Silly economics of DnD

[drnuncheon]

Re: Craft skills and peasant labour.

Now what really bugs me is the disparity between the earnings listed under Craft skills and the earnings listed under the average peasant labour.
Now, I think (don't have PHB on hand) that the check results for Craft/Profession is equal to the number of silver pieces earned per week.
The peasant earnings listed under the DMG states that the average labourer earns 1 sp /day.

The problem with your analysis is that a cooper or any other craftsman is not a "laborer". The "laborer" that earns 1 sp/day is unskilled labor: digging ditches, carrying heavy things from point A to point B, that sort of thing.

Skilled craftsmen are considerably better off, as the Craft skill in the PHB indicates.

Edit: the SRD says " A skilled (but not exceptional) artisan can earn a gold piece a day" under equipment.

Under Craft it says "The character can practice a trade and make a decent living, earning about half the check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. The character knows how to use the tools of the trade, how to perform the craft's daily tasks, how to supervise untrained helpers, and how to handle common problems. (Untrained laborers and assistants earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.)

That fits: a skilled (but not exceptional) artisan is going to have +4 to his check and get a 14 on his roll, meaning 7 gp per week or 1/day.

J

 

[tarkin]

Actual Medieval Society worked pretty close to what they describe in D&D.


The basic idea was that untrained labor could not survive on wage offered.
In order to live, they had to accept serfdom.
With serfdom, they got a lot of free food (mostly provided at holidays etc.) at the expense of being a practical slave.

No one in taverns or inns, etc. should be serfs or common laborers. If common Laborers drank, they drank moonshine, made by either themselves or their friends.

The absolute worst tavern should be populated by minimally skilled laborer/guild members (Dock Workers)

 

[abri]

OTOH: I see no problem with it taking 20 days of wages for a peasant to buy a barrel. How much do those things cost today? Then how long would it take your typical $1/day Chinese/Philipino/Whomever laborer to afford that? I suspect that it would be much more than 20 days...

That I can answer: a barrel of similar size than the one in the PHB, cost between $300-1000. The price depend a lot on the wood quality (oak, sherry-wood...) and on the quality of the barrel. Yes it is expensive, but remember that the wood has to be dried for years and that it takes time to manufacture one (and aren't many people left who can make nice barrels).

I suggest reading some of Ars Magica 4ed books, one of the most realistic description of medieval ecomomic system (especially: Sons of Merlin sourcebook).
Most peasant in those times had enough money to feed themselves (bread, eggs, vegetables, and LOTS of vegetable soup) and drink a lot (about 4+ pints of beer a day). They were able to have some meat (ok, not very often): mostly salted/smoked pork, and a chicken about once a month...
And once a year when they slaughtered a pig they would have fresh meat.
Now that describe about 60% of peasants in 12th century England, 30% would be real poor, and 10% would be richer (there were a few case of non-noble but still incredibly rich farmer).
Also, coins weren't used by peasants untill the development of towns: this created the oportunity for them to sell their surplus much more easily and thus develloped the use of coins.
Before that taxes were paid in livestock/grains or even grains (some peasant could pay their taxes through the year, other paid once a year...)

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Arkham,

Thanks for that Bret Evil article. You just saved me a lot of work.

 

[abri]

Actual Medieval Society worked pretty close to what they describe in D&D.


The basic idea was that untrained labor could not survive on wage offered.
In order to live, they had to accept serfdom.
With serfdom, they got a lot of free food (mostly provided at holidays etc.) at the expense of being a practical slave.

No one in taverns or inns, etc. should be serfs or common laborers. If common Laborers drank, they drank moonshine, made by either themselves or their friends.

The absolute worst tavern should be populated by minimally skilled laborer/guild members (Dock Workers)

Inn actually were only present in towns or villages on important commercial routes:eople just didn't travel much.
Tavern were in every single village, for a good reason: people mostly drank beer. The village leader's wife (in England) had the traditional role of making the beer from the barley,the villagers cultivated. The tavern was often just a few wooden table in the middle of the village were people would meet and drink (how the beer was distributed depends on the village)...
If you calculate how much a peasant can grow (from his standard 20-30 acres, plus small vegetable garden), you see that after giving 10% to the church, 5% to the mill-owner, 5% to his lord, eating and drinking for his whole familly, and paid for the rent of his land; then you see that after a year he has put about 20 Sp aside for eventual problems. If he owns the land, then he is making a lot more.

 

[Dragonblade]

Some more food for thought:

1) The treasure tables are seriously out of whack when it comes to creatures like Great Wyrm dragons. If we go by the standard stereotype of a dragon sleeping on a big pile of treasure then the treasure of a great wyrm red dragon, for example, should be in the MILLIONS of gold pieces!

2) And even if you go by standard D&D rules, any time an adventuring party comes back to civilization and starts flooding the economy with all their gold and treasure, there will be massive inflation. It would play havoc with small economies and would probably send economic ripples through even the largest cities.

 

[CRGreathouse]

2) And even if you go by standard D&D rules, any time an adventuring party comes back to civilization and starts flooding the economy with all their gold and treasure, there will be massive inflation. It would play havoc with small economies and would probably send economic ripples through even the largest cities.

This is in the DMG, isn't it?

 

[Imperialus]

I think one thing you are all missing here is labourers in the 14th century did not live happy lives. They ate garbage, they lived in garbage, 6 out of 10 died before they were 10 years old, 40 was concidered venerable, and nearly a third of europes population was wiped out by fleas. There was a reason that religion was such a powerful force back then. People had to know that there was something better after they died.

One other thing you should realize is that a lord was expected to provide food and shelter for his people. Oftentimes they wouldn't and it would lead to mass starvations, but hey like I said before, life was cheep.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Of all the Fantasy RPG that I have used/seen Harn has the most accurate price list. The author is a medivial historian and simply took the prices from England for the 3100 hundres. They then did minor price changes to allow for the differences in resources and distances between trading centers.

If I could figure out how to convert the cost of D&D magic with out distorting things I would be using it my self.

Point of order:

Fantasy economics and societies don't match historical models where no working magic and active deities existed. of course.

Tailor the economics and monetary system the the fantasy world setting, don't try to graft something from history onto a make-believe world. eh?

Gary

 

[LostSoul]

Point of order:

Fantasy economics and societies don't match historical models where no working magic and active deities existed. of course.

Tailor the economics and monetary system the the fantasy world setting, don't try to graft something from history onto a make-believe world. eh?

Gary

I do wonder, however, what the D&D world should look like if we assume the magic as presented in the books and a typical feudal economy. Because I doubt the prices, as presented in the core books, take any magic at all into account.