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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scharlata" data-source="post: 1751298" data-attributes="member: 4806">Yepp, I expect as much.I never felt comfortable about the possibility that a shopkeeper or a smith had an item which marketprice is in the 100 grands (100.000+) stored for the rarest of occasions when a charcter walked by asking her for that specific item. That's an entirely modern economic concept."Back in the days", when someone walked into a store/smithy to "buy" something she did first the "talkings" of what she wants and how the item should look like. The second step would have been the customfitting of the item for a long duration (lifetime) use. After this mandatory steps were "debated" and haggled, the shopkeeper - which almost as often was the creator/artisan of told item - sat down to produce/create the requested item after purchasing the raw material. This could take days, weeks, months or years (in the case of armor or weapons).People had time - in spite of the fact that they did not live very long. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> They were used to wait for a - often masterwork - item customized to their physiognomical  properties and mental necessities. To produce items (in this case very expensive items) and store them for the probability that someone could walk into his shop/smithy would have been outright silly. Why should his shop/smithy be the one from which someone would buy a +5 holy keen adamantine avenger of devil-slaying? The neighbouring smith would have to have to same item, if we'd apply D&D economics. Where did the smith get the money to make that item to have it "just in case someone would ask for it"? What would he do with all the money if he sold that item?A number of questions arise that are best unanswered if you want a fast game, but if you want a campaign background that considers medieval economics you have to familiarize yourself with the concepts of mercantilism, protectionism, taxes, tithes and all other old-fashioned shopping. Did you know that in times long ago (14th century +) inflation was unknown just because the concept of inflation was not intended to exist - even if inflation did take place until it was plain to see when the Spanish economical system broke down because the Kings/Queens of Spain "imported" gold and more gold from The Americas instead of producing wares to sell and keep the economic system balanced?Kind regards</blockquote>

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