Food and lodging

[seskis281]

At 1st level as the party is just getting going, role-playing this (in a tavern, inn, shop) can actually be helpful at letting the players "play out" their personalities a bit.... once past a certain stage I just remind them that they have plenty to pay for basic sundries, room and board, etc. and they can concentrate on larger transactions (like the payment to the Dwarf for hire NPC, or the orphanage in Botkinburg my wife's cleric is starting).

But during our earlier games, a bit of haggling over jewelry with a vender at his cart really let one of our characters establish her "I don't give a damm, you say the wrong thing to me and... bam!" attitude, which the party has to be prepared for on just about any encounter.

 

[Clavis]

When we need to advance the time line in the Campaign, I ask the players how well their characters are living. If they say cheaply (a crappy room at a disreputable inn, mediocre food, repairing their own clothes, having sex with streetwalkers in alleyways), they spend 1 sp x their level, per day. They may also get a disease, and get into trouble with the law. Living well (a private room, good food, spending occasional nights in a brothel with good-looking prostitutes) will cost them 1 gp x their level, per day. Living extravagantly (a private room in a good part of town, drinking fine wines and eating the best food, doing the best drugs, wearing fine clothes, seeing courtesans) will cost them 5-10 gp x their level, per day. I give them each a brief narrative about what their lives were like in that time. As a DM I exert subtle pressure on them to live as well as they can; if they choose to live cheaply, I emphasize all the smelly, unhygienic, disease-ridden nastiness of medieval life.

The amount PCs spend per day goes up with their levels because as the characters get more famous, more social pressure is exerted on them to "spread the wealth". Also, since the characters are known to be wealthy, they are targeted by unscrupulous merchants and petty thieves.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

(I used MAgical Medievel Societies: Western Europe to work out his 100 square mile lands profits and costs, blew my mind to see what a 3E D&D economy is like.)

100 square MILES? I take it you're modeling based on the greater or ducal baronies? Because many of the lesser baronies were only a few manors.

EDIT: But yes, 3e economies are definitely NOT RL medieval in their productivity. They're more like early industrial revolution.

 

[Wycen]

Typically we ignore it or hand wave it. Except when we go to a tavern and actually order food and drinks. Then we mark it off.

Treebore reminds me of the time my 2E psionicist/thief bought the stewardship of all the land for 50 miles around the town of Hommlett. Ahh, good times

 

[WayneLigon]

I have two alternatives to this. the first would be to just ignore it. I worry that would somehow unbalance the budget of the PCs or the game itself. My second thought would be to average out how much per week an average room and food would cost, then subtract it from found treasure. Unfortunately, costs can fluctuate based on economics. I know I'm fretting over something silly and minimal, but what should I do? How much detail of boring day to day activities does the game expect me to keep track of and role play?

The game doesn't expect anything at all out of you except to provide an anjoyable play experience. What your players expect is entirely up to them; I enjoy doing some mundane activities outside the general scope of 'adventuring', especially if my GM has an eye for showing me how those activities are different from what we had on Earth or can present them in an equally fun and entertaining manner as we get when we're toe-to-toe with a group of bugbear slavers. Some groups don't care for such things.

Either one of the ways you mention are good. Myself, I generally have an idea of the various tiers of society and I ask them how well they want to live. Pay 5 coppers a week, you're in the Poor category, sleeping on the common floor of the Hanged Dog with only that hanged dog on the signpost outside as your security. You're eating one meal of black gritty bread and poor ale. Pay 15 silver a week and you're living it up at The Upper Middle Class Boarding House in a nice part of town and you feel safe leaving your +1 sword in your room while you go downstairs to a nice hot lamb stew.

I just broadly draw the categories and don't care about 'economics'; prices don't change within their lifetimes unless they enter into an area where things are very different: a war zone where potatoes are selling at 1gp a pop is just part of an adventure background and not something I really bother keeping track of.

I ignore 'D&D Economics' and just use some common sense.

 

[ssampier]

My players drive me crazy about this. The always want to haggle over every room price and equipment.

They aren't cash poor by any means, usually having several thousands' of gold.

 

[Treebore]

100 square MILES? I take it you're modeling based on the greater or ducal baronies? Because many of the lesser baronies were only a few manors.

EDIT: But yes, 3e economies are definitely NOT RL medieval in their productivity. They're more like early industrial revolution.

Yeah, I am running them in a "empire" that was essentially destroyed, and after centuries of weakness they are making efforts to expand back to their original size. He earned knight hood, then was elevated to a landed Baron, then he finally proved his loyalty and power to the point where the Empress expanded his domain to a hundred square miles. One, because the Empress believes he is as loyal as any Paladin can be, and two, he was, and is, powerful enough to turn hundreds of square miles of ancient frontier lands into profitable lands.


Yes, a fully working D&D economy would certainly be more in line with the US economy in the late 1800's up until about 1920. In terms of the amount of money earned, etc... not the technologies. Even though a druids plant growth spell is very, very profitable.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The only reason I concern myself about the food and lodging issues of the party is because it affects plot hooks.

In the cheap inns, the party is much less likely to hear about and end up with adventuring offers from rich merchants and minor nobles.

In the expensive inns they are less likely to hear about the trouble brewing between rival gangs and the strange things happening in the slum districts.

Once they get past a few levels, I don't concern myself much with the money for this, unless they are purposely living to excess, perhaps to impress someone, or just for kicks. Of course living like this might bring about unwanted notice, as well.

 

[DragonLancer]

I don't bother unless the characters are going to be camped at a inn for any real length of time, and then its just a flat charge. Its best not to get bogged down in the economics of taverns and inns. Best to focus on the story being played.