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Toliudar
2011-03-14, 10:56 PM
As bad as D&D sometimes is at modeling the physical sciences, it's pretty appalling at doing any kind of modeling of social sciences, and especially economics.

I'm wondering if anyone's developed any houserules that improve (for example) the way shortage and plenty, the use of magic or the presence of unusual creatures are modeled in the economies of D&D worlds?

Bibliomancer
2011-03-14, 11:06 PM
Well, an inevitable of capitalism fixes a lot of the problems like wall of salt.

Apart from that, the thing I find most useful is drawing a fuzzy line between magic and money. You CAN buy magic items for gold, but only intermittently and at highly random prices. Exceptions include things like alchemy.

As an aside, the reason why rare creatures aren't used very often is because they are assumed to not be cost effective. Consider the treasure required to ensure the occasional service (forget loyalty) of a draconic air force.

Were there any problems that you have with the current setup, specifically?

NichG
2011-03-14, 11:31 PM
Well, I suppose you could do the following things that would help it somewhat:

1. Iron, salt, and other magically producible materials cost 1/50th the current listed price. Most of this would be the cost of transportation from the location of the nearest wizard running an ironmongery or salt production business, basically figuring that transportation is being done by Teleport. High level wizards can still live comfortably on the byproducts of their daily spells, but it doesn't become quite as obscene.

2. All other materials that can be produced by way of Polymorph Any Object are often available in faux polymorphed form (susceptible to dispelling, of course) at one quarter normal cost. PaO is a fairly high level spell, so this only applies to high magic areas.

3. Magically produced wealth and material components, including things generated by Wish, is 'soulless' without appropriate XP investiture and therefore cannot be used for material components of spells or for item crafting.

4. Permanent magic items are not publically sold for mere wealth - someone selling a magic item will always want to barter for another magic item or set of items, favors, noble deeds, etc. The party can sell magic items for mundane wealth if they wish, and they will find buyers easily.
Rationale: every magic item requires the permanent expenditure of xp, which one could consider to be life energy, soul, etc, and so most of the time a wizard would never bother using magic item trade to make money when they can just use wall of salt/etc to make a good living income. Existing magic items are rare enough that there isn't a stable market.

Addendum: To preserve some semblance of being able to purchase items, allow xp to be transferred from a third party for the creation of magic items. Local spellcasters will accept payment in xp to make items for the party, but they take twice the amount needed for crafting and use the extra to make items for themselves. Thus the item economy becomes one of soul/life-force/whatever instead of gold. Bonus points for making the transference creepy.

5. Costs for employing all characters are severely increased, and characters above level 9 generally cannot be hired for mere wealth as they're trivially living the high life off of magic at that point - it'd be like paying people living next to a great lake in units of water.

That should cover most of the big things.

Doc Roc
2011-03-14, 11:33 PM
Divorce magic items and their ilk from the economy at large. We did it in Legend, and it works far better than I expected. I fought against it pretty extensively, but I can walk you through the bennies of doing so, if you like.

Jack DeCoeur
2011-03-15, 12:14 AM
Divorce magic items and their ilk from the economy at large. We did it in Legend, and it works far better than I expected. I fought against it pretty extensively, but I can walk you through the bennies of doing so, if you like.

This actually seems to make a lot of sense.

This article (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19573350/D38;D_Commoners_Make_Plenty_of_Money) has been floating around for some time. It shows that commoners can make more than enough money to get by, living reasonably comfortably. Of course, the introduction of the aforementioned, ludicrously expensive magic items probably borks it a fair bit, but otherwise the calculations seems pretty solid and well thought out.

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 12:22 AM
This actually seems to make a lot of sense.

This article (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19573350/D38;D_Commoners_Make_Plenty_of_Money) has been floating around for some time. It shows that commoners can make more than enough money to get by, living reasonably comfortably. Of course, the introduction of the aforementioned, ludicrously expensive magic items probably borks it a fair bit, but otherwise the calculations seems pretty solid and well thought out.

If you like that, perhaps you'd like Legend? ::Flagrant Plug::

To be fair, a commoner's real problems in life can be summarized with the phrase "A Wizard Did It."

Marnath
2011-03-15, 12:52 AM
Addendum: To preserve some semblance of being able to purchase items, allow xp to be transferred from a third party for the creation of magic items. Local spellcasters will accept payment in xp to make items for the party, but they take twice the amount needed for crafting and use the extra to make items for themselves. Thus the item economy becomes one of soul/life-force/whatever instead of gold. Bonus points for making the transference creepy.

When I read this I imagined some evil dude dragging a bunch of beaten slaves into a wizard shop and saying "suck 'em dry." Seriously, that would be a good way for evil people to rule the world since they don't care about the innocent, so they'll be way better equipped than the heroes.

Toliudar
2011-03-15, 12:55 AM
To answer the question about what especially annoys me:

The abstraction of the profession skill is annoying to me. The selling or buying of large numbers of objects in a market without an impact on the price annoys me. And yet I don't want the complexities to bog down play.

I'd like to hear more about Legend, Doc Roc. How did you handle, for example, the hiring of the services of spellcasters by nonspellcasters?

Marnath
2011-03-15, 01:00 AM
The abstraction of the profession skill is annoying to me. The selling or buying of large numbers of objects in a market without an impact on the price annoys me. And yet I don't want the complexities to bog down play.

You've just hit on the reason it's abstract to begin with. :smallamused:
No one cares about specifics. It's heroic fantasy, not real life. :smalltongue:

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 01:16 AM
I'd like to hear more about Legend, Doc Roc. How did you handle, for example, the hiring of the services of spellcasters by nonspellcasters?

We distribute spell-casting much more evenly through the population by splitting it across more classes with more roles, and by moving much of it into feats that are readily available. In effect, we changed some really deep assumptions to support the idea that some parts of the game should be more abstract, and smoother to play.

Skills are also more powerful, and more accessible to Joe Publican or Jill Farmer. This is a world where power is at a deep and even point, a mighty ebb and flow. As we simply don't price magic items, a GM is free to run a world with any kind of economy he or she wants, content in the knowledge that it will stand up to scrutiny within the context of the system at large.

I am willing to sacrifice realism for verisimilitude and speed of play, in short.

Would you like a longer answer? I have one I've been saving.

NichG
2011-03-15, 01:22 AM
When I read this I imagined some evil dude dragging a bunch of beaten slaves into a wizard shop and saying "suck 'em dry." Seriously, that would be a good way for evil people to rule the world since they don't care about the innocent, so they'll be way better equipped than the heroes.

I call that an adventure hook!

Mastikator
2011-03-15, 01:36 AM
I'd remove the entire profession skill abstraction, and make things's price be based on supply/demand.
I'd also remove some abstractions that bother me, such as craft. Instead of converting gold coins into items, I'd make it so that you'd have to have the actual raw materials. And the cost of for example a full plate isn't so much the steel it takes (although it does matter) but the hours it takes and the fact that they have to be custom made for the user.
You can't use historical precedence on how much things cost unless you take magic out of the equation (which would mean that you'd have to make it so rare that it doesn't affect the economy).

I'd limit the game to E6 or something small, and forget about WBL. If not limited the economy would have to be divided into tires that don't really affect each other. You stop trading with merchants after a point and start trading with kings instead, then you stop trading with kings and start trading with extraplanar demigods since you'd eventually become wealthier than nations.

Even the lowliest of magic items become things of legend and invaluable to most, a mere +1 shortsword costs more than most people will ever see. And forget about +2, that's 72 kilos of pure gold, a.k.a the entire fortune of a king.
Magic items isn't something you can just buy or sell, if you happen to actually acquire one.

Eldan
2011-03-15, 04:37 AM
We distribute spell-casting much more evenly through the population by splitting it across more classes with more roles, and by moving much of it into feats that are readily available. In effect, we changed some really deep assumptions to support the idea that some parts of the game should be more abstract, and smoother to play.

The problem with this being, of course, that you can't use any published campaign setting or adventure.

Anyway, I've found that a good start is to begin with 100 copper pieces = 1 silver piece = 0.01 gold, and changing a few prices accordingly (i.e. a sword is 10 gold pieces, a +1 sword 100 gold). It helps a bit with the problems of a single sword costing a small cart full of coins.

stainboy
2011-03-15, 10:01 AM
Some good ideas in here: http://turing.bard.edu/~mk561/frank_k_0.5.1.pdf

The economy stuff is called "the Economicon," in the Money and Equipment chapter.

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 12:00 PM
I'm not so sure I buy the idea that you can't use any published setting for legend. Most settings from 2e, savage worlds, and even most white wolf products can be run with Legend.

Dark Sun and Planescape fit particularly well, and I'm building a TC kit for exalted in my spare time.

grimbold
2011-03-15, 12:08 PM
for my world i created a class of billionares who dominate the economy
that seems to work okay

nihil8r
2011-03-15, 02:41 PM
for my world i created a class of billionares who dominate the economy
that seems to work okay

agreed. 1% of the population always controls 99% of the wealth. no reason why it should be different in a fantasy game.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-15, 02:51 PM
I'd punch a baby to get a working set of economic rules for D&D.

Eldan
2011-03-15, 02:51 PM
I'm not so sure I buy the idea that you can't use any published setting for legend. Most settings from 2e, savage worlds, and even most white wolf products can be run with Legend.

Dark Sun and Planescape fit particularly well, and I'm building a TC kit for exalted in my spare time.

While it might perhaps fit Planescape with a few changes, I certainly don't see it fitting Dark Sun. Or Eberron. At least not without removing a lot of the feats and powers you included.
What I mean is: if you allow everything included in your core documents, magic, especially of the blasty kind, will be very common, while other kinds of magic will become incredibly rare. That changes a lot of the setting dynamics. Eberron expects that wands are common for everyone. I haven't seen any in your system. There are no artificers or magewrights that I've seen. No elemental binders. In Dark Sun, arcane magic should be rare and feared. In your system, you can pick it up with a feat, which means that potentially every level 1 commoner can blast energy from his hands.
Changing the boni races receive to their attributes and other aspects changes a lot of their ecology, which changes a lot of their society. I once built an entire dwarven society around their +2 bonus against spells. If you take that out, the society is no longer possible. If Gnomes don't have in-built illusions anymore, or the ability to speak to burrowing mammals, their society drastically changes. The climb bonus halflings had meant that making them tree-living was a logical choice. And so on and so forth.

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 02:53 PM
I'd punch a baby to get a working set of economic rules for D&D.

Fortunately, we have punched these babies for you. Almost 1400 of them.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-15, 02:54 PM
Fortunately, we have punched these babies for you. Almost 1400 of them.

You are a saint, sir. Thank your for your work.

Eldan
2011-03-15, 02:58 PM
I'll clone you some more babies to punch.

So, can you show me your economics? I'd love to see a good system of them. It's one of the first things I always stumble over when building worlds.

PersonMan
2011-03-15, 03:01 PM
Fortunately, we have punched these babies for you. Almost 1400 of them.


You are a saint, sir. Thank your for your work.

This...I never thought I'd see this.

I'd love to have this in my signature, may I?

Tyndmyr
2011-03-15, 03:03 PM
Go for it. And keep punching babies. Never lose hope.

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 03:06 PM
I'll clone you some more babies to punch.

So, can you show me your economics? I'd love to see a good system of them. It's one of the first things I always stumble over when building worlds.

You've seen the black heart of the matter:

Magic items cannot simply be bought, and due to their limited utility or extreme rarity are actually very hard to sell. More than that, because they aren't priced you can just as easily flavor them as charms, immaterial blessings, deals with various grim spirits, or even fleshly adaptations.

After that, we've laid out some basic frame-work of pricing for objects, divorced from currency. Our basis, then, for our market economy is the shape of the things on the market. Money is just a loose metric, abstracted out to something that is a thin cover for how many caravan trips it is worth, or how many apples it can buy. It doesn't affect your deep mechanical capabilities in any way. This means that you can use the same rules to tell stories about aristocratic magisters as you can to tell stories about street punks.

Eldan
2011-03-15, 03:10 PM
So...

You "solved" the mechanic problems of economy in the system by not providing any mechanics? I don't think I'm satisfied with that, really.

I'm not an economist, so when building a game world economy, I'd like to at least have some guidelines I can use and come up with something realistic.

For me, the economic problem of D&D isn't really "this sword costs 100 gold pieces".

It's more "This peasant doesn't earn enough money in a week to buy himself a single beer". The first? Can be explained on the market. Swords are rare, most people never get a weapon. Sure. But peasants not being able to buy basic goods? That's a problem.

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 03:15 PM
So...

You "solved" the mechanic problems of economy in the system by not providing any mechanics? I don't think I'm satisfied with that, really.

I'm not an economist, so when building a game world economy, I'd like to at least have some guidelines I can use and come up with something realistic.

For me, the economic problem of D&D isn't really "this sword costs 100 gold pieces".

It's more "This peasant doesn't earn enough money in a week to buy himself a single beer". The first? Can be explained on the market. Swords are rare, most people never get a weapon. Sure. But peasants not being able to buy basic goods? That's a problem.


What? No, seriously, what? I said almost the exact opposite. We price chickens in terms of apples, to give you an idea of what I mean. So that if a GM wants a different flavor to his setting, one where fruit is rare, he can do that.



Without making the game explode like in shadowrun or D&D.

Eldan
2011-03-15, 03:19 PM
Ah. Well, I must have misunderstood these sentences then...

After that, we've laid out some basic frame-work of pricing for objects, divorced from currency.

and


Money is just a loose metric,

This sounded like you basically said that these things should just be handled loosely.

How would you handle players who engage in trading for financial gain, then?

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 03:37 PM
Ah. Well, I must have misunderstood these sentences then...


and



This sounded like you basically said that these things should just be handled loosely.

How would you handle players who engage in trading for financial gain, then?


It is separate from magical items, and this from most* things that have a direct bearing on the mechanics of the game. We do have some rules for Econ, but I work in financial software sector, and rules for trading are... I know it to be a marvelously deep rabbit hole. So it boils down to market vagaries, trade routes, and questions of risk. We have some solid guidelines, but I can't write that part of your setting, and you shouldn't feel like you have to let me.

What does this mean?
It means that we want to keep the conversation in terms of goods and services that revolve around role-playing, and the setting. We do have a few small mundane items with statistical effects, and a concept of money's effect on social status, but we've tried to minimize it to a degree.


*not all

Eldan
2011-03-15, 03:41 PM
I see.

Still. I have no idea how the economy really works. I failed the basic economy course in high school. Which is strange, really. I'm an ecologist, economy should be explainable in game theory terms and basically similar to energy flows, but apparently it isn't.

Anyway. I'd like to see some basic guidelines on how to handle, say, players investing their loot into spices to sell in the next city they visit. I've had players who needed to get to another island. I thought they would get work on a ship, book a passage or steal one.

Not so.

Instead, they bought goods. Then they burned down a warehouse to artificially inflate the cost of said goods on the open market. They began spreading rumours and using blackmail so they could sell as a profit. They repeated that for almost a week, until they had enough money to buy their own ship and crew. Interesting, but throughout, I mostly felt a bit lost as a DM, as I had no idea how to realistically handle something like that.

So, that's what I mean with economy system.

Erom
2011-03-15, 03:54 PM
You can always go with a quick and dirty "tier economy" (ripping from most FATE based games here).

For example, for income:

Tier 1: Farmers and laborers
Tier 2: Professionals and craftsmen, or PCs spending their time making Craft and Profession checks
Tier 3: Merchants, minor nobles, and minor magic users, or PCs spending their time summoning wall of iron or using some other "money trick"
Tier 4: Major NPCs like kings or powerful magic users who have some reason for having huge wealth. PCs only if they have some plot-related wealth source.

And then for objects:

Tier 0: Consumables, small permanent objects
Tier 1: Permanent but everyday objects like clothes, furniture, and tools
Tier 2: Expensive items, like mundane weapons, armor, mounts, minor alchemical items, etc. Small structures. Hiring a bodyguard.
Tier 3: Minor magic items, major structures, land deeds. Hiring a spellcaster.
Tier 4: Major magic items, financing for a major endeavor like an army or new colonies etc. Hiring a high level spellcaster.
Tier 5: Powerful, custom magic items. Hiring something like a dragon, outsider, or high level spellcaster casting a custom spell. Hiring someone to do something that requires XP. Financing for something like a ring gate network or a mages' academy.

Once you've got that set up, rules:
* Anything 2 tiers below your income can be had for "free", or basically pocket change.
* You can buy a steady source of Tier-1 items. Assume 1/day roughly.
* You can buy on-Tier items occasionally. Assume 1/month roughly
* You can save and scratch to buy a Tier+1 item occasionally. Assume 1/year roughly.

* Getting an item in bulk makes it a tier higher. (~100)
* Getting an especially well made example of an item is a tier higher (a fine meal is Tier 1. A beautifully made sword is tier 3. A particularly well-equipped, well trained army costs Tier 5 to support.)

That seems like a pretty good basic framework to me.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-15, 03:54 PM
That is...not unreasonable. And, so long as you don't get caught, potentially quite profitable.

I understand the economy fairly well, but there's a big gap between that and having a good game-level simulation of it.

Severus
2011-03-15, 03:57 PM
You can't really divorce economics from world.

Case 1: magic as technology. Magic blesses the fields, provides global transport to the wealthy, military and industry technology, etc. Magic items are available at the corner store (lighter of endless flame, etc.) Unless a particularly tyrannical nation most people would have a bit and then some. Society would be more likely a meritocracy of mages. The best artificers and mages would rise to the top and be paid top dollar. But people would be cautious about putting too much money into magic since it is so easily stolen.

Case 2: As suggested above, magic as life. Magic flows from the life force. Expect the world of Necromancer kings who seek to enslave large masses to feed their desire for greater power. Holy orders with vow of poverty crusade to liberate the people. People have little to prevent their rising up against their mage lords.

Case 3: Magic is vanishingly rare. those who have it are feared or revered. no one would sell what they have since it is priceless, though they might buy yours.

etc. etc.

I think point is above about money is well taken. money can be a useful proxy, but it can also be useful think in more concrete terms.

We once ran a campaign based on ancient ireland where cattle raiding and cattle were the big deal. So all prices were in cows. It didn't mean you necessarily paid in cows (though if you were somebody or wanted to be somebody you have a nice herd), but that all prices were rendered as cows.

I think the easiest way to 'fix' a D&D economy is to just say that all normal daily stuff food, lodging, and the like, is throw-away cheap. But only the great lords and mages and the like can every accumulate enough wealth to touch magic items so for most everything it is far, far cheaper to get a peasant to do it than it is to get magic to do it.

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 04:00 PM
You can't really divorce economics from world.


Quantum game theory begs to differ.

Calimehter
2011-03-15, 04:06 PM
Interesting solution to getting ship passage.

The problem with having a "predone" solution to a situation like for a DM to fall back on is that is that it would vary so much from setting to setting and good to good. Questions like "How easy is it to quickly and efficiently replace the lost goods" and "How critical is the demand for this particular good at any given time" need to be answered before you can really calculate what sort of price increase your characters can generate by market manipulation.

I think most DMs worlds won't have been done to this level of detail before the PCs start "tinkering" with things, and for this sort of thing the devil really is in the details. You might be asking a bit too much to have it all ready and done for you in any game system, much less D&D. :smallsmile:

Severus
2011-03-15, 04:09 PM
Quantum game theory begs to differ.

Then quantum game theory is wrong :smallamused:

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 04:15 PM
Then quantum game theory is wrong :smallamused:

Are you familiar with the underpinnings of it? I think math for primates has a quite lovely introduction to it.

Severus
2011-03-15, 04:26 PM
Are you familiar with the underpinnings of it? I think math for primates has a quite lovely introduction to it.

It is classical game theory with entanglements. It adds interesting permutations to classical game theory, but it really doesn't address the problem that a D&D economy is necessarily tied to a particular world, and generalizing about such an economy can't go very far without specifics of the world setting.

Doc Roc
2011-03-15, 05:18 PM
It is classical game theory with entanglements. It adds interesting permutations to classical game theory, but it really doesn't address the problem that a D&D economy is necessarily tied to a particular world, and generalizing about such an economy can't go very far without specifics of the world setting.

Which are intended to help you with rebasing your predictions. Which is the heart of our problem here.

Eric Tolle
2011-03-15, 06:30 PM
I always just thought that wizards streamlined the economy and prevented excesses of supply by using the spell Bigby's Invisible Hand.

Wardog
2011-03-15, 06:49 PM
I've just had a thought:

A lot of spells consume expensive components - things that in the real world wouldn't be considered to be "consumables".

E.g. 5000gp worth of diamonds for Raise Dead, or a 100gp pearl for identify. And (while its not an official rule AFAIK) in NWN: HOTU, adding enchantments to your weapons required a very large outlay in gold, justified in game terms as being necessary to fuel the magical forge.

To what extent would this wealth sink affect the economy in a high magic setting?

Eldan
2011-03-15, 06:52 PM
Heating the forge with gold or consuming it in an alchemical process (I mean, it was important in alchemy) is an interesting idea.

Suddenly, gold becomes a value beyond being shiny and basically being representative currency otherwise. Same for diamonds.

The question, of course, is what would be used as money, hten.

DragonSinged
2011-03-15, 07:19 PM
I've just had a thought:

A lot of spells consume expensive components - things that in the real world wouldn't be considered to be "consumables".

E.g. 5000gp worth of diamonds for Raise Dead, or a 100gp pearl for identify. And (while its not an official rule AFAIK) in NWN: HOTU, adding enchantments to your weapons required a very large outlay in gold, justified in game terms as being necessary to fuel the magical forge.

To what extent would this wealth sink affect the economy in a high magic setting?

Well, a lot of the "magic consumes these items" would be balanced by "magic produces these items", though. For example, in D&D 2e bathing the Tarrasque's carapace in an acid solution would net you 10d10 diamonds of 1,000 gp base value each.

Obviously that example isn't going to come up all that often, but there are plenty of other similar effects out there.

Firechanter
2011-03-15, 07:25 PM
BTW, has anyone of you ever had a look at, for example, how large an average dragon hoard would actually be?
For example, look at an Adult Red Dragon. His treasure should be worth about 66K GP. Let's assume that all this is in gold pieces -- no items, no platinum, just gold. Since there are 50GP to the pound, the hoard will be 1.320 pounds, or about 600kg of gold. Gold has a density of roughly 20g/cm³. That means we are talking a lousy 30 litres of gold. Or in other terms:

a one-foot cube.

Aren't dragons supposed to _sleep_ on their hoards? That's a mighty thin blanket this huge dragon is bedding on.

Actually, I read an awesome rationalization for this, made up on the fly when we discussed this in another forum, let me see if I can still figure it out:
The dragon does sleep on a huge pile of treasure. Only he absorbs the precious metal into his body, so at any given time about 95% of his bed has been degraded to worthless minerals, sort of like when you suck the flavour out of a popsicle so only the water ice remains. When at some points some wayward adventurers slay the dragon, they have to sift through a huge pile of junk to filter out the relatively few remaining bits of precious metal.

So how come gold does not become exceedingly scarce? Well, here's the hilarious part: the dragon does occasionally crap into deep chasms somewhere near his lair. The excrement sifts into the mountain, where it turns into gold again. Dwarves mine the gold and hoard it. Dragons raid the Dwarves and steal the gold to furnish their lairs with it. Repeat. :smallbiggrin:

NichG
2011-03-15, 07:33 PM
I think so strongly linking a universal currency to the power source of magic is dangerous - its one of the things that will throw the D&D economics even more out of whack. Basically, it establishes a fixed universal value for a given commodity. Imagine if you had done that with salt or iron instead - you'd not only devalue salt and iron, but all magic items with one fell blow. Suddenly, someone using an infinite wish loop to produce gold also has an infinite supply of material components, enchantment components, etc. If you absolutely shut down things that make the components non-rare, it might not be so bad, but its essentially a single point of failure for the entire system that can be attacked by clever players (I mine the Elemental Plane of Mineral for diamonds! I go to Limbo and make illusions of gold until one hits the 10% chance and becomes real! I become a Dweomerkeeper and get True Creation as a spell-like and make infinite gold!).

If on the other hand, all sorts of different, fundamentally magic (read: non-synthesizable) resources with their own rarities are needed for enchanting, then if there's a sudden influx of gold for some reason it becomes less valuable compared to the particular material components in demand.

Mastikator
2011-03-15, 07:34 PM
[snip]
Instead, they bought goods. Then they burned down a warehouse to artificially inflate the cost of said goods on the open market. They began spreading rumours and using blackmail so they could sell as a profit. They repeated that for almost a week, until they had enough money to buy their own ship and crew. Interesting, but throughout, I mostly felt a bit lost as a DM, as I had no idea how to realistically handle something like that.

So, that's what I mean with economy system.

Theoretically it'd work (in terms of economy), but it would also put the city in red alert as people would believe they're under attack by a mob or some enemy.
Security would increase exponentially for each try, and likewise would commerce decrease, until the city is in a total lockdown. If that wouldn't work then people would start to flee.
The moment someone who was blackmailed spoke out everything would come tumbling down after the PC's.

DragonSinged
2011-03-15, 07:50 PM
BTW, has anyone of you ever had a look at, for example, how large an average dragon hoard would actually be?
For example, look at an Adult Red Dragon. His treasure should be worth about 66K GP. Let's assume that all this is in gold pieces -- no items, no platinum, just gold. Since there are 50GP to the pound, the hoard will be 1.320 pounds, or about 600kg of gold. Gold has a density of roughly 20g/cm³. That means we are talking a lousy 30 litres of gold. Or in other terms:

a one-foot cube.

Aren't dragons supposed to _sleep_ on their hoards? That's a mighty thin blanket this huge dragon is bedding on.

Actually, I read an awesome rationalization for this, made up on the fly when we discussed this in another forum, let me see if I can still figure it out:
The dragon does sleep on a huge pile of treasure. Only he absorbs the precious metal into his body, so at any given time about 95% of his bed has been degraded to worthless minerals, sort of like when you suck the flavour out of a popsicle so only the water ice remains. When at some points some wayward adventurers slay the dragon, they have to sift through a huge pile of junk to filter out the relatively few remaining bits of precious metal.

So how come gold does not become exceedingly scarce? Well, here's the hilarious part: the dragon does occasionally crap into deep chasms somewhere near his lair. The excrement sifts into the mountain, where it turns into gold again. Dwarves mine the gold and hoard it. Dragons raid the Dwarves and steal the gold to furnish their lairs with it. Repeat. :smallbiggrin:

From the Draconomicon, page 278:

"How big is the pile?
As the Player's Handbook states, a typical coin weighs about one-third of an ounce (50 per pound). But how much space do coins take up, and how big a pile do they make when gathered into a hoard? and do dragons really sleep on beds of coins?
A typical coin measures slightly more than an inch in diameter and is approximately one-tenth of an inch thick. A cubic foot holds around 12,000 loosely stacked coins.
Of course, coins aren't usually stacked in cubic feet - They're scattered about in piles. A cubic foot of coins fills an area roughly 5 feet on a side to a depth of about 1/2 inch, or 3 feet on a side to a depth of 1 inch or so. That's enough space for a Small dragon to wallow around on, and even a Medium dragon can derive enjoyment from reclining on such a pile.
But larger dragons need an extraordinary number of coins to create a pile large enough to sleep on. A Large dragon needs at least 50,000 coins to create a "bed", while a Huge dragon needs 100,000 ore more. Gargantuan or Colossal dragons might require piles of a half million or more coins in order to create a true "bed." And even then, this isn't an enormous pile but little more than a relatively thin layer of coins.
For this reason, most dragons don't actually have beds composed entirely of coins (though some collect copper pieces for exactly this reason). Still, it's nice to dream...

zorba1994
2011-03-15, 09:13 PM
Speaking as someone in an economics course...


A working economy for DnD is less realistic than a working one. Medieval economies did NOT work in the conventional system that the modern economy does with prices set by supply and demand. In a medieval economy, because of a lack of education, freedom to trade, or property rights, prices will be arbitrary and will fluctuate greatly. The kings and guilds will set prices however they like, and take whatever they like, because they CAN.

There's a reason that the Industrial Revolution happened only AFTER freedom to trade, education, and property rights were established in enough countries. As such, a working supply/demand economy for DnD is infeasible, even before you try to work in the gameplay issues.

Toliudar
2011-03-16, 12:17 AM
Speaking as someone in an economics course...


A working economy for DnD is less realistic than a working one. Medieval economies did NOT work in the conventional system that the modern economy does with prices set by supply and demand. In a medieval economy, because of a lack of education, freedom to trade, or property rights, prices will be arbitrary and will fluctuate greatly. The kings and guilds will set prices however they like, and take whatever they like, because they CAN.

There's a reason that the Industrial Revolution happened only AFTER freedom to trade, education, and property rights were established in enough countries. As such, a working supply/demand economy for DnD is infeasible, even before you try to work in the gameplay issues.

I'll grant that a medieval structured world would be subject to some vast differences in pricing, taxation, etc from place to place. This presupposes a medieval style society, with a lot more strictures on social behaviour, individual freedoms, the role of women, etc than exist in most game worlds. Therefore, I find it useful not to base my societies off of something akin to either a capitalist system, or a simple barter/share system.

I rather like the tier system Erom described, and am grateful for the many good ideas here.

ThirtyThr33
2011-03-16, 02:57 AM
Since noone else has mentinoed it:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Three--or_so--Economies_(3.5e_Other)

The three economies of dnd explains how there isn't just one economy. Gold has next to no value to a turnip farmer because he cant eat it. Turnips have no value to the high level cleric who can conjure his own. Lower level magic items have no value once you can cast wish. At the highest levels the most powerful beings simply trade in "favors".

You could easily break the economy stages up by player level.

Doc Roc
2011-03-17, 01:00 PM
Since noone else has mentinoed it:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Three--or_so--Economies_(3.5e_Other)

The three economies of dnd explains how there isn't just one economy. Gold has next to no value to a turnip farmer because he cant eat it. Turnips have no value to the high level cleric who can conjure his own. Lower level magic items have no value once you can cast wish. At the highest levels the most powerful beings simply trade in "favors".

You could easily break the economy stages up by player level.

That page appears to be blank.... I was quite looking forward to reading it.

edit: seems to be here (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/The_Three--or_so--Economies_(3.5e_Other)), and it's interesting, but.... not really systematic. It just hand-waves away the fact that two of these three economies basically drop a nuke on game-balance.

The Rose Dragon
2011-03-17, 01:02 PM
That page appears to be blank.... I was quite looking forward to reading it.

Put a close parenthesis sign at the end.

Doc Roc
2011-03-17, 01:07 PM
Put a close parenthesis sign at the end.

Already did. Ah the unmatched paren, bane of the hackish.

Just.... I dunno. Those economies may map closely to the reality of D&D as articulated in 3.x, but they pretty much sound unfun, even to me.

faceroll
2011-03-17, 01:40 PM
Already did. Ah the unmatched paren, bane of the hackish.

Just.... I dunno. Those economies may map closely to the reality of D&D as articulated in 3.x, but they pretty much sound unfun, even to me.

I think it was a Frank & K endeavor. I think it introduces neat concepts, but like much of Frank & K's stuff, sets the power level to a degree I am uncomfortable with.

Doc Roc
2011-03-17, 01:41 PM
I think it was a Frank & K endeavor. I think it introduces neat concepts, but like much of Frank & K's stuff, sets the power level to a degree I am uncomfortable with.

It did taste pretty F&K. It felt polished while being totally unfinished. ;)

Privateer
2011-03-17, 10:22 PM
The abstraction of the profession skill is annoying to me. The selling or buying of large numbers of objects in a market without an impact on the price annoys me. And yet I don't want the complexities to bog down play.


Abstracted profession is not as bad as people think once you add a houserule to require minimum skill mod for each profession depending on its difficulty.

The biggest objection to abstracted profession is that Profession(lumberjack) makes the same money as Profession(lawyer). But this is easily remedied. You cannot practice Profession(lawyer) if your total modifier is below about 6 - nobody will give you the job and if you open your own business you will fail. But you can be a Profession(lumberjack) even with a total mod of -2.

Large quantities that flood the market are easily modelled by a demand curve(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_curve). Using a linear function would be simplest.

Here is a pre-made, relatively simple, but not very realistic(still way more so than original DnD, though!) system for modelling all kinds of events effect on local prices for various goods: http://gez117.free.fr/dnd/economics.html

Is there anything specific that is a problem for you in the economy? I find the D&D 3.5 economy to be reasonable with some minor houseruling and nerfing obviously exploitative effects like selling wall of iron, using fabricate as RAW, and other get rich quick tricks. :smallsmile:

faceroll
2011-03-17, 11:51 PM
Abstracted profession is not as bad as people think once you add a houserule to require minimum skill mod for each profession depending on its difficulty.

The biggest objection to abstracted profession is that Profession(lumberjack) makes the same money as Profession(lawyer). But this is easily remedied. You cannot practice Profession(lawyer) if your total modifier is below about 6 - nobody will give you the job and if you open your own business you will fail. But you can be a Profession(lumberjack) even with a total mod of -2.

Large quantities that flood the market are easily modelled by a demand curve(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_curve). Using a linear function would be simplest.

Here is a pre-made, relatively simple, but not very realistic(still way more so than original DnD, though!) system for modelling all kinds of events effect on local prices for various goods: http://gez117.free.fr/dnd/economics.html

Is there anything specific that is a problem for you in the economy? I find the D&D 3.5 economy to be reasonable with some minor houseruling and nerfing obviously exploitative effects like selling wall of iron, using fabricate as RAW, and other get rich quick tricks. :smallsmile:

Or a lawyer with a -2 check is really a ****ty paralegal, and a lumberjack with +6 is really good at cutting a lot of trees down very fast.

Eldan
2011-03-18, 03:23 AM
And someone with a mod of +12 and a belt of giant size is Paul Bunyan.

I'd assume that someone with a Profession: Lawyer mod of +4 and two ranks is a law student who got a job filing old cases.

Bogardan_Mage
2011-03-18, 05:07 AM
Speaking as someone in an economics course...


A working economy for DnD is less realistic than a working one. Medieval economies did NOT work in the conventional system that the modern economy does with prices set by supply and demand. In a medieval economy, because of a lack of education, freedom to trade, or property rights, prices will be arbitrary and will fluctuate greatly. The kings and guilds will set prices however they like, and take whatever they like, because they CAN.

There's a reason that the Industrial Revolution happened only AFTER freedom to trade, education, and property rights were established in enough countries. As such, a working supply/demand economy for DnD is infeasible, even before you try to work in the gameplay issues.
Well first of all, even a medieval economy is going to operate on some kind of principles. I'm not convinced the RAW reflects even the system you describe. Secondly, D&D isn't really medieval. It's a little bit of what a late 20th/early 21st century person thinks the medieval era was like, a little bit of Tolkien's Middle Earth (which wasn't medieval either, contrary to popular belief), and a little bit of magic everywhere which should by all rights have a massive impact on even the most tightly controlled command economy.

I rather like the Wealth system from D20 Modern. It's basically saying "Even if we could model the economy accurately in this game, it would be boring and tedious. Instead, let's abstract it like we do everything else". I know a lot of people hate it, but I don't really know why. The infinite buying "exploit" is a misreading of the rules (and/or a very lenient GM) and it's not really any more complicated than any other d20 check. On the other hand, it makes Profession even more abstracted, so the OP might not find it helpful.

Jay R
2011-03-18, 10:02 AM
Wizards must be extremely rare. They should not be usable to affect the entire economy.

Magic items must be extremely rare.

But more than anything else, most of the world's wealth must not be left out it the wilderness to be just found.

The biggest problem is that a few people can walk into the wilderness and expect to return in a few weeks with more gold than Europe ever had at one time. Fix this, and everything else will fall into place.

(I have often speculated that the only change needed is to eliminate all Bags of Holding and equivalents, and enforce encumbrance rules strictly.)

Gamer Girl
2011-03-18, 11:38 AM
For a somewhat easy fix, why not just make gold of more value?

Right now the game is set up so that under 100 gold is cheap, 1,000 is average and 10,000+ is expensive. But it's all biased on the idea that a group of folks can walk out into the wilderness for a couple days and come back with 15,000 gold coins, plus loot.

So how about making 10 gold cheap, 100 average, and anything more then that expensive. So a first level encounter would get you 30 gold, not 300.

Would that work, reduce all costs by 10?

And throw out 'wealth by level', your level should not effect your wealth.


Anyone remember 1E or even 2E.....back in them days PC's never had any real money. I can remember players that would all the time grab things like 'half melted iron candle holders' just to be able to sell them for two silver pieces so they would have some money. How do we bring that back...

tyckspoon
2011-03-18, 12:07 PM
Anyone remember 1E or even 2E.....back in them days PC's never had any real money. I can remember players that would all the time grab things like 'half melted iron candle holders' just to be able to sell them for two silver pieces so they would have some money. How do we bring that back...

I thought that had more to do with the xp-for-gp thing, really; when scrounging those 10 GP worth of incidental sellables might make the difference between making your next level or not (and you didn't even have to fight anything extra to get it!), well, you dug for every GP.

Shademan
2011-03-18, 12:09 PM
I basically just throw out the phb price list and set the price myself. in my current game I even made silver the main currency, and people tend to barter more than they sell/buy

Doc Roc
2011-03-18, 12:32 PM
For a somewhat easy fix, why not just make gold of more value?

Right now the game is set up so that under 100 gold is cheap, 1,000 is average and 10,000+ is expensive. But it's all biased on the idea that a group of folks can walk out into the wilderness for a couple days and come back with 15,000 gold coins, plus loot.

So how about making 10 gold cheap, 100 average, and anything more then that expensive. So a first level encounter would get you 30 gold, not 300.

Would that work, reduce all costs by 10?

And throw out 'wealth by level', your level should not effect your wealth.


The issue is that wealth is power, in D&D. Raw, unfettered, game-shredding power. Level is the intended metric for power, so we link wealth to level. If you want wealth to be decoupled from level, then you need to decouple wealth from power, and thus from magic items. I know people think this problem should have a simple fix, but the issue is that you're playing with the control-elements for a very complex catalytic reaction. There is no simple fix. There is no one broken piece.

Decouple magic items from wealth then means you need to talk intelligently about them on a per level basis, which leads to issues because now you've made some implicit expectations explicit. It's something that seems to really infuriate a few people about Legend, but I'm positive we made the right decision. Then again, our magic items are pretty different too, more geared towards utility or providing new abilities than simply pumping numbers.

Fun story though: If you do it right, this means you can tell a story about poor adventurers or ancient wealthy conspirators without changing the system at all.

Wouldn't that be nice?

BRC
2011-03-18, 03:04 PM
The issue is that wealth is power, in D&D. Raw, unfettered, game-shredding power. Level is the intended metric for power, so we link wealth to level. If you want wealth to be decoupled from level, then you need to decouple wealth from power, and thus from magic items. I know people think this problem should have a simple fix, but the issue is that you're playing with the control-elements for a very complex catalytic reaction. There is no simple fix. There is no one broken piece.

Decouple magic items from wealth then means you need to talk intelligently about them on a per level basis, which leads to issues because now you've made some implicit expectations explicit. It's something that seems to really infuriate a few people about Legend, but I'm positive we made the right decision. Then again, our magic items are pretty different too, more geared towards utility or providing new abilities than simply pumping numbers.

Fun story though: If you do it right, this means you can tell a story about poor adventurers or ancient wealthy conspirators without changing the system at all.

Wouldn't that be nice?

The problem is that, within DnD, there is little to spend money on besides Magic items. They are too much a part of the system, especially the raw Boost items, like +1 weapons.

Were I designing a system from the ground up, I would separate "Static Boost" items from "Special" items, with Static Boost items being a routine thing that could be acquired with standard wealth while Special items are rare and unique things you can't count on receiving.
This way, spending your wealth on Static Boosts becomes just another decision when leveling up your character, akin to "What feat should I pick", it's "do I spend my money on a better bow or a a better sword".

In this hypothetical system, Special items (Like, say a Decanter of Endless Water) would only be gained by questing. You couldn't buy them from the genric Magic Item Mart. Buying one would either mean hunting down somebody who has one (Perhaps a quest in of itself), or perhaps there are three random ones (DM rolls) available in the magic item shops.

...Hrmm, you know that actually isn't that incompatible with standard DnD...

Tyndmyr
2011-03-18, 03:12 PM
(I have often speculated that the only change needed is to eliminate all Bags of Holding and equivalents, and enforce encumbrance rules strictly.)

I've seen it tried by a GM.

This can be circumvented. First, encumbrance on high str characters is...impressive. They can carry ridiculous amounts. They can drag 4x ridiculous amounts. This leads to the loot-sled.

Then, we have teleportation. A GM described in great deal an immense underground warehouse once. Far, far too much stuff to carry, and stuff that was fairly heavy/bulky for the gold. We looted every bit of it, because I could teleport half a dozen times per day. Oh, sure, it took a little while, but a teleport for an entire party with everything we can carry? That's a lotta stuff.

Nah, it's fairly easy to circumvent such tricks.


Edit: I think the easiest solution is to decouple power from level, and realize that total power will be a function of wealth and level...or just go back to getting xp from loot if you want to keep level constant with wealth

Doc Roc
2011-03-18, 03:48 PM
The problem is that, within DnD, there is little to spend money on besides Magic items. They are too much a part of the system, especially the raw Boost items, like +1 weapons.

Were I designing a system from the ground up, I would separate "Static Boost" items from "Special" items, with Static Boost items being a routine thing that could be acquired with standard wealth while Special items are rare and unique things you can't count on receiving.
This way, spending your wealth on Static Boosts becomes just another decision when leveling up your character, akin to "What feat should I pick", it's "do I spend my money on a better bow or a a better sword".

In this hypothetical system, Special items (Like, say a Decanter of Endless Water) would only be gained by questing. You couldn't buy them from the genric Magic Item Mart. Buying one would either mean hunting down somebody who has one (Perhaps a quest in of itself), or perhaps there are three random ones (DM rolls) available in the magic item shops.

...Hrmm, you know that actually isn't that incompatible with standard DnD...

It's certainly a better answer than banning bags of holding in the vague hope that some weird portion of the problem will slough away, or merely changing some pricing.


I think there's plenty to spend money on, in D&D, beyond magic items. It's just generally a terrible plan when you could buy magic items. I'd love to purchase diplomatic immunity, buy a noble title, subvert a bank, and set myself up as a robber baron.



Edit: I think the easiest solution is to decouple power from level, and realize that total power will be a function of wealth and level...or just go back to getting xp from loot if you want to keep level constant with wealth

That was our original plan, as guilds were originally a way of getting power to decouple from level almost completely. We did try it, and it certainly worked pretty well. It's hard to do, but doable.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-18, 03:52 PM
I think there's plenty to spend money on, in D&D, beyond magic items. It's just generally a terrible plan when you could buy magic items. I'd love to purchase diplomatic immunity, buy a noble title, subvert a bank, and set myself up as a robber baron.

These all sound like fantastic roleplaying opportunities...in fact, one common complaint I've heard about SBG is that it's more rational to spend the money on magic items. It...kinda is. But that doesn't mean SBG is *bad*. It's fairly reasonable on a mundane scale. Castles SHOULD cost fair amounts of money. So should armies.

It's that when the choice is between anything else and adding more items to your character, the latter is almost always a better use of gold. Separating that out seems almost mandatory. Even with the flat stat buffs...I feel like getting larger stat bonuses would take priority over everything else.

Doc Roc
2011-03-18, 03:55 PM
These all sound like fantastic roleplaying opportunities...in fact, one common complaint I've heard about SBG is that it's more rational to spend the money on magic items. It...kinda is. But that doesn't mean SBG is *bad*. It's fairly reasonable on a mundane scale. Castles SHOULD cost fair amounts of money. So should armies.

It's that when the choice is between anything else and adding more items to your character, the latter is almost always a better use of gold. Separating that out seems almost mandatory. Even with the flat stat buffs...I feel like getting larger stat bonuses would take priority over everything else.

The other issue is that SBG produces some things that are.... Well. Unspeakable. Like The Cube, or Havendril.

Eldan
2011-03-18, 04:49 PM
Actually, I'd rather do away with static boosts entirely. Or at least make them rare. Rebalance the system so that for the fighter, the Belt of Giant's Strength +2 is awesome, instead of the belt +6 being a necessity.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-18, 04:54 PM
Im not against stat boosts existing at all...I think they serve a valuable purpose, especially for heavily MAD characters...but I do think making them innate boosts that are disconnected from the wealth system would probably be desirable.

Doc Roc
2011-03-18, 04:56 PM
Im not against stat boosts existing at all...I think they serve a valuable purpose, especially for heavily MAD characters...but I do think making them innate boosts that are disconnected from the wealth system would probably be desirable.

Agreed. :)

dps
2011-03-18, 05:19 PM
Wizards must be extremely rare. They should not be usable to affect the entire economy.

Magic items must be extremely rare.

But more than anything else, most of the world's wealth must not be left out it the wilderness to be just found.

The biggest problem is that a few people can walk into the wilderness and expect to return in a few weeks with more gold than Europe ever had at one time. Fix this, and everything else will fall into place.


The problem here is that this would go a long way towards fixing the economy, but screws up other aspects of gameplay. If wizards and magic items are extremely rare, then a party with any decent magic-user becomes extremely powerful and almost unstoppable. Of course, you could ban PCs from being magic-users (in a world with magic-users being extremely rare, it's likely that all magic-users would be either in the employ of extremely wealthy or powerful rulers or groups, or would be powers in and of themselves, rather than members of adventuring parties) but good luck getting a party together without someone throwing a fit about not being able to play a magic-user. Also, a party in such a situation wouldn't have any access to healing, so combat would be a very dicey proposition.

NichG
2011-03-18, 07:20 PM
The problem here is that this would go a long way towards fixing the economy, but screws up other aspects of gameplay. If wizards and magic items are extremely rare, then a party with any decent magic-user becomes extremely powerful and almost unstoppable. Of course, you could ban PCs from being magic-users (in a world with magic-users being extremely rare, it's likely that all magic-users would be either in the employ of extremely wealthy or powerful rulers or groups, or would be powers in and of themselves, rather than members of adventuring parties) but good luck getting a party together without someone throwing a fit about not being able to play a magic-user. Also, a party in such a situation wouldn't have any access to healing, so combat would be a very dicey proposition.

There's a stage of rarity between 'PC-only' and 'for purchase'. That is, the rarity such that the big threats in the world are people with access to magic, but there are only, say, 800 of them world-wide. If you make the cost of magic items entirely based on xp (themed as soul or life energy), with no significant wealth component, then its easy for those who need them to have magic items so long as they're willing to pay the sacrifice. The availability then becomes a matter of level - you have a bigger pool of spare xp at level 17 than level 1.

Doc Roc
2011-03-18, 07:25 PM
There's a stage of rarity between 'PC-only' and 'for purchase'. That is, the rarity such that the big threats in the world are people with access to magic, but there are only, say, 800 of them world-wide. If you make the cost of magic items entirely based on xp (themed as soul or life energy), with no significant wealth component, then its easy for those who need them to have magic items so long as they're willing to pay the sacrifice. The availability then becomes a matter of level - you have a bigger pool of spare xp at level 17 than level 1.

Would casters still be the crafters?

NichG
2011-03-18, 07:54 PM
Would casters still be the crafters?

I could see doing it a number of ways.

One: Make crafting a separate specialized thing, so people can cast but only a very small number of people can craft. That would creates the sort of rarity the previous poster was talking about without making it so no one can play the wizard. Magic items are rare but magic isn't.

Two: Make crafting something the casters (and in principle anyone) can do, but make the personal price high. Good news - the price is transferable! This could be xp, 'life force' (permanent irreversible stat loss associated with making items), etc. The main thing here you have to avoid is the party deciding to take everything captive and drain it of life force. Or rather, you might have to make the price truly monumental so that such a method is impractical for the PCs as single actors, but convenient for massive evil empires (i.e. it takes >100000xp worth of soul to enchant a +5 sword...). Now only evil organizations start with magic items, but the PCs can quickly loot themselves up the chain of command. Perhaps un-compelled willing sacrifice generates a better exchange rate (magic items come from sacrifices to the gods, and the evil gods like quantity over quality?).

Two-b: The resource is non-transferrable, and pretty ghastly in price, but occasionally mages/crafters/whatever create items on their deathbeds to be their legacy, or they get really desperate and are willing to sacrifice. Works will with the 'irrevocable loss of stat' model - few people are going to be able to mass produce +1 swords if each costs a point of Con permanently that must come from them. Makes being the party crafter really suck though, so expect that role to vanish.

Three: Make magic items be entirely due to historical importance and age (the 'everything is a relic' model, somewhat like L5R uses in its fluff). You can never set out to make a true magic item, but you can make a legend that becomes magic with time and use. The least monetizable version of the solution.

Gamer Girl
2011-03-18, 09:16 PM
I'm wondering if anyone's developed any houserules that improve (for example) the way shortage and plenty, the use of magic or the presence of unusual creatures are modeled in the economies of D&D worlds?

Use of Magic houserule:

Set the magic level for the area, from 1 to 10, zero for none. This represents the amount of magic that directly effects the area. 1 is the lowest as there will only be one or two spellcasters and magic items in the area. 5 is average, where there would be about 20 spellcasters and magic items in an area. And 10 is where everyone is a spellcaster and has magic items.

The cost of items and services is then reduced by 10% per magic level. So 10% for level 1 and 50% for level 5 and 100% for level 10.

Example-Horses: At level one a single spellcaster in the area controls weather to make crops grow, so horses are a bit cheaper(10%). At level five you have three clerics and druids that care for the animals, the land and the farm, plus a wizard or two that makes things like 'a endless feed bag', so horses here are 50% cheaper. At level 10, the spell mount is known to all, as are wands of mount and items that create or summon mounts. Plus horses can be polymorphed as needed, so a horse is free.

Privateer
2011-03-19, 03:26 AM
These all sound like fantastic roleplaying opportunities...in fact, one common complaint I've heard about SBG is that it's more rational to spend the money on magic items. It...kinda is. But that doesn't mean SBG is *bad*. It's fairly reasonable on a mundane scale. Castles SHOULD cost fair amounts of money. So should armies.

It's that when the choice is between anything else and adding more items to your character, the latter is almost always a better use of gold.

Here's a question, though.

Magic items do not come from thin air, mostly. Somebody must have either found it in a cold dark tomb or created it, using his precious time and experience.

If it is ALWAYS, OBVIOUSLY the best choice to spend money on magic items, then who is the idiot NPC in your game world that actually sells them to you? Why do they not realize that they are getting the short end of the deal, and therefore simply ask for a higher price until they feel the deal is fair?

This goes double for items whose creation requires the caster to be a high level, such as rings, because no matter what level you are, you still can only make 1000gp worth of magic item per day. Obviously, a 6th level caster making a low-end item can be persuaded to do so for a much lower daily profit than a 12th level caster, who would be required to make any ring.

IMHO, this is key to creating a good economy. Somebody in your economy has to be selling what you are buying, or be willing to buy what you are selling. Figure out who it is and how much he wants or is willing to pay, and it all starts making sense.

Don't get me started on SBG, though. :smalltongue: All you need to do is ask the same question. Who is that NPC character that will commision construction of a minor keep for hundreds of thousands of GPs, instead of outfitting himself with insanely powerful items that can be had for that price? And if nobody commissions those castles, how do they come into being?

Firechanter
2011-03-19, 04:52 AM
Bags of Holding etc. effectively just cancel out the absurd inflation of "precious" commodities. The value of gold in D&D is nearly zilch compared to real history. Look at the DMG tables for living upkeep: almost a pound of gold per _month_ for a "basic" lifestyle. In real history, a pound of gold let you live like a king for a year.

If you want to make economics realistic, you _first_ have to ensure that precious metals are in fact precious. Then you can easily kick bags of holding and suchlike.

Conan D20 actually was on the right track: there, the normal currency is silver, not gold, and a handful of silver is enough to live in comfort for quite a while. A pound of gold is quite a fortune, not pocket money. Of course, Conan also has a completely different gear economy, no magic items etc. so you can't just transfer that one on one to D&D.

Firechanter
2011-03-19, 05:23 AM
Oh and another thing. About Wealth by Level. As it has been pointed out, wealth is an integral part of the game balance. This is for a good part due to the fact that your AC can _only_ be increased by money, and not (or only very marginally) by skill. A level 20 fighter without gear is just as easy to hit as a level 1 fighter. That doesn't make sense in terms of realism, but that's D&D for you. Some say that 50% of character wealth should go into AC, so go figure -- you can't just remove the cash and expect your game not to break down.
(In fact, I have seen games where it came to a vicious circle: low-AC characters had high healing costs, so they stayed poor, and their AC didn't improve. high-AC characters had little healing costs, got rich quick, were able to get even higher AC, and get richer.)

Of course, dividing everything by 10 does work. No harm in that. Doesn't change anything except shift the suspension of disbelief: the amounts of money carried around are more credible, but the average dragon hoard is reduced by factor 10, too.

Otherwise, there are more approaches how to remove or reduce the need for cash:
A) implement character- or class-inherent AC progression. The only gear that influences your AC are armour and shield. Requires some fiddling to find out the appropriate progressions.
B) reassign gold as a meta-ressource. Ingame currency is something entirely different from wealth by level. You don't buy items at Magic Mart. Your level 12 character can be piss-poor ingame, but still you can spend your ressource points to acquire that mithral full plate in some way -- maybe a dwarven smith owes you a favour. You can keep item prices and wealth by level tables, only that they aren't in "gold pieces" but "gear points", and 10.000GP and a penny buy you a cup of coffee, if you get my meaning.

Yahzi
2011-03-19, 05:52 AM
I'm wondering if anyone's developed any houserules that improve (for example) the way shortage and plenty, the use of magic or the presence of unusual creatures are modeled in the economies of D&D worlds?
They're actually not as bad as all that, despite occasional absurdities. Check out my Ye Olde Shoppe (at DriveThruRPG) for a barely-homebrewed complete picture.

As for fixing the magic economics, that's simple: XP is tangible. 1 XP = 5 gp, just like in the DMG. You can buy and sell the stuff just like any other resource. Then, make the main source of XP be peasants, and bam! you've got a nice feudal economy going.

Again, check out my World of Prime worldbook for how it works.



or just go back to getting xp from loot if you want to keep level constant with wealth
Yes! Yes! That is the point! The whole point of D&D is that XP is loot, and loot is XP. Instead of pretending otherwise, just go with it. That dragon is sleeping on a big pile of XP, which you can a) level up with, b) give to your henchmen to level up, c) turn into magic items, or d) sell to other people for gold.

Players can now manage the most important resource in this resource-management game, and DMs have a rational economy/political structure. See that rich Duke with the teeming hordes of peasants? He's too powerful for you to mess with. You can tell because he's rich. He got rich by protecting peasants; when they die (natural) deaths he gets their XP, which makes him powerful enough to protect them from monsters!

And why don't Shadows take over the world? Because it costs XP to spawn a monster (exactly as much for a CR 3 monster as for a 3rd level character). So they could drain a village and spawn one or two new shadows, and then some Duke would come along with a magic sword and kill them for stealing from him.

Seriously - this is the way D&D was meant to be played.

Loot is XP.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-19, 08:45 AM
Here's a question, though.

Magic items do not come from thin air, mostly. Somebody must have either found it in a cold dark tomb or created it, using his precious time and experience.

If it is ALWAYS, OBVIOUSLY the best choice to spend money on magic items, then who is the idiot NPC in your game world that actually sells them to you? Why do they not realize that they are getting the short end of the deal, and therefore simply ask for a higher price until they feel the deal is fair?

This isn't actually a problem. A better way to frame it is to say that magic items are best for PCs.

For a king outfitting an army, he can field a ludicrous amount of bowmen with standard weapons for the price of a man with a +1 longbow.

Now, sure, you've got the situations that *only* magical things can handle...but for absolutely everything else, magical items are a terribly expensive solution to the problem.

And frankly, It's probably more economical to hire adventurers to fix those other issues if they're at all infrequent.


Don't get me started on SBG, though. :smalltongue: All you need to do is ask the same question. Who is that NPC character that will commision construction of a minor keep for hundreds of thousands of GPs, instead of outfitting himself with insanely powerful items that can be had for that price? And if nobody commissions those castles, how do they come into being?

Actually, you can make some fairly functional, very inexpensive structures with SBG. It's just that they all tend to have very specific similarities.

Doc Roc
2011-03-19, 02:02 PM
Or they're flyin terror engines driven by the possessive ghost of a player character.

I have much to teach you if you think sbg is weak.

Privateer
2011-03-19, 02:34 PM
This isn't actually a problem. A better way to frame it is to say that magic items are best for PCs.

For a king outfitting an army, he can field a ludicrous amount of bowmen with standard weapons for the price of a man with a +1 longbow.

Now, sure, you've got the situations that *only* magical things can handle...but for absolutely everything else, magical items are a terribly expensive solution to the problem.


But you are forgetting that power grows non-linearly with level. I.e. a PC party of good equipment and level can wipe out an army. I started a thread a while back about what could a wizard do when faced with a king's army of low-levels. It was surprising the number of effective strategies folks came up with. So, sure, a king can field many bowmen, but he will then lose a war to the other king who funnelled most of his money into elite forces and left his mundane army on a shoestring budget.

If most problems could be solved by a large army of low-levels, then adventurers wouldn't need items. They'd just build up an army of their own mercenaries.

But it doesn't work too well. Early levels, you're not all that rich to hire mercenary companies. Later on, said companies are useless against the sort of thing you are facing.



Actually, you can make some fairly functional, very inexpensive structures with SBG. It's just that they all tend to have very specific similarities.

Can you give an example? I'm honestly curious about a cost-efficient inexpensive structure that might come from SBG, where a simple tavern will set you back 15K, if memory serves. Given that your guests pay 5sp per night on average, it'll be a looooong time before you make that back. And by the time you do, somebody will probably burn the thing down. :smallwink:

Doc Roc
2011-03-19, 03:41 PM
Welcome to 2006! You just found out there are problems with the core balance of 3.x re: world simulation! Fortunately, the opposing king could just field naked wizards on the cheap!

Privateer
2011-03-19, 04:20 PM
Welcome to 2006! You just found out there are problems with the core balance of 3.x re: world simulation! Fortunately, the opposing king could just field naked wizards on the cheap!

Not if wizards are as rare as they should be.

Doc Roc
2011-03-19, 04:27 PM
Not if wizards are as rare as they should be.

Why should they be rare?

rayne_dragon
2011-03-19, 04:39 PM
I find that it might be best just to accept it as an abstraction and try to give a sense of realism by introducing some elements of real economics. One of the things I like to do is use the book prices as a baseline for what items cost at the start of the campaign and as time goes on alter the cost of categories of items depending on the areas the players visit, the events of the plot, and the actions of the players. For instance, if the players start flooding the market with salt then the price of salt rapidly drops. Or if they clear out an iron mine being occupied by orcs, the cost of iron goods drops so they can buy armour and weapons cheaper.

Privateer
2011-03-19, 10:08 PM
Why should they be rare?

First of all, wizard is a PC class and I thought the whole point of those it that they should be much more rare than NPC classes. Also, a wizard can make a magic item worth 7000gp in a week. To do that he needs 3500gp worth of magic materials. Assuming those are produced by NPCs with Profession, you need about 350 apprentices gathering materials for one wizard, not counting mundane needs like food, etc.

Not to mention that, as was mentioned before, large numbers of wizards would completely destroy the D&D economy, so your choice is between having wizards be rare and having the world be completely different than what we are assuming it is based on fantasy books/movies.

All of that, in my mind, leads to the conclusion that wizards should be pretty rare if you want to have a "regular" fantasy game with a reasonable economy.

Tyndmyr
2011-03-19, 10:18 PM
Or they're flyin terror engines driven by the possessive ghost of a player character.

I have much to teach you if you think sbg is weak.

You can build things in it that are a waste of gold, sure...you can also build some fairly useful stuff for a moderate investment if you're careful.

And yes, picking the optimal location for cost reducers to build a flying fortress is one fun trick. After all, you might as well. Magical traps are also terrific, and really, you never need high DCs for search AND disarming, so you might as well mitigate the cost by dumping one of em.

Privateer...it's situational at best. Yes, leveled PCs can kill a *lot* of mooks. Mooks are ridiculously cheaper to hire, though. Also ridiculously cheaper to outfit. Eventually, mooks roll 20s. Or they use the barrage rules from HoB. Look at the prices for adventurers....it's a rather wealthy kingdom that could afford the services of any significant number of them on a constant basis. And there are many things for which masses of mooks are better than a few adventurers. For instance, being in many places at once.

For specific examples of effective, cheap SBG structures, I'd like to point out the free wooden walls on the first floor above ground, and free stone walls for the first below ground. I'd also like to point out that the cheapest of modules are only a coupla hundred gold(before we start mitigating that cost away with location, etc). You can make a ring of modules enclosing an open area fairly cheaply, which results in a surprisingly historical fort.

Lets consider, a guard post on either side of the main enterance(which will be a simple large door, rather than anything ridiculous). An office for the leader, 2 barracks, 1 bath, 1 servants quarters, 1 shop, 1 armory, and 1 dock. It's a whopping 3810 gp before mitigation. You can add as many freestanding walls as you feel necessary for free, provided you keep the height to one floor. I'd like to point out that if you do it underground, you're immune to attacks from the sky. Generally superior. You can also stack on about 20% of mitigation or so easy...probably more if one of you has spells you can justify as helping. Plus, on an NPC, the landlord feat, even after all that, can cut expenses in half. A smart NPC is looking at a solid outpost for somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 gold.

Bogardan_Mage
2011-03-19, 10:40 PM
First of all, wizard is a PC class and I thought the whole point of those it that they should be much more rare than NPC classes. Also, a wizard can make a magic item worth 7000gp in a week. To do that he needs 3500gp worth of magic materials. Assuming those are produced by NPCs with Profession, you need about 350 apprentices gathering materials for one wizard, not counting mundane needs like food, etc.

Not to mention that, as was mentioned before, large numbers of wizards would completely destroy the D&D economy, so your choice is between having wizards be rare and having the world be completely different than what we are assuming it is based on fantasy books/movies.

All of that, in my mind, leads to the conclusion that wizards should be pretty rare if you want to have a "regular" fantasy game with a reasonable economy.
Wait, if wizards are rare because they're PC classes, and NPC class armies are weak because they can't stand up to PCs, haven't you solved your own problem? The king can't just hire higher level mercenaries, because they're rare enough to cost more gold than they're worth.

Privateer
2011-03-20, 12:15 AM
Wait, if wizards are rare because they're PC classes, and NPC class armies are weak because they can't stand up to PCs, haven't you solved your own problem? The king can't just hire higher level mercenaries, because they're rare enough to cost more gold than they're worth.

Yep, that's precisely my view for why mundane armies exist. The kings would seek out the highest-level heroes of the land they can attract and outfit them as best they can, then use them as the main striking force. Then use the remainder of money to buy gear for their regular troops, which is much less expensive by comparison and can be had in great numbers. Think of PC classes as medieval knights and everybody else as peasant levies. You need levies, but in the end the battle will often be decided by knights.

Which is why I'd think magic items would be very valuable to independent adventurers and powerful rulers alike.

Bogardan_Mage
2011-03-20, 03:54 AM
Yep, that's precisely my view for why mundane armies exist. The kings would seek out the highest-level heroes of the land they can attract and outfit them as best they can, then use them as the main striking force. Then use the remainder of money to buy gear for their regular troops, which is much less expensive by comparison and can be had in great numbers. Think of PC classes as medieval knights and everybody else as peasant levies. You need levies, but in the end the battle will often be decided by knights.

Which is why I'd think magic items would be very valuable to independent adventurers and powerful rulers alike.
Ok, but not to the merchant selling them. Or even some wizard who'd rather craft magic items than risk his own life on the front lines (not everyone can have that adventuring spirit). I thought the whole point of this line of conversation was how magic items get sold if it's always in someone's best interest to obtain as many magic items as possible. The answer is, it isn't, it's just in the best interest for adventurers (and, as you point out, people who hire adventurers).

Tyndmyr
2011-03-20, 06:46 AM
The economics of D&D, as written, revolve around adventurers, though. The primary purpose of them is to establish things for the PCs, not simulate a world.

Yes, ideally a set of rules should do both well. Realistically, it does the PC prices okish, and simulation...eh....

Jay R
2011-03-20, 09:00 AM
The economics of D&D, as written, revolve around adventurers, though. The primary purpose of them is to establish things for the PCs, not simulate a world.

Thank you. This is the most succinct description of the problem I've ever seen.

Matamane
2011-03-20, 09:27 AM
supply and demand should be up to DM discretion. More so, you can make cities where you can buy specific magic items few and far between. Potato economies and the like should be a good part of the world. Have them put their gold towards something worthwhile. Its macro managing wealth

Doc Roc
2011-03-20, 05:33 PM
The economics of D&D, as written, revolve around adventurers, though. The primary purpose of them is to establish things for the PCs, not simulate a world.

Yes, ideally a set of rules should do both well. Realistically, it does the PC prices okish, and simulation...eh....

To extend this idea, the consideration generally omitted in all of this is the incredibly high mortality rate of adventurers. Magic items are expensive because they keep slipping from the cold dead hands of idiots who got lost a mile and a half underground. If you've seen some of the cost reduction tricks a good artificer can pull off, you'd know full well that the actual cost of magic items is pretty low, all told, particularly if you're clever about it.

faceroll
2011-03-23, 04:54 PM
Anyone remember 1E or even 2E.....back in them days PC's never had any real money. I can remember players that would all the time grab things like 'half melted iron candle holders' just to be able to sell them for two silver pieces so they would have some money. How do we bring that back...

Depends on the DM. I'm running a set of Gygax modules, and he has random rings of wishes lying around. Totally monty haul.


I've seen it tried by a GM.

This can be circumvented. First, encumbrance on high str characters is...impressive. They can carry ridiculous amounts. They can drag 4x ridiculous amounts. This leads to the loot-sled.

Then, we have teleportation. A GM described in great deal an immense underground warehouse once. Far, far too much stuff to carry, and stuff that was fairly heavy/bulky for the gold. We looted every bit of it, because I could teleport half a dozen times per day. Oh, sure, it took a little while, but a teleport for an entire party with everything we can carry? That's a lotta stuff.

Nah, it's fairly easy to circumvent such tricks.


Edit: I think the easiest solution is to decouple power from level, and realize that total power will be a function of wealth and level...or just go back to getting xp from loot if you want to keep level constant with wealth

Yup. Mount is a level 1 spell. Free horses means you get to carry a crap ton of stuff out of the dungeon. Just have to carry a lot of bits & bridles with you.


Im not against stat boosts existing at all...I think they serve a valuable purpose, especially for heavily MAD characters...but I do think making them innate boosts that are disconnected from the wealth system would probably be desirable.

That, and/or making them cheaper and have the numbers they add account only for certain things. Like a +2 int item only lets your int count as two points higher for the purpose of int based skill/ability checks, feats, and casting higher level spells, but it won't increase your spells/day or spell DCs.

A circlet of persuasion is a more elegant item, imo, than a cloak of charisma.


The economics of D&D, as written, revolve around adventurers, though. The primary purpose of them is to establish things for the PCs, not simulate a world.

Yes, ideally a set of rules should do both well. Realistically, it does the PC prices okish, and simulation...eh....

Not really, they're kind of half-assed gamism/simulationism rules in 3.x. Either go with a 4e/Legend system, or suffer the quasi-realism attempt in 3.x and require a lot of handwaving and "no, you can't do that."


To extend this idea, the consideration generally omitted in all of this is the incredibly high mortality rate of adventurers. Magic items are expensive because they keep slipping from the cold dead hands of idiots who got lost a mile and a half underground. If you've seen some of the cost reduction tricks a good artificer can pull off, you'd know full well that the actual cost of magic items is pretty low, all told, particularly if you're clever about it.

Speaking of artificers, you reminded me of something in one of the Eberron books. Eberron is probably the highest magic-tech setting, ignoring the over 9000 but quaintly dirt farming that is Faerun, but even in that, there's fluff about how their floating cities will one day crash because they're going to use too magic. While there may not be any hard rules about using too much magic, in much of the fluff of the settings, too much magic will often end poorly for your civilization. Sure, you enjoyed 400 years of oppressive, tyrannical rule. Then it all blew up and the left over pieces of your civilization are now floating around, being traded for small fortunes worth of gold.

Poor nations with mundane armies aren't really going to be engaging with rich armies and their legions of constructs and special op squads of teleporting invisible ghosts. Why go after Mundania when they lack the resources you want and require you to focus your resources away from the cold war with Magikopolis? I imagine fantasy warfare would end up more like Cold War style engagements, where two big players influence poor, autocratic countries so the powerful nations have cheap access to resources or strategic locations. But they can't push too hard, otherwise it'll be an Outsider Holocaust.

Doc Roc
2011-03-23, 05:00 PM
Speaking of artificers, you reminded me of something in one of the Eberron books. Eberron is probably the highest magic-tech setting, ignoring the over 9000 but quaintly dirt farming that is Faerun, but even in that, there's fluff about how their floating cities will one day crash because they're going to use too magic. While there may not be any hard rules about using too much magic, in much of the fluff of the settings, too much magic will often end poorly for your civilization. Sure, you enjoyed 400 years of oppressive, tyrannical rule. Then it all blew up and the left over pieces of your civilization are now floating around, being traded for small fortunes worth of gold.

Poor nations with mundane armies aren't really going to be engaging with rich armies and their legions of constructs and special op squads of teleporting invisible ghosts. Why go after Mundania when they lack the resources you want and require you to focus your resources away from the cold war with Magikopolis? I imagine fantasy warfare would end up more like Cold War style engagements, where two big players influence poor, autocratic countries so the powerful nations have cheap access to resources or strategic locations. But they can't push too hard, otherwise it'll be an Outsider Holocaust.

Can we play this game some time soon?

BRC
2011-03-23, 05:07 PM
\Speaking of artificers, you reminded me of something in one of the Eberron books. Eberron is probably the highest magic-tech setting, ignoring the over 9000 but quaintly dirt farming that is Faerun, but even in that, there's fluff about how their floating cities will one day crash because they're going to use too magic. While there may not be any hard rules about using too much magic, in much of the fluff of the settings, too much magic will often end poorly for your civilization. Sure, you enjoyed 400 years of oppressive, tyrannical rule. Then it all blew up and the left over pieces of your civilization are now floating around, being traded for small fortunes worth of gold.

Poor nations with mundane armies aren't really going to be engaging with rich armies and their legions of constructs and special op squads of teleporting invisible ghosts. Why go after Mundania when they lack the resources you want and require you to focus your resources away from the cold war with Magikopolis? I imagine fantasy warfare would end up more like Cold War style engagements, where two big players influence poor, autocratic countries so the powerful nations have cheap access to resources or strategic locations. But they can't push too hard, otherwise it'll be an Outsider Holocaust.
That actually sounds really awesome, I can picture the setting now.

Two powerful nations, each with incredibly powerful magic, maybe one nation is underground while the other lives in flying cities. Anyway, they both play a game of chess with the surface world. One nation supports a ruler, so the other starts giving magical weapons to a group of rebels and sends in a team of wizards to teleport in and take him out.

Doc Roc
2011-03-23, 05:11 PM
That actually sounds really awesome, I can picture the setting now.

Two powerful nations, each with incredibly powerful magic, maybe one nation is underground while the other lives in flying cities. Anyway, they both play a game of chess with the surface world. One nation supports a ruler, so the other starts giving magical weapons to a group of rebels and sends in a team of wizards to teleport in and take him out.

Depending on level of decadence, they may not even actually be engaged in what we think of as a cold war. It might literally be a game for them.

Eldan
2011-03-24, 04:46 AM
Well, that's what dragons already do, right? The great game. You could easily replace dragons with something else. Make it the Djinn of the air against the dragons of the earth. Or just cloud elves and shadow gnomes. Or two human nations.

You could also do a few bond-style adventures.
"Agent 700! The Djinn are building a giant gate to the Abyss on the island nation of Bakahavata-land! Take this shoe that shoots tanglefoot bags, this magic missile monocle and the belt of infinite rope and go stop them!"