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Madara
2016-07-16, 05:24 PM
Assuming that through various governmental magical means all housing and food(basic oatmealish, tastes meh but provides full nutrients) is provided for the citizens, what trades would flourish and what jobs would people have?

What are your thoughts?

Jay R
2016-07-16, 11:07 PM
Assuming that through various governmental magical means all housing and food(basic oatmealish, tastes meh but provides full nutrients) is provided for the citizens, what trades would flourish and what jobs would people have?

What are your thoughts?

My primary thought is that your assumption seems extremely unlikely. I can't imagine why something as elite and powerful as magic would be used to prepare food for people who can already grow it out of the ground.

I also have trouble with a medieval-level society who thinks of the peasants as "citizens", or of nobles who would spend money and resources to feed common people, instead of the standard procedure of expecting the serfs and peasants to grow food for the nobles.

Madara
2016-07-16, 11:53 PM
My primary thought is that your assumption seems extremely unlikely. I can't imagine why something as elite and powerful as magic would be used to prepare food for people who can already grow it out of the ground.

I also have trouble with a medieval-level society who thinks of the peasants as "citizens", or of nobles who would spend money and resources to feed common people, instead of the standard procedure of expecting the serfs and peasants to grow food for the nobles.

:smallannoyed: Well that's not really helpful. A party of adventurers, wishing to start their own nation, started with a small city-state, creating a couple magic items that would provide free food, and then supplying the base housing for the city themselves. So unlikely, yes, happening, yes.

Draken
2016-07-17, 12:00 AM
:smallannoyed: Well that's not really helpful. A party of adventurers, wishing to start their own nation, started with a small city-state, creating a couple magic items that would provide free food, and then supplying the base housing for the city themselves. So unlikely, yes, happening, yes.

So the party of adventurers has setup a self-sufficient colony. In this situation it is not so much "who shows up" and more "who the party sets out to recruit". You will likely be seeing an influx of like-classed people. The wizard and cleric bring in scholars and masons. The fighter-thing brings in soldiers and smiths. The rogue, if he is smart, actually brings in merchants, not thieves (thieves follow). The PCs bring in specialists who align with their interests. They are new nobility and they attract a middle class.

Sooner or later, it becomes unfeasible to to keep cranking out magic items to feed their growing mass of nameless minions. Or just a hassle, really. At that point, you bring in the peasants, they are a dime a dozen, forever fleeing from monsters, abusive old nobility, droughts, plagues, whatever awful things permeate the world. They settle and start doing the only thing they know how to do. Farm. Congratulations, you have a fantasy city state built on a descending hierarchy. Time for your best good aligned PCs to struggle to make their utopian dreams reality in the face of the simple fact that people suck.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-17, 01:04 AM
Assuming that through various governmental magical means all housing and food(basic oatmealish, tastes meh but provides full nutrients) is provided for the citizens, what trades would flourish and what jobs would people have?

What are your thoughts?

Pretty much none.

You, or at least your players, have undercut two of the three essentials - food and shelter, leaving only clothing. For which they will likely begin pestering the heroes to provide just as they did the food and shelter.
Few if any will care to produce their own food. No matter how "meh" the free food is, it does not require backbreaking labor from dawn to dusk, with a chance of famine whenever the harvest is off.
Construction is also a rather difficult, as well as a rather skilled, trade, so again they are likely to tolerate crowding before the heavy labor.
That leaves clothing. Probably not linen or cotton as, once again, farming. And nobody mentioned large herds for wool or leather, which of course require extensive grazing lands, which won't work around a single settlement.

They might manage to go into service industries if the city-state is on a decent trade route. And they will have plenty of free food and shelter to trade.
Of course with any such business you are going to find people would provide services for themselves instead of others, so half the people will just steal from the other half, and all will likely steal from the merchants passing through.

What you are likely to get the most of is a bureaucracy, with some citizens "volunteering" to coordinate the distribution of the free food and shelter to the others, no doubt for "considerations" when the merchants start passing through.

If the PCs start recruiting specific NPCs, they will add on what Draken said, with the understanding that finding peasants willing to work when there is free food is going to be very difficult. So you will have your small tradesman class, a small service industry class, a large thief class, a mid-sized bureaucratic class, and a large leftover of people wanting free meals.


Now if you want to start from another point, "the PCs want to build a city-state, what happens?", then the answers are significantly different.
First, what resources are in the area?
Second, what services do the PCs pay for?
Third, what laws regarding land use, safety, and subject/citizen status do the PCs offer?
Fourth, what support for said laws do the PCs provide?

A lot will depend on those, with modifiers for PC recruiting, and the situation in the surrounding area. (Again as Draken said, people fleeing monsters, cruelty, war, and the like.)

Lord Raziere
2016-07-17, 01:43 AM
Assuming that through various governmental magical means all housing and food(basic oatmealish, tastes meh but provides full nutrients) is provided for the citizens, what trades would flourish and what jobs would people have?

What are your thoughts?

So free food and houses. Then probably free clothing afterwards.

Well, when in doubt, make the most cynical assumptions you can!

Jobs? Screw jobs! We have free food, clothing and houses! Lets all start making whatever the heck we want! They then proceed to make an economy based off of their own selfish desire for luxury items. Without any need to concern themselves with survival, they shall turn immediately to having whatever pleasures they desire. This of course will lead to them figuring out the magic your using to make that basic food then improving or replicating it and modifying it to produce any meal they want according to their tastes. Then after that, they will soon someday figure out how to modify that magic to conjure food and houses to expand that magic further to conjure up any form of matter or object they could possibly desire.

Soon the entire town will think of themselves a new form of nobility, having no need for work or to earn anything themselves. They will then of course, being a isolated medieval community, look down upon all outsiders and think them unworthy of the magic they have achieved by the blessings of the gods, and thus deny all outsiders any use of their own little utopia, seeing no reason to trade or deal with anybody else now that they live in paradise. All other peasants think them worse than the other nobility, because at least the real nobility protect them and real peasants do honest work and don't eat magical food that might curse or something for your hubris of thinking yourself above work.

Then a bunch of orcs invade the town, killing everyone there and taking the magic for themselves. The orcs, being the war-happy people they are see the magic as a way to produce infinite supplies to kill everyone else with. They then proceed to take over the world with infinite supplies and other orcs joining their unstoppable cause until no one can stop them, the magic being modified even more to create infinite orc troops to conquer the world with. This continues until the orcs rule the world and create their own stupid version of eternal war with their infinite supplies and infinite orc troops, all being created only to fight other orcs for the sake of determining who is the strongest orc in never-ending conflict.

The end.

Mendicant
2016-07-17, 01:56 AM
Most trades and professions would still be present, and would likely be significantly more common than the typical pseudo-medieval assumptions of a fantasy RPG. You haven't moved past scarcity, you've only eliminated the most basic elements.

What your players have done is create something much more similar to a city in a modern developed country than you might think. Almost nobody produces food, and if you're poor the barest essentials of nutrition are provided by the state. Modern industrial agriculture has made food so cheap in developed countries that something like a fourth of it just ends up in individual household's garbage. Your players have taken things a step further by magically making food free, but the effects will probably be similar to food being (relative to earlier eras) dirt cheap. In other words, look around you--you'll get a decent picture from the trades and professions we have now.

The first result is a massive explosion in aggregate wealth. If you remove such major costs, people will shift their purchasing towards consumer goods--furniture, more and better clothing, books, art, fluffy beadspreads, etc. Unlike the modern world, however, there won't be machinery that replaces small artisans en-masse, so you'll have a whole lot more individual weavers and blacksmiths, and not as many service workers.

The second result is an increase in specialization. The majority of the population no longer needs to grow food to keep itself and a small population of specialists and aristocrats alive. People can branch out and become architects, scribes, needle manufacturers or what have you. Farmers will still exist too, but the emphasis will shift from staple crops to things like herbs, fruit, and cotton. This and the wealth increase work hand-in-hand.

Third, with more wealth and specialization comes greater threats. I'm assuming that the magical food-production system can't cover the whole world, but even if it could there would still be people fighting over control of it. The good news is that your players can afford to hire a decent watch and a standing army, things that most premodern societies didn't actually have.

Thrudd
2016-07-17, 02:05 AM
Given the scenario suggested, I think we would need to assume a society that does not have normal medieval sensibilities nor one with a medieval European environment. We'd need to ask why was it necessary to develop magic to house and feed people in this world. Maybe it is a world where getting food by mundane means was becoming more difficult, perhaps eventually even impossible. Maybe the climate was changing, everything becoming too dry or too cold for anything to grow. Or the land was becoming poisoned, maybe by radiation or some kind of magic, so the plants and animals that did grow were inedible (or eating them turns you into mutants). So what things are still needed by people, how do they live and how to they get them? People need clothing, which means there must be some sort of fiber that is used, unless that is provided by magic as well. If literally all survival needs are met by magic, people might have free time to seek self expression and pursue curiosity. What exactly can magic do and what can't it do, and who can do it and how do they do it? Does it cost anything, consume any sort of material?

Are tools required for any reason? Do people need to protect themselves from monsters or mutants or something? If mining is required for metals and fuels, there might be a slave class to perform that hard labor. There would be artisans who know how to work metal and craft tools and weapons and armor. Commerce might not exist as we think of it, since there would be very few things that everyone needs. It might look more like a communist society, where the necessities are distributed to everyone, there is no need for currency or trade. Unless the wizards extract service in return for providing the necessities, then you could have something like a feudal structure with the wizards as the lords.

Mendicant
2016-07-17, 02:19 AM
It would be helpful to get a bit more detail on what "free food and housing" entails here.

Like, how many people can the pc's support in this way? Is the housing getting spit out via magic or did the pc's just use their dragon hoard money to buy a bunch of houses? Can the pc's scale this up forever, or will they run out of rresource eventually?

Herobizkit
2016-07-17, 05:30 AM
Just because gruel is free doesn't mean that people who can afford to eat better won't want better food. People are still going to want mutton/meat for stew, for example. Cooked (or raw, if you're the type), dead animals are still tasty.

Just because housing is free doesn't mean that people won't want bigger and better housing. Is the provided housing a public house (like a tenement building, say) or individual houses? Are the people responsible to pay tax on the land if their house is tax-free? Are the people allowed to modify the land or the housing? What happens to the house when they move? Who is responsible for fixing it in case of fire, vandalism, or neglect?

@Mendicant raises some great points, too.

Anonymouswizard
2016-07-17, 05:34 AM
Assuming that through various governmental magical means all housing and food(basic oatmealish, tastes meh but provides full nutrients) is provided for the citizens, what trades would flourish and what jobs would people have?

What are your thoughts?

This is interesting. First off, the housing being provided is going to be stretched thin unless it can grow at the rate of immigration, as people who can leave their homes flock to you for the free food and housing. The free food isn't good at first, but one of the first things people will do is work out a way to make it taste better. Herbs, spices, baking it into a cake, chucking berries into the porridge, but as soon as you can give it a variety of flavours most people will be willing to eat it for at least one meal a day (I mean, how many of us seriously change our breakfast more than every few months, if that), with the occasional break.

Now, governments need money to run, here to pay for the police force even if the magical housing and food costs nothing to make (I'm going to assume it doesn't thought). Now, if we have one guard per thirty residents, each guard has a salary of 1sp a day, and the food and housing engines cost half a gp per year per person, then the average person has to pay at least 1gp, 7sp, and 7cp per year in taxes. This is actually less than the average D&D peasant earns in a year, but it's still not free, let's call it a fee to access the free food engines.

Okay, so now we have a case where each citizen has to raise about 2gp a year to survive. Now we look at the skills and demands of the people we have in our city-state. Assuming your average fantasy city state, we have a small number of nobles, a larger middle class of merchants, smiths, politicians, and some scholars. Then we have our very large population of labourers and farmers. The first thing to note is that the labourers have a reduced workload, and the farmers a less reduced one (due to the calls for meat and fresh vegetables from the people in the city, and them). I expect that most of the labourers will end up helping out on farms, and both labourers and farmers will end up with more free time. Most probably work more than they have to in order to get 2gp a year, and use it to eat nicer food/drink alcohol/learn to read/improve their children's future (delete as appropriate). Of the middle class, blacksmiths have lost customers roughly in proportion to the farmers who have stopped working, but most will still be able to pay the food fee, merchants will either continue as before, be happy earning a bit less, or move to the next town where they'll be able to earn more money. Nothing much has changed for politicians and scholars. Almost nothing has changed for the nobles so far, except that they can tax less, and they'll be the most likely to rebel unless people start producing high quality goods that they can tax the sale of.

Now, eventually you'll end up with a number of farmers providing additional food as well as materials, skilled workers making luxury goods, and scholars more interested in learning supported by someone else (probably the government), along with the city guard. I'd say the city will grow until transporting food into the centre becomes impractical.

Now, one of the first things that the government is supporting? They should be looking to turn this into a truly post scarcity society. I have a setting that is approaching it due to frequent use of robots for manual labour and the ability to grow insanely high yield crops and clone meat, and to me the main things that will take off are entertainment, philosophy, a bit of science, and not much else. There's no need to work, humans need not apply (apart from politics). One of the things I think might get big is 'adventuring', that is simulated exploration, in addition to the people who decide to live on the fringes where there's less development and thus more mental stimulation.

Satinavian
2016-07-17, 06:38 AM
The most important occupation in a setting where magic provides food and housing will obviously be magician.

Other than that, i would assume making luxurious versions of the same will still be important. Instead of growing basic grain, people will concentrate more on animals, orchards, whine, spices to supplement thee magic bland food.

Other than that with food supply taken care for, most people will take up urban professions. Specialist professions will boom as will those requiring extra education.

2D8HP
2016-07-17, 07:26 AM
Please.
People are people ("so why should it beeee...").
There's still the struggle for status, and there's vanity. Cosmetic surgeons earn more money than life-savers.
With food and shelter provided, people will want entertainment.
Web comics?
:wink:

Jay R
2016-07-17, 08:39 AM
:smallannoyed: Well that's not really helpful. A party of adventurers, wishing to start their own nation, started with a small city-state, creating a couple magic items that would provide free food, and then supplying the base housing for the city themselves. So unlikely, yes, happening, yes.

Ah, thank you. Now we have a specific scenario to deal with.

This would be an incredible social change. It's almost impossible to estimate how much of a medieval population are busy just producing food.

I suspect that the first major industry would be free-loading. Every lazy person for a hundred miles around, plus every farmer with a failed crop, every itinerant worker, every beggar, etc. comes to that city for the free food.

Next, clothing, which means both farming and ranching, for the cloth and leather. At first, they'd grow linen (and cotton, if available) rather than food. But pretty soon lots of people would have at least small truck gardens for fresh fruits and vegetables. (This was quite common during the Great Depression in America.) They'd still grow cows for the leather, unless they could get enough of it from trade. And of course, that means that beef would exist, but the focus would be on healthy leather, rather than meat, which might change some ranching decisions. More sheep than cows, for one thing, since wool is more valuable than leather, and easier to build an industry off of.

Unless there's a way to stop it, another industry will be exporting food. Some people will try to get free food by the wagonload, to carry it someplace they can sell it.

Some industries will be based on the location. Is it a good spot for a trading center? Are there minerals to mine? If the minerals are present, a mine with a free food source will be much more productive, just because everybody's mining, not feeding miners.

People still need iron for weapons and armor, if not for (as many) farm implements. Nearby kingdoms might decide to raid to try to get the food-producing magic items. Beasts will be attracted by the smell of lots of food.

Distributionists - people creating and delivering the food.

The major advantage is that in a usual medieval economy, a huge majority are just producing food. Those hands have been freed, so I expect one of three eventual results:

1. A land of lotus-eaters - people who eat free food and then do nothing, because they don't have to.

2. The powers that be (the PCs or whoever else ties to move in and take over) establish huge projects to keep idle hands busy. This could be self-aggrandizing projects like pyramids, or public works projects like dams, dikes, etc. If there are impassible mountains nearby, well, there are now many hands available for building a passable road, or even a tunnel. Roads and harbors improve trade.

3. Some form of crafts revolution, in which crafts, art, and other skilled labor flourishes, just because more people can afford to do it. It slowly becomes a center of the arts, especially when would-be painters, sculptors, singers, and others learn than they can move there and focus on their arts, rather than survival. It seems like a great place to build a university, magic school, or other teaching environment.

Unless somebody works to prevent it, scenario 1 seems most likely.

If I were a PC running this land, I would work hard to produce scenario 3.

On the other hand, if I were an high-level NPC with plans that require minions, I would see this as the first place I wanted to conquer, just so all my servants could serve me directly, instead of merely growing food. Scenario 2 would be my dream.

Mendicant
2016-07-17, 09:31 AM
I thibk people are seriously overestimating how shiftless and lazy the people in this community would be. Would you just roll over and call it a day if you had a nutrient slurry and a roof? No. Those two things, by themselves, are still an extremely low standard of living, beneath what even a simple peasant generally has outside of famines. The vast majority of people would still want to earn an actual living--decent, tastier food, clothing, better housing, furniture, art, jewelry, firewood and on and on.

Thus society would be insulated against food shocks and widespread homelessness, but the result wouldn't be "lotus eaters," it'd be an increase in aggregate wealth and specialization. You'd have a highly specialized urban population close to the decanters of endless water and create food traps.

Gildedragon
2016-07-17, 10:13 AM
All suntuary professions (from hairdresser to goldsmith; from clothier to house-keeping)
Restaurateur and Chef become suntuary-service professions

Traders and merchants still exist
Spices become very important to indicate status(make the oatmeal less gruelly)

Infrastructure professions (city planner, mason, bricklayer, waste management)

Tool professions (smiths, artificers, wood and leatherworkers)

And scholars

Essentially the only things that go away are green grocers... And they don't really go away but become an elite service

If housing is magically generated: then you do away with construction work for houses; but shops and streets still need to be built

Âmesang
2016-07-17, 10:13 AM
Web comics? :wink:
Suddenly I want to play as a drow bard with Perform (comedy). :smalltongue:

Jay R
2016-07-17, 12:57 PM
I thibk people are seriously overestimating how shiftless and lazy the people in this community would be.

I'm not suggesting that most of the people currently in this community are shiftless and lazy.

By contrast, I think you are estimating how attractive this would be to shiftless and lazy for hundreds of miles in all directions. It is the obvious place for anybody who doesn't want to work. And this is possibly a much better standard of living than currently lived by all beggars in the surrounding lands.

sktarq
2016-07-17, 01:28 PM
First Group to grow will be warriors. The PC's will swamped by peasants wanting something that sounds like paradise. The GP and XP sink necessary to keep the food rate up will eventually overwhelm them. Also warriors to manage the lines too get food/water and people fighting over houses with better access to food/water distribution points. Plus people to defend against outside aggressors and agents of people who want to end this city because their food industry business and/or their local labor markets are being disrupted. Plus crowds are prone to rioting-people start racing chariots for acclaim - people form team loyalties-and after a race goes badly riots break out-see Rome (which gave out bread, and later added olive oil and pork to the ration). Actually see Rome for a lot of ideas really

So these warriors need weapons etc so the firewood/coal, ore, related transport, and smithing
Industries would start up.

Eventually the government would need to pay these people. And so they have options-use military to demand tribute, trade emergency access to gruel generators and military for constant fee. A labour tax in government industries. Which would look a lot like company towns of the 18th C.

Jay R
2016-07-17, 02:05 PM
Which would look a lot like company towns of the 18th C.

Oh, very good. This is an extremely relevant observation. We actually have a real-world example of a situation in which most living requirements are provided by the top.

Dyrhet
2016-07-18, 11:19 AM
I'm not suggesting that most of the people currently in this community are shiftless and lazy.

By contrast, I think you are estimating how attractive this would be to shiftless and lazy for hundreds of miles in all directions. It is the obvious place for anybody who doesn't want to work. And this is possibly a much better standard of living than currently lived by all beggars in the surrounding lands.

You really think people are beggars out of laziness and not because they're disabled in some way (physically, mentally or psychologically) or have been made an outcast for some reason?

Tiktakkat
2016-07-18, 02:45 PM
You really think people are beggars out of laziness and not because they're disabled in some way (physically, mentally or psychologically) or have been made an outcast for some reason?

People wouldn't beg if they didn't make money doing it.
And they wouldn't fight over prime real locations to beg at if there weren't a reason to.
And no, begging isn't actually easy. Those doing it for the money are essentially staying in character for 8-12 hours per day, risking random blows and other signs of displeasure from people who do not approve of beggars, including official harassment. It is a job just like any other. It is simply generally less physically demanding than most other jobs.

For which, note what I said earlier about the nature of farm labor, particularly pre-industrial farm labor. (Not that post-industrial farm labor is a walk in the park by any means; though it does have a significantly lower rate of malnutrition on top of the labor requirement which cuts down on what is probably the worst part of it.)
Give someone a choice between working on a farm and surviving on lousy but adequate food, housing, and clothing, and you will have to regularly revise the rolls for the dole and deal with people expecting more, as sktarq noted for Rome (and Byzantium; he beat me to making that direct reference).

Jay R
2016-07-18, 06:39 PM
You really think people are beggars out of laziness and not because they're disabled in some way (physically, mentally or psychologically) or have been made an outcast for some reason?

"... and not because..."? No, of course not. That would be grossly simplistic - just as simplistic as the reverse - believing all beggars are beggars out of some disability or social stigma, and none from laziness.

There are people who have been forced into it. But yes, there are also people with shortcoming X, for any value of X. There are lazy people, rude people, lustful people, greedy people, envious people, etc.

[And no, I won't tell you how many of the above categories I fit into.]

2D8HP
2016-07-19, 01:24 AM
If we're going by history, judging by reading
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England (https://www.amazon.com/Time-Travelers-Guide-Medieval-England/dp/1439112908), with all the feast and holy days they celebrated, medieval farm laborers worked less than how much work the modern farm laborers laborers that I've seen in action near Hollister, California do.
I've also read accounts of how the French peasantry of the "Ancien Regime", would move as little as possible during fallow months to save calories, so I actually think with a steady source of calories, and an appetite for luxury, more work would be done.

Also from reading The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England (https://www.amazon.com/dp/014312563X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1/180-7886982-4720143?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_r=S57YZZGHNCRKW5V0KSJ4&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1944687722&pf_rd_i=1439112908), with the "clearances", in Tudor times they were many who went "on the road" to survive, so vagrants were hanged.
Some pre-modern people did not welcome newcomers.

Piedmon_Sama
2016-07-19, 01:30 AM
In the kind of setting you're talking about (OP) I would suggest looking to Star Trek for a reference.

Most people on earth are in professions that have a hint of nobility to them (vigneur, painter) or are in service professions that allow for a great deal of individual expression (namely, restaurateur). It would be a world where, the basics being provided for (outside of relatively technical things perhaps such as plumbing and switchboards), you see people branching into many subcultures and countless separate "worlds" centered around a certain nightclub, a certain art subculture, a certain dining establishment, and so-on. These things we tend to regard even in the 21st century as less than essential take on a certain dire consequence---which social club are you in? In a world of infinite magical restaurants in infinite styles, where do you eat dinner? etc. so on.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-07-19, 05:49 AM
This thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?422326-Wondering-About-Population-Army-Sizes) has a discussion on infinite food machines, and why they are actually very reasonable and expected within a typical D&D world, under 3.5 rules. You get an economy which is focused on providing whatever it is that magic can't easily get you, which is mostly going to be spell and magic item components (GP and XP both), and a lot of services for the wealthy spellcasting elite, who spend a lot of time resting (eight to sixteen hours per day, depending on activity) to replenish their magic.

Earthwalker
2016-07-19, 06:38 AM
Simple

BOOZE.

People will put all that free farm land to work making booze.

Lots of booze.

Ale
Mead
Wine

booze booze booze !!!

Also Booze !!

Joe the Rat
2016-07-19, 08:00 AM
You'd see a population boom over time - and not just from immigration. Myrlund's Soup Kitchen will keep people fed, but frankly if I had the resources, I'd rather have something else. Or at least put some raisins in there. What you have is a bulwark against the hard times. bad crops and droughts and hard winters when the granary burns down. Sufficient base nutrition improves survivability. If we are to make the assumption that there's a lot of down-time, then there's time for... er, festhall-related activities. You're going to get a lot of people over time... but this will self-regulate thanks to the way disease spreads in large closer-quarters populations. Best invest in (or invent) sanitation, lads!

Farming will still exist. People wanting meat, vegetables, luxurious bread, and the ever-important fruits (to flavor your gruel, if nothing else) leaves a market for it. The Greengrocer stays. The Baker has a more expensive product, as the supply of grains will be less (and probably imported). Sugarcane, sugarbeets, apiaries - more sweet! Plus,

Simple

BOOZE.

People will put all that free farm land to work making booze.

Lots of booze.

Ale
Mead
Wine

booze booze booze !!!

Also Booze !!
The other place grain, honey, and fruits end up going. Though if you can ferment the mush into mash... Heh. Small beer may be a portion of your daily.

BUT REGARDING PROFESSIONS...

Craft and Service. You will draw a lot of untrained labor, which will attract professions that rely on a large body of low-skilled-but-trainable labor. This might actually help keep some of the luxury agriculture cheaper, as you have a large on-hand, don't-need-to-pay-for-the-daily-bread workforce you can tap for harvest.
Some goods will be cheaper to produce, as room and basic board are covered. You will not see as much in the way of exploitive professions, as making money to live isn't needed.
I suspect you will need more city watch per-capita - both to defend the city, and to deal with the potential for mischief should the population opt for a more idle lifestyle. Bored people, particularly bored drunk people, are going to do stupid things. That which does not kill them will probably involve property damage. Civil works is probably a necessity.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-19, 09:35 AM
How is immigration set up? If anyone is allowed in, they'll likely get a disproportionate number of slackers who just want to be fed/housed/clothed with no effort from them.

Those with concrete businesses/resources somewhere else will be less likely to pick up and move for 3 square meals a day.

I'd suggest that everyone getting 3 squares a day is required to go through militia training to use a bow and join the reserves. (Unless they have DR, it's amazing what several hundred bows can kill, even hitting on only 20's.)

Earthwalker
2016-07-19, 09:54 AM
How is immigration set up?
[snip]


Once Booze town (the name of the slacker town where everyone uses their spare time to make booze) the next trade needed bureaucrats to work out the visa policy and handle immigration.

I imagine before long a new currency is established for booze town.

The Grog (not watered rum but a unit of currency. e.g. 1 bottle win = 5 grog. One mug of ale = one grog)

Of course the state (Government of Boozetown) tax booze production taking 20%.

This can be used to fund building projects for more homes to get more booze makers in.

Next we have the bread (sort of) so for the circuses we have a league set up for different ball games. These eill keep the population busy whilst they are drinking. Ahhh drinking and watching the ball game.

Finally this will lead to betting. State run of course, we will need bookies tho.

All in all 2 years after founding Boozetown is doing well.

Trades needed :

Booze Making
Bureaucrats
Builders
Ballgame Players
Bookies

Basically anything beginning with B

ExLibrisMortis
2016-07-19, 09:54 AM
How is immigration set up? If anyone is allowed in, they'll likely get a disproportionate number of slackers who just want to be fed/housed/clothed with no effort from them.People are unlikely to stay 'slackers'. Even if they did, it's hardly a problem, with enough magic (assuming 3.5-style conservation-breaking magic). Most people get very restless if they're doing nothing but eating gruel three times a day. They'll find something useful to do, because they're bored, and because in a society where basic necessities are free and virtually unlimited, not doing anything besides feeding yourself is far more shameful than it is in a subsistence-farming community. After all, you have no excuse not to do something special: all your basic needs are beyond worry, why are you not a great actor/scientist/mechanic/priest?


Trades needed :

Booze Making
Bureaucrats
Builders
Ballgame Players
Bookies

Basically anything beginning with B
Barbers, bartenders, bathyscaphe captains. Gotcha.

sktarq
2016-07-19, 11:00 AM
Actually skilled labour will be a problem. Those who have skills may well be in high demand but with magic taking care of much of the low skill labour economy how would said low skilled people make enough $ to act as customers? And the skilled would have such a larger economic advantage that they would be incentivized to guild up and limit the dissemination of their skills (this happened a lot in real history but this situation would supercharge it)
Unless there was a strong export market for excess crafts and a way of binding the profits (in part) to the trainer I don't see why skilled labour growth would outpace immigration levels. The PC's running the place could try to change this with some sort of training system but that could be leaning too much the company town type system for them.

How the unskilled become a customer base is a major issue of this setup.

And yes nearby land will hold large farms focusing on cash crops. Supplemental foodstuffs (esp flavoring for gruel), fiber, status foodstuffs, drug materials (booze, opium, hash, etc), dyes, and perhaps some sylvaculture for furniture, tools, and firewood.

I'm not trying to be a deebbie downer but I think the PC's in this case are being incomplete in the preperation for the type of city they want to build. I think they should go wider in their help- they need. The letter S not B since they want to provide Safety, Sustenance (check), Shelter (check), and Skills to get this started.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-19, 02:16 PM
Once Booze town . . .

This is so going into my campaign.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-19, 02:48 PM
People are unlikely to stay 'slackers'. Even if they did, it's hardly a problem, with enough magic (assuming 3.5-style conservation-breaking magic). Most people get very restless if they're doing nothing but eating gruel three times a day. They'll find something useful to do, because they're bored, and because in a society where basic necessities are free and virtually unlimited, not doing anything besides feeding yourself is far more shameful than it is in a subsistence-farming community. After all, you have no excuse not to do something special: all your basic needs are beyond worry, why are you not a great actor/scientist/mechanic/priest?

They'll find something to do - but it won't necessarily be useful.

And if it was shameful - why are there people now who live off of welfare and don't do much else? (Not saying that they are anywhere near the majority - but they're definitely around.)

In this world there would be far less shame because getting your guel/shelter isn't done at the expense of anyone else.

Gallowglass
2016-07-19, 02:56 PM
Assuming that through various governmental magical means all housing and food(basic oatmealish, tastes meh but provides full nutrients) is provided for the citizens, what trades would flourish and what jobs would people have?

What are your thoughts?

Looking at fiction, there are two avenues this could go:

utopia/dystopia.

utopia would be like star trek. In a post scarcity world, where basic needs are met without effort, people will respond by using the time and effort they would have spent taking care of the basic needs to improve themselves and society more rapidly. You will see booms in art, industry, invention. Without hunger holding them back, students will learn faster and better.

dystopia would be like... well.. like any fiction written after 1970 or so... In your post scarcity world, where basic needs are met without effort, people will respond by slacking off and losing motivation. If entertainment is cheap, then it will be consumed. People will quit work and society to spend their time playing games and watching TV. You will see regression and loss of cultural knowledge.

Either way, in your experiment where your adventurers are providing food and water for everyone, you would see some changes. Farming and food distribution become unnecessary. Unless there is a strong export market, the vast tracts of land used to grow food will go fallow. Food distribution being unneeded leads to downstream loss of jobs and infrastructure. This will lead to vast unemployment that the PCs have to deal with. Now you can decide which way it follows. Do those farmers, distributors, cooks, chefs, gardeners, well-diggers and truckdrivers all response to the unemployment by dropping out of society (dystopia) or do they respond by creating new opportunities for themselves and others.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-19, 06:35 PM
It seems likely that such a setup would attract people who are impoverished in nearby communities, regardless of their actual skills. Highly skilled people who already have it made in life would have no reason to immigrate (skills providing them with a competitive advantage in their current economy, and food and housing being relatively cheap for them in the first place). They might gain skills, but at the beginning you're going to have a large population of farmers who don't need to farm anymore.

That said, if the government of this place was making it invitation-only - specifically bringing in skilled workers, compensating them with free things, barring the rest from access to welfare (reinforcing the relative economic power of the skilled people) - you're going to have something very different: a two-tiered society, with those judged worthy by the government at the top, and a large population of people living much as they did before. That said, you would attract people with whatever skills the government chose to encourage.

Third option: society works much the same as any other society, but is famine-proof in bad years and a food exporter in good years, driving down the price of food in neighboring regions and probable driving a lot of farmers into poverty.

Actually, "driving farmers into poverty" is something you might have to deal with in any scenario. That is, even on welfare, the former farmers aren't going to have much in resources aside from what you've given them (since all their farming tools have become worthless overnight), so it's not like many of them are going to be able to spontaneously become small business owners. You've taken their businesses from them, and they've become totally unskilled laborers in a society that has no need for unskilled labor. You could avert this by having work programs, or subsidized apprenticeship systems, but there wouldn't be much incentive to teach them, since the currently skilled workers are better off in the absence of competition.

I predict a mass movement of impoverished farmers to violently seize the means of magical production, which would either fail or succeed and create the same thing all over again.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-19, 07:04 PM
Third option: society works much the same as any other society, but is famine-proof in bad years and a food exporter in good years, driving down the price of food in neighboring regions and probable driving a lot of farmers into poverty.

Actually, "driving farmers into poverty" is something you might have to deal with in any scenario. That is, even on welfare, the former farmers aren't going to have much in resources aside from what you've given them (since all their farming tools have become worthless overnight), so it's not like many of them are going to be able to spontaneously become small business owners. You've taken their businesses from them, and they've become totally unskilled laborers in a society that has no need for unskilled labor. You could avert this by having work programs, or subsidized apprenticeship systems, but there wouldn't be much incentive to teach them, since the currently skilled workers are better off in the absence of competition.

I predict a mass movement of impoverished farmers to violently seize the means of magical production, which would either fail or succeed and create the same thing all over again.

Actually - that seems pretty likely. That's basically what happened in Haiti. Relief rice kept flooding in long after the earthquake made food a pressing issue, and it drove the price of rice down so far that all of the local rice farmers went bankrupt and quite a few became homeless since they couldn't pay their mortgages etc. (It has become basically the textbook example of how, while relief donations are great after disasters, they should only be very short-term or you risk unintended negative consequences.)

ExLibrisMortis
2016-07-19, 08:21 PM
And if it was shameful - why are there people now who live off of welfare and don't do much else? (Not saying that they are anywhere near the majority - but they're definitely around.)

In this world there would be far less shame because getting your guel/shelter isn't done at the expense of anyone else.
Are you saying those people, the people who deliberately use the possibility of welfare to avoid doing anything, aren't shamed by many or even most people? They are definitely near the bottom of respectability, as far as I know. There are people who deliberately rely on welfare, for political reasons, but they are usually engaged in volunteer work, art, alternative lifestyle communities, that sort of thing, and they are not shamed for that, but that's not the situation you are describing.

There's no shame in getting your needs covered from the free supply, but there is shame in not doing anything with all the time that frees up, as compared to subsistence farming. I don't think you'd ever hear, say, a carpenter say that his bedridden swilling-gruel-all-day neighbour is a respectable fellow, right? Yes, if your hypothetical 'slackers' really don't care about what other people think of them, then it's hard to shape society in a way that encourages them to do something, but that's true of any feature of any society.

Don't forget that this world has had magic for ages. It's not randomly starting now, suddenly dropping tons of people into the free support system. The culture will develop around this sort of thing, to a much greater degree than even the most socially secured societies on Earth, because magic is somehow a lot better at providing infinite free necessities.


I predict a mass movement of impoverished farmers to violently seize the means of magical production, which would either fail or succeed and create the same thing all over again.
I don't think that's likely, certainly not on the long term. Sure, there may be some strikes if you just keep dropping free food all over, but nobody's going to do that. Free food supply points are not free - they have to be built and paid for. It's going to be a slow transition, and not from 'farming' to 'no farming/poverty', but from 'farming crop X, using magic A' to 'farming crop Y, using magic B'.

Again, don't forget that we are not taking a medieval world, and then dropping in free basic necessities. We are taking a world where magic is real, and has been real since the beginning of time. These farmers have been using first-level druid spells since they first discovered agriculture (in fact, shamans and druids probably discovered agriculture). They know and expect magic to improve their farming, and life in general - this is just the next step in a thousand-year process.

The transition to 'free magic gruel + farmed spices' could take place very early, in the Stone Age, even. A spell that creates food is, like, number three on the list of 'spells to invent soon', after a spell that creates water, and a spell that kills the giant cave bear. And if you have a spell like create food and water, then you will try to put that in an item, ASAP, just in case the spell doesn't kill the giant cave bear (killing the druid, I mean). Going with such early invention, you'd expect a lot of communities in hostile places, more so than on Earth - it'd be possible to live easily in the least fertile deserts, for example. Food and water are easier to wizard up locally than conveniently flat hilltops and nice views.

If you do carelessly introduce a lot of free food, you may see (violent) protest, but no more than any other careless change. In a relatively centrally-led farming system, where the farmers tend the fields, but mostly do not decide what to grow, it'll be a very easy transition. If it's each farmer for themselves, the creator of the free food machine has an interest in informing farmers that they'll be free to grow expensive sugar and coffee, rather than cheap wheat and vegetables. Send a travelling caravan through the larger villages, extolling the virtues of Mordenkainen's Bottomless Stew, and all that.

Nobody's got a reason to 'seize the means of magical production', and it's not possible anyhow. The means of magical production are mid-high-level spellcasters, and seizing them is something which farmers are simply not capable of doing.


In short, you're making too much of the whole introduction phase. It's not going to be a revolution, it's going to slowly grow to the stage the OP described, and the things that are considered 'good' in this society will change to reflect, for instance, the abundance of food and the necessity of magic.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-19, 09:37 PM
Are you saying those people, the people who deliberately use the possibility of welfare to avoid doing anything, aren't shamed by many or even most people? They are definitely near the bottom of respectability, as far as I know.

Of course they are shamed by some people - but they still keep doing it.

Shame would definitely keep some people from slacking, but it also definitely wouldn't keep everyone from slacking. What % is debatable - especially since there would be less shame in this case because you aren't taking from others to get your 3 squares/shelter.

Earthwalker
2016-07-20, 06:05 AM
[snip]
Barbers, bartenders, bathyscaphe captains. Gotcha.

Just the kind of job creation B-Town needs.
I still can't believe that the A people tried to set up their settlement in the caves. A settlement where everyone is an Assassin, Attorney or Accountant.
A-Hole is certainly well named.



This is so going into my campaign.

After typing it I did feel Booze Town needs to exist in my game world.

ExLibrisMortis
2016-07-20, 06:28 AM
Of course they are shamed by some people - but they still keep doing it.

Shame would definitely keep some people from slacking, but it also definitely wouldn't keep everyone from slacking. What % is debatable - especially since there would be less shame in this case because you aren't taking from others to get your 3 squares/shelter.
A very small percentage, yes, but not enough to do much of anything significant. It won't ruin society.

I don't buy your argument that it would be less shameful, because you're not taking the place of another. 'Slackers' could, at best, move from 'actively shamed into doing stuff' to 'shamefully ignored', as the cost of supporting them drops to insignificance. As they start doing less, they become less involved with the rest of society, and perhaps form a closed subcommunity, which has a low social status and little influence. It's not unimaginable that there would be some ghettos of people who do nothing whatsoever, but again, I think that's going to be a respectability death sentence, and any ambitious people would be hell-bent on getting out of there.

Overall, that's probably something that will be encouraged, in successful societies based on post-scarcity necessities: ambition, whether personal or on a larger scale. I think the societies with high percentages of 'slackers' would generally be at a disadvantage versus societies with lower percentages, in war and in cultural influence. The currently existing societies, which, we may assume, are somewhat optimized for their environment, would probably be the ones that managed the percentage fairly well (allowing for some variety, as some cultures will be up-and-coming, and some will be waning). You could even do a campaign about the decadence of empire so-and-so, where the results of a long-term activity drop play out, in the form of stronger competition (be it military, economical, cultural).

BayardSPSR
2016-07-20, 01:34 PM
Again, don't forget that we are not taking a medieval world, and then dropping in free basic necessities.

...

In short, you're making too much of the whole introduction phase. It's not going to be a revolution, it's going to slowly grow to the stage the OP described, and the things that are considered 'good' in this society will change to reflect, for instance, the abundance of food and the necessity of magic.

A party of adventurers, wishing to start their own nation, started with a small city-state, creating a couple magic items that would provide free food, and then supplying the base housing for the city themselves. So unlikely, yes, happening, yes.

OP seems to be describing it as a new thing, happening over less than a generation, making the course of introduction a very big deal indeed. If that's not the case then I stand corrected.

For the record, the "mass movement to seize the means of production" is mostly a joke, and if it occurred would more likely go the way of any of the many medieval peasant revolts - bloodshed to no end.

Segev
2016-07-20, 01:46 PM
Most people get very restless if they're doing nothing but eating gruel three times a day. They'll find something useful to do, because they're bored, and because in a society where basic necessities are free and virtually unlimited, not doing anything besides feeding yourself is far more shameful than it is in a subsistence-farming community.

Eh....

Not necessarily true. You're right: people get restless. But people are also still often quite lazy. They want to do "fun" things, not "work." Unless taught a work ethic, many do become slackers.

Said slackers often find ways to kill time. Some will be harmless. They'll hang out and play cards, or collect bugs, or discuss their favorite entertainments. Others will be less harmless: they'll take up activities they feel will get them "ahead." Some will be actively constructive, here; others will look at the actively constructive and think, "that's not fair that they have cool stuff; we're supposed to all have fair shares of things." And they'll...do something about it. Peacefully, maybe, or maybe not.

Gangs form because idle hands are, in fact, the devil's playthings. When the setting has literal devils, they will FIND things for those idle hands to do. And they'll do it by making it seem "fun" or "empowering." By appealing to baser natures.



You're right; people will get bored and seek things to do. If you want those to be productive, useful things, you need to make sure that the rewards for doing them are great, and that the costs of wasting time on destructive things are prohibitive. And you can't manage that just by threatening to punish those caught.

Faily
2016-07-20, 03:29 PM
Looking at fiction, there are two avenues this could go:

utopia/dystopia.

utopia would be like star trek. In a post scarcity world, where basic needs are met without effort, people will respond by using the time and effort they would have spent taking care of the basic needs to improve themselves and society more rapidly. You will see booms in art, industry, invention. Without hunger holding them back, students will learn faster and better.

dystopia would be like... well.. like any fiction written after 1970 or so... In your post scarcity world, where basic needs are met without effort, people will respond by slacking off and losing motivation. If entertainment is cheap, then it will be consumed. People will quit work and society to spend their time playing games and watching TV. You will see regression and loss of cultural knowledge.

Either way, in your experiment where your adventurers are providing food and water for everyone, you would see some changes. Farming and food distribution become unnecessary. Unless there is a strong export market, the vast tracts of land used to grow food will go fallow. Food distribution being unneeded leads to downstream loss of jobs and infrastructure. This will lead to vast unemployment that the PCs have to deal with. Now you can decide which way it follows. Do those farmers, distributors, cooks, chefs, gardeners, well-diggers and truckdrivers all response to the unemployment by dropping out of society (dystopia) or do they respond by creating new opportunities for themselves and others.


Continuing this train of thought; [ur=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/]Idiocracy[/url].

Now, I know that movie's setup is also that the dumb outbred the smart, but! It also has a society that provides its population with free "mush" food (fries) and beverages (soft drinks), as well as health care being taken over by machines (in fantasy world, that'd be some idiot with an Eternal Wand of Remove Disease or some similar Wondrous Item).

People do minimal work in that society, and further making them blind to how terrible society is, they are presented with enough "bread and circus" to distract them from the problems of the nation (like the fact that they're struggling to grow crops because no one knows how to do it anymore, because they've been provided for so long).

So worst case, is that the population will, over generations, become mostly incompetent and way more interested in watching the circus than caring about society.



Best case scenario is that you create some sort of utopia where they, now no longer burdened by the struggles of food and lodging, can dedicate themselves to the arts, learning, science, and knowledge. I just find it less likely to happen since humanity has usually been more drawn to the bread & circus than to the intellectual fields.