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<blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5903195" data-attributes="member: 8835"><p>thanks to [MENTION=1861]Loonook[/MENTION] for doing a ton of research. Folks may not reach the same conclusion as him, but I suspect he now knows more about the subject than most of us.</p><p></p><p>Here's some thoughts:</p><p>if we're looking at money as compared to what poor D&D peasants make to poor people in the US, don't compare to minimum wage. The majority of people making minimum wage (officially) are high school kids. Most adults are making more than that, which is why political discussions about raising the minimum wage are moot.</p><p></p><p>A better comparison to modern americans are migrant workers (who are NOT making minimum wage) or people who are completely dependent on government assistance (welfare). Political exageration asside about poor people with fancy cars (as in fraud), real poor people getting welfare checks and food stamps are getting less than minimum wage equivalency.</p><p></p><p>Basically, if we imagine that 1/sp a day being the lowest paying job AND having to survive on it, what's the worst living conditions to compare to where somebody is getting money, is surviving, but not doing well at all.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Nextly, consider what all this thinking about economics is for. While [MENTION=6670763]Yora[/MENTION] had a point that a PC isn't really going to notice 3cp missing from his pouch, the observation that poor NPCs can't be handing out 5gp swords or even 100gp rewards.</p><p></p><p>Additionally, PCs riding into town are going to look like easy pickings to such poor people. Even a 1st level PC before he's left for his first dungeon is toting a lot of expensive gear, compared to what the paupers have.</p><p></p><p>there's been other threads on the topic, including ones where we calculated how much D&D money you need to make to afford to eat and sleep based on prices from the PH.</p><p></p><p>I believe the objective of any such effort should be:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">don't overcomplicate things or fret about that which the PCs won't notice anyway</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Come up with the simplest resolution/fewest changes</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Focus more on preventing abuse, than anything else</li> </ul><p></p><p>From that, I would consider that:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">it would be a lot of work to shift the economy down to silver/coppers being important to PCs</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">it would be unfun to have every poor NPC be highly motivated to rob the PCs</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">poor NPCs and commodity prices are out of scale with the GP economy that PCs and rich NPCs live in</li> </ul><p></p><p></p><p>A simple fix MIGHT be to simply upgrade the pay for NPCs from SP/day to GP/day. A regular working making 1GP a day isn't so envious of your 30GP weapon. One could surmise that the very poor (homeless, etc) are making less than 1GP/day, but regular people are "fine".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Janx, post: 5903195, member: 8835"] thanks to [MENTION=1861]Loonook[/MENTION] for doing a ton of research. Folks may not reach the same conclusion as him, but I suspect he now knows more about the subject than most of us. Here's some thoughts: if we're looking at money as compared to what poor D&D peasants make to poor people in the US, don't compare to minimum wage. The majority of people making minimum wage (officially) are high school kids. Most adults are making more than that, which is why political discussions about raising the minimum wage are moot. A better comparison to modern americans are migrant workers (who are NOT making minimum wage) or people who are completely dependent on government assistance (welfare). Political exageration asside about poor people with fancy cars (as in fraud), real poor people getting welfare checks and food stamps are getting less than minimum wage equivalency. Basically, if we imagine that 1/sp a day being the lowest paying job AND having to survive on it, what's the worst living conditions to compare to where somebody is getting money, is surviving, but not doing well at all. Nextly, consider what all this thinking about economics is for. While [MENTION=6670763]Yora[/MENTION] had a point that a PC isn't really going to notice 3cp missing from his pouch, the observation that poor NPCs can't be handing out 5gp swords or even 100gp rewards. Additionally, PCs riding into town are going to look like easy pickings to such poor people. Even a 1st level PC before he's left for his first dungeon is toting a lot of expensive gear, compared to what the paupers have. there's been other threads on the topic, including ones where we calculated how much D&D money you need to make to afford to eat and sleep based on prices from the PH. I believe the objective of any such effort should be: [LIST] [*]don't overcomplicate things or fret about that which the PCs won't notice anyway [*]Come up with the simplest resolution/fewest changes [*]Focus more on preventing abuse, than anything else [/LIST] From that, I would consider that: [LIST] [*]it would be a lot of work to shift the economy down to silver/coppers being important to PCs [*]it would be unfun to have every poor NPC be highly motivated to rob the PCs [*]poor NPCs and commodity prices are out of scale with the GP economy that PCs and rich NPCs live in [/LIST] A simple fix MIGHT be to simply upgrade the pay for NPCs from SP/day to GP/day. A regular working making 1GP a day isn't so envious of your 30GP weapon. One could surmise that the very poor (homeless, etc) are making less than 1GP/day, but regular people are "fine". [/QUOTE]
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