Troll Lord Games

I've been looking at the price lists from the various AD&D and C&C books I have and it seems to me that very little thought has gone into the relationship between costs and prices. Let's face it, socio-economics have never been C&C's (or AD&D’s) strong suit. The reason is there is no relationship between the value of a gold piece and the cost of goods and services.

According to the C&C Players’ Handbook, currency in the C&C default setting is decimal like modern American or British currency – while it is not historical is easier to keep straight.

For all calculations in this article we will use the standard C&C values for coinage which are as follows:
1pp = 10 gp = 100sp =1000cp

For example, take the laborer who has manfully carried your pack for a day. According to the 3rd Edition Dungeon Masters' Guide he should be paid 2 sp for his pains . He is expected to pay his room and board out of this. His meals for the day come to 2 silver pieces according to the C&C Players’ Handbook and he is expected to provide for his own room and family out of this!

With wages as depressed as this, it’s a wonder he doesn’t abscond with your pack and join the nearest bandit gang! The fact is, no one will work for less than a subsistence wage. So what is a subsistence wage in D&D terms? Well, let’s consider our expenses. The average household size in feudal Europe was 5 people. We need our breadwinner to feed, house and warm that many people at a minimum of squalid conditions. This means a 1 room shack (figure rent at 1 cp per week – based on the rate of 1 cp/day for a cot in the common room at the local Inn), food for poor meals for 5 people (50 cp) and firewood for each day (1 cp) that works out to about 60 cp per day (figuring a 6 day work week). This means 6 sp per day (16 gp per month) is our “minimum wage”. This is much higher than historical prices but then so are the prices given in the C&C Players’ Handbook.

That should stave off the Jacquerie for a little while. But is this reasonable given the quasi-medieval, agrarian economy most C&C settings assume? If we want to answer that question, we need to look at the economy from the ground up and at the bottom of everything, literally, lay the land.

A cottar or poor peasant farmer probably lives the same squalid existence that his urban laborer counterpart does. He tills 25 acres of land, of which about 19 acres is under active cultivation in any given year. Feudal agriculture was woefully inefficient. In an average year, a feudal farmer could expect to realize 8 bushels per acre (compare this to 150-200 bushels per acre in the modern USA). From his little farm, he could expect 150 bushels. Assume a bushel is 60 pounds of grain (really it varies by product but they tend to hover around the 60 pound figure). A loaf of bread costs 2 cp and a bushel of wheat will make about 150 one pound loaves of bread, allowing for profits by the seller, the wholesale cost for a bushel of wheat should be about 12 sp. This means the value of our peasant farmer’s crop is 1800 sp. Of this, he owes about 16% (or 288sp) in feudal dues and taxes (1/7 was the typical tax rate in feudal times but serfs paid additional fees so we charge him 1/6) and another 10% (180sp) was owed as tithes to the Church. This reduces his income to 1350 sp. He and his family of 3 will eat the same 864 sp in a year that his urban counterpart does, household expenses will account for another 360 sp. This leaves a surplus of 108 sp per year or a hair over 8 sp per month. Of course, in a below average year our little peasant family will be teetering on the edge of starvation (1 year in four on average in feudal times) and in the event of a crop failure they will be in real danger of starving. This confirms our estimate of the “minimum wage” as 6 sp per day or 36 sp per week.

Looking at a wealthier peasant, a kulak or a freeman farmer, we can get an idea of what lower middle-class folks should be making. His farm is about 40 acres of which 30 are under cultivation in any given year. His standard of living isn't much better than the cottar but he can support a larger family (5 was the average in feudal times). His farm will yield 2880 sp, after taxes and tithes(15% to the lord of the manor and 10% to the church) he will be left with 2160sp, his family will consume the equivalent of 1440sp and household expenses will account for 600sp or a surplus of 120 sp (10 sp per month). This means a lower middle-class wage is about 10 sp per day (58sp per week).

A yeoman farmer is one of the wealthier rural commoners (generally only sergeants, innkeepers and smiths will make more). He will hold a farm about 85 acres and have a family of cottars working for him. Allowing 25 acres to be held by the cottars, he has 60 acres. Our yeoman can expect an annual yield of 4320 sp from his farm and 288 sp from his tenants, for a total of 4608sp (3455 after taxes and tithes). He will eat 1.5 times what a peasant does or 2160 sp per year and his household expenses will be similarly higher at 600sp. This leaves a surplus of 396 sp (or 33 sp per month), a man of substance indeed! This puts the typical wage of the middle class at about 384 sp per month or 85 sp per week (18 sp per day)

The rarest, and wealthiest, commoner is the petit sergeant – a non-noble light horseman. He will hold a farm perhaps 130 acres and employ two cottars. Allowing for 50 acres to be held by his tenants, our sergeant can expect to realize 5760 sp from his own crops and another 576 sp in rents for a total annual yield of 6336 sp (4752 after taxes and tithes). His household will eat slightly better than a yeoman. Let’s assume a standard of living two times what a peasant can expect or 2880 sp per year, his household expenses are similarly higher at 1200sp/year; this leaves a surplus of 672sp or over 56 sp per month! This sets the wage of the wealthier commons at about 127 sp per week or 528 sp per month (about 22 sp per day).

Let’s round out our examination of the rural economy by looking at the nobility, starting with a simple knight’s fee. This is a typical minimal manor house of a poor country knight. Our nobleman will hold about 10 square miles (6,400 acres). On this estate will typically live 5 petit sergeants (400 acres), 10 yeomen (600 acres), and 50 peasants (6750 acres) and some 15 cottars (375 acres) leaving 3425 acres under the direct control of the knight. Our petty lordling can expect 33,264 sp per year in taxes and fees and another 132,500 sp or so from his personal crops (165,764 sp per year). About 22 of these sorts of holdings (called Hydes or Knight’s Fees) can fit in a single hex on the master World of Greyhawk map (225 square miles)

Of course, he will owe taxes and tithes on this amount leaving him 124,323sp. He will support 10 servant families (28,800 sp), 10 men at arms (46,000), 3 sergeants-at-arms (31,500) as well as a smith (6336), an armorer (6400) a scribe (4600) and a cleric (4600). The cost of his staff is a staggering 143,977 sp per year. His household will eat very well – figure at twice the standard of a petit sergeant – or 5760sp. This leaves our petty lord a pretty tidy some left over – over 16,000 silver pennies (1600 gold crowns) or about as much as your favorite character made last week. His manor will require upkeep, typically 1% of its construction cost – let’s peg this as the equivalent of keeping a carpenter fully occupied or 4600 sp. Add to his house repair bills the cost of gifts and largess to his own lord, his feudal followers, the Church and other personages best kept happy may reduce his annual income to a mere 10,000 silver pennies but then again, 1000 gold crowns is nothing to sneeze at. It also places the wage of the upper classes at about 13,000 sp per month or 3120 sp per week (520 sp per day). Of course, you can’t hire nobles – they are generally settled on landed estates but this does give us a guideline for wizards, powerful clerics and other hard-to-find specialists.

Certainly well reasoned.

More on the C&C economy at my C&C Society Blog

That's very interesting. I'd always reasoned that part of the disconnect between real-world medieval prices and D&D/C&C prices was that folks were conniving to soak adventurers, knowing they were exceptionally wealthy and often go for quite awhile without rest and provision in towns.

In my mind's eye, I've always tended to see fantasy settings, unless specificially attempting to be grittier and very low-magic as being somewhat better off than the equivalent actual medieval societies, with a better developed cash economy among other things. But there's no doubt that there's a big discrepency between wages payed to labourers and hirelings and the actual prices of items.

Never mind magical items and their costs ... which is why I make it a rule that the regular economy basically ends with +1 magical weapons, 1st-2nd level scrolls, basic potions and the like. Past that, you've either got to barter with other magical items, do a service to receive it as a reward or take it by stealth or force

@Kaiserkris
I don't entirely disagree with you - but my groups have always liked the "total campaign" so it is important that the economy make sense. Of course, one could just chuck the "generic" price list for something more historic but then the treasure tables and encounters in published modules would all need to be reworked prior to use - too much like work.

A few minutes with a spreadsheet and some application of common sense and we can easily work out how an economy would work in a fantasy world like the one envisioned in C&C (or classic AD&D, the way Gygax intended it!).

I originally wrote this essay (I'd post it all here if I could figure out how to do tables in BBCode) for an AD&D campaign I ran in the late 1990's. I am resurrecting it for my kids and am using C&C to run it since it is the closest thing to genuine, honest-to-goodness AD&D I've found since D20 (heresy and blasphemy against Gygax!) was unleashed on the world.

Very reasonable. Gary addressed this same disparity in one of the now defunct Gygaxian Fantasy series by TLG. I think it was either World Builder or Living Fantasy but am not sure at this moment.

Andred of Albans wrote:@Kaiserkris
I don't entirely disagree with you - but my groups have always liked the "total campaign" so it is important that the economy make sense.

I'm quite a fan of the 'total campaign' myself, though my leanings tend to be more towards the politics and cultures of particular areas than the economy, strictly speaking. As often as not, I'd simply charge players a 'standard of living' fee, due weekly. Then again, I've usually started campaigns with 3rd to 5th level players- who are a lot further above the fray, so to speak, of the standard economy than 1st level characters would be. I also usually keep hirelings and such to a minimum.

That being said, I'm going to have to pay a bit more attention to such matters if I get to run a campaign in the Illyrian capital city of Solfest, because while it's one thing to handwave such things when you're in dungeons and ruins 90% of the time, it's an entirely different manner when you're spending all of your time in a teeming metropolis ...

I'll be reading your stuff carefully, methinks ..

very thoughtful. I appreciate the time that you took with this. It seems like a reasonable base-line economic model for a medieval/fantasy setting.

but here are my questions, ones which keep me scratching my head whenever I try to get into a more 'realistic' economic model:
1. What happens when you layer adventuring on to that system? Typically adventurers are going to be bringing home thousands of gp in coin and other items. Inflation will ensue. Where does all of that cash go in a typical rural-medieval world? Sure it's easy to talk about 'frontier prices' going up (as did GG), but even if 'frontier' pricing ensues, where does the money go? At some point the craftspeople will simply retire on their 'gouged' wealth, since why would you work if you've already made more money off adventurers than you could possibly earn in your lifetime (on 6-20 sp a day or whatever)?

2. More seriously, how much cash exists in such an economy? That is, how many 'merchants' have the hundreds of gold coins sitting around to buy the adventurer's baubles? - And if they do have such coin stocks (which represent, as the OP has shown, an exponential increase over average wages) then why are they fooling around trading with adventurers? Why wouldn't they either retire or purchase land and a marriage and join the aristocracy?

3. How does XP figure into all this? Old-school gaming originally included a gp for xp system (and C&C sort of does as well) to encourage adventuring (and possibly a certain type of adventuring). Such a system carries its own perils, of course. If a major source of xp is treasure, then as adventurers rise in level they will need exponentially increasing treasure awards to make those level increases. What, then, happens with all this treasure? We're back to inflation and the glut of loot. (this is particularly true in the xp systems that require adventurers to 'spend' their treasure to get xp - that simply ensures that the loot will glut the economy, making serious inflation a reality). One way of reducing inflation and the glut of money into the economic system is to reduce treasure awards and to cease awarding xp for gp. I've know that a number of folks - including many on these boards - don't give xp for gp. That is an obvious way out of the trap. But - and maybe this marks me as a wimpy CK -I've found that players like treasure, and there's only a certain degree to which one can reduce treasure awards without reducing my players' interest level. In my experience, even if I don't award xp based on treasure, the amount of treasure that an average 5th level PC will have gained in his adventuring career is enough to throw every 'realistic' economic system into a complete tizzy.

4. The silver standard. For more 'realism', it would make sense to redo the price list (and treasure lists) based on a silver standard (in the Middle Ages silver coins were the base; gold coins were rare). This has been done (see Harn, as well as Rob Conley's version of the Harn price list), but it's a pain, because so many other things in the core books assume the gold standard.

it's enough to make one (okay, me! ) throw up my hands and accept that a realistic medieval/fantasy economy is just not feasible given the tropes that most gamers expect from rpgs. That's not to say I haven't tried, of course, or that I don't keep trying ... it's just that I've found my own thinking trapped in a set of circular logic that seems insoluble!

btw, there's an interesting thread on DF that deals with these issues: the key players are Matthew and Nagora, IIRC: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewt ... sy+economy

I cheat a lot. First of all, my view is that C&C and other D&D-likes really tend to owe more to Westerns than to actual medieval economies. Thus, you have a prevalence of literacy and cash-based economies. However, to make things simple, I go with 1 silver = $1, 1 gp = $20, and use modern prices for a ballpark benchmark. Loaf of bread? Just under 1 silver. Likewise, a couple beers are going to run you a couple silvers.

Using that rubric, most people are going to wind up making a lot more (a couple gold pieces a day), with skilled trades making even more. On the other hand, prices for a lot of common goods go up.

Something important to remember is that in the pre-industrial world an employer was expected to provide meals appropriate to his employee's social status. Any payment in coin is in addition to being fed for the time actually worked. So, if you employ a laborer for 12 hours a day, he will expect 1 or 2 meals of black bread, salt pork, cabbage, and beer. Employ a full-time tutor, and you will have to feed him three meals a day of meat, vegetables, white bread, and wine, at your expense. The acceptable amount and quality of food was a matter of law and guild regulation. There simply wasn't a Capitalist-style free market for labor. The economy was more driven by a web of mutual social obligations than money. Also, the average peasant family (or more precisely, the average peasant wife) made, grew, or raised such things as clothing, prepared food, and meat (by owning a pig that they slaughtered every winter). Poor people (the vast majority) were miserably poor, but they also could depend upon certain shared resources and socially-mandated charity. Like the right to demand food and beer from nobles at Christmastime!

This is not a attack on what you find fun or want to do. More power to you man! This is only me trying to chat with you about issues I see with what you are trying to do. Feel free to roll your eyes and tell me how im wrong because the lord knows I am a good bit of the time.


C&C is a game about overlooking disbelief. Not one single system in the game works on ANY scale. The entire thing is so full of crap that only the most insane moron on the planet would find meaning in it beyond the great value it has as a abstract role playing game.

Think about it! Where is infection in the game? Where is cancer? Did someone say laguages based on race? Do you think actual Nobility,criminals,Dieties,Guardsman,Farmers would act anything like any npc or pc for that matter has ever acted in our games?

Does a shield really only give a +1 to ac? You gain a extra attack by picking up a offhand weapon? Have you EVER meet anyone who follows any one set alighnment? A ghoul would carry 10,000 diseases! A Dragon would have a strength in the thousands and who the heck came up with 1d4 damage for a dagger? I mean what the heck!

Those villagers under that nobles tyrantical foot would kill you if you ever showed him disrespect! Who do you think the god chose to lead them? What would happen to them if others found out what they had let happen?

Spells make no sense at all. That fireball would melt gold but not your face? What do you think priests who could pray and get spells would face every time they opened there doors? How about 200,000,000 pissed off angry hurt peasants!

The game is a lie. Nothing in it makes any sense at all unless you look at the entire thing and choose to lie to yourself and just take it on face value to be true.

Even the very words we utter when playing are a lie. The words and how they are used is based on us! The systems of belief our characters hold are based on what we hold or what we like to think others hold.

So look at the fabric of the game with any type of realism with care because at best you will trick yourself into changes to a system that are just as faulty and flawed as those you replace but at worse that you will start to look at the fabric in other places as well and that way leads madness! Well madness or talking yourself out of a hobby!


Like I said at the start though. Feel free to change alter and create anything you want in whatever way you deem best.....I just would think change for the sake of realism might not be the best idea. But thats just me.

One of my players did something once that made me laugh and think. It kinda has meaning on this subject.

His character finally became a King. He was very powerfull and had thousandds of followers ect.. His army was nutty good because well,the player based it on thousands of years of experience from the Romans ect..

The King outlawed Adventurers! He created a special army that did nothing else but seek out Dungeons and treasure holds and plunder them for rich's and magic. He outlawed magic items unless you worked for the crown(much like some nations do now with Guns). He taxed the people lite and awarded some freedoms far beyond what is normal.

In the end other pc's killed him because he made things not fun. He sat across the table from me,sputtering at the other players. Trying to come to terms with it he turned to his best friend and said" But I was only doing what any smart ruler would do! All of those things were things anyone with any reasoning would have done! Why did you kill me after all we went through??"

The best friend wrinkled up his nose and looked down on his friend saying" You were going to take my +3 Ring of protection! Dude I would have nailed you over a +1 but over a +3 I put some spit on it!

On the other hand it is a broke system. Maybe you would have fun coming up with something less stretching of belief. I can understand that.

The few times it has come up in game I used my tried and true way to deal with players trying to peek back behind the curtain. I threw Ninja's at them till they looked away! Nothing to spice up a otherwise dull night than by throwing ninja's at the guys! If too high level for Ninjas use ninja dragons!

Anyone still trying to talk about Realism after defeating Ninja Dragons of the Red Curtain Clan has no place at my table!

This reminds me of the chickens per capita thread that sprang up over a section of the 3e DMG on either the ENWorld or Wizard's forums. Or the fact that in 3e holy water costs more to make than it sells for - I guess it's a loss leader.

There is no badwrongfun, so if you and your players enjoy that level of detail in your games then more power to ya. Personally it's something I prefer to hand wave and get on to the PC killing... err... adventuring.

One thing I have been looking for was something mentioned many moons ago on the Wizards of the Coast forums (when you could still access them by newsreader... late 90s, early aughts). Someone posted something that he called "the beer theory of economics" which said that, in the average year, low-end workers made about enough money to afford 10,000 beers; gross, not net. Never been able to find a subsequent reference for it, however.

Geleg wrote:very thoughtful. I appreciate the time that you took with this. It seems like a reasonable base-line economic model for a medieval/fantasy setting.

but here are my questions, ones which keep me scratching my head whenever I try to get into a more 'realistic' economic model:

I realize you were being rhetorical but these are really good questions and ones I've dealt with in campaigns past. Rather than being problems, though, they really are opportunities for campaign development.

Geleg wrote:1. What happens when you layer adventuring on to that system? Typically adventurers are going to be bringing home thousands of gp in coin and other items. Inflation will ensue. Where does all of that cash go in a typical rural-medieval world? Sure it's easy to talk about 'frontier prices' going up (as did GG), but even if 'frontier' pricing ensues, where does the money go? At some point the craftspeople will simply retire on their 'gouged' wealth, since why would you work if you've already made more money off adventurers than you could possibly earn in your lifetime (on 6-20 sp a day or whatever)?

Adventurers are a relatively rare breed, so they wouldn't really upset the apple cart too much. An adventurer returns with a haul of 2000 gp, or about what a knight bachelor makes in a year, obviously he is a rich man but not impossibly so. He and his 2-6 boon companions can only consume so much. Besides, anyone showing up with that sort of wealth is going to attract the attention of the local politicos - the king will certainly hit the PCs with a salvage tax, there are magic item taxes to pay and the Thieves Guild is going to show an interest in the players (unless they pay protection, of course) - they can always petition the local lord for permission to set up a fortified headquarters and to enlist armed followers to protect their hard won gains but that, of course, costs money and it serves as an spur to greater adventures.

Of course, it may be that the local duke is willing to let the players build a fortified manse, he's even willing to grant the privilege for the most usual of bribes but perhaps the players - accomplished heroes that they are - might be willing to help out with the problem of a local bandit gang/orc tribe/dragon/giant raiders/super slug/whatever-it-might-be.

Geleg wrote:2. More seriously, how much cash exists in such an economy? That is, how many 'merchants' have the hundreds of gold coins sitting around to buy the adventurer's baubles? - And if they do have such coin stocks (which represent, as the OP has shown, an exponential increase over average wages) then why are they fooling around trading with adventurers? Why wouldn't they either retire or purchase land and a marriage and join the aristocracy?

Remember, we are monetizing the economy for convenience sake - but not all treasures need to be in the form of coin. Rare works of art, fine wines, cultural artifacts, etc. What is the Ark of the Covenant worth? Did Indiana Jones become fabulously wealthy? No, the U.S. Government simply took possession. In C&C terms, players get the XP but not the cash. Minor magics like a potion of healing, or a spell scroll are intrinsically valuable and would more likely be used or traded than sold for cash.

Geleg wrote:3. How does XP figure into all this? Old-school gaming originally included a gp for xp system (and C&C sort of does as well) to encourage adventuring (and possibly a certain type of adventuring). Such a system carries its own perils, of course. If a major source of xp is treasure, then as adventurers rise in level they will need exponentially increasing treasure awards to make those level increases. What, then, happens with all this treasure? We're back to inflation and the glut of loot. (this is particularly true in the xp systems that require adventurers to 'spend' their treasure to get xp - that simply ensures that the loot will glut the economy, making serious inflation a reality). One way of reducing inflation and the glut of money into the economic system is to reduce treasure awards and to cease awarding xp for gp. I've know that a number of folks - including many on these boards - don't give xp for gp. That is an obvious way out of the trap. But - and maybe this marks me as a wimpy CK -I've found that players like treasure, and there's only a certain degree to which one can reduce treasure awards without reducing my players' interest level. In my experience, even if I don't award xp based on treasure, the amount of treasure that an average 5th level PC will have gained in his adventuring career is enough to throw every 'realistic' economic system into a complete tizzy.

1 gp still equals 1 xp, just be a little stingier with the treasure. Players will still live very well and slowing advancement to a walking pace is good for the campaign in the long run. I have no problem with PCs taking years to get to "name" level, I also have no problem is 5th or 6th level characters being people of significance in the game setting.

Geleg wrote:4. The silver standard. For more 'realism', it would make sense to redo the price list (and treasure lists) based on a silver standard (in the Middle Ages silver coins were the base; gold coins were rare). This has been done (see Harn, as well as Rob Conley's version of the Harn price list), but it's a pain, because so many other things in the core books assume the gold standard.

I agree with you on all counts, which is why I tried to figure out what reasonable wages for a worker is assuming prices are what the standard lists say they are.

Geleg wrote:it's enough to make one (okay, me! ) throw up my hands and accept that a realistic medieval/fantasy economy is just not feasible given the tropes that most gamers expect from rpgs. That's not to say I haven't tried, of course, or that I don't keep trying ... it's just that I've found my own thinking trapped in a set of circular logic that seems insoluble!

btw, there's an interesting thread on DF that deals with these issues: the key players are Matthew and Nagora, IIRC: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewt ... sy+economy

It's actually not as hard as you might think. By making the tax man a nuisance, by letting thieves get their digs in, by having shirt-tail relatives siphon off cash from the players will encourage them to settle down and set up a fortalice somewhere in the campaign world which makes them invested in the setting. By having hirelings and henchmen demand living wages, you keep the game manageable and player resources within reason while at the same time letting them score big treasures.

When I worry about "realistic" pricing:


http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/m ... html#ARMOR

Treebore wrote:When I worry about "realistic" pricing:


http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/m ... html#ARMOR

Yes, but what's the conversion between pounds, shillings and pennies vis a vis gold, silver and copper? WE MUST KNOW!!!!

Seriously, though, I like to go with "Good enough" economy. I don't have to have everything perfect... just good enough that the seams don't show on the monkey suit.

Demiurge wrote:This reminds me of the chickens per capita thread that sprang up over a section of the 3e DMG on either the ENWorld or Wizard's forums. Or the fact that in 3e holy water costs more to make than it sells for - I guess it's a loss leader.

Actually, that makes sense

Demiurge wrote:There is no badwrongfun, so if you and your players enjoy that level of detail in your games then more power to ya. Personally it's something I prefer to hand wave and get on to the PC killing... err... adventuring.

Yes, absolutely, 100% true and you'll get no argument from me. I am not suggesting "thou shalt play this way lest you be thought a n00b". It's all a question of what does your group like.

If your players are action oriented and love dungeon crawls and the puzzle-solving, monster slaying and looting it entails. If "town" is just a place you go to every now and then to restock and rest before hitting 'ye olde dungeon' again and your players are having a blast...you're doing it right and my article would represent an unneeded complication. Hand waving it is absolutely the best approach in that circumstance.

My play style is more about above ground adventures, PCs as movers and shakers - in several campaigns PCs have become great lords and prelates, some sessions were entirely about affairs of state and economy, even involving some pitched miniatures battles. For that sort of campaign, a logical economic system is a must have. A group that lives for the dungeon crawl would probably be bored to tears by this sort of campaign, but I've run campaigns set in my homebrew world (loosely based on FGU's old "Arden" plus elements from SJG's "Yrth" plus a lot of original work) for 4 different groups over the last 30 years - one campaign lasted 5 years, another 7, yet another 3 and I am starting a new one now and it seems popular enough that I always end up DMing (or I guess CKing, now since I adopted C&C as the game engine).

No one approach is better or worse. I just found this set of calculations useful, if you do too please feel free to steal them for your campaign. If not, my feelings won't be hurt if you ignore them

Mark Hall wrote:

Treebore wrote:When I worry about "realistic" pricing:


http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/m ... html#ARMOR

Yes, but what's the conversion between pounds, shillings and pennies vis a vis gold, silver and copper? WE MUST KNOW!!!!

Seriously, though, I like to go with "Good enough" economy. I don't have to have everything perfect... just good enough that the seams don't show on the monkey suit.

Well, the "pound" is actually a guinea, and there are 44.5 of those per "Troy Pound", and 21 shillings per Guinea. 12 Pennies per shilling.

The US LBS is approximately 1.2 Troy pounds, so there are about 55 Guinea per US LBS.

I have abandoned money in C&C. I do not use a "wealth" stat either. I simply assume that any reasonable need can be met. Anything unreasonable and that calls for an adventure.

Andred - I feel sorta bad that you seem to be getting jumped on for a thoughtful and, at least IMO, useful post. Please don't take it that way!

I hear what you're saying about the ways to fleece PCs of their wealth. I've heard of most of these techniques on similar threads across the blogosphere, and have used some of them myself (after all what is training but a mechanism to divest PCs of loot). But I want to return, briefly, to the problem of the infusion of money/treasure into the economic system, and to the role of xp for gp in that problem. At lower levels, when a PC needs 2000 gp to rise in level, it is relatively easy to say that the gp so acquired will not affect the system very much. The taxman gets his, thieves steal some, everyone goes on an epic bender, etc.

But let's look at the rise from 4th to 5th or 5th to 6th level: a 4th level fighter needs 8500 xp to advance to 5th, and another 17,000 xp to advance from 5th to 6th. In games in which gp for xp is important (and I realize that not all are - story awards, fighting larger monsters/npcs, etc) this is going to inject a sizable amount of wealth into a fairly primitive economy. If only 50% of the 5th level fighter's 17,000 xp comes from gp, that means that he is going to have 8000 gp (incomes of 4 bannerets) to inject into the economy. According to some (but not all! ) economic models, that's going to put a lot of pressure on prices and wages. If one multiplies this by 4 (a common party size), we're talking 32,000 gp for a group of PCs to throw around.

I guess what I'm saying is that one of the reasons that medieval economies were so economically simple (and see Clavis' impt point about meals included) was that there was long term stasis in such economies, and, at least until the 14th century, there was not much monetization of the general economy. Adventuring by definition breaks those paradigms: it introduces significant economic shock to an economy (in the shape of extensive treasure) and, generally, introduces a butt-load of coins into an economy in which coins may not have been very important.

Strangely, I find myself arguing myself out of any effort to model a more realistic economy for C&C, even though that's precisely what I've been trying to do over the last few weeks! Not really my intention, but oh well ...

I recommend that other thread I mentioned above, especially inasmuch as the main contributors separate the 'small economy' from the 'large economy'.

Mark Hall wrote:One thing I have been looking for was something mentioned many moons ago on the Wizards of the Coast forums (when you could still access them by newsreader... late 90s, early aughts). Someone posted something that he called "the beer theory of economics" which said that, in the average year, low-end workers made about enough money to afford 10,000 beers; gross, not net. Never been able to find a subsequent reference for it, however.

The problem with even that idea is that almost all the beer consumed by the average pre-industrial Northern European was brewed at home. Everyone, from the time they were weaned off mother's milk, drank a weak kind of beer all day long. The water was unsafe to drink, so brewing beer for drinking was a basic task of the peasant wife. Also, medieval beer was essentially semi-preserved liquid bread that didn't break a fast, explaining why there is such a strong brewing tradition among certain orders of Catholic monks. Really, the average medieval European only bought professionally brewed beer on rare occasions, when at a brothel, or when traveling (and the line between an inn and a brothel could be very blurry).

Clavis is right about beer, 'though I'll complicate it a bit. In many late medieval english villages there were specialists who brewed (commonly women - hence 'brewster' as a name). But these specialists were not strictly commercial brewers, or, I should say, they weren't full-time brewers (which is Clavis' point). What they *were* is better brewers than their neighbors, who might commission them to brew extra batches for them (payment might be in kind or as services). [Judith Bennett discusses this in her book on women in the late medieval english economy]. Clavis' several points have reminded us that the 'real' medieval economy was not nearly so commercialized as ours is: employers included meals (and lodging), most people did not buy ordinary items (clothes, beer, food) but produced them themselves, etc.

All great topic and ides here. Andred, I tend to line up with your type of gaming and gaming world, so I agree with your thoughts on the econimic setting of "game worlds" and even the slowing the progression pace to a "walk". Also, in my home brew a mid (5-7 level) character will be important in the regional setting and will be impacting the social political make up of that area.

I don't have all my notes here, and even my notes need work (lots of ideas to work out) but I have some good background info on historic economics, and item cost from various ancient eras. It does get tricky when compairing the cost of things in Ancient/Prehellinostic Greece, Republican Rome, and late antiquiaty Rome, but with a little fudging and cross compairing ... I have stuf that shows that an Atheianian jurrer was paid 1 or 2 silver a day and that was enough to cover his living expences. Also that a low cost house was less than a silver a day. Of course this is the bare bones low end, so from that I'll have to work the rest of the econamy

From that I plan on working my economy based of 1 silver piece being the wage der day for an unskilled worker (plus 1 meal per day) and a common level 0 warrior, then going up from there. A basicly skilled worker would get 1.5-2 silver a day, a skilled (read leve 2-3ish) soldier would get 3ish silver (but have to pay for his equipment upkeep out of it, a practice common in Greece, Rome, Great Briton, and in a way even in my unit - basic equipment is issued but any cool guy/comfort stuff is out of pocket)

What gets tricky is the cost of things like weapons armor etc, where the research I have say things like "a helmet was worht the cost of a cow or 3 pigs," Then on top of that there is the increase in cost for things like swords - in my world a sword is as much status as it is a useful weapon - A hewing spear or axe may be just efective as a sword but with status the cost will go up but by how much ???

Oh on top of that there is the gold vs silver issue where in the real world is was worth more (aprox 1 - 25 silver depending on the era) than in the average game world.

Like I say, got a lot of work to do when I get back home ...

Geleg wrote:Andred - I feel sorta bad that you seem to be getting jumped on for a thoughtful and, at least IMO, useful post. Please don't take it that way!

Thanks for the kind words, I just didn't want people to think I was being all self-important is all.

Geleg wrote:But let's look at the rise from 4th to 5th or 5th to 6th level: a 4th level fighter needs 8500 xp to advance to 5th, and another 17,000 xp to advance from 5th to 6th. In games in which gp for xp is important (and I realize that not all are - story awards, fighting larger monsters/npcs, etc) this is going to inject a sizable amount of wealth into a fairly primitive economy. If only 50% of the 5th level fighter's 17,000 xp comes from gp, that means that he is going to have 8000 gp (incomes of 4 bannerets) to inject into the economy. According to some (but not all! ) economic models, that's going to put a lot of pressure on prices and wages. If one multiplies this by 4 (a common party size), we're talking 32,000 gp for a group of PCs to throw around.

Well, if all or most of their XP comes from gold, then yes, it would have an impact but they aren't going to get all those xp from cash and they aren't going to get it all at once. PCs that have that sort of disposable cash are going to be very valuable to any of several political factions and their cash will get directed into advancing their pet political or religious causes within the campaign world. A 5th, 6th or 7th level character is a pretty significant thing in this sort of campaign and will figure prominently in the affairs of the high and mighty.

Figure a party with the annual disposable income of 4 bannerets to toss about - collectively they are the economic equivalent of a rich baron, hardly a campaign killer. Such personages will probably buy titles, valuable real estate, businesses, and/or enlist armed followers and carve out a barony for themselves in what is currently orc territory.

Geleg wrote:I guess what I'm saying is that one of the reasons that medieval economies were so economically simple

Actually, the medieval economy wasn't all that simple - my article doesn't even begin to cover all the details of running even a small manor but it at least sets wages on a reasonable standard without having to redo the price list and treasure tables.

Geleg wrote:(and see Clavis' impt point about meals included) was that there was long term stasis in such economies,

Clavis' point is well taken but it still would raise the daily cost of hiring said porter beyond the 2sp called for in the DMG.

Geleg wrote:and, at least until the 14th century, there was not much monetization of the general economy. Adventuring by definition breaks those paradigms: it introduces significant economic shock to an economy (in the shape of extensive treasure) and, generally, introduces a butt-load of coins into an economy in which coins may not have been very important.

Without question! The feudal economy was decidedly non-fiscal. Even great lords would go months without handling that strange thing called money. But C&C (like AD&D and every other RPG) monetizes the economy, which is ahistorical to be sure but it is the "reality" of the game setting. So while coinage was a footnote to the feudal era on Earth, they obviously play a much larger role on Oerth or Toril or wherever your fantasy takes you.

If you are using something closer to historical Earth, consider that gold was in much wider circulation in the classical world than in the feudal era, when gold returned to the economy in the dark ages and middle ages, it generally came from rediscovered Roman hoards. Most FRPG settings assume an "age of chaos" or some such where the wealth of lost civilizations is being unearthed.

Geleg wrote:Strangely, I find myself arguing myself out of any effort to model a more realistic economy for C&C, even though that's precisely what I've been trying to do over the last few weeks! Not really my intention, but oh well ...

I recommend that other thread I mentioned above, especially inasmuch as the main contributors separate the 'small economy' from the 'large economy'.

I am the last person to suggest any D&D derived game as a historical simulation, realism is not C&C/D&D's strong suit nor was it ever intended to be. C&C isn't going to be realistic (after all, it includes such ridiculous things as fireball slinging wizards, wily elves and fire-breathing dragons) but it can be reasonable and that is what I was shooting for.

I'm finding this to definitely be food for thought. Played with a silver standard for a while with 2nd ed. D&D just for the lopsided cash loading.

Go0gleplex wrote:I'm finding this to definitely be food for thought.

This says everything that needs to be said. Great thread.

"it can be reasonable and that is what I was shooting for"

That's it! Andred you've hit the nail square on. Your thread is great as have all the other's input. Keep those ideas coming...

We're missing one of the most important occupations... prostitute. Many females would be forced to enter the occupation for no other reason than they had no means otherwise once their husband(s) failed to return from some war in some far-off place. And, using people as currency. Heck, in many African tribes weapons became trade and the concept of paper money was virtually unknown.

Heh. Interesting stuff. I won't use any of it, but it is fun to discuss anyway.