How much does an inn cost to buy?

[Agemegos]

Are you sure this isn't a case of your prices for some things not jibing with their prices for other things? I mean, by the D&D rules, the inn I quoted grosses about 4,500 gp a year at an average of half occupancy on room and meals alone. Add in money from booze, probably their big money maker, and it would seem a reasonable business to me.

Well, 4,500 gp per year from an investment of 272,000 gp is a gross return of only 1.65% per annum on investment. Now subtract out running expenses. It is a crummy business.

Besides, how do you expect it to achieve a room occupancy of 50% when it is charging the equivalent of 2.5 to 62.5 pennies per night? Mediaeval inns charged 1 penny per night for beds suitable for gentlemen (in the city: penny-farthing in the country), and a farthing a night for beds suitable for servants. In a rural inn you could get a lavish meat meal, including wine, for twopence. In a D&D inn such a meal costs at least 5 sp (which is three times as much) and more probably 10 gp (sixty times as much). How many people can afford such prices? And even on the basis of these grossly inflated prices, you only manage an annual turnover of 1.65% on capital. How you plan to get 5% or even 3% net return on your capital under circumstances like that beggars imagination.

People in a community where the wages of labour are 1 sp per day cannot afford PHB prices for meals and accommodation. Still less ale, which the PHB prices at five times its mediaeval real price. (ie. mediaeval ale cost 0.4 days wages a gallon. PHB ale costs 2 day's wages a gallon.) And even if they could, you are still getting nowhere near the turnover of 25-30% that such a place would need to cover costs (including maintenance), pay its keeper a wage, and return a decent interest on its capital value.

 

[S'mon]

You see that most of the prices suggested by game designers display an almost schizophrenic lack of connection with plausibility. No plausible business turnover could ever amortise an inn costing 272,025 gp, a figure that is nearly 500 times too high.

My feeling too - fantastic list Age, many thanks! I can use those for costs IMC, prob as silver-piece costs. The 3e building costs are ridiculously high - 1e construction costs was a bit low, but they went totally overboard the other way in 3e.

edit: or as gp costs; been tinkering with the wages IMC. Anyway the col thing is that they're consistent, plausible, and seem to have some connection to reality.

Currently I'm treating the D&D economy as similar to that of some modern third-world countries, with a rich, first-world, adventurer/tourist economy - where rooms in inns cost 1gp/night - and a poor, third-world, commoner economy, where wages are 1sp/day.

 

[S'mon]

Are you sure this isn't a case of your prices for some things not jibing with their prices for other things? I mean, by the D&D rules, the inn I quoted grosses about 4,500 gp a year at an average of half occupancy on room and meals alone. Add in money from booze, probably their big money maker, and it would seem a reasonable business to me.

I can see an inn that grosses 4500gp a year being worth 10,000gp, assuming that's ca 2,250gp profit. I think 10,000gp is on the extreme high side of what a big 4-star inn in a large D&D city might be worth, but not impossible. I would tend to go w 5000gp as the average value of a typical D&D large city inn.

 

[frankthedm]

Why do players always want inns and taverns these days?

What happened to spending your gold on a castle or tower?

players are too chaotic these days and the easier rules have lowered the bar for D&D players. Many just don't have the patience to deal with property in game. Also the older players may likely own property in real life and now thier fantasy is to go where they want rather than having too many obligations.

 

[Sledge]

Ummm this still seems rather over the top. At around 42000 gold in labour and materials something is very crazy. If the materials cost 1302 gold, then you are saying that it is equivalent to 26 pounds of gold, or 260 pounds of silver, or 2600 pounds of copper. 1.3 tons of copper is a lot of metal. I would imagine that this is a bit high in comparison to standard D&D items. To suggest that the labour is equivalent to 9300 gold is way over the top. This building would, given 1 gold per day, take a ten person team 930 days or 2.5 years working every day. That inn owner that supposedly built it with a couple of other people while he wasn't getting food etceteras would have required a lot longer. To spend 13-25 years putting his inn together is ridiculous.
On top of this you have listed 29000 gold in "style" costs. These costs are either labor equivalent of materials equivalent. If materials then forget about it. No one with 29k would bother to build an inn. They would just stay there. If its a labour issue then we have added a good 40-80 or so years to the build time.

I understand that D&D economy is a joke, but I expect better from what MMS claims to be.

 

[S'mon]

I understand that D&D economy is a joke, but I expect better from what MMS claims to be.

People rave over MMS:WE, but I have a copy and I have to say I wasn't too impressed by it. I find my old (very old) White Dwarf articles by Paul Vernon on creating towns & quasi-medieval socirties still more useful. They're in Best of White Dwarf Articles III, which you can prob get on ebay.

 

[Sledge]

The ironic thing here was that I was considering buying the product, but with the vastly overinflated prices quoted in it, I think my money will go elsewhere. Truth be told I'm rather disappointed.

 

[Vaxalon]

Here's a little snippet that may inform your discussion.

Medieval-era loans, made on high-risk ventures like exploration and conquest, usually charged between 1% and 2% interest.

Low-risk loans usually got less than 1% net ROI.

Having an inn that makes 1% ROI per year is a nicely profitable system.

 

[jgbrowning]

Ummm this still seems rather over the top. At around 42000 gold in labour and materials something is very crazy. If the materials cost 1302 gold, then you are saying that it is equivalent to 26 pounds of gold, or 260 pounds of silver, or 2600 pounds of copper.

Actually neither. D&D gold is not equal to real gold. The first dificulty in pricing comes from the utter lack of reality in the monetary system to begin with. Our gold pieces are D&D gold pieces, not real life gold pieces. It would be much easier to deal with real money. Your criticism here is directed towards the D&D economic system, not at MMS:WE's use of the system.

1.3 tons of copper is a lot of metal. I would imagine that this is a bit high in comparison to standard D&D items. To suggest that the labour is equivalent to 9300 gold is way over the top. This building would, given 1 gold per day, take a ten person team 930 days or 2.5 years working every day. That inn owner that supposedly built it with a couple of other people while he wasn't getting food etceteras would have required a lot longer. To spend 13-25 years putting his inn together is ridiculous.

Per my corrected pricing post 19 on this thread, the actual building time is around 24 weeks for a 3 story (1500 sq. ft. per story) structure around 45 to 50 feet tall. If you wanted it below 45 ft, the price would be lower.

On top of this you have listed 29000 gold in "style" costs. These costs are either labor equivalent of materials equivalent. If materials then forget about it. No one with 29k would bother to build an inn. They would just stay there. If its a labour issue then we have added a good 40-80 or so years to the build time.

Style is a rough measurement of outside and inside interior decorating. Outside is less expensive than inside, as inside assumes all the needed acoutrements for the buildings functioning.

But all the individual accounting aside, the goal of the building system is to produce a number that is reasonable according to d20 economics. 42k gp isn't an unreasonable number in a world where a pound of silver is equal to 1/10 a pound of gold. At lot of the problem in the inflated pricing is the D&D monetary system to begin with.

I don't think an inn that effectively generates an average 10% return per year is a joke. A commercial structure that pays for itself in 10 years isn't unreasonable. As to what MMS:WE claims to be, it's a guide to simulating a medieval-feel in a d20 fantasy world. There's much more to it than a building system that does produce fairly accurate d20 gp results. There's stuff for fleshing out cities, manors, and the aristocratic class, all within the d20 trope. If you're looking for something strictly medieval, I'd just go with history books.

Thanks for the congrats on the origins nomination Phineas Crow. We're really excited about just getting nominated. Recognition from one's peers is always nice.

joe b.

 

[spectre72]

What is MMS:WE?