How much does an inn cost to buy?

[jgbrowning]

What is MMS:WE?

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe by Expeditious Retreat Press. It got Monte Cook's only 10, it won 3 Golden Ennies at last years Ennie awards and I wrote it.

Suzi helped.

*ow*

Ok Suzi wrote a lot of it.

joe b.

 

[borc killer]

41,877 gp for an inn is a good price. This is the amount of money that one would spend to walk up to a builder and say 'I want an inn and here is the money'. Which would never happen.

If a new inn was being brought into life in a town you would almost certainly have more than one owner… most places would be sponsored in some way by a merchant or a lord of some kind (just like the Bank is the owner of most American buildings… until you get your loan paid off… or do you all walk in and plop down $100,000 for a house?). You can also get out of some of the costs by supplying your own labor (kids, followers, or elementals) or materials (cut your own trees, wall of stone, or elementals).

Also in MMS you would not have to pay the 41k in gold… if you are a cleric/wizard you can cast spells to pay for some of that or if you are a warrior/ranger/whatever you can server the local lord to help with some of that cost (assuming you are borrowing money from the lord).

41k is a good number.

Borc Killer

 

[spectre72]

A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe by Expeditious Retreat Press. It got Monte Cook's only 10, it won 3 Golden Ennies at last years Ennie awards and I wrote it.

Suzi helped.

*ow*

Ok Suzi wrote a lot of it.

joe b.

Thanks for the info.

I am looking for similar information on costs of constructions for our current campaign.

My Gnomish Monk/Psion is about to retire and start a fighting school after a rescent session which was almost a TPK (only she survived).

I have found a few sources, but none seem as detailed as what has been discussed in this thread.

She has quite a bit of money since she acquired a ring of elemental control (water) which was sold to a merchant from a a good amount of gems and a 10% interest in his business for the coming year.

In relation to the rest of the characters in the game she is quite rich

Once again thanks
Scott

 

[Sledge]

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.

Actually I am referring to the MMS in the context of the D&D economic system. The price is only slightly less than an Instant Fortress. By price comparison I find that 42000 is very very high. If I can get a magical portable version for around 25% more then I will.

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.

So 24 weeks to build at 9300 gold equals 55 gold per day. That means that you either have a team of around 50 or something very odd going on. This surely is very obviously a problem.

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.

Wow so you're saying that the paint on the walls outside and the little sign are worth 12000 gold? That is pretty amazing. What are they painted with? Dragons blood with Basilisk pigments? Seriously that is 71 gold per day of building time just for the outside appearance. At 19000 for just the inside decorating there must be some very exotic materials inside. The question was not for an inn with furnishing lined in silk and stuffed with cockatrice feathers. It was not for one that sported gold goblets and plates. That is the price being quoted here.

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.

Actually for one the value between gold and silver is very easily explainable. I find the the 42k gp is what isn't explainable. D&D may be messed up, but this is throwing the system out the window. The average innkeeper that someone suggested built the inn himself simply could not do so. He also could not arrange a loan of 42000 gp on the promise of an inn that may survive 10 years, after which (presuming no one is paid that works at the inn) he could barely pay it back. The quoted 1-2% (which is a little off what I remember from my brief review of medieval and rennaissance university info) is still 4200-8400 gp at the very least. This leaves a minimum PROFIT of 14 gp per day. Given that maintaining the building and cooking food will generally take up all the time of the innkeeper and his employees, he will have to buy food and drink as well as bedding and stable supplies. This good inn (2gp a night plus 5 sp for a meal per the rules) would have 5 rooms occupied just to cover the loan. Maintenance and other supplies would also add to the requirements. Given that the innkeeper only personally takes home 1 gp a day and the rest of his staff gets even less your still talking about an inn that is filled top to bottom with people before it makes sense at that price of investment.
I understand that the book is trying to get the feel of a Medieval society, but that doesn't require that all common sense and math be ignored in order to make an inn expensive to any character under 15-20th level. Remember that characters don't even have 42000 in total equipment value until they reach 10th level. To simply throw magic in and drasticly raise the price of nonmagic stuff does not create a medieval feel society with magic. The idea is to make it more believable not less.

 

[random user]

I would be interested in some calculations vs some known figures to see how close it comes. If nothing else, perhaps a correlation in prices possibly could be determined.

In the DMG, pg 101, it calls a simple house "this 1 to 3 room house is made of wood and has a thatched roof" at 1000gp.

It calls a grand house "this 4 to 10 room house is made of wood and has a thatched roof" at 5000gp.

It calls a mansion "This 10 to 20 room residence has 2 to 3 stories and is made of wood and brick. It has a slate roof" at 100k gp.

It calls a tower "This round or square, three-level tower is made of stone" at 50k gp.

What does MMS:WE price these at, approximately?

 

[ichabod]

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.

You're doing it again and I'm beginning to wonder why. You're comparing part of the gross profit from one company's prouct to the (accidentally miscalculated) costs from another companies product. This is an especially poor comparison considering that AFAICT, one of the products is based on a completely different economic system than the others. It like saying that since stone age New Guinea tribesman could never afford to stay at the Plaza, hotels in New York City are crummy businesses.

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

I can expect to do it because I'm not randomly changing montary scales on different parts of the equation.

 

[Numion]

I thought that interest rates were much higher in medieval times. If rates are that low, doesn't it also mean that rents are very low too?

EDIT: At least a little googling came up with much higher results for medieval interest rates: 12-30%.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It probably depends upon the time and place in medieval Europe. I know that usury (either the charging of interest or the charging of interest greater than a certain rather low (by modern standards) rate--I'm not sure which since I haven't made this a topic of my study) was forbidden by the Western Church. Consequently, non-Christians--mostly Jews as they were the primary non-Christian minority in Europe at the time) filled that economic niche.

If usury was lending at any interest, then the rates quoted would probably be typical rates of interest from Jewish moneylenders. If usury was lending at more than a minimal amount of interest, I would imagine that the rates previously quoted were what was approved by the church for Christians and that Jewish moneylenders may have had different interest rates. (And may well have been more willing to lend out money).

Assuming that both figures are accurate, it seems most likely to me that the low figures were those permitted to Christians by the church and the higher figures you found were those charged by Jewish merchants who were actually permitted to be in the moneylending business. In any case, it seems to me that those rates are artificially low and probably are a result of church prohibitions against usury. In locations where there were no such prohibitions (such as pre-Christian Iceland, for instance), the rates might have been higher--and those or the Jewish interest rates might be a more realistic source for a D&D campaign where usury is not forbidden to the majority of the populace.

It would also be interesting to find out how joint ventures were treated in medieval days--for instance a prospective inkeeper in an outlying town offering to go into business with a wealthy merchant in the city--the merchant pays for the majority of the materials, in return for a certain percentage of the inn's income or profit (or perhaps, simply for a set amount of money per year--in the medieval era, things that were supposed to be percentages like the various tithes were generally set at a fixed amount and left there for years; it's conceivable that such could happen in business as well). In an environment where usury is not permitted to most merchants, that type of arrangement seems like a potentially attractive alternative to loaning out money at 1-2%.

I thought that interest rates were much higher in medieval times. If rates are that low, doesn't it also mean that rents are very low too?

EDIT: At least a little googling came up with much higher results for medieval interest rates: 12-30%.

 

[Agemegos]

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

Rubbish.

In the most peaceful and prosperous times, Mediaeval-era farmland sold for twenty-five to thirty years' rent, implying an interest rate on secure investments of 3.3 to 4% per annum. In disturbed or impoverished times purchase prices were lower, reflecting higher rates of return. A fairly common price of land in late mediaeval England was ten to twelve years' rent, implying an intereest rate of 8.3% to 10%.

The purchase price of urban property was usually lower in terms of rent: but that includes a risk premium for vacancy and fire and an allowance for depreciation.

The interest rates implied on merchant contracts was often in the range around 16% (incorporating a risk premium). Interest rates on personal loans were sometimes 25%-33%, reflecting considerable risk of default and the difficulty of suing for debt.

 

[Numion]

If Christians churches ruling is the only thing keeping interests low .. then maybe they shouldn't be in D&D? I know several fantasy worlds that have specific gods for trade and merchants. The temples double as banks in some cases

So low interest rates in high-risk worlds like D&D settings would be rare. By high-risk I mean that cities are more prone to wanton destruction / takeover by evil overlords, demihuman pillagers, stuff like that.

And not to drift too far from the subject, that would affect building prices.