Feedback on Possible Economy

[TheDarkSaint]

I'm building an economy for my world. We'll be checking once a game month for which social class they want to belong to and how much it costs. I put in ability modifiers to keep them from all just choosing homeless while having tons of money. The modifiers will take an ability down to 8 but no lower.

Those of you older gamers, you'll recognize EP as electrum pieces.

1 GP will equal 1,000 SP in this game
1 EP will equal 100 SP in this game.



The Cost of High End Living (per month) This style of living gives a temp +1 to Con, +2 to Cha and a whopping +5 to reputation scores. (Nobility, Rich Merchant families, The Powerful and Beautiful)

Rent of Villa, large apartment or country townhouse: 3-5gp
Fresh Food, well prepared, Exotic tastes: 3-5 EP
Expensive Clothing, highly varied: 7-10 EP (per year)




The cost of Middle Class living (per month) This style of living gives no bonus's or negatives to Constitution and Charisma. It does not affect your reputation score.


Rent of Small villa, Medium apartment or cabin outside of town: 3-5 EP
Medium grade food, bread, meats, dairy and vegetables, if in season: 1-2 EP
Average clothing. 1 outfit for dressing up: 2-3 EP (per year)



The cost of Lower Class living (per month) This style of living is hard on the body and soul and it wears people down. It gives a -1 modifer to Con and Cha for the month. It is non cumulative. It gives you a -2 reputation score.

Rent of tiny villa, small apartment or shack outside of town: 1-3 EP
Low grade food. Consisting mostly of grains and vegtables. Fruit and meat are rare: 50-75 SP
Poor quality clothing. Not replaced often. Shabby. No formal clothing: 100-150 SP (year)



The cost of being Homeless (per month) The style of living is extremely hard on the body and soul. It is unhealthy and can cause stress, depression and sickness. It gives a cumulative -2 modifier to Con and Cha per month. It gives a -5 to a reputation score.

Rent: Free! You can squat in abandoned building or sleep in the streets. Dangerous. On cold nights, you might consider getting a brothel room for 60 CP for the night
Food: Free! You eat what you can scrounge up, beg or steal. Dangerous.
Clothing: Free! You wear what other people throw out when it is too worn out or torn.



Feedback is appreciated. Do you see potential problems?

[Linkscoolfriend]

Is this going to be a main point of your setting? I recall when one of my DMs tried to organize a way to get us into being upper class citizens and it turned into us paying a years dues in advance so we got the bonuses without having to fret about his details. Is this what you foresee/would allow?

Unless it's a decided part of the campaign (like, known of and agreed on by the players) it might just become another way to part with a couple hundred gold and get a +1 con and +2 cha.

How lucrative of a living will your party be earning? Basically, would being upper class be easy or hard?

[TheDarkSaint]

Getting and keeping upper class is going to be difficult. It's a survival based game and resources are going to be scarce. I'm pretty free with XP but stingy with GP

[Linkscoolfriend]

In that case, it sounds pretty solid. The con penalty sounds steep to me, I would maybe think of rolling a random disease instead? Per month lived in poverty (ie homeless) you could roll for each player, allowing them saving throws as normal, although perhaps at a penalty.

As another thought, maybe the cha penalty could only apply when dealing with those of lower class and above and have the reverse effect when dealing with homeless and those who might be sympathetic, such as a church?

Same for the bonuses to cha for the upper class, only applying to those who might respect you, so obviously not the homeless, who probably resent your wealth.

[Alefiend]

What you're describing is not an economy, it's a set of standards of living.

I would not give bonuses or penalties to the stats themselves, but to certain skill checks and saves based on them. I also think you are not creating enough difference between upper-class and middle class in terms of material outlay and possessions. Rich folk be all like this, and po' folk be all like this.

Remember that, as you move up the social ladder, it's not so much about what you can rent, but about what you own. If I'm a noble or some other sort of important person, you'd better believe I own my home, and probably have properties that let me collect rent from other people..

It seems a bit weird that players can choose their social status. That's clunky to me, and would break immersion. Your position in society is not selected from a list of choices. Historically, there have been middle- and upper-class people who were penniless, but still lived at that level. It's assumed that if you are Status X, you are "good for" a certain amount of debt. Nobles had pretty much unlimited credit.

[Coidzor]

One problem as I see it is that it seems you are inflicting a constitution penalty onto people who are successful hunters, trappers, and foragers in a game based upon survival.

I am not an expert anthropologist or anything, but my general understanding was that successful hunter-gatherers were actually fairly healthy barring foreign diseases, such as the most infamous example of smallpox in the Americas.

[Alefiend]

One problem as I see it is that it seems you are inflicting a constitution penalty onto people who are successful hunters, trappers, and foragers in a game based upon survival.

I am not an expert anthropologist or anything, but my general understanding was that successful hunter-gatherers were actually fairly healthy barring foreign diseases, such as the most infamous example of smallpox in the Americas.

This too. Disease only blossomed into a major problem when we started large-scale living in cities, where there was little to no sanitation and we were packed close together with other folks' germs.

[Yahzi]

Feedback is appreciated. Do you see potential problems?
I did a fair amount of work trying to reconcile standard prices and incomes with real living conditions here: Ye Olde Shoppe (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=64423&filters=0_0_0_0_0&manufacturers_id=2849)

I do foresee a problem in giving them stat bonuses; your players will just plunk down the cash up front as if it were a magic item they were buying. :smallbiggrin:

[Alefiend]

I did a fair amount of work trying to reconcile standard prices and incomes with real living conditions here: Ye Olde Shoppe (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=64423&filters=0_0_0_0_0&manufacturers_id=2849)

I do foresee a problem in giving them stat bonuses; your players will just plunk down the cash up front as if it were a magic item they were buying. :smallbiggrin:

Just downloaded Ye Olde Shoppe, Yahzi. I look forward to reading through it.

[deuxhero]

I think Planescape points out EP is bad to mix into a system with gold and silver coins as a middle value, there is no way to know that the split is 50/50 unless you smelt them. At best people treat them as silvers.

[TheDarkSaint]

Really good points, especially with some ideas I hadn't thought of. Thanks!

This is mostly going to be either a large city based game or they will be on ships. But, you're right. If I have any wilderness characters, I need to do something about that. How about.. if any PC's actually have survival skills and backgrounds, the homeless rules won't apply? But only if they were out in the wilderness living. I might serious up the DC check for survival on the wilderness guy for each person he/she has a long that has no clue what they are doing outside of a city.


I'm going to incorporate banks into the system as well which are controlled by rival banking guilds for fun future conflict. Should they decide they want to live the rich life off of borrowed money, by all means, I shall let them. However, when the piper comes for his due....

This is going to be a fairly resource poor game with the PC's often being hunted by superior forces. As tempting as the good life may be, it may bring unwanted attention.

The primary motivation for putting in social class standings is to help flush out some of the money that characters tend to horde. It's a low magic world, so going out and plunking down money for magic items isn't an option.

Someone mentioned it might ruin immersion and that's a good point. I thought about it for a while and I might bundle the living costs into taxes that people pay once a month. What a depressing sight when the Tax man and all the bill collectors swarm you over a weekend :)

It feels great when we have money and we can have nice things. Being absolutely broke sucks and is stressful. If the PC's choose to sink their money into living the good life, I'd like to reward them for it.


I thought about electrum pieces for a while. I've adjusted the economy to as follows.

Silver is the basis for it. It buys about the equivanet to a Dollar or Euro or Pound, depending on where your from. 10 silver buys you a really nice meal. For ease of commerce, there are 20 silver coins, 10 silver coins and 1 silver coins.

I want gold to be very rare, so I set the price for one gold piece at 1,000 silver.

So, I needed a middle currency, so a mixture of gold and silver, electrum, fit the bill. 1 EP sits at about 100 SP.

You may ask about platinum, but that metal has such an extremely high melting point that humans couldn't refine it until the 1700's. I'm making the call that it takes magical heat to do anything with platinum and combined with the rarity, make each coin almost a unique work of art, unsuitable for actual currency.