How much does an inn cost to buy?

[Agemegos]

The quoted text in that post contained a broad generalization about all game designers, so was clearly not only about an inn costing 272,000 gp.

You are right, it was not. In the post from which you quoted I had listed a number of representative prices for construction, real estate, provisions and household fittings. I invited a comparison of the ratios among these and their relation to wages with the relative and real prices of such items listed in the PHB (or, in my experience, just about any other gaming source). The result, for anyone who bothers to crack a book, is that the PHB prices, relative and real, are absolutely absurd.

Seriously, look at post #15 in this thread. I made no reference to your estimate of the price of an inn. I made it very clear that I was referring to the 272,000-gp estimate. I didn't quote any part of any one of your messages. What made you think that post was about you?

 

[jgbrowning]

Compare to 1650gp cost of a suit of masterwork full plate armour. AIR I recall a contemporary account of the Black Prince in the Scottish campaigns musing that he, wearing (in D&D terms) masterwork plate, wore "The wealth of twelve Scottish farms on his back". - The point being that Scottish farms were poor and the English relatively rich. Still, I think there's a huge amount of evidence that the DMG & MMS:WE building figures are roughly 10 times too high.

Gaming prices aren't comparable to real life prices. Partly because depending upon what time and where you discuss, the prices vary massively from location to location while the gaming system attempts to normalize these massive variations (The price of food/land/buildings in New York City is much greater than in rural New Mexico--as a game designer how should one normalize these prices in a role-playing game that takes place in modern times?) and partly because prices are set in relation to PC's, not to create an economic simulation. This is the inherant problem with comparisons of economics from real life and role-playing games.

I don't think my pricing is off by much. If it was ten times too high that means the innkeeper will be able to pay off his (now 4.2k instead of 42k) investment the second year of running his inn (assuming 4k a year income or 1/2 occupancy). That seems way to fast for me. Under my pricing it will take about 20-25 average years during which he'll earn a good wage as well.

Given that an average cook or sailer makes around 10gp a week (average profession check), it takes them about two years to buy the 987gp house. It would take them two weeks of work if you reduced by a factor of 10. (Edit: please note the bad math. *sigh*.. it should actually be 10 weeks)

As for the 7gp/week income of craftsmen, I maintain that when taken in juxtaposition with the 1sp/day wage of common labour (PHB p96) it is further evidence of the carelessness and contempt for even easy reality-checking that is common amongst game designers. Wage differentials in mediaeval employment were nothing like so wide, and there is no clear reason why a D&D economy ought to provide below-starvation wages to common labour. Nor does it make any sort of economic sense that labourer's wages should be so low if jobs as craftsmen are so rewarding and as easy to obtain as you assume.

That's far from starvation level. 1 sp a day buys a pound of flour and a chicken for 4 cp -- leaving 6 cp (60% of income) for other expenses. Also, laborer's wages can make sense economically because much of a craftman's earnings are controled by guilds and there are large barriers to competative entry. A 10 to one ratio seems a bit high, but again how important is a higher level of accuracy for the intent of the game? And of course, starvation wasn't uncommon in the historical period.

I think one of the problems with historical conversion is our natural inclination to assume that a cp, sp, or gp, in the game has any relation to a RL coin of the same metal. The buying power of these metals in the D&D world, as well as expect wages and returns are funtioning indepentently of any RL valuation of metal and only function in relation to cost of items in the PH and DMG. A British pound isn't worth the same amount of metal in D&D as it is in real life. It's not worth a pound of D&D silver (5 gp) because the purchasing power of an equivilent amount of metal in both worlds is different. I'm kind of bumbling around the point here, but the value of the metal in the game isn't related to anything but the value of goods in the game. We can try and draw comparables, but I find it best to consider cp, sp, and gp as widgets, which distances my natural inclination to assume a value realtionship between the metals. I view D&D coinage has having no comparable value in relation to real world metals.

If the arguement is one of "The D&D system doesn't make economic sense" I think we'll all agree, Yes, it doesn't. And that's because a Hammer is a really bad Saw. It's not designed to do that. But once that's out of the way, using that system to simulate results for roleplaying purposes should be the next point of discussion. The dificulties of modeling even a modern building system are daunting (try getting 10 quotes for a specialty built home to see how there's great variation even in the same modern city) and modeling a D&D system is even more so because many things (magic items in particular) are priced according to a particular use to an adventuring group for killing monsters. Just because an Instant Fortress "costs" as much as an inn, doesn't mean that either concepts aren't valid. There's just two methods of accounting with different goals going on that unfortunately, use the same coinage.

MMS:WE is %100 OGC, so if anyone wants to modify it to suit their tastes and publish they can. I know that starting from what I've created and modifying it to suit an individual campaign is much easier than starting from scratch. I think MMS:WE produces usable results, both in the building system and the economic simulator.

joe b.

 

[dead]

Conversion from real-world prices might not give perfect results (unskilled labourers in USA 2004 certainly earn more than D&D medieval commoners) but frankly I think it's one of the better ways of doing it. Certainly much much better than the Monte Cook approach of basing everything around the PCs and their wealth-by-level table.

That's exactly right, S'mon. It makes no "sense" to base prices on modern equivalents but it's a damn good way of solving problems in the game. So far I've had no problems with the mechanic. It has in no way sullied the believability of my medieval campaign world.

 

[Saeviomagy]

How exactly does that "blow holes" in the system, 600 mandays is only 85 labourers working for 1 week. They cost 59gp 5sp in wages, and if you feed them the equivalent of poor inn meals costing 59gp 5sp [what they're likely used to eating], that comes to 119gp/week.

Only 85 labourers for a week! And you did it in an hour! And you're not even talented with the device. Not too long ago people were claiming that the innkeep would build his inn himself.

Now it gets done in an hour.

In the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook [D&D's own system] it specifically states that labour acounts for 30% of the building cost under the lyre's usefulness (pg. 45). In my opinion you're getting a great deal with the lyre reducing costs by that amount.

I'll admit that the land is going to cost a fair amount, but you can't say for certain that other resources are going to be unavailable.

If you've got a block of land in a forest - is labour really only 30% of the cost of building a log cabin?

If you're putting something up in a quarry - is labour only 30%?

 

[Agemegos]

I don't think my pricing is off by much. If it was ten times too high that means the innkeeper will be able to pay off his (now 4.2k instead of 42k) investment the second year of running his inn (assuming 4k a year income or 1/2 occupancy).

Now you are assuming that all the revenue is gross profit. You ought to allow for expenses, such as wages and maintenance.

And I still doubt that the revenue you assume makes sense, because the price of accommodation is very high in comparison to wages.

That's far from starvation level. 1 sp a day buys a pound of flour and a chicken for 4 cp -- leaving 6 cp (60% of income) for other expenses.

You have the advantage in defending a list of highly erratic prices that you are able to choose the ones that are unreasonably low and ignore the ones that are unreasonably high. A mediaeval worker would not have been able to afford a chicken on a day's wages. On the other hand, he would have been able to afford two and a half gallons of ale rather than half a gallon. Or his wages would have covered five nights' accommodation in an inn (for the standards suitable for a gentleman's servant), instead of half a night. Or 1,000 days' wages would have built twenty-five two-storey cottages, instead of one simple house.

The touchstone for costs of living in a quasi-mediaeval setting is bread. A mediaeval labourer was paid the (typical) price of five 24-oz loaves of bread per day, or 7.5 pounds of bread. A labourer in D&D is paid the price of 5 half-pound loaves per day, or 2.5 pounds of bread.

I think one of the problems with historical conversion is our natural inclination to assume that a cp, sp, or gp, in the game has any relation to a RL coin of the same metal.

That is a problem, but I am consistently careful to avoid it by always working in terms of labour-prices.

If the arguement is one of "The D&D system doesn't make economic sense" I think we'll all agree, Yes, it doesn't. And that's because a Hammer is a really bad Saw. It's not designed to do that. But once that's out of the way, using that system to simulate results for roleplaying purposes should be the next point of discussion.

It should. Now, what role-playing purpose is served by making chickens eight times too cheap and bread three times too expensive?

 

[Alchemist]

This seems like a good place for me to jump in. I think you're both on unstable ground.

Now, what role-playing purpose is served by making chickens eight times too cheap and bread three times too expensive?

The one that involves role-playing what are, in essence, rock stars. We aren't playing a game of peasants; this is a game that assumes the characters are far and away beyond any reasonable approximation or simulation of a working, stable economic system, and those characters don't care what the price of bread vs chicken is. They lay out 10gp for the King's Meal and call it good before retiring to the most expensive room (2gp, by the book, perhaps as much as 20gp for the "penthouse at a Vegas casino" equivalent) in the place. The gap in earning ability presented between characters and normal people makes me wonder why everybody dosen't take up arms and have a go at adventuring. Seriously. Adventurers take in windfalls in a single adventure that rival the GDP of small towns. Who can talk of reasonable in the face of that?

I think there is a fundamental flaw in this entire argument-there is no economic system that can be expected to work as we would expect (ie: reasonably) with the numbers given in the core books. The proliferation of magics should reasonably make the economy more modern than feudal, so comparisons to quotes from the economy of France in 1110 (or whatever) dosen't really jive with me. Who cares what the yield of a 12th century farm was when plant growth is available? You get my drift, I'm sure. A less than holistic approach at economy building is wasted time, IMHO.

There are 2 options in my mind:

1. Book prices reflect what rich out-of-towners (read: roaming adventurers) would pay, not what the average person pays for meals, homes and stays at the inn; Typical people (~3rd level IMC) make between 3sp and 3gp per day, depending on their skillset. Obviously, that dosen't feed, clothe and shelter his family with the prices given. If you assume everybody is 1st level for some silly reason, that nets them 1sp-1gp/day. Either way, the prices are buggered. Perhaps dividing by 10 for stuff in the PHB might be a good start.

2. Either that, or the quoted working wage is too low and the prices are right. In that case, multiplying the wage would be the way to go. It's all the same in the end, until we throw the adventurers (who have *thousands* of gp to equip with in the span of only a few levels) into the mix.

Somebody else has already said this in different words, but in the end the problem is that the prices listed are somehow balanced against characters who measure value in how much it improves their dungeon crawling abilities, not normal people who just want to have a life. Any attempt to balance normal people (and normal economic forces) against the exceptional is admirable (I have and like MMS:WE) and works as long as one dosen't think about it too hard, like much of the rest of the game. If one wants versimilitude in their economy, they probably shouldn't leave thousands of gp in wealth laying around for characters to find and flood markets with.

Blah. That probably ranged off topic a bit, but I needed to dump it all out. You may fire when ready.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Good thread.

Personally, I like to keep my prices as simple and as close to what I consider reasonable as possible.

For example, in dungeon or castle building, my usual guideline is that the base cost of a plain, undecorated 10 foot-by-10 foot stone room equals 100 gp, including labor and materials. Of course, from there you can add tons of modifiers, if you want to. That's where most of the arguing comes in.

I'd say a mostly fully furnished, standard wooden inn would cost about 2,000-3,000 gp, while a grand and fancy inn might be 10,000-25,000 gp.

Then there's the rent you need to charge, which is gonna depend on the rooms you have. This would vary from 1 sp to 2 gp/day, since prices vary depending on availability and the cost of living in the local economy - which of course also varies depending on campaign setting...

Unfortunately, some unscrupulous innkeepers could vary prices depending on the apparent wealth or race of their patrons. They might not even be above trying to scam an extra gold piece or two by gouging wealthy adventurers (whom they believe will probably die in their next dungeon foray anyway).

In very poor areas, one might expect to pay about half the standard cost (and expect leaky roofs, rats, and serious drafts), while in wealthy areas a character might expect to pay as much as four times the standard cost. The aptly-named “common rooms” are similar to barracks, and anyone who pays their entrance fee simply beds down there for the night. Semi-private rooms would have two to four beds (often in bunk style) and would be rented for a flat cost, no matter how many people stay there. Semi-private rooms have locks. One private room is also rented for the flat cost, not by the number of individuals staying there. However, private rooms would be generally small and only comfortably accommodate a single person. But hey, they would come with locks and a chamber pot!

Naturally, I'll have more info on this in Goods & Gear: the Ultimate Adventurer's Guide, when it comes back from the printer in (hopefully) a few weeks. But the above are my rough notes I thought might come in a little handy.

 

[jgbrowning]

Now you are assuming that all the revenue is gross profit. You ought to allow for expenses, such as wages and maintenance.

I was assuming 1/2 went to pay off the investment and the other 1/2 went into all that your speaking of. If the innkeeper only takes roughly 30% of that 1/2, that's around double the average profession check.

And I still doubt that the revenue you assume makes sense, because the price of accommodation is very high in comparison to wages.

I have no arguement here. But again, accommodation is designed for PC interaction costs, not for NPC interaction costs, and not to be compared with medieval prices from particular locales.

You have the advantage in defending a list of highly erratic prices that you are able to choose the ones that are unreasonably low and ignore the ones that are unreasonably high. A mediaeval worker would not have been able to afford a chicken on a day's wages. On the other hand, he would have been able to afford two and a half gallons of ale rather than half a gallon. Or his wages would have covered five nights' accommodation in an inn (for the standards suitable for a gentleman's servant), instead of half a night. Or 1,000 days' wages would have built twenty-five two-storey cottages, instead of one simple house.

Here it's important to note that costs listed in D&D aren't designed to simulate a medieval economy. They are only designed for PC interaction.

The touchstone for costs of living in a quasi-mediaeval setting is bread. A mediaeval labourer was paid the (typical) price of five 24-oz loaves of bread per day, or 7.5 pounds of bread. A labourer in D&D is paid the price of 5 half-pound loaves per day, or 2.5 pounds of bread.

It should. Now, what role-playing purpose is served by making chickens eight times too cheap and bread three times too expensive?

On the other hand, what role-playing purpose is served by doing so? The gist of my arguement is this. People don't role-play commoners. They role-play PCs. The fact that chickens are to cheap and bread is too expensive means absolutely nothing to the vast majority of D&D role-playing. The fact that the D&D economy isn't comparable to medieval, again doesn't mean anything.

What do we need? We need numbers that relate to PCs. Costs that are designed to interact with PCs. Anything that isn't interacting with a PC is wasted space. From a publisher/design perspective hashing out anything that the PC's won't interact with is pointless and only serves a separate goal: world-building.

Although I love world building and the medieval feel (look what I've written) I know that the point of the game is to kill things and take their stuff while getting more powerful to kill tougher things and get better stuff. There's lots of other ways to play, of course, and it's for those other types of players that this information is even minisculy important.

But it's important to distinguish between world-building exercises (creating a working economy is a world-building exercise) and between role-playing. Having a PC own an inn is role-playing with a bit of a working economy thrown in. At the root of it, if the DM and the Player are both satisfied with whatever expenses/profits they create, that's all that's needed for the game, regardless of how irrational those numbers are when compared to real-life economics of a particular place and time. Anything more than that simple part is world building, again not role-playing. And that wealth is in relation to PCs and PCs expected power levels because that's what runs the game engine of kill monsters and take their stuff and get more powerful.

If there is inconsistancy between a player's perspective and a GM's perspective about something such as inn cost or probable profit, an agreement should be easily met if they are both considerate, mature individuals willing to compromise about a subject that (lets be honest here) we all have only a passing familiarity with. If there's still conflict, rules may help reduce it, but the end conflict is the result of a clash that no rules will solve, because eventually someone's going to point out that chickens are too cheap and bread is too expensive based upon their personal knowledge of a particular time and place. Some people want chickens and bread to be priced "right," but others can support cases for a different "right price" based upon different times and location assumptions. Because at the heart of it, the arguement is one of "reality" and "how much reality should be in my role-playing game." That's personal preferance, not irrational game design. If the GM and the player agree (to quote Bob Barker) the Price is Right.

joe b.

 

[Agemegos]

1. Book prices reflect what rich out-of-towners (read: roaming adventurers) would pay, not what the average person pays for meals, homes and stays at the inn.

But some of the prices are unreasonably cheap.

Your rock stars are paying triple for bread but getting chicken at an 87.5% discount.

And besides, the mediaeval prices I have for meals, beds, light, fire, and meals in inns were paid by wealthy outsiders: gentlemen travelling with servants.

If one wants versimilitude in their economy, they probably shouldn't leave thousands of gp in wealth laying around for characters to find and flood markets with.

I don't think that that is necessary. Colossal windfalls enrich a few people, and temporarily increase the real prices of the things they want. But pretty soon the money gets around and bids up the price of everything, and you are left with a perfectly functional economy with high nominal prices.

It simply isn't a problem that a D&D gold piece containing 9.5 grammes of gold has a much lower purchasing power than a mediaeval ducat containing 3.5 grammes of gold. That is a perfectly reasonable result of an environment where gold is plentiful.

The problem is when a PC want to buy and operate an inn, but it works out that the building is so damned expensive that no reasonable estimate of the number of patrons and the amount they could afford to spend will allow the PC-innkeeper to cover running costs and depreciation, let alone making a return on his investment.

Or possibly the problem is that when a PC wants to buy an inn it is so damned cheap and so damned profitable that the PC is soon so rich that he doesn't care about monsters' treasure.

I understand the argument that the price lists in D&D have to support dungeon-bashing, and provide a little balance in dungeon-bashing campaigns. The thing is that I don't see why they have to make problems for other campaigns when doing so has precious little impact on dungeon-bashing. Some of us like to run campaigns with other premisses andsometimes even other focusses than dungeon-bashing. It is a pity that some parts of the rules have been written so carelessly that we have to re-write them ourselves to do so.

Moreover, when players discover something silly in the rules it often spoils the mood. "Frank, if you were a mediaeval peasant, would you rather eat half a chicken or half a pound of bread?" "Easy, Tony, I'd rather have the chicken." "Righto then--they're cheaper, too. From now on our henchmen dine on chook." And throughout the rest of the campaign players are making chicken jokes, and whenever the characters have to be silent players will make clucking sounds.

The game doesn't have to be unworkable in the dungeon. But it shouldn't be laughable outside of it.

 

[Agemegos]

Here it's important to note that costs listed in D&D aren't designed to simulate a medieval economy. They are only designed for PC interaction.

Agreed.

Now, is it your contention that the prices that are giving us trouble in this thread (wages, real estate prices, and the prices of provisions) do a better job in PC interaction than a set of prices would that made some sort of sense when compared to one another?

Do you maintain that a set of prices suitable for PC interaction when the PCs are running an estate, a business or a mission must necessarily be unsuitable for PC interaction when the PCs are dungeon-bashing goons?

In short, I contend that a set of prices that had been compiled with a little thought and care would be just as good for supporting dungeon-bashing campaigns as the PHB prices are, and better for Random User's campaign. Which ought to make everyone happy.

On the other hand, what role-playing purpose is served by doing so?

That was my question exactly. If you meant to ask "What role-playing purpose is served by not doing so?", the answer is "The purpose of Rando User's campaign and others like it. Not all PCs are dungeon-bashers, nor rich."

The gist of my arguement is this. People don't role-play commoners. They role-play PCs. The fact that chickens are to cheap and bread is too expensive means absolutely nothing to the vast majority of D&D role-playing.

Well if it means nothing, why not get the prices right? That way you would serve to players who play your way and players who play Random User's way. If these stupid prices aren't actually doing you any good, why fight so hard to stop them from changing?

What do we need? We need numbers that relate to PCs. Costs that are designed to interact with PCs.

I think that that is true even if the PCs do something unconventional. Besides, it is at best an argument for having no prices for real estate and bread, not an argument for have stupid nonsensical prices for real estate and bread.

I know that the point of the game is to kill things and take their stuff while getting more powerful to kill tougher things and get better stuff.

Then I think you 'know' more than is true. Some people enjoy and even prefer different styles of play. And it seems to me that it would do the game no harm to serve both markets.