The price of stuff in ye olden times

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

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Zinegata
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Post by Zinegata »

FrankTrollman wrote:Except that we're talking about a role playing game where the player characters often expect to get significant windfalls in the form of treasure. So while it's not particularly important how much it costs to eat cabbage versus kale, you still need prices in coin for all the stuff it matters that the player characters might want to buy.

And these prices have to pass the smell test. It's not OK if the laborers aren't making enough coin to eat food and wear shoes. It's not OK if the cauldrons cost less than the iron they are made out of. But it would be better if they were plausibly accurate, as that would make extrapolation to unlisted items easier and also make people just feel better about the price lists, which is important.

-Username17
That is why I suggested wealth levels to begin with? Even the wonky system in D20 modern had it shift up or down depending on purchases or treasure gained.

Moreover almost anything based on a fixed price-based system will not pass a serious smell test to begin with; because it is much easier to poke holes and prove its invalidity than to create a fully sensible economic system. Indeed, that real economic systems are often not sensible should point to trying to model it in a rational manner is futile.

Lastly, while it's cool at face value to see a shopping list with prices, at some point it starts to turn into pointless accounting. Some players will obsessively bean-count; but the majority will just have target items they will want to buy at some point (e.g. Magic Sword for the fighter), and having a straight one to two digit integer to track this is simpler. Indeed, it makes it easier to figure out if the party is wealthy enough for their level; as opposed to breaking down all of their purchases in an Excel sheet.

It also makes it rather easier to stat out NPCs and just highlight the interesting loot they have. Rather than needing to figure out the daily needs of a peasant and his minimum wage, just set him to Wealth Level 1 - where he basically has just enough to feed himself and his family. Indeed that many such peasants should be subsistence farmers who have never seen a coin would make the Wealth level system more consistent than giving them a minimum wage.
Last edited by Zinegata on Thu Dec 14, 2017 7:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
Username17
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Post by Username17 »

There's never been a functional rpg wealth level system in any context. Counting gp works. Ignoring money entirely works. Abstracted wealth systems are very hard to do.

-Username17
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