How much does an inn cost to buy?

[Sledge]

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.

Might be the only reason for me to even consider purchasing the PDF now....
NVM it's still $10... little too much for a book I'd have to rewrite.

 

[jgbrowning]

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?

I'm saying the definition of "sense" varies from person to person, from location to location, and from time period to time period. What makes sense cost-wise for a structure in 1190 is very different than what makes sense cost-wise for a structure in 1325, even if it's in exactly the same place.

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?

Generally (read the rest of the post for further explination) I don't think these two goals are compatable. One goal is high adventure, the other is fairly precise setting creation for a supossedly setting-neutral fantasy adventure game.

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.

The prices have been compiled with a little thought and care. The intent behind that compiling is what you disagree with. The prices are compiled with only PC interactions in mind. To compile prices outside of this goal would mean additional time spent on a matter that has little to no consequences for the majority of gamers. If it's under 10gp in cost, once past 1st level it's probably not going to matter much to any player. If it does for your group, you're playing a rare breed of D&D.

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."

Again, I don't think you can really serve both groups, especially when you are forced to examine the fiscal ramifications of magic. Once you have a "realistic" medieval pricing system, you'll have to then have a "realistic" interpretation of what magic would do to that. Plant growth itself is going to dramtically change your grain-to-labor ratio's. And then factor in all the changes cheaper/more plentiful grain creates and pretty soon you're going to have to "rationally" create a fiscal system that takes into account things that are utterly irrational, unpredicable, and unrealistic. And on top of that everyone has their own interpretation of what magic would do to a real society: me included.

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?

Again, what is right? I'm not sure if I'm communicating this properly, but the price of grain itself varies massively over the entire European continent and throughout the entire medieval time period. Also, just because "medieval wheat cost X amount of silver per quarter and an amount of labor generates this much silver at X location at X time" doesn't mean that D&D wheat/silver/labor has to follow any of those relationships. And on top of all that, don't forget magic. I don't expect a truely medieval price listing in a world where magic is as common as postulated in the core rules.

This is the logical error. You can make prices that fit what you think is right. You can't make right prices because it's your assumptions, generalizations, and the presence (and how much of a presence) of magic that will cause error. Perhaps even error on the same level as in the core prices already, just different.

The question, "What's the price for a gallon of gas?" illustrates my point. Before you can give me a price you're going to have to ask me, "Where, over what period of time, and what was inflation like?" Your prices, although based upon a set of assumptions of time period and location, may be just as faulty for another time period and location as the D&D prices seem to you. Any price range, time range, and location range chosen is just another assumption- it'll be one that suits you better, but it may not be of any material improvement to anyone else.

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.

If there were no prices, someone would want to know them. This is the desire, I'm assuming, that leads to Kenzer's product. Most people don't want to have to discuss these issues of pricing for item that cost less than 10gp--they'd rather just look at a book because it's "good enough." Your definition of "good enough" is different than the majority of gamers.

This is also, if I'm understanding correctly, the idea behind a "wealth" system. It does just what you suggest: effectively removing prices.

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.

You actually wouldn't be serving "both" markets because you'd be only serving one market (the average D&Der)+ the one market you based your prices off of (say medieval england in 1350). It will be an improvement for your particular desires in gaming, but that doesn't mean it's an improvement in gaming for anyone who wants to play outside of england in the 1350's. In fact, it may be more of a detriment for people who have your style of play (detailed world building aspects based upon history) but prefer Italy in 1210 than the simple, bad, base D&D prices we have right now.

First off, you'd absolutely have to ditch the 10/10/10 ratio of copper/silver/gold. But even simply altering that easy ratio to more suit reality would be less beneficial to more people's playing style than it would be to have a chicken be too cheap, a laborer's wage too low, and for wheat to be too expensive. I don't think changes to the basic prices do more than marginally better the game, if that. I think they would be simply concentrating on one historical aspect while potentially being at greater odds with other aspects.

You can make realistic prices (again according to what location and over what period of time you want), but I don't think you can make realistic prices and have the desired level of simplicity that most player's are looking for. It's a matter of world-building vers. role-playing. If you're worried about your players having issues with the prices, just make up your own list of prices and tell them this is what things cost in your world. The issue is then solved from a role-playing perspective and you've customized your campaign world at the same time.

I hope my basic arguement (what time and what place) is coming though all of these paragraphs. Given some thought, it's not that difficult to imagine situations where the prices listed in the core rules are not that off. Given differences in material availablity in a make-believe world (which, realistically, there is no reason to assume that the material availability in the D&D worlds are in any form or fashion comparable to medieval england/europe to begin with) and because there's also magic in the world, I think pretty much anything is just a handwave away from being explained good enough for the vast majority of gamers.

I like history, I like writing history into my game. I've written a very good book about mixing medieval european flavor into an average d20 game. I just don't think there's any need to adjust base prices that players rarely, if ever, interact with. I do have an economic simulator in MMS:WE (which just recently got used in Bad Axe's Grim Tales thx Ben!) that gives a GM a lot more flexibility in pricing and helps create that local feel you're probably after.

joe b.

 

[Phineas Crow]

I’m glad I bailed on this thread after my calculating snafu, debating medieval economy pertaining to a fantasy setting is not my forte.

I will, however, say that dismissing MMS:WE for not agreeing with its building system is an unfair judgment on the book. MMS:WE is 138 pages long (not counting the glossary, bibliography, and license) with the building system taking up only 18 pages.

 

[jgbrowning]

Out of curiosity, bringing up the cost of Inn's again, why does it cost 12,192gp to whitewash the walls and hang a sign outside the entrance, that is the main style of most buildings that were mid-level wealth. Now, I could see the interior cost being quite high, after all you need beds, tables, chairs, a bar, an entire kitchen to furnish etc. But that still seems extremely high...is the owner buying an innfull of exotic rare woods and commissioning the best crafters for this project?

Calrin Alshaw

Since there's been two questions like this I'll answer. Style is a mechanic used to represent a particular status. It's kinda like HP. What exactly is HP? I'm sure we've all had that discussion at one time or another.

What style does is function within the system to perform a task. That task is to help differentiate pricing between cheap, lower-class buildings and very wealthy buildings. The building system is taking on a monumental task: a single system that handles all construction types with decent results. Since we were designing a system that dealt with both very cheep structures and massively expensive structures, I thought having several factors that influence the end price would be the best way to produce widely varied results.

The factors relate to their actual real occurances similarly to how HP's relate to a character's toughness: they're a generalization and style is the HP generalization while the others are much more like Str or Con. Base price per square foot is easy to understand, excavation is easy to understand, material is easy to understand, labor is easy to understand, carriage is easy to understand, but style is the sticky one. The fuction within the system it serves is to provide players the option of having lower-cost yet still functional buildings, while at the same time giving them the ability for truly luxurious structures.

We did this by making the "normal" style add a fairly large % amount to the final total, thus providing an easy way to lower cost by lowering "style" and also providing the opportunity to significantly increase cost by raising style. There are obviously other ways of doing the same mechanic. It's the one we chose. We also allow players even a bit more freedom by breaking style up into both interior and exterior. If we would have provided fewer options, we wouldn't have to have this discusion....

So, no. The walls are not painted with gold, the sign isn't solid silver. Just like HP is a generalized measure of a character's toughness based on level, constitution, and magic effects, style is an arbitrary modifier on the amount of wealth that went into a particular building to create the appropriate class-conscious appearance based upon materials, labor, and carriage.

joe b.

 

[S'mon]

Gaming prices aren't comparable to real life prices...

...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.

OK, this was your big mistake IMO. Whoever heard of anyone in a D&D game paying the common sailors on their ship *40gp/month**?! Or paying all the common cooks in their castle 40 gp/month?! That's vastly out of whack with the hireling costs in the DMG, which is what you should have been paying attention to, not to the Craft/Profession skill in the PHB, which is aimed purely at _player characters_, not at DMs trying to develop a plausible world!

The PHB Craft/Profession income can be slotted into the DMG hireling-cost tables, but it clearly represents the income of a skilled artisan, a head cook, a ship-master - ie the **Middle Class** of the campaign setting, not the masses of unskilled labourers, maidservants, cooks and common sailors, who are earning around 1/10 to 1/5 the figures you quote.

In the real high-medieval period this middle class made up around 5% of the population in England (Town Planner, Paul Vernon, BoWD Articles III). It could make up a higher proportion of a Forgotten Realms or Mystara-style D&D society, but treating it as the _baseline_ is bound to give results grotesquely out-of-whack with the unskilled-labour costs represented by the DMG hireling tables.

 

[S'mon]

& there is a good reason for DMs to develop plausible worlds - it gives PCs something to interact with outside of the dungeon environment. With a few sensible baseline assumptions (the most important one I find being the cost of unskilled labour in an unregulated market) everything can fall into place - you can come up with reasonable prices for buying an inn, for paying a mercenary guard, for staying at an inn, or when the PCs are high-level, for taxing a realm, for raising & paying for an army, etc.

The PHB equipment prices, Craft income etc, are aimed directly at players & their PCs, so they can do stuff without GM intervention, like buying over-priced bread for their dungeon rations. PHB prices generally work ok as "this is what the locals will charge wealthy adventurers". Commoners in my campaign earning 1sp/day certainly don't pay more than 1cp for a flagon of ale, or a few cp for a day's low-quality food.

DMG prices, by contrast, are there to help the GM develop a campaign setting the PCs can interact with. Unfortunately in 3e the Hireling costs and the Building costs are totally out of whack.

JG Browning & MMS:WE seems to have made the choice to stick w the Building costs given in the DMG, ignore the Hireling costs, and use the PHB Craft-income levels as the baseline for what a typical world inhabitant earns. The only problem with that is that you thus create a world resembling a middle-class society on 21st century Earth, looking nothing like the peasant-based medieval society D&D assumes as the default backdrop.

****In short:
If labourers earn 1gp/day or 10gp/week using their "Craft: Labourer" skill, MMS:WE's figures & the DMG Building cost figures are fine. The DM should then raise the DMG hireling cost figures by a factor of 10, so eg a mercenary costs 2gp/day, not 2sp.
If labourers earn 1sp/day as per DMG, then the MMS:WE & DMG Building figures are around 10 times too high. The DM should cut them by a factor of 10. The DMG hireling costs can then be used as given.****

Would you agree with my analysis? If not, is it because "It's just a game, dude!"?

 

[jgbrowning]

OK, this was your big mistake IMO. Whoever heard of anyone in a D&D game paying the common sailors on their ship *40gp/month**?! Or paying all the common cooks in their castle 40 gp/month?! That's vastly out of whack with the hireling costs in the DMG, which is what you should have been paying attention to, not to the Craft/Profession skill in the PHB, which is aimed purely at _player characters_, not at DMs trying to develop a plausible world!

From a designing perspective, I have several issues with the hireling section and charts. Basically, I think they're a hold-over from earlier editions that weren't updated for 3.0. Every NPC has skill points now, and if someone is actually a cook or a sailor for their livelyhood, I think an NPC will have those skills. Perhaps not at 1st level (the newbie, learning the ropes maybe), but by 2nd surely.

Notice firstly, that they say that hirelings don't gain levels. IMHO, that's utterly bunk. That's completely counter to one of the basic concepts of 3E where any intelligent creature can gains levels. Also listed in the hireling tables are smiths, architect/engineers, and barristers (lawyers) who only earn 3sp, 5sp, and 1gp per day respectively. This as well puts me a bit off of using these numbers as they don't mesh with their respective skill requirements. To be an smith, architect/engineer, or barrister, one must put skill points into learning those trades. They aren't like being a maid or porter. They're not just something you pick up with a decent fluency in a short period of time.

Also the hireling chart doesn't take into account any material/tools/weapons expenses for their profession. Ie. the smith doesn't actually own anything, it's all supplied by the hireling's master so these costs represent only the labor involved in the professions functioning.

However, It does suggest that just hiring this individual for a day or two would double to triple their listed pay rates (probably to make up for that supplying all the materials aspect above). This would appear to be at least what a regular person would pay them for a service. For example, If I needed the smith to do a days work for me (say fixing a wagon part) I'm going to have to pay double or triple that amount at least (increasing his daily take to around 6-9sp). For the Craft(X) group that isn't far off of the craft check's 1/2 gp per check result per week result of around 5-6gp a week.

I think the main problem is the designers using the modern distiction about what qualifies as a Profession or Craft, not so much what is expected wages. If we assume everyone (except the unskilled for a particular task) functions as a craft we still have the average sailor or cook earning as much money as a 1000gp house would cost in roughly 4 a years period, double of what the straight profession check suggested.

If we follow your idea of reducing the cost of the house by 10, any creature with Craft (X) who practices their trade can buy a house every 20 weeks. (EDIT notice: I was off in my 2 weeks estimation in my earlier post, it should have been 10 weeks. My apologies.)

I don't think, S'mon, that anyone denies the sillyness of the D&D pricing system. There are 3 basic reasons for this I think (there may be more, I'm tired and it's early):

1. Gaming history: it's how things were done in the past.
2. Grandfather systems: these old things weren't meshed with the new concepts
3. Money only related to PCs. There is no need for any coherant valuation outside of the realm of PC interaction.

I find it easier to, as opposed to lowering the base prices, just accept the (outside the very basic unskilled laborers) people are earning several gp a week under the D&D economic system and divorce that fact from what we know about history. As I said earlier, if you want to make a new pricing system that's cool. It customises your campaign and give more of the feel you want. However, MMS:WE works using D&D's expectation of income based upon skills and its belief that money is only important in relation to PCs.

But as you've shown, there's internal inconsistancies about those common earnings. And the craft skill, well, lets just say there's all sorts of things wrong with that in the end as well. There's been a lot of threads about that.

The goal of the MMS:WE building system surely can't be expected to fix the D&D monetary inconsistancies, can it? It's only purpose to use the D&D system to make a more medieval environment through adding cool innovative things like pricing based on sq. ft., carriage costs, and how magic effects building. At all places, when the choice was give on the rules or give on the medievalesque feel, the feel had to give. It's a d20 book, and aspires to be considered as nothing more than that. We think we did a bang up job in doing that, but it's not a history book and shouldn't ever be intended as such.

And from a design perspective, the less the end results of MMS:WE's building system vary from the "cannon" of D&D costs for (the few) structures as published by WoTC, the better. That means it has a high level of compatablity with what the majority of players consider as D&D. This is a very good thing for a d20 product.

joe b.

 

[The Gryphon]

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.

Only 85 labourers was of course a reference to how little they cost in the grand scheme of things, not to whether or not it's a large amount of work in a small amount of time

To use the device more than once a week for building [the equivalent of 300 mandays of work], you'd have to be somewhat skilled with the device as you need to make a DC 18 Perform (stringed instrument) check. So we're down to half the labourers without a skill check anyway, thus halving the discount to 15% instead of 30%.

Obviously course the innkeeper COULD build the inn himself, but as with most projects it probably didn't start out this grand especially in a small village. For example, the future innkeeper builds himself a house in a small village at little cost as he provides all of the labour himself, getting his own materials or trading services with others who can do the work, thus keeping costs to a minimum.

A few travellers pass through looking for somewhere to sleep and eat, he provides a bed and meal. They give him a few coins and he decides he can make a living at this with a little work. He keeps feeding travellers passing through while enlarging his house as above.

Eventually he has an inn which has taken him 5 years to build at little direct cost [he may owe a few favours and a few villagers may drink for free]. If instead he'd hired craftsmen build it, it may have cost 10,000gp and only taken a month or two.

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%?

Even land may cost nothing if you're building in wilderness ruled by no-one, or a land where the laws aren't strongly enforced. The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook doesn't include land in the building price anyway, that has to be gained independantly.

The 30% labour, unskilled construction labour would probably be a better desription, is of course a general listing. It assumes you're getting prepared materials delivered to the construction site.

As I see the lyre, it's an item that provides the muscle for building [the unskilled labour which carries, digs, hauls, etc.]. Therefore it wouldn't help with cutting, quarrying, or similarly skilled situations.

You could of course hire the relevant skilled workers to cut or mine in those sites thus reducing costs, but this isn't the same sort of labour as above. It just means you're paying for the materials at the extraction stage instead of the retail stage.

Consideration must be given to the fact that costs listed in the PHB, the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, and most other sources are for a finished product being sold to those that won't or can't do for themselves [the retail stage of a purchase]. You only have to look at how we live today to see how that works

 

[jgbrowning]

****In short:
If labourers earn 1gp/day or 10gp/week using their "Craft: Labourer" skill, MMS:WE's figures & the DMG Building cost figures are fine. The DM should then raise the DMG hireling cost figures by a factor of 10, so eg a mercenary costs 2gp/day, not 2sp.
If labourers earn 1sp/day as per DMG, then the MMS:WE & DMG Building figures are around 10 times too high. The DM should cut them by a factor of 10. The DMG hireling costs can then be used as given.****

Would you agree with my analysis? If not, is it because "It's just a game, dude!"?

I have tried my best to be polite thoughout this rather agressive thread, and would appreciate the favor returned. No, I don't agree with your analysis. I have answered your hireling's chart issues in my above post. Per the section on hirelings, multiply those costs by 2 or 3 and you'll get what the cost of the real wage is for that worker type per day when they are not functioning under retainer and when they do not have all their materials supplied to them. You'll note that this multipled number is comparable to the skill Craft (X) for most of them and comparable to Profession (X) for the most expensive of them. I also noted the game problem with assigning Craft or Profession.

And you're right. It's just a game dude. A game in which this aspect plays a very miniscule part and is only fretted over by people who share a common interest in history and economics. There isn't a reason to get heated.

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

Ok, there are times in a man's life when he's got to realize that god's trying to tell him something. You'd think I would have learned it from when we were hit by lightning 10 or so days ago, knocking out our internet for over a week.

But no, I had to tempt fate and dare use my own writing! I, the modern Prometheus!

Well, I'm wrong. Wrong about the inn pricing, that is. Embarrisingly enough, I miscalculated using my own damn system. *SIGH*

The numbers listed in the front page of this thread are significantly inflated because I didn't check on Phineus Crow's style modifiers once I saw the first mistake. That's my bad: I should have been more thurough. The 42k inn cost is for an inn with a roughly Ornate Style, not a normal style. Here we go again, style getting me in trouble. Ornate Style is "Providing the first tastes of real wealth, elegantly constructed and filled with fine materials." This is a really nice inn.

See, I muliplied style by 1.6 as opposed to 0.6 for "Normal" Style. The new price of the "Normal Style" inn is only 26,000 gp. I ****ed up with my own system. Man that sucks.

For those of you who thought the price was too high, you were right. Dammit.



This doesn't have much of an effect on discussing houses (I did those right at least...) and labor, but it has a significant effect when talking about return for the inn. The "Normal" inn is now quite a bit better investment than what It was appearing to be. It looks like 10 to 15 years and it would be scot free.

joe b.