Silly economics of DnD

KarinsDad said:
I used to be bothered by this quite a bit.

But, although there are some items which are out of line with my expectations of what costs should be, they are few and far between.

My real problem lies with the wages that various hirelings get. So, I multiplied all wages by 5 in my game.

I use a 1 CP = $1 ratio and compare costs to real world equivalents (i.e. a horse is not a horse, it's a car or motorcycle since it provides transportation).

When NPC wages get multiplied by 5, the 1 SP guy only gets paid $50 a day (with my ratio). But, $50 a day makes a lot more sense to me than $10 a day.

This guy only makes $10K a year, but he is at the bottom of the totem pole and had better have roommates. :)

The yearly equivalent wages then become:

$100,000 Alchemist
$15,000 Animal tender/groom
$50,000 Architect/engineer
$100,000 Barrister
$40,000 Clerk
$10,000 Cook
$40,000 Entertainer/performer
$10,000 Laborer
$60,000 Limner
$10,000 Maid
$30,000 Mason/craftsman
$20,000 Mercenary
$40,000 Mercenary horseman
$60,000 Mercenary Leader
$10,000 Porter
$200,000 Sage
$30,000 Scribe
$40,000 Smith
$30,000 Teamster
$20,000 Valet/lackey

Are these real accurate? Probably not. But, most of them are in the $20,000 to $40,000 wages that a lot of people make in the real world (in the U.S).

So, this makes sense for me and my players since all of us live in the U.S.

The day laborer is paid the worse, but at 5 SP per day, he can still go into a bar and afford an ale at 4 CP once or twice a day.

This has resolved most of my problems with it and at least made it such that your typical workers can afford to be seen in the tavern or inn without saying that item costs are 2 to 10 times greater for adventurers (i.e. they see the tourists coming syndrome where any smart adventurer would give a local a SP to go buy a backpack at 5 SP instead of the adventurer's 2 GP price). YMMV.

You know, there is a reason why most of the rest of the world would like to move to the USA - HIGH WAGES! :)
Even in most other 1st world countries (I'm British, living in London) the post-tax take-home pay is far less than in the USA for most people. For most of the modern world, $10/day would be unimaginable riches. On the economics you give, common labourers earning $20,000/year, there's no way the D&D society would at all resemble the typical medieval-feudal model.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Pertaining to unskilled laborers, the system was to apprentice out to someone who was trained, where you worked for free for a certain number of years, learning how to do the things the craftsman did, then when you were old enough, you could become a journeyman, and either draw wages, or travel to other places to learn more, or even set up your own shop where there was none. The guild's formulated rules and were set up for the benefit of the master craftsman (first), then the journymen. IF you were the poor son of a peasant, the only path to a better life was this route.

Apprentices made nothing, they were fed and housed. Journeyman made some money, but had a lot more expenses, havintg to buy their own sets of tools and places to work if they so chose, or to work for a master craftsman for whatever he would pay. The craftsman of course made the most, but he also had to face competition (if he did not have a guild), or obsolence as new ideas and methods became available.
 

S'mon said:

You know, there is a reason why most of the rest of the world would like to move to the USA - HIGH WAGES! :)
Even in most other 1st world countries (I'm British, living in London) the post-tax take-home pay is far less than in the USA for most people. For most of the modern world, $10/day would be unimaginable riches. On the economics you give, common labourers earning $20,000/year, there's no way the D&D society would at all resemble the typical medieval-feudal model.

First off, my system has common laborers making $10,000 per year, not $20,000.

Secondly, the point is that it does not have to resemble the typical medieval-feudal model. Those ratios are supposedly already (inadequately) set up in the economics of DND. I do not change the ratio of hirelings or the ratio of goods, only the ratio of hirelings to goods.

What it has to do is allow a day laborer to go into a tavern and buy a drink. In other words, it has to have a reasonable pay scale to goods cost ratio.

The idea is to have it resemble something that your real world players can understand and not some pseudo-realistic (which it isn’t) representation of somebody’s bad idea of how economics should work.

If you live in London, you can equate 1 GP to about 50 pounds, a SP to 5 pounds, a CP to 5 pence, etc.

Do you really think that someone could live in London on 5 pounds a day or 1000 pounds a year? Before taxes? Would that make sense to your players?

On the other hand, do you think that 25 pounds a day (my 5 * hireling wage) or 5000 pounds a year is unlivable? Granted, it is a low wage, but it should be doable in your country (at least more doable than 1000 pounds a year).

To each their own. I prefer to make any adjustment simple and make it such that my players (who do live in the U.S.) can easily understand it.

Nobody really understands what 213 GP is all about without some form of conversion rate. It’s just a number.
 

Have you ever heard those third world statistics where Joe Peasant works in the fields and earns 'the equivalent' of three dollars a day?

Who in the world can feed themselves on $1000 a year?

Well, clearly, they do it somehow.

First of all, the families are larger. With six or seven breadwinners in a household, instead of one or two, there's an economy of scale when it comes to things like food and shelter.

Second of all, they don't buy much more than flour and suchlike when it comes to food; a few chickens and a cow provide eggs and milk for what little protein their diets provide, and a kitchen garden provides vegetables.

I see no reason to give medieval peasants a modern income.
 

Vaxalon said:
Have you ever heard those third world statistics where Joe Peasant works in the fields and earns 'the equivalent' of three dollars a day?

Who in the world can feed themselves on $1000 a year?

Well, clearly, they do it somehow.

I’ve been in some of those countries and you can buy lunch for $1 or even less.

The reason they can survive there is because even on their low incomes, they can still afford the necessities.

But, the DND wage to goods cost ratio is so out of line that a peasant in a DND world could not survive. And, if the peasants do not survive, neither do their overlords.

Vaxalon said:

First of all, the families are larger. With six or seven breadwinners in a household, instead of one or two, there's an economy of scale when it comes to things like food and shelter.

Which third world countries have you been to? Usually, the most number of breadwinners is one, the father. The mother spends most of her time taking care of the many children. Yes, there are a few years where the older children (8+) actually do some work, but typically, they only do this for 6 or 8 years before they often get married off (one less person to feed and clothe is a good thing there). And, yes, the mother also does some odd jobs. But, for the most part, the income from the rest of the family does not even equal that of the father. Fatherless families have to live with relatives or starve.

Vaxalon said:

Second of all, they don't buy much more than flour and suchlike when it comes to food; a few chickens and a cow provide eggs and milk for what little protein their diets provide, and a kitchen garden provides vegetables.

Here, I agree with you.

Vaxalon said:

I see no reason to give medieval peasants a modern income.

It’s not a matter of giving them a modern income. It’s a matter of giving them an income that allows them to modestly survive. It has nothing to do with what conversion system you use. You do not need a conversion system. I just have one so that my players will understand what a GP means.

It’s a matter of comparing the wages in DND with the goods costs in DND and determining that everyone and his brother would die in a month from starvation. Even allowing for the purchase of chickens (1/5th days work) and pigs (1 months work) and cows (over 3 months work), this assumes no taxation. Medieval taxation was about 50%.

So, a day laborer could bring home a chicken every day. But, what would he pay his rent with (cannot have a garden like you mentioned without a place to put it)? The remaining 3 coppers? How would he clothe his children, his wife, and himself? How could he afford to replace a tool that got broken. How could he afford the flour you were talking about?

The point is that due to the high prices of goods, he could not.

It has nothing to do with giving them a modern income and everything to do with giving them a survivable income based on the prices of goods in the system.

Do the math. It’s that simple.
 
Last edited:

DnD v Real World Price Exchange

Shoot me down in flames, but I did a brief sketch to work out the equivalent value of gold pieces in today's money:

Current Gold Price= $300/oz (I think)
The DMG states that 50 gold pieces weigh 1 lb. Therefore each gold piece weighs roughly 1/4 oz, and is worth $75.
Which means that one silver piece=$7.50, and one copper is $0.75. So KD's 1cp=$1 equivalence is quite good, if a bit generous. And his 1cp=50p is almost exactly correct.

I'd agree with KD's fundamental point. The peasant wages listed in the DMG are far too low, using either labour market analysis or just comparing it with the prices of everday goods.

A multiplication of 5 seems sensible- it provides the peasant with a living wage without making it ridiculously high, and compares well against the untrained Craft skills.

Going back to my argument,
LostSoul: Easily. The typical peasant I believe starts with 2d4gp (ok this is metagaming but we have to for now). Craft tools cost 5gp, so this isn't a problem. If worst comes to worst, he could get a loan from the local lord (who were generally keen to encourage enterprise in most medieval/feudal lands: higher vassal wages means higher taxes). Under standard rules, with his additional income he could pay off the loan with interest in under a fortnight.

Storminator: This image of the 'strongarm guild' is a popular misconception. The guild of medieval times acted more as a meeting-place, a secure market, a place to discuss techniques and expertise and a medieval pseudo-social security system (e.g. looking after member's widows). The 'strongarm guild' would not exist: for one, the local lord looked very disfavourably on private muscle (private armies in England were banned after the Norman Conquest- and that's for nobles, let alone guilds) and secondly, most guild members would not approve. More realistically, the guild would take in and train apprentices who showed an interest and relative aptitude to the task, much as The Oracle layed out, although most people did not remain apprentices for long. The free labour market may not have existed, but then it was far more flexible than you suggest, and with a wage disparity of sevenfold, most peasants would be exceedingly happy to go for apprenticeship, especially if the labourer wages are as pitiful as in the DMG. As for the guild, it was usually keen to recruit new apprentices: more apprentices meant more influence for the guild, greater revenue and 'economies of scale' (in a medieval sense of the phrase).

And curiously enough, as a sort-of aside, one CN party member once tried asking an old black dragon why he needed to hoard his treasure and what he intended to do with it. It attacked him before he managed to say 'you should invest it in long-term growth medium-risk corporate bonds'.
 

KarinsDad.

You know what I like about these boards?

Other people do your thinking for you.

Far to much work for me to look at the problems with the system presented (I saw the problem, but chose to ignore it)and spend enough time looking at it to find a simple solution.

Fortunately, you have a stupidly easy, workable system. Wages x 5. All is good. :)
 


KarinsDad said:
I

I use a 1 CP = $1 ratio and compare costs to real world equivalents (i.e. a horse is not a horse, it's a car or motorcycle since it provides transportation).


There you have the basis for the system I currently use in the LA game.

Rather than multiplying wages as you suggest, use the minimum wahe paid now, multiply it by 2000 hours, and you'll have the bottom-end of the earnings scale, the working poor indeed. $100K income is about the line for the middle-middle class, and 250K is near the place where medial upper middle class income falls.

And S'mon, don't change that cost for chainmail! Armor of that sort is like KarinsDad suggested about horses. I have really high prices for armor, weapons, and horses (especially trained war horses) now because of metal and labor costs, the time and skill required in regards the former, the breeding and training for the latter. OF course one can buy a "used car" horse of a few grand, but that war horse is a Ferarri!

Cheerio,
Gary
 

Col_Pladoh said:

And S'mon, don't change that cost for chainmail! Armor of that sort is like KarinsDad suggested about horses. I have really high prices for armor, weapons, and horses (especially trained war horses) now because of metal and labor costs, the time and skill required in regards the former, the breeding and training for the latter. OF course one can buy a "used car" horse of a few grand, but that war horse is a Ferarri!

Cheerio,
Gary

Exactly! :)

At $40,000, that heavy warhorse is a steal.

$100,000 for a simple house.
$500,000 for a grand house.
$50,000,000 for a castle (i.e. skyscrapper).

The exact equivalence is not important, just the ballpark so that people can understand what they are spending when they spend a GP.
 

Pets & Sidekicks

Remove ads

Top