How much money should a small town generate per month?

[jgbrowning]

Ahh... feel the love.... thanks guys,

For a small town a lord gets roughly 1% of the town's weath a year as pure profit. You can go up to 10% if that's more of what your interested in, but you'll have to role-play out the effects to taking so much out of the day-to-day maintenance of the place. Our small towns generate a range of 360-800gp with an average of 580 gp. This is only profit, not the real income on the town. The town will take in more money than that, but much of it will go right back into the various fuctions of mantaining the town. If the money isn't put back into maitaining the town, expect to see a reduction in total intake after a while as things get run down.

If she wants to increase her income sustainably, she'll need to grow her small town up into the next bracket, where the town's wealth increased dramatically.

joe b.

 

[adwyn]

Keep in mind no self respecting Monarch is going to give up a profitable piece of real estate without a catch. A war averted all too often simply means a war delayed. After a few profitable months, give her the honor of housing a few of the king's own guards to help bolster the regions defenses. If that doesn't break her then let her begin sprucing up local fortifications. If she still is spending send one of the king's more useless relatives for a short visit of a few years. Of course the poor fellow will bring along a retinue, all of which her ladyshgip will be espected to host graciously. If that doesn't break her how about sponsoring the new warship, The Lady of Rhennes.

The point is being a noble is not about easy money. Nobility who can accumulate wealth are a direct threat to their peers and especially the monarch. New financial burdens will be shifted to the PC's shoulders as long as possible until she puts a stop to it, doing so of course will require some sort of political influence. Ignore the actual wealth and just have her grateful citizens gift her with the occasional magic item or similar special thing. Unless she becomes a total miser the cost of living will always rise to meet her means.

 

[S'mon]

I have MMS: WE but I generally don't need that much detail. A commoner labourer earns 1sp/day per the PHB BTW, not 1gp, or 3gp/month.

For total tax take, assuming total tax* is around 20% of GDP (about half what a modern welfare state takes), I usually use from 5sp/person/month for typical areas (average earnings 2.5gp/person/month, including all dependents), to 1gp/person/month for wealthy areas (average earnings 5gp/month). A market town would usually be the latter, so 1600 people = 1600 gp/month, gross. All government infrastructure, buildings, walls, troops etc has to be paid for out of that. The city guard will cost at least 12gp/man/month, more if they include cavalry, much more if they include higher level types & spellcasters. Since the domain is part of a larger fief, at least 20% of total revenue (320 gp/month) will have to be 'kicked upstairs' to the higher ruler to pay for royal palaces, border guards, the navy and royal bodyguard etc. If the GM is generous the PC might receive a net 25% of total tax, or 400gp/month.

*No individual tax is likely to be over 10% of income or the cost of a transaction, except possibly duties on high-value imports like silks & spices, but it quickly adds up.

 

[Al]

I use the approximation that each person in a population generates an average 50gp per year in total GDP- this is an aggregate of everyone nationally from the wealthiest merchant companies to impoverished peasant farmers, so this should probably be adjusted downwards for an average town. Remember that the average peasant earns just 1sp per day, and assuming a 300-day working year (Sundays and festival off) this accounts for just 30gp a year, and is partially offset by the elderly, infirm, children and other non-workers. It is increased again by wealthier individuals, so I use an approximation of 50gp/year/head of population: the main Empire in my campaign world has a population of nine million and a GDP of 467 million gold pieces.

It's more-or-less a total state with an established Church, so tax revenue is around 30%, probably higher than a typical medieval state, but 10% of GDP goes to funding the Church (a la medieval tithes), so the conventional state only has 20%. In the case of the town of 1600, this would be 16000gp per year. I would estimate the some half of this would go to the local military and civic improvement, and another quarter to central government (the king or whatever). Note, however, that if your campaign nation does not have a professional standing army, or a bureaucratic central government, then a frugal Lord could spend as little as quarter of tax revenue on productive services. This leaves between 5-15% of GDP to local government, depending on levels of tax, centralisation and services- which translates into 4000-12000gp per year, or between 333-1000gp per month. This would be the 'normal' range, but can be further adjusted by extremes of tax levels, or service provision, or a particularly centralising government.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I don't know... if it is a small town would it really ever use coin or would it use a barter system? Coins have to be minted and circulated and I'd imagine that typical farmers and ranchers would rarely see/use it but instead would operate on a barter system. "I'll give you these 3 chickens and this cow for that plow over yonder".

 

[Ibram]

I don't know... if it is a small town would it really ever use coin or would it use a barter system? Coins have to be minted and circulated and I'd imagine that typical farmers and ranchers would rarely see/use it but instead would operate on a barter system. "I'll give you these 3 chickens and this cow for that plow over yonder".

serfs/pesants will probably do that, but they still have to pay their taxes to their feudal lord. Farmers usualy pay that in agricultural goods (grain, wool, ect...) while merchants would pay in gold.

Taking the town at 1600 inhabitants there would be around 900-1000 who are able to work (the rest being either to old or to young to contribute in a meaningful fashion). Nearly everyone would be farmers/ranchers (lets say 800), the last few would be merchants/tradesmen (200).

Now the farmers output would vary from year to year as well as being based on the productivity of the land (since the character is an outsider being granted a title she's not going to get any prime farmland) lets say that each farmer produces at least 5gp per year (unless the year was realy realy bad) but that that can go much higher depending on things like weather. so now you have a minimum of 5000gp per year; now to throw some randomness into the mix when harvest time comes roll 1d4 and add that as a percent of the total income (if the character takes steps to improve the land by clearing new fields or building an irrigation system then you could increase that by say +1 to +3, or if the character is neglectful then you could decrease it by the same amount).

Now that your character has her income she has to pay her taxes and her upkeep which will probably ammount to 1/3-1/2 of her income. So now at the end of the day lets say she has 2500gp to play with. A respectable income, most of which should go to improving her lands (building graneries, improving defenses and the like)

 

[silburnl]

I don't know... if it is a small town would it really ever use coin or would it use a barter system? Coins have to be minted and circulated and I'd imagine that typical farmers and ranchers would rarely see/use it but instead would operate on a barter system. "I'll give you these 3 chickens and this cow for that plow over yonder".

What we think of as a small town (pop. 1600) is actually a substantial settlement in historical terms. In medieval England (C13th say) this sort of place would have been a county seat or market town on a notable trade-route - so there'd definitely be a money economy there.

Out in the villages and, perhaps, subsidiary 'daily' market centres there would be barter but peasants (if you are following the English model) would still have recourse to coin for large transactions and things like court fines. Furthermore although feudal dues were framed in terms of labour owed they were frequently handled as cash payments, especially later on in the middle ages.

Of course D&D isn't really medieval and there's a notable disjunct between the everyday economy and the "adventurer's economy" so its debatable how useful appeals to historical models are.

Regards
Luke