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Goodberries and Eberron
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<blockquote data-quote="Jfdlsjfd" data-source="post: 7864919" data-attributes="member: 42856"><p>I was reacting to the idea that average people during the industrial revolutions had more purchasing power than their ancestors in the middle ages, which wasn't the case: historically, unequalities increased and it took a century (and lot of social revolts) to cause a betterment of the situation of the poor.</p><p></p><p>In Eberron, we're looking at a very strange social situation -- even though the prices lists are a question of game balance and not economics, I understand that -- where there is no way for the common people to afford even the widespread magic that define the world with the prices mentionned in the game books. I think it's not incompatible: greatly concentrated wealth (most notably in the hand of several institutions like the dragonmarked houses and political bodies who could fund the Last War (whose intensity was more akin to WWI than the Hundread Years War) doesn't mean the wealth is reserved for "selfish" uses. Most notably, education is canonically available ; but that doesn't mean that the commoners could afford it by themselves, simply that it is sponsored, like in 1880-ish France. Same for the public lighting: you don't need to have every laborer able to afford the casting of a continual light to have cities brightly lit at night if the funding comes from the town's coffer or a DM house (they'd probably be the main winners of the "magitech revolution" in terms of wealth, and should be interested in keeping the social unrest manageable: in case of looming famine, emergency Ghallanda relief would do that, even if normally, Ghallanda services are unaffordable to the common man).</p><p></p><p>I see the widespread magic as a public service, rather than something even the poorest can afford. So I agree with the presence of cleaning stones and and mending service, I am not sure about health level (or the population of Eberron is dramatically underestimated, as was pointed out before by other, but starvation should be avoided by any ruling body, but it was already the case in the 16th and 17th century mostly) and I'm unconvinced with the availability of travel (or the price for lightning rail needs to be revised downward a lot, because it is in the range of a commoner's daily wage per mile (and Khorvaire is huge). But you'd have a new social class between the laborers and the elite, the emerging middle class, which can afford those new services and enough people to warrant the lightning rail to be build, even without the need for every laborer or factory worker to be able to afford a ticket.</p><p></p><p>The price list supports the existence of extreme unequalities (a bottle of goodberry wine is 250sp, the commoner's wage is 2sp a day, that's a wine costing 5 years of unskilled laborer's salary. The pricing difference for the lightning rail given in the Explorer's Handbook between steerage class and first class is a factor or 16, that's more than the difference between 3rd and 1st class tickets on the Titanic.</p><p></p><p>That doesn't mean than the commodities of Eberron are reserved for the rich (the top 1%) but only available to the rich AND emerging middle class, while a part of the population (farm laborers and unskilled workers) can't afford it by itself. This view seems coherent with the price list and doesn't interfere too much with the setting (you can gloss over the poorest part of the population that mostly doesn't interact with the PCs).</p><p></p><p>I am not sure we're disagreeing on the theme of Eberron: instead of having a wealthy aristocratic class (10%) and dirt-poor peasants (90%) like we generally envision the Middle Ages, we have an extremely wealthy aristocratic and "industrial" class who can afford a "Victorian aristocracy lifestyle with some luxuries even unvailable to us in the XXIst century", a middle class of mostly commoners but with the capability to afford some luxuries, and a poor class (who I posit isn't better off than the dirt-poor peasants save from the protection from famine). You just see this "poor class" making up an unsignificant part of society, while I see it making up a significant (though not majoritary) of the population of Khorvaire (and be glossed over because mostly, players are having adventures inspired more by the Count of Monte Christo novel than the social novels of the 19th century.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jfdlsjfd, post: 7864919, member: 42856"] I was reacting to the idea that average people during the industrial revolutions had more purchasing power than their ancestors in the middle ages, which wasn't the case: historically, unequalities increased and it took a century (and lot of social revolts) to cause a betterment of the situation of the poor. In Eberron, we're looking at a very strange social situation -- even though the prices lists are a question of game balance and not economics, I understand that -- where there is no way for the common people to afford even the widespread magic that define the world with the prices mentionned in the game books. I think it's not incompatible: greatly concentrated wealth (most notably in the hand of several institutions like the dragonmarked houses and political bodies who could fund the Last War (whose intensity was more akin to WWI than the Hundread Years War) doesn't mean the wealth is reserved for "selfish" uses. Most notably, education is canonically available ; but that doesn't mean that the commoners could afford it by themselves, simply that it is sponsored, like in 1880-ish France. Same for the public lighting: you don't need to have every laborer able to afford the casting of a continual light to have cities brightly lit at night if the funding comes from the town's coffer or a DM house (they'd probably be the main winners of the "magitech revolution" in terms of wealth, and should be interested in keeping the social unrest manageable: in case of looming famine, emergency Ghallanda relief would do that, even if normally, Ghallanda services are unaffordable to the common man). I see the widespread magic as a public service, rather than something even the poorest can afford. So I agree with the presence of cleaning stones and and mending service, I am not sure about health level (or the population of Eberron is dramatically underestimated, as was pointed out before by other, but starvation should be avoided by any ruling body, but it was already the case in the 16th and 17th century mostly) and I'm unconvinced with the availability of travel (or the price for lightning rail needs to be revised downward a lot, because it is in the range of a commoner's daily wage per mile (and Khorvaire is huge). But you'd have a new social class between the laborers and the elite, the emerging middle class, which can afford those new services and enough people to warrant the lightning rail to be build, even without the need for every laborer or factory worker to be able to afford a ticket. The price list supports the existence of extreme unequalities (a bottle of goodberry wine is 250sp, the commoner's wage is 2sp a day, that's a wine costing 5 years of unskilled laborer's salary. The pricing difference for the lightning rail given in the Explorer's Handbook between steerage class and first class is a factor or 16, that's more than the difference between 3rd and 1st class tickets on the Titanic. That doesn't mean than the commodities of Eberron are reserved for the rich (the top 1%) but only available to the rich AND emerging middle class, while a part of the population (farm laborers and unskilled workers) can't afford it by itself. This view seems coherent with the price list and doesn't interfere too much with the setting (you can gloss over the poorest part of the population that mostly doesn't interact with the PCs). I am not sure we're disagreeing on the theme of Eberron: instead of having a wealthy aristocratic class (10%) and dirt-poor peasants (90%) like we generally envision the Middle Ages, we have an extremely wealthy aristocratic and "industrial" class who can afford a "Victorian aristocracy lifestyle with some luxuries even unvailable to us in the XXIst century", a middle class of mostly commoners but with the capability to afford some luxuries, and a poor class (who I posit isn't better off than the dirt-poor peasants save from the protection from famine). You just see this "poor class" making up an unsignificant part of society, while I see it making up a significant (though not majoritary) of the population of Khorvaire (and be glossed over because mostly, players are having adventures inspired more by the Count of Monte Christo novel than the social novels of the 19th century. [/QUOTE]
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