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Alex Star
2013-03-04, 10:50 AM
Okay so I gave my players a rather unconventional quest reward last session.

Through their heroics they were rewarded with a 20% ownership stake in a mining town.

The way this works is each month the players will recieve a 10% share of the mines take for the month (1/2 of their 20% ownership) and each year they recieve a lump sum payout for the other 10% of their share.

At the end of each year the players will be allowed to invest up to 200% of the mines current monthly productivity, doing so allows them to increase productivity of the mine by 50% over the previous year.

After 10 years of maximum investment the mines productivity maxes out and the players will be given the chance to increase their ownership stake to 50%. Essentially over 10 years it looks like this.

(Measured in Gold)
Year / Mine Productivity / Monthly / Yearly
1 / 1,000.00 / 100 / 1200 20% ownership
2 / 1,500.00 / 150 / 1800
3 / 2,250.00 / 225 / 2700
4 / 3,375.00 / 337 / 4044
5 / 5,062.50 / 506 / 6072
6 / 7,593.75 / 759 / 9108
7 / 11,390.63 / 1139 / 13668
8 / 17,085.95 / 1708 / 20496
9 / 25,628.93 / 2562 / 30744
10 / 38,443.40 / 9610.75 /115329 50% ownership

My idea here is that the town will grow as the players invest into the mine, becoming a home and a base of operations for them.

The question is what are logical upgrades that will happen in the town (aside from just population growth) each year?

The town is very simple now, an inn, a temple, a general store.

JusticeZero
2013-03-04, 11:25 AM
Well, what are they mining? Where is the place along trade routes? What's the culture as a whole and terrain like? If the place is generally unpleasant, then all you'll get is miners itching to go home to their hometown far away, and their support. Is there water? A navigable river or other trade route? What does the farmland situation look like? These are all going to affect things a lot.

Alex Star
2013-03-04, 11:33 AM
Well, what are they mining? Where is the place along trade routes? What's the culture as a whole and terrain like? If the place is generally unpleasant, then all you'll get is miners itching to go home to their hometown far away, and their support. Is there water? A navigable river or other trade route? What does the farmland situation look like? These are all going to affect things a lot.


It's an Iron Mine, and the town is situated at the base of a mountain range.

The miners are generally happy to be working the mine, the pay is good and the management is fair.

I was purposely vague on the exact state of the surrounding countryside for this exact purpose. Assume that the town itself has access to whatever resources might be useful for it to grow.

Rhynn
2013-03-04, 11:35 AM
Define "mining town" ?

Are we talking Deadwood, with fortune-seekers panning for gold and digging samples to find a seam, stake a claim, and build a mine?

It sounds more like you're talking about a mine already owned by a company, and the associated camp/accommodations for the miners? It wouldn't necessarily be much of a town, at least yet - you're only going to have X miners, and you're going to get just enough services to cater to them. They're not actually golddiggers, so they're not that rich - just whatever they're paid at the mine. Likely they'll be sending part of that back home. I'd imagine mining crews would have a lot of rotation in the workers, too, but naturally up to you.

If the same miners stay at the mine, eventually they're going to want to move their families there and build homes. That's going to mean the place will start growing - with families living there and the men working at a mine, it's going to attract all kinds of business - services (butcher, grocer, blacksmith, carpenter). The mine probably had its own smith, someone contracted to provide food (either by hunting or by shipping, or even buying from nearby villages) and transport it, but the bigger the place gets (with families, and people who want to make money off them, and their families), the more they'll need.

It would probably take up to a year for families to be moved in, and the rate would rise as the mine proves to be profitable and long-lasting. Once there's starting to be too many families to be supported on what already exists, they'll need more food, more businesses, etc.

Obviously, they'll also need a water source (river, lake, wells - rivers should be easiest in mountain country, there's going to be rivers running down from them), a road to transport the mining product and food on, etc.

Alex Star
2013-03-04, 11:39 AM
The town already exists and is already producing.

It was started as a joint venture by the current Mayor and the Foreman of the Mine. Previously they were splitting the mines profits 50/50, now however they have each taken 10% of their share and given it to the party.

The town is already functional, Inn, Small Temple, General Store.

Iron ore is currently transported raw and sold unrefined.

The world does have larger mining ventures, however, this is a "startup" kind of deal. So this organization consists of only this one town and this one mine.

As stated before the miners are generally happy, the management is fair and the pay is good.

Rhynn
2013-03-04, 11:46 AM
I can't help but wonder - how are they keeping it? Assuming this is a pseudo-medieval fantasy world, a mine not owned by a noble (usually "farmed out" to the Miners' Guild) would be pretty danged hard to keep. Every powerful person or faction (noble landowners, free cities, etc.) would want a piece of it, and most would be willing to march in a bunch of warriors to take it. Basically, there was no "rule of law" in such societies. You kept what you could defend, and no one but your liege lord and vassals was going to help you defend it (and even they might be unreliable).

Anyway, the same outline applies. Miners will bring in families. Increased population means increased business opportunities, which means more people, which means more business opportunities...

Towns grow slow, though. Gold and silver boom towns in 19th century USA grew fast because it was a free-for-all to claim land, people brought their families, etc. But they also emptied out fast if the gold/silver ran out. (Other frontier towns grew fast for similar but different reasons: entire families moved in because they were allowed to claim land to farm, or to grow cattle in.) A single iron mine isn't going to cause that kind of boom.

Edit: Really, to be realistic, a regular medieval mine wouldn't even have a "mining town." It would be operated and crewed by guilded miners (either the ones it was "farmed"/rented to, or ones hired to it by the owner), who would probably work in shifts and then go back to town (being guildsmen, they'd live in a town) to spend their pay and see their families. You'd most likely have a big camp, possibly with some fortification if in a dangerous/unstable area.

JusticeZero
2013-03-04, 11:48 AM
The first common step in a frontier town is going to be a bordello. Miners who are willing to pick up everything and move to a new claim to seek their fortune tend to be young, unmarried males, with a dream of coming back rich and successful and settling down someday. They are followed by young, unmarried females who see an opportunity to work themselves in between the "become rich and successful" and "go back" steps, and they will earn money through the fact that everyone involved is basically a bunch of teenagers just out of the house.

You do not have a thieves guild yet. Organized crime doesn't follow money, it springs up in a place from the poor and undertrodden, which you don't have any of yet. You probably won't until you break a thousand people. Under a thousand, everyone knows everyone, and you cant have an organized crime element because someone would drag them out by their ears for trying. This also means that the ladies above are managing themselves at this stage.

You'll probably also have some tinkers - generic repair/craft people who realize that a lot of things will get broken. In time they will get more specialized, and you will get your smith and so on, dependent on being able to source the materials. If it's expensive to get cloth, because most of the cost of getting it there is shipping, you will never have clothes outside of the general store.

After that, it starts being affected by what resources the town does and does not have access to. If you have great access to everything all the time, some things won't develop.

Alex Star
2013-03-04, 12:17 PM
Interesting input from both of you, things that my players may take note of.

The Kingdom they live in is medieval-fantasy, however, it is also civilized.

The town is protected by Kings Guards.

Iron Mining operations are all essentially "Franchised". Doing so requires purchasing a royal permit. This is due to the fact that the Kingdom in question is almost always in preparation for "the next war" when not fighting the "current war". In times of peace these organizations are allowed to produce and sell however they choose, however, since the operations are franchised, in war times the Kingdom reserves the right to purchase any and all produced materials at a fair market cost.

Loyalty to the King is exceptionally high, and National pride is also very strong, so this kind of arrangement is not a "Racket". Iron product just happens to be very important, and rather than spending kingdom resources on actual Prospecting/Operation/Maintainence. These are franchised out and "protection" is provided. Illegitimate mining operations do exist, however, this is not one of them.

Essentially the town has progressed past the "mining camp" phase and is currently a full fledged town, albeit a small one.

Xeratos
2013-03-04, 12:31 PM
Farmers- because everyone needs to eat, and you can only hunt to feed a population that's small. Eventually, if you're trying to feed a thousand people off venison in one place, you're going to run out of deer. That's where the people who plant crops and raise livestock come into play. In addition to the farmers themselves, they'll have hired hands, shepherds for their flocks, and cowboys to guard their livestock.

Smiths- because everyone needs tools. Your miners need pickaxes, wheelbarrows, lantern cases, axles and framework for their wagons, etc. Your farmers need plows, gardening tools like spades, rakes, hoes. Your construction workers who are building shelter need hammers, saws, nails.

Craftsmen- coopers, thatchers, carpenters, quarrymen, wainwrights (they build wagons), stablemen, cooks...

Merchants- Someone has to control the exportation of raw materials, and in this case, the refining of it into useful product. In addition, your budding town will need some things imported that aren't available locally, such as salt (very important in this time period. Salt is a preservative that helps cut down on wasted food in addition to just plain making their soup taste better). And don't forget alcohol.

Soldiers and Guards- protect your town from bandits and brigands, dire bears and packs of wolves. There will always be those who would rather take what they can for minimal effort that work day after day to build up their fortunes. Merchant caravans need to be guarded, a town watch will have to patrol your community to keep it safe, and where people like this are needed, you will inevitably attract mercenaries.

The Entertainment Industry- I believe a bordello was already mentioned. Yes to this. Prostitution is the oldest known profession. It's everywhere. How open and legitimate you want it to be is a personal preference. In some societies, these places were as widely known and accepted as the grocery store. In others, they were socially frowned upon and masqueraded as drinking houses or operated illicitly out of basements and backrooms.

Other common forms of entertainment: music, dancing, alcohol, sports- think boxing and wrestling, racing and obstacle course running, or team sports similar to football, though remember that compressed air balls are either going to be nonexistent or magical in nature. Speaking of which...

Magical Healing- You mentioned that there was a temple. In your world, is this a temple where people go to pray, or a temple where clerics of Gods make their homes and miracles are commonplace (eg. the party comes here for magical healing)? If magic is available, is it only to people with gold in their pockets, or can the common farmer get patched up here when he accidentally tears his leg open on the farm?

Magical Assistance- There might be wizards coming to live in your town that provide beneficial help in the form of communication, speedy transport, defense against attacks, scrying and scouting for new mine locations or lost individuals, or even just dispensing of sage advice. There are a variety of services wizards could provide a community that you just don't commonly see in the adventuring style of wizard.

Supplies- General stores are nonspecific, but things like herbaries might provide the town with access to a very basic form of medicine (pain killers and numbing agents, antiseptic leaves to pack into wounds) and possibly more... ahem... recreational drugs...

Other stores might supply your town with lumber or trinkets. Weavers make clothing, bed linens, drapes, blankets, or cloaks.

Government- Is the entire town owned and ran by the mining operation? At some point, there will be enough people that a central government becomes necessary either way. The guys running the operation won't have time to listen to a thousand people's complaints, and they'll need other people to that. Depending on your set up, this could be people appointed by your mining company, or individuals elected from the town, or possibly some noble brought in specifically to rule the community.

Criminals- Once your town is big enough, it becomes impossible to prevent crime. You do not necessarily have to have an organized criminal underworld, but there will be thieves and muggers, especially in a world where violence is so often the answer. Your government has to put a system in place to deal with this, even if it's as simple as "Thieves get a hand cut off." You also have to decide what exactly constituted criminal behavior (see the prostitution section under entertainment).

If your criminals are organized, how corrupt is your town? Do local businesses pay protection money and cower in fear, or are they actively part of the organization? Your herbary might also supply various poisons (both ingested and blade coating) to assassins. At this point, you'll probably need to have people work killing in your town though, so there will have to be a ruling noble class.

I hope some of these ideas help you decide how you went to develop your town.

Rhynn
2013-03-04, 12:38 PM
The Kingdom they live in is medieval-fantasy, however, it is also civilized.

The town is protected by Kings Guards.

Iron Mining operations are all essentially "Franchised". Doing so requires purchasing a royal permit. This is due to the fact that the Kingdom in question is almost always in preparation for "the next war" when not fighting the "current war".

That actually sounds more realistic than the average fantasy RPG mining town, yeah. Kings, obviously, liked owning mines (and AFAIK there were often specific laws about that), and it'd make sense for a king to protect such an investment. The franchising sounds about right, too - usually, there'd be a mining guild (a guild being a legally enforced monopoly chartered by the king), and you'd hire them to work your mine (probably expensive) or "rent" it to them for a set price (they keep the remainder of the profits). The reserve buying sounds sensible, too.


Essentially the town has progressed past the "mining camp" phase and is currently a full fledged town, albeit a small one.

Usual town growth, then. I'd actually expect smelting, smithing, and particularly armories to spring up soon - it's much cheaper to do it when you're right by the mine.


this kind of arrangement is not a "Racket"

Feudalism was always a racket, literally. :smallcool: ("Nice farm. Be a shame if someone burnt it down. Lucky I can protect you...")

Rhynn
2013-03-04, 12:42 PM
Criminals- Once your town is big enough, it becomes impossible to prevent crime. You do not necessarily have to have an organized criminal underworld, but there will be thieves and muggers, especially in a world where violence is so often the answer. Your government has to put a system in place to deal with this, even if it's as simple as "Thieves get a hand cut off." You also have to decide what exactly constituted criminal behavior (see the prostitution section under entertainment).

Actually, this isn't a clear-cut thing. Your typical fantasy town is full of crime, yes, but medieval free towns had very little professional crime. (And violence wasn't exactly always considered a crime, but more a personal or family matter.)

Of course, this was because chartered free towns were really exacting about who got in and for what purposes. If you weren't an artisan or apprentice in one of the city's guilds, or their family, or had some other real employment or office, you probably couldn't live there. You might not even be admitted except on business. Shanty towns would grow outside the city walls around the gates, and would be havens of crime (and disease), but they could be treated very harshly (like, burnt to the ground).

Now, lords' towns and royal capitals, where entry and inhabitation was free and open (except for gate tolls to get in), were more the teeming hives of crime seen in fantasy. Basically, crime is caused by poverty. You can't just set up a protection racket in a prosperous town, because the town is a protection racket. Every burgher family is almost certainly obligated to provide a militiaman, so if you try to blackmail protection money out of shopkeepers, they're going to get together, get their armor, halberds, and crossbows, and fight you... or they'll just go to their lord, who'll do the same because you're infringing on his protection racket.

Alex Star
2013-03-04, 12:58 PM
Feudalism was always a racket, literally. :smallcool: ("Nice farm. Be a shame if someone burnt it down. Lucky I can protect you...")

True, however, what I meant is that it's not exploitative. The "Racket" in this instance is mutually beneficial for both sides.

JusticeZero
2013-03-04, 01:19 PM
Right, in general, you do not have organized crime until you have a ghetto. Until you have a ghetto, any criminals you have will work in small isolated teams that don't communicate with each other. Once you have a part of town that is a "no go area" because it's full of "THOSE people", that part of town will be ignored by the police and have a hard time drawing people in to patronize its legitimate businesses.

So, people will start doing illegitimate business there.. usually something to do with contraband, because illegal substances have huge suppressed demand. Can be drugs or whatever. Probably not something like "illegal necromantic ingredients", because you need a huge volume of sales to fuel this, but if someone comes up with a way to make cheap, possibly cursed, buffing potions that would fit the bill, because you need a huge potential market. If prostitution is illegal, this is one of those fuels.

People will start going to the ghetto to get their ____, and that pumps money into an illegal economy in the area. The people who deal in that field will invest and expand into new markets; eventually they will have the muscle to start extorting taxes from the other residents of the ghetto, and be able to move some resources into controlling the bits of illegal economy that they are next to, until they have eventually become the crimelords of the city.

As noted, you don't see this happening until you have a big population and a ghetto, neither of which you have yet. This is so you understand the process that creates your typical "thieves guild", and why it's usually run by half-orcs or goblins or Hutts or some such thing.


The feudal system - and honestly, Government in general - is a racket. Basically, you are paying off a bunch of bullies with your 'lunch money' so that they can get stronger and beat up anyone else who threatens their 'lunch money' cow. They can be pretty benevolent, but that's the core function involved here.

You'll probably see gardens before farms; I don't know what kind've crops you have. People need leather goods, but leatherworking can be a heavy polluter.

A bakery synergises with a brewery, and in gritty fantasy the brewery is a necessary public health function. Napoleon had to ban drinking water because of the public health problems; he had his soldiers drinking tea in order to sterilize the water. Mixing some alcohol into the water and making weak beers and the like serves a similar health function.

If it's cold, people need heat. Wood heat will require people chopping down lots of trees and probably annoying the heck out of druids/happy woodland types, coal is a different kind of mine entirely. Both are relatively severe polluters. In a setting with druids and dryads and elves, you will probably need some interesting sort've function for your wood needs - probably a druid of some sort, serving a similar purpose as your city hedgemage.

At some early point the girls in the town will start marrying the miners and having small children. You will need facilities for these children, and you can track those needs year by year.

Xeratos
2013-03-04, 01:20 PM
Actually, this isn't a clear-cut thing. Your typical fantasy town is full of crime, yes, but medieval free towns had very little professional crime. (And violence wasn't exactly always considered a crime, but more a personal or family matter.)

This is why I said that it has to be determined what actually constitutes a crime to begin with, and I also said that while you will have crime, it won't necessarily be organized.


Basically, crime is caused by poverty.

Now that's just plain not true. Poverty may be one possible cause of crime, but it's also committed by those people who don't like the laws and feel no obligation to follow them (the self-righteous who feel that their courses are the only correct ones), those who don't respect other people and do what they want because they can (bully criminals), those who feel that the laws are wrong but can't work to change them from within the system (vigilante justice), and for a multitude of other reasons.

What I'm saying is that if you get enough people together, somebody is going to object to the rules as stated. When 9 people say, "This is a good idea. This is how we're going to do it." and the 10th person goes, "You know what, nah. I don't think that's how I want to do it." you get crime. Unless those other 9 people have the muscles and the wit to enforce their law on the tenth, he's not going to play by the book.

There are some obvious criminal activities like theft and murder. These are pretty well frowned upon in civilized communities the world over, but then you have more ambiguous laws, like taxes. Maybe some people think that taxation is a great and wonderful thing. I haven't met any personally, but I suppose they might be out there. The majority of us feel that the money the government takes is ill-spent and wasted.

Unfortunately, they've got the muscle to enforce their taxes on us, whether we want to pay them or not. You will pay sales tax on the stuff you buy. You will pay property tax on the house you own. You might get out of income tax if you work under the table, but that's the exception, not the rule. As another example: drug dealers. I definitely wouldn't say that they're poor. If you've got a poor drug dealer, then he's bad at his job.

This is the kind of criminal activity that might be going on in this town. Some guy is lying on his books and committing tax evasion. The local alchemist is selling super shrooms that'll knock you on your ass and take you for a ride. It doesn't have to be some gorilla with scarred knuckles waiting to bash the next drunk who staggers down his alley's face in (though that could certainly happen as well).

As far as organized crime goes: it's really less of a concern in a small town. Once this place starts hitting a 5 digit population however, crime will expand and the more of it there is, the more likely it is to become organized. The more government officials you have, the more likely you are to find a corrupt one who's willing to take a bribe and overlook you not paying your import taxes.

As a final point, again because of the violent nature of these kind of world settings, I wouldn't presume that the same kind of laws and punishments we find in our first world countries are in effect. A man beating his wife in this mining town might not earn more than a scowl from his neighbors, and the drunk who gets mugged might not stir much of a reaction from the local guards.

elliott20
2013-03-04, 01:49 PM
The MBA in me is now wanting to speak up.

There is one crucial element from this whole scenario you haven't talked about yet, and that's risk. I'm sure you have some kind of model for how this works, but I'll just weigh in how I see it. (Because I love to talk/type)

How is the town's income determined? How stable is it? What is the range of fluctuation? What are the market forces at work here? Who are the primary buyers of iron? How does this interact with the government? etc, etc. Seriously, I can easily write up over 100 different questions you would need to answer to make this more authentic.

I mean, 50% growth per year, guaranteed is massive in any investment. Our modern day Wall Street guys could only WISH they could do so well.

So you need to address this question.

The best way I can think of doing this is to create a "character sheet" for the town.

For now, we'll keep it fairly simple:

Production Level
Worker Morale
Crime Level
Population Level

This will give you a decent base to work off of. From there you can extrapolate various other things from this

example
average income level = production level * population level
Crime Level will deduct from the other levels
The larger the population level, the higher the crime level. (maybe make it a 10% ratio?)
Worker Morale maintained at a certain level or else production level suffers, and if it drops too low, the workers revolt and production stops entirely

Take a percentile die and roll for income results

100-75: mine does very well. earns an extra 25% of average annual income
74-25: mine does average. earns average income
24-00: mine does poorly. earns 25% income

Take the percentile die and roll for population growth

100-75: town grows well, population next year grows by 8%
74-25: town grows average, population next year grows by 2%
24-00: town shrinks, population next year decrease by 8%

modifiers for the growth roll:
+25 if income was greater than average this year
-25 if income was lower than average this year

This model assumes that the players take no action what so ever in handling the town. And from there, you can look at all of the stuff the other people have suggested and how it impacts the bottom line. (i.e.

If you want to REALLY dig in, you can separate the income roll into "macro economics" roll and "management" roll. The macro roll would basically be external factors, and the management roll would be a skill check to make sure things do well.

Alex Star
2013-03-04, 02:04 PM
I think I'm starting to get an idea of development based on some of what you have proposed.

Year 1

1.) Ore is sold unsmelted, only smelting that occurs is done privately by the few tinkers and craftsman with the ability to do so on their own for repairs.
2.) Agriculture consists of small gardens, and most food is provided by hunting/gathering.
3.) Merchant class consists primarily of a single General Store and an Inn that doubles as a common mess hall for the miners when their shifts are done.
4.) Religious needs are tended to by a small temple.
5.) Government consists of a single Mayor (40% sharehold of the mine) making decisions in conjunction with the Mine Foreman (40% shareholder)
6.) Town guards are supplemented by a town militia

Year 1 > Year 2 Upgrades

1.) Mine Capacity
2.) Beginning of Farming
3.) Expansion of Mercantile class, one or two specialized shops instead of just a General Store.
4.) Inn grows in size to accomdate travelers and is no longer used as a mess hall.

Year 2 > Year 3 Upgrades

1.) Agricultural farming grows, Livestock farms begin to appear.
2.) Trade expands to include a second primary trade route.
3.) Expasion of Town Guard to deal with increased population.
4.) A council begins to form with townspeople gaining a voice in town affairs.

Year 3 > Year 4 Upgrades

1.) Irrigation vastly enhances Agriculture
2.) Mercantile class expands again with even more specialized shops dealing in trade goods.
3.) Town begins smelting small amounts of ore for local use. Exports remain raw.
4.) Town Council is officially formed as an avenue for the populace to better address needs of the town.

Year 4 > Year 5 Upgrades

1.) Refinery is built and the town begins smelting all ore.
2.) Agriculture continues to grow, exporting of some agricultural goods begins.
3.) Merchatile class expands even further with a "general store" becoming phased out in favor of more specialized shops. A second inn appears.
4.) The first wall is erected around the town.

Year 5 > Year 6 Upgrades

1.) Agricultural exporting grows
2.) Religious services expand with multiple temples now in existance.
3.) Town militia disappears replaced by a full garrison of guards.
4.) Skilled Artisans begin to appear in town creating luxury trade goods (Art, Furishings, Music etc...)

Year 6 > Year 7 Upgrades

1.) Wealthy class begins to emerge.
2.) Town develops into a support hub for smaller surrounding settlements.
3.) Full complement of mercantile services is available.
4.) Council now consists of multiple specialized positions governing various activities.

Year 7 > Year 8 Upgrades

1.) Second town wall built. Now dividing the Old City/New City.
2.) Trade exists along multiple routes.
3.) Arts and Entertainment develop even further.

Year 8 > Year 9 Upgrades

1.) Mercantile class now allows for all manner of goods and services to be purchased.
2.) Socio-economic classes gain more definition.
3.) Town is now center of local economy.

Year 9 > Year 10 Upgrades

1.) Agriculture, Mercantilism, Trade, and Entertainment all max out.
2.) Population growth slows as both imigration and emigration help maintain a steady level.
3.) Surrounding towns now contribute to feeding a significant portion of the local economy.



Okay so that's what I have so far. Someone have an idea of what population sizes should be for each of these levels? A vast majority of this is going to be via imigration obviously. Keep in mind this growth is being FUNDED by the PC's not happening entirely naturally.

Alex Star
2013-03-04, 02:09 PM
The MBA in me is now wanting to speak up.


Elliot, This is all AWESOME information and incredibly cool stuff. However, I have campaign needs for this town to grow to a specific size at a specific rate. However, I may hijack some of these rules for the growth of the surrounding settlements that will undoubtedly be affected by the growth of this town.

My goal here is to create an entire town which will serve as a base of operations that the players have had a significant hand in growing, that has taken an investment of both time-waiting, and gold for it to occur. *The nice thing I have that wall-street doesn't is that I'm the DM and it happens how I say it happens :D.

I hope you understand here, I appreciate the level of authenticity such a system would provide. However my party is going to spend it's time adventuring, not administrating. That's just not the direction this one is headed. I'm look for a more simple "Fantasy" oriented solution, though some insight in the "sim" one you created is cool.

elliott20
2013-03-04, 02:27 PM
Ahh, I see. In that case, yeah, just go with the plotted events and run from there. I would still recommend doing a character sheet of some sort to help track the numbers and help give the players an idea of what's going on, but you don't need to worry so much about the random numbers factor.

The reason I talked about risk and random numbers is mostly because I don't want to take out the feel of risk in investing in something. If the players KNOW they will make 50% return on their investment, then it becomes procedural. If the players only know that they MIGHT make 50% return or they might lose 50% of their investment, then it becomes a bit of gamble and it can be kind of fun. The inverse is true of losses. If the players feel like I made them invest but then felt like I pre-determined the failure of the investment, they might get a little miffed at me. A random number roll separates that from me and puts it all on gods of randomness.

Keep in mind, I'm not insisting you do the random number thing. That's just my rationale. You have a specific goal you need, so go with a plotted thing. The key here though, is about presentation. If you can make sure they think they got influence, and not everything is your arbitrary whim then you're still golden.

I am actually developing this model for my own game right now. As I go, I'll be keeping some notes on the subject.

JusticeZero
2013-03-04, 02:45 PM
That's a decent sequence of events, but a lot of those steps would take more than one year to do, even if you had a huge boom from resources. If irrigation is available, that will probably be part of the original farm layout.
Don't think "The Mercantile Class". People like to think of corporations and other abstract entities interchangeably with people and it makes no sense here. We aren't talking about an entity, we're talking about various people who see an opportunity and move in or train so they can work their craft. The "general store" is never phased out; indeed, in the modern USA it is the opposite problem with the general store taking over.

Walls are.. really freaking expensive to build. And they take a lot of time and effort. If you build a decent fortification you will tend to want to use the fortification. After one of the last main advances in fortification for instance, the city was kept within the walls and it was considered wise policy to send the troops out on occasion to put any buildings outside the walls to the torch.

This has become a policy debate in modern times too, such as with the levy system in New Orleans. The city itself is pretty safe, but people want to move out of the city to the suburbs, some of which are even in spillways. When floods happen, they demand that the hideously expensive protections be expanded to cover them, and that they shouldn't have to pay for them. In the sort've competitive democracy we have, this is a policy problem; in a more monarchic system the answer is "What are those people, idiots? Go burn it all to the ground and tell them that it's their fault for being fools."

elliott20
2013-03-04, 02:49 PM
This has become a policy debate in modern times too, such as with the levy system in New Orleans. The city itself is pretty safe, but people want to move out of the city to the suburbs, some of which are even in spillways. When floods happen, they demand that the hideously expensive protections be expanded to cover them, and that they shouldn't have to pay for them. In the sort've competitive democracy we have, this is a policy problem; in a more monarchic system the answer is "What are those people, idiots? Go burn it all to the ground and tell them that it's their fault for being fools."

This paragraph made me giggle more than it should

Alex Star
2013-03-04, 03:05 PM
Walls are.. really freaking expensive to build. And they take a lot of time and effort. If you build a decent fortification you will tend to want to use the fortification. After one of the last main advances in fortification for instance, the city was kept within the walls and it was considered wise policy to send the troops out on occasion to put any buildings outside the walls to the torch.

The benefit of Magic is that it allows anything to happen at essentially whatever speed is necessary. Building things in a world where magic exists essentially takes only as long as the amount of gold you have to spend on it.

Beleriphon
2013-03-04, 03:10 PM
If it's cold, people need heat. Wood heat will require people chopping down lots of trees and probably annoying the heck out of druids/happy woodland types, coal is a different kind of mine entirely. Both are relatively severe polluters. In a setting with druids and dryads and elves, you will probably need some interesting sort've function for your wood needs - probably a druid of some sort, serving a similar purpose as your city hedgemage.

Keep in mind that there are other fuel sources you can use. If you have a substantial number of animals (sheep are a good choice) you can use dried dung as a pretty reasonable fuel source. If there a ranch that uses the sheep for wool rather than food this is even better.


At some early point the girls in the town will start marrying the miners and having small children. You will need facilities for these children, and you can track those needs year by year.

Depending on how you look at public education this could be as simple as one of the woman that can read looking after all of them a few days a week. Or it could be a member of the local clergy that does this in the temple once or twice a week. I'd opt for the later personally since it seems to make the most sense to me.

Venom3053000
2013-03-04, 03:15 PM
if you making alot of commoners this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232822) is the best I've seen but you may know about it

Alex Star
2013-03-04, 04:35 PM
Thanks for all your help everyone.

The one thing I'm looking for right now is what are some good population levels?

Rhynn
2013-03-04, 04:49 PM
The one thing I'm looking for right now is what are some good population levels?

How big is the mining crew?

I'd say you're probably looking at several hundred to a thousand, assuming the miners have families. For most crafts/trades, you're looking at 1 professional per 100-1000 people, so butchers, etc. aren't going to increase population dramatically. Assume an average family size of 5.5 or so, multiply by the number of miners, and add maybe 10% for assorter tradesmen and vagabonds...

That's still a town, though, not a village. Large villages would be maybe 100-200 people total, spread every few miles, within a day's march from a market town protected by a keep... in this case, I assume you're thinking of a walled town? Say 1,000 people. Population growth is probably going to be slow, a few percent per year.

Alex Star
2013-03-04, 05:02 PM
Population growth is probably going to be slow, a few percent per year.

We're going for form over function here. I wan't it to LOOK good, if the math isn't sim realistic it's not a big deal.

What I really need is what kind of population levels are going to take a mining town of 100-150 people to a large city say 5,000-10,000 people over the course of 10 steps.

Slipperychicken
2013-03-04, 06:30 PM
The world does have larger mining ventures, however, this is a "startup" kind of deal. So this organization consists of only this one town and this one mine.


Bear in mind it might take a very long time (months? years?) for a mine to break even and begin profiting, if it succeeds at all. And such businesses do fail, so the investment might be for naught.

Seleborn
2013-03-04, 06:39 PM
This is quite extensive and a grand idea :smallbiggrin:

As a player, I don't know if I would ask all of these sorts of specific questions concerning the town. I usually take things at face value from the DM, unless there are glaring problems with the premise.

What I'm more interested in is the time frame. Ten years of game time is very long for any campaign I'm ever in. I'm curious how you plan to move events along in such a way for them to ever "realize" the town in full. I'm curious how you will do the passage of time in your game :smallsmile:

elliott20
2013-03-04, 10:33 PM
wait, so you need to know figures in the sense of what is the year to year?

That's easy. Let's start at your base line: 200 people. Of the two hundred, we'll use the 4:1 ratio for non-workers: workers ratio. (Non-workers, in this case, means non-miners) So that gives us 40 workers.

According US Census Bureau, world historical population growth rate to be roughly 1.1%. (peaking at around 2% in the 60s) Let's round that down to 1% for easy calculations.

This is your base growth, and assumes that people are just popping out kids, with no additional people migrating over.

Now you need to consider several different factors that can change that number.

For ease of calculation, we're going to just assume that everything is rounded up.

For every spell level local cleric is capable of casting: +1% (I'm using this as a shorthand for the effects of technology)
A very um... "amorous" year: +1%
Food supply is well stocked this year: +1%
Significant Health and Safety improvement: +1%
Famine: -2% (can be higher if severe)
Disease: -2% (can be higher if disease is highly deadly, i.e. plague)


There are more, I'm sure. But as you can see, you can just add random +1% based the events you have in mind. Obviously, you can massage the numbers to make it work.

But even then, by natural growth, you won't get to 5000 from 200 in 10 years. That's a growth of 25 times. Compound growth indeed a powerful force, but not when your working with 5% growth per year. (With 5%, you'll hit 326 people in 10 years) No, to get to 5000, you need an average growth rate of about 38% per year to hit that target. However, towns can sprout up from the ground just like that in ten years. So how does it work? The answer is immigrants.

How many immigrants will come in? Well, that basically comes down to 2 things

1. is there a reason why people will want to come and stay
2. if there is, how well do people know about it

The first one will be need to be factored in by a number of things. How stable are the surrounding regions? how easy is it to live in your area compared to the surrounding regions? Is your area safer? (maybe because of the protection of your adventurers) Is there a lot of work available? Good school districts? What is it that makes your place so attractive? Is there a lot of trade? Do a lot of travelers need to pass through there just to go about their business? Is there a major artery road that passes by your town?

you can easily just give your town a +1% growth from immigration for that. (or you can calculate it separately) The best way to think about it is to think about how many people it is siphoning from nearby towns.

The second question will answer how FAR people will travel to come to your town. The more well known the place is, the more likely you'll get more people coming in. This can have a multiplier effect going on. So if your town is now incredibly famous country wide, it is entirely possible that you could be getting immigrants from all over the place to come to your town. In that case, you can think of it as having a multiplier effect. It can multiply the people that migrate to your town.

Just pull up excel and do a year by year growth calculation based on your events and you'll get pretty close.

Here's an example one

starting 200

year 1
good year for mine, attracting some people in nearby town: +1%
new cleric arrived, capable of casting 2nd level spells: +2%

growth rate this year: 4%.
new pop: 208

year 2
good year for mine, attract some people from surrounding towns: +3%
old cleric levels up, now capable of 3rd level: +3%
farmers have also arrived, bringing their stock and food production with them: +1

growth rate this year 7%
new pop: 223

and so on.

JusticeZero
2013-03-04, 10:45 PM
There is immigration too. There are towns that have had 30%+ annual growth rates. The catch is that to get to any significant size, you're going to need more going for you than just mining.

elliott20
2013-03-04, 11:05 PM
There is immigration too. There are towns that have had 30%+ annual growth rates. The catch is that to get to any significant size, you're going to need more going for you than just mining.

That's what my model was trying to address. I think an easy to handle it is like this:

Set the attraction level at 5 levels, 1%, 3%, 5%, 7%, 9%. (The last one is basically what happens when a neighboring cities economy collapses)

Then take your fame level, and go between 1-10.

Multiply the fame level by attraction level. Keep in mind, the attraction level is relative. So at some point, the attraction level thing will drop. That and at some point, you'll run out of immigrants.

Xeratos
2013-03-05, 12:23 AM
Don't forget that you could also increase your population dramatically by increasing your work force. As your mine grows, and possibly new mines open in other nearby areas, your number of miners could double or even triple. The more successful your mines are, the more miners you'll attract. If you assume that every miner comes with attached family, that could provide a somewhat significant boost to your population.

As far as attracting people who aren't miners goes, there has to be a reason for them to be there. I'm not sure how much control over the town's growth you're going to give your players, but if they decide to fund a magical academy, for example, that not only draws in powerful wizards to serve as instructors, but students to learn from them. I assume that learning to be a wizard isn't cheap, especially in an academic institution instead of a master/apprentice system, meaning the students probably have money to spend.

Infusing your economy with a nice chunk of money like that means that other businesses prosper too. This, in turn, draws more people in because your town has an apothecary with a good reputation, has plenty of food and strong health care for its workers, or is known for liberally funding the city guard to keep crime rates down.

Coidzor
2013-03-05, 01:03 AM
It's Pathfinder material, but the Kingmaker adventure path featured some rules on building up a city from the ground up or a small base.

I believe this has also inspired some homebrew as well.

Rhynn
2013-03-05, 06:10 AM
Now that's just plain not true. Poverty may be one possible cause of crime, but it's also committed by those people who don't like the laws and feel no obligation to follow them (the self-righteous who feel that their courses are the only correct ones), those who don't respect other people and do what they want because they can (bully criminals), those who feel that the laws are wrong but can't work to change them from within the system (vigilante justice), and for a multitude of other reasons.

Professional crime is not going to happen to very great degrees when there's no poverty. The free city example was really specific - they did not have a lot of poverty inside the city. There were pretty much no unemployed people who would have had the motivation and time to become professional criminals. The shacks outside the gates would probably be thronging with them, though.


What I'm saying is that if you get enough people together, somebody is going to object to the rules as stated. When 9 people say, "This is a good idea. This is how we're going to do it." and the 10th person goes, "You know what, nah. I don't think that's how I want to do it." you get crime. Unless those other 9 people have the muscles and the wit to enforce their law on the tenth, he's not going to play by the book.

But they do. A medieval city was a military power, and they certainly had the capacity for violence to force everyone in them to play by the common rules. Like I said before, usually every burgher was obligated to serve in the militia (or send someone in their stead) and to maintain arms and armor.


As a final point, again because of the violent nature of these kind of world settings, I wouldn't presume that the same kind of laws and punishments we find in our first world countries are in effect. A man beating his wife in this mining town might not earn more than a scowl from his neighbors, and the drunk who gets mugged might not stir much of a reaction from the local guards.

Like I said, violence was often considered a personal matter. The further back you go, the more true this was. (The murder/violent death rates in medieval cities, just based on coroners' reports alone, were staggering - street fights, ambushes, killings, and duels were common among all classes.) None of that is professional crime, though.

For that matter, city guards (in free cities, anyway) were not police. They guarded the gates and the walls - they did not, generally, uphold the law. They had a strictly military function. Jails for keeping people for trials (if there was any to be had) were not common. A lot of keeping order was done by the people themselves (ideally, they would drag the offender before a magistrate or lord for justice). Prisons (like the London Tower) were mostly for keeping nobles under arrest.

Alex Star
2013-03-05, 09:43 AM
This is quite extensive and a grand idea :smallbiggrin:

As a player, I don't know if I would ask all of these sorts of specific questions concerning the town. I usually take things at face value from the DM, unless there are glaring problems with the premise.

What I'm more interested in is the time frame. Ten years of game time is very long for any campaign I'm ever in. I'm curious how you plan to move events along in such a way for them to ever "realize" the town in full. I'm curious how you will do the passage of time in your game :smallsmile:

There are plot elements that are going to force significant periods of time to pass (For example Planes where time is distorted, events that require significant preparation time that will allow me to sweep months by etc. Time spent in situations where tracking the passage of time is very difficult.). That coupled with the fact that I keep a pretty strict calender for my game.

Alejandro
2013-03-05, 10:21 AM
I don't know if it's already been brought up, but: Is the technology suitably advanced for basic steam pumps to exist? If it isn't (and magic isn't being used instead) the mine will have issues as soon as it hits the water table in the area. You'll be much more likely to see a pit-style mine than the classic mine we imagine, with deep shafts and tunnels. However, if the elevation is high, then you'll see shaft mining, mostly horizontal.

Basically, there has to be a really big deposit there for it to be economically feasible, pre steam tech.

Alex Star
2013-03-05, 01:57 PM
Basically, there has to be a really big deposit there for it to be economically feasible, pre steam tech.

There is a plot appropriate sized deposit.

JusticeZero
2013-03-05, 02:52 PM
Is the technology suitably advanced for basic steam pumps to exist?
Magic items to do that are most likely well known wondrous items. There is a lack of "utility" magic rules in the game, which is really unfortunate; maybe one of these days i'll need to work up a bunch of spells and items for basic civic functions.

Alex Star
2013-03-05, 02:56 PM
Magic items to do that are most likely well known wondrous items. There is a lack of "utility" magic rules in the game, which is really unfortunate; maybe one of these days i'll need to work up a bunch of spells and items for basic civic functions.

You'd think Tippy would already have that.

elliott20
2013-03-05, 03:06 PM
He did, it's called permanency trap abuse. Or in his words, "trap based economy"

Kirgoth
2013-03-06, 07:31 PM
Not exactly an expert on medieval iron mining but ill give it a go.

You have a mine which is supplying magentite or some other high grade iron ore. It would most likely be open cast or a series of shafts dug into the ore strata as iron deposits don't run in faults like gold. Low quality ore is available most anywhere.

The next step would be smelting operations, this would require bringing in the appropriate guild and setting up a smelter. The smelter would require large amounts of high grade fuel such as black coal or vast amounts of wood from managed forests to give high grade iron. The position of the smelter would be likely to be closer to the fuel than the ore as the weight of fuel required would be vastly larger than the ore for transportation. Also as part of the smelting trip hammers may be required to beat the impurities out of the iron, the slag. Assuming you have that level of automation. This would take a moderate sized stream for the water wheels for continuous operation. So a smelter on a small or larger river close to a black coal mine.

Lastly this high grade iron can be worked into finished products. Most of the high quality goods produced would be from individual guilds however nails were always in demand and were commonly produced by the poor and stockpiled for war to build new ships and for cavalry. I very much doubt any king would allow a single group to control all aspects of the production chain so you may be hard pressed to expand into this I would think.

Hope this gives you some ideas

Alejandro
2013-03-06, 07:48 PM
Kirgoth raises an excellent point I forgot. If they are doing any smelting on site, they will need either large amounts of coal or huge amounts of forest. Read about Coalbrookdale in England.