D&D 5E Those poor farmers!

[Beleriphon]

Is it? If it isn't a downtime activity, what the heck is it?

Part of an adventure involving innkeepers and coin. Or a form of gambling, either way its not a "downtime" activity according to the rules. Downtime activities are operate within the rules framework as a background activity, specifically one that involves a minimum of action from the players and DM. They amount to the same thing as somebody stating that they want to go buy swords, some people might want to play a haggling game with the DM but the rules just assume the player pays the coin and gets the items.

I think that's ultimately the hang up that seems to the issue. Downtime activities are designed to be background activities, not the primary activity the players participate in. Does it mean that running a business can't be a fun adventure, sure it can but the PC classes aren't exactly geared towards running shops over stabbing orcs. The game at a core level really isn't designed around running shops, and the downtime activities simplify such activities to a yes, no, neutral position for profit generation regardless of the type of business.

 

[Celebrim]

If you want to make an adventure about innkeeping, then you need different rules than downtime.

Well, first of all, downtime activities are part of the story. It's just not part of the story we spend a lot of time playing out, though its possible that the consequences of downtime very much is something we'd play out.

You'll note I did not say I wanted to make an adventure about inn keeping. I only suggested that I could if I wanted to, use the rules for downtown to run a contest between a PC innkeeper and an NPC innkeeper. I'm supposing here that for whatever reason, the contest has become important to the story but the details of it are not so interesting that we want to run it as an adventure with day to day events, IC role play, and so forth. (Possibly because it is happening while another player is doing down time with his character.) One particular attraction in doing so compared to your skill contest suggestion is that we would expect that the side effects of this challenge - how much money the PC gained or lost - would be handled by the rules without need to a fiat declaration or calculation. And equally, if the PC wants to do something to influence the challenge, we could just as easily invent rulings for this platform as another. The ability to invent rules is not a feature of rules, and in fact, the more rules you need to invent whole cloth, the more likely it is that there is a problem with the rules.

I propose that challenge as a test of the durability of the rules. Since 5e rules are pretty darn durable and well considered most of the time, I'd bet (an XP point, since I have nothing else to offer), that even without the book in front of me, they'll pass the test fairly well. If they don't, then it suggests that the rules are flawed because equally strong and serviceable rules that wouldn't fail this test could occupy the same amount of space. Among other ways in which this hypothetical rule set would be superior to the hypothetical one that couldn't pass the 'playoff' challenge, is that it is more intuitive. It makes sense to run a contest between two characters that involves how much income they earn over time using the rules for how much income a character earns over time, and equally, it makes sense that the same basic rules should apply to the PC running an inn whether or not across town there is another inn (especially if we don't want economic simulation that is so detailed we are modeling supply and demand in great detail). Also if they pass this test, they are more versatile and offer DMs a way to handle this situation with less recourse to rulings. So, yes, better.

A second stress test of the down time rules is suppose we for whatever reason find ourselves using the downtime rules in place of the campaign. Maybe, for whatever reason, the table agrees to advance the timeline by 10 years and decides to run those 10 years (520 weeks) entirely using the down time rules. If the rules are solid and well thought out, this should produce no difficulty and while the process of playing through 520 steps of down time might not be fun (depending on your taste), if the rules are solid then the net result should be 'believable' in some fashion and describe a career or trajectory that makes some degree of sense for the choices the player made and skills that they have. Now, I've even given this less thought than I've given the other test, and without buying the 5e DMG couldn't even begin to guess how such a test would work out. However, I propose that if this test doesn't work, what it actually suggests is that there are subtle weaknesses in the down time rules which are largely ignored purely because the downtime rules aren't that important to most games. They are in fact difficulties we live with - small flaws we can ignore because of the low influence they have on the average game. However, I equally propose that just because the flaws are small, wouldn't mean that the rules weren't weakened by them or that they had no impact on play in the short run. Moreover, any such flaws could be presumably fixed in the same amount of space since it would probably be in odds, numbers, and averages that the problems cropped up.

 

[Celebrim]

Part of an adventure involving innkeepers and coin.

Again, I did not say that I wanted to run an adventure involving innkeepers. Since I don't want to derail the thread by taking it in a completely different and even more controversial direction, I'll just say that it doesn't make since to me that any contest would have to be ran at the level of detailed full focus simulation. It's entirely possible that a player or group would enjoy knowing the results of a contest between his character and an NPC innkeeper, without wanting to spend 20 years gaming it and would instead want to run the contest with the same degree of abstraction as "background activity" with minimal running of the 'what do you do now?' loop.

They amount to the same thing as somebody stating that they want to go buy swords, some people might want to play a haggling game with the DM but the rules just assume the player pays the coin and gets the items.

And again, you are missing the point. There is a vast range of possibilities for action resolution between book keeping a transaction and playing it out IC. It's quite possible for a player or DM to want to haggle a transaction AND also play it out abstractly. That is to say, a player or DM might want the PC's charisma or the NPC's stinginess to influence a transaction, but not want to spend 15 minutes on IC RP.

 

[weldon]

Well, first of all, downtime activities are part of the story. It's just not part of the story we spend a lot of time playing out, though its possible that the consequences of downtime very much is something we'd play out.

I agree with this 100%. The point I'm making is that once you want to "play it out" at the table, you have moved entirely outside of the downtime rules.

You'll note I did not say I wanted to make an adventure about inn keeping.

I said you described a skill contest. Then I went on to imagine that if you were interested in making an adventure (in which I meant "basing" or "focusing") an adventure on innkeeping, you would need different rules beyond what is provided. Maybe I should have ended by saying "if one wants to make such an adventure, one would need…"

Now, I've even given this less thought than I've given the other test, and without buying the 5e DMG couldn't even begin to guess how such a test would work out.

I suspect that continuing to discuss the downtime rules would benefit greatly from taking the time to read the downtime rules first.

 

[weldon]

It's entirely possible that a player or group would enjoy knowing the results of a contest between his character and an NPC innkeeper….

This situation isn't imagined in the downtime rules, but if you want to run a contest over a week, simply roll 7x for both the PC and the NPC. Whoever rolls better on the provided tables wins.

If you want other factors to influence the outcome (skill, some material or social advantage, magical intervention, etc.), then you are totally outside the rules and will need to make a ruling as the DM.

I think that could be something really fun at a table and totally support the idea of doing something like this contest on a lark for a quick break between the normal action.

 

[Beleriphon]

Again, I did not say that I wanted to run an adventure involving innkeepers. Since I don't want to derail the thread by taking it in a completely different and even more controversial direction, I'll just say that it doesn't make since to me that any contest would have to be ran at the level of detailed full focus simulation. It's entirely possible that a player or group would enjoy knowing the results of a contest between his character and an NPC innkeeper, without wanting to spend 20 years gaming it and would instead want to run the contest with the same degree of abstraction as "background activity" with minimal running of the 'what do you do now?' loop.

And that content is outside of the scope of the downtime rules. That isn't a fault of incomplete rules, its just not something they cover on the basis that its not part of what is considered downtime in the rules. You could totally run such a contest, but the downtime rules are not what you want to use by any means. You can still make it a quite, relatively easy diversion but you're on your own as far rules.

And again, you are missing the point. There is a vast range of possibilities for action resolution between book keeping a transaction and playing it out IC. It's quite possible for a player or DM to want to haggle a transaction AND also play it out abstractly. That is to say, a player or DM might want the PC's charisma or the NPC's stinginess to influence a transaction, but not want to spend 15 minutes on IC RP.

No, I get your point completely. The idea that I'm trying to get across is that its supposed to be as simple as making a single roll and being done with it (if that). A contest is going to have more than a single roll, whether its part of an adventure, or an activity that takes place between traditional adventures contests like you describe are not accounted for in the downtime rules. The downtime rules are a way to very, very quickly figure out what happened between bouts of goblin murderin'.

To return to buying swords. If you wanted to play the haggling game with a simple roll then go with a charisma roll and it gives a +/- value based on success. That's pretty simple, and it should be as quick a resolution as the downtime rules.

 

[eryndel]

This thread went in a completely different direction than I thought it would when I started reading it. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how a thread about farmers was 9 pages long.

After reading it I remembered "gamers LOVE to argue rules", because we all have the commonalities of the game, social interaction, and bold action toward resolution. Happy New Year!

Agreed, I do think this whole, "rulings, not rules" is an incredible boon to forum traffic... just because there's more to argue! ;-)

 

[Scorpio616]

This doesn't explain why innkeepers or shopkeepers - or any town-based tradespeople - wouldn't make money, though.

Taxes.

 

[pemerton]

You can recommend it, but I wouldn't recommend starting there.

<snip>

none of that answers the question, "Why would you want property in the first place?", which is the substance of the question you are answering with spurious scholarly references.

The reference is not spurious. I recommend it because I happen to have been reading it in the past month or so. The reference is not particularly scholarly either. I picked it up in a popular bookshop (Readers Feast, Collins St, Melbourne) and I am not a professional historian.

The other reference I could offer off the top of my head (as opposed to checking my bookshelf) is Ullman's Political Thought in the Middle Ages (there is a Pelican edition from the 70s or 80s), but I have not read that for a long time and don't remember the details of the discussion of property disputes between church and the nobility.

And the question asked was not "Why would you want property?", to which the answer is obvious - power and income. The question was "Who would own the property? The PC or the church?" And this is a question about the relationship between office and personal status, and the relationship between property held by way of office and property held on one's personal account.

Moore's work is revisionist

On the nature of heresy, yes. On the nature of clerical reforms in 11th and 12th century Europe, and consequent developments in the way that noble family's and the church's property holdings interrelated, not so much. And it was to address the latter point that I made the recommendation.

its best I think to start with more conventional works so that you at least know what evidence and narrative he's revising against before getting a one sided broadside that cherry picks even more than usual.

Life is finite. For a non-specialist, I don't think much harm will come from starting with a recent book by a major figure that has been well-reviewed by other scholars in the field.

But in any event, as I said, Moore's discussion of changes in proprietary norms is not revisionist.

For ropes one minimally needs to know its physical features (weight, length, strength), cost, and how it interacts with general rules related to objects (hit points, AC, break DC, etc.).

Yet I've managed to play FRPGs for 30 years, with ropes included, yet never needed to know the hit points or AC of a rope. (I may have looked up the item saving throw table in the DMG once or twice 25 years ago.)

 

[pemerton]

PC's and NPC's pretty much do have the same rules.

Can NPC's have classes? Yes, they can.

<snip>

Imagine the annoyance of having different combat rules for PC's and NPC's and then trying to translate for problems like PC's attacking PC's or NPC's attacking NPC's.

<snip>

It's in fact simpler and easier to give NPC's the ability to use the same spells available to the PC's

<snip>

Of course NPC's have downtime. Arguably, all most NPCs have is downtime!

I think that all this misses [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point.

"Downtime" is not an ingame phenomenon. It's a real-world, playing-the-game-at-the-table phenomenon. It's the time in which the PCs are doing stuff but the players at the table are not working through the action and its outcome in any detail.

Hence, it is not a concept that has any application to NPCs, who are - by definition, as it were - not played at the table, except in so far as they are interacting with the PCs.

This also goes to the issue of action resolution for NPCs (combat, spells, etc). If the PCs ride past a field and see two knights jousting, the GM is under no obligation, except in a very strong sim game, to resolve that joust and narrate its outcome by reference to the combat rules. For instance, the GM could narrate one knight being unhorsed by the other and suffering a broken collarbone, although the 5e combat mechanics have no procedure whereby such an outcome could be generated.

As for NPCs having classes, in 5e this is not generally true - for instance, the proficiency bonus for NPCs is a function of CR, not notional class level (eg the 9th level mage on p 55 of the Basic DM Pdf has a +3 proficiency bonus, per CR 6, rather than +4, per level 9). Nor does that mage have all the funky special abilities that a PC wizard of that level would have.

A second stress test of the down time rules is suppose we for whatever reason find ourselves using the downtime rules in place of the campaign. Maybe, for whatever reason, the table agrees to advance the timeline by 10 years and decides to run those 10 years (520 weeks) entirely using the down time rules. If the rules are solid and well thought out, this should produce no difficulty and while the process of playing through 520 steps of down time might not be fun (depending on your taste), if the rules are solid then the net result should be 'believable' in some fashion and describe a career or trajectory that makes some degree of sense for the choices the player made and skills that they have.

To my mind, this is like proposing army vs army combat as a stress test of the 5e combat rules. (Ie it is an implausible proposal.)

If the downtime rules are designed to handle down time of days and weeks - correlating to typical D&D times for healing, spell research etc - it is no blot on their copybook that they do not do a good job of generating the sort of substantive campaign content that you are talking about here.

General size of the stronghold, best with examples (Small keep, large keep, etc.), best with example descriptions. (Sensible) Income/produce examples given for commercial buildings and advice for all building types what they represent is game worlds (FR is default, but when you have space also for alternative settings), what impact they have onto the settings and adventure seeds, best with different levels of spotlight.

Seriously? You are asking for an economics/finance text to be written for the gameworld.

The real world actually happened (and continues to happening), but doing what you ask for in relation to the real world is a full-time occupation for thousands of people just in Australia alone and they often can't get it right. How do you expect it to be done for an an imaginary world which, in economic and social terms, makes no sense once you get below the outermost veneer?