isn't a good supply, then the price will go up to match demand.

What is our demand? Let's take out Royal and 100 noble families and assume they spend 3.5% of their annual income on magic items. For things that are functional and likely a matter of life or death in some cases, I don't think that's too much. I'll explain why I picked that number in a minute. That comes out to 200,000 GP a year spent on magic items in out kingdom. One half from the king alone. Let's say this is their annual magic budget for buying magic items and having spells cast, but we're assuming it mostly goes to magic items for purposes of demand.

Almost everything takes 1 day per 1000gp to make, resulting in 79 workdays a year for making magic items. Not a big enough demand to tax even one wizard, so everybody can pretty much get what they want. The only special cases will be for items that can't be made and for items that only one person can make. Items that can't be made are essentially priceless. They are only placed in the world by the DM and are owned by NPCs or monsters. Our one 1st level wizard is the only person that can create Rods, so he could have the option of bumping up the price of such as well as scroll and potions he makes at his level since nobody else can do it. We'll say his prices are higher than Market Price (DMs adjudication) since he can ask such because demand is there because he is the only one who can supply them. The same goes for our 6th level wizard for items that can't be made by the 5th or lower but not as high as since people could always go to the 11th level. If the 11th level doesn't jack up his prices high enough, then the 6th level is left chargin Market Price. At 5th and lower level there are plenty of competing wizards to say that anything made at 5th level or lower is Market Price as listed in the DMG.

Arms and Armor are going to be the big items that everybody wants in our violent medieval world. The highest the 11th level can make is +3 enchantment so's the best that can be purchased. Anything more powerful will be just as rare as Staves or Rings. Likewise, only one other person can make +2, so hopefully, if the 11th level wizard isn't to hard up for work, then both the +3 and +2 enchantments items will be higher than normal price. Let's say double of Market Price and do some hand waving to say that half of the magic budget goes to arms and armor. If both our 11th and 6th level wizard make one items they can at double the price for the 11th and 1.5 for the 6th. We end up with 24,000 GP spent every year on a +3 and a +2 items every year. The other fourth and fifth level wizards jump in there and make a +1 item on demand each per year. That gives us about 32,000 out of the 100,000 for armor and weapons. This puts 30 magic weapons/armor into circulation every year for 101 families means each family get a magic weapon or armor every three and a third years. Assuming that the land is stable and such items are going to be passed down without issue, I'd say that the actual number of magic weapons/armor made will be a little less and more towards the higher end as families will be inclined to save up and buy quality, rather than quanity. This would suggest that the king, his close freinds, and powerful nobles will be in +3 while their families probably have +2 items. Other nobles could have +2 items with other fighters in the family decked out with +1. The older and more powerful the family, the more abilities they'll have. Another consideration is the money spent on such items by the king and other really powerful nobles. It's not enough to have a +3 items with some special abilities for the king if 10 other nobles are also going to have similar swords. instead he'll probably have something like a +3 sword with special abilities that is also a 50,000 GP work of art above and beyond the masterwork and magical nature. If the DM chooses to include any special NPCs who can provide magic items, then there would be even more.

Now, why did I choose a magic budget of 3.5%? Simply put, because that averages out to about a 1GP per level per day for all the NPC wizards. This is their salaries and makes for a good living in a medieval world. This is assuming that all their income is from making magic items. We could say that they only need about half from such sources and that the nobels spend less on magic every year which results in less magic items in the campaign. Since we have only about 10 wizards making the vast majority of the magic items out there, how does it get to all the 3rd level and lower? ...and why are there 300+ 1st level wizards living in just about every small group of people? Well, half the cost of those magic items goes to material components. When paid 1315 GP for a +1 longsword, the wizard doesn't just melt that 500 gold and abosrb it with the masterwork weapon. Instead it goes towards material components gathered and prepared by all these lower level wizards. They're out there looking for special herbs, woods and ingrediants which they gather by hand and work at. They sell them to the wizard making the item in question as well as collect other material components for spells and such. It would be possible for the wizard making the item to save on costs of the material compoents by collecting them himself, but for simplicity and because he supposedly has better things to do than hunt through the woods for small magical mammals who are neither ferocious nor treasure bearing just so he can line the inside of the magic helmet with their fur. on top of that, some of the wizards may even be the craftsmen making the masterwork items that get enchanted by the other wizards. A 3rd level wizard with full ranks in weaponsmith, a good Int and masterwork tools, could have over +10 and be able to take 10 to complete masterwork items to supliment his income.

 

[painandgreed]

Okay, anybody still with me?

So, we have all these wizards making stuff and due to the metaphysics of magic, they can't do so unless they kill something first. they've got to get the XP to pay for these items they're making so they've got to do some "adventuring". The 11th level is going to be buring around 400 XP per year, maybe twice that if they're getting special abilities with their +3 swords. the 6th level is going to be around 100 and 50 a year will probalby take care of the 4th and 5th levels. We'll ignore the 1-3rd levels. Let's say they go off and take on one encounter of an equal CR rating to their level with their three best buddies every year. That will get them the XP and according to Table 3-3, DMG p. 51, some money. Their shares for the 11th/6th/5th/4th will be 1875/500/400/300 respectfully for a total of 4,775 GP a year. That's enough to pay the bills but nothing to write home about. They still make more manufacturing items. If they are very active and take on 3 CRs equal to their level a year (one for each season then make items in winter), then the payout is 5,625/1,500/1,200/1,500 for a total of 15,225 GP a year. The top ten magic users a year, on the verge of doing actual adventuring still don't pull in as much money as the average noble family combined, but they could probalby make all the magic items they wanted for themselves.

Just for the sake of completeness, if you figure out the XP after making the items, you'll find the 11th level advancing to the next level in 26 years if he resorts to one encounter a year while the others advance in around 16. Going by the more advanced rate, they'll hit the next level in about 5 or 6 years if you wanted to keep track.

What about an honest to goodness adventuring party? What sort of income are they hauling in. Let's assume the leisurely rate of one level (13 encounters of equal level) every year. Again, according to DMG, p.51, the year they are 6th level, the party will pull in 26k GP or worth. Most of this will probably be in items rather than actual wealth, so it might not be apparent, but you can judge at this level they're making as much together as the average noble family. At the 11th level year, they'll pull in as much as the average noble family each. At 13th level they pull in 169,000 GP a year which probably makes them as rich as some of the more powerful nobles. At 20th level they're pulling in around 1 million GP a year as a party. This is still less than half of what the king has to play with evey year, but the PCs probably aren't managing countries. In their entire careers, they've pulled in almost 4.5 million GP worth of treasure.

Now, just what does that mean economically. For the party that spreads its 20 levels over 20 years, it doesn't mean much. They're wearing most of their wealth and while they're good business while in town, they barely affect any but the smallest economies. Where it does affect things is when the party walks into a small community. They're usuually big spenders and are good business for the locals while any rise in prices would be unoticed by the adventurers. Unless there were a large number of adventurers or they sought to buy up all of the commodities (like every chicken in town), the supply will always be far enough beyond demand to keep prices low. The trait of most adventurers is to spend in GP and I've seen many adventurers pay for a CP of ale with a GP, usually buying drinks for everybody. For the adventurer, its preferable than carrying around all that silver while traveling light, and for people whose daily pay is a SP, its a huge amount of money.

What happens in those cases where we have the 20th level by 20? Then you've got a whirlwind of a party who has collected the equivilant of almost half the taxes of an entire kingdom in just a few years. Of course, most of this wasn't grain or trade goods but material wealth that people had saved around them. Let's say that every family have twice their average yearly income laying around in material goods, not including land. This is their savings plus what they have of this years income. That means your average nobel family has 56,000 GP worth of magical weapons, gold coins, silver plates, horses, sadles, trade goods, etc. in their estates not including any castles or land. If the party got their wealth by adventuring into a humanoid kingdom of similar make up as our human one, then in aquiring their loot, they have taken the compelte wealth of 80 of the humanoid nobles families. Of course, long before that, they've probably drawn the attention of our humanoid king and some of that wealth is no doubt his, or that of their wizards. In acheiving their 20 levels, they have almost taken half of the humanoid kingdom's wealth and carried it back to their kingdom. Things are probalby grim for the humanoid kingdom unless they have their own adventuring party to stop the human one.

How much would that land be worth? People besides adventurers tend to think in the long term for such purchases with the intent on passing it down to their children. Good farm land with peasants to work it and defensive fortifications to hold it is probably worht something like the average income of the next 20 years. Thus a keep with 600 acres of farm land, along with the serfs is worth around 156,000 GP not including the price of the keep and other surrounding lands such as woods. If our 20 by 20 adventuring party was looking to carve out lands for himself and half their wealth is in land that would be around 8,600 acres. Assuming that farmable landis only about 1/10 of the total, that's about 130 square miles. Of course, if they killed all the humanoid peasants, then it would be more land as the land wouldn't be worth near as much.

Let's say our party hadn't taken over the other kingdom but wanted to. They decide to raise and army and march it into the other kingdom. They get a force comparable tot he other kingdom's of 10,000 infantry, 5,000 calvary, and 150 leaders, all mercenary. Pay according to the DMG p. 105, assuming double cost for danger of war, will be 8,180 GP/day in wages. Feeding the army will also be another 2,400 GP/day for all the men and horses. Assuming you can march the army there in a very quick two weeks, then the party is out almost 150,000 GP before the battle has even been fought. This doesn't take into account arms and armor for the army (or horses) which must be bought for such hirelings. Those will easily be over a million GP. they could probalby cut that in half by hireing blacksmiths and such to make the weapons and armor rather than buying them. There are also untold other costs such as wagons that have to carry all the food to feed your army and such. If the war drags on more than two months, then the party is going to have to sell some magic items or call the entire thing off.

 

[RangerWickett]

My mind reels, but I'm intrigued.

I'm curious about your initial post, though. It looks like the average family makes 2400 gold pieces in a year (10gp x 20 acres x 12 months).

 

[Whisper72]

Uhm.... I believe it is an average of 13 per acre PER YEAR as I read it (between 10 and 15 gp per acre), so that would be 260 GP per family per year, at an average of 4 ppl per family, this is about 2 sp per day per person... (actually a slight bit less...)

(or taking 13 million GP, devide by 200,000 ppl, get 65 gp per year per person...)

Actually, to make things a bit more complicated, not all will be farmers... so a certain percentage will be traders, craftsmen (smiths, carpenters, bakers etc.) making significantly more money per year. I use as a rule of thumb that this contingent constitutes roughly 10% of the people (i.e. most ppl are peasants), but their greater revenue effectively doubles the size of the total economy. Thus in my book, the figures for the peasants sound about right, but the total amount for the economy would be 26 million gp.

As for taxes, I rule about 25% tax on 'revenue' for peasants and craftsmen to the crown, for traders a 20% tax on anything brought to market (taxed at the gate) regardless of sale, and for peasants working on fields not their own (which are most...), another 25% fee to the landowner (usually a lord). The revenue taxes go straight to the king, the trade taxes go to the taxing city/village, the land fees go to the land-owning lord.

In some campaigns the craftsmen are taxed an additional 5% owned to the relevant guild, traders may be 'taxed' an additional 10% from thieves guilds.

Additional revenues can be from other activities:
- mining operations
- woodcutting operations
- hunting

All these operations are taxed 25% of revenue to the lord owning the land on which the action takes place.

 

[painandgreed]

Ya, 13 GP per acre per year. 3 GP/acre goes to seed for replanting the next year. 3/7 goes to the lord that owns the land. 1/10 goes to the local cleric as tythes. The average family makes 260 GP/year. 60 goes to stored seed to plant next year. 111 goes to the lord. 26 goes to the cleric and in return they get free healing and such. 36 goes to feed the family for that year. So, their disposable income is 27 GP/year although that must go to new farm equipment, clothes, tools, etc. Keep in mind that at this level we're actually talking about raw agricultural products except for any crafts they manufacture over the winter and what they have that they don't eat, they barter to others or it goes to the lord who sells it to grain merchants with his share, who then kicks back the money to the peasants.

You need to keep a good deal of seed to replant the next year. No seed for next year means no harvest and everybody starves. Most of this is communal and goes to silos in the keep or castle which is the main reason for having a keep or castle. When an army or other antagonist force comes through, everybody retreats to the castle and waits for them to leave. When they do, the land and their homes have been ravaged but they can replant for next year (unless the castle falls). Horses and such for planting are communal and usually paid for by the lord.

IMC, like real life, everybody in a rural community pays the local cleric 1/10 of their crop. In return, the cleric helps the lord with matters of law (Know True spells) as well as dealing with issues like wandering monsters. They also provide healing and such to all those who pay their tithes, which are usually required by decree of the lord due to the agreement the cleric signs with the lord when they accept the position of local cleric. Note that if the cleric can cast Plant Growth (Plant sphere) then the crops are increased by 33% which benefits everyone. One cleric capable of casting the spell could hit 365 different villages every year for some agreed upon amount from those other villages. If you don't tithe, perhaps you're an adventurer who doesn't live in the area, then you get charged those high prices for healing because you are taking services form the people how have paid.

The lord and king get their share and privide protection as well as other services such as roads and communal property.

The food of a peasant is not pleasant. Mostly they have a pot that is constantly heated of peas and porridge over the fire. When you're hungry, you get some out to eat. When it starts to get low, they simply add more peas, grains, or whatever is avialable. On special occations, they might add some meat. Suppliment that with some rye bread, some honey, cheese, and whatever can be grown in a small vegetable garden that each house has not included in the above figures.

From the rest, you can figure how many other services such as blacksmiths, mills, inns, and such the settlement has. In a hamlet of 400, there is a disposable income of about 10,000 GP worth of material. Figure such trained services make 1GP/day to support their families. According to standard D&D economics, one third of all such crafts and profesions goes to raw materials. Thus the total income needed for such a business is around 540 GP/year. So roughly, each hamlet has two special services. This hamlet may have the mill and the carpenter. For a blacksmith you have to go to the next hamlet over while they must come to you to use a mill. Keep in mind that inns only existed along major trade or pilgramage routes that survived off travelers, but every small thorp had a tavern. However, usually such taverns were just somebodies house. Each household would brew up beer using their grain and then set out a shingle. People would come over and use their house or tables set up outside as the local tavern, paying what they brewer wanted. By time the keg went dry, somebody else had a batch ready to go and the tavern would move over to their house. Thus each family could turn a small profit by havinga a few ranks in Profesion (brewer) and those with several could possibly ask more for theirs. You were still talking a CP for several mugs. 1 CP (lb) of grain turns into 1 gallon of beer. Charge 1 CP per quart and you've quadrupled your money for the time and effort you've put into it. It may not be what the adventurers are used to but its what the average farmer drank.

This is all for straight farming. Things like herding require different methods of figuring out such stuff but are good in areas such as highlands that aren't suitable for farming.

Also keep in mind that 1/3 of all land is fallow (usually used for pasture during that time) each year, so a family may work 20 acres a year, but they really have 30 acres but 10 remain fallow. Next year, they'll plant that 10 acres and 10 acres of the land they planted this year will be allowed to go fallow.