How does your economy work?

[Gaon]

I was wondering if there is anybody out there who doesn't just look at the DMG, or whatever sourcebook they're using, and say "It says here that X costs so-and-so gp". Is there anybody who says something like " You're buying X which comes from that far away land which just had a drought and ruined the crops and the government is raising taxes so inflation raises the price from so-snd-so to alot"

If there is anybody crazy enough to do something like that how do you plan out prices, availability, etc...

 

[Whisper72]

Well, I DO do that, mainly with more expensive items, but without an overarching plan behind it. If I want to give the PC's a break, they may be able to buy/sell advantageously, if they just got bunches of treasure, and I think they need to be relieved of it a bit, then I will make it so that the local merchant 'just so happens' to have just gotten a lot of the items, so he is not so interested in buying excess goods off PC's or that he is very low on certain items, and therefore wants a premium....

 

[Thanee]

I'm doing that, but not in a world-spanning super-accurate way.

For example, in my PbP game the party is in a ruined frontier city, which is currently rebuild and still partially inhabited by dangerous denizens. Therefore goods travel quite a way and there are no established trade routes, which results in all prices being a bit higher than the average (PHB/DMG prices).

Bye
Thanee

 

[alsih2o]

IMW certain items that are usually mundane are considered rare so they cost much more, most notably horses.

I have no grand scheme I can share though, I simply multiply the PHB price of the items.

The same goes for the plentiful, my world is food rich from the good work of druids. It is also much more city based as druidic help allows more land to be worked with fewer hands.

This added to the lack of horses means that there are LOTS of people in the cities and fewer left out in the countryside doing the "Dirty work" of supplying the population.

Given this, almost all of my players chose backgrounds that left them well outside the city- A hunter, a druid who worked for a logging company, a dwarf who was permanently disguised...I am sure if I had built a nearly completely agrarian society they all would have been city scum.

Economics is one of the easiest ways to add interesting color to a world, I am amazed there aren't bunches of supplements that invetigate different easy economic models for different worlds.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I have a sliding scale/table that I apply to my cities/towns, it is broke down into VALUE and the nature of the city: growing, established, or failing. A city that is growing has a positive number, a failing city a negative number.

Example: City of Kel: River town with mines in the area, forest and land for farming. Population 15,000. Value number: +2 Kel is a growing city.

Value Number:..+2

Resources:.......-1
Food:..............+1
Good:..............+2​

What do the numbers mean? Resources are coming into the city are less value, relates to about -10% of cost in DMG, Food about 10% more and goods about 20% more. This tells you resources are being exported and food and goods are being imported. You can go into a lot more detail but not really needed.

I have kicked around the idea of using the value number to also relate to annual growth, in the example above Kel’s growth is 20% or in one year the population would be 18,000.

It is all judgement as a DM.

Hope this make sense.

 

[Bigwilly]

Depends on the size of the city

I actually use those city numbers about max item value and total worth, although usually just as a guideline.

Mundane items are always available and usually just at base price. Magic items are different. For example, in the players home city, you simply cannot go to a magic shop and buy a new +1 sword, although you can always offload them. You might be able to pick up a potion of CLW or some holy water from one of the local temples (if they know you) or buy a scroll from the mage's guild (although the player needs to roll higher than the spell level on a d10 for it to be available, 0=10).

You can have someone craft an item for you, assuming you can find someone with the right craft feat and spell pre-reqs. Mind you, as several of the PCs can craft armor, weapons or wondrous items, they can usually just make whatever they want themselves.

And if the players do want to spend their hard earned cash, a short trip to the nearby port town, which just happens to be called Freeport and actually bears no resemblance to any published cities called Freeport, and they can get anything they want for a flat 10% markup.

Bigwilly

 

[painandgreed]

I have a thread on Fantasy World Economics (probably on about page 9 by now) that I plan on doing that, only I havn't gotten that far yet. It will most likely be based on import/exports per area, modified by trade routes, and finally a yearly weather check for each area for agriculture.